Seelah rushes over to her and helps support her, only mildly slowed down by the rubble covering the floor.

"Are you alright? No, stupid question, what's wrong? I wish I still had a lay on hands left in me..."

"I don't know! Sword made me hallucinate and now my chest hurts again!"

"Oh dear. Angelic swords aren't supposed to do that - I'm not detecting evil on it, but if it was a good fake it would be able to beat my detection anyway. What was the hallucination? Do you need me to hold it, paladins are usually resistant to most kinds of hostile magic? I can try and heal you tomorrow but if Terendelev didn't manage it I probably won't be able to solve the problem."

"It was like having a dream that I was the - angel - and deciding whether to heal somebody or go after some backstabbing allies who'd hurt her to begin with?"

"You had a vision of the angel? Of them helping people? What was it like - what were they like? We're not even sure we really know his name right."

Lann appears to be looking at her with no small amount of awe.

"That does sound a bit more like an angel, but that was awfully rude of it to make your chest injury start hurting - I guess it does make some sense that a demonic wound would react badly to an angel, but still. Does it feel like there's any ongoing influence, or like your injuries might be getting worse?"

"Lariel. And I think it's calming down again now."

"That's good to hear, at least. We ought to get you some water, though - Camellia, do you have that one?"

"I do indeed. What would you lot do without me?"

With a gesture, she fills Seelah's canteen up to the brim.

Seelah then offers it to Kybele. "Drinking water doesn't always fix headaches, but it rarely hurts, and we've been doing quite a bit of hard work."

She drinks about half the canteen; hauling rocks is thirsty work.

"I suppose it figures. Thousands of bells go by, and nobody who touches the sword gets a single reaction, but the moment people show up from the surface the first one to try gets vision and shines with the light of heaven. You're as mortal as the rest of us, but I guess that hardly matters to an angel's sword."

She sounds more than a little bitter about it, but it doesn't seem to be mostly directed at Kybele at least.

"It's because we're mongrels, Wendu; we're tainted. Old Sull might talk about a glorious history as underground crusaders, but it's not like anyone can't tell the difference between us at a glance."

Despite his self deprecation, he seems more upbeat than he was a few minutes ago.

"With the angel's - Lariel's - sword giving that kind of reaction, we can definitely rally the tribes. Er, you can repeat it, right?"

"I'm not sure I have enough blood for that to be a great idea to try, exciting though the possibility is!"

"A shame, really. I hear bleeding out from chest wounds is a common fashion statement these days."

Lann seems somewhat disappointed, but also abashed.

"Er, right. Hopefully just the sword will be enough, then - it's not like I was going to be able to light it up anyway, and a group from the surface is going to be big news even without making it glow. Would you be willing to come to Neatholm?"

"I wasn't expecting to be able to make it to any of my other appointments."

"I suppose not. Well then, follow me!"

It's immediately obvious the difference that having Lann and Wenduag to guide them makes. The two of them are excellent archers with even better vision, but most of the advantage isn't there; if anything, they're somewhat held back by the fact that both of them are extremely careful with their arrows. They don't make shots they might miss, which is great for their accuracy but less so for eliminating all the critters before they get close, so it's not actually three times as good as Anevia alone. Instead, they are good at avoiding false turns, unstable ground, and on one occasion an entire colony of giant spiders. Anevia is starting to flag a bit, but less so now that she's not stumbling on uneven rocks, and it's not that long before Lann remarks they're almost halfway back.

During the aftermath of one of the fights they don't manage to avoid, Wenduag hangs back to speak with Kybele while Lann collects his arrows.

"I don't know if you really can't call up the light without being injured or not, but either way, it's the right choice. If you go around waving the light of heaven, the neathers will follow you like moths to the flame even when they really shouldn't, and the shield maze will chew them right up. They'll die for nothing and the kids won't even be saved. Numbers help, yes, but only so far, and once people start getting injured the rest will exhaust themselves trying to keep them safe. If you want, I can guide you and your group through, but that's about my limit; I've never tried taking more than a small group with me, and I definitely can't help anyone who can't carry their own weight."

"Maybe we could clear a path on the way up and then go back down later to hustle them out, if they want to go all things considered?"

"I've never managed it, but I don't know that it's impossible; it depends on what kind of help you can get on the surface, but I don't have any issue with you trying and I'll even help if it seems like it'll succeed. It might end up making more sense to chart an alternate path through wherever you came in, though; I expect you'll know better than I once we're through."

"Well, we came in via a giant chasm that opened down the middle of the town, but I guess with a ladder it would work all right once things have died down up there. I think I don't have enough paper to make a ladder... how many neathers are there? I think I'm close to being able to make more paper of my own."

"Definitely in the hundreds. If you count everyone in all the tribes, including children, it's over two hundred but probably not twice that. If you made a ladder I'm not sure how many would follow you; definitely some, but probably not most. Lots of them are scared of the idea of anything new, and it's a pretty common belief that we're stuck down here because we deserve it, the idiots."

"No, I mean, if I did the glowing thing, then would they go back the way we just came, and up a ladder, if in the course of this I became able to make such a ladder."

Wenduag frowns.

"I'm not sure. You might well get more takers, since the quakes have gotten some people very nervous and the idea of listening to angels is... culturally persuasive, but heading up a ladder is less like the idea of crusading most of them have stuck in their heads than getting themselves killed trying to rescue some kids is and I expect some of them would have second thoughts if they ever actually found themselves on the surface. You could probably get a good portion of the hunters, at least, and even if I doubt the surface is exactly safe right now it's better than the lot of them trying to cross the shield maze on their own at least. It's not what I would do, but I don't know exactly how it would end up."