Wenduag is too busy trying and mostly succeeding at not gaping at the sight of more ice than she’s seen in her entire life to realize that a dragon might be something she could possibly expect to be frightened of.

Ember and Seelah, by contrast, both know enough about who Terendelev is feel almost completely assured in their own safety near her, regardless of any property damage. 

Inside the doors is a short hallway that leads past a few statues of angels and crusaders and lets out into a large circular room, also spotted with patches of slowly melting ice. There are a number of shivering cultists under guard, as well as no small number of demonic and cultist corpses, both frozen solid and torn apart. Also among the bodies are a pair of large bipedal creatures reminiscent of bulls carrying enormous axes. Terendelev is not evident in either of her forms, but the stairways to the basement level are also flung open and there’s some regular traffic of uniformed people in and out of it.

Labyrinth yesterday, minotaurs today, flying on wings of wax tomorrow. 

Brenda approaches the most stationary and least busy-looking uniformed person. "Hello. I need to talk to Terendelev about the Wardstone next time she isn't too busy. Anything I should be doing to make myself useful in the meantime?"

"If you've got endure elements prepared, I expect some of the men wouldn't turn you down, but they'll be fine without it, and there are probably more valuable things you prepared in those slots today anyway. We're just waiting on Terendelev to handle a bit of a hostage situation without getting the hostage hurt and it shouldn't be more than a few minutes now. I assume it's not urgent enough we should interrupt?"

Aaaaaaaaa he has mistaken her for a wizard with useful shareable magic when in fact all she does is get useful presents, copy biology, and punch people*. Too bad there's a hostage situation in the basement so she can't go down there as a substitute for sinking through the floor in embarrassment.

"It's not urgent on the scale of minutes but might be on the scale of hours. I don't have much for spells, I'm afraid, but--hmm. Just a second." She pops out into the hallway, gets out of line of sight of everyone, causes herself to be wearing a much-too-large warm parka over her existing warm clothes, takes it off, and brings it back.

"Would anyone like a coat? Uh, warning that it might disappear when I stop holding it, I haven't actually tried this before."

*Unfortunately Brenda is from 2005 and doesn't know that the appropriate way to end this sentence is "eat hot chip and lie". 

Some of them will try dubious illusion magic coats, sure!

The dubious illusion magic parkas are warm and comfy and she can make as many as there are people who want them, albeit only when nobody is looking.

(Brenda is fully aware both that this is extremely overpowered and that she probably hasn't even scratched the surface of how overpowered it is yet even if she can only make things that count as clothes. The Wardstone is a more urgent issue but she is absolutely planning to munchkin the living daylights out of Dressing Room.)

Some of them are definitely parsing the 'when nobody is looking' limitation as her just not wanting to show off how she casts it out of paranoia about someone trying to reverse engineer it, but they definitely aren't going to say anything about it when this is resulting in them getting free stuff.

After a few minutes of this, Terendelev walks out of the staircase, supporting an old man with one arm. One of the soldiers brings a blanket to wrap around him, and sits down next to him to talk in a soothing voice. She has a quick conversation with some of the guards, then heads over to Brenda.

"Hello again, Brenda. I didn't get a chance to thank you for your help earlier, but it's very much appreciated. A lot more people would have died without your warning, much less your willingness to face off against Deskari himself. You said you had another warning to deliver?"

Brenda explains her observations of the Wardstone and the two conflicting pieces of advice she got. "So I was hoping," she concludes, "that the two of us and Hulrun could go in there, clear out the demons, figure out what the problem really is, and fix it."

"I'm hardly an expert in magical items, but that does sound concerning. Even if there wasn't damage to the wardstone already, I can't imagine allowing a Lilitu to hang around it for prolonged periods of time would be a good idea, and after yesterday it would be very foolish to discount your tidings. I expect if the three of us dealt with it it would probably go fine, but Lilitus aren't stupid so there's bound to be at least some kind of trap involved and that's the kind of thing I would rather overdetermine as much as possible. As the one who actually saw the damage, how bad would you guess it is? Do you think it's the kind of problem where we can afford to take a few hours to see if I can shake loose a rapid response team from Lastwall, or where I should be getting Ramien and Jhoran and Rathimus to hand out whatever spells they can cast or prepare in the next 20 minutes and then go with whatever paladins are available?"

