The militia kick away the defeated Orik's sword and drag him unresisting into the room beyond, allowing Sasha to duck out of harm's way and fall exhausted into Poot's arms, which nearly knocks the little halfing over. While he is overjoyed to see his friend, he knows the fight is not nearly over.

Nualia falls back under Yola's fierce attack. The two women trade powerful blows back and forth. Yola's attacks are fueled by her both her Shoanti rage and Poot's magical encouragement, but Nualia fights back with a super human strength, clearly augmented by her own dark magic. After Yola scores a second telling blow against her, Nualia strikes back with a crippling backhand swipe, and though Yola barely feels the deep wound through the haze of her battle rage, the force of the blow sends her staggering to the side. Nualia seizes the the opportunity to duck inside the northern chamber and slam the door behind her. Still not realizing how badly she has been hurt, Yola slams into the door and yells out in frustration, " Come back here you white haired witch!"

Alpert, Rizzo and Dyer pile into the hallway to assist Yola while the others set about binding Orik. "Uh, boss," Mullroy says. "This guy's still bleeding pretty bad from where Sasha stuck him." As if on cue, Orik's eyes roll up in the back of his head and he passes out.

Things are balanced on a hair! Yola and Nualai each scored two colossal hits against one another, with Yola taking 24 hp in damage! She's got 9 left but 6 of those are temporary and disappear when she stops raging. Your decision now: Pursue Nuaila immediatly, or stop for a few rounds to use the last of Poot's healing magic ( and don't forget that Sasha has two healing potions as well) and maybe get the gates up for Gerund and Seoni. Remember that while Sasha and Yola are dangerously close to 0 HP, every round spent waiting is a round that Nualia and Lyrie could be up to no good on the other side of that door.

Sasha ducks and rolls as Nualia's serrated blade comes slashing down. The nimble rogue manages to squeeze past her new attacker and slip through the doorway behind her. For a brief, perfect moment she finds herself between two foes, both with their backs turned to her. Before her she sees the armored mercenary Orik, battling her young friends, the militia recruits
Sherrif Hemlock brought up from Magnimar. And behind them, she hears a familiar voice, "Come on you great armored ponce! Is that all you've got? My lads mothers fight better than that!"

Poot!

Moving fast, draws her rapier and stabs Orik in the back before the man realizes she's behind him, leaving an ugly bleeding puncture in his lower back. "Poot, Poot! We're here!" She yells out to the halfling.

Orik gasps in surprise and pain and slumps against the doorway, his guard dropping for a moment, the militia see their opportunity and press him. Dyer bats away the bigger man's shield and Alpert delivers a near fatal wound to Orik's stomach. He collapses to the ground, dropping his sword and holding up one hand. "Mercy!" he gasps.

Sasha grins at this victory, but has no time to savour it, as Nualia spins around. Her face is impassive but her eyes blaze with anger as she swings again at Sasha. This time Sasha is the one caught between two foes and she has nowhere to go. Nualia's heavy blade catches her high on the shoulder, cracking bone and severing tendons. Sasha almost blacks out as her left arm hangs limply at her side.

As Sasha fights to stay standing and avoids a backhand swipe from Nualia's red clawed hand, Yola calls out and vaults across the trapped floor. Not as graceful as the roues jump earlier but no less effective, Yola clears the jump easily and charges at Nualia with a fierce cry and an overhand chop. Nualia pivots and parries the blow with her own sword. "Lyrie!" she yells out behind her. "Close the gate...Now!"

Vision still blurry from the beating Sasha gave her, Lyrie finally stumbles into the norther chamber and finds the lever that controls the trapped corridor. She yanks on it and and two heavy gates slam closed in the corridor beyond, sealing the shiny floor section between them and cutting Seoni and Gerund off from their companions. The two statues flanking that section of the hall suddenly drop their glaives into a horizontal position and begin to spin side to side, turning the space between the two gates into a whirling meat grinder.

Gerund curses in a most unpaladin-like way as he slams his shield into the gate in front of him. Seoni steps up and lets fly a pair of magic missiles, their arcane power guiding them through the bars of the gates, around the slicing glaives, over Yola's head and straight into Nualia, who grunts once, but shrugs off the attack quickly.

Sasha took 13HP from Nualia's attack! She's down to only 3 left. Orik is down and begging for quarter, but not out. Nualia is pissed off...