...There are other things going on, besides the pain. She's on--a surface--that's moving, jostling her injury slightly, ow--and there are unfamiliar voices all around her. 

"Make way! Coming through! Fetch a healer, quick!" 

It takes a moment for meaning to filter through, her initial attention all on the voice itself--it sounds different than she's used to. A different accent? She hasn't been exposed to a lot of different accents, but Griar the Druid says his accent is a little different than the local...

But a healer sounds good. Probably not Griar, with so many unfamiliar voices, this can't be Rivertree. It could be Odd's Hollow, she didn't hear everyone there talk...

"Hey, somebody, we got a wounded fighter! Can we get a healer over here?"

A fighter? No, that's wrong. She's never fought anyone. 

"My, my, would you look at this? But why would you drag a wounded fighter into the middle of the festival square? Couldn't she be carted off somewhere else, like... oh I don't know... an infirmary? Or an accommodating ditch?"

Wait, this can't be Odd's Hollow, she may not have heard all the voices, but they had more or less the same accent as in Rivertree. Could it be Okorrost? Okorrost is such a long ways away...

"Make room, everyone step back! Now, what's the matter? What happened to her?"

She hurts. And she can't even lift her head. 

"Hmm... the wound looks nasty. Who did this to her?" 

SHE WOULD ALSO LOVE TO KNOW THAT HONESTLY. 

"Demons, Prelate! We found her barely alive outside the walls of Kenabres." 

Demons??? Mother thought people would think she was a demon...and what the fuck is a Kenabres? Is it the town? She's never heard of a Kenabres, is she even farther away than Okorrost???

"The walls, you say? The enemy doesn't usually stray so close to the city. We must fortify the defenses... And you--hold fast, don't die, we'll see you right!" 

She's definitely not going to die! Dying would be bad! 

"We'll get you patched up now. But first--you there, guard, take her weapons: bearing arms is not permitted during the festival. Wounded or not, everyone must abide by the rules. She can get her things back after the festival." 

Lusilla's first reaction is confusion--what weapons? But someone does seem to be removing something from her--stretcher, she's on a stretcher, that's now been laid on the ground--maybe the--demons???--that hurt her left weapons behind and they got mistaken for hers?

Her second reaction is incredulity--what kind of priorities does this man have???

"Oh Inheritor, leader of our troops, the sharpened edge of our blades and and the unyielding strength of our armor. Iomedae, I beseech you, grant your mercy, heal her wounds." 

Troops??? What??? What's an Iomedae. A god, maybe? Lusilla knows perfectly well that there exist gods besides the ones anyone bothers to worship in Rivertree, and that in big towns and cities the healers are clerics, not druids, who can channel great rings of healing power instead of just using a spell whenever someone gets hurt like a druid does, and clerics get power from gods. But that still leaves so many questions. Lusilla is confused. 

A soothing light washes over her, but leaves her little improved afterwards. Lusilla has never, actually, herself, been on the business end of one of Griar's healing spells--he wasn't one to waste them frivolously, and she heals fine on her own. Usually. But this is sort of how she'd imagined it feeling, except for the part where it barely helps. 

It does help enough, however, that she can turn her head and squint up at the severe-looking man who tried to heal her and has a weird god and cares about rules too much. She swallows, and rasps, "I'm not...going to die..." 

It seems like an important point to clear up. 

"That's the spirit," he says bracingly. "My powers are not enough here--someone call for Terendelev! You there! Yes, you--stop dithering and gawping and make yourself useful--go and get Terendelev!"

Who's Terendelev? She hopes he's right that they can help. 

"Prelate. Surely there is someone else here better suited to running errands."

...What??? What would it even mean, for one person to be better suited than another to running errands. 

"I'll get her. Terendelev! Has anyone seen Terendelev?"

"Be quick about it, before it's too late!" the man, presumably named Prelate, snaps. "Now, who are you? I don't remember seeing you before, and I have a memory for faces." 

She's very very sure she's never seen him before but maybe this is harder to keep track of in cities. "I'm Lusilla," she manages. It's all she can think of to say--if she's never heard of Kenabres, then probably he's never heard of Rivertree. And she still has no more idea what's going on than he does. 

"That's the first I've heard of that name. Who are you then? What's your business in the city?" 

...Her business in the city is getting dragged into it on a stretcher??? She's never been here before! She's never been close enough to have heard of it, before! 

A warm female voice cuts in. "My dear Prelate, please--for the sake of the festivities, stop interrogating this poor woman. She has been through enough already. Go on, I'll take care of her." 

Presumably this is Terendelev. Hopefully Terendelev is saner than Prelate is. 

"Hmph! All right, as you wish. You are our protector, and a dragon at that," sorry, a dragon??? A fucking DRAGON??? "so I shall defer to your wisdom. But be on your guard: I've been informed she was wounded near Kenabres--that means the demons are prowling just outside the walls. And the city is crawling with their spies! Others may be able to relax on this holiday, but not you or I--not the defenders of the city!" 

He stalks off. Lusilla wonders if there are any demons at all, or if he's like old Yokim, who sees fairies in the woods everywhere even though there are actually only fairies in a couple of spots and everybody humors about it because he's old. 

Terendelev, when Lusilla lays eyes on her properly, is beautiful. Her face is unlined, but her eyes contain a sorrow that leaves no doubt in Lusilla's mind that she's the oldest person Lusilla has ever met, and her hair is a shining silver--really silver, not just Lusilla's or Mama's white. Lusilla suddenly finds it VERY PLAUSIBLE that this woman is a dragon actually. 

Just what has Lusilla been dumped into?

The glowing hand that Terendelev presses to Lusilla's chest does a great deal more good than Prelate's. 

"Thank you," Lusilla says, sitting up carefully. She presses on the spot that was hurting. Does it still hurt a little, or is that just a phantom ache? 

"I accept your thanks. But my work is not yet done," Terendelev says. Lusilla looks up sharply at her. Does that mean she still needs to be healed, or that some more storybook nonsense is going to happen?

"What do you mean?" 

Terendelev sighs. "I have restored your strength and eased your pain, but I have not healed you fully. In time, your pain will return." 

"What happened to me?" Lusilla asks, trying to keep the plaintive note out of her voice.  

"I don't know. But what struck you was no ordinary weapon," Terendelev says. "But do not be discouraged. You will be fine for today, and tomorrow--tomorrow, come to the cathedral and say I am expecting you. We will find a way to fix this. For today, though--enjoy the festival, and put this out of your mind for the moment. Merriment, all too rare in this time of war, is one of the best medicines." 

Lusilla can only nod mutely as the dragon-woman rises and walks away. 

This time of war. Troops. Blade and armor...

A war...against demons?

This is something out of a storybook! 

Okay. Okay. This is something out of a storybook, but things out of storybooks happen in real life--if they didn't, where would the stories come from? So Lusilla has to actually deal with--the things that don't happen to get written down by someone who wants to tell a good story. 

Terendelev said to meet her at the cathedral tomorrow, which means she's going to need somewhere to sleep tonight...she looks down. Her dress is torn at the collar, and bloodstained, and she can fix the former but not the latter. She does that, to begin with, and then looks around. 

