"That's fair." 

Then Lann will cheerfully lead them towards the village! There are some rocks to clamber over on the way but it's fine, they're way less difficult to deal with than that one cliff. 

With the addition of two skilled archers who know the terrain, the occasional scuffle with oversized bugs is equally trivial - in some of them, Luzai doens't even have time to use a cantrip before it's over. After one somewhat longer such fight against some giant spiders, though, Wenduag hangs back from collecting her arrows like Lann to speak with Luzai.

"You're making a mistake."

"It's been said. Which one are you talking about?"

"Showing off the sword. It's bad enough that you're encouraging Lann, but at least he can take care of himself. If you convince Sull to head for the surface, though, you'll be getting a lot of people killed just for not knowing any better. Can't you see that just having a glowing sword doesn't mean you don't have to face reality?"

"Well, that much is certainly true." If there's anything that means she even a tiny bit doesn't have to face reality, it isn't the sword. "But--I mean, safety in numbers is a thing? That's...why armies? I mean, there are places where generals use scouts instead of armies, that's true, but..." She purses her lips. "So the thing I'm imagining, right, isn't the whole group charging through the maze at full speed; it's, like, having a main group, and then scouts, and the main group advances slowly into areas the scouts have cleared, and then the scouts can retreat into the protection of the main group if they run into any kind of creature they can't handle that a bunch of people with spears would have a better chance with? And I don't know if that's something you've thought of and there's a reason it wouldn't work, or if it's something you haven't thought of." 

"That might help, against the bugs or cave lizards, but there are things there that even I avoid rather than fight - like moving rocks that will laugh off whatever weapons you throw at them. With a large group stealth becomes impossible, and running away is limited to the slowest person. Not to mention that bringing more people just means more targets for whatever drives them insane. There's a good reason why chief Sull hasn't agreed to Lann's harebrained scheme, and won't unless you go filling everyone's head with old stories. Do you think I'm saying this on a whim? I didn't use to be the only person who had braved the shield maze, but everyone else is dead or worse."

"Why does he disagree with you, then?"

"He's never been! He was too responsible for that, spent all his free time hunting and practicing his skills. He doesn't take the danger seriously and thinks if he just tries hard enough, everything will work out fine. If it were just him, I'd try to help him, but it's not just his life he'd be throwing away."

"Hmmmm." 

She mulls this over. 

"What if we propose a plan where the small, sensible strike team goes in first, and everyone else waits, like, just outside the Shield Maze, and if the strike team, after having spent some time working through the maze, thinks it's a good idea for everyone else to come in, then we go and get them? If the problem is that he hasn't been." 

"That wouldn't be as bad if it worked, but what I'm still worried about is that if you gather all the tribes' fighters in one place, get them armed and ready, show them a weapon out of their childhood stories and tell them it's their duty to go be heroes... if you tell them it's a bad idea after all and they should all go home, do you think they'll just do that? I don't think they'd even wait for you to report back - someone hotheaded would go, and then everyone else would feel a need to prove they were a real underground crusader and not cowards. And that's if the mental influence stops at the edge of the maze, instead of being able to start effecting weak willed people sooner."

If there really is a mental effect on the maze, which Luzai is not one hundred percent convinced of, then she wants to dismantle it in order to learn its secrets. 

Now is soooooo not the time for that, and while she isn't under the impression that knowing about the dangerously-more-cunning-than-wise problem makes her immune to it, she has built habits of noticing when the things she wants to do are a bad idea, using some of the mental infrastructure built up by growing up in Geb and noticing that all the necromancy is a bad idea. 

"What if...we go in before they have a chance to assemble, right after telling your Chief, and then ideally we're done before anyone has a chance to...no, nevermind," she waves a hand, "you don't need to tell me why that one won't work, anything that has the word 'ideally' in a load-bearing place is a bad plan. D'you think maybe we could convince him to try the maze first, and then talk to Chief Sull afterwards? If the point of disagreement is an empirical claim about what the inside of the maze is actually like, then testing that claim ought to resolve the disagreement?" 

She is not especially certain of this, and not even a little bit trying to sound authoritative. In theory, it ought to work, but lots of things ought to work in theory and, uh, don't. 

"If you could convince him of that, it would be better, but I didn't get anywhere even before the angel's sword turned up and started glowing."

"Well, maybe my holding the holy sword will give me credibility with him. We'll see." 

She drifts over through the group towards Lann. 

"Lann?" 

Lann sighs. "You've been talking with Wenduag." 

"Yeah, I have, and I thought of a compromise option that miiiiight work. So, Wenduag says that the reason you and she disagree about whether it's a good idea to bring everyone into the Shield Maze is because she's been in there and you haven't. So--this was actually not my first idea, when I floated my first couple of ideas to her she was not especially impressed--but the thought that I had that might work, is we go a little ways into the Shield Maze first, ourselves, before talking to Chief Sull, and if you go 'oh, wow, Wenduag, you were right, nobody else should be in here,' then we continue, and if you don't, we go back and talk to your guy and get everyone else." 

Lann makes a face. "I don't love how much time that would add on, if we went into the maze and then doubled back to talk to the Chief. Especially since it's going to take some time to gather the tribes; your friend was talking about preparing a spell before we enter the maze, and you'll probably have to spend the night before doing that; I'd really rather be able to talk to the Chief before then, so all the things that are going to take hours are happening at the same time." 

"Mm. I do see your point. But if speed is an important factor--and I do see how it is--I mean, a big group of people is going to be pretty slow anyways. Like, the way Wenduag talks about the place, it doesn't sound like a lot of people just charging in would be a good idea--a big group would have to move a lot more slowly, letting scouts go ahead to find and disarm traps and so on, to be more of an asset than a liability." 

Lann scowls. "Wenduag is underestimating the tribes. We're not like surfacers, with jobs doing things like carpentry or farming. Most of the adults in the tribe are experienced hunters, even if she and I are better than most." 

"The thing that bothers me, is if Wenduag is right and you're wrong, and we do things your way, a lot of people get killed. If you're right and Wenduag is wrong, and we do things her way, then...I think we're not worse off, than if we'd done that because Wenduag had been right?" 

"I see what you mean. But those kids...if we're not enough to go rescue them, by ourselves, they still need to be rescued." 

She nods, thoughtfully. 

"Hey, Wenduag? Could you come over here, there's no point in me shuttling back and forth to talk to each of you separately. If we go with your plan, just the small group, how long d'you think it'd take us to get through the maze, assuming we don't just die."  

"I've never gotten all the way through to the surface, much less explored the entire thing. But if we started at the entrance and went as far as I've gotten... unless you turn out to slow me down, it should be less than a gong and a half. Maybe even less than one, if we can safely pick enough fights I would usually avoid."

"Gongs?" 

"Less than a day, in surfacer terms. We don't really have the sun down here, so we keep time by striking a gong twice a day. Plus whenever a kid decides to sneak in and hit it."