Eugene and Roy discuss the circumstances of their reunion.
Cast[]
Transcript[]
- Panel 1
Eugene: ...of course, I'm pretty good at that "dirty dancing", so I can see how you could be confused...
Roy: DAD?!?
Haley: F dxaqgxd oaq cbfr oaqi rbr pbc rlbr?
- Panel 2
Roy: You were the "Being of Pure Law and Good" all along? How...?
Eugene: Good gods, boy, has being a fighter dulled your wits so much that you've forgotten my specialty?
Eugene: Illusions!
- Panel 3
Eugene: I'll have you know that I was named Best Illusionist of the Year three times by the Wizzie Awards by the time I was your age.
Roy: Gee, Dad, I had no idea. It's not like the trophies were enshrined in our front hallway or anything.
- Panel 4
Eugene: You should have seen your face when you heard the big red angel voice! Ahem:
Eugene: No mercy! Kill! KILL!
Eugene: Priceless!
- Panel 5
Roy: It's reassuring to know that you haven't decided to spontaneously start taking my feelings into account during your absence.
Eugene (off-panel): Oh, relax. I was just having some fun with you.
- Panel 6
Eugene: Look, I didn't WANT to drag this Shojo guy into our family business.
Eugene: I had better things to do. (Like Violet, for example. Heh.)
Roy: Ugh, Dad!
- Panel 7
Eugene: But you didn't give me much choice! Maybe if you took the time to fix what you'd broken, I wouldn't have need to.
Roy: Huh??
- Panel 8
Eugene: The sword, Roy, the sword. You know, our family heirloom? What, you think I can just pop in and talk to anyone? What kind of an afterlife do you think they're running here?
- Panel 9
Roy: Dad, just slow down and explain exactly what you're saying.
Eugene: Sigh. I weep for your dying grey matter.
- Panel 10
Eugene: OK, here it goes: The Greenhilt sword, the symbol of our family—the sword you're carrying around right now—is the metaphysical link that allows me to appear to you in spectral form.
Eugene: Once it was broken, I couldn't manifest freely anymore, and was bound by all the normal rules for dead spirits.
- Panel 11
Roy: So that's why you haven't shown up for all these months?
Eugene: Yes! Of course!
Roy: I see...
- Panel 12
Roy: And this isn't like that time you missed my 7th grade school play?
Eugene: I told you, I was on the Astral Plane on business! Let it drop!
D&D Context[]
- Wizard characters can specialize in a school of magic to cast some additional spells per day.
- The Astral Plane is a plane that exists between the Prime Material and other planes, including the Outer Planes.
Trivia[]
- The translation of Haley's line is:
- Panel 1: "I thought you said your dad was dead?"
- In the first panel, Eugene makes a reference to the Patrick Swayze film Dirty Dancing. In the last panel of the previous strip he had just compared himself to Patrick Swayze in Ghost.