Serini reveals that she didn't construct Kraggor's Tomb on her own.
Cast
- Order of the Stick
- Order of the Scribble
- Sapphire Guard
- Minrah Shaleshoe ◀ ▶
- Mimi ◀ ▶
- A Snake monster
- Two unnamed Draketooth Clan members (in a flashback)
Transcript
- Panel 1, Page 1
The panel shows Minrah closing a door in the left wall while Haley is standing on Mimi, who has shifted into the shape of a box. Haley is reaching towards a small hole in the wall. Meanwhile, Vaarsuvius is looking at a frozen blue Snake monster.
Minrah: Door's closed, all clear!
Roy: And the green slime squirt trap?
Haley: Offline for at least ten minutes.
Lien: Wow, some of these encounters are surprisingly ruthless.
Serini: Oh, you have a problem with the choices I made?
- Panel 2, Page 1
The panel focuses on O-Chul, Lien, and Serini.
Lien: What? No, I was just saying-
Serini: Ooo, do my deathtraps not align with your precious paladin morality?
Serini: Am I being too unfair to the widdle would-be world wreckers?
- Panel 3, Page 1
The panel zooms in on Lien.
Lien: Will you relax?? That's not what I'm saying at all!
Lien: Look, I'm well aware that anyone who makes it this far into your dungeon isn't exactly an innocent bystander stumbling into something.
- Panel 4, Page 1
The panel zooms out to include Serini.
Serini: But you still wouldn't design traps the way I did.
Lien: It would never occur to me!
Serini: Because you're just so good and pure.
Lien: Because I'm not that clever, you unhinged lunatic!
- Panel 5, Page 1
The panel zooms out even more to include O-Chul as well.
Serini: Bah! The point still stands.
Serini: If you paladins wanted to have a say in what methods I used, you should have said something when you had the chance.
- Panel 6, Page 1
O-Chul goes forward, moving inbetween Lien and Serini.
O-Chul: That is hardly fair.
O-Chul: You did not begin constructing this facility until after you and Master Soon ceased speaking.
Serini: Huh? Oh! Right! Yes, that's true.
Serini: Silly me!
- Panel 7, Page 1
The panel expands to the left, showing Elan and Durkon standing to the left of Lien, O-Chul, and Serini.
Lien: Whoa, whoa, whoa. Are you telling me that you had contact after that??
Serini: No! Of course not!
O-Chul: That would be a direct contradiction of the secret lore of the Sapphire Guard that Lord Shojo passed to us.
Serini: You know me, ha ha, moldy oats up in the head!
Elan: Aww, the paladins are so sweet. It's their first unreliable narrator!
Durkon: I know, aye? Tha Shojo guy got fact-checked by me god just last week!
- Panel 8, Page 1
The panel zooms in on Serini alone.
Serini: Ugh... I guess it doesn't matter anymore, since everyone's dead but me.
Serini: I loved those guys like my own family, but they were being so... inflexible. The way you big folks always get.
Serini: Someone had to do something.
- Panel 9, Page 1
The panel expands to include Lien and O-Chul again, with Roy walking up behind the former.
Lien: I can't believe what I'm hearing.
O-Chul: But you were the one who devised the initial plan to split up the Gate defenses in the first place!
O-Chul: Unless that, too, is inaccurate.
Serini: No, that's true. But I only suggested it 'cause there was zero chance of them working together anymore.
- Panel 10, Page 1
The panel zooms in on Serini again.
Serini: At least, not knowingly.
- Panel 1, Page 2
The panel shows a flashback to a young Serini walking behind Lirian in a forest (possibly Lirian's Glade where Lirian's Gate was located), holding a folded piece of paper in her hand.
Serini: (narration) After I worked out the initial design for Kraagor's tomb, I visited each of them in secret and asked for their help building it. Ideas, revisions, spells-
- Panel 2, Page 2
The panel shows a flashback to a young Serini looking over the plan with Dorukan, possibly inside the Dungeon of Dorukan.
