Uh... adventurers, presumably? There was a big queue this morning, but now that the festival is in full swing the gate is almost deserted. They still have to vet and note down everyone going in, even if it's mostly a formality. Everyone interesting, that is; ordinary farmers won't get nearly as much scrutiny as someone with three golden limbs. (This may or may not result in many people trying to disguise themselves as ordinary farmers.) 

Anyone truly powerful can buy a teleport into the city or disguise themselves beyond recognition, but that's no reason to make it easy for a demon or a cultist cleric to walk right in, not to mention wanted criminals and other riffraff. Also, some people are lawful (or Lawful) and will voluntarily walk through the front gates and say who they are!

The inquisitor on duty notes that the big woman has no visible aura despite her obvious power, while the person she is carrying is Chaotic Good; this can certainly be construed as worrying.

"Welcome to Kenabres, your names and purpose here?"

"I am Malenia, the Severed." The way she says it, it's clearly a title, but also part of the name. "My brother was wounded, I don't know by what, and needs healing."

Oh! If it's urgent she can buy a potion of cure light wounds right off this guard for very slightly above market prices. Otherwise, they can go to one of the churches - those of Sarenrae and Shelyn are close to the gate; those of Abadar and Torag are down by the south gate.

But right now there's a festival and everyone who can be is in Clydwell Plaza in the highest tier of the city, so while there are probably some priests at every temple, the strongest are up there. That's also where Desna and Iomedae's temples are.

She... doesn't have any money, and she doesn't think a light wound would incapacitate Miquella.

She doesn't particularly like getting help from the gods, though she also isn't sure exactly what the guard menas by that term - it doesn't correspond to how she thinks about gods at all - but she doesn't have many options.

She'll ask for directions to the festival, thank the guards and go there.

The city consists of four concentric half-circles, each with its own set of walls and backing onto sheer cliffs above a river. The streets on the way there are almost empty, while in the central square there is a big, loud, jostling crowd. There are pennants flying and stalls with food, musicians and other performers, and a general aura of festivity.

At one end of the plaza stands the biggest building in the city, with a tall green steeple and stained-glass windows that depict humans battling variously deformed monsters. The facade bears an image of a woman in armor holding a glowing sword.

She can't see it, though she can navigate the city well enough.

She'll carry Miquella and ask around for a healer.

A woman in red-and-white robes who identifies herself as a cleric of the god Iomedae lays a hand on Miquella and murmurs a brief prayer. Her hand glows briefly and the wound on Miquella's chest begins to close - but then it opens again, as if in reverse motion.

"That is no normal wound," she frowns. "I'm not sure a more powerful cure spell would work any better. Chaffin, find Terendelev and ask her to come here." A boy nearby waves and takes off running.

"How was he wounded? Was it done with a special weapon or by a powerful demon, could there be magical poison or a curse laid on the wound?" Malenia is obviously an Adventurer and the woman is implicitly assuming she doesn't need gentle hand-holding about the fact that all these possibilities, unfortunately, exist.

"I don't know, I woke up outside the city, and he was already wounded. I know of no poison that would harm him."

"Disease, poison and curses each require different spells to cure. Let's see what Terendelev says."

A few minutes later, a beautiful woman with silver hair strides up to them. She has pointed ears and a slightly inhuman look, at least to eyes more discerning than Malenia's.

"Greetings," she says warmly. "I am Terendelev, protector of this city. I heard you were in need of my aid."

She looks at the wound and frowns. It's not something she recognizes, which means she has to go broad spectrum. Heal.

This spell is visibly much more powerful than the woman cleric's; the wound reluctantly closes.

He wakes up, his face and build somewhat child-like, though by height he is similar to adult humans.

"Sister... where are we?"

He rises from her arms, and stands, slightly unsure whether his legs would support him now, but it seems to be working out.

"...Terendelev, right? Thank you." he says to the silver-haired woman.

"You are welcome! But I fear that your wound is not fully healed, and may yet reopen," she cautions. "Your sister said she did not know how you came to be wounded; do you?"

"...No, I remember... something happening, not sure what, and then this."

She frowns. "Come back to the temple tomorrow," she offers, "when the festival is concluded, and perhaps I or Nestrin Alodae will be able to do something more for it."

"Thank you. We appreciate your help."

Terendelev smiles, and departs.

Just then, another man walks up to Malenia. He is short, barely five feet tall, but wide and stout out of all proportion; he does not seem deformed so much as of a different race. He wears elaborately decorated plate armor, a big beard, and an even bigger smile.

"Greetings! I am Joran Vane, of Torag's, and I couldn't help but notice the exquisite work on your prostheses, if that is what they are. Would you mind telling me a little about them? I have a craftsman's interest in enchanted smith-work turned to healing and not merely  wounding."

She tilts her head towards Miquella

"Greetings, I'm Miquella, and this is my sister Malenia. I can probably tell you about it, what did you want to know?"

Did Miquella make it? Joran is very impressed!