...It's beautiful. 

The city's square is much bigger than the village square in Rivertree, and more people than she's ever seen in her life--certainly at once, maybe in total--are milling around. There are minstrels playing, over there, a song she's never heard before. People are laughing and playing games and eating and drinking--there are smells she's never smelled before, enticing even to the human version of her olfactory senses--

--There's still plenty of light out, she has time to figure things out. And she was explicitly told to enjoy herself. 

The very first thing she does is go over and punch a dummy that is for punching. Lusilla isn't that great at hitting things with her human-shaped hands, yet, but she's still pretty strong, and it's not hard to hit a straw dummy. The wooden post trembles under the force of the impact, and the other festival-goers assembled nearby cheer for her. Lusilla bounces and claps and twirls, and runs off to try the next thing. 

The next thing turns out to be a special festival drink, not that Lusilla could tell the difference between something that's special for the festival and something that's just different because it's from very far away. It tastes nice, anyway, and the bubbling excitement over new experiences spills over like the froth from the beverage. 

She has moved on to dancing in the open spaces, learning by watching the other festival-goers, probably doing very badly but who cares, when she's having fun? 

And then everything gets very bad very quickly. 

Creatures with red skin holding spears teleport into the square; creatures with the body of a humanoid and the face and wings of a vulture appear in the sky and descend upon the crowds. 

"BEHOLD, CRUSADER GODS," a voice rumbles from no immediately visible source. "BEHOLD, IOMEDAE, YOU POOR IMPOSTER. YOUR CITY WILL FALL TO ME. YOUR FOLLOWERS WILL FEED MY HUNGER."

This is--bad. This is bad on a level Lusilla does not, actually, have the experience to process. 

Terendelev appears again, and demonstrates that she is, in fact, a dragon, by taking on her true form--Lusilla is in awe--but when she calls out the source of the horrible voice, the creature that appears is even larger than her, and--

--and now Terendelev is dead. 

Sometimes, disasters happen and places end. Lusilla should probably run. Mama ran, when Hilltop ended, and that's the only reason she lived to have Lusilla. But--

What happened to Hilltop was an isolated incident. Bad, but once it was over it was over; nothing similar had happened before, and nothing similar happened afterwards. 

What's happening right now is a war against demons--the spawn of Lamashtu--the very thing that Lusilla has been afraid of being mistaken for for her entire life. 

If she abandons these people now, how can she say absolutely that she isn't? 

The halfling who called for a healer when she was brought into the city loans her a crossbow that he claims is supposed to be able to pierce the hide of a demon lord--presumably the thing this Deskari creature--Terendelev said its name--is. She's dubious, but turning into her more powerful alternate form is a move Terendelev already tried, and it super, super didn't work, and Lusilla does not think she is stronger than a dragon. Admittedly, she doesn't have a long, sliceable neck, but--well, she can try the crossbow. 

The crossbow, astonishingly, works. 

...Well. Sort of. It hits Deskari, anyway. It doesn't seem to hurt him much. It does piss him off, though. His great, Terendelev-decapitating scythe comes down on the ground, and the earth itself splits open, as though to swallow her whole. 

Fortunately her spell-like abilities don't depend on her form; she kips into the air once there isn't solid ground under her feet.

Hm. No. 

It doesn't exactly behoove Deskari to expend a lot of attention on a stinging gnat, but it behooves him even less to let it get away with it. He swats it out of the air and into the chasm in the ground. 

He meant to cleave her in two, but for some reason this doesn't seem to have happened. Whatever, good enough. 

ow

When Lusilla regains consciousness, she is at the bottom of a very deep hole in the ground. Her first instinct is to immediately get out of the hole, but that's pretty close to the instinct that led her to try not to fall into the hole in the first place, which did not work out so well for her. Also, the rift in the ground seems to have intersected with a pre-existing tunnel system. She cautiously gets to her feet and peers around. 

There are luminescent fungi, but it's still pretty dark. And there's no one around. And she just got beat up a bunch. 

So she assumes her true form, which is significantly sturdier, and starts moving along the tunnel. 

It isn't too long before she hears voices. 

"Holy mother of..." one voice curses. 

"Hey, hey! Stay with me! You actually got pretty lucky; you fell into a big hole, but at least you're not on your own. Everything's going to be fine. Tell me something: can you feel your legs?" 

Lusilla immediately reverts to human shape. 

The second person seems sort of familiar, but she can't place it, so--whatever. Bigger problems right now. 

"Hello?" she calls, just as the other woman is affirming that her leg hurts too much to have a spinal injury. 

The--knight? Raises her sword warily in Lusilla's direction for a moment, before lowering it. "You're the one Terendelev healed. You're not hurt, right? Can you help me get her out?"

"Yes--no--sure," Lusilla replies, in order. She crouches next to the pile of boulders that have partially trapped the other woman, carefully lifting boulders with an ease that belies her slight frame. 

"You're pretty strong." 

"Am I?" She's weaker in this form than in the other. She's never really bothered to test her strength against her mother or brother, so...

"These rocks are pretty heavy," the trapped woman confirms with a grimace. 

"Oh." Maybe she is stronger than a normal human? That's sort of a shame, in that it would be cool for normal humans to be stronger. "...I'm Lusilla, by the way." 

"Anevia Tirabade, of the Eagle Watch. I was in charge of security for the festival. I expected that demon cultists would try something, but...not this." 

"I'm Seelah, paladin of Iomedae." 

"Iomedae is a local god, right?" 

"I...wouldn't call her especially local, no...where are you from?"

"Well, my mother's from Hilltop, originally, but Hilltop was destroyed, so now we live in the woods outside Rivertree." Pooooossibly this isn't much more informative to them then "Kenabres" was to her. "The nearest big city is Okorrost," she adds, in case that helps. 

"Do you know the country?" Anevia asks. 

Lusilla has to think about this for a moment. "Iobaria?" she hazards. It's not like it generally matters. 

"Okay. We're in Mendev, which is on the other side of the Lake of Mists and Veils from Iobaria. Iomedae isn't specifically a Mendevian goddess, or anything, but she's pretty popular here, on account of the Worldwound." 

"What's the Worldwound? Does it have something to do with all the demons?" 

Seelah and Anevia both look at her as though she had unironically asked which end of a cow was up, which was probably fair of them. "Yes," Seelah says after a moment. "The Worldwound is the giant Abyssal rift that the demons are coming through. Do you seriously not know this?"

Shrug. "I've never met a demon before today."

Snort. "I'd never met a demon, for ages and ages after I'd heard about the Worldwound. I don't know if anyone's ever been in Kenabres before, in the last century, without having heard about the Worldwound." 

"Well, I mean, I think mostly people in Kenabres cross the intervening distance while conscious, mostly. I wasn't. The last thing I remember before waking up on that stretcher, I was at home, in the woods, looking for herbs." 

"...Huh. That doesn't make a lot of sense, for demons to cross the entire lake just to kidnap one person and dump them outside Kenabres." 

