She makes the 'not about to draw my sword' gesture with both sets of hands, and steps to the left despite not knowing why he wants that. "A reasonable worry, but I'm new in town, got here yesterday and then spent most of a day in a cave. I'm on a quest to fix the Wardstone and drive the demons out of the city."

"A likely story. Showing up on the day of a demon attack with an excuse for why you didn't help out, and now coming up with a story of how you ought to be granted access to the cornerstone of our defenses? Normally the ones strong enough to use undetectable alignment are trickier than that, but I've met plenty of foolish demons in my time."

"Prelate, please. She was with me the entire time; she didn't do anything nefarious yesterday, just help Anevia and I rescue some kids from Baphomet cultists and get back to the surface. And today she fought a Lilitu at the grey garrison and demon cultists at the Blackwing Library to rescue crusaders. She's not a bad person."

"Has she enchanted you too? Get a hold of yourself, covering for demons puts innocent lives at risk."

He steps into Seelah's personal space, and incants another prayer before touching her armor, to no visible effect.

"Hmm. There aren't many things that could grab a paladin strongly enough that two protections from evil wouldn't suppress it, but a lilitu would do it. Nothing for it, then; Dispel Evil."

He then moves back a step.

"Report soldier. Think back on the last two days. Are there any gaps in your memory? Times where you acted out of character, or did things that don't quite add up? Anything suspicious you saw?"

"No, Prelate. Everything I said still seems true, and has other witnesses besides. Most of the Eagle's Watch saw the fighting in the garrison, and we rescued the Order of the Flaming Lance at the library."

"Hmmph. Well, I suppose that's as good as I'm going to get in this damned attack. What's this foolishness about the wardstone, then?"

"The demons--probably the lilitu in particular--damaged it somehow; an elf who was recommended to me as the best available magic expert and who demonstrated that expertise in a way that would be extremely hard to fake told me I'd be able to fix it using Deskari's blood, so I'm looking for the sword I stabbed Deskari with, which I'm hoping is still" she points across the plaza "over there." The bit about the demon lord blood sounds pretty suspicious to her now that she thinks about it, but lying sounds like a terrible idea.

"So because some elf told you the wardstone was already poisoned, you decided to go bring it an even stronger demonic poison? Inheritor, this is worse than dealing with the Desnans. Instead of making things worse, you should stay out of the way and let Terendelev and I handle keeping the city safe."

"The Wardstone is definitely poisoned; I saw the damage with my own eyes. I know you have reasons to mistrust me, but if you and Terendelev don't have a plan to repair it yourselves you should let me help. Our problems are too big for any one person to handle alone."

He has a point that she shouldn't necessarily trust the Storyteller's honesty even if he thoroughly demonstrated his competence. She wants a day or three in a library with nothing happening so she can get some actual understanding of the world not filtered through one individual's no-context assertions.

"I'm not even convinced that it's damaged, but I can assure you, if it is we will deal with it. There's plenty of other work for adventurers in the city at the moment, from patrolling the streets to help keep them safe to supporting the guards and soldiers in raids on cultist dens. And if you really wanted to make yourself useful, you could bring me Ramien."

"Prelate, surely you can't be serious! Ramien is a good man, and a cleric of a good god besides!"

"Desna may be good, but she's chaotic; we can't count on her or her priests to be reliable except where their whims take them. And it's not just him this time; those out of town desnans of his broke into the wardstone before the attack, and I bet if it really was sabotaged it was them who did it. Unfortunately they tried to deny everything when we caught them at it, and the Voyager has gone beyond covering for them; he used the attack as a distraction to break them out of lockup. Hopefully, he's acting like this because some demon dominated him - the Lilitu, perhaps - and it's for his own good, but if he really has turned traitor Desna's endorsement is not a defense."

"Would Desna really keep giving him spells if he turned evil? Surely it's more likely that this is all a plot by the demons to get the forces of good tripping each other up. Also, doesn't it seem likely that the Wardstone isn't doing its job right now, given the demons everywhere? If you have your own idea of how to fix it I'm all ears, but the Storyteller said it's going to get worse if we don't move fast."

“If only we were so lucky. Even if the Voyager is dominated by a demon, she’d keep handing him spells as long as she thought there was some good in him, to say nothing of all the chaotic neutral people she’s perfectly happy to cleric. Barely better than the demons, if you ask me. As for the wardstone, hah, as if a miracle from the goddess would be so easy for demons to destroy. Even the archtraitor Areelu Vorlesh herself would struggle to get anywhere, much less some puffed up Lilitu, and I examined it myself before the attack and nothing was wrong then. More likely the demons figured out some spell to temporarily fool it and as soon as we reverse it they’ll regret their arrogance.”

"How much time with it would you need to examine it again? I can get you line of sight on it, but if you need to be able to do things to it we should get Terendelev to help with the lilitu. And I should get the sword first in case you decide it will help."

"I spent 10 minutes looking it over before the attack, and I suppose if it prevents you from doing something foolish I can spend 10 more after everything is dealt with. As for whatever sword you're looking for, if it belongs to you, a demon, or a cultist I have no issue with you claiming it."

"Grabbed it off a dead demon, yeah. I'll go find it and Terendelev and get the logistics sorted--wait, you never actually said what you were doing here and I still want to know."

"I'm interrogating the captured cultists. Most of them are going to face the death penalty anyway of course, but some of them will give up enough of their fellows that we'll give them a chance to repent, and of course occasionally the people you get are just convenient patsies and it lets you track down the real culprit."

Uhhhhhhhh.

1. That seems fucked up.

2. She doesn't know enough about government to dispute it.

3. She misses the United States of America.

4. It's not like she can get on any kind of moral high horse about this; she's been killing cultists left and right.

"How are you checking who's a cultist? Some cultists were trying to frame the Flaming Lance for being cultists earlier."

Hulrun nods, the first sign of anything approaching approval all conversation showing on his face.

"It's impossible to be sure, of course, but I'm checking their alignments in case any of them are demon clerics or demons who slipped up, putting them in a magic circle to help against enchantment, interrogating them under a zone of truth for what crimes they've committed, and then the fire makes it obvious who's a demon in disguise. If they're good or lucky enough they can slip through anyway, but it catches most of them and it's against the law to kill them without evidence."

She still feels bad about executing people without trials, but this isn't an America, it's a premodern semi-post-apocalyptic city with truth magic. 

But what if one of them is innocent and also her godfather the problem in that case was specifically failing to use the truth magic they had on tap.

"If you're letting anyone go free who says they're not a cultist under zone of truth and doing what you can to make sure they can speak freely that seems like the best available option. Thank you for dealing with this; it sounds like the worst job."

Well, he also checks for other crimes while he has them there, but really that's just details.

"No thanks are necessary for doing my duty."

Brenda has gotten As in all of her history classes but this is not the same as a practical working knowledge of the ways law enforcement can suck and how to detect them. She heads over to where she dropped the sword.

Judging from the way the sealed-over crack looks and the direction she was facing when she tossed it aside to grab for a handhold when it opened, it should be right about . . . there.

Above the rubble where the sword should be buried floats a sphere of pale bluish light. It seems like it should be immediately obvious to anyone nearby, yet nobody has remarked upon it. As Brenda approaches, she feels a tug not wholly dissimilar to that of Lariel's sword; she might see a vision here, if she allowed it entrance.

The consequences were good last time, and they would have had to be really awful to make Brenda less curious this time. Hello blue thing! What's your story?