He looks around frantically for options.

Camellia smiles at him. It's a nice, friendly smile.

Yeah okay no. 

The cultist calls out something incomprehensible, and the earth elementals stop trying to attack Seelah.

"Told them they didn't need to attack intruders as long as I'm alive."

"Cool." Luzai shoves a rag in his mouth and ties it in so he can't countermand that.

She stands up and wipes the blood off her mouth. 

"--I'm not actually sure biting him was okay," she says to Anevia and Seelah, "but I wasn't immediately thinking of other options and not killing the elementals seemed more important." 

She's Good and not undead after all! She can just be both that and have better ideas than lying to an inquisitor!

"It's better than killing him or having to kill them, and we did agree it might make sense for you to drink someone's blood."

Seelah's voice comes out somewhat dubious despite her best efforts. She shakes her head.

"Sorry, that didn't really come out right."

"No, it's fine, I'm not exactly comfortable with it either." 

She sighs and makes a face. 

They can move on, then. 

The second key fits in next to the first, and the door slides open to reveal a staircase spiraling upwards.

Luzai's first impulse is to immediately charge up the staircase, but instead she does not do that. She lets Seelah and Camellia and Anevia, who are not useless in melee, go ahead of her; she may be about twice as unsquishy now as before she bit the cultist, but twice not a whole lot still isn't very much. 

Whether her restraint will hold when they get to the top and see what lies beyond is another question. 

The staircase terminates at a balcony overlooking another large, circular room; two smaller staircases curve their way down the walls in opposite directions to give access to the room below. Judging by the stonework and architecture, significantly more care was put into renovating this room than the rest of the maze, but it’s empty of any finery or furniture. Instead, any attention any observer can’t help but have their eye drawn to the inhabitants. The scene is not difficult to parse. Four children, cowering in fear. One cultist, her robes and enchanted glaive making no effort to disguise her identity. One prisoner, bound but still recognizably dressed in the robes of Iomedae's clergy. And towering above all of them, one demon.

The creature standing before them is enormous - nearly fifteen feet from head to foot, with grayish black skin stretched over a frame nearly thin enough to seem emaciated. From its back extends a pair of wings, like some cruel mockery of a bat, and upon its face are a pair of white eyes that could pass for those of a corpse. Judging by the direction of its head and the movement of its thin tail, the creature's attention is wholly captured by whatever purpose it has with its prisoners, but that is not sufficient to make observing it safe - even beneath its notice at this distance, it's obvious that this demon is incredibly dangerous.

Oh.

That’s.

Not.

Good.

shit

—Well. They can’t just go back. There are children down there; the fact that the children are their original mission is less important than the fact that they’re children.

Luzai hadn’t spent her second Grease yet. She does that, now, aiming to get under the cultist—Hosilla, presumably—Glaive Guy Two called her an inquisitor, fuck inquisitors—and the big scary demon.

She can’t win this, obviously, but if she can buy some time for everyone else to get away—

Unfortunately, this does not go as hoped. Hosilla nearly slips and has to right herself, but the demon isn't even inconvenienced enough to bother moving. Instead, with a lazy wave of his hand, the balcony they're on collapses and their group falls to the floor below with it. It's not a long enough fall to seriously injure them, but any escape would require getting out from under the rubble and then making a break for it across the room - not to mention up the staircase. Fortunately for their immediate survival, however, the Demon seems to have higher priorities than attacking them.

"Pitiful creatures. As you are now, you are less than even a tiefling, a defective product worthy of nothing but scorn. But I can change that, and unleash your true power, make you better and stronger than ever before. Simply submit to me, Savamalekh, your lord and master. Eat your fill and satisfy your hunger, just like you were always meant to."

Despite the situation, one of the children makes to refuse, but Hosilla removes their head from their shoulders before they can even finish their sentence. 

No. No!

Magic Missile. On Hosilla. It is approximately nothing but it’s all she can do—

The air seems to grow thicker, as though she were swimming in blood, and it's a struggle to complete the necessary gestures to fire off the attack. Her companions, if anything, seem worse off; Seelah and Wenduag are struggling to get their feet back under them, and the others are still lying on the ground. The magic missile connects, but scarcely does more than the grease, and the Neathers don't seem to even notice as they crawl over to the body of the priest and bite down. Give up, the demon seems to say, though no further words leave his lips. It's hopeless.

SCREW. YOU.

Luzai is angrier than she can ever remember being in her life. It’s like a forest fire has roared to life in her chest; she wants to reach out and rip this demon limb from limb, shred his wings and bathe in his blood—

Except

none of that matters, actually 

she just

needs

to save

the children

and then instead of fire there is light.

The golden power from before envelops her. She glows less brightly than before, the radiance more like the suggestion of a wings and halo than the fact, but that’s not because the power is weaker; instead, it is simply diverted to a more important task. A second font of angelic power manifests at the roof of the cave, and strikes down in a pillar of coruscating light bright enough to leave Luzai blinking spots from her eyes.

Savamalekh cries out in rage and pain, but his attempts to resist are fruitless; when the light dies away, the demon is lying spread eagled in the center of a circular scorch mark, smoke wafting off his body. The force of the blow was enough to embed his body several inches into the stone, and cracks radiate out from the impact. Between his state and general pallor, he could pass for being dead.

Then, unfortunately, the moment passes, and Savamalekh clambers back to his feet. His casual confidence is nowhere to be seen and the pressure he was exerting is gone like it never existed, but the demon is very much alive, and not at all happy.

“Hosilla, kill these wretches. Make them suffer.”

His orders given, the demon vanishes in a burst of brimstone.

Holy shit.

That was incredibly cool but they have more important problems, namely, Hosilla.

”Your master has abandoned you to die,” Luzai says coldly, as though she could do that again on command.

The display definitely rattled Hosilla, but she does her best not to show it. 

“If you could do that again, you would be doing it, not talking. Besides, I already saw your pathetic attempt at a magic missile before. All that light show of yours will do is make my victory more impressive once I take your heads. Wenduag, kill.”

“I’m nobody’s slave, Hosilla. Least of all yours.”

Thanks to her earlier resistance, Wenduag is the first on her feet, but when she shoots an arrow it’s towards Hosilla, not Luzai. 

It is RUDE of Hosilla to call her bluff but oh well.

”I can’t do that again,” she admits, because trying to pretend she can without actually doing it is a lost cause, “but that doesn’t mean your options aren’t surrender or die.”

…She’s out of non-cantrip spells, though, so instead of attempting to personally contribute to Hosilla’s demise she’s going to check to see if the priest is dead or if they survived the bites of the three surviving neather children.

Lann is going to personally contribute to Hosilla’s demise, once he manages to get out of the rubble.

He absolutely heard Hosilla order Wenduag to attack them like she expected to be obeyed, and he is not going to just ignore that, but he is going to solve the more urgent problems first.

The priest is dead, though his corpse is still relatively intact. From the look on his face, it wasn’t a pleasant way to go. The kids are not currently chomping down further, but that might be more related to the fact that blast seems to have stunned them; they’re not really responding to any sensory input at the moment.

This could be a bluff to get her to turn her back on Luzai, but Hosilla doesn’t think so, which means her first priority is the people actually attacking her rather than the pitiful excuse for a wizard.

“Hail Baphomet!”

Seelah is still feeling woozy from earlier, but the goddess is with them and without the demon this fight is winnable. She smites Hosilla, suddenly very glad she didn’t waste it on that demon earlier, and tries to avoid getting chopped to pieces by that very scary glaive.