Yep! She won't even have to finish before the rest of them drop their weapons and either hold up their hands or make for the doors. It's about an even split, leaning a bit towards surrendering.

Cool. Great. Awesome. Between her and Seelah and Wenduag they should be able to get the prisoners untied while keeping an eye on the surrendered cultists.

What do the former group have to say once they're no longer gagged? It had better not be "Hail Deskari".

They mostly just seem grateful, with quite a few prayers to Iomedae, but what might be a leader of them starts talking as soon as he's ungagged.

"Praise the inheritor, we're saved. Thank you for the rescue, miss, that very nearly went much worse. We're the order of the flaming lance, and I'm the head of this detachment; Klaem's the name. The Prelate sent us here to look for cultists in the library and rescue any civilians, but we got jumped when we arrived."

"My pleasure. Pleased to meet you; I'd ask for some proof that you're not cultists, but if you're willing to go five minutes without attacking me that'll distinguish you pretty markedly from all the cultists I've met." She says it jokingly, but with an undertone of weariness. "Have you seen the elf known as the Storyteller? I came here looking for him."

"He's the one tied up over there, with the white hair and beard. Looks unusually old for an elf, I know, but he matches the description we got."

"Excellent, thank you." Brenda knows nothing about elves (subtype: knows lots of things about elves but not which of those things are wrong).

She keeps untying people, apologetically using her dragon claws when the knots won't yield to her human fingers. (Having four hands is super useful for this--she can hold a rope in tension and away from someone's skin with two and cut with a third.)

Seelah and Wenduag will help out, and once she starts freeing people they'll be joined by the newly freed crusaders; it's not long before everyone is loose of the ropes.

Then they can tie up the cultists in turn and Brenda can introduce herself to the Storyteller. "I was told you were a magic expert, and the demons have done something to the Wardstone so it's not damaging them. Can I get your advice on how it can be fixed?"

"Magical expert is giving me perhaps too much credit," the old man says, his voice slightly rasping. "I study the hints of legend carried by items and people, though, and I was indeed here to examine the wardstone. It was a nasty business, that, extremely vile. It's been affected by a demonic poison that's eating away at it even now, and righting that would be no easy task. A miracle out of heaven could do it, like the one that created the stones in the first place, either directly by the hand of a god or called forth by one of their mightiest priests. The one who poisoned it could withdraw her taint, given a heartfelt plea from the one they hold dearest. A mighty Aeon could forcibly right it, returning everything to its proper state, though the consequences of such an act are hard to see. Or the poison could be fought with a greater poison; the essence of a demon lord, drawn forth through violence and shaped and wielded by one with the proper strength, could perhaps burn out the infection before it finishes its course."

"What is 'the essence of a demon lord'?" And can she get it by Dragon Fairy Elf Witching Deskari, because she wasn't going to do that by default but she will if she has a good excuse.

"A fragment of their divine power, which can be wielded by certain mortals through the medium of their crystalized blood. Though if there are any in Kenabres with the strength to do so, I do not know them."

"If, hypothetically, someone was descended from a demon lord, would their blood also work, or would it have to be then directly? Also I assume you don't mean literal strength, but could you say more about what kind you do mean?"

"Not on its own, though perhaps the likes of Treerazer would qualify. What is necessary is not the twisting strands of inheritance, but..."

He struggles with his words, trying to put to voice the concepts.

"The essence of myths and legends that suffuses them, I suppose. That which makes them more than an ordinary mortal or demon could ever hope to be."

"That makes sense, I think. I lost the sword I stabbed Deskari with when I fell in the crevasse, but maybe it's still where I dropped it." That street was an absolute mess even before there was a hole in it and she kind of doubts it's been cleaned yet.

"What about the kind of person who can wield it? What do they need to be?" Fantasy novel logic says she either has whatever the important property is, can acquire that property, or will need to do a second fetch quest to find the one person in Kenabres who has it and convince them to help.

