"My wife." Anevia is Used To The Inevitable Response. "Irabeth. She's a paladin of Iomedae, too, up there." If she's still alive. (Anevia really, really hopes she's still alive. There's no one like her in all the world - priorities.)

(At the mention of "wife" she gets an approving smile and a nod! Weird Foreigner Thing, perhaps?)

"Ah, that's twice as many Paladins of Iomedae as I've met in my whole life! Though of course she's much more popular around here than back home, or so I've heard..."

Venn is charming and great at pretending to be calm under pressure and is happy to keep making light conversation with the two of them until they run into something more pressing! She has to recast dancing lights every minute, but she can do that while walking just fine.

More pressing thing: Giant bugs!

When the centipede comes charging at Seelah she has her shield braced and out and it tries to bite through wood, and then she's whacking it with her sword, blade sometimes skittering off the carapace, sometimes finding a vulnerability.

She draws her bow, but before she notches her first arrow she starts singing, in a language neither Anevia and Seelah know.

The sound of her voice fills them both with supernatural courage and sureness, making it easier for them to strike true and strike hard. 

And guided by that song, Anevia puts two good arrows into it and it stops actively moving.

Seelah hits it a couple more times on reflex before she realizes it's dead, then throws the body back with a shove of her shield. 

"Whew! That sure was something."

Venn doesn't stop singing right away, but the magic fades out of the song as soon as the bug falls. She finishes the verse and then puts her bow down.

Then she claps her hands and smiles happily at them both. "And nobody got hurt! Good work, both of you."

"Nope! That's why I go first."

She nods happily.  

Time for more follow the dancing lights?

Yup! Hey, there's some voices -

- (A split-second calculation, a split second to think of a lie)

- "Come help! I think he's dying!" The voice is aristocratic and haughty, but with all the tension you'd expect with a dying man.

- Come on! Let's help!

Um!

She hurries behind Seelah, glancing back to make sure Anevia is okay. 

Anevia can catch up.

There's a dead elf on the ground, covered in blood - must've hit an artery - and a living half-elf standing over him. The survivor has a sword and chainmail and is almost as bloody, too, possibly because she's trying to keep pressure on one of the many wounds covering his body and it's really not working.

He looks mauled.

"I tried a cure, but I think he's gone," she says.

Venn rushes forward and then - stops, her stomach churning.

She doesn't really know much about healing, but she's not an idiot. There's blood everywhere, and the man isn't breathing. 

"What happened to him?" She doesn't bother trying to keep the horror out of her voice. It's not her first time seeing a dead body, of course but she's never seen a freshly-mauled corpse like this, and she is really not enjoying it.

"Demons," says the half-elf. "It must have been the demons who attacked him."

"Damn," Seelah says. She hasn't seen anything like this since she left Geb. Does she know any prayers that are right for this? "Inheritor, watch over this man's soul," she says. 

Venn knows a few things about demons! She crouches down, peering curiously at the wounds.

...she has no idea what kind of demon caused them. Welp.

She closes the corpse's eyes, murmurs a prayer to Shelyn, and turns to look at the half-elf.

"Thank you for trying to save him," she says, softly but earnestly.

"I did my best." Her heart's still beating fast. "We should be careful; the demons who did it might still be around."

"Right." Peer peer peer. "I'm Seelah, I'm a paladin."

"Anevia, with the Eagle Watch."

(...Huh.)

"I'm Venn, a song-sorceress. Honored to meet you, though of course I wish it could have been in better circumstances." 

(She will noooot offer to shake hands. On account of the blood.) 

"Camellia," she says. Now that the rush is fading she's returning to a purer aristocratic hauteur. "I speak with the spirits of Sarkoris." And I'm richer than you. "Can you Presdigitate?" 

(...Huh.)

She raises an eyebrow at that pronounced shift back into aristocratic tone. Is this really the time for that? 

"I can, yes! When the threat of demons is less imminent I would be happy to assist you."

She casts dancing lights and moves them out into the darkness.