"Fate shows no mercy," says the first spirit.

"I have never specialized in the placation of ghosts, but if they object to the cultists who've -" does he still have wings. How long is that going to keep happening. "- been rumored to take over the place then that is most likely," cultists do not have a very high surrender rate so far though he wishes Ember luck with her guy, "aligned with our own goals."

He does still have wings. It's unclear how long they're going to last, but they don't feel like a permanent feature of his body.

Daeran is studying Camellia's face intently, but he doesn't say anything.

"Lead on, then."

If the angels are not going to take that as an instruction Blai supposes he'll... walk... past... them? With... wings. WHY WINGS

They do not prevent him from doing this.

When he approaches the back of the room, a dwarf, standing near the rubble pile on the second floor, comes into view. He turns towards them, holds a finger over his lips, and beckons them up.

"Doesn't ping," she whispers.

Then they can follow the dwarf! (Seriously are the wings just going straight through his shirt and his looted chainmail? What the fuck.)

It doesn't feel like the chain shirt is obviously interfering with them, at least?

The second floor proves to be so badly damaged that it's easy to look down on the central area of the first floor. There are piles of rubble throughout the area, and multiple large support columns that have outright collapsed.

The dwarf points a finger towards yet another group of demons and cultists, then looks back at Blai.

"What are you here for?" he whispers.

Seelah attempts to identify the detectably-Evil ones by pointing.

Blai takes note of that, correlates it with unholy symbols, then looks back at the dwarf. "Scouting," he whispers back. "You?"

"I'm a contract killer. I've been hired for a mission to kill that one." He points at one of the cultists.

Camellia stares at him with a fascinated look.

"Pro tip, you might not want to say that kind of thing in front of the paladin-types."

"That's very specific," murmurs Blai.

"You think so? Most people don't want just anyone dead."

"Are you planning to simply... leave, afterwards?"

"Well, no one's paid me for any of the others." And it seems possible that his employer is in the same room as his target. "I might wait for them to thin out, though. That group is pretty tough."

(Below, the cultists' conversation has turned into an argument between the Baphomites and Deskarans about the relative merits of taking time to carefully loot valuables versus just killing as many people as possible.)

Hm.

So, Blai thinks he's obliged to take surrenders, but he does not think he's authorized to conscript this man into his party, so he can't order him to do so. It is possible that a fight will break out, the assassin's target will throw up his hands and surrender, and the assassin will continue trying to assassinate someone who is trying to surrender to Blai; but it seems unlikely that this will happen while Blai can afford to stop fighting someone else in the room, since there are kind of a lot of them. It doesn't seem like it is probably orthodox that if you are in the middle of a pitched battle and your immediate opponent's erstwhile friend yells that they surrender that you then have to drop what you are doing, get attacked from behind while you turn around, and fight your erstwhile ally for the surrenderer's safety. It just sounds too tactically stupid to be the thing he's obliged to, even if there's some very precise application of the idea that would work great that he hasn't been instructed in. So the only issue would be if a fight broke out and the assassin's target was the last one standing, which would speak rather poorly to the assassin's abilities really. So in most possible situations this seems... fine? ...unless there are like, spies, involved, and the target is an undercover agent of Good, that would be bad. If Ser Tirabade knew anything about that probably she'd have said. Anyway Blai doesn't intrinsically have anything against killing demon cultists, he has done a fair amount of that recently and Iomedae's still with him, and doing it for money is perhaps not the finest motive he could ask for but it doesn't seem inherently damning?

"Well, good luck with that. Have you been here long? What can you tell us about their numbers and layout?" he asks.

The dwarf has been here for several hours! The door on the first floor is barred from the inside. He thinks the demons and cultists that they can see now are nearly all of the hostiles present in the tower. There's at least one more in the basement, "some sort of young fool," and he's also overheard references to the curator being alive and somewhere in the basement; he believes someone in the demonic forces has ordered the curator to be kept alive, and the other demons have, improbably, listened. This location is something of a secondary base compared to the Gray Garrison, and various additional cultists have been cycling in and out all day, sometimes for strategic discussions but other time just to drop off looted relics. Several of the Deskarans have made reference to a "Lord Xanthir," but thus far no one by that name has shown their face.

The cultists here have been planning for an assault on the Defender's Heart tavern; from what he's overheard, he believes that they have some form of exotic magical item crafter crafting single-use magic items capable of igniting wooden structures when thrown, more efficiently than ordinary spells, and bypassing some of the standard counters to brimoraks. It is possible there will also be brimoraks. (There are not currently any brimoraks present.)

He has been entertaining himself by coming up with impractical plans that could theoretically allow him to solo everyone here; although none of them were actually feasible, he does think those fallen columns could potentially be shoved in the direction of the cultists, or that loose rubble over there could be displaced to fall on top of them, or the other side of the locked door could be rigged to have a large number Explosive Runes displayed on the other side. It hadn't specifically occurred to him to plan for wings, but he feels like it must surely be possible to do something badass with them.

Meanwhile, the argument downstairs is becoming more heated. Points raised include:

• If they focus on killing as many people as possible, they'll be able to secure their victory, which is obviously more useful than some dumb paintings no one cares about.
• The crusaders have lost anyway, so there's really no point in rushing to stamp out their resistance. On the other hand, the city's treasures could easily be destroyed if they don't prioritize looting them.
• Aren't they supposed to be on the same side here? They should all just shake hands and agree that even though (Baphomet/Deskari) is better, (Deskari/Baphomet) is still serving an important role.
• Deskari is a stupid god who just wants to eat everything, unlike Baphomet, who wants normal things that make sense.
• Baphomet cultists are a bunch of stuck-up pompous assholes who think they're smarter than they are.