A few minutes later, the paladin she spoke to returns alongside a woman with light green skin and bright golden armor. She has a scroll in one hand.

"To confirm what is going on here: you claim that you were warned of an oncoming attack upon the city, are unwilling to divulge the details of your source, and are willing to accept Abadar's determination of your veracity?"

"I'm willing to divulge the details that they're powerful enough that I would expect them to know what they're talking about, and that telling you about them would not cause you to be able to arrest them. But broadly correct." 

Then Irabeth can read the scroll, and Luzia briefly has the visage of an archon before the light fades and only a glowing key upon her brow remains. It’s somewhat unfortunate that the Inheritor can’t just give the spell to them directly, but at least the fact that Abadar offers it to his paladins makes it easy to cast.

”To the best of your knowledge, have you lied since you began this conversation?”

"I have not." It's somewhat unfortunate that wizards don't get that spell; it makes Luzai's enchanter's fingers itch. 

The key doesn’t flicker. She didn’t expect it to, but it’s good to have confirmation.

”Have you attempted to deceive us or lead us to a meaningfully wrong conclusion?”

"I guess I can't totally say I haven't, because I said the reason I wouldn't disclose who my source was was because they would be in danger and you couldn't arrest them anyways, and that's a reason, but it's also partly because I don't want people to associate me with them, and I can't just disavow any personal connection on my part. I'm not doing anything demonic but they're my basically-relative-it's-complicated and I do, like, care about them. --That's the only thing, though, I haven't tried to mislead you about anything else."

That’s somewhat less encouraging. It sounds innocuous enough, but while she doesn’t see how that phrasing would let this be a ploy that doesn’t mean it isn’t. ‘I am only misleading you about this’ is the kind of thing you hear overwhelmingly more often when someone is trying to play games than the baseline. 

“If they warned you falsely, such as to deceive us through you, would you expect to know? Do you expect your source has a motive to warn us falsely, such as to divert our attention from something else?”

"I wouldn't expect to know if they were doing it, but I also wouldn't expect them to do it," she says slowly. "They know perfectly well what my values and preferences are, and I would be astonished if they used me to accomplish anything horrible."

“Thank you for your cooperation. Is there anything else you would like to establish while your honesty is being verified?”

"Uhhhhh I went to Count Arendae with this first because I really did not want to get handed over to Prelate Hulrun about this and hadn't been in the city long enough to be confident the Eagle Watch wouldn't. But it's not hard to hear that the Count hates him." 

That's one of the more frustrating things about working with the prelate, though someone deciding to go to count Arendae because of it is a new one. In some sense it probably even ought to be cheering that the count's actions meant people are willing to warn them when they otherwise wouldn't, though she has a hard time mustering gratitude to him for it.

"Thank you very much for coming to us with this tipoff, then, especially despite your worries about us."

Now she just needs to figure out how best to increase the defenses of the wardstone and the things it's most plausibly a distraction for without predictably leaving them more vulnerable elsewhere. She can pull some people out of the celebrations, perhaps; they won't be happy about it, but they'd all agree to it to save innocent lives.

Okay, cool, people warned, now to figure out somewhere to hunker down. She isn't going to flee the city, because remaining potentially accountable for a false tip-off might lend more credence to her warnings, but she's still only first circle, and Mom did tell her to hide. 

Temple of Iomedae seems like a good spot? Reasonably well fortified for as far inside the city as it is, well away from the wardstone, has a basement. She and Villibor can hang out in the festival area right by it until the attack starts, and then take shelter there. 

The morning of the scheduled attack dawns bright and clear, and the air is filled with the sound of people excitedly preparing for the upcoming celebration. On her bedside table is a reddish black crossbow bolt, which the handwritten note besides it describes as "for emergencies."

Mmmmmmildly ominous, but, you know, more emergency contingencies are preferable to fewer. 

She stashes it in her quiver, which with her crossbow and dagger she has hidden under her cloak. She's less worried about people wondering why she was prepared for a demon attack than she would be if, you know, the Eagle Watch didn't already know. 

She and Villibor prepare their spells with an eye to the circumstances--neither bothers with Prestidigitation today, which would be very suspicious if anyone were going to be suspicious of their preparations. 

And then they head out to the festival. It's a good festival. Luzai tries to enjoy it over the ominous metaphorical ticking clock. 

It's a popular pastime! People around her are enjoying the cheap alcohol and festival snacks, and the hired minstrels prove a popular pastime among the children. Over there is a group of people playing darts, while in the other direction someone juggles lit torches. People in Kenabres don't have a lot of occasions to celebrate, and they seem determined to make the most of this one.

Luzai will have one of the cheap festival drink. Being drunk when the demons show up would be bad. She sort of wishes she could advise other people against being drunk, but that wouldn't even be suspicious, she'd just come off as a killjoy and nobody would listen to her. 

...Actually, if there's an area where Children Specifically are congregating, she'll go over there, so that she can get more children to safety when the time comes. 

Perhaps it's a good thing she didn't have a watch, because the appointed time comes and passes without incident. Twelve minutes later, however, the festival hubbub turns to screams.

A dozen armed demons arrive in the middle of the festival square, shocking everyone around them. As if just waiting for a cue, a number of the other people in the crowd shed their human disguises or draw their weapons, spreading supernatural terror to everyone around them, and the once clear skies pick up a number of new aerial inhabitants. Over the next moment, a staccato burst of further demons arrive to join their compatriots and cut off escape.

Are the demons going to interfere if a couple of dhampirs attempt to herd some children into the temple of Iomedae. 

Most of the really scary ones busy themselves with killing the people trying to fight back, but getting them to completely pass up an easy target like this would be difficult if you were trying for it. The first takers are a trio of schirs, though they seem more interested in going after the stragglers than messing with the ones that already made it onto hallowed ground.

Luzai has (1) magic missile. If she hits a Schir with it will it assume she is a scarier spellcaster than she is and go away. 

The missile fizzles out on its skin, negated by the demon's intrinsic resistance to magic.

What does prove sufficient to divert them is a blast of arctic chill, courtesy of the enormous silver dragon suddenly hovering overhead.

"Leave My City!"

Hooray! Luzai will just finish ushering these children inside the temple, then. Is there anyone else she can take advantage of the demons being very distracted by getting them to safety?

There are a few candidates, but most of them would require making her way past people actively fighting; the first person she sees of whom that isn't true is a boy huddling behind an overturned cart.

Luzai dashes over to the cart as fast as she can sprint, dives behind it where the boy is hiding, and says, "Hey, the temple's right nearby, I can help you get there, c'mon."