Update from some locals

I have to tell you what I can of a band of heroes that have rescued us from the evil temple.

We were captured by some vile sort of creature and dragged inside the temple. As we crossed the floor on the main level most of us lost consciousness.

I stayed awake, but the pain was so unbearable that it was difficult to keep my eyes open....not that I wanted to as the stink coming off of our captors was just too much.

They chained us in some small sort of jail and pretty much forgot about us. Every once in a while we could hear some creature outside our door. There was lots of terrible wailing and you could hear things scratching to get in where we were. Down in the dark of the temple....I think we were still in the temple....it was hard to tell how much time passed. We were down there so long our hunger came and went, and the sobbing of my fellows was slowly replaced with a realization that we were already dead....dead and dying.

We heard some more commotion and some light appeared under the door to our cell. We thought our captors had returned, but instead this band of heroes burst in. They cut our shackles and fed us. There were 5...no 6 of them. We were freed by a foreign swordsman, an axe-wielding fighter, a holy man of Lathander, an Elven lass, a human who kept disappearing, and another guy who looked more like us, but always had a torch in hand. They wouldn't let us leave, but they did take care of us. The Lathanderite healed some of our wounds. After our saviors had rested some they led us to another room where we were able to arm ourselves somewhat and they lead us out of the place.

For some reason they felt they had to go back into that cursed place. Gawd bless them and protect them from the evils they are surely bound to find.

Come On Guys, It Can't be That bad!

[Author's Note: We are just getting back into the swing of things after a way-too-long summer break. Con and vacation season can mess things up group-wise. I did get to play at the GM Tournament at Origins]

We stopped off at a small berg named Nulb for the night and got rooms at an inn. In the middle of the night I was called away by an unknown force and found myself in a small town with a bunch of strangers. The gawds seemed to have gathered up a group to stop someone who was poisoning the locals. My details are fuzzy, but I really remember following a trail into the woods and coming up on a campsite. Before I knew it I took two arrows to the groin, one of which was quite severe [a level 8 crit!]. The rest of the group wades into battle while I'm writhing on the ground in pain, trying to protect "my boys" from further damage. I managed to draw up my shield to cover myself as much as I could. One of my party members managed to take out the archer, which was fortunate because a huge half-ogre came rushing at me. I was quicker than he was, and one well-timed Befriend spell later, and he wasn't so keen on attacking me. With the nearest threat overcome, I could tell there was some combat and spell-slinging going on around the campfire. I did what I could and once my compatriots finished the battle I healed everyone the best I could.

I recall talking to some dude and then proceding to an arena of some type. The battle we had there was the fierced I've seen. Some of our enemy was invisible and we came darned close to losing. If not for the Pixie Sprite in our group, and lots of healing from Lathander, we'd have been toast. It was very, very rough. In the end I managed to snag some extra Platinum Pieces....freely offerred by one of my party for healing him back up from near death for the fourth or fith time. I also got a nice dagger, an awesome shield [Actually a SNI from the online chapter when it was in full swing], and some magical armor.

Coming back to Nulb was a bit of a shock, but a relief. Getting back up in the morning Ellie, Ginsu, and I noticed Jorlan wasn't around. We left Samson in his room and went adventuring about the town. Lathander had blessed me with a Continual Light spell and I wanted to cast it into a locket so I'd always have a handy light source. Unfortunately it seemed like there were no metalsmiths in this place. We wandered over to a warehouse-looking place that was also a tavern of sorts. Jorlan was inside eating away.....as usual. While Ginsu and Ellie sat down I went to the bar and ordered drinks. I asked the bartender if she knew anyplace in town that sold lockets and she said they had no jewler, but she knew a guy who sold some jewelry. A bit later some traveling salesman dude (pretty fricken big guy) had three lockets for me to look at, and I purchased the best looking of the three.

After that was done and we drank out watered-down beer, Jorlan says he had a meeting with Mother Screng. I had no idea he was from Nulb and I asked how his mother was doing. He seemed reluctant to talk about her, and I had to practically force him to invite her to dinner with us that night. I inquired about the best eatery in the town and was told we were in it, so I told the barkeep I wanted a nice dinner for six at sundown. My top-end for the affair was 5 Platinum Pieces. With everything set, we went back to the inn to gather up Samson and head off to check on the evil temple. While he was gathering up his stuff I asked where Jorlan's mother lived and he finally admitted that the lady wasn't his mother, but her name was "Mother". The locals verified this, much to my chagrin......

Oh well, Mother Screng's house was just down the street...and I already made the arrangements, so I went over and introduced myself and invite her to dinner. That being taken care of, we set off for the temple. After four hours or so we don't find anything and we have to head back to make our dinner date. We get into town around sunset and head straight for the tavern. A table has been all made up and we all take our seat.......well almost all. Jorlan decides to sit at the bar next to some random guy. Samson is called away to help the guy who sold me the locket and soon most of the rest of the patrons belly up to the bar for a drink.

