You know, I didn’t get the joke of the title until I saw it in large print in this thread.
In #1012, by the way, Thrym said, “My reasons are my own.”
Beyond it being a parody of Willy Wonka’s Everlasting Gobstoppers, I still don’t get it.
OTOH, I squirted Diet Pepsi out my nose when Roy said “Belkar’s right,” and Belkar’s reaction was “Nope. Still weird.” 
BTW, if Thrym decides, now that Hel is probably NOT going to make him her consort, that their deal no longer gives him his own reasons for voting Yes, can he, not change, but invalidate his vote by say, smiting his high priest?
That probably still falls under the “no backsies” rule. And besides, it’s the gods voting, not their priests.
Because they’re stopping a god’s plan. With blasting and quick thinking.
So will they need to throw out a panel where everyone gets a cure now?
Wow, he’s churning them out at the moment. All good stuff, too.
If they have contact with any decent-level friendly cleric, druid, or paladin at any time in the next five weeks (well, maybe four weeks, since they caught it in the desert), then it can be assumed that they fixed it off-panel. By that time, they may even have finished the main quest, and even if not, there’s a good chance of at least one of getting Original Recipe Durkon back, or getting back to the Godsmoot, or meeting back up with Hinjo, or finding some random NPC, or digging up some potions or scrolls in the Mechane’s inventory.
I doubt there’s three to four weeks of “strip time” left anyway before Xykon is defeated (or the world ends). It’ll likely be fixed by some throw-away joke like them traveling through an enchanted gateway that cures diseases (“Hey, what was that glow?”) or something.
Sounds to me like a Checkhov’s gun. I predict a plot point that will take at least 50-100 strips to resolve, and not something that’s hand waved in a single panel.
Wait, how long has it been in strip time since they left the desert? They stopped for brunch and shopping in goblin town and attended church services at the Godsmoot. Then maybe an hour of fighting Frost Giants and mutineers. So…3, 4 days?
He’s not going to reference a disease that has everybody busting out riddles and then not have a strip devoted to everybody busting out riddles. However from it becoming effective to being neutralised I would guess would be 3 strips max.
Damn shame they’re not racing to the pole to meet up with a couple of powerful Paladins.
O-Chul is powerful, and a paladin, but he’s probably not a powerful paladin. Most of his levels are in fighter: He was already at take-on-an-army-single-handedly level before becoming a paladin, and he still doesn’t have enough paladin levels to have a mount.
Lien does have enough paladin levels to have a mount, but we don’t know much more than that about her level (though it’s probably lower than Hinjo’s). Paladins get Remove Disease one level after they get their mount, so Lien probably does have it (she’s probably leveled up since the Battle of Azure City, at least), but only 1/week.
I read it the exact opposite: It was such a ridiculous notion for a disease – on par with the old “Dropping Butt Syndrome” or similar from gag side-effects – that its sole purpose is to set up the “Take five weeks to incubate” punchline.
Plus they’re going to hit the dwarf council soon, resolve that plot line (heavens willing) and move on to Xykon. Who is moving at the Speed of Plot and will locate the final Gate as soon as the Order arrives and I can’t see another three week delay in that.
I’m just speculating but I think there’ll be some drama around the Gate before the heroes arrive. There’s unresolved tension between Xykon, Redcloak, and the Creature in the Darkness. I thinking it’s possible they may find the Gate and begin a threeway battle of evil. And then the heroes will arrive in the middle of that.
I’m willing to wait to see if I’m right or wrong. Unlike some people, I’m in no hurry for this series to end.
Just a nitpick but he might be choosing to not have a mount. His paladin mount would be substantially weaker than a single-classed paladin of his character level would ordinarily have and would therefore be very vulnerable to level-appropriate foes.
I think there were two points. 1) To show that Hel is, indeed, pretty darn ineffective. 2) To tell the readers that this disease won’t be coming during this current plotline but it will, in fact, be coming. It will come at some random time in the future at a point when everyone reading this right now, including me, has completely forgotten that it was even a thing to watch out for. Hell, the way time moves in this universe, 5 weeks could literally be 2020 before it’s even referenced again.
Me neither. Luckily, three weeks in strip time is probably another decade and a half of our lives 
I guess I also suspect that once this God thing is settled, it will result in Durkon being either dead-dead or restored and Hel won’t really be a story factor any longer so her disease popping up as any notable factor would be sort of odd.
We also have the three evil dudes (CE, NE, LE) who have been gone so long that I forgot the name of their organization.