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Tom the adventurer tries to get up, rolls a 7, and succeeds as this is lower than his combined stamina and strength values. He feels a splitting headache, however, and will deduct 1 from Strength, 2 from Dexterity, 1 from Stamina and 4 from Intelligence for the rest of the day until he manages to cure it.

He walks toward his group, who have meanwhile slain the ogre that hit Tom on the head with his club (+2 ?3) [2d8+5], knocking him out (on a roll of 2-4 on d6) rather than instantaneously killing him (1 on d6). Since Tom was not conscious when the ogre was slain, he does not get full experience benefit, but he receives 25% for being conscious for 50% of the rounds, plus 30% for causing 45% of the wounds that slew the ogre. Out of 235 exp points ? as the ogre was aged 28 years and had a strength bonus as well as good armor ? that equals 129 points. Tom advances to Level 13 (receiving the standard curse of ?5 to Luck that will abate upon reaching Level 14), and improves his Stamina by +2. His Sword Skill automatically increases by +3, and he decides to allot the rest of his points into an additional +2 for the Sword skill, lifting it to 26.

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Tom: *Tom gets up* Ow, my head. *rubs his head, which is hurting badly*

*walks toward his group.*

Other adventurer: *wipes sword clean* We've killed the thing. *points at dead ogre lying on ground.*

Tom: *still holding his head* Good. That beast gave me quite a headache. Well, at least I learned a few things about fighting with a sword. *makes a few practice moves.*

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Ouch.

Tom woke, and wished he hadn't. He attempted to get past the clouds of red pain in his brain and into his memories of the last few minutes, and succeeded after a few moments of struggling. There'd been an ogre, and from the enourmous flaming sphere of lava that seemed to be firmly attached to his shoulders in place of a head, he assumed it must have flattened his skull with its enormous club.

After a few moments of colorful lights swirling before his eyes, the mists cleared partly, and he could make out a fellow adventurer looking down at him in concern.

"I'm... all right...", he managed to mumble indistinctly. The words hurt in his ears and jaw as they left his mouth.

"You bet," was the other one's sarcastic remark.

[...]

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And in case anybody hasn't noticed, all that bombing we've done in Afghanistan has resulted in a noticeable increase in freedom and human happiness there, too -- without making the Afghani people change their religion or bow down to our flag.

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Commander Nepald Londar was not going to allow these troglodytes to take control of the Empire, however. A tactical genius, he began a long series of staged battles that weakened the troglodytes' tenuous hold on the land. But they were not going to go down without a fight. They struck fast and hard and with magic, and Londar had no answer for the spells. But one night in 384 IE, Londar's men constructed catapults and readied for a complete assault against the Solaran mines. Crashing down came the barricades and defenses that the troglodytes had erected, and infantry secured the inner passageways of the mines. Sealing off the troglodytes from their original base of operations took away their reinforcements and supplies, and they fell quickly. Two years later, the soldiers bloody from their defense of the mines, burst through into troglodyte territory and razed several villages to the ground. With more troops pouring through every day, Londar oversaw the systematic hunting down and eradication of the last of Pralgrad's intelligent non-human species.

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