Just as victory seemed near, with the orc cornered by Thrik, a handful of would-be bounty hunters and the newly arrived goblin, the building staggered once again, abd a very, [i]very[/i] large beast inserted its head through one of its wall and pulled him out of it, after which, in a strange display, it propped up the collapsing ceiling while its master carried out the headless corpse, as well as the now-separate head, which still had somehow not ceased to drool. Now, critically damaged by the brawl and the ensuing interventions, the inn was instants away from crumbling down in the most literal of senses.

There was not a moment to be lost. [color=saddlebrown]"Thrik, out!"[/color] Khri'zhatt commanded. The umber hulk, which had been standing by, more mystified than usual by the disappearance of its prey, seized him more rapidly than it might have been thought possible for it and, swinging him over its head, hurled him outside through where the door had once been, past an ogre - if this was the supposed paladin ogre, Khri'zhatt thought, it certainly did not appear as such, being every inch the malodorous brute with a vacuous expression one would expect an ogre to be. Thrik then continued the arcing motion his forearms had begun until they reached the ground, whereupon, using them as levers, he propelled himself with tremendous strength in his master's wake as the inn crashed down behind him.

Now safely out of danger's reach, Khri'zhatt constated that the pile of rubble which had once been the tavern probably concealed him from the other's eyes, which was just as well. He licked his wound, trusting in his poisonous saliva to coagulate over it soon enough, and tried moving his wounded leg. It was not crippled, but it would surely be quite a pain for the next two weeks or thereabouts. Satisfied with his state, which could, judging by Stride's fate, have been far worse, he crawled to rejoin the rest of the party, followed by Thrik. The orc was seemingly no longer an immediate danger, though his beast surely was something any further plans should have to account for, while the goblin, apparently, could be easily bribed with the promise of shiny things to be as reliable as one of his kin could be safely taken for. [color=saddlebrown]"As our efforts to change the situation have seemingly not been successful"[/color] he addressed what were now supposed to be his "companions", [color=saddlebrown]"The previous issue still stands. Does anyone have any ideas on how we can make the elf, or whatever it is, speak without his head?"[/color]