Session 10 Summary

Objective: Well of Demons

The heroes, rested and ready for action, remembered that they had recruited Surina to help them battle the Blackfang Gnolls inside the Well of Demons. They pondered the eternal NPC question: "Is it worth it to drag this clown along with us, who will also steal some of our loot?" The party decided it was worth it this time, and went and got Surina. The map they found on Harwin allowed the heroes to reach the Well of Demons quite easily. Upon entering, the pillars within the first room spoke to the heroes:


After the pillars finished, Surina became intensely fired up and began to charge into the first room. The heroes warned her not to get too far ahead and she grudgingly acknowledged. However, Surina ran past a well dug into the ground, and a huge tentacle shot up out of the well and grabbed her. Screaming, Surina was lifted up into the air and dragged into the well, where the heroes heard crunching sounds. The heroes found Surina's horrible demise to be rather amusing and stepped into the room. The Judge was immediately attacked by some kind of creature perched on one of the pillars. It reached way out with its "Stretch-Armstrong" limbs and began to choke the Judge. In addition, the tentacled thing burrowed towards them and began to grab people with its giant tentacles. The heroes became quite annoyed with these creatures, as they were now fighting two different kinds of monsters with the infamous "reach grab." However, the heroes had plenty of powers which allowed them to push and shove the monsters around, so the reach grab wasn't that much of a nuisance. Rufus once again employed his strategy of flying way out ahead, and he was attacked by a ghoul, who clawed him. Ghouls are known for their paralyzing claws, and Rufus was immobilized, allowing the ghoul to leap onto him and bite his face. However, the battle was pretty much over by this point, and the heroes took down the burrowing tentacle monster. Rufus wanted to investigate Surina, but decided that she had been crunched to pieces inside the monster's huge maw.

While taking a brief rest after the fight, the heroes were visited by a quasit, who offered them information on the Well of Demons in exchange for some coin. However, the heroes didn't trust the quasit and told him to take a hike.

Release the Hounds

The heroes continued to the east inside the Well of Demons and entered what appeared to be a barracks. Some hyenas in a kennel began to bark furiously at the heroes, and alerted the gnoll guards. A different gnoll opened a nearby door and released the hyenas, who ran over and attacked The Judge. Gage once again employed the cheap lightning pillar tactic and kept the gnolls inside their room, while the hyenas ran through it and got zapped. The heroes overcame the gnolls and their hyena cousins pretty easily and looted the area. They noticed that the kennels had a terrible stench about them, and would have penalized the heroes, had they decided to fight inside them. The heroes wondered what could have possibly caused them to have to fight inside the kennels and continued on.

Heading south, the heroes found a long hallway and entered a door on the right, which led into a long archery room, where some gnolls were shooting at a dire boar, which was actually Ulthand Deepgem's lost boar. The boar was extremely upset from being shot with arrows and from being bitten by the hyenas surrounding the cage. The heroes needed to think fast, as they would fail their Deepgem quest line if the boar died. Gage, in a stroke of brilliance, used one of his spells to teleport the boar out of the cage and the hyenas into the cage. The gnolls, seeing that the raging boar had been set free, bolted out of the back door into the hallway where the heroes were and engaged them. Meanwhile, the boar completely demolished the cage and attacked the hyenas. The heroes were easily defeating the gnolls, but the hyenas outnumbered the boar and badly injured it, almost fatally. Gage intervened and goaded the hyenas into attacking him. Unforunately for the hyenas, they had to run through yet another accursed lightning pillar and died. The heroes killed the remaining gnolls and healed the boar. Unfortunately, the boar was still very upset and Rufus had to use his druidic animal-loving abilities to calm it down. The heroes, without another word, left the Well of Demons to turn in their boar rescue quest and earn some more XP.