Serini: (narration) How do you think I got my hands on this much magic, the world's biggest wand store?
- Panel 3, Page 2
The panel shows a flashback to young Serini talking to Girard Draketooth in the Draketooth Pyramid, with two of Girard's clan members on panel as well.
Serini: (narration) They were all so eager to help poor little Serini, just a dumb halfling girl with no spells who couldn't handle this on her own.
- Panel 4, Page 2
The panel shows a flashback to Lirian excavating the tunnels of Kraagor's Gate with her magic as young Serini supervises her.
Serini: (narration) I was smart enough to trick all those bigshot geniuses into doing the thing they were too stubborn to admit needed doing.
- Panel 5, Page 2
The panel shows a flashback to Dorukan summoning a monster inside Kraagor's Gate as young Serini draws the freezing circles on the floor.
Serini: (narration) Working together as a team to create the best possible defense.
- Panel 6, Page 2
The panel shows a flashback to Girard Draketooth setting up the teleportation trap inside one of the tunnels of Kraagor's Gate as young Serini watches.
Serini: (narration) For one Gate, at least.
- Panel 7, Page 2
The panel shows a flashback to young Serini in Azure City, pointing at Soon as another paladin pulls her away, with a second paladin standing next to Soon and a third in the background behind them.
Serini: (narration) But Soon wouldn't play ball. That dumbass wouldn't even listen to me because he swore an oath.
Serini: (narration) As if a bunch of words mattered more than ensuring the best defense.
- Panel 8, Page 2
The panel returns to the present as Lien swings her arms upwards, with Roy barely avoiding being struck by her.
Lien: If you wanted Soon's support all along, why did you attack when we showed up?!?
Serini: You're not Soon, fish breath!
O-Chul: But we are Soon's support.
Serini: Huh?
- Panel 9, Page 2
The panel zooms in on O-Chul.
O-Chul: Master Soon believed the institution of the Sapphire Guard to be the best means of protecting the Gate.
O-Chul: Any assistance he would have given you would have taken the form of one or more paladins. Like us.
- Panel 10, Page 2
The panel zooms out to include Lien and Serini again.
O-Chul: We simply arrived now, when aid is truly needed, rather than when it was requested.
Serini: Maybe you're right. Here I am holding a grudge, and Soon's contribution has been right in front of me this whole time.
- Panel 11, Page 2
Serini: His pathetic, underpowered, dim-witted contribution.
- Panel 12, Page 2
Lien crosses her arms as the panel includes Haley as well.
Lien: Wow, I can't imagine why he wouldn't have wanted to take a meeting with you.
O-Chul: It does shed some light on the interpersonal dynamics involved, yes.
Serini: I'm just saying, the other four of us were out here slinging some epic spells and monsters, and you two dingleberries aren't exactly up to snuff.
Haley: Are we going to get back to the deathtraps?
Serini: You're sub-snuff, is the main point.
D&D Context
- Green Slimes are ooze monsters commonly found clinging to the ceiling of dungeons, letting themselves drop down on unsuspecting explorers when they sense movement below themselves. As the acid of Green Slime eats through wood and metal as well as through flesh, any nonmagical weapon used to scrape it off someone/something is essentially destroyed.
Trivia
- In Panel 7, Durkon refers to strip #1139 when Thor revealed that current world is not the second world as was initially believed in the Crayons of Time backstory.
- This is the final appearance of Dorukan thus far in the comic. He first appeared in Serini Toormuck's diary in #196. He also has ten appearances in Start of Darkness, which is outside of the web comic.
- This is also the final appearance thus far of Lirian. She likewise first appeared in The Diary in #196. She makes eighteen additional appearances in Start of Darkness.
- This is the final appearance of Girard Draketooth. Girard was an epic level illusionist and a member of the Order of the Scribble. He appeared in fifteen strips overall, making his first appearance in Serini Toormuck's diary in #196, The Diary.
- This is the final appearance of Soon Kim. Soon is the founder of the Order of the Scribble. He first appeared in Serini Toormuck's diary in #196, The Diary.
External Links