STREET FIGHT

‘Little Kirre’ as Tak’ called him, the leader of the beggar tribe was distraught, a state apart from the brash, confident youngster full of mischief and trickery that he usually was. Something was more than troubling him - the tribe was in danger.

Walking silently in the direction indicated, Tak’ readied his spear, the feathers and runes carved on the head distinctly out of place in this squalid, urban environment. But Tak’ was not out of place. He was on the hunt. A blood hunt to protect his tribe and nothing would deter him.

Gaigin's eyes widen as he surveys the scene. His face hardens, his eyes go grim and narrow. With one hand, he rests his long spear against the wall of the alley, his other hand draws the hard-wood club at his belt.

Gaigin moves forward quickly, lashing out at the first thug within reach, a brute of a man who quickly pulled out his own bone club. Gaigin ducks a clumsy downward swing and strikes a backhand blow that catches the man on the side of head; a smashed ear a solemn reminder of where the hard-wood club had hit. Gaigin seems possessed as he yells, "Cowards! Fools! You can beat and steal from women and children and old men, all starving! See if you can fight a real man, face me!"

Koreth's blue eyes grow dark as he views the scene, his anger growing with each passing second. He draws his bastard sword, holding it with both hands. An almost feral grin draws across his face, "Flee in fear brigands! Flee for your lives before I split you end to end!" He flashes his sword menacingly, and then launches himself into a charge.

The brigand was taken back by Koreth's fury as the brawny warrior slammed into him, knocking him into the alley wall and sending him spinning to the ground.

Koreth spits upon the face of the fallen thief, laughing at him. Wary of a counter attack, he dances back a few paces, keeping from knife range.

Koreth steps in quickly, bringing his sword down hard on the brigand. A streak of pale white whistles through the air to end with a wet smack and a spray of hot blood. The thief screams at the large gash in his shoulder, gripping it with one of his filthy hands and falling back against the wall. He curses Koreth, but the warrior shrugs it off.

The brawny thief charges back at Koreth who is unable to completely dodge the weak knife lunge, the knife slices the warrior at the hip and draws blood. Koreth curses himself and promises never to go around Tyr without his armor on again. He lifts his bastard sword again and grins at the terrified thief.

Elric quickly scans the alleyway as Gaigin charges down it. With a soft whisper his swords appear in his hands, a look of outrage on his face. Using his quickness and agility to good measure Elric charges down the alley, silent as a hunting cat in search of prey. Having not hunted with his new comrades, he keeps his head low in case some choose thrown weapons.

The half-elf warrior is paired off with a large mul wielding a spiked club. Elric sizes up his opponent and goes in for the kill swinging both short swords. The mul dodges the first attack and the second sword hits the front of his carru hide armor. The thief brings down his heavy club and Elric is not quick enough to completely avoid the spiked weapon. The weapons catches the half-elf on his left arm and Elric issues a gasp of pain; a blue-black mark already showing on his tan skin.

When the halfling reached the corner, he noticed threats. Large men, preying on the defenseless. Tyr did not feed its own. But not protecting its own was too much. Gaigin, Elric and Koreth were already fighting. They were warriors as well, Tak’ had some time to coordinate a strategy.

Reaching deep into his mind, trying to reach his nexus, Tak’ sought to turn his body into a vessel, and let his Will fill it. The life-affirming feeling of seizing Will coursed through him, and Tak’, concentrating intently, set about strengthening muscle, opening adrenaline glands and reinforcing his body with his Will.

The shouts and screams from around the street corner alerted Aryus' senses. Something was amiss, the air was not the way it should be. As he and his companions round the corner, they find the scene of the street bullies before him, Aryus confirmed his fears. Something was amiss.

His companions charged forward, anger by the abuse shown to the poor people of Tyr by a couple of street toughs. When Aryus first saw the scene with the ugly human, clubbing the man to death, the half warrior attacking innocent children, it invoked bitter memories within him. He was reminded of the scene outside the walls of Urik when fierce soldiers murdered hundreds of innocents. Those faces, the horror; Aryus swore to the wind that such a thing shall never plague the air of Athas again. But now it was happening.

Enraged, Aryus quickly scanned the scene once more; his eyes finally resting on the ugly half shaven human warrior who had just clubbed the man. For some reason, he reminded Aryus of an Urikite soldier.

Aryus yells as loud as he can, very rare for a calm person like him, towards the man, loud enough for all to hear. "You! You have violated the spirits of the winds! You have taken another's life! You have robbed their freedom! For that you do not deserve the pleasure of air in your body!"

