"I'm Seelah, a paladin of Iomedae! We were thrown into these tunnels when Deskari attacked and opened up a chasm."

"Is that what caused the earthquake? There was a major one, about an hour ago. Collapsed some tunnels. Some people were saying it's a sign that we're not meant to be down here anymore."

       "Sure, Lann," says an impatient voice behind him, "tell the first outsiders you meet everything."

"They might be able to help!"

Has it been a whole hour? What do you need?

A bunch of people are missing. Either trapped when the tunnel collapsed, or - more likely - went into the shield maze, trying to get to the surface. I want to get the rest of the tribe to go after them, but - they're scared.

There's an angel's sword in this room. It's buried under rubble, right now, but in the hands of a righteous warrior it's very powerful. I wanted to - see if I could get it to work for me. It never has before, but - we never needed it to save a bunch of people before, and angels should care about that sort of thing, right?

...anyway, step one is just finding the sword, because that half of the room was buried in the earthquake, and then I guess we can see if anyone can wield it.

I'm not sure how the sword will help if you normally live down here and can cope with the other things that live down here already, does it - solve mazes?

The shield maze has more dangerous things in it than the tunnels do. Demons, I suspect, though most who go in don't come out so I don't know for sure. 

It also might help when we get to the surface. They don't - like mongrels, on the surface. 

Indeed, Camellia is pursing her lips and looking vaguely appalled.

Is there no more straightforward way to the surface than through the maze?

Not without powerful magic. 

Bella looks at Seelah, who is probably a decent candidate to wield an angelic sword if Lann can't do it this time (how many times is he planning to try the same thing with slight variations anyway?). Seems plausible the most efficient way out is to help them with the rubble and see if you or Lann can activate the sword.

"Happy to help," says Seelah, and they can start hauling rubble. She'll take the big pieces if everyone else takes the small ones. 

Yup. Moving rubble is not hubristic or scientific at all and Bella can do plenty of it.

And then her hands will brush across something colder to the touch than the surrounding rock, and - her chest hurts, again, at the site of the injury Terendelev healed, it feels like blood is dripping down her shirt -

-- and there are memories here that are not her own, of being cornered in this cave, dying, frightened and furiously angry. And then the memories overwhelm her senses and there's nothing but chittering insects, filling her vision, crawling over her to devour her -

IT IS SCREAMING TIME AGAIN

" - Bella? Bella are you okay?" No more insects, no more dying, no more bleeding wound. The sword Bella touched is glowing blazingly bright. 

she is NOT touching that sword any more

she is patting herself down to see if the injury reopened

Nope, she's fine.

It - did something to me - how sure are we it is a, uh, a good sword.

" - well, an angel wielded it. I'm pretty sure angels are always good."

"Something could've happened to it since then, though." Seelah frowns at the sword. "It's not Evil."

Well, it gave me some kind of very unpleasant vision when I touched it but, uh, maybe it only does that to psions or something.

Seelah considers, but not for very long. "I'm going to touch it. It didn't cause you lasting harm."

It doesn't cause Seelah lasting harm but it also doesn't light up blazingly bright for her. It's just a perfectly nice sword.

Is it supposed to do something dramatic if it's working? I used to have a magic dagger but it wasn't flashy.

"I was kind of hoping it would light up like it did for you. It could be it's still magic, though, I don't actually know a lot about magic."

"I think it's supposed to light up like it did for her."