"Do you think you have another one of those in you? Because if not, now seems like a great time to make a break for it."

"I don't think so."

Then Irabeth will grab Kybele and jump out the window, the rest of the crusaders and adventurers coming with her. The demons are too surprised to really have a coherent response to this.

The dwarf will channel twice, once as they hit the ground, and again once everyone has landed.

And they'll run as fast as they can to break line of sight from the fortress.

"We'll have to send a runner to Hulrun; I'm not sure we have anyone else strong enough to take out a Lilitu."

"Frankly I'm not sure Hulrun can do it. He couldn't pull anything half as impressive as that blast. Maybe if Terendelev were still with us, we could dislodge her, but that might need to wait on whenever the queen arrives with the army from Nerosyan."

"Is that soon?"

"At least a week out, most likely. They could get a strike force here faster of course, but I don't think we have a team strong enough to take down a Lilitu without the support of an army. Maybe if the queen fought it personally? But if she lost, that'd be it. Maybe Lastwall has some people who could manage it, but after our last sending I'm not optimistic. Inheritor, I really hope we can find an option that doesn't involve asking Cheliax for help."

The last part is said with particular emphasis.

"What really gets me is that this shouldn't be possible. The wardstone ought to fry any demons that try and cross the barrier, much less that hang out in the same building or throw it halfway across the city."

"How do the wardstones work, who made them -?"

"They're a miracle of Iomedae - thirty-six major artifacts straight out of heaven, delivered to us when we thought we were going to lose the second crusade. The way they're supposed to work, they make a barrier between each of the individual wardstone pairs. Demons can't cross it; teleportation is blocked, if they fly they fall out of the sky, walking leaves them dead at best and knocked out cold at worst - easy enough to take down for patrolling squads of soldiers. The effect is strengthened the closer to the wardstone the effect gets; some of the sections along the barrier near Kenabres are relatively weaker, since we're better able to deal with demonic incursions than most forts, but nearby the wardstone itself it should be operating at full power. If the  demons really have some kind of countermeasure... it's hard to overstate how bad that would be."

"That does sound like something must be wrong with this one. Who'd know how to fix it?"

"I'm not sure we have anyone like that in Mendev; we're not exactly a center of learning here. Outside of Mendev... maybe an archmage could figure it out? It's not like Felandriel Morgethai or Nefreti Clepati want the world to get eaten by demons. The problem would be getting them to take us seriously."

"There was that one elf - the storyteller, or whatever his actual name was, from Kyonin. He was here to study the wardstones, so it seems possible he'd know something. He was researching in Blackwing library before the attack yesterday, but I don't know if he's still there now."

"It'd be a place to start." Is her wound better?

Not all the way better, but it's stopped bleeding again and the pain has died down to a dull roar. The exhaustion has also mostly passed; she feels some amount tired, but only moderately more than you'd expect from all the fighting and moving she's done today.

Which is still too much, she's a fucking illustrati, but it's tolerable. She will let herself be carried as long as her bearer is willing.

Irabeth has 19 strength; even counting her own full plate armor, carrying Kybele is not even a particularly heavy load. She can quite literally keep this up all day, though it won't be as effortless as it would normally be because she only has one lay on hands left and is saving that for an emergency like getting Kybele back on her feet in a hurry, and thus can't just heal away any fatigue. Unless Kybele indicates that she wants to be put down or Irabeth needs her hands free to fight, she has no intention of forcing the person who just exhausted themselves probably saving their lives to be responsible for their own transport.

"Do you think you'll be recovered enough inside the hour, or would you rather we drop you off somewhere relatively safe like the defender's heart or the festival plaza? Rathimus probably has at least one lesser restoration left, if that effects your calculus, but we picked the spot to be a bit out of the way for a reason; it's a fair bit further from the library."

"I don't know, I don't have very much experience with this wound yet to guess what it's going to do. It doesn't seem to be getting worse right now."

"Let me know if that changes, then; I still have one lay on hands left I'm saving for an emergency."

With that settled, they can make their way to the Blackwing Library, though not before Irabeth dispatches three of her people towards the festival pavilion to let Hulrun know that they're dealing with a Lilitu. He'll be suspicious of how they survived, of course, but frankly suspicion is an entirely sensible response to dealing with a Lilitu so she's less inclined than usual to hold it against him.

Inside the blackwing library there are:
1. Lots of books, some of them on the shelves and some of them piled up on the floor
2. A group of what appears to be crusaders and an elf, tied to a pole at the center of the pile.
3. Another group of what seems to be crusaders, standing guard to prevent the other group from escaping.
4. Someone with a flint and steel trying to get books to light on fire and at least thus far failing horribly.

"Whoa, there, folks, what seems to be such an emergency as to burn books about it?"

Their apparent leader startles at the sight of them and takes a moment to reply, although it's hard to be sure what he's startling at.

"Demons, ma'am! We've caught some cultists here masquerading as crusaders, and we're trying to get a blaze going so we can find out which ones are only pretending to be human. They're a tricky lot; baphomet cultists, I think."

"I see. And your side of the story?" she asks the tied-up folks.

They're gagged and can't reply.

Yeah that does seem like an impediment. She and a little paper knife will start slicing gags off.