"Let me serve you! Please let me serve you! I swear I'll never betray you, just let me live and follow you and prove myself worthy! All I've ever wanted is a master who'll use me well and I can see now you're that master!!!"

(The ex-cultist is not very clear on Gorumite and/or Gordian theology, apart from not torturing surrendered prisoners.)

It seems he's not such an idiot after all! Truly, there is hope even for the meanest who grovel.

Yesyesyes thank you thank you thank you she's never doubting the miraculous light of Heaven ever again!!!

...wait, is the cultist swearing to follow Heaven (yes!!) or to follow her (he really oughtn't...) or - Gord? Swearing yourself is serious business!

...

"Don't grovel."

"Everyone is born free. Follow a leader, defend your friends; never accept a master."

"I can tell you how to follow Gorum. I don't want you to follow me, because you're not strong enough yet to survive the kinds of fights I get into. And I don't trust you with my back yet. But we'll get you somewhere safe, like I promised, and I'll try to help you find a way forward, after this. You'll have your chance, if you're willing to fight for it."

Wenduag swears privately to prove herself strong enough to follow Gord.

Assuming he can beat Savamelekh. But - Savamelekh would never tell her not to accept him as her master.

...is this what the 'love' Lann keeps nattering on about feels like?

Seelah is very relieved that Gord told the cultist not to follow him and by implication not to swear any oaths for now! That means she'll get to tell him all about Heaven first, maybe get him a place working for some paladin order! A wizard is always useful, they won't turn away one who can swear repentance under zone of truth and if they get him out of the city (and maybe the country) they won't be sheltering him from the law.

...wait, he's still talking. She missed out on the first half of his confession, on account of praying for his immortal soul.

What's his name, anyway?

Rovaldo! His name is Rovaldo!

...and past the bunk room and the refectory they'll be back at the far end of the hall where he attacked them he's very very sorry and there's a fountain of blood he doesn't know what it does he never heard of vampires here maybe it just looks cool and then there are stairs down to the other dungeons and he last saw the Left Hand going there but that was hours ago and the other way is a big room they're told not to go but he thinks that's where he came through when they brought him down from the city only he was blindfolded and he smelled something horrible there and there are earth elementals fixing things after the earthquake and a crazy water elemental trying to drown them all and...

Gord stops him when he starts repeating things for the third time and Anevia can't think of any more questions.

The first mongrelfolk have begun gathering outside, so they leave Rovaldo with them (sans spellbook and crossbow) with strict instructions to both parties, and press on. The other cultists probably haven't discovered the bloodstains (Lann has been watching the hall), so they go back to being sneaky.

Unfortunately, the barracks and refectory are full of cultists, and they can't really go around them.

"We're here to clear a path, not just sneak around," Lann points out.

Then Gord will acquire a mix of dead bodies and more captured prisoners!

(He's sorry, but these guys just aren't on his level, alright? With suppressive fire from three archers and Seelah helping tie them down, he can take on their strongest fighters one by one and they're not, really, a threat.)

Questioning the new captives is more difficult because there are several of them and they will glare at the first one who tries to betray the rest.

"It will take time to move everyone to the mongrelfolk's custody and not be attacked by their friends on the way. Do we even have enough rope to tie them all up?"

Well they're not killing prisoners!!

She tries to shine the Light of Heaven on them, but it doesn't seem to work as well on groups of captives who haven't been given any promises or threats or really explanations. And they don't, really, have even ten minutes to spend on each prisoner, especially if they keep getting more of them.

"We can break their fingers so they can't fight us if their friends free them," Wenduag suggests.

"Their friends would have to heal them anyway before they could fight again. So if we give them wounds that heal cleanly, it won't help, and if we give them nasty crippling wounds then why did we even take them prisoner? I'd do it if we had no better choice, but so far I'm not impressed by the strength of these cultists so I think we do have a choice."

They end up disarming them as best they can, tying all their hands together in a way Anevia claims will stop them from freeing each other very quickly, and locking them all in a little room that opens off the dormitory. Along with their friends' dead bodies, to hopefully scare them out of staging a break-out very quickly. Gord pushes one of the two-tiered bunk beds in front of the door in case that helps.

"If you break out and I see you again doing anything other than running away, I will kill you," he warns them before shutting the door.

Then they're finally back at the other end of the hall, which has the promised pool of unexplained blood below another bas-relief of Baphomet's goat-head.

And past that, a large square room with a ritual circle drawn on the floor in blood, a few human bodies lying around, and two dretches.

Oh, these poor wretches. Made from leftover bits of souls, barely smarter than animals. Perhaps they were animals in the first place, or feral Boneyard babies.

They're not even any stronger than some of the guys he killed already, and they still attack the party on sight.

There's no real way to take dretches prisoner. They don't even understand the concept of surrender properly, beyond the moment when someone stops threatening them with a sword. A few dretches evolve something like human-level intelligence, but for the most part they're just walking bags of suffering. 

Of all the demons he's met, it was always easiest to convince himself that destroying a dretch is a mercy killing. Gord doesn't know of anything he can do to make life any better for them, not really.

He aligns his sword with Good, and tries to make it quick.

"What happened here? Did the demons turn on the cultists?"

Anevia inspects the ritual circle. "I think this was a summoning circle," she says. "So yes."

"I wish all evil cultists were stupid enough to summon demons to devour themselves," Lann jokes. Judging by his expression, it falls a little flat even with himself.

"Well, at least that explains what the blood fountain is for. Though not where it came from..."

"I never made it past this room but I think the next door leads upwards. That matches what the prisoner said."

The next door has two keyholes and they don't have even one key.

Anevia tries lockpicking but quickly finds out there are no tumblers or other visible mechanisms. "It might be magic."

Detect magic. "Yeah, it's magic all right."

"Should we try to find Lusilla or her hands? Or interrogate the prisoners after all?" Either option will take time, while the kids are presumably in danger.

Stone shape. The door with its hinges falls out neatly out of the remains of the archway.

"My spells aren't just for healing, you know?"

That is pretty cool! Seelah smiles in relief.

Beyond the doorway, a staircase winds upwards.