When they arrive at the village, it's not immediately clear that it deserves the name. It's a collection of tents and ramshackle lean-tos, built on an island in a small lake. Because it's only lit by torches, it takes a few minutes for them to realize that's all there is to it.

That's supposed to be a self-sufficient settlement? Do they have a druid or something, or do they eat only fish and flesh and fungi?

Maybe it's just a hunters' camp away from the main village.

Lann leads them up a small knoll and towards an elderly-looking mongrelperson.

"Chief Sull! We found the angel's sword! And we found a paladin who can wield it!" He points at Seelah. "Gather the tribe, anyone who can hold a weapon! The young ones are still alive, we can still save them!"

"Uplandersh... The end timesh are upon ush, indeed..."

No two mongrelfolk they've seen in the village look the same. Chief Sull looks like a were-rat deformed by old age at least as much as by curse, one eye blind and the other tearing, a few tufts of white hair hanging onto his bare head and his breath rattling in his lungs. He makes Gord think of the Pharasmin dioramas (or, The End Times Are Upon Us, figuratively speaking) - the end of a progression starting with brash youngling and mature adult and continuing past wise elder into sad decrepitude.

"Ah... Lann, you're always chashing your dreams, too hashty for your own good", Chief Sull declares. "Uplandersh can be paladinsh and wield the Light of Heaven... But such thingsh don't happen to ush."

"This paladin didn't just - happen to wander by to collect the sword and be on her way! She's here to help us! Even if we can't wield the Light of Heaven, we can still follow it, so we should! Seelah, please, show him the sword's light!" He looks at her imploringly.

The sword is clearly something more to these people than merely a powerful weapon. Or even a sign of Heaven's favor: it's the sword they care about, not her being a paladin.

But while she's not sure what showing them the sword means, she can't possibly hide it from them, not after Lann and Wenduag already saw it and indeed told her about it in the first place and led her here because she has it.

When she takes the sword out and concentrates on it, like she does every morning in her prayers, it glows again. Not as brightly as before, a soothing and comforting light rather than a blinding one. A touch of Heaven upon every soul that does not know how to seek it out themselves, everyone who lives in this dark and forgotten corner of the world where it is never morning.

Indeed, the sight of the sword's light is enough to move Chief Sull to tears.

"Sho it'sh true... The angel did not forshake ush, no... Back, back from the dead he came, to shave our children..." He goes on in this vein for a while, but Gord's looking to see how the others are taking it. 

Lann looks righteously happy; he must be feeling vindicated. Wenduag is angry (but she always seems angry) and trying to hide it, her eyes darting about, looking for allies and potential foes. Seelah seems troubled; Camellia seems uncaring. Anevia is... probably the only one here who's actually any good at hiding their thoughts.

Chief Sull shakes his head. "All the tribesh will gather for thish. I will shend out the meshengers. Wait with ush, uplandersh. Rest in our hutsh. Our home ish your home."

"If the tribe follows you into the Maze, their blood will be on your hands!" Wenduag hisses furiously into Seelah's ear.

Seelah is honestly mostly confused. "Chief Sull... Why do all the tribes need to go with us? I don't know what the light of Heaven means to you, but shouldn't I and the strongest warriors clear the Maze first, and do it as quickly as possible to save your children?"

"We are the deshendants of the firsht crushadersh. The underground crushadersh, we are, and we... our anshestorsh did not give up. We have alwaysh remembered that some day we would be called on to crushade again. It'sh how we can live like thish... remembering our pasht, keeping who we are. Telling our children they are not beashts or half-beashts, they are not worshe than the uplandersh. They musht live well and rightly, for themshelvesh and for their tribe, and be ready to follow the Light of Heaven. The Light would call ush again."

"And - now it hash." He seems to need no further proof or explanation to follow Seelah straight into battle with demons, bad eye and age-spots and all, him and all the rest of his tribe.

Seelah doesn't feel qualified to judge that theologically, but on a practical basis, she's pretty sure leading a mixed civilian population into battle isn't what the Light of Heaven wants her to do!

"The city might be very dangerous for you just now, as well as the Maze," she offers uncertainly. "There was a big demon attack, and an earthquake, which is why we fell down here in the first place! I - obviously welcome any allies in the fight against the demons, but we should really clear the Maze first, and make sure you'll have lodgings and food in the city and so on." She looks at Anevia pleadingly.

Anevia is much more practised in delivering inconvenient truths.

"Any warriors who help us fight the demons would be very welcome. Anyone who is not a warrior, or an experienced healer or smith or something like that, would frankly be a liability until the fight is over and the city stabilizes. You seem safe from the demons down here, so you should send only the warriors you can spare, with everyone else to follow later."

If most of the tribe's hunters (they don't really have warriors per se) could go into the maze right now to rescue the missing kids, that would obviously be better than having all of the hunters with them but also having to guard everyone else. It would be very convenient if Chief Sull could be convinced of a reasonable plan like that, but -

"Wait. Wait for all the huntersh from all the tribesh to gather. Tomorrow we will go into the Maze."

- but Chief Sull is more concerned with leading the tribe, and merging all the tribes into one people, than he is with rescuing the missing kids; and Lann doesn't know how to convince him otherwise, because their duty is to the whole tribe, it's just that the kids are part of it and one he hasn't given up on.

Well at least they didn't have the whole tribe charge off into the Maze right away like Lann apparently wanted!

If all the tribes went into the Maze together... they'd still die. These newcomers might be strong enough to change that. Her job is to figure out if they're stronger than Savamelekh in time to be on the right side. This is made much harder by her not having any idea of how strong Savamelekh actually is, beyond 'very much stronger than Wenduag', not to mention whether he's actually in the Maze right now or if it's just Hosilla. She's pretty sure all the tribes' hunters together can beat Hosilla, but half of them might die in the attempt.

To start with, she needs to decide by morning whether to stick with this paladin's party or slip away.

"If you want me to guide you through the Maze," she tells Seelah, "only your party can come. Lann and I are the strongest hunters in this tribe, and the other tribes will take too long to get here. After we clear a route through the Maze and reach the city and come back, then you can tell the tribes to go ahead."

Seelah is on board with this strategy!

So is Gord! (As long as his mysterious wound doesn't start acting up again.) He'd much rather be part of a fighting party than a guard caravan. And he doesn't have to go back down with them afterwards.

Anevia will join them if Gord fully heals her leg in the morning.

Camellia isn't going to stick with these mongrels while the only humans head off to the surface, possibly never to come back for her!

Actually there's another surfacer human down here! Sorry, did we forget to mention him? He also fell down and was found by another hunter and helped here.

"I am Horgus Gwerm," he declares. He then looks rather pointedly at Camellia. Or rather, he's very pointedly not looking at Camellia, which has much the same effect if you're used to tracking people's gazes like Gord is.

"So you are," Camellia agrees, her lip twitching. "A well-known rich merchant in Kenabres, who helped sponsor the... tragically truncated festival today."

"A man of undoubted Abadaran piety," Anevia agrees.

"I have no doubt you have all heard of me if you've spent any time in the city. And I have a business proposition for you." 

This seems to be directed at Seelah, who looks a bit uncomfortable. "I am afraid I'm new to the city, Mr Gwerm, and have not heard of you before today."