"I really don't know enough about demons to say." 

"Fuck, I think my leg is broken." Deep sigh. "Well, I've had worse." 

Seelah would love to not be out of healing for today but oh well. 

Lusilla is not out of healing for today. "Let me see," she says, and crouches by Anevia's side. She helps the other woman straighten her leg, and then casts Cure Light Wounds. 

"Cleric?" Anevia asks. 

Lusilla shakes her head. "Weird kind of sorcerer, I think." 

"Those happen," Anevia agrees, then hauls herself to her feet. She tests her leg and finds it satisfactory. She peers at the ceiling. "I don't suppose you have a way out of here." 

"I...can fly," Lusilla says reluctantly, "and I could carry a person, but--if Deskari is still up there--he swatted me down here in the first place, I don't think he would just let me fly out." 

"You took a hit from Deskari and you're still standing?" 

"I think I got very lucky and he hit me with the wrong part of his weapon by accident." The actual blow isn't exactly a clear memory, just a confused flash of fear and pain, in that way that happens when events occur too suddenly to keep track of. "But you can see why I'm reluctant to face it again." 

"I suppose...we can't just cower down here until he's definitely gone, though. There are people up there who need our help." 

Theoretically they could, but since nobody here is going to do that, it's pretty theoretical. 

"You're right, but--it was a long gash. I want to see if there's anyone else who needs rescue and to be brought up to the surface, before I take the risk of poking my head out of the ground." 

“I guess that makes sense.”

It doesn't take long before the three of them reach an object that is sufficiently intact to make it clear that it used to be a locked chest. 

"I think this is where Hulrun put the confiscated weapons. Maybe your things are in here." 

Hulrun must be the name of the guard that Prelate told to remove the weapons from her stretcher. "They weren't my things. I didn't have any weapons on me when the demons must've grabbed me, not even my whittling knife. They must've been left behind by the demons, or other victims of theirs." 

"Hmm. Well, they're still likely to be useful." 

"You're not wrong." 

Lusilla does not actually know which of the things that used to be in the chest were brought in with her, but anything that was confiscated from anyone else, well, it's not likely that anyone is going to prioritize returning them to their rightful owners even if both the people who did the confiscating and the rightful owners are both still alive, so, finder's keepers. Lusilla picks up the shortspear and the light crossbow, neither of which are complicated enough to operate that she expects to have any trouble with them, and Seelah can have the sword. It's not actually any better than the sword Seelah has right now, but having a backup is generally useful. On this same principle Lusilla hangs the heavy mace from her belt. 

And then they can move forward. 

It isn't long after that that they run into a person...two people? No, one person and a corpse. 

"Who's there?" asks a half-elf woman standing over a very, very dead body, raising her rapier. 

"Peace, friend! We're not cultists. I'm Seelah, and this is Anevia and Lusilla." 

The woman lowers her rapier slightly. "I'm glad to hear it. My name is Camellia. I was in the square when..." she licks her lips nervously and shivers. "I never thought so many demons could get past the Wardstone." 

"Wardstone?" 

Camellia gives her a junior version of the look Seelah and Anevia gave her when she asked what the Worldwound was. 

"Before I was dragged into this city half-insensate on a stretcher, I was on completely the other side of the Lake of Mists and Veils." 

This does not especially make Camellia look like she's judging her less. 

"The Wardstones are the anchor points that keeps the demons mostly inside the Worldwound, instead of spilling out all over the rest of the world," Anevia interjects, before the situation can get any cattier. "They were a gift from Iomedae during the First Crusade." 

"Okay. And the city square is supposed to be on the demons-not-allowed side of the Wardstone?" 

"Yes," Camellia says emphatically. 

"Thank you for being patient with me," Lusilla says, specifically to Anevia and not Camellia. 

"You're welcome," Anevia says dryly. 

Lusilla is not totally insensible to "let's change the subject before ending up in a fight we don't need with someone who isn't actually our enemy," and also this next question is pretty important actually, so she points at the mangled corpse and asks, "Who's that? What happened to him?" 

Camellia shrugs. "I don't know. He must have been in the square when disaster struck. I tried to revive him, but he was already dead, sadly." 

"You tried to revive that?" Lusilla asks incredulously. 

Camellia spreads her hands and smiles slightly. "I didn't say I expected it to work." 

Yeah this lady is giving some creepy vibes. 

Whatever. Not, actually, the most important thing right now. 

"He did not get those wounds in the fall. Whatever did this might still be nearby." 

"Did this happen before or after the fall?" 

"I don't know, unfortunately. I didn't find him until we were already both down here." 

If Camellia didn't come across him in some less mangled state it seems even weirder for her to have tried to heal him...but that's still not the highest priority. "I'm sorry none of us were in time to save him, then," Lusilla says, which is true enough. "I can fly, and I'm pretty strong, but we're looking to see if anyone else fell down before I start trying to ferry people back to the surface." 

"Why?"

Lusilla ticks off on her fingers. "Two reasons, mainly. Firstly, I'd rather not be down here all my myself while looking for rescuees. And second, if possible, I would like to not go back into the main square until Deskari is no longer there, and if nobody goes up until everyone's ready, that's more likely." 

"All right, I can appreciate those reasons. Count me in on getting rescued." 

"Excellent." Time to proceed further down the tunnel. 

Camellia would really rather return to the surface immediately instead of looking for more people to rescue, but she's really not in a position to say so.

Anevia stops to loot the corpse but then yeah let's move along. 

There are more chests, and crates, and other miscellaneous objects destroyed and undestroyed, and more corpses. None of them are as mangled as the one at Camellia's feet, so Lusilla stops to check and make sure that each one is, in fact, dead, before moving on. She notes, in the back corner of her mind that isn't dealing with the current crisis, that Camellia is a lot less interested in taking the initiative to see if any of these people can be saved, despite being objectively more likely to be savable than...that. 

They have to squish a couple of very large and aggressive centipedes. Lusilla has not started being in the habit of wasting animals she kills in the last day, so she bundles up their corpses in a piece of canvas salvaged from a fallen wagon, much to Camellia's disgust. 

"You cannot possibly intend to eat those." 

"Why not???" 

"They're vermin." 

"I have Purify Food and Water." 

Camellia makes a deeply disgusted noise but does not continue to verbally object. For Now. 

They continue on. They have to kill some more enormous bugs; Lusilla continues to collect their corpses in her impromptu giant sack, even though Camellia continues to be visibly disturbed each time. Not wasting what you kill is way less disturbing than whatever Camellia has going on, so she can suck it up. 

Eventually, there are, in fact, too many bug corpses to just carry around, and Lusilla has to admit that trying to salvage as much bug corpse as possible is significantly less important than looking for people to rescue. She puts down her sack. She can come back for it later. 

There is also a lizard. Lusilla dumps it next to the sack of bug. Camellia looks more or less resigned about that one; a lizard is significantly less gross than a whole lot of bug. 

It is not very long after the lizard that they come across what is unmistakably worked stone, and with it, a pair of figures arguing. 

