The sudden unexpected encounter with Xykon and Redcloak leads to all out melee between the Order of the Stick and Team Evil. Belkar is killed by a Meteor Swarm just as Vaarsuvius arrives to save the day. Finally Roy uses the Feat he learned from his grandfather to defeat Xykon. Except it turns out it was all a phantasm placed by Girard Draketooth and none of this is real.
Cast
- The Order of the Stick
- Roy Greenhilt (also charmed) ◀ ▶
- Haley Starshine (also charmed) ◀ ▶
- Elan (also charmed) ◀ ▶
- Belkar Bitterleaf (also charmed) ◀ ▶
- Vaarsuvius ◀ ▶
- Mr. Scruffy ◀ ▶
- Xykon ◀ ▶
- Redcloak (one-eyed) ◀ ▶
Transcript
- Panel 1, Page 1
Haley: Crap! Crap! Crap!
Roy: The goblin! Shoot the goblin!
Roy attacks Xykon with Greenhilt, "slash!"
Xykon: Whoa! Where's the witty hero-villain reparté?
Xykon: What kind of lifeless abomination do you take me for?
- Panel 2, Page 1
Elan (singing): ♪♪Fight, fight, fight, fight the main villain way before we were expecting it!♪
Haley: Sneak attack!
Haley fires three magic arrows at Redcloak, "fft! fft! fft!", and two hit, "thnk! thnk!"
Xykon: Hey! No one shoots the goblin in the face but me!
Xykon: Energy Drain!
- Panel 3, Page 1
Roy: Does everyone have to make jokes? Can't you just DIE???
Roy slashes Xykon again, green flames leaping from Greenhilt, "SCHRTTK!"
Xykon: Hey, I felt that one! I guess you took my advice and leveled up.
Redcloak: Heal.
- Panel 4, Page 1
Roy: Then you DO remember me!
Xykon: When I'm done with you, memories are all that'll be left.
Xykon: Other people's, that is. I'm not going to turn you into, like, some sort of memory spirit or something.
- Panel 5, Page 1
Xykon: Though that sounds pretty metal, actually. I should make someone research it.
Xykon: Meteor Swarm.
The party is hit by the meteor swarm, with one meteor targeting Belkar, one for Haley, and two for Roy. They are engulfed in flames.
- Panel 6, Page 1
Elan: Roy! Belkar's dead!!♪♪♪
Roy: Keep fighting! They'll kill us all if we turn and run!
Xykon: That's actually true.
Redcloak: Lord Xykon, please don't point out to the scrappy underdogs that they've got nothing left to lose.
Xykon: Oh, right.
- Panel 7, Page 1
Elan: Mass Cure Light Wounds!
Roy: Haley, I have an idea to fight Xykon…or more of a memory. Can you take out the cleric?
Haley: I'm trying, but he can heal faster than I can hurt him!
Xykon: Didn't these bozos used to be more of a threat?
Redcloak: They seem to have lost their main casters.
Redcloak: Harm.
- Panel 8, Page 1
Xykon kills Mr. Scruffy, who had lunged at him in anger.
Vaarsuvius: Not lost. Merely misplaced.
Vaarsuvius: Forcecage.
Vaarsuvius traps Redcloak in a Forcecage.
- Panel 1, Page 2
Elan: Vaarsuvius!
Haley: You're alive!!
Vaarsuvius: My superior elven hearing led me to believe that you had a stratagem if the cleric became neutralized?
Xykon: Hey! No one puts the goblin in a confined space but me!
Redcloak: Sir, you used that line already.
- Panel 2, Page 2
Roy: OK…This'll work…just like I practiced…Picture the flow of energy around him…and…
Xykon (off-panel): Energy—
- Panel 3, Page 2
Roy slashes with a flaming Greenhilt, "SLASH!", and the spell fizzles, "fizzle!"
Xykon: —Drain??
- Panel 4, Page 2
Roy: It—it worked!
Xykon: How did you do that?? I was casting defensively!
Redcloak: He prevented you from doing so by timing his strike to perfectly coincide with the apex of magical energy.
Xykon: Yeah, but—how??
- Panel 5, Page 2
Xylon: Meteor—
Roy slashes again, "SLASH!", and again the spell fizzles, "fizzle!"
- Panel 6, Page 2
Xykon:Superb Dis—
"SHTHNK! fizzle!"
- Panel 7, Page 2
Xykon: Greater Tele—
"SKGURTCH! fizzle!" Roy impales Xykon.
- Panel 8, Page 2
Roy: You're done, Xykon!
Roy: This is for everyone you've ever killed, from my dad's master to the Sapphire Guard to Dorukan—
Xykon: Wait—Roy—
- Panel 9, Page 2
Roy: —to me!
Roy bisects Xykon's skull. He dies.
- Panel 10, Page 2
Haley: Holy…
Elan: Roy—you did it! You beat him!
Roy: I—I can't believe it. I really did!
Roy: I killed Xykon!
Roy: I KILLED—
- Panel 11, Page 2
Belkar, Elan, Haley, and Roy stand glamoured in the hallway. Their eyes are purple spirals and mystic runes glow purple behind them. Elan drools.
Roy: Xykon…
Roy: …Hooray…
D&D Context
- Energy Drain is a 9th level spell that takes 2d4 levels away from the target, with the possibility of the drain being permanent.
- Meteor Swarm is a 9th level spell that creates four meteors. Each meteor does 2d6 damage to whoever it hits and 6d6 fire damage to creatures in a 40 ft radius. Xykon is within that radius, but as demonstrated in a previous strip, he is immune to fire damage.
- Harm does 10 hp/level damage, except Redcloak is applying it to Xykon, who is undead, in which case it acts like Heal and heals 10 hp/level.
- Mass Cure Light Wounds is a 4th level spell that heals 1d8 hp + 1hp/level on a number of creatures up to the caster's level.
- On page 1, panel 8, Xykon appears to use Burning Hands to dispatch Mr. Scruffy without explicitly calling out the spell as is usually the case.
- Forcecage is a 7th level spell which creates a 10-ft cube of force around the target, blocking most spells and physical attacks.
- Roy uses the Spellsplinter Maneuver here for the first time. He uses it four times in total, on page 2 in panels 3, 5, 6, and 7. Roy learned the feat from his grandfather Horace Greenhilt in the afterlife in strip #600.
Trivia
- Comics #885 through #889 are all part of the illusion. Note that in all the comics except #885 (before the reader is let in on the trick) the colors are all less saturated than in "real life".
- In the illusion, Redcloak has the eyepatch over the wrong eye. His right eye was destroyed by O-Chul, not his left, which would make him look like his brother, Right-Eye. This could be explained by the simple fact that none of the present characters were present for the jailbreak, and O-Chul simply neglected to specify which eye he removed when recounting the events of his escape. Because the illusion takes cues from the mind of the subject, it likely simply plucked the image of a goblin with a missing eye, and at least one of the affected characters had an assumption that his left eye was the one removed.