Koreth leaves Gaigin and Chit to deal with the less wounded assassin. His eyes lock on the only assassin at this end of the street without an opponent. He strides arrogantly over towards the man, careful not to give Gaigin's other opponent an easy way to attack his back. He flashes his blood-smeared sword before him, in a mock salute. A feral grin spreads across his face and he lashes out with his sword, bringing it down in a lazy arc. His sword digs deep into the already wounded assassin's shoulder. The assassin tries vainly to scream, but no sound escapes his throat. Koreth fiercely pulls his sword from the man's shoulder, tearing the wound wider with his psionically enhanced strength. The man's bone sword falls harmlessly to the blood soaked street and his body silently follows after.

At this point Chit-Zik is bleeding, hurting, and having some difficulty keeping up the fight. He looks around, seeing a hazy, swaying battlefield. With some effort, he takes a wobbly stance next to Gaigin, ready to fight be his side, rather then having both on their own.

Breathing heavily behind his frightening mask, Gaigin keeps his axe steady in front of him, wary of the swordsman, who seemed more skilled than Gaigin had at first supposed. Still, with Koreth at the man's flank, and Chit well in position, Gaigin was not worried. Deciding quickly on a course of action, Gaigin moved quickly, side-stepping to his left and swinging his axe in a viscous arc, trying to cut the man again on his side. Not waiting for the results of his blow to register, Gaigin immediately flips the axe up and swings down hard, aiming for the now unprotected shoulder once more. A meaty thud rewards Gaigin as he sinks his serrated edge halfway through splitting the man's collarbone.

The kreen follows the pack leader and stabs low with his gythka half-burying it into the man's gut. The man doubles over in pain just as the kreen mandibles close on his neck. A bone crunching sound is heard and Chit pulls back his head, his mouth dripping a gory red.

Satisfied at the results of the maneuver, Gaigin grins at Koreth, then turns back to the street behind him. Aryus was almost out of the fight, Elric was nowhere to be seen, and the damned Elf was standing motionless on the rooftop. Moving quickly, Gaigin begins to run hoping to help Aryus before it was too late, while shouting:

"Zik, get the Damned Elf, Tak may not be able to hold him long!" It took a few moments for the kreen to understand the warrior but, once his battle lust cleared, he started running towards the rest of the pack; he was already catching up to the human warriors with his astonishing speed.

As he runs, Gaigin flicks his axe into his left hand and draws his hardwood club with the right...the club could be thrown if it came to it, though Gaigin doubted much would come of it.

Koreth quickly ran towards Tak, Elric and the rest of the battle. He positions his shield before him to protect him as he rushes in. He seeks out his most desperate companion and wants to move and engage his opponent from behind or to the side.

OTHER END OF THE STREET

Aryus screams in pain as the warrior's blade lodges on the side of his neck. Hot blood gushed forth from his wound; his legs began to feel weak. But this was not the time for weakness. Another warrior was quickly approaching him, a murderous glint in his eyes.

Aryus quickly pushes the corpse of the warrior off of him and tries to dislodge the sword on his neck. He then tightly grabs on to his spear and brace for impact. This was the best he could do now, his bow lay on the ground and the pain prevented him from concentrating on magic.

The odds were better, but still bad. Three of the assassins had fallen, but Elric had as well, and Aryus was dangerously close. Seeing the bloodied warrior in front of him charging a mortally wounded Aryus, Tak’ started running, gathering speed, holding his carved spear in front of him. Covering the ground quickly, and with surprising silence, Tak’ gathered his spear, coiled his muscles, and lunged.

The warrior reacted just in time. Tak’, his momentum committed to his forward thrust, was forced to dive to his left, avoiding the slashing sword of his opponent. The halfling and his opponent eyed each other, spear versus sword, forest warrior versus city assassin. With a halfling warcry and primal grunt, the battle continued.

Taking advantage of Tak's distraction, Ayrus gathered up courage and made a sudden lunge with his spear, hoping to run the weapon through his enemy with a surprise attack. His attack meets with success as his bone spear pierces the warrior adding new blood to his cerulean cloak.

Aryus slowly backs away from the warrior, hoping to stay out of the way of his deadly sword.

