Durkon, freed from his thraldom, does not behave as Nale would like. He kills Zz'dtri and causes Nale to flee, then helps the Order of the Stick as best he can.
Cast
- Roy Greenhilt ◀ ▶
- Elan ◀ ▶
- Durkon Thundershield (as vampire) ◀ ▶
- Nale ◀ ▶
- "Durkon" (as Durkon) ◀ ▶
- Zz'dtri ◀ ▶
- Qarr ◀ ▶
- Spiky the Barbed Devil ◀ ▶
- Zz'dtri's Piscodaemon ◀
Transcript
- Panel 1
Nale: What are you doing?? I helped you!
"Durkon": An' I'm helpin' ye back. By cuttin' down yer employee overhead.
Qarr: OK, I'm out. Good luck, elf.
- Panel 2
Qarr teleports away, "pop!"
Nale: Get off him!
Nale: Don't you dare drink his blood, you ungrateful parasite!
"Durkon": As ye command.
- Panel 3
"Durkon": Dinnae want ye to get a free vampire wizard outta this, aye?
Durkon snaps Zz'dtri's neck, "SNAP!", killing him.
- Panel 4
"Durkon": Yer blood... now THA I may just taste a bit first.
Nale: Dimension Door!
- Panel 5
Nale disappears with a "pop!"
"Durkon": Ech, tha works, too.
- Panel 6
Cut to Roy and Elan fighting the devil and the daemon.
Elan: Roy, I can't think of any good lobster puns!
Roy: Try... another... crustacean.
Elan: Oh! I'm getting crabby that you won't let me go help Haley.
- Panel 7
Zz'dtri's corpse flies through the air, hitting the piscoloth with a "konk!"
- Panel 8
The piscoloth turns and waves with its claw and says something in some incomprehensible Infernal language as it fades away.
Piscoloth: [symbols]
Elan: I don't really know what's going on, but—
Elan: Hang on, Haley! I'm coming!!
- Panel 9
"Durkon": Stand down, devil.
Roy: Durkon?!? Stay back!
"Durkon": Lad, it's OK. Malack's ash, so I've got me free will back.
- Panel 10
Roy: And so... you're helping us?
"Durkon": World's still at stake, ain't it?
Roy: You're not evil?
"Durkon": Not any more'n Belkar, I'd wager.
- Panel 11
Roy: That... is a really good point.
"Durkon": And I can still patch ye up, jus' like always. Cure Mod'rate Wounds!
- Panel 12
Roy: Wait, no— NNNGHH!
"Durkon" touches Roy but does damage instead of healing him with his Cure Moderate Wounds spell.
- Panel 13
"Durkon": ...
"Durkon": I also haf potions.
D&D Context
- Dimension Door is a 4th level spell that allows the caster to teleport up to 400 ft + 40 ft/level.
- Again, Elan uses puns to allow him to use his Charisma for attack rolls thanks to his Dashing Swordsman prestige class.
- Cure Moderate Wounds is a 2nd level spell that heals 2d8 + 1 hp/level. Because "Durkon" is now evil, his spontaneous conversion casts Inflict Moderate Wounds instead, doing damage to Roy instead of healing him. Thus the title of the comic, "Reverse Polarity", refers to this effect; evil clerics use negative energy and good clerics use positive energy.
- Qarr uses his Teleport spell-like ability again. It is also possible he was traveling between planes.
Trivia
- The piscoloth's speech bubble uses Miskatonic font by Blambot, resized at 60% width. Transliterated to Latin letters it reads: "If the boss is dead, I'm punching out early."
- This is the penultimate appearance of Zz'dtri, and his death scene. He appears only once more in #910 as a corpse. Zz'dri was a core member of the Linear Guild, first appearing in #43, "What's Behind Door #2?". He has 54 appearances overall, as well as 9 appearances in the bonus material. There was a long gap between the time he was taken away by The Lawyers for copyright infringement in #65 and his return to the narrative as Polozius in #748.
- This is the final appearance of Zz'dtri's Piscodaemon (also known as a piscoloth, a type of yugoloth or daemon). The creature was summoned in #883, Fiend Swap.