The guy next to Jorlan starts accusing him of trying to steal a necklace from the barkeep. The guys at the bar quickly surround Jorlan and brandish daggers. Ginsu tells the group to back away from Jorlan, who immediately turns invisible. The group moves towards Ginsu and I quickly cast a Command spell on the lead instigator, telling him to "Forgive". As the guy is being very, very apologetic to me, his henchmen surround Ginsu. He tries to disarm one, missing, and then fells the guy in a single blow. This makes everybody back off a bit. Since Jorlan isn't anywhere to be found, and Ginzu is more trouble than they expected, the mob decided caution is the better part of valor and they make for the door. As a show of good faith (pun intended) I was able to bring the downed thug from the brink of death. I told him he should think about Lathander's blessings and reflect on his thuggery ways. The idiot didn't know about Lathander....I might have to work on cleaning up this place some.

After the "excitement" Mother Screng and her daughter join us for a lovely dinner. Jorlan does the right thing and apologizes for trying to steal the locket (he does a lousy job of apologizing) and the rest of the evening is spent eating and enjoying each other's company. Mother Screng tells us to stop by in the morning because she has some useful supplies for our trip.

After another night in the inn we stop by her place and she gives me some sort of healing salve containing 5 doses. She says its good for poison or disease and while she gave us one salve, she has more we could purchase if needed.

After about 6 hours on the trail South of Nulb we find the evil temple. The trail entrance leading up to the temple is marked with a couple of dead, beardless Dwarves. Jorlan scouts up ahead and we have not only the temple to contend with but a small tower too. Jorlan notices "something" is in the tower, so we'll probably need to tackle that first.

Off to Tharp!

Our illustrious group sat around on our collective butts waiting for Samson to finish his schooling. It wasn't even a "real" school, just some gladiatorial arena with a few classrooms attached. He learned some sort of fighting style involving axes.

Once he was done I think everybody was ready to go. We had met an Elven lass by the name of Ellie who convinced us to head off to some place called Tharp. The Tharponians (I honestly don't know what the call themselves....sounds good enough to me!) have a need for adventurers and we were adventurers in need of coinage. I have a feeling I'm the richest of the group right now, even though I tithe regularly. I think the others have been spending all of their cash since I've noticed they have shiny new "stuff". I'm not jealous as I was able to pick up a new suit of much-needed armor.

We get underway and after quite a bit of traveling (how long is a league again?) we notice an explosion coming from over the next hill. Thinking someone might be in trouble, we rush over the hill to find some guy in a white robe being attacked by 6 large brutish creatures. Samson throws his new axe, nearly felling one of the foul beasts. The man in white looks bad off so I start casting a Heal spell. Several beasties take notice of us and break off from the group. Ginsu, our resident Samurai, keeps me company on my right, firing his weird bow from his mount while Samson has my left flank. Jorlan simply disappears and Ellie cowers behind Samson.

Before my spell can get off I'm attacked by a brute, who misses, and my target is knocked out by another enemy combatant. Jorlan appears out of nowhere to try to stab one in the back. Samson has his axe back some how and just gets medieval on these things. Ginsu races back and forth some to combat which ever set of enemy "things" looks to be doing the most damage. It takes me far to long to ready my morning star, but I get in a good blow to finish the last one off.

Our rescued friend seems to be a magic-user of sorts named Edward who is glad that we managed to save him. He offers us a job back in Tharp and is quite surprised when we so quickly accept his offer.....or at least the offer to accompany him back to the Tharponians. He asks why we willing to go to Tharp and I honestly answer, "We can always leave if we don't like it!"

Edwards home is a Keep being built on the West end of Tharp, so we don't get to see the place quite yet. He has a wife by the name of Starfire waiting for him and boy is she pissed! It's obvious she wears the pants in that family. Evidently Eddie thought a good test for potential adventurer hires was to let them "rescue" him from the Bugbears. The creatures are called Bugbears. I always thought those magic-user types were supposed to be smart?

The couple invites us to dinner and promises that we can discuss the business offer after dinner. We get a couple of rooms.....which takes some effort to figure out bunking arrangements since I didn't want to sleep alone in a strange place, and some of us clean up for dinner. Jorlan takes a bath (Is it Pin'Mar already?), which is surprising since he pretty much pigs-out at dinner. I got pie.

Right now the whole job seems to be to look after the keep and back-up the Tharponian Militia while doofus and Moonbeam take off on some mission for their lord. The pay seems good enough and we might get some discounts at the local kobar. I asked about the local religion and was told that most of the Tharponians follow St Cuthbert, Lathander, and Pangrus (a Gnome Gawd). There's only one physical church in town (to Pangrus) and the local inn had been burned down to the ground by some militiaman's kid (may have been the Captain of the Guard's son...). Evidently the tower has a small chapel and they said I could use it to run services for Tharponian Lathanderites.......SOLD!

We are getting set to check out the town before we have to give them our formal agreement in the morning.