"I think it would be pretty easy to tell if someone was trying to replace Soot."

“Well, I think succubi have a pretty worrying success rate at replacing humanoids? Which doesn’t mean you couldn’t tell but does mean that probably we shouldn’t assume you could tell after having just met you.”

There are demons that disguise themselves as animals? She'll have to be more cautious when hunting.

"I guess it makes sense that you would be scared of that kind of thing right now, but Soot isn't going to hurt you."

“Yeah, Seelah’s a paladin; if Soot had been replaced by a demon then the demon would’ve read evil. Which doesn’t mean if Soot had read evil we would’ve immediately attacked him! But we would’ve been more worried.”

Something about that gets a flinch from Ember, but it's harder to narrow down what. She just gets a little quieter as she follows them.

“Sorry. I don’t mean to imply that we’d have the right to hurt your friend because one of us is a paladin.”

"I understand. You're just trying to keep yourself and the city safe."

“—Lots of people are trying to keep things safe. That doesn’t excuse anything!”

"Really, it's okay. But... thank you."

She smiles at Luzai a little, though it's still somewhat hesitant.

As they approach the crevasse, they'll come upon a group of crusaders fighting a number of giant centipedes. One of the ones with a crossbow in the rear has a helmet with a somewhat ridiculous looking plume on it, but they otherwise seem to be the genuine article.

Huh. Well, giant centipedes aren’t acid resistant. 

A group of bugs this size isn't really a match for the crusaders on their own; with their numbers doubled, it's over quite quickly. 

"Thanks for the assistance," one of them volunteers. "It's good to see there are other groups still in the fight."

"Irabeth is leading an organized resistance at the Defender's Heart." 

"That's even better news - it's a relief to have somewhere to send civilians that can't shelter in place. Inheritor keep you, and the dreamer guide your travel."

She nods respectfully. 

Once they're past the group, she says, "Inheritor means Iomedae, right?" 

"Yes, it's because she took over from Aroden. There are a couple of other epithets she's known by too, but that and her name are the big ones. Uh, and the dreamer is Desna."

Nod nod. "I've heard of Desna. Travel, right?" 

"And luck. I figure everyone here could use some of both these next couple of days."

"No kidding." 

She squeezes her closed hands gently inside her gloves. Magic items seem like a more reliable source of luck than prayer, but magic items don't grow on trees and prayers approximately do; bragging would be contraindicated even if it didn't maybe open up the whole evil mom can of worms. 

Once past the crusaders, they have to cut east again to avoid the crevasse; there might be some other way across, but that doesn't mean finding it would be easy and if it required particular athletics both Horgus Gwerm and Ember might have issues with it. They aren't the only ones with this limitation, though, which means that to anyone else who puts it together the edge of the ravine is a prime place for an ambush.

In this case, the person doing the ambushing is a young woman with spiky black hair. Judging by the scrolls she's carrying, she's most likely a wizard, and judging by the fact that she doesn't seem the slightest bit afraid about suddenly becoming visible in front of them she might be significantly more powerful than them as well.

"Hello there! You wouldn't happen to be Baphomet cultists, would you?"

"No, why, are you looking for some?" 

Villibor goes on high alert. If Luzai attempts to do something dumb like yell "hey Baphomet cultists I'm a crusader wizard who's out of spells" then he has a readied action to clamp his hand over her mouth. 

"Yes! They're annoyingly hard to locate, though, most of the cultists I've been finding just follow Deskari. Have you seen any?"