GM commentary -- looks good to us spirits!
Experience has been calculated. Everyone on the expedition except Noku goes up! (And Noku didn't expect to anyways.) Thanks to good role-playing on everyone's part, especially in the form of things like the gift to the Abbess of Waterstone Temple, everyone staying in character pretty well, and such, the story awards and role-playing bonus combined managed to let Gorvak just squeak by, others made it by a larger margin.
So -- Noku remains at 3rd level, and is joined there by Zazu, who gets to pick a feat, gain a rogue level, allocate a lot of skill points... (And Kit is still in the background somewhere, gradually accumulating her own experiences, but is still ECL 3, character level 2.)
Everyone else makes it to 4th level. The really cool thing about 4th character level is you get to add +1 to one ability score. I already known Mulan intends to increase her DEX, for improved archery and AC purposes, while Zenako will certainly be improving her STR, becoming seriously more dangerous with both katana and daikyu! Basically, the idea is add one to an odd-numbered ability score so that the bonus from that score goes up by 1 as well...
Then pick a class to advance in, work on those BAB and saving throw increases, special abilities gained, skill point allocations, and don't forget to update ALL things affected by an ability score increase -- whether combat stats, skill modifiers, spell DC and bonus spell info, etc. Most of the work can be done at home, if you guys have any questions just ask. Hit die rolling needs to be witnessed, of course.
Congratulations, everyone, now things start to get interesting!
-- Ernie III