The Order of the Stick squares off against the newly reformed Linear Guild. The effects of Durkon's "Holy Word" spell are seen, with all but two members of the Linear Guild in bad shape ("deafened or worse").
Cast[]
- Roy Greenhilt ◀ ▶
- Haley Starshine ◀ ▶
- Belkar Bitterleaf (also charmed) ◀ ▶
- Durkon Thundershield ◀ ▶
- The Linear Guild
- Soul-Muncher ◀ ▶
Transcript[]
- Panel 1
Sabine is Banished and Nale is deafened by Durkon's Holy Word.
Sabine: Grrrraaaah!! Nale, I can't—I can't hold on!!
Nale WHAT? I CAN'T HEAR YOU!
Sabine is seen begining to rumble, straining, with a palinopsia-like effect.
- Panel 2
Sabine looks saddened, begining to fade in opacity.
Sabine: I'm sorry! I'll be back as soon as I can! Don't do anything too rash! And don't trust any of them!
Nale: WHAT'S HAPPENING?!? WHERE—?
- Panel 3
Sabine but a blur upon the prime material, her last words appearing without a speech bubble as she vanishes.
Sabine: I love you
Sabine: forever"
Nale: SABINE!
Nale: SABINE!
- Panel 4
Zz'dtri: gst've wind.
Zz'tri's spell fails because he mispronounced the words, "fizzle!"
Tarquin: No time for touching farewells, Nale. It seems your brother and Greenhilt have risen to our challenge.
Tarquin swings Soul-Muncher at Durkon who blocks with his shield.
Nale: WHAT?
- Panel 5
Tarquin: Holy Word. Everyone not on the side of the angels is deafened or worse, unless they are strong enough to resist it as I am. Your mage can't hear himself cast, your bimbo was banished, and I don't even know about the rest.
- Panel 6
Nale is clearly panicking, and running to stage right.
Nale: WHAT? I CAN'T HEAR YOU. ARE YOU EVEN—
Four icy arrows are fired at Nale, two hitting with a "thunk! thunk!"
Nale: —OWWW!!!
- Panel 7
Nale runs stage left in the direction of his sword; Belkar is barely seen from a crack in the ceiling.
Tarquin: Stop shouting, you idiot! You're giving away our position in the smoke!
Nale: WE NEED TO GET READY, MY SWORD—
Tarquin: No! Don't advance!!
- Panel 8
Belkar drops out onto the shocked Nale, sadistic joy on his face.
- Panel 9
The halfling ranger enters melee combat against Nale, a dagger in both hands; stabbing with the first, and slashing with the second "SCHLRKT! slash! slash!"
Nale: URGH! GET OFF ME! GET OFF!
- Panel 10
Nale casts a spell, charming Belkar.
Nale: SUGGESTION: ATTACK THE DWARF INSTEAD OF ME!
- Panel 11
Belkar looks confused at Nale's order.
Belkar: ...
Belkar: WHAT?
- Panel 12
Nale: I SAID, 'ATTACK THE DWARF!'
Belkar: WHAT ARE YOU SAYING? I CAN'T HEAR YOU!
Belkar stabs Nale in the foot.
Nale: OWW!
- Panel 13
Belkar, obviously deafened by the 'Holy Word' spell, is still heard attacking Nale, "slash! slash!"
Belkar: HEY ROY, I THINK THEY CAST SOME SORT OF SILENCE SPELL!"
Haley looks inquisitively at the disarray, while Roy has a pleased smile upon his face.
Roy: It's not a bug, it's a feature.
D&D Context[]
- Sabine, as a Succubus, which is a type of extra-planar creature, is banished to her home plane by Durkon's Holy Word spell from the previous strip because she failed a will saving throw.
- Belkar, as an evil character, was also affected by Durkon's Holy Word spell in the previous strip as he waited in the trap door above the ceiling.
- Belkar, Nale, Sabine, and Z'zdtri are the same level as Durkon, as they are only deafened or banished by Holy Word's effect. Kilkil is at least 5 levels below, but not more than ten, as he was paralyzed, but not killed. Tarquin is higher level, as he was unaffected by the spell.
- Gust of Wind is a 2nd level spell which creates a strong wind, which had it been cast successfully, would have blown the smoke out of the passage.
- Suggestion is a 3rd level spell which allows the caster to implant a suggestion of a course of action for the subject to follow. The spell is Language-dependent, so the fact that Belkar cannot hear Nale made it impossible for him to follow the suggestion.
Trivia[]
- Nale successfully charmed Belkar causing him to attack Durkon while singing the entire score to "Meet Me in St. Louis" in #383, What's Really Scary is That He Knows the Words.
- Roy's comment in the final panel plays on the common joke among computer programmers, "It's not a bug; it's an undocumented feature!" The joke dates back to at least 1984, and was made popular by Microsoft's responses to bug reports for its Word product.