We pushed deeper into the teleportation dungeon’s administrative wing, and I’ll be honest - I was still feeling pretty rough from our earlier encounters. Lathaeril had already used most of his healing spells, leaving only one powerful one in reserve that felt like overkill for patching up my scrapes.
The good news was we’d secured one key card already, and we knew there was another one somewhere to the southeast. The bad news was every door I tried seemed to be either locked or trapped with some nasty magical security. I found an unlocked passage eventually, which led us to a room full of glowing crystals that pulsed with different colors. They were connected to those magical lines running through the floors throughout this whole complex. Lathaeril wisely suggested we not touch anything - seemed like the kind of setup that could go sideways fast.
Beyond that was an office - not the military-focused one we’d seen near the cells, but an administrator’s workspace. Books everywhere, scrolls on tables, wine bottles. This was clearly where someone important had worked. And someone important had left behind a small fortune - we’re talking five thousand platinum pieces sitting there. I may have helped myself to a belt of hill giant strength while I was at it. Pretty sure that wasn’t on the laundress’s inventory list, so into the bag of holding it went before anyone could object. We also found the second key card in this office, which meant we had what we needed to access the vault.
Lathaeril suggested we could take our time exploring since the Moonblade was safely locked away under multiple layers of security. I didn’t want to get ambushed by something we missed, so we kept checking rooms methodically. One door had a magical lock similar to the one that had zapped me earlier, so I just waved both key cards at it hoping one would work. No dice.
We ventured into a maintenance area - the corridors got noticeably smaller, more like service tunnels for the magical wiring that powered this place. There was an “authorized personnel only” warning on the wall that I chose to ignore. That’s when we stumbled into something’s territory.
A behir came charging at us the moment it sensed our presence. For those unfamiliar, behirs are massive serpentine creatures covered in scales with a horn on their head and the ability to breathe lightning. This one was not happy about us being in its domain. We did the sensible thing and ran like hell back to the main corridor.
After regrouping, we continued our systematic search. Found a bulette nesting in one room - you could tell by the hissing and the eggs in its nest. I tried offering it a ration from my bag to see if we could negotiate, but the thing was in full protective parent mode and wasn’t interested. The loot scattered around its nest would have to wait.
Eventually we made our way back toward that behir, and this time there was no avoiding the fight. It came at me first, biting down and then wrapping its massive body around me in a crushing constriction. The bite hurt, but the crushing and slashing from being wrapped up was brutal - I took serious damage almost immediately.
Lathaeril got his spiritual weapon up and started hammering at the thing, trying to draw its attention off me so I could break free. It worked - I managed to wriggle out of its grip and disengage, putting some distance between myself and those coils. The behir immediately turned its focus to Lathaeril, grabbing him instead. He cast some kind of area spell to discourage it from holding on while his spiritual weapon kept attacking.
Seeing an opening with the behir distracted, I circled around and landed a solid sneak attack - got lucky with a critical hit that did serious damage. One more strike and the thing went down. We’d actually managed to kill a behir, which honestly surprised me given how badly the fight had started.
Lathaeril mentioned that in D&D combat, healing rarely keeps pace with damage output, which explains why he’d been reluctant to waste spells just keeping me topped off. Better to focus on ending threats quickly. We got some healing in after the fight, then I turned my attention to harvesting.
Behir parts are valuable - the scales, the horn, and especially the lightning sack. I managed to extract all three, though I nearly botched the horn removal. That lightning sack is particularly interesting - you can throw it up to twenty feet and it’ll explode, dealing massive lightning damage in a radius. You can also craft it into lightning oil or something called a storm collar. Momen’s going to be thrilled when he sees what I brought back.
After a short rest and finishing the harvesting, we wrapped up our exploration of this section. Didn’t find much else of note beyond what we’d already secured. With both key cards in hand and the behir dealt with, we were finally ready to access the vault and retrieve that Moonblade.
When we eventually made it back to town, Lathaeril asked about the Piano Man - apparently he had business to discuss with him. I pointed him toward Cedar Combe where the Piano Man should still be, then mentioned the Fief as a good place to catch up with other Monster Bashers once that was sorted.
I just hope Lathaeril doesn’t get corrupted by that Moonblade now that we’re retrieving it. Last thing we need is to fight him because some ancient elven weapon decided to twist his mind. Though given I literally died getting him out of his last predicament, he’d better not go evil on us. I saved his ass. He owes me.