"No, I can't just walk away. It's got to be here somewhere!" one of them exclaims, before spotting their group of four. "Wenduag!" 

"Lann? Did you find it?" The farther-away figure moves closer, stopping in surprise and suspicion when she sees them. "Who is that?" 

Wow, these people are pretty. 

"I'm Lusilla, and that's Seelah, and Anevia, and Camellia. We're...looking for anyone else...who fell down the giant crack in the ground. I can fly," she adds helpfully, activating her spell-like ability and floating a couple of inches into the air. 

Wow.

Huh. 

"What happened on the surface? The caves haven't stopped shaking yet." 

“The city is overrun with demons.”

“Deskari showed up and split the earth with his giant scythe.”

“Deskari?”

“That’s what Terendelev called him.”

"If things are that bad, we'd better hurry." 

“Hurry what? I mean—what are you guys doing?” Also what are you, I don’t think humans usually do that, but probably better to ask one question at a time.

“Nothing that’s going to work,” Wenduag grouses.

Lann ignores her. “We’re looking for an angel’s sword. It was supposed to be on a podium in here, but the ground shaking caused some of the ceiling to collapse. Some of our kids decided that the quake meant it was time to head to the surface, and the Shield Maze is the best way.”

“It’s also incredibly dangerous, even for skilled hunters.”

“Which is why we need to go in and find them. But Chief Sull is dragging his feet—”

“Because it’s insane.”

“—Dragging his feet, as usual, so we came here to find the sword. Nobody’s been able to wield it since the angel himself, supposedly, so if I come back with it, the tribes ought to put aside their bickering and go find the children.”

“The reason nobody’s been able to wield it is that it burns the hands of anyone who tries!”

“I will strap it to my wrist if I have to.”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that! Where was it supposed to be?”

“In what used to be the center of the room.”

"Not that I'm not sympathetic, but we do need to get back to the surface. Kenabres needs us." 

Lusilla bites her lip and looks back and forth between Anevia and Seelah on one hand, and Lann and Wenduag on the other. "I...guess a couple of missing children aren't more important than an entire cityful, but..." oooooh this is breaking so many rules but. People's lives at stake. "This'll be real quick." 

And then Lusilla takes a deep breath, and changes. 

The world is a different place, in this shape. Her actual vision is much the same, qualitatively, but she sees all around her instead of only in a small slice in front of her face. The world of smells explodes into life around her. And, most importantly, the magic in the world around her unfolds like a galaxy of stars. 

Including one very significant star over there--

--She changes back, instead of going over and grabbing the angel sword immediately, turning contritely to face Anevia and Seelah, hands twisting behind her back. 

"What...was that? What are you?" 

Lusilla shrugs, looking down at her feet. 

"I dunno. Hilltop, the village my mother used to live in, just--got destroyed, one night. Mom woke up and everything was screaming and fire. She didn't stick around long enough to find out what was happening, just grabbed my big brother and ran. I...was born nine months later. It's presumably not a coincidence. But I've never heard of anything else like me. I...came out like that, and Mom fled into the woods before anyone else could see me, and decide that I was some kind of horrible spawn of Lamashtu." 

"Well...you don't read evil." 

Pff. Like that's definitive. 

"I don't know what I am, or what made me. But I am a me, a person, and I can choose what to do, and I choose Good." 

"That's the spirit!" 

"Not that I don't agree with the sentiment, but why exactly did you choose right now to reveal that you're actually a giant pink starfish with too many eyes?" 

"Oh, right. I can sense magic in that shape, and the angel sword is pretty magic." 

And she strides over, shoves some rocks out of the way, and grabs the sword's hilt--

Lusilla falls to her knees, gasping. 

"Terendelev said that wasn't going to happen today!" she gets out, after a few moments. 

"--You were expecting that?" 

Lusilla looks down at the fresh blood on her dress in distaste. 

"Not the vision. Or the sword." Sigh. "But Terendelev did say she hadn't completely healed my wound, that it would re-open...still, since I'm currently capable of standing upright, it's certainly better than it was. But she said to talk to her about it tomorrow, and now she's dead." 

"Vision? What vision?" 

"I saw the angel's--Lariel's--last moments. He was betrayed by his allies, and struck down by...something that looked like Deskari, but wasn't Deskari..." 

HOLY SHIT THIS IS SO COOL.

"You have to come back to the village with us! If you can do that on command, Chief Sull will have no choice but to listen." 

"Well...I never meant to...I was just going to find the sword and..." can she hand it to Lann? 

Nope. She can make it manifest, with a soothing glow, but the moment she tries to let go of it, it simply vanishes. 

"--Well, I promised to get Seelah, and Anevia, and Camellia, back to the surface. I can come back afterwards and help." 

"...There's a guy from the surface, who made his way to the village. We didn't get a lot out of him--he was pretty rude, honestly--but if you're looking for passengers, you could come talk to Chief Sull, and get him, and then go." 

"How far is it to your village?" 

"Not very far." 

"Alright, I guess." Anevia does not look happy about the continued delays. 

"So, is everyone in your village like you two?" Lusilla asks, once they're out of the worked-stone area the angel's sword was in, and in the natural tunnels between there and the village. 

Snort. "What, mongrels? Yeah." 

"Neathers," Wenduag hisses. "We call ourselves Neathers. Surfacers call us mongrels." 

"...That doesn't...seem...polite? Of them?" 

Lann shrugs. "It's not worth fighting over." 

Wenduag gives him a deeply, deeply unimpressed look. 

Lann clearly has a greater ability than Lusilla does to refrain from dying on hills. Except--"Do you get a lot of surface people down here? If it would be a fight to use the right word." 

"Well, not really, but..." 

"Lann is obsessed with the surface." 

"I am not obsessed." 

Wenduag is not calling bullshit out loud with her voice but she is thinking it at the top of her lungs. 

"So what was that place, anyway? The room back there?" 

"That's where we keep the relics of the first crusade. Sometimes we even come and blow the dust off the exhibits." 

"The first crusade? Have you guys really been down here that long?" 

"Yeah. We call ourselves the Underground Crusaders when we're feeling fancy." 

"As someone who had never heard of the Worldwound when I woke up," wait, she can't say 'this morning,' she doesn't know when she was last conscious before getting abducted by demons, it's plausibly been more than a day, and it was already afternoon when she came to in the square, "today, I assume that 'crusades,' have something to do with it, but, uh, that's all I got. Could someone contextualize me please." 

Lann and Wenduag both give her significantly more advanced versions of Anevia and Seelah's upended cow look. 

"Yes, the Crusades are about the Worldwound. The fourth and most recent one ended about eight years ago. The first one started almost a hundred years ago." 

"What makes a crusade different from a not-crusade, if you're still fighting demons when there hasn't been a crusade for most of a decade?" 

"You can't not fight the demons, or they'll destroy everything. The Crusades are different. Each one was called with a specific goal in mind, usually retaking territory that had already been lost."

