8. The Keys to Greed and the Star of Khal-Pelar

Pursuing the last living cultist we found more bowls of colored and scented liquid of unknown purpose before Korga's quarters. Replacing on its stand the jackal mask that gave me the vision of Kalatherius, low drum beats sounded throughout the chamber. Most curiously, Cramus discovered a block of wax with the imprint of a key. It matched exaclty the strange key Cramus carries, the one somehow linked with his draconic affinity for magic. Perhaps fate is with us.
 
Then again perhaps not. Unwilling to let the glittering eyes of the stone jackal lie unclaimed, we woke the damn thing up and it nearly killed Grim. Thinking quickly, Fi cast a spell of darkness around the statue and lured it with her voice into the deep hole before its seat, the source of the imposing red light cast upon it. I like to think I inspired her.
 
Beyond chambers of torture and a poisoned prisoner (oops?) we found small shrines with small idols. The first was a hawk. The second, a familiar monkey covering one eye. When I touched this idol, a dusty corridor was revealed behind the wall - a secret passage!
 
More evidence of goblins. Does this complex connect to the lower chambers of the Sandvoyager's compound? After a lair of spiders and a jackal-carved door we may have found a passage to hell.
 
"Beware ye the wrath of Vogon and his minions, for before you lies the gate to this Kingdom of Evil, and those who make the journey never return. There you find Order, Chaos, and Renewal. Yet death in all."
 
The jackal door slammed closed behind us, cutting off Grim and Floki briefly. Another jackal statue sat before a red-illuminated hole and a series of terrifying creatures - zombies, quadrupedal eyeless humanoids, and 2-headed dogs with cobras for tails. It was a trial that nearly exhausted our resources and again Grim tasted unconsciousness. But to what end?
 
Glad to put it behind us we found the most promising discovery of this nocturnal adventure-turned-ordeal: at the end of the secret passage was a carved depiction of the Sheik holding a star, and a hole for a key. Cramus's key worked, but he shook his head in surprise mumbling how this is not the key's intended purpose.
 
The stairs upward raised the hair on my neck and Floki's trap-sense as well. Carefully with rope we avoided the weak stairs but noted some wandering humanoid figures far below. In the chamber at the top of our climb we found the corpse and a book. The great "wizurd" Groomramunk and his Book of the Great Stars. It chronicled his journey and research into the last known locations of the Great Stars we seek to power the Sphere of Martek, though the Star of Khal-Pelar lie there in his own dead hand. I would've liked to hear the stories of this poor doomed traveller from his own lips, but his child-like scribblings will have to do.
 
With 3 of 5 stars in hand we now have clues to the final 2: Shar-Pelar, a large ruby thought to be stolen by "the evil Badr Al-Mosak" and Melos-Pelar, a spherical amethyst in the "cursed city of stone". But what of the Princess? We told the Sheik we would help. Belus is insistent. Yet he didn't see what I saw. He didn't see the evil we will face. Can we afford to give Kalatherius more time?