Thread:Transcendantviewer/@comment-26852465-20160304035846/@comment-25547106-20160304185429

Some of the best stories of Armstrong's pursuits are from his days as the Gentlemanly Barbarian. I want to say that it's been almost a year since they took place. Anyway, the first of such events were with a Vampiress up in a tower. The tower was located in a floating ice castle commanded by Ice Giants. The giants had tasked us with slaying the vampire and the White Dragon in the lower levels of the castle. The fight with the lady vampire was pretty amusing.

We needed to scale the tower. Obviously, some of the players had trouble with this due to the sheer height of the tower, nearly 60ft. high, requiring multiple rolls to ascend. The plan was for Armstrong to throw down a rope for the characters that couldn't scale it well on their own, however, when he'd reached the tower, the vampiress and her thralls were already awake. Now, it was midday, so we had an exit plan, but it was not a good start to the encounter. So, Armstrong's the only one up there, whips out his Maul (His serious weapon) and beats on one of the thralls once, missing his second attack. Immediately after this, the lady vampire charms him, instructing him to protect her from his allies. He fails his save and does so with gusto! Which leads to a rather entertaining few rounds of combat. The Cleric whips out a huge sword that we'd gotten from a previous boss and begins threatening that he will have to beat Armstrong down if he doesn't step aside. This is immediately countered by the rogue shooting Armstrong square in the eye, to which he replied "GAH! Right in the monocle!", clutching his face. After that, the cleric despells the charming and Armstrong regains himself. Turning towards the vampiress, Armstrong sheds his wizards robes compleely. For the first time in that campaign, Armstrong actually got angry. (Up until that point, he'd never gotten angry, merely purturbed and focused.) At this moment, with all the remaining composure he could muster, he says the following: "Madam rogue, I understand why you did that, so I am not upset..." then he turns to the lady vampire. "...You on the other hand... Stay there. I will have words..." He then flies into his Barbarian Rage, running up to the lady vampire and grapples her. With the vampiress in his grip, he drags her over the balcony and the two of them plummet the full 60ft., in broad daylight, to the ground. "NO ONE TREATS AN ARMSTRONG LIKE A PUPPET!" he shouted, beating the Vampiress with his battleaxe once on the way down. She ignites in holy fire in the sunlight, screaming and clawing at Armstrong in an attempt to escape, but the light rapidly drains her of strength.

Now, I like to reflect on another portion of the story for a moment. Our bard had been spending the full 4 rounds attempting to ascend the tower, unaided. He'd only just made it half way up. That's when he sees Armstrong beating on a ball of screaming white fire, falling to the ground. Now, the bard knew something had gone wrong up there, and things didn't start off well. As it turns out, the reason the vampire and her thralls were awake was because the Cleric's heavy bulk broke through the balcony, causing it to toppel to the ground. He fell, but saved himself with a Feather Fall spell. The bard had previously witnessed the cleric ascend the tower successfully, the balcony explode, and the cleric just float down to safety like "Well. That sucked." For the entirety of this encounter, he was not able to get up to the top of the tower, and he then sees Armstrong plummetting to the ground. So, he starts trying to climb the tower even faster, thinking "Oh shit... Something's going down up there, and it seems like I don't want to be here anymore..."

So, Armstrong spends the next almost full minute holding this vampiress down as she burns, still beating her. He was pissed.