"Huh." Based on storybook logic, a fifth one will probably be called soon, possibly in direct response to the attack on Kenabres, but Lusilla doesn't actually know if storybook logic is trustworthy here. "Has much of Mendev been lost to demons?" 

Grimace. "Depends on how this attack goes, I suspect. Losing the Wardstone would be really bad. But--not much, especially compared with how it could be. Mendev is a place where people come from all over the world in order to fight the demons; the country's sort of remade itself around that. Not that we're in great shape, but hey, we're not Sarkoris. Yet." 

"Wait, is that what happened to Sarkoris?" 

"...How in the world do you know about Sarkoris but not the Worldwound?" 

"Rivertree's village druid, Griar, told me his great-grandfather fled Sarkoris when it fell. But he didn't say what happened to it, and given that he was telling me about it in the context of something having happened to Hilltop, and nobody has any idea what happened to Hilltop, I had no reason to think anybody knew what happened to Sarkoris!" 

...

Blah blah weird surfacer stuff, nobody cares. 

"...Countries are a little harder to misplace than villages." 

"Huh, okay." The More You Know. 

This is not a circumstance in which it is EASY to take someone aside for a private word, but Wenduag manages. 

"Listen," Wenduag says quietly, "when we get to the village, don't show Sull the sword." 

"Huh? What? Why?" Lusilla has very little education, but she does, actually, have a positive intelligence modifier. "...I already told Lann I would. If he says I will, and then I don't, either I look like a huge jerk or he looks like a huge idiot." 

"It'll be the idiot one. Everybody knows Lann is more interested in old legends and tales of glory than is good for him." 

"Maybe to your people, but Seelah and Anevia were there when it happened." Also Camellia but Lusilla cares less what she thinks. "They'd know I was being mean to Lann for no reason."

"Not no reason. I wasn't joking when I said it was a fool's errand. The Shield Maze kills experienced hunters, nevermind the young and elderly that Lann wants to bring through with them." Wenduag wishes she had some kind of leverage--if these surfacers needed to go through the Shield Maze themselves, she could offer to guide them; but with eyeballs monster girl able to fly them all back to the surface, they have no reason to get involved in the tribe's business. 

"Why does he want to do that?" 

"The children who ran into the maze aren't the only ones far too eager to see the tribes return to the surface to fight demons." 

"I don't think I understand why that involves bringing the infirm through the scary death maze." 

"...Starvation wouldn't be better." 

So the assumption is that the village druid would come with--plausible, druids are pretty good at fighting, compared to farmers. "They wouldn't have to be left behind," she says instead. "They could come up to the surface with me and the rest." 

"Even the sword won't make Sull make up his mind that fast, let alone summon the rest of the tribes." 

"I could come back?" 

"Even if you got him to leave of the absolute worst of his foolhardy plan, it's still not safe." 

"I...will think about it." 

Not that she's going to lie, about Lann, to Lann's face, where Seelah and Anevia can see her do it, that's just ridiculous, but she can do some thinking about the rest of it. 

Wenduag is not exactly SATISFIED with this, but she will quit while she's ahead. 

They run across some more Arthropods of Unusual Size. Spiders, this time. 

Lann and Wenduag seem to be totally onboard with plan: Eat What You Kill, Even When What You Kill Is Giant Bugs. They are somewhat more practiced and less haphazard about packing up dead giant bugs to bring places. 

UUUUUUGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH

They reach the village without significant further incident.

It's smaller than Rivertree or Odd's Hollow, and somewhat more focused on fishing than either of those two riverside villages, along with not having any real agricultural capacity. As a result of the latter, it's, well... also much poorer. And smellier. 

Camellia made a DIRE mistake when she didn't immediately veto venturing into this sty. 

"How...quaint." 

...Lusilla is pretty sure Camellia is being rude, but she has...no idea what kind of rude she's being. 

Lann either does not perceive Camellia's rudeness or elects to ignore it as he brings them to a scarred, elderly-looking Neather in concealing but obviously patchworked robes. 

The chief looks at them and shakes his head tiredly. "More uplandersh...the end timesh really are upon ush..." 

"Chief Sull!" Lann protests. "We found the angel's sword! And the person who can wield it." He points at Lusilla. "She had a vision, and now the angel's sword is...inside her, somehow. Gather the tribe! Anyone who can hold a weapon. The young ones are still alive, we can go save them!"

Lusilla is...glad Lann is explicitly limiting his exhortation to people who can hold weapons? Although she's not sure why he thinks the children are definitely still alive, instead of just, like, hopefully still alive, given Wenduag's emphasis on how dangerous the place is. 

...On the other hand, given how much difficulty he's already said he's had persuading this guy, maybe he's just pretending to be more certain he is, because anything less would be an excuse to continue not going. 

"Ah...Lann, alwaysh dreaming, alwaysh talking. You're too hashty, too hashty for your own good. It'sh going to get you in trouble." He eyes Lusilla. "An uplander with the angel'sh shword...that'sh too good for ush. Our kind don't have good thingsh happen--there'sh alwaysh a catch. Lann trushtsh people becaushe he likesh to believe. Ishn't that right, Lann? I'm the chief, I don't work on faith. Show me the shword." 

Wow, this guy is--worse than Brin, Rivertree's miller. Maybe Lann is an optimist, maybe Lann likes believing in things, but you know what? 

So does Lusilla. 

She pulls out the sword and lights it up. 

Tears run down the old chief's face. He doesn't even notice, gazing at the warm light of the sword. Dozens of other neathers stop what they're doing to stare. 

"Sho it'sh true...the angel...did not forshake ush, no...he came...back from the dead he came, to shave our children." 

WELP. 

Sheeeee's going into the Shield Maze. She'll have to drop the others off on the surface first, of course, but--she absolutely does not have it in her to not go on the rescue mission after that sentiment is expressed to her face. 

Lann smiles at her, grateful and a little relieved. 

Wenduag's reaction is approximately the opposite. 

"See these fishermen and these hunters, these husks of men and women?" she spits. "Their blood will be on your hands!" 

Lusilla rounds on her. 

"Husks? You use a word like that, and denounce me for wanting to give these people hope with the same breath?" 

"You think there's hope if they're all dead?" 

She throws her hands up. "So I'll keep them from dying! Problem solved." 

Snarl. "You think you can?"

"I survived a hit from Deskari." A hit he royally fucked up, but still. "I am the child of a night of blood and fire, and of my mother's desperate and unconditional love. And I will not stand by while people tell themselves that salvation is too good for the likes of them." 

"When everyone here dies, it won't be my fault." 

"You're too much of a pessimist, Wendu. We're not on our own anymore." 

"You have the right of it, Lann," Chief Sull says somberly. "But we're neathers, we're going to wait. I shent a meshenger to shummon all the tribesh. It will take time, yesh. But they will come. They will all come for the light that we have sheen here today. Wait, Lann. Wait, uplandersh. Resht a while; our home ish your home." 

"It's just as well," Lusilla murmurs to Lann, "since I have to get the others back to the surface first anyway." 

Lann sighs and nods. "Alright. I should introduce you to the other guy who found his way here, then." 

He does not sound totally thrilled about this. 

