Enter the Well of Demons (10/24/2010)

Brian missed this past Sunday but all the players in attendance were happy to review the character sheets of their newly promoted characters. The party had defeated a gelatinous cube and several wraiths on their way to find the Well of Demons and had accumulated enough XP to reach Level 6. They found a quiet hidey-hole where they could take an extended rest and picked up a new Utility Power and a new Feat.

With their morning constitutionals completed the party moved back to what they assumed was the Well of Demons. Two large minotaur statues stood beside a south facing entrance into a darkened hallway. Some cursory inspection revealed the room inside to be quite large, some pillars could be seen, but from the outside most of the room could not be seen. The party decided to creep down the hallway and into the room. Two more pillars could be seen off to the sides, but the room was still large enough that no side or back walls could be seen from in the hallway. The room itself appeared to be old and not well kept up - the floor was cracked and uneven in places, and the walls they could see were cracked and sagging in places.

With no sign of danger the party crept into the room. A fifth pillar could be seen at the back of the room and the walls of the rooms were now able to be seen. Two exits, one south, one east, lead out of the SE corner of the room, and there appeared to be some sort of open hole in the SE corner of the room as well. From this vantage point the party could now see the face of a minotaur carved into each of the pillars and as the party approached the pillars "spoke" aloud:

Greetings, seekers of Baphomets boundless glory.
Those who prove unworthy of his attention
shall be claimed forever as his slaves.
Those who prove worthy
shall be granted power beyond mortal reckoning.
Mask, bell, blade and tome.

The party remembered that one of the stories they had heard back in town was that certain magic items had to be found to reach an inner chamber and this pronouncement seemed to align with that rumor. The party began to fan out to further inspect the room when Jenneth and Miave spotted someone or something hiding behind the western most pillar of the room. Miave managed to get off an arrow at it, but the hiding Ghoul jumped out of the darkness and attacked Jenneth, and a second ghoul jumped out from behind another pillar to attack Oester.

Several of the party members maneuvered to respond to the attack when three cavern chokers climbed down two of the pillars and added their attacks. Their long arms and their extended reach allowed them to stay attached to the pillars and off the ground in their attempt to grab and choke the life out of whoever they should attack.

With the rest of the party now engaged the room provided one more surprise. A rumble could be felt beneath their feet and all of a sudden the several floor tiles exploded as a squid like phalagar attacked. Several long tentacled arms swung about wildly as the creature used its tremorsense in its quest for fresh food. Party members that stood close to the phalagar scrambled for safety only to find that movement only provided extra attacks and more damage.

The two ghouls went down quickly, but the chokers proved to be a bit more problematic. They were able to use their climbing ability to an advantage, but they were soon bloodied and when the first one died the other two scrambled up their pillar and squeezed into a crack in the ceiling. This allowed the party to concentrate on the phalagar, but just as the phalagar collapsed and died in his burrowed hole in the floor the two chokers reappeared and attacked Jenneth, but it was too little too tale and soon the quiet resumed. As the party looked around they saw:

Three Cavern Chokers

Two Ghouls

A Phalagar

The creatures carried no magic or GP, and no secrets or magic could otherwise be detected in the room except for the speaking pillars. Each member of the party earned 180 XP for the encounter.

The hole in the floor turned out to be dry well, perhaps thirty feet deep, with what looked to be a dry stream below. Two passageways led out of the room, one to the south and one to the east, and the party will choose their path when we resume in two weeks.

Score Card: With the completion of this encounter the party had accumulated an additional 0 GP and 0 GP in gems. With the 180 XP earned during this encounter the party had accumulated 7680 XP (10,000 needed to reach Level 7). Including this encounter Renny was sitting at 4700 XP (5500 needed to reach Level 5).

Game Night - We will be back at Leo's in two week, so no DnD on Halloween this year.