The Hall of Howling Pillars
A short rest and the troupe continues their search. They come upon several strange doors but they ultimately choose to enter one embossed with tortured, screaming human faces. Beyond, Yshven leads the way into an irregular room with several strange pillars scattered throughout. These pillars are sculptured akin to the rooms remarkable door, appearing to be entwined limbs and faces of tortured souls. Upon sight of the adventurers, the pillars scream in an otherworldly moan grating upon the senses of those within earshot. Quorbin races past the dwarf finding the farthest room within the maze where he finds waiting a large apelike demon behind a bone altar. Suddenly, the bodies entwined within each pillar twist and turn revealing a portal where five ‘blood-demons’ emerge. They immediately attack, One engaging the dwarf, one moving toward the archer and two menacingly move toward the cut off mage Casval and Garrosh the cleric of Kord. The apelike demon moves swiftly to intercept the archer. But the elf, yielding ground, backpedals and avoids the attack temporarily.
Yshven assumes a defensive stance and starts to thrash his heavy dwarven hammer about. He engages one of the demons, while another pursues the archer in tandem with the apelike demon. The elf doesn’t stand up to the punishment and falls out of the fight. Meanwhile, the mage and the cleric try their best to stave off the attacking blood-demons. The cleric is swinging with his sword unable to push into the room for the fallen elf while the mage casts a stinking cloud at a chokepoint; but the moaning pillars do not make things easier on the adventurers and soon the cleric falls as well. The fighter moves in, trying to close the gap between himself and the mage, putting up a heroic effort of drawing-in multiple opponents but is suddenly caught by a pillar’s groping arm and flung into its gaping portal. He materializes far inside the room near the bone altar where he finds the bell. The mage is cut off and is relentlessly hounded but is able to evade the worst keeping his stinking cloud spell and a fiery-ball spell against the demons. With no one left to hold the line, the mage is brutalized and he crumples down hard.
Left alone, Yshven tries to move around the demons back to his fallen companions. Aware of the dwarf’s whereabouts, the demons quickly turn back to engage him. Soon enough, the demons are hot on the heels of the sole survivor. With a string of skill and good fortune, Yshven avoids the abyssal onslaught and manages to run back to his comrades. A quick prayer to Kord and a potion later, he brings the cleric and mage back into fighting form.
The three are finally able to dispatch the five demons and the apelike demon brute. Quorbin is recovered and revived. The adventurers, now in possession of all four items – the book, the knife, the bell and the mask, rest awhile a ways away from the strange-pillared room and contemplate the next step that they must take.
sad panda!