"Lead the way." 

The other uplander is a greying human man wearing the kind of outfit that says he has money and cares if other people know it, and the kind of waistline that says he shies away from neither good food nor exercise. 

"Ah, a human face at last! And here I thought that I'd be gazing upon the twisted visages of these troglodytes for the rest of my life." 

Aaaaaaand Lusilla immediately understands why Lann was not thrilled to bring her here. 

"I shall take that under advisement," she says curtly, "given that I am not human, and my true visage is significantly more twisted than theirs." 

"--Yes, well. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Horgus Gwerm. Yes, that Gwerm--you no doubt have heard of me if you've spent any time at all in the city. I have a business proposition for you." 

"I was dragged into the city half-conscious on a stretcher less than an hour ago; before that, I was in the woods outside a tiny village in Iobaria, and hadn't even heard of the Worldwound, let alone Horgus Gwerm." 

He is starting to suspect that this girl is fucking with him.

"Well, you couldn't have picked a worse time if you'd tried. Only just arrived, and half the city is razed to rubble! You should know that you are looking at one of the richest and most distinguished men in Kenabres. I may not be as well known as certain swaggering loudmouths who spend their lives traipsing from one ball to the next... but the Gwerm trading company is one of the pillars of the city, I'll have you know! Did you see the marquees in the square? I paid for those. Tried any festival delicacies? You have Horgus Gwerm to thank for that!" 

Ah. Well. Credit where credit is due. 

"I did, actually. The marquees were beautiful, and the festival drink was tasty. So thank you." 

That's better. 

"So...what did you mean by a business proposition?"

"I don't know what's happening on the surface right now, but I am determined to find out. You have no intention of seeing out the rest of your days in this village, I suspect. We must find a route back to the surface, to the city. If there's anything left of it. 

"You are strong, it will be no trouble to you. But I, alas, am not as fit as I once was. I can't go crawling about through caves, playing at scouts. My proposition is simple: lead me back to the city and I shall pay you a thousand crowns." 

--That's a lot of money. 

Lusilla doesn't actually know what a crown is--local currency, of course, but not what denomination--but even if that's the smallest kind of copper coin, a thousand of them is still a lot. 

Lusilla weighs the pros and cons. On the one hand, she had been going to bring him back to the surface just by default, and not charge him for it. 

On the other hand, he's rich and has been an ass about the Neathers. 

"Deal." 

"Very well. Until then, I shall--" 

"Oh! Sorry, no, I wasn't clear. We already know how to get back to the surface, it's just you can't get there without me." 

"...And how is that?" 

Lusilla points upwards. "The same way we came in. I told you I wasn't human! I can fly, and I'm pretty strong." 

"...Are you a dragon?" She would have to be a much younger dragon than Terendelev, if she was one, and he really hopes that if she is her coloration in human form is less suggestive of what color of dragon she is than Terendelev's was. 

"Nope! If there's a word for what I am I don't know it. But I can fly." 

"...Well, alright, then, let's be off." 

He glances at Camellia. 

She nods slightly. The situation is deeply weird, of course, and she's really not sure what to make of Lusilla as a person, but she's confident that the overly-chipper probably-Aberration is not going to suddenly decide to suck everyone's brains out instead of ferrying them up to the surface. 

Good enough for now. 

The group that tromps back to the reliquary room and from there back to the area where Deskari's scythe cracked open the ceiling consists of Lusilla, Anevia, Camellia, Seelah, and Horgus Gwerm; Lann and Wenduag are staying behind in the village. Lusilla isn't sure whether that's because they want to coordinate the Neathers answering Chief Sull's call, or because they want to not deal with Horgus Gwerm, but in either case Lusilla agrees that those priorities make sense. 

And when they get there, Lusilla changes, and Horgus Gwerm can get an eyeful of the thing that she is that is not a dragon. 

Wow, that is really not reassuring.

Lusilla picks up Horgus with one arm, and Anevia with another, and Camellia with a third. 

She reaches for Seelah, but Seelah backs up and shakes her head, smiling. 

"I'll wait down here, keep an eye out on things. You might be strong, but you don't have armor; you're going to need me in the Shield Maze." 

"--You'll help?" 

"Yeah. Place's supposed to be dangerous, right? A good sword arm will help a lot. Wouldn't want anything to happen to those kids." 

"If the two of you do make it back to the surface alive...try to look up the Eagle Watch. I have a feeling we're going to be doing a lot of the work of holding the city together." 

"Okay!" 

And then Lusilla takes off. 

When she reaches the top of the rift--which doesn't take very long at all--she sets each of her three passengers down safely, waves all five of her arms in a gesture recognizable as a friendly wave goodbye despite the difference in anatomy, and dives back down below. 

And then she re-assumes human form and beams at Seelah. 

"Can I hug you?" 

--Seelah laughs. "Sure!" 

Hug!

Lusilla hugs like someone not totally used to this whole "bones" and "joints" situation and not totally sold on it. And then she pulls back and grins at Seelah and starts back towards Neathholme, laughing and slowing down when she realizes that heavy armor means Seelah can't quite keep up. 

The tribes have, unsurprisingly, not finished assembling by the time Lusilla and Seelah get back. 

Lann is talking to a female Neather when they arrive. 

"Oh, hey. Dyra, this is Lusilla, the uplander with the angel's sword. And Seelah. I didn't know you were coming back," he adds to Seelah. 

"You guys seemed like you could use the help." 

"I won't argue. Guys, this is Dyra, cleric of Abadar." 

"You guys have a cleric?" 

Lann snorts. "Just because we're living like this, down here--" 

"No, no, I didn't mean it like that. Just, in my experience, small villages like this one mostly have druids, for healing and making water and so on, clerics mostly live in bigger towns and cities." 

"I don't know anything about druids, but we usually have at least one cleric for every few villages. Not every village has one; the less lucky ones have to travel to visit when someone's hurt but still alive." 

"Well...you have to learn to be a druid; if the crusaders whose descendants you are didn't happen to have any, I guess there wouldn't be anyone to teach more. But still, wow." Lusilla shakes her head. 

"That...isn't how it works everywhere, anyway. In my experience, usually small villages have low-level clerics of Erastil, not druids." 

"Huh. Well, Erastil seems like a good candidate for a god whose clerics could do a druid's job, if they had to." 

"They can cast Plant Growth, yeah. It is a little surprising to see a cleric of Abadar in a place this small." 

"You'd be surprised," Dyra says, "how often the good word of positive-sum trade can prevent fights over resources."

"Well, good for you!" 

"Speaking of resources--Lann, I don't, actually, have a home base anywhere right now, or anything, and even in my bigger form I can only eat so much, and I only have to feed this form if I eat in it, so," she gestures to the giant tied-up piece of canvas, then decides to instead untie it so that he and Dyra can see how much dead bug with bonus lizard there is in there. "I killed all this before we met you guys, and stashed it because it was sort of awkward to carry around. But you guys can have it, the important thing is it not going to waste." 

Lann's eyes go wide. "That is...a lot of food." 

