There's four men who are tossing books onto a pyre where they've tied up another four men. 

"Ah, hello," says one of the men tossing books. "These are Baphomet cultists. They tried to attack the library."

Attacked the library, oh no, what if they'd hurt the books? she says, but only to her party. Ember, can you try the ones on the left and I'll get the ones on the right?

The cultists can, instead of being awake, be asleep. How about that.

Agreed completely.

Bella has no pyrokinesis, is there anything to smother the fire with - well, more importantly she can untie these people -

The fire is having a moderately difficult time; it turns out that books do not burn incredibly well, and the cultists had been somewhat struggling to get their glorious pyre to go up. There is enough smoke that after a few minutes everyone is dizzy with it. 

The elf is old. Elves spend a very small share of their long lives looking that old. He is also badly disoriented, and clutching a book that turns out to be a cheap adventure tale. 

"I don't think he's well," one of the other prisoners says quietly to Seelah. 

"We're out of healing, sorry." Seelah has beaten the fire mostly into submission with a rug and is tying up the cultists. "He can come back with us to the Defender's Heart. Actually, you all should."

Is this who we were looking for? Bella asks Seelah.

"Are you the, uh, Storyteller?"

The confused man blinks slowly. "Yes. I'd say that sounds right."

Okay. Godsdamned fucking adventure complete. Back to Defender's Heart with this lot, routing AROUND rather than THROUGH demons insofar as this is possible.

Seelah and Anevia consult about the Baphomet cultists and decide that under the circumstances it does not make sense to take prisoners, except one of the Baphomet cultists looks to be twelve at the very oldest so they do take that one back with them to the Defender's Heart. 

Only one confrontation with demons is unavoidable - an ambush from some babaus - and it's over fairly quickly. One of the babaus thrusts a spear straight through the Storyteller but he turns out not to be as fragile as he looks; he isn't even slowed by it.

"What do you know, the tavern's still standing."

"Of course it is! Victory will be ours, eventually."

Even if true this is hardly reason to expect the tavern will still be standing. But they head on in. 

Is the kid they sent here? Are there any demons inside?

Kid: curled up asleep on a straw mat she's sharing with several other kids. It's pretty noisy in the tavern but she's exhausted. Demons: nope!

Oh good. She can... sit down. Breathe a little.

Wow, it turns out sitting down and breathing is terrible! Everything she loves is vanished out from under her and Fëanáro has until he engineers a plane shift before his grisly death and her chest hurts and she's been lethally injured way too many times recently to expect to see next week and even the faint and distant hope of buying her way to see her aging parents who have believed her dead for the last two decades can't really hold up against that.

But at least she is not at this moment actively fighting a succubus. She didn't like that. Also the horror from beyond the crystal sphere didn't notice her and she is so far doing fine on not obliterating this entire county with science magic fallout. And her boots work. If she puts her mind to it she can think of so many bad things that are not at this exact moment happening to her. She can't think of... any actively good things... but, well.

Maybe she should be asleep. She doesn't need a solid unbroken night of sleep for mana, now, does she, and who knows how long before the next disaster.

She finds somewhere to lie down and tosses and turns in it for a little while, perseverating on how everything sucks, before she gives up and knocks herself unconscious for the second time in a row.

No one knows how psions work, so they let her sleep, assuming she doesn't sleep for two days straight or anything. Someone does bring in a tray of breakfast at a time that could be characterized as breakfast.

She'll wake up when there's an overnight lull and then the hubbub rises again for breakfast-time. She will eat breakfast kind of without looking directly at it. Still no demons in here?

No demons! (There was an attempt in the night, but at least a couple people here can see invisibility.)

Oh good.

Is there any sign of... paper, here. In the possession of a person who isn't busy with more important things than Bella's emotional crisis.

The priest of Abadar is selling some. 

Can she get an unrelated person with nothing to do with that priest to give her a rundown on Abadar.

" - god of commerce. Lawful Neutral. Worshipped mostly by merchants and travellers, His church is everywhere. They run the banks."

"They're good banks, they won't rob you and if they do you can go to a bigger one and complain and get your money back."

"He gives out a truth spell to His priests, one you can't just secretly evade even if you're powerful."

"Rathimus's all right, he's a local man. Well, I don't think he was born here, but he's been here my whole life, at least."

"He wasn't born here. He was born downriver. He's a good man, though."

Okay. She's going to go find herself a little privacy and assess the inventory of her jewelry and pick out something that, at a guess, is not very expensive, and then come out and approach the Abadaran.

I'm not from around here and don't know the going rates of things but I hear that you're the person to ask.