“Uh, I guess I could help you sneak through the garrison, but I don’t want anything to do with a lilitu. Once you get there, I’m gone. I’m no crusader; I agreed to help Irabeth because she’s always been fair by us but I’m not looking to throw my life away for a good cause.”

"Understandable, I mostly anticipate it being useful to have someone who's walked the path before so we don't take a wrong turn."

Then Aranka can tap her, Camellia, Ramien, and Ember with heroism, and their guide can lead them down the passageway. As promised, it's empty of demons and cultists and only a little dank, which Camelia scrunches her nose at but refrains from saying anything about. 6 or seven minutes after they enter and past two tunnels branching down, their guide pulls a lever in the stone and they let out into a much better maintained basement. From above and to the side, they can hear the sounds of combat. The room seems to be a storage area for valuables, with plenty of statuary and jewelry and porcelain, but amongst the items is a scabbard with the word Tirabade embossed on it. There's a set of stairs leading up.

Ky notices the sword but this doesn't seem to be the time. Up the stairs she sneaks.

The fortress is surprisingly empty, although perhaps less so considering that was the goal of the plan. There's another set of stairs nearby heading up to the second floor, but their guide waves them away from that, claiming that to get anywhere that way you have to walk exposed to the entrance-way and it's probably filled with whatever archers the demons have trying to get a good vantage point on the attackers. His duty done, he heads back down into the basement, presumably looking to head back the way they came.

Up another flight of stairs, then, creeping, creeping, creeping...

Camellia has to deal with quietly opening a door with squeaking hinges to get them past a group of cultists that for some reason hasn't yet joined the battle and guide them around a magical trap, but almost everyone on the first floor seems to be trying to repel the attackers at the entryway rather than have to resort to holding the line room by room, so the task is remarkably easier than their first attempt to make it up to the second floor.

That's when their task starts to get more challenging. Ember is able to catch two of the Babau awaiting them before they get spotted, and Ramien the third, but en route to the staircase to the third floor their path is blocked by an elven woman in fancy gear leading a squadron of demons.

"What's this? Intruders, sneaking around while the paladins hog all the attention? Hah, and Minagho said I wouldn't be necessary just yet and I should stay out of her way. When I bring her your heads, she'll be forced to eat those words."

The woman raises a glowing scythe, and a swarm of locusts starts to enter the room as she and her subordinates approach.

That's a lot of words for somebody to issue while Ky is smothering them with paper. Blinding the succubus worked well, let's do that here too.

At first she'll try to cut her way through it, but once the paper is close enough she'll think better of it and call up a wind wall to shield herself. Since some of the paper is already sticking to her, this involves her sticking her head into the wall and getting her hair buffeted around, but unless Kybele is able to exert a considerable amount of force with her paper she'll be fine until she leaves her position. To what appears to be her immense frustration, none of her summoned locusts will get within 10 feet of Ramien, and they quickly start keeping a larger distance when he demonstrates the ability to kill them by taking a step in their direction. The demons seem to be having better luck, but every few moments Ember manages to put one of them to sleep and Camellia and Ramien are both capable of holding them off while Kybele focuses on their leader.

If left uninterrupted, the elf will start casting buffs on themselves, starting with divine favor.

Uninterrupted? Oh, absolutely not. Ky's in there dual-wielding the angel sword and a paper glaive, reforming her anti-locust gear any time it gets dinged.

Without a full suite of enhancement spells, her opponent is only a little bit stronger than she is, but she's notably more skilled which stretches that difference further. Her ability to heal herself might also be a concern, but Kybele has Ramien to cover that without even needing to split her focus like her opponent does, so she's unlikely to lose on endurance. Still, at least in the short run it's a matchup Kybele is rather unlikely to come out the better in, such as this slice that manages to get through her guard-

Evil Eye.

- and skitter off Kybele's defenses, her attack interrupted by her muscles seizing up at a critical moment. Having committed to a strike and then failed to capitalize on it, she's left wide open for a counterattack.

Stab! but also yeah she really needs fighting lessons she was not previously planning to be a combat illustrati ahaha. Stab.

Augh! How about she calls down a flame strike on her own position, under the theory that she'll be better able to take it. How good is Kybele at dodging?

Ky is fast but was super not expecting that! Also her paper goes up in flames, but she can recreate it pretty fast.

That will give her opponent a bit of the advantage back, but evidently not enough of one that she's willing to light herself on fire just to get to Kybele again; perhaps she was hoping that destroying the extant paper would be enough to cripple her. She calls on some of her subordinates to support her, but seems extremely disheartened when she notices they're mostly dead and sleeping by this point and she'll have to fight more than one person pretty soon. She pushes Kybele back in a clash, then turns to flee the way she came.

The floor is by this time pretty covered with scraps of flaming paper and piles of ash; it's a bit slippery. Also Ky can fling a ribbon with a barbed paper dart at her while she leaves. It's supposed to be a stealth mission, after all.

That'll bring her down hard, dropping her scythe as she lands. She curses out Kybele, but if she has any cards left to play she doesn't get a chance to use them before Camellia finishes her off.

"Impressive showing, with those spells she was flinging around I'd be shocked if she wasn't 5th circle. You'll definitely want to put that part in the story, though maybe skip the bit where she started slipping before you brought her down. Hopefully anybody listening for the sounds of fighting is thoroughly distracted by the one going on downstairs."

"Elegantly done there, and yes, the composers will get a streamlined version." Onward, whisking the flaming paper out of their way; till it all burns to ash it is still paper.

There's an enormous roar from the lower levels that Ramien identifies as belonging to one or more minotaurs, but none of them impede their way before they arrive at the grey garrison's library. There are a handful of people inside it, but as surrounded by paper as they are it seems unlikely that they'll be able to give Kybele much trouble.

Shelves come down hard on anyone who looks hostile and doesn't sleep when Ember says to.

As long as the shelves don't crash loudly, that shouldn't be an issue; there aren't even that many of them there. From the other end of the room, it's a straight shot to the stairs, with the only person in their way being either a woman or a demon wearing very expensive clothing and radiating the same feeling of power Minagho did.