"You didn't - what kind of a paladin are you?! I thought you people detect Evil all the time!"

"It takes concentration!! And I don't like to always see the worst about people!"

Gord considers this. "So when we were in the Maze," he says slowly, "and I was relying on you to detect any demons on the other side of doors that we opened -"

"You never told me I was supposed to be doing that!!!" Seelah is blushing furiously, in an equal combination of mortification and anger.

"I thought I only had to tell you if I wanted you to stop!"

Shit. She wants to follow Seelah, who might not be stronger than Gord but clearly serves a stronger god, but she hasn't had an opportunity to talk to her at all yet. If Seelah and Gord fight now she can prove her loyalty, but if they just split up she'll have to convince Seelah to take her on quickly. Or should she target Irabeth, who (apparently?) serves the same god and who Seelah seems to defer to?

"Stop!"

Irabeth uses just the right tone of voice to make them actually stop and listen without redirecting their emotions onto her; this is part of a social skillset she has practised religiously for two decades.

"It's neither rare nor terrible to make mistakes of communication like that when working with strangers for the first time, and you should figure out where you went wrong - later."

"Right now we need to establish as best we can that Gord isn't enchanted or possessed. Kinsby will cast magic circle against evil; we need it to renew it anyway. And I'd like him to cast dispel magic on you, if you don't have any ongoing spells you need terribly." If he does they must be under nondetection, which would - complicate things.

"I don't. Hit me with dispel evil if it makes you feel better, but it won't make the aura won't go away." The one good thing about paladins is that they won't try to mislead you with precise wording and so he doesn't need to ask her oath that only those spells will be cast before allowing it. Hopefully.

She'd rather not spend an expensive fifth-circle scroll if she doesn't have to; they might need it later.

Irabeth nods to Kinsby, who steps forward to cast the promised two spells. "No reaction," he reports. Meaning: the dispel failed in the way that suggests (but does not prove) that there was nothing to dispel. 

This clears the threshold she set herself when she heard Anevia's report. They must be suspicious, but sparingly; not just to avoid driving away potential allies, but because they frankly can't afford the spell slots to check everyone who ever met a strong demon more thoroughly than that and have enough left over for actually fighting the demons. And an Evil cleric of Gorum who claims he went Evil during the crusade but still tries to help people is not, in fact, very surprising.

"I trust you," she tells Gord. "Will you help us?"

Gord can, in fact, acknowledge someone is being merely reasonably suspicious. It leaves a sour taste, but he knows it's an instinct that's harming him, and how to push past it.

"I will. What's our opposition?"

"Schirs and babaus. More cultists than demons, some of them first or second-circle clerics. We're afraid there are vrocks or a succubus behind them. At least twenty-five total, probably fewer than sixty, hopefully not all together, not well organized and prone to fleeing - we always leave them a way to retreat. If we reach the Wardstone we can turtle up there and send for reinforcements."

"I sent our weakest back with the wounded, because we can't evacuate that many people if things go badly, so we're low on archer cover, but we have strong clerics and paladins with us."

"Anevia will stay with the rearguard; it's safer than leaving alone. Lann, Wenduag, Seelah, what will you do? The children and the aasimar can stay with the rearguard if they want, but there's more chance of being attacked that way."

Lann wishes he could go be a real crusader, but right now his first duty is to guard the children.

Seelah would like to go with the crusaders, but she'll stay and help guard the children if Lann and Wenduag ask her to, because she did promise.

"What? No, you need to come with us and smite more demons with the Light of Heaven!"

...oh, that. 

He's right, isn't he? She needs to use her new gift - the one she's carrying only until she finds a worthy keeper - responsibly, which means maximally efficiently, giving it the opportunity to do the most good - and she's in fact out of regular smites for the day -

Waaaait a moment there.

Irabeth! Irabeth is the strongest and most senior paladin in the room! (Except for Staunton Vhane, whose seniority probably doesn't count at this point.) She's, like, really really famous in Kenabres! The only reason Seelah didn't apply to join the Eagle Watch is that she's obviously more suited to fighting demons head-on than making sure the other crusaders keep the law, but here they all are fighting demons together anyway!

Many artifacts grow more powerful with the power of their wielder. Seelah is, frankly, not very strong, and also she takes a lot of risks and it might be bad for the Light if its wielder gets killed, whereas Irabeth has a twenty-plus-years proven record of not dying (or not permanently, anyway.)

