See? That’s how great Gregory’s motivational moment worked out! Even the Barbessor felt it, despite being in a completely different dimension…and in the midst of combat, on top of that.
Which is not the ideal moment to get distracted by that sort of thing, naturally, but fortunately K’ip has his back…or, technically, his front in this case, since it wasn’t even a rear attack. And the Professorian recovers quickly and administers swift judgement…with the well-deserved sentence being death. Well, we have to assume it’s well-deserved. Since there are only occasional glimpses into that different world, it has not really been established whom our two friends are fighting, and for what reason…but their heroic status qualifies them for the benefit of the doubt, so until the opposite is proven, we have to assume that they are fighting for a just and righteous cause of some sort, and that their enemies deserve whatever they’re getting. This assumption is also supported by the green skin of the would-be-assailant-cum-victim, since that’s a skin color frequently employed in fiction to mark beings as legitimate targets.
And, yeah, the two heroes have new outfits…I have trouble with consistency at the best of times, and in the case of a RPG-based scenario, I don’t see any point in even trying. After all, you’re constantly upgrading your equipment in that sort of game, generally with a preference of stats over style, so it’s just natural for our heroes to sport a different look every time we see them. Plus, cat armor is funny.
So, yeah, there’s still a connection there, and these occasional glimpses do serve a purpose. But for the moment, the Barbessor can do nothing to affect events back in his former home. He can’t even send his friends his thoughts and prayers, which is the least thing one can normally do. Sending prayers doesn’t work because he’s not religious*, and as for sending his thoughts…well, he knows that sending his thoughts wouldn’t help, because his friends couldn’t understand them. He’s graded enough of their coursework in the past to be aware of that depressing fact…
More on Monday.
* And, if we assume the kind of level progress that’s typical for RPGs and consider the amount of fighting K’ip and the Professorian seem to be engaged in, they might have made it to the level where they’ve already killed a couple of gods for experience points…