"Like I said, I do not need all of it." 

Okay Dyra is going to pounce on her to haggle now. 

Lusilla had honestly intended all this as a gift, but wow, Dyra's enthusiasm is infectious, are all clerics of Abadar this cool? She is going to have to ask some questions about Abadar later. Also Iomedae, she still doesn't actually know much about Iomedae. 

...Seelah is just going to...go practice with her sword. Over there.

When Lusilla comes to find Seelah a while later, she's dressed differently. 

Before, she had been wearing a fairly unremarkable peasant dress; long-sleeved and full-skirted, it wasn't impractical, per se, but it was much better suited for running around in forests or fields than falling down rocky crags or killing approximately anything. 

What she's wearing now is a somewhat simpler skirt of the rougher fabric that the Neathers are able to produce, and a sleeveless bodice of worked lizard hide. On her arms are a pair of bracers that don't look like Neather manufacture, and a bag made of the same lizard-leather is slung across her body. 

"Hey! Looking good. That doesn't count as armor, does it?" 

Lusilla looks down at the pebbled material. "I don't think so. What d'you mean counts as?" 

"Well, you said you're a sorcerer, right? Sorcerers and wizards can have trouble casting in armor." 

"Huh. Well, if I have any trouble, I'll deal with it."

Nod. "Where'd you get the bracers?"

She looks down at her forearms. "Oh, that. Actually I already had these on? I didn't realize, under my sleeves, with everything that was going on. I have no idea how they got there. I definitely didn't have them before I got captured. I wish I could ask the guys who brought me in some questions, but," she shrugs. "They brought me in with some weapons, but they were just laid down on the stretcher with me. I don't know who put these on me or why. And they're magic! I didn't realize sooner because they just sort of disappear when I turn into my other shape, and I don't have detect magic as a regular spell, but Dyra does, and she noticed." 

"Why was she using it?" 

"Checking to make sure none of the meat had any supernatural toxins that my purify had missed." 

"Huh. Well, your mysterious past gets even mysteriouser." 

"I guess! I don't think most of my past was very mysterious, but I guess the mystery of my birth qualifies to make it a mysterious past and not just a mysterious interlude." She looks down at her chest and sighs. "I could do without the mysterious wound, though." 

"Can't blame you a bit." 

A little while later, Lann comes by. "Have either of you seen Wenduag?" 

"Not since seeing Anevia and the others off, I think. Why?" 

"I had a question for her about the Shield Maze, but I can't find her. I've asked around, but nobody's seen her since not long after you guys left." 

"I guess she was really serious about it not being on her if this goes wrong." 

Lann sighs. "I guess. I can't say I'm not disappointed in her, though." 

"...If she really thinks everyone who goes into the Maze is going to die...she might not want to leave the ones who are left without any hunters or combatants." 

Lann grimaces. "Maybe." But they are definitely not going to all die, so he is not really impressed with Wenduag even in this hypothetical. "I was really hoping to have her expertise navigating the maze, though." 

"My other form has a really good sense of smell. I could try to track them by scent." 

"Would you? That would be great!"

"Can you get me some of their stuff so I can pick up the scent?" 

"I can try. Give me a minute." 

"Sure." 

Lann is gone for a few minutes, and then comes back with three garments. 

And Lusilla changes. 

Lann either knows enough about scent tracking, or just was able to reason it out, but he brought her clothing that hadn't been washed at all since they were last worn. 

Lusilla smells each garment carefully, before giving them back to Lann. 

"I think I'll remember. Thanks, this should be useful." 

"Anything that means we can get to those kids quicker is a good thing." 

"Yeah." 

Lusilla changes back. "Do you know how much longer to expect it to be?" 

Lann sighs and shakes his head. "I don't know. Probably several more hours." 

Lusilla nods and gets out a dagger she scavenged from a corpse that fell from the surface and a piece of chitin she took from one of the dead bugs and starts whittling. 

"What's that?" 

"I'm making whistles. It's something you can do with bones--this antenna isn't exactly the same, but it's worth trying, anyway--if we get separated at all, a loud whistle will let anyone else who's a little ways away but not too far know you're in trouble or have something you really need them to see. Griar taught me to make them." 

"That's the druid that told you about Sarkoris, right?" 

"Right. They're used by hunting or search parties, mostly, when something dangerous moves into the forest nearby and the village has to go kill it, or someone gets confused by a fairy and we have to go look for them. I've been in a search party but not a hunting party, I mostly just hunt normal stuff by myself. Being able to fly is a big advantage." 

"I bet it would be." 

"I guess if it's going to take hours we should probably have escorted Anevia to the actual Eagle Knights, made contact with them, etcetera, before coming back," Lusilla sighs, "but it's a bit late for that now. But I don't want to just sit around uselessly until then regardless." 

"Preach it," Seelah says, resuming her sword drills. 

By the time Lann comes to let them know that the other tribes have arrived and it's time to go into the Shield Maze, a crowd of young Neathers have gathered around Seelah, and been armed with whatever sticks or fragments of whatever come to hand so that she can start teaching them the very basics of swordplay. It is deeply cute. 

Lann has to stop, and stare, for a moment, because that is deeply cute, and it is making him feel some emotions, which he is not going to address right now. Because there are more urgent things, like going into the Shield Maze and rescuing other kids. 

"Hey," he says. "We're ready to go. How are you guys doing?" 

"We're good!" Lusilla says, as Seelah gently shoos the kiddos. "Lead the way." 

Lann leads them towards the opposite end of the village from the exit to the reliquary. 

"The rest of the tribes haven't arrived yet, but Chief Sull gave the go-ahead for us to scout ahead into the Maze, before the kids' trail goes any colder." 

"Is it safe? If you needed to get all the tribes together..." 

Lann shrugs with frustration. "I don't know for sure. But how much longer can we wait?" 

"...Yeah, alright." Sigh. 

The doorway into the Shield Maze is cracked open and guarded by a large number of Neathers--the other tribes haven't finished arriving yet, but most of this tribe is gathered in the vicinity. Lann exchanges nods with Chief Sull on the way in. 

The antechamber of the Shield Maze is sparsely furnished, but not dusty or decaying. Banners on either side of the doorway farther into the maze have the same symbol prominently displayed. 

Lusilla points. "What's that?" 

"What, Baphomet's unholy symbol?" 

"Is that what it is? Who's Baphomet?" 

"...Baphomet is the other demon lord besides Deskari who's most involved in the demonic forces at the Worldwound." 

"...Oh. That's a bad sign, then." 

"Yeah, no kidding." 

Lusilla changes into her other shape and tries to identify the scents of the missing children. 

Yep, they were definitely brought through here. 

When Seelah, being the most heavily-armored member of the group, pushes open the door further into the maze, every cultist presently in the room on the other side immediately looks up. 

Well, that's not ideal, but it's hardly a surprise. 

"...I assume these guys aren't friendlies," Lusilla says quietly to Lann. 

"They are not," Lann says tersely, nocking an arrow. 

"Hey!" Lusilla calls into the room. "I'm a big, scary monster! Tell me where you took the kidnapped children and I won't do scary monster things to you!" 

