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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Medriev" data-source="post: 4661214" data-attributes="member: 21864">Chapter 13 - The Well of Demons (Part 4)Once those with hurts had bound their wounds, the companions talked for a few moments and then headed past the well and into the dark of the southern passage. By the dim light of Litiraan’s wand, they saw a side passage open up on the left and decided quickly to pass it by. The passage ahead then turned sharply to the right and then bent to the left before emerging into a wider hallway where blood stained the floor. Crimson trails ran from a set of double doors in the east, down the corridor, and into a door to the west. All six companions felt a sudden chill wash over them as cold seemed to reach into them to their very bones and cause involuntary shivers. Three spectral figures rose then from the bloodstains before the group. Before any of the adventurers could react, each of the ghostly figures raised a hand in apparent greeting.“Well met strangers,” said the middle figure, once a burly man with a thick, black beard. He seemed to have been clad in a mail coat but its spectral image was now torn and gashed as though he had suffered a terrible death at the hands of some great beast.“What do you seek in the Well of Demons?” the man’s ghost asked.“We seek the gnolls who dwell here,” said Enlishia, the chill refusing to leave her bones and seeming to slow her mind as well. “we have followed captured innocents into Thunderspire and through the holds of hobgoblins and duergar and now we have come here.“And which gnolls are these,” answered the spirit on the right, once a beautiful but cold-seeming elf maid in long robes. “We met no gnolls when first we came here and you are poor warriors if you know not your enemies. We knew our enemies and vanquished all but one before we fell. Demons and devils, dragons and worse all fell to our might.”“Our strength lies in our hearts as well as in our blades and our Art,” said Erlmoor. “We seek slaves taken by the Blackfang gnolls. They are friends and companions of Telkya and Litiraan and we have followed them into this mountain to save them. Already, most of their band make their way back to Cormanthor walking free under the sun and the stars.”“Then perhaps you are stronger and wiser than you seem,” rumbled the third spirit, apparently once a dwarf garbed in plate armour and wearing a helm with the faceplate closed. “But then again perhaps you seek to trick us. As Mendara said, we saw no gnolls when first we came here. How did you learn of the Blackfangs and this place?”“We defeated the duergar of the Horned Hold, slaying their chieftain and freeing the prisoners that they held,” answered Lavren. “We took a skull-capped rod back to the heart of the mountain with us.”“And yet you do not know its purpose,” sneered the elf called Mendara. “Instead you have followed breadcrumbs around the dark of the mountain until you have come here.”“It’s purpose was not relevant to us,” Litiraan bristled, staring at the elf. “We have sought to rescue our kin and that quest has led us here. The staves the duergar carry are of no concern to us.”“Ah, but perhaps they should be,” answered Mendara. “My companions and I piled duergar staves five and six high in the Seven Pillared Hall before we came to this place and then we broke each every one lest they once more return to the hands of a gray dwarf.”“But our cause is just,” Telkya pleaded. “We seek no power or spoils. We seek only to save the lives of those who were brought here.”“And do you do that truly for the sake of those you save?” questioned the dwarf. “Or simply because duty compels you to save them?”</blockquote>

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