Awesome / Rusty and Co.

Dame Madeline Goodlaw

• Madeline, inches from unconsciousness and covered in her own blood, confronts a fresh unwounded enemy who has just effortlessly curb-stomped the rest of her party. Now that is what being a paladin means.
  Grinner: "Hey girly, you ain't on the list, so why don't you and your last two hit points just go home, eh?"
  Madeline: "Because that's not what paladins do!"
• Earlier, Madeline decapitates a vampire three times in one strip.
  • And a few strips later, she throws herself in front of a friend to protect him from a Summon Evil Duplicate spell. Crosses over with Funny Moment when Evil!Madeline turns out to be about two inches tall.
  • Madeline giving battle to an elder god.
  • A picture worth a thousand words.◊
• In our introduction to Maddie she has just finished smiting an entire den-of-iniquity's worth of random monsters, without getting scratched or, as far as can be discerned, even breaking a sweat.
• Madeline forcing Roxy and Presti to help rescue Mimic and Cube.
• Madeline shows off her new vorpal halberd.
• Madeline trident-flips a girallon into a piranha tank.
• -zip- THUMP! Note, Maddie just survived being inches from lava, and she had smoke rising from her. And her only reaction was to give the mother of all Death Glares to Grinner.
  • Now a poster!◊
• After an entire arc of being clumsy and out of sorts as a result of her death and resurrection, she finally gives Derek a Big Damn Kiss before rushing into the field and mopping the floor with the Calamitus clones. She's back.
  Madeline: And... and Rusty's in trouble, and... and Cube and Presti's fighting... and the people... and... And I... I'm...
  Derek:...You're going to help them. Because despite it all, paladins aren't afraid.
  Madeline: That... that's right! I'm a paladin, and paladins aren't afraid! I'm not afraid...
  She kisses Derek.
  Madeline: ...of anything!

Roxanne Casbaugh

• Roxanne puts her bardic powers of spooniness to good use.
• And again when Roxy exploits the gnolls' Weaksauce Weakness: dog whistles.
  • Not to mention that she prepares that literally under Grinner's nose.
• In the next level we see Roxy disguising herself as an NPC musician, thus letting her get a devastating guitar sneak attack on Calamitus.

Prestige Perkins

• Presti makes creative use of a Fly spell to Bluff V'inny the mind-flayer into jumping out the window.
• And in the next strip, she somehow manages to bluff an ithillid's scent to get past some grimlocks.
• Low on spell slots and cornered by V'inny, who survived the window drop, Presti fires a wet badger into his brainsack. Moment of Awesome and Nightmare Fuel.
• Apparently she's traded up the aforementioned Badger Gun.

Other

• Y.T. puts the fear of God into a certain vampire hipster.
  • Made even more awesome when the next strip reveals that Y.T. was bluffing and Ezra was still invincible.
• Even Grinner, methodical planner he is, knows that the Princess is several weight classes above himself and his derro minions, and his thorough and informative documents advise them to not engage under any circumstances. He had counters and plans in place to outsmart and corner every other associate and member of the gang, but his only piece of advice when it comes to the Princess? Run or Die.
• Mimic teaches Grinner not to tempt fate.
• WHUMP WHOMP WHUMP WHOMP WHUMP WHOMP WHUMP WHOMP WHUMP WHOMP WHUMP WHOMP
• Dirk Dogan doing an Unflinching Walk after luring a troll into a saw blade trap.
• Without breaking her leaning on the wall, Dorilys takes out a troll with a convenient upside-down cake and a judicious kick.
• After spending most of the matches self-centered on his own way of trying to brute force his way through the challenges, Robespierre comes back with a new mindset. A new, cunningly dangerous mindset.
• After learning that the enemy is not alive and therefor excluded from his vow of pacifism, Derek the Cleric joins the fray.
  Derek: I was wondering if you guys were living creatures or not. (Summons Planar Ally) That certainly simplifies things.
• By the time the party arrives at Deep Seattle, Hortzak is wearing an Eyepatch of Power. A flashback later shows that the Princess is the one who took his eye out when she established her reputation as Captain Ragnar "Nuff" Ruffenuff by beating up some of the inhabitants.
• Hortzak is beating down Mimic, when he opens his mouth and out pops Anti-Madeline with a flamethrower, which torches Hortzak. The flamethrower doesn't particularly hurt him - but it lights all the dynamite he was carrying.
  Hortzak: Nice try, tiny. Nothin' you got really poses a threat to me.
  Anti-Madeline: Mm-hm. Mm-hm. So, those new X-3 models came in, right?
  Hortzak: Are you... tryin' to buy dynamite from me now?
  Anti-Madeline: No, but you usually carry free samples.
  Hortzak realizes what she's done right before the dynamite explodes.
• The gang has retrieved the Belt of Genre-Changing, but Tarta has escaped them. So they flush her out of hiding by changing the genre to Critical Missives.
  • After the genre is changed back to normal, Tarta gets her hands on the belt again in the midst of fighting and threatens to use it again. Except, she's not holding the Belt of Genre-Changing at all - Mimic disguised himself as the Belt of Genre-Changing, and wraps himself tightly around her, leaving her bound and helpless when the Princess clocks her.
    Mimic: I might no' be a detective anymore, but I still know how t' wrap up a case! Book 'er!
• The White Knight actually gets the upper hand on the derro infiltrators' henchman Blood Bath when they infiltrate the castle through the basement. If Doctor Grawlf hadn't betrayed him due to being infected with the fungus and working with the derros, he might have won. Even after being brought back by being infected with the fungus himself, he relishes at the chance to get another shot at the brutish derro.
• Stabs is introduced as some random character who gets inadvertently abandoned in a monster-filled dungeon, with the implication that she's in serious trouble and about to get killed. At the very end of the level, it cuts back to her, now surrounded by knife-filled monster corpses.