"I am so extremely not an expert on magic items but the damaged area was about yea big and didn't visibly spread any further during the time I was in the room."

"Then I think it's probably the smarter choice to play it safe," Terendelev replies, almost regretfully. "Is there anything else I can do for you first, or should I get started on that?"

"No, that's all. When and where should Hulrun and I meet you and the rapid response team, and is there anything else I should do between now and then?" She's somewhat nervous about talking to Hulrun again, but if Terendelev is getting reinforcements it's the logical division of tasks and she's not going to be a scaredy cat about it.

"I'm not sure they'll have any teleport points in Kenabres other than the temple of the Inheritor, so meeting there is probably for the best; the temple of Desna is a bit closer to the garrison, but I'd rather not have Hulrun and Ramien in the same building without me for longer than they have to be until they work through whatever Hulrun's annoyed at him for now. If you could talk to count Arendae for me about getting his retinue onto the streets and helping it would save me a headache but that seems unreasonable to ask of you. If your schedule is clear I assume the Eagle's Watch could make use of extra hands but I can't think of anything that needs your skills in particular."

"Alright. I'll talk to the Count if you think it will help but if not I have other productive uses for the time." (Wizardry books. She has wizardry books.)

"No, that was more me idly wishing because he frustrates me. Inheritor's blessing with you."

"And with you as well." She heads out of the tower and starts walking back to the festival plaza.

"What are your other plans looking like? I'd love to help out, but I'm worried I'd just get in your way when you end up fighting Minagho again."

"I haven't nearly the tactical knowledge to know whether it makes sense for you to join the fight, but I trust you to be brave enough to join if it's tactically optimal and wise enough to stay out of it if that's optimal. If it doesn't take me the whole two hours to get Hulrun on board I want to spend the rest of the time reading the books on Arcane magic I got yesterday. I don't expect to get anywhere with them fast enough to be useful today, but the sooner I start the sooner I'll know things."

"That makes sense. Well, there's bound to be something I can help out with at the temple, since they're probably dealing with a lot of displaced people now, and I can try and help smooth things over with the Prelate if it's needed again."

"I'd appreciate that; he doesn't have any more reason to trust me now than he did an hour ago."

Prelate Hulrun does seem somewhat less busy than he was then, and the corresponding reduction in miserable people awaiting judgment does a lot to improve the ambiance at the festival square. He's in the middle of another interrogation, which she could listen in on if she wants but is probably less pleasant or interesting of an experience than police procedurals make it out to be, or she could talk to one of his subordinates if she wanted to get a moment of his time without needing to get his attention personally.

She expects listening in to be unpleasant, but if she's going to run around being a caped vigilante she should probably know any things about the law and its enforcement around here. She goes and stands in Hulrun's field of vision, obtrusively enough that she's not sneaking up on him but casually enough that she's clearly attempting only a medium-priority interruption.

"You're here accused of working with the demons. Do you have anything to say in your defense?"

"Please! Have mercy! I didn't know they were cultists, I thought it was just a normal job at first! A-a-and I didn't hurt anyone, just smashed some windows and took some stuff! I'm faithful to Iomedae, you have to believe me!"

"There are no excuses for treason. Do you have any connections to higher ups in the cults?"

"Nossir, I don't know anything about that."

"Mendev has no room for tolerating your ilk. If you can prove your humanity, you may have a minute to repent of your crimes in the hope that the Judge has mercy on your soul, and be grateful to the goddess you're even offered that much."

The man starts openly sobbing, but doesn't dare resist when two of Hulrun's subordinates escort him at swordpoint over to the roaring fire and force him to stick his arm in until it burns, though the sound of his crying is briefly drowned out by his scream.