Ooh, there may be some morning-after regret there.

Recently at the comic shop, I asked if they had magazine-sized long boxes. They told me no, because they'd weigh a metric asston. I laughed, then went home and filled a box with Savage Swords that's so heavy now I think Conan could've used it to push over on and kill something in an issue there. But I had this issue still out; I wonder why? From 1983, Savage Sword of Conan #94, "Death Dwarves of Stygia!" Written by Michael Fleisher, art and cover by Val Mayerik, inks by Vince Colletta. Some previous owner may have done some "spot-reds" here, we'll see if we scan any...

Conan had been escorting a friend's girl on a sea voyage, when the sailors decide to abduct her and toss Conan overboard. Swimming a mere "thirty leagues or so" after them, Conan catches up with them on an island and kills the sailors, then they manage to get shipwrecked on another island. That may be the doing of the enchantress Kiriandra, who had been exiled for years, and now wants Conan to murder her former master, Stygian wizard Parmek Da'an. To leverage Conan into it, she transfers Conan's unnamed friend's life-force into a sluglike monster, then sleeps with him. Look, she'd been on that island for a while. Kiriandra sends Conan on his way with an amulet to protect him from being possessed by Da'an.

In Stygia, the king's gambling losses are cutting into his popularity; to the point some citizens are going to cut into him; but Conan intervenes and gets offered a job with the elite guard. Still, tradition says the number of the elite has to remain constant, so he'll have to fight for a spot. (It's entirely possible the king is just too cheap to spring for another guard, that would cut into dwarf-betting money.) Conan gets the job, but Parmek Da'an is already on the move, presenting his three dwarven fighters to the king, then later possessing the king's vizier to murder him. Conan intervenes and Da'an returns to his body, leaving the vizier screaming his innocence as he's dragged off to be impaled. Realizing the barbarian could be a problem, Da'an next possesses the queen and takes her to Conan's bedchamber. This isn't well received by anyone, and Conan is dragged to the dungeon.

This has been just a little diversion for Da'an, who's planning to take the throne. His three dwarves form a larger fighter, "a jinn," who carves up the elite guards. He then takes over the king, and has his real body safely put in his room. The queen frees Conan, who is not impressed by the jinn. They might've given him more of a fight as three dwarves. Da'an tries to possess Conan, but the amulet does its job, and returning to his own body he finds a knife in his chest, and dissolves into nothing.

Conan returns to Kiriandra's island, and finds it seemingly less magical, if infested with cave-ape looking "ghouls." After that fight, Conan finds his friend's girl locked up: he's realized 'Kiriandra' was really the slug monster, given human form by Da'an, but that spell died with him. The slug seemingly implores Conan to kill it, but he declines, taking the girl and leaving. Wait, Conan slept with a slug...luckily, he's not especially given to introspection; he might never feel clean again.