ROUND 3

Grimacing at the searing pain of his ribs, Koreth steps back from the sandhowler impaled on his spear. "Tak! Chit! One of you protect Gaigin! If you slay your beast, double team another! Attack their flanks if you can!" he yells over the din of battle, hoping that they can yet win the day. Koreth forms up with Elric, keeping him to his left and the beast to his right. He gives up his spear, quickly drawing his bastard sword. Keeping his eyes on its feet, he moves in and tries to draw it away from Elric. He keeps his sword in front of him, thrusting it menacingly at the Sandhowler to keep it at bay. His sword
tightly gripped in both hands, he stabs as hard as he can just above the front legs.

Koreth's blade sings through the air, but the Sandhowler dances out of its deadly arc. He curses, "Bloody beast! I'll have your tusks for a trophy." The beast retaliates with snapping jaws and slashing claws. The snout snaps shut on empty air tearing a piece of fabric from the warrior's tunic but one of its sharp claws draws blood on Koreth's upper thigh. The sandhowler's eyes momentarily catch Koreth off guard since it is hard to look away when one is trying to avoid being killed. Koreth is instantly drawn to the depth of the beast's eight eyes and the noble starts slowing down… A nearby scream breaks the spell and Koreth hits himself a couple of times in the head while mumbling, "Don't look at the eyes…don't look at the eyes…"

The warrior again forms up, keeping Elric to his left and his eyes on the monster's feet. Koreth keeps his blade in front of the beast, thrusting it forward menacingly.

Elric dodges to the beast right, keeping his blades ready to parry the viscous tusk. Redirecting his momentum Elric charges to the side of the ferocious creature. Calling on all his speed and strength, the warlock charges the sandhowler, bringing his deadly blades forward in a powerful thrust.

Elric’s strength and momentum drive his blades deep within the beast rib cage. The sandhowler lets out a wailing roar as its life’s blood pours onto the sands. The predator convulses spilling more blood as Elric pulls his gory bone blades free.

The wind mage was enjoying his deadly game but knew that it would end soon. He waved his arms and yelled once again. When the dumb beast started a charge, the wind mage run the opposite way. They crossed each other and ended up at opposite ends when the beast finally stopped. Ayrus quickly dropped his psionics and as soon as his body fully materialized, he started gathering energy. His body know infused with a different sort of power, the wind mage opened up his hand and released two cerulean bolts. The missiles streaked swiftly at the sandhowler and exploded in his face. The wounded beast merely slumped down with half his head blown away.

The Sandhowlers were among the party, their long tusks and sharp teeth flashing in the sun, and their hunting howls echoing eerily across the near-deserted landscape. Gaigin remained motionless seemingly unaware of his surroundings. The halfling hunter acknowledged Ptellac's plea for help. Noting Koreths cry, and Gaigin's predicament, Tak’ acted. Leaping backwards as the Sandholwer, he had already bloodied, grappled with his thri-kreen companion, Tak’ managed to cry out "Chit-Zik! I will return!" before turning and leaping at the beast that threatening to savage the defenseless Gaigin.

Moving as quickly as possible, without his usual war cry, Tak’ hoped to surprise the beast, and secure what advantage he could. Attacking squarely from behind, Tak’ coordinated his two attacks, his twin daggers slicing at the rear hamstrings of the beasts.

One dagger glanced off the thick hide, but the second dagger cut though the hide on the squat legs of the beast, cutting deep, and through muscle and tendon. The Sandhowlers pitch rose dramatically, as it cried out in pain, and sluggishly turned to face the halfling which had crippled him, the leg bleeding profusely, and now a dead weight instead of a once-powerful limb. The beast was far from dead and instinctively turned around. Tak’ didn’t even have time to manage a curse before the Sandhowler viciously thrust it’s tusks at him. The sandhowler caught Tak and ripped a nasty gash on the halfling's arm and a claw left three ugly marks on his thigh. The hunter did not feel his wounds in the heat of battle but these were already covered in blood.

Ptellac breathed a sigh of relief as one of the beasts engaged Tak. The pterran mustered up some courage, grabbed his blade with two hands and stepped forth for a head-splitting swing. The beast met the upward swing with a rush of his own and the bone sword issued a sharp crack as it hit squarely on the beast's armored body. The creature's momentum drove it forward and bowled the pterran over. Two ugly claw wounds managed to make it past his lizak armor and the pterran found himself on his back with the beast on top. Inevitably, their gazes locked and the pterran was lost in those mesmerizing eyes as everything slowed down and the noise of battle slowly faded to nothingness…

As Tak leaves to fight another of these beasts, Chit-Zik realizes he has to try another method of attack, perhaps using the creature's aggressive nature against it. He catches his chatkchas instinctively as they return and puts then away. Then, thinking quickly, he straddles the large beast, facing the rear and positions his claws around the creature's belly, trying to lock it in place. The beast is too large and strong to be held notwithstanding the kreen's speed. It wiggles its way out of the grasp but Chit scores two hits with his claws as he tries to hold onto him. The beast's sharp teeth bite through the mantis' chitin in the exchange of blows.

ROUND 4:

Blinking back the pain of his wounds, Koreth watches the feet of the beast and waves his blade to keep it at bay. He grins and thrusts his blade under the belly of the beast, then brings it up quickly. The Sandhowler jumps quickly away from Koreth's blade, but not far enough. The sword rattles along its scales, but does not injure the beast. Koreth's eyes narrow, staying on the beast's feet.

