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A snap echoed, and what had been a frenzied din was silenced. Plira dropped, and looked up at the frozen eyes of Gragnok. Behind him, holding his neck at a horrifically awkward angle, stood Flir, obviously thinking about how they were getting out. She held the gaze of the assembled soldiers, in a manner that reminded Plira of a myth she'd heard. When cornered, it was said, a rabbit could stare at a snake's eyes, to freeze it with fascination. But the moment the rabbit blinked, the snake would strike. In this case, the blink came at the moment Flir dropped the dead warlord.

Flir kicked over the table, and set fire to it for good measure. Smoke made Plira's eyes water, and she stumbled towards a memorised exit as quickly as possible. Danio was waiting, and gestured towards a small window while squinting through the smoke for Flir. He saw her bouncing off a wall to elude the hoard of gritted teeth that followed her. She recognized Danio, and dived under a table, setting it on fire as she went. With an impressive leap, she landed on the windowsill, before executing a beautiful spiralling manoeveur out. She headed over to the lake, and took a swan dive down, just as a few fireballs and rocks flew at her. The horde crowded around the lake, and held for a moment. They crouched for a minute, waiting for the assassin to surface. Eventually, a paticularily loyal brawler dived in with a challenging roar. He surfaced, and after a gasp muttered out that the assassin was absent. A few more rogues dived in disbelieving, but surfaced with the same result. Eventually, they resolved that the assassin had simply escaped the pond without being seen, and they dispersed to find her. Eventually, they gave up, and a funeral was arranged. Only sixteen of the ten dozen soldiers attended.

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Just thought I'd put up my personal scoring system, which I'll be using when critiquing all your stories. All out of ten.

1 - Basically spam with what some may describe as a plotline. Clichés to the point of plagarising off everyone, idiotic plotline. Save your brain and leave it alone.

2 - Awful, barely recognizable as a story. Storyline is either boring or clichéd. Spelling and grammar likely to be terrible. May make you weep for the future of literature.

3 - Bad, and thoroughly unenjoyable. Storyline is silly, characters feel unnatural. Badly thought through. What you tend to get from first attempts at fan-ficiton.

4 - Pretty bad, but may have it's merits. Storyline likely to be understandable but not much else, characters are probably boring and stereotypical. This tends to be the average level for fan-fiction, depressingly.

5 - Decent, and perhaps even enjoyable in places. Storyline won't be interesting, but you won't be bored out of your mind either. Characters make sense, and you might even find an original and likeable part of the story.

6 - Not bad, and somthing definitely worth reading. Characters will stay true to their personalities, and the storyline will feel neat. Authors at this level may well be worth watching.

7 - Actually pretty good. A basic, but interesting storyline, moderately inventive characters. There's a lot to like from this level of story, but they may also suffer from severe weaknesses, such as an aimless nature, or clichéd beginnings.

8 - Applaudable, with an original storyline, very likeable and diverse characters, and barely a hint of cliché to be seen. Very enjoyable, and you may find yourself losing time to such a story.

9 - Brilliant, with intriguing characters, and quite possibly parralel storylines that actually work well. A shining gem in the sea of grubby pebbles that is fan-fiction.

10 - Publish-worthy, with brilliance scattered around like chicken-feed. Authors at this standard are worthy of worship.

He was a fairly old one, scars badly covered up with some kind of cosmetic. She twitched lightly, unconsiously. This man could, with two words, have her lying dead on the floor. If this was some kind of thrill to the others, she really worried about their sanities. But in the end, what is done, is done, and what will be done, will be done, by definition. There was no point trying to change it. So Plira, in a daze of faulty logic, made her way to the head of the table.

She felt almost frozen as she felt a sleepy hand pass over her head into the basket. It emerged, making her weight noticeably lighter. He'd taken some meat. Now, hopefully, if all went to plan, she wou-

"Slave! What filth is you serving Grugnak! Pathetic excuse for food is what it is!" The target lunged and grabbed her by the throat. "Now, I bet I could get much better meat from yous." he murmured slyly as she struggled for air. "Let's be getting to work..."

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OMG Cliffhanger!

Yeah, in my opinion, cliffhangers don't work as well as they're worth. But I suppose I might as well throw a few spin balls to you lot.

The unfortunate truth of politics is that everyone is used by everyone else, but somewhere, there are people who use others a lot more than they are used. These are not the leaders. They are the grand viziers, the chacellors, and sometimes the "Concerned Citizens".

But when a leader is taken out of the equation suddenly, there is a power struggle, as everyone lunges for the crumbs...

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A little bit of background there. Boring perhaps, but useful as a scene setter.

Still a good story, keep it going I want to see more.

The term "double helix" is commonly encountered in molecular biology, where it refers to the structure of DNA. The double-helix model of DNA structure was first published in the journal Nature by James D. Watson and Francis Crick in 1953, based upon the crucial X-ray diffraction image of DNA from Rosalind Franklin in 1952 , followed by her more clarified DNA image with Raymond Gosling, Maurice Wilkins, Alexander Stokes and Herbert Wilson, as well as base-pairing chemical and biochemical information by Erwin Chargaff

I see you have an interest in science

"The depressing thing is that I don't even have to bother asking." Rarpe muttered as he entered.
Flir grimaced and tried to explain, "Sinque brought her back, she found her in the forest and she's from that village that was burned, and, well, we thought she might be useful." Flir hated being the one held responsible.
"I really couldn't care less. But I doubt a child is going to be able to help. And I don't want to have to spend on some girl Sinque felt sorry for. You realise we now no longer have our provisions allowance? We'll have to start working for food." Rarpe didn't even bother making eye contact with Plira, but she noticed bandages lining his right arm. "Anyway, I've got a lot to talk to you guys about. A lot's been happening. We've got a good month or two of work ahead of us."

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Dramatic interval!!!

Heh, I think I'll introduce one other into the club.

Plira was sure it was a dream. It wasn't normal to have your family murdered and your entire world wiper out in a single evening. And it wasn't normal to be following some freak through a forest. It had to be a dream. But then again, you never knew in a dream. Never. It didn't make any sense. They were approaching a door. It looked overgrown with vines. The strange dragon walked past it ignoring it, but Plira was curious she lifted a paw to push the door, when suddenly there was one of the freak's warning whistles. Plira looked at her, she shook her head. That was enough. She would not be treated like a child anymore. She defiantly shoved at the door, and felt an impact in her side. She was flung to her right, and when she looked up, the dragon was getting up with a scolding look. "What's your problem! What's with the-" Then she noticed a quivering arrow, lodged in a tree. THe dragon watched as she realised what had happened. "I'm sorry..."
The dragon gave a sighing whistle and moved on, round the door and stood neara slope with a sharp, beckoning whistle. Plira slunk over, blushing slightly from her own impudence. The dragon pushed at the slope, which fell away. It was a makeshift trapdoor, it seemed. The dragon nodded, and hovered down to the passage below, lit by the waving flame of an old torch. Her whistling tune echoed through the caverns.

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That was fun. I really like the whistling idea, I don't know why, but it seemed like something Sinque would do.

In case you're confused, I do parts with different characters, in a sort-of Terry Pratchett style. Except without the brilliance and humour. Whenever I do this:

A double line, it means I've switched characters. I sincerely hope you all had that figured out already. It's just worrying if you hadn't.