She's just going to be all the more pissed and kick some ass.

Damn it, I just had a horrible thought.

Next three plus comics are all going to be about Durkon receiving the Sending, aren't they?

Fixed.

I mean, Elan said something about how he felt like he would never see any of them again. And Belkar was supposed to die at some point in the near future. The way I see it, it's entirely possible that NONE of them could make it out.

...Though another theory I have is that Belkar will do some crazy self-sacrifice to buy time for Celia, Haley and New Cleric to escape. It's possible that New Cleric will be able to heal Haley or maybe even bring Roy back to life if they find his bone golem.

I'd find it really hysterical if we found out that Shojo really was communicating from the afterlife to Belkar all along, and that Shojo intended to somehow build Belkar up to the point where Belkar would unwittingly sacrifice his own life to ensure that Celia and Haley escaped. I wouldn't put it past Shojo, he's a manipulative bastard who couldn't care less if Belkar has to sacrifice himself so long as OOTS can still defeat Xykon and maintain the fabric of the universe.

...it'd be kind of a sad end for Belkar, though. I anticipate Burlew will be just enough of a jerk to switch perspective to Durkon and/or V for the rest of the 2008 (maybe he'll do one or two more Belkar-centric strips but switch out during the next inevitable cliffhanger.) Then, Belkar dies in early 2009, just in time to make both elements of Burlew's prior statements correct, insofar as Belkar will die within the year "OOTS time" but it won't actually happen in 2008 "our time." (EDIT: He made a post on his website or the forums once to that effect. Or, rather, I think the Oracle said something to that effect.)

I don't think Belkar, what with his character growth being artificial, would be in a position to self-sacrifice for anyone. That's also probably what he meant by 'Belkar won't live to see his next birthday,' cause he changed for the first time in the comic.

Plus with him back in the game now, he's going to probably go out and gut Bozzok and Dumb Bitch. Favored Enemy: Human and all.

Also even if he does self-sacrifice himself for Haley and Celia and Cleric, death in this world is pretty reversible. The exception is obviously Celia, which is why I hope she isn't going to get killed.

Personally, I'm still waiting to find out what's going on with O'Chul.
That was his name, right? It's been a while.
But seriously there's a whole epic plotline there with a potential resistance among the prisoners inspired by O'Chul that's basically been dropped for some time.
Heck, Burlew could really mess with us and basically spend the rest of 2008 updating every other ongoing storyline. We have Xykon, Redcloak, O'Chul, the Monster, V, Durkon, Elan, Hinjo, Kasumi and Daigo...plenty enough characters to check up on. I wouldn't be surprised.

As for Belkar, I really think it'd be a cheap copout for the Oracle to heavily imply Belkar's demise and for aforementioned demise to never happen. It may not happen yet (a year OOTS time might still be a while, so maybe Belkar does survive this encounter,) but I'm expecting Belkar's death to come, and soon. Personally, it'd be pretty kickass if we all expect Belkar to die here, but he survives, only to be incinerated by our new crazy-antihero V the moment V finds them. I'm just saying, that'd be unexpected, poignant and hiliarious. I'm rooting for a Belkar-V showdown before either character dies just because it'd be so screwy to actually have the audience root for the chaotic evil character as the potential protagonist in a fight between PCs.

That would be pretty hilarious and unexpected, however I really think that Burlew is going for a sort of TMNT thing here; With one member gone, the whole team begins to fall apart. When Roy returns and Haley/Belkar are reunited with Durkon/Elan, everyone comes together. V just needs the everloving shit betrayed or beaten out of him for him to go, oh, right, my arrogance has gotten me to the point where I'm being emotionally detached from life and death simply because it slows me down, thus I'm now Evil and don't know it!

Cause seriously, this entire story arc of character development has some alignment changes going on. V is borderline Evil right now and Belkar's slowly gravitating towards Neutral Evil.

The thing with O'Chuul (I think two 'u's?) is that he's going to build it to where the CITD is going to gravitate towards the Good side of the street simply based on his nativity. Sort of how Fighter unwittingly is a proponent of Evil due to simply being blissfully unaware. Where it goes from there, I have no idea.

I think that Belkar will accidentally die. Goes around trying to kill all the people trying to kill Haley and them. It'll trick them into thinking he's going through character growth, by saving them as some form of niceness, while he's just doing it to kill stuff. Goes against the rogue in charge, who's name I can't recall, and get's killed Quigon style. Roy's ghost and Belkar's will have some nifty conversation. And then Belkar goes to OotS Hell, where he doesn't want to leave cuz he gets to go fight good guys forever.

OotS Hell = DND Hell, where Chaotic Evil characters go.

Which is not a nice place.

If characters are going to die they need a better reason to stay dead other than 'it's nice here,' really. Shojo and Therkla are good examples.

But didn't Evil dead people poof into OotS Heaven or some-such? Belkar likes to kill people. His entire character can pretty much be summed up that way. If he went somewhere where he could fight people for eternity, why would he leave?