"A Dungeons & Dragons Adventure" part 12, 1982.

Through comic book pages of 1982, sometimes the main attraction was interrupted by alternate comic strips, selling the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game by telling the kind of stories, briefly, that such gameplay sessions were concerned by. This is the last in a set of four, to be succeeded by one final micro story arc. Transcript follows:

THE WIZARD KHELLEK'S MAGICAL POWERS HAVE DISINTEGRATED THE MONSTROUS PURPLE WORM! THE TREASURE ROOM OF ROAKIRE IS REVEALED TO THEM. AURIC LEADS OUR ADVENTURERS IN THEIR TREACHEROUS CLIMB TO THE SURFACE!

AURIC: "DAYLIGHT! WE'VE MADE IT!!"

KHELLEK EXAMINES THE ANCIENT SCROLLS TAKEN FROM THE ROAKIRE TREASURE ROOM.

KHELLEK: "THE SEARCH IS OVER MY FRIENDS! BUT MY WORK IS JUST BEGINNING. THESE SPELLS WILL AID IN DEFEATING THE EVIL THAT LAYS SIEGE TO MY LORD'S CASTLE!"

K: "THE SUCCESS IS NOT AS SWEET WITH OUR PARTING."

TIRRA: "PARTING KHELLEK? YOU'LL BE NEEDING TWO GOOD SWORDS..."

A: "... WITH YOUR HOMELAND UNDER SIEGE!"

THE END

Odyssey aside, it is extraordinary to present the emergency from the dungeon -- the voyage home -- as a perilous and arduous undertaking. You have cleared out the mobs, there's nothing interfering with your return! But it looks like they're taking some species of short cut. Pity we never get to see the disintegrate spell in action, but I guess that's how they guarantee the most dazzling presentation of magic: the reader's brain provides the VFX.

Auric? Would some player really name their avaricious character after gold? Every chapter of these comics needs to present some nasties for lurid appeal, only here they merely represent what lies ahead for the party, not anything they actually encountering. Really this is much ado about an irrelevant plot twist (the party break up? why, are they not a regular party? no canon has been brought up to suggest otherwise...) turning the first "The End" of the ad series into a "To Be Continued?" (SPOILER WARNING: it is not continued. The castle of Khellek's Lord never is relieved from its evil siege.)

That is all. Enjoy, only a couple of these remain -- and then, perhaps, this blog can enjoy its final, well-earned rest 8)