"Hey, we have a cultist prisoner, still. We don't need to do guessing games, we can just ask him." 

"That's a good point. Hosilla's hands would definitely know, especially since the one we captured was supposed to be in charge of this area, which means it's just a matter of getting them to share that information with us. Now that we're not in a combat situation, though, it might be a better idea if I handle the questions. Pain can work for interrogations if you're really in a hurry, but it's not ideal since it doesn't do anything to stop them from lying to you if you can't verify it pretty much instantly and it tends to make people desperate, which can be something of a double edged sword. I'm not saying I never use it, because it is pretty persuasive for some kinds of people and I learned to get good at it, but."

"Yyyyyyeah." Luzai looks aside, embarrassed. She'll almost certainly make her peace with having bitten that man under those circumstances, buuuuut she hasn't yet. 

So! Cultist prisoners! Who among them has anything interesting to say about bright colors. 

When they make their way back to the former hand of Hosilla, he's in the middle of attempting to scratch a drawing of a minotaur into the stone. Thanks to his limited freedom of movement it was slow going, but Anevia disabuses him of the idea that that will work out well for him by ruining it and tightening his knots before she ungags him.

"Back again so soon?"

The cultist attempts a nasty grin.

"Realized you needed me after all, eh? What are you offering?"

"Hosilla is dead, as are most of the rest of your fellows. What I'm offering you is a chance not to join them. Your little stunt with holding the elemental's cooperation hostage was clever, but you and I both know it's not going to save you in the long term. If you had any sense you would be begging us for something useful to do, and thankfully for you I'm a generous woman; you can start with telling us how to get access to the secret stashes, like the one in the dungeons."

"A difficult task. The buttons will only unlock the room if pressed by Baphomet's faithful, and only the highest ranking of his servants were informed of the pattern, so-"

"Wrong answer. We already retrieved the paladin sword, all we had to do was press yellow blue red yellow like in the paintings."

She grins internally as his face whitens, confirming her guess. Gotcha.

"Now, I'm sure you had more boltholes than we've managed to find, so why don't you get to talking, truthfully this time?"

He can tell them how to get access to their armory, then, and a hidden room behind a sculpture of Baphomet nearby, but swears that that's everything he knows. 

Luzai bounces on her toes. "Thank you!" 

Anevia is so cool and so good at interrogations! Without hurting anyone! 

Actually. She could stand to say that out loud. 

Once they're well out of earshot of the erstwhile Hand: "I know it's not news to you that you're good at that, but I think it's really cool, how you got him to say stuff and didn't hurt him to do it." 

"Sometimes it feels more like moral luck than anything. If doing things this way didn't work, I'd be getting a lot more use out of my knives instead of switching careers. I am grateful for it, though; it's good that I can mostly leave those skills behind me."

She the smiles fondly.

"Plus, I think not having to choose between compromising her principles and being ineffective is good for Beth too."

Luzai nods.

They get back to the gem puzzle. Luzai pokes the shiny rocks in the correct order.

”You’d think they’d have found a less expensive way to build their unnecessary mind games, but I’m not about to complain about their wasting resources.”

"I think the rest of this maze already made it clear they don't have a functional sense of aesthetics. I imagine they feel this makes it look more impressive."

With the buttons pressed in the correct order, the wall moves out of their way and grants them access to the room beyond. It's littered with trophies taken from defeated foes, mostly weapons, armor, and holy symbols, but in a back of the room a place of pride is given to a longsword. The blade has a golden hue, though not of the sort you would get by making it out of the metal, and the length has been polished until it reflects the light.

"Is that... Radiance?"

Seelah's voice comes out disbelievingly, as though she doubts her own words.

"Iiiiii only came to Kenabres a couple weeks ago and I do not know what Radiance is." It's certainly shiny, but she wouldn't call it radiant. Maybe if a paladin picks it up? They did call it the paladin sword. 

"It was Yaniel's sword. She used to argue for taking a more aggressive approach to fighting the demons, and would even venture into the wound on her own to rescue prisoners and kill demons. It went missing a while ago."

She approaches the display, somewhat reverently.

"With...her?" She can totally see how someone who goes into the Wound on their lonesome would go missing with all their stuff. 

"No, she was mortally wounded by a Lilitu before she managed to drive it off; the people she was escorting brought her corpse back to Kenabres. It used to be on display in the gray garrison."

When her hand touches the blade's hilt, it starts shining like a torch, though it dims again after a moment of concentration by Seelah.

"I wonder how they got their hands on it?"

Aha! She was right! Much more radiant when a paladin touches it!

"Well, I don't know, but it's been...un-handed...from them now...that sounded better in my head." 

Outside of money and a small handful of gems, there's not much in either of the other boltholes worth the time and weight of them transporting, but after her recent combat experiences Camellia is willing to bite the bullet on switching to a somewhat heavier set of armor when they find one that's enchanted. When they once more pass by the room in which they fought Hosilla, it turns out that the far side of the shield maze lets out into the sewers. This is less helpful than it might sound, since the sewers of Kenabres are also a largely unmapped warren, but it's a sign that they're at least relatively close to the surface.

"So I didn't mention this back in the shield maze, because it only works if there aren't hidden doors, but there's a thing where in theory, if you turn the same direction every time, you will eventually find your way to any given part of a maze, specifically the exit." 

"That only works for some kinds of flat mazes, which this isn't. Fortunately we have an easier job here, since there should be a lot of possible exits to choose from."

As predicted, it is indeed not long before they manage to locate a door that takes them from the sewers into an otherwise unremarkable stone basement. In what is either a stroke of poor luck or a dire sign about the state of the city, however, they can hear the sound of combat coming from the room above them.

Luzai is inclined to assume the latter. 

It would be nice, in this situation, to have her spells back, but spending another night down below would not improve anything on the surface. 

Plus she'd be out of spells again pretty soon, so, like, not even as worth it as it could be. 

She does not charge recklessly in. She stays firmly behind Seelah as Seelah charges in.