Koreth grips the hilt of his sword reflexively, watching the beast and keeping it from moving at Elric. He focuses on the left leg and thrusts his sword a few times to keep the beast from him. He dashes in quickly and brings his blade down on the beast's left leg, hoping to injure it badly enough to keep it from using the leg. Koreth's blade smacks into the beast's leg with a meaty thud, blood spatters the sand around it and it howls eerily, as its leg gives out from under it. The beast lets out its final howl as it coughs up some blood, spasms and lies still.

The situation surrounding Tak had become increasingly worse as now Ptellac was as motionless as Gaigin. Seeing that Koreth had his situation well under control, the wounded warlock made a mad rush towards Ptellac kicking the beast from on top of him.

Becoming desperate to be done with this battle, Elric whirls his blades in a deadly pattern lashing out with both short swords simultaneously in a strong downward slash toward the soft eyes of the sandhowler. Elric’s blades are deflected as the sandhowler throws its head down to protect its eyes. The surprised beast lashes out and catches Elric with one of its claws but the small wound was nothing compared to the deadly tusks.

Ayrus quickly joins up with Elric and attacks the beast from behind. He picks his spear not wanting to chance arrows for fear of hitting the warlock. His spear aimed at the beast's back not puncturing its tough scales.

Using his small size to his advantage, Tak’ practiced the techniques halflings had perfected against larger prey, moving laterally to harry flanks and confuse their attacks. But here, the technique had an added advantage, it kept Tak’ for the most part away from the creatures dangerous eyes.

Having learnt a little in the last few moments, Tak flashed out with his daggers again, this time aiming for the neck of the beast, knowing that only there would his short-bladed daggers have a lethal effect. Tak's newfound weapons slices easily into the beast's neck drawing a nasty line in its softer skin; his other dagger flashes on empty air as the sandhowler jumps back trying to bear his gaze on the warrior.

Chit jumped forward and put some distance between himself and his prey. It was not much but was enough for him to let loose his deadly chatkchas. The three pronged blades whistle forth in deadly arcs and strike the beast's head. One of the blades slices through while the second sticks itself in the beast's eyes effectively splitting two of the deadly orbs.

Four of the beast had spilled their life in this early morning and the two remaining sandhowler found themselves surrounded by five able warriors. The dumb beasts still had their survival instinct and hesitated for a moment. All it took was Tak's ululating war cry and Chit waving his four arms for them to scamper off into the hills. After they were out of sight, a frightening howl was heard much like the one that marked the start of this whole battle. Everyone tensed and ears were strained to see if it would be answered; was it possible that more of the beasts lurked nearby? The only answer was a lamenting wail that marked the sandhowler's defeat. If any beasts were indeed nearby, they did not show themselves at this moment.

Within moments, everything was silent once again. None of the herders appeared to thank them or care about if they were injured or not and luckily no other creature was seen. It seemed that they were all alone in this great vast place where only the majestic mountains were witnesses of their prowess and skill. Would the people of Tyr ever hear about the struggles that the heroes faced or would the companions die and be forgotten like so many others? These thoughts were inevitable as the adrenaline died down and their ghastly wounds began to throb with pain.

Both Gaigin and Ptellac moaned and stirred with a curious look on their faces. The harsh sun had surface completely now; the air was calm and already stifling hot, the rocks had already heated up and the only shade to be found was right next to a canyon wall; it was only early morning yet and the day promised to be long…

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

Koreth (SeW)

Elric (SeW)

Ayrus (H), PSP (W)

Ayrus is being played as an NPC for 1 until the end of this week by me so don't expect a post from him.

Chit (SeW)

Tak (SeW), PSP (SeW)

Gaigin (W) Paralyzed

Ptellac (SiW)

IMPORTANT OUT OF CHARACTER

I would like to try something new and see how you like it. It really depends on your response and enjoyment whether we continue with this type of turn or not. I am hoping that we can do this every once in a while.

The situation is the following. Let us say that you (players) will know that from now until the next turn, nothing "important" is going to happen. I can't see a month long trip where you will be fighting or meeting NPCs every day. You will write small introductions to different times of the day and different situations and you will roleplay accordingly (I will roleplay NPCs). The period where nothing "important" will happen for this turn is from now (early morning) to tomorrow at high sun and that is what the next turn will cover.

This time, you will have chance to roleplay the following situations: 1) after the battle with sandhowlers, 2) when you set up camp later on at night, 3) when you break camp in the morning, and 4) while travelling near noon the next day.

Some of you have already done this type of turn (Tak and Chit)'s hunting turns were their own creations where I merely finished them off (results) for them.

If you would like to add other times or places for this period of roleplaying then by all means do so. In the responses, it would be nice for each of you to roleplay most, preferably all, the situations. I don't know, maybe it is too much of a commitment or time consuming (please let me know if that is the case) but let's try it and we will take it from there. I have been rereading the turns and think that some of the better turns are not combat turns but rather the roleplaying turns. How do you feel about that?

Another thing to remember is that this type of turn will probably have a turnaround time of more than the usual three days but the results could well be worth the wait. If I read your intentions correctly, many of you have expressed the desire to develop your characters more in depth and, although fun, combat turns are not really suited for that end so here is your chance.

Without further due, let's get the show going. Remember that we are in rocky badlands and going up the Ringing Mountains. If you have any special ideas for your situation or no ideas at all, you may want to email me and we will figure something out.

Situation Who "sets up the stage"

1) After the sandhowlers I have done that one and it is the end of this turn.

2) Camp at night John (Elric) please have a shot at it.

3) Break up camp in morning Trevor (Koreth) please start that.

4) While traveling near noon Matt (Tak) please take that.

If any of the chosen players have a problem with this, want to exchange turns, etc., then let me know ASAP.

Questions, comments, and suggestions please.

L8r,

Fabian