The Keys of Telku / The Final Key pt. 24 / Kahn the 10th, 3593 CE / 5-21-23

In the catacombs beneath the Cathedral of Baal, the Adventurers are locked in battle with forces of evil commanded by the vile Daughter of Baal. Having gained and then lost the final Key of Telku due to the machinations of their former companion Nataliya, the party now strives to survive long enough to locate Hush's father, held prisoner somewhere in the catacombs, and escape alive. Nari uses her magicks to restore Adrienne from the petrifying breath of the gorgons, and though they are able to fell the last of the monsters unleashed upon them, the party realizes their potentially fatal error in allowing one of the feral Sons of Baal to survive long enough to release more of his depraved kin from their cells. As the Daughter of Baal retreats and locks the party in with her murderous servants, she predicts their certain doom. The party retreats through a door that the Amita K'un Strev jams in order to delay the howling pursuit of the Sons of Baal. Before them lies a stairwell descending deeper into the catacombs. As Strev's companion Kursh takes the lead, he unwittingly triggers a poison spear trap, but is saved from certain death by the ministrations of Idra. Unfortunately, Kursh's fate remains sealed, when he discovers a massive otyugh around the next corner, which captures and consumes him before the party is finally able to slay it. Nari discovers that a rope bridge across a deep chasm lies ahead, guarded by two more priests of Baal. They are dispatched, but not before the one on the far side of the chasm manages to sever some of the ropes, almost sending Adrienne hurtling to her doom. As the rest of the party carefully makes their way across the rope bridge, Nari and Adrienne discover Hush's Pa, trapped and seeming disoriented in a circle of stones at the center of an underground lake. Pa Grayson warns the party that a monster lurks below the waters, and soon it reveals itself as a horrifying, brainlike creature that uses its mental powers as much as its claws to attack the party. As Strev warns that the Sons of Baal are almost through the door which blocked them, the party fights furiously to slay the brain creature and get across the disabled bridge in time.