Roy and the Oracle discuss Belkar's fate before Roy is Dismissed. However the Dismissal bypasses the memory charm. Roy remembers everything.
Cast[]
- Roy Greenhilt (as spirit) ◀ ▶
- Eugene Greenhilt ◀ ▶
- Roy's Archon ◀ ▶
- The Oracle of the Sunken Valley ◀ ▶
Transcript[]
- Panel 1
Roy: Why didn't you say something earlier?!? I could have told Haley where to find Durkon!
Oracle: Gosh, I don't know... is it because I don't like you? You dangled me out of a window!
- Panel 2
Oracle: Plus your furry-footed friend just made me his temporary magic dagger repository.
Roy: I think I'm going to have to take exception to the word “friend”.
Roy: More like, “unfortunate responsibility” or “lodestone”.
- Panel 3
Oracle: At any rate, your pal isn't long for this world, so I saw no reason not to have my fun where I could.
Oracle: I almost named the village, “Shouldacheckdamap” but I thought it was funnier to work blue.
- Panel 4
Roy: Not long for this world? What are you saying?
Oracle: The same thing I said last time you were here, only you forgot. Here, you want it on record?
- Panel 5
The Oracle goes into a trance, is hit by a white spotlight from above, levitates, is surrounded by a green aura, and his speech bubble turns green.
Oracle: Belkar will draw his last breath—ever—before the end of the year.
- Panel 6
The Oracle breaks the fourth wall and winks.
Oracle: That's an “in-comic” year, not a real-time year, Oracle fans!
Roy: Huh?
Oracle: Don't worry about it.
- Panel 7
Oracle: There, that was on the house, so you can remember it. You'll forget everything else once you pass through the Memory Charm.
Oracle: Now scurry home to your cloud, Casper, before I banish you. I have an important client flying in and I don't want a dead mammal messing it up.
- Panel 8
Roy: You're not a cleric, Scaly. You can't banish me if you tried.
Oracle: True, I'm not a cleric...
- Panel 9
The Oracle produces a wand.
Oracle: ...but ain't it funny how I always seem to have just the right magic item here in my robe?
Oracle: Dismissal!
Roy: Ah—
- Panel 10
Roy finds himself back in the afterlife.
Roy: —crap.
Roy: I was hoping I might be able to glean some more info by listening to other people's prophecies, since that's the only part I won't...
- Panel 11
Roy: ...forget.
- Panel 12
Roy: The Dismissal must have bypassed the Memory Charm, and the kobold didn't bother to look into the future to make sure!
Roy: I remember everything!
- Panel 13
Eugene sits next to Roy reading a rulebook, while Roy's Archon floats behind a DM screen. Four polyhedral dice are lie on the cloud.
Roy: I REMEMBER EVERYTHING!
Eugene Greenhilt: Good, then you can tell me what page it says you don't die until -10 hp.
Roy’s Archon: I already told you, in this edition, that's an optional rule that we're not using! You're dead at 0 hp!
Eugene: Well that's a stupid rule and they should change it!
Roy’s Archon: They did!
D&D Context[]
- Roy calls Belkar a "lodestone", which is a naturally magnetized magnetite rock. What he means to say is that Belkar is like a Loadstone, also known as a Stone of Weight, a cursed magic item which weighs down a character and cannot be discarded.
- Dismissal is a 4th level Cleric or 5th level Sorcerer/Wizard spell that sends extraplanar creatures (such as Roy's ghost, which belongs in the afterlife) back to their proper plane. The Oracle is not a spellcaster (as he reveals in #566), but due to his divination abilities can plan ahead with total foresight, and any spell can be imbued into a wand to do the same thing. Normally, a character cannot use a wand without being in a class that can cast the spell the wand contains, but as an Expert, the Oracle can select Use Magic Device as a class skill, which allows him to use items that would normally be locked to specific classes.
- The tri-folded screen and polyhedral dice as well as the two rulebooks are being used to play a game of D&D, apparently 2nd edition AD&D.
- In the 0th and 1st editions, death occurred at 0 hp. In the 2nd edition, an optional rule was introduced where unconsciousness results at 0 hp, followed by death at -10 hp. In 3.5e, this rule was formalized as part of the system.
Trivia[]
- The Oracle predicts that Belkar will only have one more birthday in #329.
- Blue comedy is off-color, risqué, indecent or profane comedy, often about sex. In this case, the Oracle refers to his choice to name the village "Lickmyorangeballshalfling" in #568.
- The "important client flying in" is revealed in #628 to be Mother Dragon, who was seeking the location of the murderer of her child.