With that Aryus closes his eyes and conjures up the power of his patron element. He casts a spell at the warrior so that air will not be polluted by his foul body. The man gasps for air as he brings his filthy hands up and grabs his neck; his face already turning red.

The kreen suddenly realizes that his pack is in danger. He scans the low roof tops looking for one sturdy enough to hold his weight. He moves forward with blinding speed, picks up the sobbing child and jumps on top of a shack. The roof gives in a little but is able to withstand the large kreen. The hunt now on, Chit-Zik raises his antenna and peers nervously at anything that moves. He watches his companions for any sign of trouble. Unlike the others, Zik is silent as he fights, not wanting his prey to track his movements easily. The mantis warrior puts down the now thoroughly amazed child and sets himself about to pick out the thieves with his crystal chatkchas. In a blind flurry of claws, two of the missile weapons find themselves at the end of three fingered claws ready to be thrown.

ROUND 2

You hear screams and yells from the back of the alley. Four more thugs come at you as three more jump the back fence and join their comrades. Two of the thugs go to help out the man who was clobbered on the side of the head by Gaigin while two more help out the wounded thief fighting Koreth. One of them races past everyone and joins his friend; both of them start to charge at the halfling warrior with a spear in his hand. The other two left, get together with the large mul trying to make an easy kill of the half-elf with the two swords. Their leader, a huge man raises his two-handed datchi club over his head and yells, "Ye gonna be sorry ye ever set foot on this part of the city, Get them rats, pluckings will be a lot richer than these poor scums!"

Gaigin finds himself in the back end of the alley surrounded by three wiry thieves. He swings his club for a head-splitting blow to end the life of his wounded opponent who ducks at the last moment. Two other thieves are on the warrior immediately swinging clubs and lounging knives all at once. Gaigin is lucky enough to escape untouched from the melee; almost… he grins as warm blood trickles down his left arm from a dirty knife wound. The elf thief shows the warrior the bloodied knife taunting him with it, "Next time, it'll be in yer throat, guard scum!"

Koreth glances about at his companions, judging their prowess. His eyes quickly slide back to his opponent, who launches himself with knife in hand. Koreth swings his sword in a wide arc, catching the brigand across the chest. The thief stumbles from the attack, his momentum sending him crashing into the street. He quickly gets up, stabs Koreth just in time as the warrior skewers him through the gut. The thief slowly slides off the bastard sword; his body already motionless as it hits the ground. Koreth's two other opponents are all over him. The warrior raises his bloody sword in a futile defense but not in time to avoid the blows. The two thieves hit glancing blows with their clubs, the wounded hero adds two more bruises to his knife wound.

Elric is not fairing very well in the fight. He is already wounded when the leader of the thugs approaches him with another thug to finish him off. The half-elf bites hard and jaw muscles stand out, he's been in worst situation than this and a few street punks are not going to kill him, at least not without a fight. A whistling sound is heard followed by a scream as the newly arrived punk grabs his collar bone. A second whistling sound is heard and this time the punk falls down dead; the killing chatkcha protruding from his throat already turning crimson for the gushing life blood.

Elric raises his head to the roof top and nods at his thri-kreen companion; an elated child shouting warnings from under his arm. The half-elf goes into a spinning attack and exchanges blows with the mul. This time his fighting skill is rewarded by subtle gash on the mul's midsection. Unfortunately, the mul also strikes a hit, his spiked club ripping a gory flesh wound on the half-elf's torso. Elric doesn't have time to assess his wound when his warrior's sixth sense make him duck as the leader's datchi club produces another superficial injury on his already beaten body.

Shaking his tribal spear in the air, Tak’ lets out an ear splitting screech, a cry used for centuries in the Forest Ridge, a cry that forebodes death to the enemies of the halflings. Pulling back one arm, Tak’ squints, targeting the thug who just moments before had struck down a defenseless girl.

With unbelievable speed for his small stature, the spear flies the short distance, emitting a strange warbling sound as it quickly closes the distance between the halfling and his foe. Catching the thug high on his left leg, the impact throws him to the ground, where he screams a moment, and sets about pulling 6 inches of spear from his leg; his blood already starting to dry on the hot dusty city streets.

Unfortunately for the halfling hunter, he was not catching one single prey this day. Another thug pulled out a serrated knife and charged the halfling, "Ye son of a cannibal whore, I will teach ye some city manners 'fore the day is thru!" The warrior closes in with Tak who deftly dodges the clumsy blow.

