Valuing all life is an honourable belief. And it's not that the centipedes are particularly evil or need to be killed because someone else lives here whom they might attack, although now she thinks about it they might be able to climb out of the chasm and into the city. 

It's just that, well, what else can you do when wildlife attacks you except to kill it back?

There are giant spiders too! Are arachnids alright to kill?

Slash, slash, stab. 

Maybe the spiders and centipedes eat each other? Seelah isn't sure that's not how it works.

Also, Malenia is very impressive. Seelah can't even reach the vermin before Malenia kills it! Eventually she gives up and just hangs back to protect the others and lend Anevia her shoulder.

After exploring for ten or twenty minutes, they come on a clearly man-made chamber (or someone-made, at any rate), made of shaped stone and framed by tall columns. Some of the columns lie broken, likely by the recent earthquake.

They can also hear a voice emerging from inside.

"No, I can't just 'walk away'. It's got to be in here somewhere!" He sounds frustrated and upset.

He tries stepping forward, but is gently stopped by Malenia, and they approach the voices together. 

There is a - person, standing there in the dim light. He is clearly humanoid, and about one-half human - the right half. The left half of his body is covered in scaly green skin, and there's a big curved horn growing out of the human-looking side of his forehead.

This is clearly visible because he's not wearing a proper shirt, only a length of cloth loosely wrapped around his scaly shoulder. And a longbow, strapped on his back, which is however instantly in his hand when he spots them.

"Wenduag!"

The second humanoid... person... who emerges in response to that call looks more like an exotic variety of human. She's better-dressed (or more covered-up anyway) but she has gray skin and and yellow cat-like eyes with vertical pupils; they shine brightly with the reflected light of the torches.

Also, she has eight spider-like limbs emerging from her upper back, curving forward as if to hug herself protectively. And another longbow.

"Lann? Did you find it?" Then she freezes when she sees the impromptu party. "Who is that?!"

"Uplanders, I assume. Maybe they can tell us what's going up there." 

They look Misbegotten. He wonders whether his current companions will show the same prejudice as people back home. 

"Hello! There was an attack on the city, we all fell down, and are now looking for a way back up."

"A demon attack," Seelah clarifies. "Deskari was there and he made the giant crack in the earth!"

"A demon attack? Then we need to hurry!"

"We shall have to search harder than we already are," Wenduag says sarcastically. "I don't care about the city, but the demons might get into the Maze from above!"

"You know of a way up to the city?"

"The Shield Maze leads there... we think. It's dangerous, and a maze, and no-one ever made it through all the way there."

"And now some stupid kids have gotten into their heads to go through it and be crusaders on the surface! We have to go after them to save them before it's too late, and we need to gather everyone to do it, but our chief forbids it."

"What... are you?" They don't look like members of the same race.

"Descendants of the first crusaders, who were inflicted with demonic corruption, and came to live under Kenabres. We're the underground crusaders. Neathers, for short."

"People upstairs call us mongrels."

"You've been here since the First Crusade? That's a century ago! I've heard stories of 'mongrels', but I thought they were just stories."

'Inflicted with demonic corruption' and 'mongrels' isn’t very promising on the prejudice front. Add that to the long list of wrongs to right. 

"Sorry, we only recently arrived here, what was the First Crusade? How do people end up inflicted with demonic corruption?"

"The First Crusade was the first organized effort to fight the Worldwound and the demons. I guess you can dispute whether it was the really first, or just the first one called a crusade... Anyway, people came from all over to fight the demons, and for a while we thought we managed to stem the tide and contain the problem. But ten years later, the demons attacked again, the Second Crusade had to be called, and the Wardstones were created to stop the demons from going any further. And then all the land in between the Wardstones, which was most of Sarkoris, was gradually abandoned, everyone who could fled, and now it's all part of the Worldwound."

"We don't know how exactly our ancestors were tainted. Maybe they didn't know themselves. No-one knew enough about demons when the Worldwound first opened."

"I can't think of something that would be heritable and... look like this... but that's not really saying anything. Every demon that's strong enough has different powers from all the others."