What spells or rituals was it based on? Did it use a special substrate, or could any metal be enchanted that way? Are the prostheses controlled telepathically, as separate objects you can command to move, or directly with one's body? Do they count as parts of her sister's body, which would have some exciting implications (and applications), or are they still objects which can be separately targeted by magic? Do they convey pressure, texture, temperature, and all the other senses, to the same or better resolution as one's birth body? Can the arm be used to form the gestures for a spell, something which is not possible with mundane prosthetics regardless of their quality? Do they have moving parts inside? Are they just better than the original, such that Malenia does not prefer a simple regenerate spell?

Joran can go on in this vein for a long while, eventually delving into the minutiae of enchanted metal-work, but stops himself apologetically to clarify that he doesn't want to unduly infringe on their time and also that he would be happy to trade his own craft-knowledge or work (or spells cast, if they need any of those) in return for theirs, and that while people sharing is good (and Good) they're not at all expected to do so unrewarded.

They're made from unalloyed gold, other metals could likely work with only slighly more crude resulsts, but the gold is very important to an additional protective enchantment on them. He developed the enchantments himself, and can probably teach at least the basics of them, but it's going to take a while. 

They are part of Malenia's body when attached, have limited but nonzero senses. Malenia doesn't use spells, but it should be possible to make a prosthesis that works for it, he hasn't looked in detail. No mechanical parts, all actuation done via enchantment. Malenia's condition is very hard to heal, all methods of regeneration he tried didn't take.

What can his spells do? The spellcasting he observed here is familiar, but slighly different to the one he knows.

Joran himself is a cleric as well a smith, and he can request a very long list of spells from his god Torag (but only so many a day), including a few that most clerics of other gods can't which deal with creating, shaping, and transforming matter. Is there a particular subject they're interested in?

He is also an expert in enchanting metalwork, of which arms and armor are sadly the best-studied kind, but that's exactly why new applications should be explored more!

Joran's excited (and hopefully exciting) overview of the applications of divine magic to smithying is abruptly interrupted by a vast shadow falling on half the square.

A silver dragon slumps to the ground, its head cut off, besides an even more gigantic monstrosity. It has a grasshopper's body and six legs, a human torso with two arms, and a mess of eyes and sharp spikes for a head. Buzzing insects swarm all around it, resolving briefly into shapes, wings and other less familiar appendages that merge into the thinner clouds suddenly descending on the entire square from the sky. 

In its human arms it wields a scythe, large enough to shatter buildings, dripping with the dragon's silver life-blood.

It emanates an unnatural aura of magical fear, entirely unnecessary besides the quite natural fear it inspires.

Behold, Iomedae. Behold, the death I sow.

The square fills with panicked screams that redouble as variously-misshapen people fade into visibility all around it and attack the fleeing bystanders with tooth and glaive and spell. Some of the humans appear to be fighting on their side while others try to defend the civilians, and complete chaos takes over.

"Deskari!" Joran looks stunned. "This shouldn't be possible... If he doesn't leave quickly, there may not be a city left!"

He runs towards the great monster, but diverts to save some children who are trying to reach the temple while being harried by a red-skinned, horned, skeletally thin man with a spear.

Her reaction speed is unparalleled, and within moments of hearing Deskari appear, she reveals a carefully hidden giant slab of gold sword, in one fluid motion attaches it to the brace on her prosthesis, and leaps towards Deskari, ready to slash at him. 

Miquella's reaction is less swift, but he rushes after Joran, and tries to protect them with an incantation. His first attempt fails to produce any effect. 

Deskari can only stay here for a few rounds after taunting Iomedae, so he positively welcomes mortals who rush into melee range.

Can he kill them in one round like he did Terendelev?

Unlikely, but he can probably do it in a couple. 

Can she get a slash in?

If she's the strongest human in the world and buffed by the best clerics, sure. Not like a hit or two from a sword is going to affect him.

Did she know that anyone hit by Deskari is poisoned and rapidly withers away? Oh, and is also infested with tiny demonic locust eggs? Those should be bursting out of Malenia's stomach in a fully-fledged demonic locust swarm and dealing a lot of damage in the process, right about - a second or two after he hit her, actually?

Her sword is

1) Large

2) Enchanted

3) Enchanted specifically to ward away any and all gods and adjacent beings, which probably includes outsiders

Did he know that she is already diseased and… rapidly… withers away. Been her whole life actually. And the locust eggs are better be good at surviving the rotting disease within her body, Miquella's vast array of protections isn't going to cover them. 

Meanwhile, he tries a different approach to casting, weaving the fundamentals of order with his own power into a disc of holy light, launching it at the closest demon. This time it works. 

Annoying. But he can still kill her the normal way next turn, right?

Since she's unusually powerful for a human, he'll even take her body back together with Terendelev's, it might prove useful.

At this point, someone in the crowd shoots Deskari with a crossbow bolt that, against all sense and sensibility, actually draws blood.

