"At the very least, you don't need to worry about a repeat now, Ember. Why, these days Hulrun doesn't try to kill good people for helping out unless they're chaotic, and he usually bothers to check before killing children."

There's more scorn in Ramien's voice than he has ever shown off in front of Kybele before.

"You don't need to be angry at him on my behalf, Ramien. I'm not still cross at him. It was a long time ago, and when I think back to those days he was more scared than anyone else. He was trying to protect the city from something he didn't understand, and just got mixed up about who was good and who was evil."

A bittersweet grin crosses her face, then vanishes.

"Besides, it's not like Grandmother picking him meant it was impossible for my father to have been a bad person. The gods are people too, just like us, and they can make mistakes as much as we can."

"I... see. I'm glad burning at the stake is no longer de rigeur."

Hulrun has spent nearly his entire life as an inquisitor, making hard choices no matter how unpopular they turned out to be. He's put everyone, from nobles to pillars of the community to his fellow Iomedeans to the sword when it turned out they were serving the demons, and borne all the ill will of his actions without ever changing course. If there was any social situation sufficient to make him give up, a succubus would have tried it out a decade ago to get him out of the way. He doesn't do embarrassed.

Nevertheless, it remains the case that it's very awkward to be in a room where every single one of your living peers is judging you for a decision you cannot, in fact, actually justify or make right.

"We've dealt with the primary threat, but there are still numerous demons infesting Kenabres and menacing her citizens. I'll be heading out to deal with them."

"Oh, marvelously done, miss. And here I thought Kybele's triumph would be the zenith of today, but it seems I should have prepared for an encore!"

"That's not why I did it. He's trying to do better now, in his own way; there's really nothing for me to hold against him."

"I assure you, that just makes it all the better. There's just something extremely satisfying in seeing those holier-than-thou Iomedaeans outdone at their own game, and by a child no less."

"What did he think you'd done?"

"He thought I set that up on purpose to embarrass Hulrun since he wants to do it himself. Which wasn't totally wrong, since I could have reminded him who I was without doing that, but that wasn't the goal. Then he realized I was trying to help Hulrun, and decided this was also funny because he has a complicated relationship with people who think following Iomedae is the start and end of virtue."

"No, I mean, what did Hulrun think you'd done, when he tried to burn you."

"My father was a witch like I am, and the only kind of witches he had ever heard of followed demons. The idea that we didn't have to get our powers only from evil people was new to him, and new things were frightening to him, so he thought it was a trick from demons and we were just biding our time until he let his guard down. He put me there too because he didn't understand why my father had brought me here and assumed I had to be part of the trap, so it was better to solve the entire problem at once."

"Oh. I see. I'm glad he - has learned better since then." She gives herself a little shake. "Well, I'm going to the library, unless there's somewhere else I'm obviously needed - or unless Daeran wants a blow-by-blow to give the bards?"

"There's little I'd like better, though you'll have to let me know which parts you want to stay as is and which I should tell them they can use their artistic license on."

She will give him the blow-by-blow. They can have most of it as-is, though probably they can think of something cooler for her to have said to Minagho and also she's going to leave out the angels in torment in the wardstone because that seems like possibly sensitive information.

Daeran will listen enthusiastically, though before she gets fully underway he'll ask her for one of her papers so he can take notes on what the official version should look like. He offers a second pen to Aranka, but apparently she feels confident she can memorize a shorthand version on the first try, which causes Daeran to whistle appreciatively. He's overall a very credulous listener, but when she mentions the run-in with Areelu Vorlesh he can't help but evince surprise.

"You know, I always wondered if she was even real. It's the perfect story for suckers, you know? If you serve the demons, maybe you will get lucky and become an archmage that outranks Balors without even having to die about it, when in reality almost none of them will ever amount to anything except cannon fodder. But if she can show up to monologue ominously at you in the middle of a fight for the city, I might owe some people some money."

"It was pretty alarming but she didn't seem to want to actually interact with the situation at all. I wish I knew what that was about."

"I can imagine. Normally I'd suggest we claim you drove her away with the light of heaven or something, but that's one woman I absolutely don't want coming after me for taking issue with her portrayal."

By the time she gets to the point about the wardstone granting her and her companions extraordinary powers to defeat the demonic army, he's back to being ordinarily enthusiastic again.

"That'll definitely go a ways to giving your tale more appeal among adventurers. If there's one thing they like more than the fabulous riches, it's the suggestion that there might be a way to obtain some extraordinary ability. Are any of them particularly flashy?"

"Ramien knocked a lightning bolt aside like it was a dueling sword!"

"Well, he's always been good with his hands, but that's exactly what I was asking about. Yes, I think this will do nicely; I'll make sure to send you a copy of whatever drafts I receive, though if you don't end up staying with the library you might need to supply me somewhere to address them."

"I am very keen on moving into the library."

"Then I do not foresee any problems. Do feel free invite me along at the next such adventure of yours, because this one certainly lived up to its advertisement."

"Will do, your participation was much appreciated today." She bows.

The rest of the tasks to accomplish at the grey garrison largely consist of varying kinds of cleanup, and many of the people here for the assault will instead fan out to go hunt down any remaining demons or cultists still active in the city, or else rescue and defend survivors in places with more civilian inhabitants. The wardstone should stop any reinforcements, but it doesn't do much about the demons that have already crossed and of course the humans are completely unaffected. They'll happily take Kybele's help with any of these she cares to assist with, but nobody seems to consider her to have a duty that involves her doing any of them.

She will go demon-hunting! Her paper is working much better on them now, maybe being really scary to some demons helps a lot with standing??

It might not be easy to pick it out from everything else that happened at the wardstone, but angels do seem to count as people at least enough that she is getting something out of them that's not the mysterious new power, and there was another, somewhat smaller jump when she blew the roof off the garrison. She'll get a steady trickle extra as more and more people learn about the events, but it seems that either people are rather busy or Kenabres' rumor mill isn't reliable enough on details to efficiently turn hearing about her thirdhand or more into fame. It's hard to say if any of that is from demons rather than normal people, but of course the demons are also dying fairly regularly at this point whenever they encounter a large enough patrol so it wouldn't be accumulating that much long term.

The area immediately around the Grey Garrison is mostly clear of demons, with presumably everyone ambulatory she could find having been drafted by Minagho, but if she widens her net there are some schirs and dretches that aren't able to hide from her and Camellia fast enough or are uninformed enough to think they can take them.