She's imagining Minagho telling horror stories to other demons back wherever she fucked off to but perhaps she is mistaken. The ballads will help when they're out there, at least. Papercuts! Papercuts for the demons!

They go down much more easily to papercuts now that whatever was getting in her way before has been firmly told to get out of it. They're still more dangerous than ordinary people, because they're faster and stronger and can take more punishment, but that's a different question than being objectively dangerous. On a few occasions, she'll encounter grateful civilians who will thank her and Camellia for their assistance, but even now that the fighting is dying down and the fires mostly put out people still seem to be judging that the smart decision is to stay hidden as much as possible.

Totally reasonable, she hopes comparatively vulnerable Iskander is laying low. She will go check on him after she runs out of immediately obvious demons to slay.

That will take anywhere from one to four hours, depending on what her definition of immediately obvious is an how far she's willing to range, since she and Camellia are significantly more mobile and able to safely range far from possible backup than most of the groups out clearing the streets or going house to house, but there isn't an infinite supply of demons and over time the ones willing to be in a place they can be noticed have largely done so and been killed or shown the error of their ways and gone into hiding. There will be more of them after dark, and it'll of course probably be weeks before the city is cleared (barring whatever miscellaneous survivors that pop up in the future and will blend in to new arrivals in reports), but there are absolutely diminishing returns to be had.

Whenever she returns to the temple of Desna, she'll probably notice that there are no demons whatsoever to be found within a few blocks and a moving perimeter being established. The area around the temples and the garrison that has been declared clear isn't very large, but it's safe enough that some of the people who took shelter are starting to return to their homes and basic reconstruction is under way.

In that case she will check in with Iskander and catch him up with what's been going on. "And they'll probably give me the library."

"You must really like it here."

"I mean, I could like it better, but of places to mysteriously be..."

Kenabres does have quite a bit going for it, other than all the demons and cultists everywhere. The water is all clean, even with the infrastructure damage, due to clerics being able to supply nearly arbitrary amounts of it, and there's free healing from the temples of Iomedae and Desna on regular schedules so most people are in relatively good health outside of diseases. It's not especially rich when it comes to material goods, but of course there are entire sections of goods she couldn't get for any price back home in magic items, and if the people seem distrusting that's not that unreasonable after a crisis like this and it doesn't translate into anyone trying to give her or Alex a particularly hard time. Lots of stores and services are still closed, but there are people selling or giving away necessities, depending on how picky she is on kinds, and of course occasionally she might run into some of the people who participated in the attack on the garrison who tend to look at her with a healthy smattering of awe. If she wants to find something to do before her library situation gets worked out, there's a decent array of options available, including attending services at the any of the temples to try and get a better understanding of what the deal is with gods, but if she wants to see about getting a real bed and living supplies and getting ready to move into the library full time nobody is going to stop her.

She would actually like to attend services - she's seen a Desnan one, she'll swing by an Iomedaean one - but yeah she wants to get at least camp beds moved in to the library.

The Iomedaean service is somehow even more packed than the Desnan one was, even with the damage to the temple; people in Kenabres seem to be very religious. Select Stasia is the one doing the service, and seems to have gotten some sleep in between now and when Kybele last saw her, because while there's still some tiredness there the bone-deep exhaustion is gone. The service today is a reading from something called the acts of Iomedae, which appears to be at least in part tales of Iomedae's life while mortal. The reading for today is obviously not chosen at random, and Stasia introduces it by talking about how during Iomedae's war against the necromancer Tar-Baphon, her ally Arazni had been slain as a result of her own foolishness, and the crusade seemed lost and the world doomed to be conquered by the undead. She the reads aloud from a section about how Iomedae had eventually managed to rally the armies and make the war a real fight again, and how it had required hard work and immense sacrifices but in the end the person who had seemed unbeatable without divine intervention was eventually stalled by mortal hands, and that they then went on to save the world itself. She's obviously not as good at speaking extemporaneously as Ramien was, but when she it's scripted she can put real passion into what she says and people are hanging on to every word when she relays the bits from the story. There's two collections, one for repairs for the church and one for aid to those in need in the city; both are clearly marked, and it's emphasized that some people don't have anything to spare and that's okay because they're the people this is trying to help. Shortly after the end of the service is the evening channel, which a lot of people stick around for.

It'll take a bit to find out where she can get bedding, but if she goes to the church of Iomedae or Desna they have supplies for the displaced that include them, and it's pretty easy to get a meal while she's at it. She can also purchase something that may be higher quality if she's willing to go around looking, but it might be a bit difficult if she doesn't have a good sense of who to ask for assistance in finding someone.

