Cast[]
- Order of the Stick
- Order of the Scribble
- Sapphire Guard
- Sunny ◀ ▶
- Mimi ◀ ▶
- Minrah Shaleshoe ◀ ▶
- Blackwing ◀ ▶
- Mr. Scruffy ◀ ▶
- Bloodfeast the Extreme-inator ◀ ▶
- Calder (as telepathic voice) ◀ ▶
Transcript[]
- Panel 1
The panel shows the characters descending below the walkway, with O-Chul and Durkon climbing down the ladder that Mimi became, Vaarsuvius hovering down, followed by Blackwing. Serini and Roy are already standing in the dyed water, while Haley is descending and lowering Elan down.
Belkar: Come on in, the water's fine. No, wait, it's stagnant and disgusting.
Serini: Now I don't remember exactly where the button that opens the secret door is, so everyone give me a hand and search this back wall for me.
Serini: Don't worry, shouldn't be any traps down here.
- Panel 2
The panel shows Haley, Serini, and Vaarsuvius searching the wall for the secret door, with Vaarsuvius hovering and Belkar talking to the elf.
Vaarsuvius: I could not fail to observe that you endeavored to keep your diminutive companions out of harm as you descended into what you believed to be-
Belkar: No. I'm not having a conversation with you about it. Whatever this is, it's not that.
- Panel 3
The panel focuses on Belkar searching the wall for the secret door as Vaarsuvius hovers next to him.
Belkar: Just do whatever it is that apparently all elves can do to find secret doors.
Belkar: Echolocation, I'm guessing, based on the ears.
- Panel 4
Vaarsuvius finds and presses a hidden button on the wall. CLICK.
- Panel 5
The secret entrance swings open, knocking Belkar backwards and into the air. WHAP!
- Panel 6
Belkar falls into the water off-panel as Blackwing flies over to Serini. Sploosh!
Blackwing: Found it.
- Panel 7
The panel shows Lien, Bloodfeast, Belkar, Elan, Mr. Scruffy, Serini, Mimi, and Durkon entering the corridor connected to the secret door. The dyed water is dripping off Belkar's body and clothes.
Elan: Hey Serini, you know what would've been cool? If you'd made that wall out of the magic stone, so a hole would appear when Sunny looked at it!
Elan: That way, we wouldn't have needed to search for secret doors!
Serini: Good idea, but I hadn't adopted Sunny yet when I built...
- Panel 8
The panel focuses on Serini alone as she looks backwards.
Serini: ...Hold up.
- Panel 9
The panel expands to show Haley, Roy, Vaarsuvius, Blackwing, O-Chul, Lien, Bloodfeast, Elan, Belkar, Mr. Scruffy, Serini, Mimi, Durkon, and Minrah in the corridor, with everyone except Bloodfeast and Mr. Scruffy looking at Serini.
Serini: Does anyone know where Sunny is?
- Panel 10
The panel cuts back to the room with the walkway, with Sunny having crossed the walkway and looking into the tunnel ahead.
Calder: (off-panel) (telepathically) My, my...
- Panel 11
The panel shows Sunny from the front. Their central eye is swirly, indicating that Sunny has been charmed by Calder as saliva is dripping from their mouth.
Calder: (off-panel) (telepathically) ...Aren't you just the most fascinating little tool?
Sunny: unnhh...
D&D Context[]
- As Belkar alludes to in the third panel, elves got a +2 racial bonus to their Listen, Search, and Spot checks in DND 3.5, as well as being entitled to doing a Search check to discover a secret or concealed door by merely getting into a distance of 5 feet to such a door as if they were actively looking for said door.
Trivia[]
- The title seems at first to refer to V finding an actual secret entrance, until the last panel reveals the play of words of Sunny having been entranced by whatever is off-panel.
- The mysterious voice in Panels 10 and 11 has an unusual speech bubble, with a dark red outline and a yellow to orange fade. It is also has an uneven cloud-like shape, somewhat similar to the Order’s telepathy bubbles, although it does not have an obvious source. In the GiantITP forums for this comic, various observations and conclusions have been made in an effort to predict the voice’s origin. These include beliefs that the “voice” is telepathic, due to the odd shape of the speech bubble and lack of an obvious source, and that the unusual coloring of the speech bubble (a fade from orange to yellow) means that the monster has two types (for example, a half-dragon). See the discussion thread for more information. As of #1295, The Thaw, the voice was revealed to be Calder, a red dragon imprisoned in the Final Dungeon by Serini.