I wonder where exactly Tarquin is? We last saw him in 883 on one of the upper levels of the pyramid.
My guess is that he used the Drake he was flying on to return to his home city, to get whatever he and his secretary were talking about when he left.
Quite possibly. I was thinking though, that he was more likely deliberately absenting himself so that he would not get caught when the Gate exploded.
Yeah, he knew that the genre required that this gate be destroyed to set up a final confrontation at the last gate.
I don’t have my reference materials handy.
Nale cast Dimension Door to get away. Isn’t that shortish range? By that, I mean still within visual range of Durkula. This is a wide open, empty desert. I doubt Nale DD’d to a safe room underground…
Guessing 15th level for Nale (just to have a number to work with), he could Dimension Door up to 1000’. That’s far enough away that even if Durkon sees him, he’s not going to hoof it over across the desert and catch a fleeing Nale. Plus Durkon was more worried about Roy & Co.
This does bring up the fact that Nale is in the middle of a desert with no obvious assistance unless Sabine’s exile timer expires or Tarquin rolls on by.
Sabine’s timer is 24 hours, no exceptions, so she’s not coming back anytime soon.
I agree that Nale might be in visual range (unless he dimension door’d himself behind a nearby ridge, [or made use of the shunting rules in dimension door to get farther away at risk of damage, which he probably did not do]), but too far away for the order to do anything about it.
And dramatic license indicates a broken and battered Nale will be picked up by angry daddy.
I’m sorry, I guess I missed the Pit Fiend? Was it the shrimpy-lobstery looking thing? I thought Pit Fiends were 12 feet tall.
There was no pit field in the comic, it was a side conversation about CRs.
Ah. Thank you.
That was a piscoloth (at least in 2nd Ed). Probably ended up being called a piscodaemon once [del]TSR[/del] WotC decided the fundies weren’t a threat anymore and brought back the old names.
That was a Pterodactyl, not a Drake.
I expect that Tarquin went outside to meet the eight squadrons of hippogriff-mounted soldiers that he asked to rendezvous outside the pyramid.
There is also the the Imp who can pop back if he feels like it(or coerced into it by Sabine)
That imp ought now to be engaged in ferrying Zz’dtri’s soul safely to the Big Fire Below, if it was still written as it was back in 1st Ed. 
Should Nale need to have his lifeless head ferried about, he’s in luck
Did I miss a new strip notice?
(Considering the shortness of the reaction thread on the GitP forum, it doesn’t look like I did. So, new strip!)
Either way, I like the subtle reminder that Belkar is still, to an extent, faking his character development.
Not exactly a crisis of faith or moment of horror from Durkon, eh?
Almost makes you wonder if he would want to go with kill/resurrection route to be de-vamped. Maybe becoming intelligent undead comes with its own ready-made “This ain’t so bad” mindset.
Actually Belkar has a point.
Recall that he’s been embroiled in the fight and saw nothing of Durkon helping anyone. So as far as he knew Durkon was a hostile vampire, and his last interaction with Belkar was drinking his blood. So going all stabby made perfect sense. Even Roy’s first reaction to an approaching VampDurkon was “Stay back!”, remember.
Won’t you take me to…StabbyTOWWWWN…
That’s true. I was thinking more of the rather overblown way Belkar was shouting as he attacked. As if to, say, tell the others that he was doing it out of righteousness, and not to avenge his getting bitten and drained.