Brenda would kind of like to know more of her story and what "Desna helping her leave the Abyss behind" was like, but only if she doesn't mind talking about it.

It's visibly hard for her to talk about, but Arueshalae pushes through it. Her rescuers deserve to know the awful truth about her.

"I used to be an normal succubus," she starts, then shakes her head. "No, that's not true. I used to be one of the worst. Where some succubi would content themselves with working as prostitutes or attach themselves to a single more powerful demon and only occasionally murder or torture, I delighted in it. I was a master at killing and torture, but my favorite thing to do was to find beautiful things and destroy everything good about them, to make them just as twisted as I was. It was enough to earn me a reputation even in Alushinrya, but I soon tired of limiting myself to that and went further afield looking for victims. Sometimes that lead me outside the midnight isles, sometimes to Golarion, sometimes even further. I might have stayed like that forever, but I overreached myself. There was this woman-"

Arueshalae's voice chokes, and she has a trouble continuing. Guilt and sorrow war on her face.

"You don't need to tell me the whole story right away," she says softly. 

It feels like cowardice, to flinch away from telling that woman's story because of how much it hurt her, but Arueshalae is grateful for it anyway. It's not as though she hasn't done more than enough horrible things to make it clear what kind of a person she is even without it.

"After that I left myself open to Desna's retaliation, but instead of smiting me like I deserved she decided to save me. She gave me back my memories from my mortal life, all the hopes and I had long since abandoned and given up on, and told me I didn't have to stay like I was - that even demons could dream. I don't know what she saw in me, but I swore I would not pass this chance up. I turned against the other demons, helping where I could, until I finally got caught and imprisoned in Drezen."

"It's--really good--that Desna could do that." Deeply unclear why it was the right move this one time and not more frequently, but it's not like Arueshalae is a theology expert either. Probably. Maybe it's something about the nature of Chaos. None of this matters except that if it's possible for mortals to learn how to do it then Ember can, should, and will.

"That was very brave of you. It must have been hard, leaving everyone and everything you knew behind, but I'm glad you decided to help people anyway."

"You're mistaken. I didn't choose to stop doing evil - if Desna hadn't stopped me, I would be tormenting people like you to this day."

"People always have choices. Even now, you could choose to hurt people - just like anyone else could! What's stopping you is that you don't want to."

"Ember's right." Ember is so good and wonderful. "What you've done is part of who you are, but I think the bigger part is what you're doing now and what you're going to do in the future."

Arueshalae flushes lightly.

"I don't know if I can live up to that, but I intend to try."

"I think that's about all anybody can do."

The fact that a paladin got rescued from Drezen is big news in Kenabres for the rest of the day, though the information largely spread by rumor and is therefore largely less than accurate. In one particularly wild retelling Brenda hears told in the Defender's heart, the rescuers were actually a battalion of angels lead by the hand of the inheritor and managed to kill the famed demon general Aponavicus on the way out, but most seem to stick to tales they consider more plausible than that.

By the next morning, however, the rumors have died down - not because adventurers in Kenabres had lost interest in wild speculation, but because they have a new target to sink their teeth into. When Brenda arrives downstairs to join her companions for breakfast, the news of the day is that the queen herself had been seen approaching Kenabres with an army, and half the room can't wait to advance their own theories on why.

Brenda attempts to contribute some truth to the discussion of the prison break, but since she isn't willing to admit she was there this doesn't get very far. She listens with an attentive face and four skeptical ears to the speculation. "The Queen heard about the Wardstone and wants to verify for herself that Kenabres isn't a hive of demons now" seems plausible, as does "she thinks Deskari overextended and there's an opportunity to do something longer-term useful about it.

Yep, those both seem plausible reasons for her arrival! Kenabres - or more properly Terendelev - driving off an attack by Khorramzadeh was one of the main triggers for the fourth crusade, after all. Some of the other ideas bandied around are that she's here to finally do something about Count Arendae (the adventurers in attendance seem to be evenly split between those disappointed at the idea and those thinking it's past time), that she plans to ennoble the mysterious savior of Kenabres, or that this was just a rescue operation and the queen just decided she'd already come too far to turn around.

The first stop for the queen and her guards seems to be the temple of the inheritor. Equally unsurprisingly, a number of the city notable head over to meet her there, including Terendelev. A fair few of the people chatting seem to consider this interesting enough to head over and see if anything happens that’s visible from outside, but everyone else seems content to just go about their day.

It is not that Brenda has anything against the queen, who by all accounts is a very good queen in the tradition of honorable and decent fantasy monarchs, but going somewhere just to rubberneck at her feels vaguely unAmerican. She continues her busy schedule of studying magic with Nenio, reading her way through the entire library, and maybe soliciting swordfighting lessons from Seelah but only if she gets the sense that Seelah would have fun teaching her.

Then she can go about that uninterrupted until a Desnan adept drops by with a message from Ramien to tell her they're moving the wardstone soon.

(Seelah doesn't mind teaching swordfighting, but she's also just gotten the ability to summon a horse and is busy learning to ride. And brushing his mane and petting him and feeding him carrots. His name is Valiant.)

She's happy to help move the Wardstone, though!

So is Brenda, except--

"We should make sure Arueshalae knows. And is already outside. So she doesn't get chased across the city."

"Oh no, you're right."

A quick stop at the temple of Desna confirms that Arueshalae is there and doesn't need to worry--Ramien got her across the barrier by way of Elysium--and then Brenda and party head to the Wardstone.

Then she’ll arrive at the garrison while they’re still in the process of fitting the stone into a rope harness. Gawkers are being held back by a security cordon, but one of the paladins on duty recognizes her and Seelah and waves the party past. 

From close up, more details become apparent; the rope harness is attached to a series of ropes trailing off it for easier pulling, and a number of what are presumably soldiers out of armor are arrayed to help pull it.

The queen is in the middle of talking to Terendelev about something and doesn’t notice their arrival just yet.

Brenda thinks that logically speaking she ought to be one of the ones doing the pulling and will attempt to dibs a rope if she got here in time for that and it doesn't look like the soldiers will be annoyed. She doesn't particularly expect to be noticed; she isn't doing anything unusual (for once).

The soldiers are quite skeptical of the idea that a teenage girl can pull match an entire pulling team by herself, especially the ones from Nerosyan, but Seelah is a paladin and everyone knows those can't lie so maybe it's true? The worst case scenario for being wrong isn't very bad, though, so a skeptical lieutenant will authorize it. 

A few minutes later, Terendelev and Queen Galfrey finish whatever they were discussing and begin chanting a prayer to Iomedae. The wardstone lifts slowly out of the grey garrison, at which point people start steadily pulling it. Despite its size and mass, it's a relatively easy task; thanks to the fact that it doesn't need to touch the ground, the only thing slowing it down is air resistance.