He is unsurprisingly not very enthusiastic about a plan that makes sure there aren't any doors between him and the rest of the caves, but not enough that he's willing to die over it. Seelah doesn't have any difficulty frogmarching him to the right location, at which point Anevia also binds his legs together.

"I'm glad we didn't have to kill that one." Or hand him over to Prelate Hulrun, which is the same thing with more steps, and not steps worth delaying the inevitable for. 

"I'm not sure how many more of them it'll make tactical sense to spare, but hopefully we can just avoid fighting most of them."

Unfortunately, despite her cajoling the prisoner they interrogated only knew the location of one of Hosilla's 'hands,' which doesn't exactly leave them with an abundance of options to choose from. The saving grace is that his description of their location was detailed enough for Wenduag to recognize it, so they're able to skip most of the backtracking that they needed to do until now. 

The maze continues to try and evoke a similar atmosphere, but there's no missing the fact that this section is more inhabited. Passageways and rooms regularly have doors, which both make it easier to hide and easier to see someone traveling through it, and some of the rooms have furniture or even occasional decorations. It's still a very large complex for such a small group, but it's hard to imagine you could miss the fact that people were present here.

"Little bit ironic that being inhabited both makes this place more dangerous and less spooky," Luzai mutters. 

"Some of the most dangerous cultist dens I've ever been in could pass for an ordinary room. It sure would be convenient if you could just follow the aesthetics though."

The cultist they're looking for is supposedly in a lower level of the maze. Unfortunately, Wenduag only knows of one stairwell that leads down there, and there are people between their party and the stairs. At first it seems almost like they're seeing things, but a closer look confirms it; the people in question are armed, and some of them are very visibly neathers. Unfortunately for any plans to grab them and leave, they also very clearly aren't the group they're in here for; these people are fully grown adults, not children, and there aren't enough of them.

Lann frowns. 

"I don't recognize these people," he says. "I would expect to at least have a vague idea who they are, if they're from tribes near enough by to have gotten into the Stone Maze..." 

"So what, there's some other group of mongrels down here?"

“There shouldn’t be. This doesn’t make sense…”

“I think regardless we probably shouldn’t assume that they’re friendly. Considering that they and the cultists don’t seem to be fighting.”

Lann nods with grim unhappiness.

Wenduag isn't going to sit around waiting for them to decide what to do. She nocks an arrow and looses it, hitting one of the neathers in the chest and catching the group by surprise.

Harsh but fair. Acid splash? Acid splash. She's not using up another Grease without talking to anyone about it. 

Lann catches up to Wenduag fairly quickly, nocking his arrow while muttering something under his breath. 

Seems sensible enough, though Anevia wishes she had gotten a heads up first. She lands a third arrow on the neather in question, dropping them.

And then Seelah steps up in front of them to block the charging opponents. Her armor saves her from the worst of it, but she still lets out a grunt of pain at one of the blows, and spares a thankful glance to Camellia for stabbing the opponent in question.

Luzai keeps getting off an acid splash every round or so, targeting neathers who aren't in melee with Seelah, and keeping as far back as possible. She gets extra "squishy wizard" points for the fact that normal healing spells don't work on her. 

Their skin is tougher than that of humans or half elves, but they aren't wearing armor so there's not much to prevent her from stabbing her choice of vital organs with her magic rapier. Frankly, the bigger dissapointment is their lack of reaction.

Intellectually Seelah feels bad about the fact that she's cutting down people that they attacked first, but her primary thoughts are consumed by focusing on combat and she's honestly also rather thankful that they hurt a lot less than demons do and she doesn't have to smite them to fight back.

It takes less than half a minute all told from start to end. By the time the last Neather drops Seelah is breathing hard and considering the merits of a lay on hands, but they're all alive and she's pretty sure she's the only one that got injured, so. It could definitely have been worse.

"You might warn us next time," Lann grouses half-heartedly. 

"What, did you need an invitation? Why were you waiting on me to get started anyway? The longer we took the more chance there was of getting spotted."

"If I had had a heads up, I could have landed another arrow or two before they got to us. But for all I knew you were going to have some way to talk them down."

Lann grimaces in frustration. "There should've been. Or--something. I don't know where those people came from, and I don't like that." 

It is in fact very sad that they had to kill these people. Luzai is genuinely sad about it. 

Also, did any of them have anything useful on their persons.