"It's not like the city's going to make it anyway. Whatever we take is practically a public service, keeping it out of the hands of cultists."

"I'm not an Urgathoan!" How dare. "It's not my fault where I was born. Also, deciding that because you don't want to try to stand up to the demons means that those of us who are doing it will fail, actually, just means you suck." 

"If you think you're going to make a difference, you're delusional. Terendelev's dead, there's demons all over the city, the Sellen is poisonous to drink - Kenabres has already fallen, and you're just unable to see it."

In response, she pulls out Lariel's sword and does the glowy thing with it. 

The three of them cringe at the light and look away. Eventually, one of them musters the ability to reply.

"What was that?"

"That was the sword of the angel Lariel, with which I struck down a vrolikai demon in the tunnels beneath Kenabres." No need to mention that she tried repeating the maneuver with a Lilitu and failed. "Kenabres has more power than has been out in the open, these past years. We haven't lost yet. Now either help or get the fuck out of our way." 

The looters scamper off, leaving their cart in the middle of the road.

Luzai looks at the cart, and then at Seelah. 

"Is there...something we're supposed to do? Because if we leave it in the middle of the street, more looters are definitely going to take it. But Irabeth obviously has higher priorities right now than figuring out who that stuff actually belongs to." 

"We could...drag it into a building damaged enough that it would fit, maybe? And write down where we left it in case anything is still there when the demons are dealt with." Vilibor is sort of dubious of this course of action but it is in fact a thing that is not "leave it in the street." He's sort of inclined to leave it in the street but probably it is better to consider and reject at least one alternative first. 

"I suppose it's better than nothing," Seelah agrees. She doesn't want to make things really easy for the next looter who stops by, but it would be really hard to justify the time to return everything given the city's current state - even if everything could be somehow returned. Seelah sets to tugging, though by the time she stops about a minute later it's not really hidden from more than a casual glance down the street.

"Hopefully that works."

Villibor does not think that's going to work, he's pretty sure that the cart will be either empty or gone the next time they come by. But, you know, he can appreciate the principle of trying something even if the odds of success are low. 

Also, now the cart is no longer blocking the street, which is good, probably. 

Luzai is mostly just glad they didn't have to fight the thieves! Probably they will not repent of their wicked ways today but with luck they'll still be alive in a year to turn their lives around then. 

There aren't any other looters as obvious as that, at least; once or twice they hear what might be footsteps moving away from them, but whoever they belong to is evidently not interested in meeting a group of people walking openly in Kenabres. As they approach the market square, a large crevasse across the middle of the street forces them to detour slightly; judging by the location, it probably owes its appearance to the same blow that sent Luzai on an underground jaunt.

Luzai peers over slightly to see how far down she can see. 

It's hard to estimate exactly, given how there isn't really anything she does recognize the size of the compare to, but judging by the fact that the bottom isn't  dark enough to impede her vision it's less than 60 feet down.

Hmm. She doesn't recognize that spot. Which isn't shocking, considering how far they are from where she fell, but she doesn't have a great intuition for which direction she went from there relative to the surface, so she wasn't sure. It's interesting, anyway. Maybe they can cut stairs or ladders or something into the chasm walls, give the underground people better access to the surface. Later. After they've chased the lilitu out and reclaimed the Wardstone, not that she has any idea how they're going to do that yet. 

Safely navigating the city is, comparatively speaking, mostly a much more straightforward task. Once they complete the detour, they make it several more streets before they run into a pair of Dretches in an awkward moment where both groups spot each other at about the same time.

...Luzai will attempt to use Lariel's sword to intimidate them into running away. 

They do not like this at all, but they dislike it in the sense where once it dazzles them they immediately charge Luzai.

Ah, fuck. Luzai doesn't like that! She dodges behind Seelah. 

Seelah is strong enough for that to not topple her, but she lets out an involuntary grunt at the effort. Radiance slashes out at the one that doesn't have a faceful of shield, but there's not much Luzai or Villibor will be able to do to help her here, not with crossbows against enemies in melee combat.

They do have one other person able to assist, though, and the hide of a Dretch is no impediment to cold iron. They're incredibly disgusting creatures, but that certainly doesn't make her more inclined to let them live.

"Sorry. I was trying to scare them away," Luzai sighs after the fiends are dispatched. 

She wonders whose children they were, before they were abyssal larvae. 

"It's fine. Better they went after me anyway instead of whoever else they find in the city."

"Yeah. I don't imagine two dretches more or less are going to make much of a difference, but--they might make a difference for someone." Luzai has never heard the parable of the thrown starfish, but she does have a basic intuition for the principle. It just feels a little less bolstering to her spirit when the thrown starfish are probabilistic in the future instead of concrete people having their lives extended by concrete margins of time.