Blood on the Stairwell and the Price of the Deep

With the chamber of blood-drinking relics behind them, the reality of their arsenal quickly set in: try as he might, Kritkrit could not actually wield the oversized proportions of the newly claimed +1 greatsword Asterion, leaving the glowing weapon slung awkwardly across the small kobold's back. Pressing onward through a western door into a southern corridor marked by a heavy abundance of footprints, the companions navigated a looping stone passage until they discovered yet another towering bronze bull, its eye glowing with a familiar green gem. Seizing the opportunity, Doc attempted an invisible, stealthy climb up the metallic flanks to snatch the gemstone, but his footing betrayed him. He slipped and crashed down, getting trampled directly beneath the animated bulk of the mechanical beast for seven brutal points of damage. Miraculously, a surge of sheer resilience saved him; Doc bounced back with a natural twenty Constitution check, instantly casting light and bolting to safety as the rest of the party scrambled.

While Doc dusted himself off, Hesrel suffered a moment of paralyzing dread, rolling a natural one and panicking in absolute horror for three long rounds before his fingers brushed against a polished stone that concealed a hidden mechanism. Doc stepped in to identify the opening stone, and together the party slipped through into a silent, narrow passage that immediately assaulted their senses with a thick, foul stench of urine and body odor. Peeking down a steep stairwell leading into a vast, bone-scattered chamber below, they realized too late that they had walked straight into a trap.

The shadows erupted into violence as three feral goat beastmen lunged from the gloom to ambush the party, catching the explorers entirely off guard. Winning the initial split-second of initiative, Doc leveled his crossbow and fired into the dark, but his hurried bolts went wide in the suffocating air. Beside him, Kritkrit frantically conjured a shimmering layer of protective Mage Armor around his scaly frame, while Hesrel chanted a swift incantation, launching a magic missile that struck one of the horned brutes for two points of damage. But the retaliation was swift and merciless. Before Hesrel could cast another spell, a brutal thrust from a crude beastman spear drove straight through his defenses, dealing seven heavy points of damage and dropping the human wizard to the cold stone floor, lifeless.

Doc lunged forward through the reeking gloom, desperate to reach his fallen comrade, but his initial frantic attempts to staunch the bleeding failed completely; by the time he finally managed a stable touch, the life had already fled Hesrel's body, marking a devastating and permanent loss for the expedition. Enraged and cornered, Kritkrit stepped over the fallen wizard and unleashed a roaring torrent of Burning Hands across all three beasts, searing them for three damage and shattering their morale. Two of the charred goat beastmen shrieked and fled backward into the dark corners of the chamber, leaving the surviving companions to tend to their dead.

In the grim silence that followed the carnage, the party searched the blood-spattered aftermath of the vault. Amidst the debris, Kritkrit uncovered a heavy bundle of large red dragon scales, each one the sprawling size of a dinner plate. Doc inspected the unusual hoard, valuing the scale bundle at five gold pieces apiece, yet the coin felt hollow in their hands as they stood vigil over Hesrel's body in the subterranean dark.