Foolish bravery and new companions

Continuing from the horrific scene of the dead hermit, we continued our travels with the merchant and his son towards the forest gate. While setting up camp one night, we were wary and heavily burdened by something. Suddenly, while resting in camp, the son started running away, screaming for his dead mother. When we finally caught up with the little guy, we saw how he was standing and screaming near a well. Suddenly, a monstrous, plantlike tentacle reached out and grabbed the kid, dragging him to the depths of the well. Without much thought, our party rushed in to try and save him. The hobbit, wiser from previous encounters, kept his distance and rained down arrows together with one of the menfolk. Having a bit a rough start, eventually the hobbit started to hit with deadly precision. One by one, the party members closest to the well were dragged in. Then the big menfolk managed to climb out with another creature, some female kid he found within the well. Not our kid though, and with a fancy flip, the big man just jumped back in. Following in our big menfolk's footsteps, our dwarvenfolk also jumped in after our elvenfolk. Forfeiting one opportunity for attacking, this kind hobbit went to the aid of the young lady, waking her up out of her deep sleep. Suddenly being awoken by some strange man with a weapon in his hand, the confused kid seemed hesitant. Given the option to fight or flight, the young lady decided to fight after confirming that we weren't the ones threatening her. After a perfect kill shot by our heroic hobbit, our elvenfolk threw in a lit torch and burned the f*cking plant to a crisp and blowing up the well along with it. Unluckily, the merchant's son lost his mother's amulet in the destroyed well. The young lady introduced herself as Larissa. She panicked over the loss of her pet, who we found in one of our saddle bags at our camp, enjoying some of our rations. Continuing our journey towards the gate, the young lady told us a little about herself while we talked a little about our adventures. Due to past events, Will kept a little more to himself. Arriving at the gate, we decided to continue traveling to Woodland Hall and make amends for killing the hermit and returning the lost heirloom. While in audience, our dwarvenfolk took the lead. In contrast to what we thought, the woodmen were quite relieved with our honesty and thanked us for returning the heirloom as well as giving a proper burial for the hermit. The council of Woodmen became our patrons and opened all Woodmen villages as sanctuaries for our party.