"We'd be happy to help."

“Capital. I will be ready to set out whenever you are.”

Then unless Seelah has objections it sounds like the next thing to do is find Lann and Wenduag and ask if they're coming!

She'll find Wenduag first, likely because Wenduag is also looking for her. She seems to want to say something, but then hesitates and cringes at her own hesitation before forcing herself to push on regardless.

"I know I'm just a Neather, short lived and without any useful knowledge about the world, but I realized a long time ago that I wouldn't be satisfied with spending my whole life down here if I could possibly help it. And you... you're strong, strong enough to defeat Savamalekh in open combat, without even getting all that injured doing it. I want to serve you, if you'll take me."

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

This is the most AWKWARD goddamn EVENT that has ever HAPPENED in the history of the UNIVERSE. If she hadn't taken Friends In Strange Places she would probably have just turned around and ran.

She smiles warmly. "I saw your intelligence and your determination yesterday, and I would be honored to have you by my side against the demons."

Wow, that went great and she didn't even have to do any bowing and scraping or begging to get it. Obviously she'll still have to be respectful until she can figure out what Brenda wants from her in a minion, but it seems she has some goodwill build up.

"Thank you. I'll make sure not to disappoint you."

"Thank you. Before we set out for the surface, do you know what I should do with Lariel's sword? It was extremely useful against Savamalekh, but it should go back to its rightful owner if it has one." Fantasy novel logic says she should get to keep it but fantasy novel logic is not actually a good reason to run off with something that belongs in a museum.

"I mean, its not like Lariel had any kids down here, and it didn't respond to any of us; I don't see who else's it would be."

Wenduag wonders to herself if there's something she isn't getting here. She's not exactly clear on what people are like on the surface but surely someone as strong as Brenda doesn't have to give up a magic sword just because some neathers might be unhappy? Probably she's misunderstanding something, but she's not clear what.

"Well, if you ever run into an angel you could ask them if he had any friends he would have left it to, or if it was loaned to him by someone for the mission, but there aren't a ton of angels running around these days so it might be a bit of a wait. They only show up on their own when it's really important and it's supposed to take a pretty powerful priest to call them for long enough to talk to."

No, she's not jealous at all, why do you ask Jealousy of others is not becoming of a paladin, not when the goddess has already favored her with her blessing so she can help people out. She should include her struggles in her next prayer even though it feels really embarrassing to be upset that she's not also already a powerful cleric as well as a paladin.

Score one for fantasy novel logic, she supposes. "Okay. I'll--try to live up to it."

"At some point," she says as they go looking for Lann, "I'd like to ask you a bunch of questions about angels and demons and gods and religion, if that's alright. I only got a very brief and untrustworthy overview yesterday."

"You might want to talk to a priest about theology, I'm more of a fighting evil kinda girl than a scholar, but I'd be happy to help with anything I can."

Lann is also already up, but in his case that means he's doing... probably meditation? Something introspective, at least. Whatever it is doesn't result in him being unaware of the outside world, though, as he demonstrates by jumping to his feet when they approach.

"Sorry for interrupting. We wanted to know if you were interested in coming up to the surface with us."

Lann looks very tempted for a moment, then his eyes flicker to Wenduag and he winces.

”I’m not going to try to change your mind again, but I’m not sure Wenduag and I sticking nearby each other is such a good idea for the near future. I’d have a hard time getting by if I always have to watch my back for someone I just can’t trust, and I doubt our arguments will get better instead of worse if we stay in close proximity. Plus, I still owe Dyra for the channel.”

Well heck, now she feels bad for having accidentally sort of picked sides in a fight. "Alright. Good luck with everything, and I hope we'll see each other again sometime."

"Good luck to you as well. And... thank you so much, for helping rescue those kids. They had a bit of a scare, but it looks like they'll be okay when nobody even thought they'd survive, and that means a lot to me."

"Thank you. I'm glad I was able to help."

At that he'll smile at her, but won't delay her anymore.

The second time around, traveling through the shield maze is a much easier task. They can afford to just take a straight path to the other exit, and if she lets any of the cultists catch sight of her they spook like deer in headlights or just take off running. Most of the previously under construction areas seem to be occupied in full by the earth elementals now, but they don't seem to have moved into the already finished sections that lie along her path.

Hopefully the earth elementals will be better neighbors to the Neathers than the demon cultists were. And vice versa. She considers copying them but she doesn't want to be made of rocks enough to deal with the awkwardness right now.

"So, angels," she asks once it's clear they don't need to be sneaky. "What do they do, what are they like? Are there multiple kinds like there are multiple kinds of demon?"

"Angels come from heaven - well, any of the good afterlives, but the ones that are famous in Mendev mostly came from Heaven because it was the church of Iomedae that was asking for help. They're all good, though they can be lawful or chaotic or neutral just fine, and I think at least most of them used to be mortals but not necessarily ones that lived on Golarion. And yeah, there are a lot of kinds, though I definitely can't remember them all; there's the Cassisians, who are messengers like Lantern Archons are, or Iophanites that are all lawful good, or the stronger ones that most end up looking like us mortals like Movanic Deva, Astral Deva, or the really strong ones like Planetars."

"When you say they're all Good--my home planet doesn't have any magic that interacts with alignments, so everyone who cares about doing the right thing has to figure out what that is. There are organizations with opinions but they all disagree with each other. There are people who pick an organization to listen to; there are people who make up their own systems; there are people who just try to follow their conscience. Do people on Golarion have that same kind of disagreement on right and wrong? Do angels?"

"I mean, if you talk to a Shelynite and a Desnan and an Iomedaean about what kinds of good they do, you'll get different answers? There are a lot of ways to do good. But it's not like I'm confused about whether say Torag is good or not even though I don't follow him, and an angel isn't going to be confused about that with other angels or azatas or archons. I guess maybe some of the evil gods would lie about it when they can get away with it, but angels aren't going to be fooled by those lies and the devils or demons they send to trick people would know its a deception. I think good and evil are pretty much all the obvious stuff; murder and hurting people and necromancy and abandoning people in need are evil, helping people and defending the innocent and caring for your family and fighting evil and healing are good?"

"So different Good gods have different priorities, the same way humans have different priorities, and people mostly follow the god who has the same priorities as them? There's a famous ethical dilemma on Earth--if there was a rockslide, and a boulder was going to crush a group of five people, and you could deflect it, but that would make it crush one other person, is it right or wrong to do so? Do all the Good gods agree on what the answer is?"

"I mean, I guess I don't really think that situation comes up much. But if we're talking more generally you could have a situation where, like, you could recruit a town's guard to go rescue a neighboring village from an attack and this means some of them will die from monsters when they don't have protection? And sometimes there the good gods might disagree on what to do. Iomedae or Torag wouldn't tell them to do that, because they have a duty to their town that they'd be abandoning and it wouldn't be lawful, but it wouldn't be Evil to do it, and Sarenrae or Desna might support it for doing more good."