"I think you're probably better off with us than waiting out here," Fazil says. 

She pulls her cloak a little tighter around herself and nods.

And Mahdi opens the door with magic and walks a stick in there with Mage Hand, just to be safe.

It catches fire from some spell triggered in the hallway. 

He sighs. "I guess we're proceeding slowly."

So they do that. The temple is big, with almost all of it buried, and some of its passageways blocked by dirt, or the roots of a tree, or aggressive hostile slimes, or vampire bats, or lurching skeletons. A pretty ordinary day, on the whole, with Fazil hanging back to protect the civilians. 

Eventually they find the temple's library. The books have crumbled. The mosaic art on each of the pillars and on the walls have not, though. 

Zara can probably help with clearing away the grime on them, and everyone can help with studying them.

Clean clean clean! Supposed to be a battle, under all the dirt. Who's it look like it's between?

These glorious shining paladins of Iomedae and these wicked devils who are despoiling this - rice farm? Maybe it's a rice farm. Something like that. This is all underground so it can't really be a rice farm.

Maybe it's a... mushroom farm, or something. Who wins?

The glorious shining paladins of Iomedae, here depicted  - springing a trap on the enemy during some kind of negotiation? Maybe there's a lot of artistic license going on here.

Hmmmmm.

"Can paladins of Iomedae do that?"

Fazil comes over to study it. 

" - I mean, no? Presumably there's a nuance we're missing. I don't think they can make pacts with fiends at all."

"I guess it's hard to tell from just the picture."

There's laughter behind them.

She spins around and looks.

She looks, too. Without as much spinning.

It's a devil. Twelve feet tall, graceful, bat-wings extending almost the whole span of the library. "Hel-lo," she says when they turn around. "Fancy seeing you here!"

       Hagan draws his bow. Fazil shakes his head, just slightly. 

"That's right, let's be friendly. We're all on the same side here, after all."

She pulls Verita closer, ready to stop her from speaking, if needed, and doesn't say anything.

"Are we," says Fazil. 

         "Hell holds in contempt Rovagug and his followers, and glory in seeing their endeavors doomed."

"Why are you here."

          She nods at Korva. "I was invited."

"- liar," says Fazil.

         "You have the spell prepared. Discern Lies. Go right ahead -"

" - all right," he says.

Then several things happen at once. Fazil casts a spell. The devil lunges. Mahdi takes off flying and casts two spells at once, flying out of his hands in a way that anyone who's seen wizards before knows they ordinarily cannot do. Hagan shoots a series of silver arrows, impossibly many, far more than he had in the quiver a second ago.

She holds Verita back, and winces, and does not pray, because this is not a situation in which it will do anyone any good.

She's staring at the devil, transfixed.

This fight is a lot less trivial. Everyone including the devil is moving too fast to properly track them; Mahdi, unable to fly because the ceiling is too low, instead teleports around the room as a bolt of lightning when the fighting gets too close to him. Blood and less identifiable substances splatter the floor. As they're closing in the devil flaps its wings, frantically, which makes the room flicker black and sends Mahdi and Hagan flying. Hagan gets up. Mahdi doesn't. The devil collapses at last beneath a barrage of golden glowing light. 

Fazil taps Mahdi. He stirs. 

" - is it dead - "

Fazil nods, wearily. "We're going to need - a better solution, if we're going to have the two of you close to hand - that shouldn't have been difficult -"

"He means he can't use spells that target evil creatures," he says, looking at Korva. He's bleeding.

She looks down.

"It also means we have to interrupt every area-effect spell that more than stings or it'll kill them both," says Fazil, not looking at her. 

Mahdi stands up. "Did you tell Hell we'd be here?"