The Keys of Telku / The Final Key pt. 25 / Kahn the 10th through the 11th, 3593 CE / 5-28-23

In the catacombs beneath the Cathedral of Baal in Baali, the Adventurers have lost the Key of Telku they came seeking, but have located Hush's Pa. Unfortunately the old man appears to be guarded by a ferocious aberration consisting of an over-sized brain with claws and able to inflict terrible effects on the minds of its opponents. Both Idra and Jozu suffer the effects of its confusion abilities even as Adrienne bravely dives after the creature into the water surrounding Pa Grayson's underground prison to either slay it or drive it off. Meawhile other party members are using the rope bridge to make their way across the chasm that seperates them from the approaching hordes of Baalite beserkers known as the the Sons of Baal. The Amita K'un named Strev bravely severs the rope bridge while on the wrong side of it in order to stop the Sons of Baal, and though Nari attempts to rescue him with a magically floating stone, he is cut down by the beserkers before he can escape. With the brain creature having turned invisible and fled in the face of Adrienne's onslaught, the party decides it is time to exercise the better part of valor, and flee into the watery tunnel which is their only exit from the chamber which held Pa Grayson. After a while the tunnel ascends back to the surface, leaving only a trickle of water which flows to a grate on the outside of the walls of Baali. Taavi is able to break down the grate, on the other side of which is an unexpected figure; Henry Skalitz, the Paladin of Accuris, whom the party last saw at the end of their adventures in Greenwood Forest. They follow the paladin downstream to a reunion with more companions; Efraym Smallcask, the Crazy 8, Coron of Ur, as well as Moss and Coal Belchfire sitting astride Nari's wagon. Coron explains that the Key of Telku which Nataliya stole from the catacombs was a fake, and that based on the signal he now receives via the magical Eye of Telku, it was most likely planted by Tarrus the One-Eyed himself, who has all five Keys in Liem and even now is preparing to use them. Though Liem is days away by conventional travel, not to mention that soldiers from Baali are hot on the party's trail, Coron offers a faster alternative to reaching Tarrus; a ritual of Accuris that will allow him and 8 companions to travel the Grey Road, a passage through Limbo over which Accuris holds dominion. Hush decides the time has come to return to Bolton with his retinue and his Pa, and invites Coal Belchfire to join him. The troll agrees when he learns there is another troll currently living in Bolton. Sending Henry off as a diversion to the approaching Baalite soldiers, Coron begins the ritual, and the party is transported to the strange Grey Road, an otherworldly highway that seems to pass under the Astral Sea and through the Borderlands, touching on many other locations in the material plane. As they make their way through past ancient monuments and frozen cities, Nari and Lulu note a familiar figure in floating in the aether, the constellation which Coron refers to as "The Emperor"; their old friend Milton Butters. As time seems nonexistent on the Grey Road, it feels like both days and moments before the party has reached a gate through which Coron tells them they can return to Liem. But standing between the Adventurers and their goal are a cadre of kytons, invaders from the Shadow Realm who challenge Coron and his companions. Once more the party must fight to reach their goal of saving Anoria from ruin.