"An old comrade of mine once said, it's the question of 'whether the world thinks it ought to listen to you or to the underlying laws of mechanical reality.' Being a little bit of a god, another called it, though that's even less right on the details. If there are better words to describe it, I do not know them; I have never had such strength myself, only seen it in others."

Well, she's not any amount god (now there's a concept!) but she does have magic from outside this reality. "Would you be able to check if I was like that?"

"I could certainly make the attempt."

He reaches out with a trembling hand towards one of her wrists.

When his hand makes contact, there's a feeling like a static shock as he audibly gasps. His expression shifts to utter bafflement before being lost amongst a bewildering array of emotions that cycle across his face, one after another, before finally settling on confusion and joy as he breaks into a wheezing laugh. When he finally withdraws his hand, it takes him a moment to regain control of himself.

"Oh, how your legend adores you."

He takes a second to exult in it before continuing.

"I have never seen a legend like yours, child, in all my years of life. You have traveled far to get here, from a place beyond my imaginings where you lived a life outside all I have experienced and moved by a strength beyond my sight, but somehow that is the least unusual thing about you. And oh, how delightful it finds you; it spared no effort to sing your praises. 'She is special,' it says, 'and beautiful, and unique, and important' - and feminine, though while it seemed obvious at the time I confess I can no longer see how it fits together. It thinks the world of you, in a way I have never once seen in all my years of life, and yet despite the full force of its brilliant luster I cannot help but feel I only noticed a thing because it deigned to allow me. Compared to that, the question of your qualifications seem almost irrelevant, but you are certainly capable of wielding such strength."

The Spirit likes her. 

Somehow, despite the amazing magic and Alpina's obvious friendliness, she hadn't thought of the Spirit as being the kind of entity that could like her. 

She likes the Spirit back. For the magic, for the willingness to search the multiverse for somewhere she would have a good life, for being the sort of entity that swims in the sea whose droplets are universes and yet is capable of liking humans and wanting to do nice things for them.

"Thank you. I hadn't--thank you."

"Klaem, would you be able to take the cultists into custody? I need to go find that sword." That brings the total to three plot-relevant swords in under 48 hours and it's making her think about how people misremember Excalibur as being the sword in the stone when it wasn't, but if there's a useful inference in that beyond "don't drop any more swords, they might not be interchangeable" she isn't seeing it.

"Certainly. We'll take them straight to the Prelate."

Then he and his order get to securing the prisoners, mostly with the same ropes they had been tied up with.

Is it horribly low-standards-having to feel happy about having killed fewer people than she theoretically could have? Because she does. She can think about it while her party makes their way back towards the street which briefly had a giant hole in it.

People seem similarly reluctant to waylay them on the way over to the festival plaza, though as they approach the sounds of people start to become audible. Unlike most of the rest of the city, the square seems to have some people in it who aren't trying to hide their existence.

When she finally lays eyes on it, it's to a scene not totally unlike the one she just left, though it obviously differs in many particulars. There are a number of people tied up under armed guard from what looks to be crusaders, and a roaring fire (that thankfully seems to be burning wood and not books), but most of the attention is on an old man with silvering hair and expensive clothes who seems to be conducting either an interview or an interrogation of one of the people tied up. They don't seem at all happy to be there, and their body language projects their terror in the face of his unflinching certainty.

He probably isn't a Baphomet cultist but apparently you can't be too careful. She approaches from an angle where he can see her coming and says, "Hello. May I ask what's going on here?"

The narration would like to take a moment to make sure everyone remembers that Brenda has four arms, cat ears, silver scales on her face, a bunch of expensive magic items, beautifully polished armor tailored to fit the four arms, and very pretty foreign-looking machine-woven clothes. Thank you; now back to our regularly scheduled program.

Some of the people dressed similarly to the man start to make to stop her, but stop when they realize she is headed for Hulrun and not the prisoners.

"Justice, of course. And who are you, exactly? I've got a good memory for faces, and I've never seen you before. A particularly brazen demon spy? What's your business here? Step to your left and answer promptly, or you'll join the rest of your sort."