"That's so cool! I'm really glad it's intact."

Probably none of the other things in here are the second key, since it was supposed to be on someone's person, but she'll go through all of it just in case. And then put on some of the armour because this whole situation they're in is really an armour kind of situation as much as it is a spelunking one. 

This about armor - it's really quite heavy, especially if you get the good stuff that actually protects you. Obviously it's designed for people to be able to wear, so it's not impossibly so, but armor will slow you down, reduce your flexibility, and tire you out quicker. It's the price you pay for staying safe, unless you're a monk and think of that as more of a skill issue.

Most people, however, do not have a strength stat of 40. Armor that picks a reasonable point on the tradeoffs of cost, weight, and protection for a normal person will not actually be much harder for her to lift than normal clothes.

Also, when they head back out to search some more rooms, she deliberately ends up at the back of the group for a moment and then it fits her perfectly.

The first room she checks is empty, but the second has several animated piles of rocks digging away at the walls.

"More humans!" one of them says, angrily, with a voice like tumbling stones. "Must you come to torment us more?"

". . . We're a different group of humans. We come in peace. Are you okay, do you want help?"

"A different group of humans? What do you mean, a different group of humans?"

"Yes, send us home!"

"You can't be trusted, this is a trick!"

Upon hearing she can understand them, the stone creatures start responding all at once.

"I don't know how to send you home but I will if you tell me how!"

"Use your human magics to send us back!"

"Idiot, she's got a sword and armor, humans with those don't do real magic. Kill the person who enslaved us here!"

"Keep hitting him until he agrees to send us back!"

Aaaaa?

She looks back at the rest of the party. "Does anyone with more local context know what to do here because I really don't. Will killing the guy send them home or trap them here forever or what." She wants to read all of the books in her bag of holding and be a WIZARD and have half a clue what she's DOING.

"Oh, is that what they were asking about? Killing demon cultists doesn't get rid of the demons they summon, even when we're certain the demons aren't just being smuggled over the line, so I expect the same holds here. I doubt it would trap them here forever but it might force them to finish whatever task they were bound for anyway. You can send them back directly with reasonably high level spells - I assume you can get them from your bloodline eventually since Terendelev had them - or you can get whoever is supposed to command them to declare their task finished."

"Da--drat. Okay. Thanks."

She turns back to the elementals. "I'm sorry. I don't have enough magic to send you home. I'll--if I figure something out I'll come back. Can you tell me what the person who summoned you looked like?" She doubts she could successfully describe one of these beings to the other one and maybe they have the same problem with regard to humans, but it can't hurt to ask in case he's wearing a cubical hat or whatever.

"He looked like you people! Tall, with a weapon and armor!"

"He was... loud?"

Yep, same problem. "Okay, thank you. Good luck."

Time to totally bail on that sidequest for now and hope she gets a hint later! What's in the next room over?

A completed room with a statue of Baphomet! There are some cambions there, but none of them look more important than the others or like the previous hand she defeated, and they seem to mostly be carrying bows and scimitars. They seem very bored.

Then killing them should be easy, but will it turn up the second key or just prevent them from joining in when someone inevitably sounds the alarm?

They do not. The next room looks significantly more promising, though; there's someone dressed similarly to the previous hand of Hosilla, berating another set of animated rocks in badly accented Terran to work faster.

"Does it at all make sense," she whispers after Anevia has peeked through the door, "to offer to leave him alive if he gives us the key and sends all the rock people home? I understand if it's too dangerous but I'd like to help the rock people if we can."

“The punishment for being a committed demon cleric is death unless you turn yourself in and give up your fellows, and often even then if you don’t get lucky with the inquisitor judging you. They’re all guilty of treason and pretty much all guilty of murder, and they’re tough to hold prisoner when they can take an experienced guardsmen in a fair fight unarmed. I’m not a paladin, so I could lie to them about it, but there’s no way they’d buy we plan to live and let live with them.”

She pauses to consider.

”Maybe if we could convince them we were also demon cultists instead of crusaders, and that this was an inter factional dispute where they could just switch sides, but I can’t really think of a good way to fake having the right connections to some high level demon without tools I don’t have.”

Oh right, they're nominally in the territory of some kind of government with laws and stuff. Are they going to get in trouble for the murders they've been doing? Nobody else looks worried about it and it's not like any of them have an incentive to tell the cops.

She nods. "We've got those necklaces but it'd probably be obvious we stole them. If the elementals will get to go home eventually I guess that's something."

Sailor Moon and Matilda had way fewer trolley problems than this. Fuck her sense of literary merit for thinking this is an interesting story.

"Worst case scenario, we should be able to find someone to send them back whenever the crisis is over and spell slots are at a bit less of a premium. Rathimus' prices for his stronger spells are pretty eye-watering but maybe this is the kind of thing that Ramien can do too."

"Oh that's good, I didn't know how hard it would be." At some point she's going to end up with the ability to earn lots of money so she's not going to worry about how broke she is at this particular instant. Instead she is going to kill a demon cultist and loot his corpse like a normal gamer (and wonder if he had a family and if his parents know where he went).

He seems more perceptive than the last few sets of enemies, in that he spots them as they come into the room and demands to know who they are, but not in the sense that he realizes what he's up against. Since channeling negative energy might kill the earth elementals and set him even more behind schedule, he'll instead try to charge with his glaive.

That's a pretty reasonable response all things considered, but even if he can get through her armor he'll have a hard time getting through her flesh, and unless he's tougher than the last guy he won't get many tries at it.

The Hand of Hosilla puts his whole body into his charging blow, his form flawless, and tries to take her head off. It instead skitters off her armor and leaves her completely uninjured, which leaves him pretty dumbfounded, at least until her counterattack hits and he suddenly has more important things to worry about.

Brenda has only the vaguest unverified popcultural osmosis regarding this universe's afterlife setup. She should probably get more informed about it if she's going to keep sending people there. Does he have the key on him?