She really doesn't but she can ask Camellia for a ballpark price and then try to find something that costs about half that!

In that case she can get something of good quality while only mildly overpaying, and leave the person quite enthusiastic about the deal.

Will he throw in delivery to the library?

Most people are not very enthusiastic about delivering outside the cordon, even with the protection of several adventurers, but there's enough people without the skills to actually fight and with no real employment prospects for the duration of the crisis that she can find some porters.

Nah, if it's an extra charge she'll just carry it all herself, she's strong enough.

(Un?)fortunately for her, the addition of a bed does not seem to be enough to convince any new demons to try and take a swing at her on the way there. The library is still largely as she'd left it, statues and books alike, though a bit more of the brick work on the back has finally come apart under the force of gravity. It seems unlikely to destabilize anything, but it probably means more money or work in repairs whenever she gets around to having it fixed.

Yup. She makes the rounds of the premises, taking notes on what needs fixing most urgently, and gets the books up on their shelves where they belong while she's at it, skimming their words with domain sense to get more of a bearing on what's up with the world.

Mendev is and remains something of a backwater, so the selection is perhaps less good than Kybele might hope, but Kenabres is still the largest city on the wound and is situated on a navigable river. If you're fine with most entries purchased in the last hundred years being holy books, incredibly popular publications, and treatises on demons or other military matters, there's not that much to complain about. And even if she isn't, there's at least still plenty to start giving her a better handle about where she found herself, like the planet's geography or most gods commonly worshiped in Avistan.

That's plenty to start. She can order more books when she's more established.

Nothing will interrupt her in her reorganizing, reading, or her rest whenever she goes to sleep. In the morning, Kenabres looks much the same as it did yesterday, but the first patrols of the day are notably more energetic, not to mention confident since they now have smites available again. There are still hot breakfasts offered at the temples; it looks like that's a measure implemented for the duration of the crisis, or at least as long as supplies last.

She nips down to the underground to tell the neathers that if they would like to come up everything's much calmer and she can spare the escort in case anyone is confused.

They're a little less enthusiastic now that it's been a few days since the quakes and they've been waiting for a bit, but she'll still get a pretty good uptic. Lots of them seem astonished at the sight of the sky, and some of them are even very nervous - they find it very reassuring to learn that actually most people put roofs over their heads. Fortunately Kenabres is still in the midst of summer, so the air isn't notably cooler than that underground as long as the sun is out, and Dyra seems to have been hard at work securing at least temporary lodging for a lot of Neathers. Apparently both channels and spellcasting are products with a lot more demand than supply at the moment, even if she doesn't anticipate the rates always being this good, and one silver lining for the death and destruction of the attacks is that housing is pretty cheap at the moment.

If some want to keep living underground that seems like their prerogative. She is glad the rest can come up and pitch in with rebuilding.

There's... nonzero racism from the citizens of Kenabres about the neathers, especially for those with horns, red skin, or a sufficiently different from human appearance, but Dyra seems to have been doing a decent job as an ambassador for them among the city guard and wealthier elements, to the point that no few of them mostly seem disappointed they aren't all like her. The fact that Neathers average notably stronger even with the probable-malnutrition is also something that earns them their fair share of at least grudging tolerance from a population that needs a lot of manual labor to rebuild, and for their own part a lot of neathers seem very enthusiastic about Iomedae and Iomedaeans.

If she sticks around long enough at any point, Rathimus will drop by her to discuss her getting access to the library stipend. It's paid out monthly from the coffers of the church of Iomedae through him, though of course she can withdraw it at any point rather than choosing to bank with the church of Abadar. He does take the time to warn her that these funds are intended for the upkeep of the library and not her own pocketbook, but will also tell her that it does make allowances for payment of staff (of which she is part) and that in between the library's independence as an institution and her own status as a skilled adventurer there isn't that much oversight. Rathimus makes no secret that he's annoyed the second part matters, but he's hardly going to lie about it even by omission. If the funds are insufficient, she can appeal to the church of Iomedae, solicit donations, take out a loan from the church of Abadar at the following rates, or pay it out of her own pocket. In addition to the funding, he can also direct her to where in the temple of Iomedae the backup records are kept for previous purchases, inventories, and other documentation; copying is a service available for a reasonable fee but he understands she can do that herself? He also takes the time to make it clear how she can divest herself of the role if her plans change sufficiently that staying on there no longer makes sense.

"I'm actually none too quick at copying text without tools - I do paper, not ink - but I know how to build the tools. Has it historically been the sort of library that lends or just allows visitors to read onsite?"