The cultists decide that this is an excellent trigger to attack. 

And Lusilla teleports* forwards into the midst of them. 

*Dimension Door sla

...This is really inconvenient, actually, because of the three of them in the room, the one who was closest to the door was also... their only melee guy. Who is now on the other side of this Aberration from the archer and the wizard. The archer and the wizard are not thrilled about this! Fortunately, even though she beat them in Initiative, using her spell-like ability used up her standard action, which means they get to attack first! The wizard is going to use Magic Missile--

Attack of opportunity. 

...Which just barely fails, her arm skidding harmlessly off his Mage Armor. 

As he was saying, Magic Missile. 

Spell Resistance. 

Fuck.

She doesn't have Crossbow Resistance, though, right? Inquiring crossbow guys want to know. 

...She does not. Ow. 

Okay, but likewise, crossbow guy doesn't have longbow resistance, right? 

Nope! Instead he appears to now have negative hit points. Not a great outcome. 

Opinions are going to differ on that one. 

Meanwhile it's Lusilla's turn again. This time she does not flub her attack on the wizard, her arm crashing into him with a force that just doesn't care about his Mage Armor at all. 

yep he's down

Lusilla shrinks down to human size for better dexterity and begins efficiently stripping both of them. 

Seelah, who has finished killing the melee guy while the narration wasn't really looking at either of them, looks up from wiping the blood off her sword. "What are you doing?" 

"I don't like wasting resources." 

"Sure, and fallen enemies have been a source of resources for forever, but usually you kill them first." 

"That can't be right. What if we don't decide to kill them?" 

"What do you imagine doing with them instead?" 

...Lusilla pauses, sitting back on her heels to think about it. 

Rivertree would probably just quietly kill someone who came into town and started making trouble with demonic magics. There's a reason Mama fled into the woods when she had a weird baby that was plausibly connected to whatever happened to Hilltop. 

Lusilla obviously disagrees with taking the principle as far as killing weird babies, but these people are adults who made their choices and are unlikely to be talked out of them in the next five minutes, and she... doesn't really have the resources to hold them for longer. 

Theoretically this could all be a hilarious misunderstanding, except that these people are, in fact, wearing Baphomet's unholy symbol. And if she let them wake up and gave them a chance to explain themselves, what then? They have an obvious incentive to lie. 

Aaaaaaaalso if she does have to kill them, doing it while they're awake seems...harder. 

She grimaces, delivers a coup de grace to the one she's currently positioned towards, looks at the corpse, and staggers over to the side of the room to throw up. 

...Seelah follows her over. 

"Are you okay?" 

Lusilla wipes traces of vomit off her mouth. "First time I ever killed anyone." 

"Ah." Sympathetic shoulder-pat. "Yeah, that'll mess with you. But he was going to hurt a lot more people." 

"Yeah." 

She stands up, straightens her shoulders, and walks over to the other guy. Grimacing, she kneels down and twists his head, too, with a upsettingly audible crack. 

It is easier the second time. That is probably practically useful, but it is also seriously philosophically disquieting. 

Okay. NOW to not waste resources. 

"...Do we have time for this?" 

"I need a little time to finish healing from that crossbow wound. I heal fast, but not instantly." 

"Alright," Lann says reluctantly. 

Lusilla works quickly, and stops removing and stacking items from the bodies before they are quite stripped bare, when her wounds finish mending. 

She looks at the pile of rubble stretching across the room, blocking off the portion they're in from the farther portion. 

"I think I'm going to have to fly us over that," she concludes. 

Well, this is going to be interesting. 

Lusilla changes again, and picks up Lann and Seelah each with one of her arms before taking off. 

He was right, this is weird. Not really bad, though, and undeniably useful. 

Unfortunately, there are cultists on the other side of the pile of rubble. Also unfortunately, they absolutely heard the sounds of violence from the front of the room. Fortunately, they don't seem to have anticipated a giant flying starfish to come soaring over the barrier. The good guys get a surprise round! 

Lusilla needs the surprise round to set Lann and Seelah down, and Seelah can't do a whole lot until she's been set down, but Lann can shoot arrows from anywhere. 

Lusilla does not manage to keep Seelah from getting damaged at all, in this fight, which on the one hand is less than ideal because Lusilla has fast healing and Seelah doesn't, but on the other hand Seelah is also there to be a melee person and if Lusilla just handled all the melee then Seelah would probably feel like it had been a waste for her to come along. 

Once this group of cultists have been dispatched and their little group can look around the room with more than incidental amounts of attention, this side of the room turns out to have a fountain of blood built into the wall opposite the door they came in through. 

"Wow. This doesn't just look like blood, it smells like blood. So either they bothered to enchant something to keep the blood from clotting and turning nasty," she reconsiders that phrasing, "even nastier than just the idea of a blood fountain is by itself I mean, or they have a really good illusion. I think. I guess human illusion spells could work on smell by default. But a lot of fairy ones don't, at least the ones used by the fairies I've dealt with, so I don't think so." 

"Baphomet cultists are fucked up." 

"I guess that's not surprising. And at least these resources were only wasted, instead of actively used to hurt people, except whoever the blood came from probably." Sigh. 

More importantly: "The trail goes that way," Lusilla says firmly, pointing. 

The way Lusilla points leads through a short hallway and into a wide room with a couple of short, ugly demons, and some kind of circle that would be deeply concerning even if it didn't appear to have been painted in blood. 

The demons are harder to kill than the cultists were--the blows Lusilla lands don't seem to do as much damage as they ought--but they do go down. 

"I'd say this seems like a good reason for a creepy blood fountain if it weren't for the obvious evidence that they didn't use the blood fountain," Lusilla says disapprovingly of the two corpses s(p)layed out by the blood circle. 

Seelah grimaces. "I don't think doing more evil things makes a creepy blood fountain okay." 

"Oh, for sure, just--these deaths are stupid as well as evil." 

The trail goes around the blood circle, fortunately, and towards a door in the adjacent wall to the one they came in through. 

...That...stays closed when she tries to open it...

"Rrgh," Lusilla says eloquently. 

"Let me have a look," Seelah says, coming forward to examine the door. 

"I think it's closed by magic. I mean, it's definitely for sure magic, and I think that's what's holding it shut." 

"Well, there are a couple of key holes... they could be magic keys." 

"Prooooobably. Unfortunately I have no idea how to pick locks to check." 

Seelah snorts. "I used to, but I'm a little rusty, and I don't have any lock picks on me." 

"Okay. So, we...try to find the keys, I guess," Lusilla sighs. "Next time I am going to leave a cultist alive, if I can, so I can ask them about it." 

"Fair." 

"Meanwhile I might as well check what's on the other side," Lusilla says, disappearing and then reappearing a round later. 

"Stairs," she reports. "A curved staircase. I didn't try following it up." 

"That's...probably a good idea. Lusilla, what circle spells can you cast as a sorcerer?" 

Mildly embarrassed squirm. "First."

"So that was just something you can do because of what you are?"