Ow. 

Okay, she will. Be slightly less close. Back up a bit until she is less exposed. 

Have the fires died down enough that she can usefully cast her crowd control spells again, and, also, can she identify anyone carrying alchemist's fire to specifically target them with her own crossbow. 

They have. The one blessing of how well web burns is that it burns out very quickly, and the grease is shallow enough to not last much longer once it catches.

Mostly the people with explosives have been staying out of sight until they're needed, but if she wants to lure them out with crowd control spells she can join the rooftop archers in taking shots until someone gets through.

She will cast another Grease and then see if she can spot someone who looks like they're going to throw alchemist's fire before they can actually do it. And shoot them. Because fuck you. 

Reaching the grease with fire is a much more difficult task, and once she joins in shooting down the first three they stop trying and let the demons slip. You can get across it without tripping by walking carefully anyway, and if that means more of the reinforcements get tagged by arrows by archers not wanting to try their luck shooting into melee combat then so be it.

Someday Luzai will be able to just Fireball the fuckers but that day is not today. 

Luzai isn't going to venture out where the cultist crossbowers can get to her again but if anyone makes it far enough inside that she can acid splash them anyway, well, acid splash is still only a cantrip but it won't be fun for them. 

The battle seems to go on for ages. Intellectually it's obvious that it could only be a matter of minutes, but none of Luzai's previous fights were even half this chaotic. Demonic strength and resilience tests itself against steel armor weapons, and while neither is enough to easily win the day that doesn't stop the results from being very bloody on both sides. The babau are a particularly insidious problem, since with their long spears they're able to fight without getting close enough for the paladins to kill and there aren't enough cold iron arrows to make up for the fact that nothing else is really hurting them.

Just when it looks like the offensive might finally grind to a standstill, there's an enormous crash from the opposite side of the courtyard as a Minotaur splits the gate in half. Its following attempt to ovverun the line of defenders is stymied by the celestial bear that meets its charge halfway there, but Faxon and his coterie continue past the melee undaunted.

...She's going to try Hideous Laughter on the minotaur, because she suspects she couldn't land it on Faxon anyway. 

The minotaur collapses of laughter, leaving the bear free to maul it. It only lasts a moment before shaking it off, but that's enough to swing the fight from its favor to the bear's.

Faxon makes a beeline straight for where Irabeth is coordinating efforts, and evidently enough of his arrogance is justified that this doesn't just result in him commiting suicide by Paladin, but he and his men don't exactly seem to be winning either. It seems like they were really counting on the minotaur to get this working.

Okay, so Faxon's Will save is pretty good, right; how's his Fortitute? Inquiring Boneshakers want to know. 

He's a pretty sturdy fellow! Unfortunately, Villibor's moral standing is such that protection from good does precisely nothing to impede him giving Faxon's bones a good shake, and even if it doesn't cause the same exhaustion as a full Boneshatter would it's enough that Faxon is not a happy camper.

Hooray for having had to temporarily reanimate his mother to get her out of the country??? 

Villibor also prepared crowd control in most of his non-school slots but he, also also, has a crossbow. Probably even with the Protection from Good that Villibor is not specifically aware Faxon has the paladins are going to do most of the job but he will absolutely shoot Faxon in the wherever happens to be convenient. 

The tiefling witch hasn't gotten any less resilient or capable in melee combat, but despite his gear he is still not quite a match for a paladin in close quarters. Several of the fighters at the command hub go down before he finally bites it, but once he does Irabeth is free to step in on the other fights herself. 

Aravashnial can also spare a moment from his own work to drop a glitterdust now that they've been forced backwards into a tight enough circle that it'll get most of them. About half of them will make the save, but that's still half of them that can't see a thing.

Luzai feels bad about every fighter who goes down. She should be better, she should be able to prevent that.

She isn’t going to drop a Grease or a Web if it could hit Irabeth or her people but she will if it won’t.

There’s enough movement going on that is probably not practical, and doesn’t seem to be needed besides. 

One of the Babau senses weakness and goes for the kill on one of the stronger paladins before they get a chance to heal, dropping them like a stone. Unfortunately for them, while this does open up a hole in the lines it also results in them taking a few smite-backed hits from the other paladins and they go down in a follow up barrage of cold iron arrows. Everyone else has to choose between going after the demons that got through or stopping more of their fellows from joining them, but at least there isn’t a Babau free to murder them all with backstabs.

Is the paladin actually dead or just dropped? Where's Daeran--

Either dead or close to it, considering all the demons that just walked over their body. They aren't the first person to die by any means, but most of the others weren't single handedly plugging a gap in the lines.

Daeran is well out of the way of fighting, thank you very much. Giving some channels to get people back on their feet is one thing, but he's never died for a cause before and doesn't have much interest in making this his first.

Fuck--

Villibor is closer. Are they dead?

Not quite, but it's a near thing.

Villibor spent as much of the day preparing as Luzai did. Administering a potion of Cure Light Wounds isn't complicated. It isn't much, but it's something. 

That's enough to stabilize them, even if they're not exactly up on their feet again, and fortunately for Villibor's ambitions of not dying the other defenders elected to plug the gap and he isn't immediately run down by more demons.

With the gate guards focused on other demons and Irabeth otherwise occupied, they're free to pick their targets! From a strategic perspective they ought to be flanking Irabeth or going after the archers, but given that they're demons and there's a whole building full of defenseless civilians what comes next should be pretty obvious. One of them randomly collapses to the ground asleep, but most of the rest make for the tavern door.

The tavern door that has a puddle of grease in front of it?