The next floor contains a long balcony going around the main hall before they can go up the next set of stairs. (Defensible design, unlike accessible design, makes you go round and round instead of all the way up in one convenient stairwell.)

The cultists have used the extra time to prepare as best they could! They have blocked the balcony on both sides, and all the doors around it, and put up makeshift barricades for their archers and casters to shelter behind while the melee fighters try to stop them at the stairhead.

The cultists quickly discover they can't push them down the stairs without losing their own ranged support, and also that they don't really want to gloriously die in the service of Baphomet going toe to toe with a paladin. There is a brief lull as they fall back slightly and the two groups size each other up.

"Hey, I know you!" calls out one of the cultist archers in the back row to his counterpart behind the paladins. "How's it going? Want to join the winning side? You lot will be dead soon, but we'll be alive!"

Ah, a proper Gorumite greeting! "Challenge accepted," Gord shouts back happily before the addressed archer can respond. A muttered grace, and he's running past the cultists' front line and towards the archers and mages in the rear.

They're still behind a barricade. It'll take him at least a turn or two to clear it, and meanwhile they'll shoot him full of holes. He knows that, right?

Deeper darkness, on a small pebble he rolls towards them.

He bets they didn't prepare any light spells. Have fun climbing over your barricade to dispel my pebble.

Fuck it, they'll just shoot blind, then, in the general direction of the crusaders.

The cultists' former front line is NOT HAPPY about being suddenly shot in the back!!

What with being pinned between Gord and the paladins and only having half of their ranged support, the fighting in melee is quickly over, at which point the wizards and archers on the opposite balcony decide that discretion is the better part of valor.

Gord takes out a roll of old cloth, which he uses to cover up bits of the floor until he finds his pebble. He loves this little trick and it's reusable for the next hour and a half, although next time they'll see it coming.

It is impressive! But the Light of Heaven can beat any darkness spell.

On the third floor they face a new group of demons, as well as some of the cultists who fled. The rest lie butchered on the floor (this is the normal demon approach to rallying troops).

There is also a woman with a tail and no eyes.

"Minagho. You wretch," hisses a dwarf probably-paladin. (Gord has heard of Staunton Vhane, but he has never actually met him before. All dwarves tend to look the same to him once they're in heavy plate and have a bearded helmet for a head.)

Gord has never met a lilitu before, either, but the name Minagho is well known among veteran crusaders.

It ought to be easier not to panic when this kind of thing happens the second time in a day. Right?

Also, he's surrounded by powerful paladins and there is no reason for her to target him although she is definitely powerful enough to target all of them in a few rounds.

"Irabeth, tactics?" he tries to whisper, ignoring the interplay between the lilitu and the dwarf. Enemies should be allowed to gloat for as long as possible.

It could be an illusion or a polymorph, although Kinsby would have pointed out any obvious spell aura along those lines; but she can't count on that and dismiss the threat.

They can't win a direct fight with a lilitu. She's tough enough to take their hits for a few rounds until she succeeds in dominating or at least charming some of them, and from there it will all be downhill: they can't counter her when their dispels are spells and her enchantments are at-will. And that's before she calls up any more reinforcements she might have.

Also, if she's monologuing about corrupting the Wardstone or something, that probably means she's trying to enchant them right now and so Irabeth must react immediately. Fight or flight?

The only flight available is out through the window, but half of them might die from the fall and a lilitu can just teleport after them. Fight it is then: if all the paladins smite her they can force her to retreat, even though they're unlikely to kill her since she can teleport.

"Full attack!" she shouts. "Don't give her a way into your heads!" And she really hopes Seelah will take the hint and that everyone else will help clear a path for her, because she doesn't dare say it out loud. Minagho might have spied on their conversations, or even have heard directly about Savamelekh's defeat, since Anevia found correspondence between them on Hosilla's body.

Confusion on the abrikandilus and cultist around her, to clear the way. And he charges forward himself: he has instincts for fighting succubi, at least, and a lilitu is probably the same except for how they can't actually win without a miracle.

Seelah, you're up!

Since when is that a cleric spell, wonders the only person in the room with actual Spellcraft to his name.

The cultists were already having morale issues; they start stabbing each other, themselves, and the demons with abandon.

Most of the demons bite them back; one goes for Minagho instead.

Ugh, those wretches! Too weak to be useful slaves, she should have killed them herself before they could embarrass her when she's in the middle of a good gloat!

Minagho is temporarily distracted by putting them down with extreme prejudice. She was going to use them as shields to get a few more rounds of seductive monologue in, but now they're worse then useless: they are an offense to her delicate sensibilities.

Light of Heaven, please smite this demon, Seelah prays to the tiny presence in her head. I don't know how you decide when to smite someone but this is probably the strongest demon here and we really need to get past her to the Wardstone to save the city. And to not die.

And then, the moment Irabeth calls for a charge, Seelah runs straight at the lilitu. Her job is very simple and she is going to do it and definitely not die trying because she is surrounded by allies she can trust at her back.

The cultists and lesser demons are milling about in confusion and the lilitu is attacking someone else and Seelah can hit her with her sword. She's all out of her own, regular smites, so she really hopes the Light hadn't taken her smiting Savamelekh as its cue.

In the surrounding confusion, she can hit her! There is a satisfying meaty thwack.

Unfortunately, there is no accompanying smite. There is only -

Shiiiiine.

At least the Light is aware enough of its surroundings to avoid affecting the demons and cultists as well.

Minagho is not satisfied.

How would you like a brand on your face, little paladin? She doesn't have room for more husks but it still makes the woman in front of her a little more presentable.

Actually, that works fine for corpses too. Have your stupid little paladin corpse back, crusaders. If you're all this weak I'm going to die of boredom - wait, no, her dear Staunton is here! 

Damn it. Irabeth indicated Seelah was potentially very important, and they don't know for sure what happens to the Light of Heaven if she dies and is resurrected. 

He darts forward to drag her limp body back from the front of the combat, and uses their only emergency reserve scroll of breath of life.

Coming back to life leaves her woozy, even though she wasn't technically dead yet.

Did they win? ...no, there's Minagho, looking furious but not smitten-by-Heaven levels of furious. 

...oh no.

When Seelah's body lands at his feet, Gord discovers he is also feeling pretty furious right now.

The world isn't fair. People die pretty much at random, even when they're strong and the odds favor them. Surviving a life or death encounter is not a reason not to have another one an hour later.

None of that is news to him, not in the least. If you'd asked him how he expected to die, his first answer would be "fighting", but the second would probably be something like "unexpectedly".

But for some reason, this time is different than when he was facing Savamelekh. The feeling that rises in him at the prospect of death isn't fear or dismay or sadness. It is hot, visceral anger. There are no voices in his head, just an intense desire to see the enemy in front of him die die die die and he will batter her into submission.

A bunch of paladins are also smiting her and wishing she would die!!

None of them except Irabeth and Gord can actually hit her consistently, smite or no, and Gord's hits don't deal a lot of damage, but it's time for her to quit messing around and get serious.

Dominate monster. Quickened charm monster.