Ayrus smiles and breathes a silent prayer to the air lords for his handy work. He brings forward his bow and quickly knocks an arrow. He pulls back and lets it fly with a whisper. The cleric is rewarded by a meaty thud as the bone tipped arrow pierces deep into the side of the gasping thief. Still, having serious difficulties drawing a breath of air, the thief looks madly about for the wizard that caused this. He charges the strange fellow with a bow in his hand and his cerulean cloak flapping wildly behind him. A second arrow whizzes past his head as he draws knife and lunges at the air cleric. He pulls back the bloodied blade as the cleric surveys a deep gash on his arm.

ROUND 3

Gaigin laughs at the elf's taunt, "Here is me throat, come get it, coward." The warrior side steps the elf's lunge, turning around and facing his hurt companion. The wounded man enraged by the pain swings downward with all his might. Gaigin enters within the man's range and the club strikes empty air leaving the man totally unbalanced. The warrior needed no further invitation as his wooden club raced for the man's face. A dull thud was followed by a spray of blood and teeth as the man crumpled to the dusty floor. Gaigin gasped for air as his other opponent connected with his club to his hard mid-section

Koreth raised his sword in defense as the two thieves circled about him waiting for a moment to strike. The bone sword's dull white surface soiled with blood again sped to its destination. Koreth ducked an overhead club and pushed aside a knife with the sword tip, his backhand swing drew blood again as the man with the knife dropped his weapon and screamed in pain. Fear showed in their faces as they faced the noble warrior and his bloodied sword.

The kreen's mandibles clicked in excitement as his crystal chatchkas felled a warrior. He surveyed the battle field and recognized quickly which packmate needed him most. He carefully laid down the child on top of the roof and told him not to move. He then drew his two gythka polearms and swung them while he clacked away something incoherent to non-kreen ears. He then took two long strides and jumped forward. He leaped close to 20 feet before landing hard on the enemy leader. The man was quick enough to get himself up from the ground, surprise and then fear paraded through his features. The man swung his heavy datchi club at the kreen who took the blow on his hard exoskeleton. The kreen, no worse from the hit, jabbed low with his gythka and swung the other gythka in a high wide arch. The man stepped aside the first blow but caught the other gythka on his shoulder. The kreen pulled back the polearm with a bloody end and again his mandibles clacked an incomprehensible battle cry.

Elric was as much surprised as his opponents were when the kreen landed by his side. He was, however, quicker to recover than the mul. He feinted low and swung his other sword high overhead connecting to the collar bone on the side of the mul's neck. When the mul lifted his guard, Elric swung his other sword in a low arc at his opponent's exposed mid-section. The mul slowly kneeled on the street; a blank look on his face as his entrails slowly poured out on the ground. Elric was now momentarily free of opponents but badly wounded; his eyes slowly reminded him of companions who were still outnumbered.

Whipping out his two Sloth-tooth daggers, as dangerous as they were in the maw of the savage beast, Tak charges forward, his usually stealthy approach discarded in favor of noise, intimidation and impact. Facing the two warriors who were to engage him, Tak spins through a bewildering array of attacking maneuvers, using his size to his advantage -rolling low to avoid blows, and stabbing out at his opponents unprotected legs, trying to cut tendon and sinew to bring his opponent screaming and crippled to the ground.

Tak manages to score another hit on the wounded warrior, his life blood ebbing from him made him slower than his fellow thief. The downed thief only brought up his club in a defensive maneuver that actually prevented the halfling from dealing the killing blow. The wiry elf with the serrated knife grabbed a hold of Tak and cut the halfling on one of his exposed arms. The halfling looked at his wound and another ear splitting screech was issued forth from his throat.

Ayrus dropped his bows and arrows and brought forth his spear. He set the spear for the charge hoping to impale the large on it. The man charged forth at the cleric and knocked the spear aside before reaching him. Fortunately, his backhand swing was dodged by Ayrus who ducked low out of the man's range.

Your move…

GENERAL

As you will have noticed, I do not like to write in terms of hit points and to hit and those numbers but rest assured that I do keep track of them and I do roll dice.

I will use the following system for telling you how hurt you or your opponents are:

Healthy (H) 75% to 100% hitpoints remaining

Slightly Wounded (SiW) 50% to 75% hitpoints remaining

Wounded (W) 25% to 50% hitpoints remaining

Seriously Wounded (SeW) 0% to 30% hitpoints remaining

To find out how "healthy" you or your opponents are, I will put out a health status every once in a while or whenever it is requested.

Here is the situation at the end of round 3

Gaigin (H) faced by 2 opponents (H, H)

Koreth (SiW) faced by 2 opponets (SiW, H)

Elric (W) alone

Tak (H) faced by 2 opponents (SeW, H)

Chit (H) faced by leader (SiW)

Ayrus (H) faced by opponent (H)