Oh...get this. I found out that the village is largely made up of Lathanderites and they "lost" their cleric a couple/several weeks ago. The church of Pangrus here in Tharp isn't so much the only organized religious group here in town as they are the most oppourtunistic. Those ^%^! little bastards moved into the Temple of Lathander the moment the cleric skipped town. Screw having services at the tower, we're taking our Church back. I've informed Rumble to gather up the other Lathanderites next holy day for a service at the village well. Right after that we're heading over to our Temple. If the Pangrites are good about the whole thing and turn over our holy ground I'm willing to allow them continued use, otherwise we're taking it back by force. Lathander can tolerate sharing (and a religious community is a healthy community, as a general rule), but he'll be damned if he'll just give his home without a fight!
Sorry about the tangent there....religious fervor and all.
Anyway, we got a brief rundown of the town and everybody wanted to immediately head off to the school and see about this "reduced" training we were offered. I think I'm not the only one ready to increase my abilities/responsibilities. Eddie's wife (Snowball....Snowstorm....snow what, she really wears the pants in that relationship) tells him he can't go to the school with us because he has to finish packing or something (I wasn't really paying attention). Eddie writes us a letter of introduction and off we go to the "school", which we find out is some sort of gatehouse about 5 miles outside of Tharp.
Evidently several weeks ago some adventurers came through and cleaned out the gatehouse of some sort of monster infestation. A trio of elves came in and started re-building the place with the intent of building a school. So.....we have a handshake of a deal that gives us an alleged discount on a school that doesn't exists yet? Did I get that right?
As we approach the school we find an elven trio out in the middle of the road. One is on the ground, probably injured, and the other two are standing over him/her/it. I try my best greeting in elven, but I probably flubbed it. Luckily Ellie, my elven instructor, was with us and she started discussing things with the two who were standing. I clearly heard the word "cleric", so I proudly displayed my holy symbol and repeated the word "cleric". After some more translated discussion I was allowed access to the elf on the ground who had a broken arm and some terrible gashes. Fortunately Lathander saw fit to grant me access to the Mend Limb spell (without having to spellburn for it) and I was able to properly tend the wounded elf's wounds.
Evidently the gatehouse restoration is far from complete and there are several places where the walls are still in ruin. Something has been stirring up the local bugbears (uh...Eddie and his little "test" no doubt) and a group of them just walked right into the gatehouse. We know there are at least 6 because that's how many burst into the wounded elf's room and roughed him up.
I was 110% all in favor of routing the Bugbears, but Samson (and maybe Jorlan) wanted to negotiate for some schooling before hand (uh...where at guys?). Jorlan used a magic ring to
become invisible and scampered off to check things out. When he got back he said he could see a couple of sleeping Bugbears in one room. I asked him to draw a map of what he saw and we got the elves to give it a once-over to check it for accuracy and give a few pointers. Our fighter-types devised a plan and off we went.....We followed the moat around on the inside (between it and the gatehouse) to a ruined corner. Jorlan went invisible again and slipped inside, but the sleeping Bugbears weren't there. Next thing we know, there are Bugbears coming out of the ruined corner and then there are Bugbears attacking from behind! Ginsu and Samson take care of the ones popping out from within and I cast Command at a Bugbear to "dive" into the moat. The spell doesn't work, so I think they don't know how to speak common. Together the rest of the party takes care of the Bugbears we know of and we know there are more coming. I cast the Curse spell Lathander gave me, but I don't know if I got anything out of it. Casting that spell and then working my way inside the gatehouse took some time and by the time I got there, a full-on fray was in progress. The group closest to me consisted of Samson & Ginsu against a couple of Bugbears. Jorlan was all over the place popping in and out of invisibility to backstab the Bugbears. Ellie was across the courtyard getting pounded by another Bugbear (or two....fog of war keeps me from getting the count perfectly accurate).
What happened next was amazing. Samson hurled his axe across the courtyard and simply obliterated one of the Bugbears attacking Ellie. Between Ginzu, Samson, and Jorlan they down one Bugbear and get another close enough to death that I can finish him off. While all of our attention is on our opponents, Ellie is cut down....
Ginzu and I rush over to her and another Bugbear steps out to do us harm. I yell at Ginzu to "plug up the hole" so I can try to bring Ellie back from the brink of death....she was mere seconds away from passing on. It took a couple of cures and a Mend Tendon to get her up and out of harm's way, but with Ginzu providing support, I had all the time I needed.
The battle was over for now and a few more cures spread out to the party took care of most all of our damage. At this point we have one room and the courtyard cleared...and the room could have been re-occupied already.
This will be interesting.....