As if being surrounded by two warriors was not enough, the wounded man heard the noise coming from the street. Two human fighters and a kreen were coming at him at full speed; each one bloodied than the next. The man raised his head and looked at his helpless elf master and then broke. He maneuvered himself into a clear position and made a run for it. Ayrus simply praised the lords as he left and Tak quickly looked towards the elf psionicist.

Koreth wipes his sword off on one of the dead assassins and slides it into his sheath with a heavy thunk. "Hurry, we must help Elric!" he bellows as he searches about "Where is he?!"

Ayrus cuts in, "He is on the other rooftop, he jumped over but never rejoined the battle. I fear the worst for him." Without waiting for any more answer, the kreen fathomed that a pack member was in danger. Chit takes a running start and jumps up hoping not to injure the half-elf on his landing. He picks up the bleeding half-elf and quickly brings him back down. The druid prays to that he is not too late as he begins casting a spell. The mandibles barely move and the four arms gesture in flowing circles as the kreen completes his spell.

Elric's wounds stop bleeding and the previously unconscious warlock opens up his eyes. Instantly, he remembers the battle and tries to get up. His whole body groans in pain and he crumbles to the ground once again. Gaigin flips back his mask and states, "Easy there fellow. Take it easy You did well." Elric smiles weakly and, in between gasps, adds, "How did…we all do…?" The experienced warrior looks around at all his battered and bruised companions and smiles, "we all did…really well. Rest, It is over for now…"

Your actions…

OUT OF CHARACTER

HEALTH STATUS

Remember the scale:

Healthy (H) 100% hitpoints remaining

Slightly Wounded (SiW) 75% to 100% hitpoints remaining

Wounded (W) 50% to 75% hitpoints remaining

Seriously Wounded (SeW) 25% to 50% hitpoints remaining

Mortally Wounded (MW) 0% to 25% hitpoints remaining

Gaigin (W)

Koreth (SiW) (SeW for PSP)

Chit (SeW)

Elric (MW), mind breached

Elric's body will not accept any more magical healing until it gets at least a 12-hour "real" (not even traveling) rest

Tak (SiW) (MW for PSP)

Ayrus (MW)

Ayrus will be played as an NPC for 3 weeks by me so don't expect a post from him.

POSTS

In your posts, I need to know your immediate actions following the battle and what you will do after the battle (i.e. for the rest of the day). Unless something funny happens, the next turn will see you guys traveling West but… you are in control. Don't forget about your equipment list, please.

TALK?

I can think of one other thing to make this game even better. It would be great if you could talk to each other a bit more. I realize it is hard since it would mean that you have to post more than once per turn but it may be worthwhile. It is up to you guys to try if you want to. We (you) did some of this in past turns already: remember the introductions where one player took after another left off and the "bribe" where I (as the dwarven templar) cut in and you guys continued. I think the results were phenomenal but it does take some work. I will leave it up to you to do if you think it is worth it. Mind you that these subsequent posts don't have to be as long as your first post (unless you want to). I will be "accepting" one-line posts for answers and talk but I still want at least one long post from you guys per turn. Let me have everyone's thoughts on this, please.

EXPERIENCE POINTS AWARDS

I have broken this first adventure into three parts. The first one (Tyr) is over. The way I calculate experience points is that a "normal" character gains at least enough XP to go up 1 level per adventure. The average character in our party is single classed 4^th level, so the XPs to be given out are around 10,000 for the whole adventure. I, then, break out the parts in different situations that for this first part were: introductions at the plaza, the bribe, street thugs, council hall, on the streets, and assassins. I then give out group experience points and individual points. I do not give out specific points to psionicist for psionic usage, spell casters for spells, etc. It gets really messy (for me anyway) if I start doing that. The individual awards take that into account as well as other roleplaying.

Here are the awards for this first part:

Ayrus 2900

Chit 2350

Elric 2900

Gaigin 2900

Koreth 2900

Tak' 3000

Please remember that multiclassed characters have to split that up into both classes.

If anyone has gone up a level, let me know and we will adjust.

If you have any comments or want to discuss the method of awarding XPs please do so as it would probably help me clear it up in my head as well.

Questions, comments, and suggestions please.

L8r,

Fabian