Seelah takes out the Light of Heaven. It's shaped like a longsword, but it isn't really a sword; she holds it like one but never really considered trying to hit anyone with it - it just doesn't feel like the thing it's meant to do. She hit Savamelekh with her regular sword, which isn't even magical, when the Light channeled itself through her. But it's not a good plan for the weakest paladin to keep hitting the strongest demons.

"I don't know if there's a right way to do this, exactly. But, um, I think you're much more suited to bearing the Light of Heaven than me. I'm just a new paladin who fell down a hole, and then someone else told me where it was, I didn't even find it. So, uh - I want to give this to you. Or someone else you think is better." And she offers up the Light, reverently, to Irabeth.

Irabeth considers the artifact before her. She can feel out its shape, but at the same time she can feel something inside it that tells her the shape it seems to take depends more on the needs and expectations of its bearer than on its own true nature. It's not a sword that shines with light; it is a light, which happens to illuminate the shape a sword.

"I do not wish to claim this light forever," she says and also thinks as clearly as she can. "I do not know if it is wisest for me to carry it, or let it be passed to another, or returned to Heaven whence it came. But if I am asked, I will carry it gladly, to the best of my ability, and yield it up again in time."

"Light of Heaven, do you wish to pass to me?" And she opens her mind to the faint wisp of energy, perhaps of - entity, that she feels inside it, the candle that in Seelah's hand briefly illuminated the entire room, as she attempts to gently tug it out of her hand.

Shiiiiine.

The light wavers a little, as if unsure; but it stays in Seelah's hand, and does not leave her.

It might not have enough agency to make decisions like that. It feels - weak, or weakened. With her hand on it, she finds she cannot imagine it righteously smiting down a demon.

Perhaps it merely needs to rest, to recharge. More likely its true nature escapes her insight.

"It does not go with me willingly. I have no right to command it, and I will not try to force it. I cannot tell you what to do with it; if you do not feel called to carry it, you should probably speak to a cleric of Iomedae." Whose cathedral lies a smoking ruin, and they have not even recovered Nestrin Alodae's body. "My advice is to come with us and try to use it, while keeping in mind that the number of times you can use it is almost certainly limited. Don't place yourself in excessive risk or sacrifice your life for a price that would usually be worth it, although I will do my best to see you raised if you die, in the hope that recovering the Light is worth it."

Seelah feels embarrassed and anxious and, well, frankly bad, at the idea that she might be raised instead of someone more useful or worthy because she failed to pass on the Light in time.

She tells herself sternly that she's not allowed to feel bad about it, because it's her duty and not an unfair one at that, it's just that - she really, really hasn't earned any of it. Instead of saving people when Deskari attacked she stumbled and fell down a hole! She wasn't needed in the Maze because Gord could handle it by himself! She didn't need to do anything, only to be present, for the Light to smite Savamelekh! She didn't, herself, actually contribute anything in the past two days, she just tromped around in her non-sneaky armor fighting people without actually changing any outcomes, and the only reason she even has the Light is because Gord didn't know what it was and didn't want to risk a little zap to find out.

She'll keep trying her best, of course she will, it's just that her best is sometimes, well, a muddle. But the Goddess saw something in her, someone worth spending Her power on instead of giving it to someone else, and she might fail but she'll never betray that trust if she can see any way to avoid it.

She nods, and thanks Irabeth, and goes to stand in the corner and pray to the Light until they're ready to go.

"I want to follow you. Lann, can you guard the kids yourself?"

"Uh, clearly not? We know there are more cultists in the Maze. Even both of us might not be enough if all of them attack at once, or those worse monsters you keep telling me about! Do you think I don't want to go with the crusaders too? We don't have a choice here, Wenduag!"

"I will leave another paladin with you in exchange for Seelah, if you will set her free of her promise so she can go with us."

Obviously she's not going to refuse, that would just make Seelah mad at her. But she's upset that she won't get to show her worth to either Seelah or Gord.

"I have no objections."

Seelah has a super-smite, is is really fair to trade her for a regular paladin? ...he won't object, though. Seelah herself clearly wants this and he doesn't want to force her to hold to her promise when they never even gave her anything of value in exchange for her help.

Then they can at long last assault the next floor!