He can accept people committing suicide by him, but shooting him and daring to hurt him and then (probably) planning on running away? That, Deskari will not abide.

A little gnat snaps its jaws at the Lord of Locusts, he rumbles as he raises his giant scythe high overhead, Malenia momentarily forgotten.

The only nice thing about having to leave soon is not having to save any of his power for later.

A strike with all his might behind it opens a great fissure in the ground, a hundred feet deep at least. It splits the square in two and keeps going right on through the city, outpacing the refugees escaping the square and even their screams, the ground shaking and buildings crumbling in its wake.

Iomedae's cathedral collapses on itself like so much rubble.

The gnat that dared to shoot him is well and buried, now.

When Deskari is distracted, she attempts to get a few more hits in, but then she senses…

A fissure opens right beneath him. He's definitely falling down. 

She doesn’t admit defeat, but she's not going to abandon her brother. She backs off Deskari, and jumps down the fissure. 

Her body isn't worth chasing her for; he'd rather spend the turns he has left killing everyone in the square with a strong Lawful Good aura. Like you, Iomedaean, and that dwarf over there. He tagged them (mentally) while he was in the time stop, and they will not escape his swarmsight.

Not everyone here is immune to his poison, right? Have some acid poison spit, everyone who thought to make a stand together, and as many more as he can reach in a round of flying. His poison and his swarms will take care of any who survive his first hit, and the lesser demons will chase down the rest of the city after he's gone.

And then he teleports over to his real objective: the Kite, the two-story building housing the Wardstone. It is as well-warded as the hands and minds of mortals and angels could make it, in a hurry and on a tight budget.

Riftcarver laughs at the barriers between dimensions; the best wall on this sorry little planet could not keep him out.

Deskari grasps the Wardstone. It burns him, but he can sense the poison that weakens it from within, and he can stand its touch for the half-second he needs.

The Wardstone arcs over the city, a ridiculously massive gem shining with all the colors of the rainbow, and smashes down through the roof of another little fortress a quarter-mile away.

That landing probably squished some more paladins, but sadly Deskari has to depart before he can hear the sound of the crash.

He falls down the chasm opened by Deskari, not the most graceful fall, but not enough to noticeably damage him. Malenia jumps down near him, he takes her hand to reassure her that he's fine. 

Where are they now?

At the chasm's bottom! It's uneven but thankfully made out of solid earth and stone, and strewn with rubble. There's a slice of sky far overhead, obscured by dense dust. The ground trembles with little aftershakes, and the sounds of fighting and screaming filter down from the plaza above.

They can't see far along the chasm because it's not straight enough, but there are sounds coming from further ahead which are probably be voices.

She wants to leap out of that chasm, and continue the fight with the giant locust thing, but...

...somone might need their help, they're going towards the voices.

After a few turns they reach two more people. One has her leg pinned beneath a heavy rock, and the other is trying to help her.

"Fellow survivors, thank the Inheritor! Can you help me free her?"

Anevia isn't thrilled about trusting her life to strangers (who aren't paladins) but they look too powerful for Seelah to stop on her own, so she just smiles and says "please" in a pained voice.

She'll move the rocks, they aren't heavy for her.

Meanwhile, he'll talk to people.

"I'm Miquella, and this is my sister Malenia. Do you know what happened up there? It was all so quick..."

"Thank you! I think my leg might be broken..." She tries to stand up gingerly, leaning on Seelah.

"That was the demon lord Deskari. I've never heard of a demon lord appearing on the Prime Material! And the Wardstone should have stopped the other demons at least." She frowns. "I don't know why exactly demon lords don't attack directly, besides that they're probably afraid of dying. I... guess I hoped the gods wouldn't let him."

"Demon lords have never been seen in the Worldwound," Anevia confirms. "If he's still up there, only an archmage stands a chance and could respond in time. Some people in the city have sending spells and will definitely have started casting them, but they take ten minutes and I'm not sure the city can survive ten minutes of Deskari as a physical structure, never mind the people in it. Maybe someone can summon an archon that can teleport with a message."

These two look powerful, if only (in Miquella's case) by not looking at all ordinary, and are also unfamiliar to her, so Anevia assumes they're adventurers or crusaders or some such and have at least an approximate understanding of the levels of power involved.

"So let's hope very hard he's gone and we only have to deal with all the other demons. With the city in disarray, it will take some time to mount an effective response. A lot will depend on who died and can't be quickly resurrected, besides Terendelev. Everyone important was in that square, even Prelate Hulrun." By which she means he certainly wasn't there to enjoy himself, he spent the day working like always, it's just that everyone he wanted to interrogate or spy on went to the festival so Hulrun had to follow.

"It will also depend whatever's up with the Wardstone, since yes, normally it wouldn't let those demons get into the city. I saw some babaus before I fell, they're definitely not strong enough to do this on their own. Maybe Deskari found a way to really power them up." There's a cheery thought.

"I should be able to heal the damage, but there's a small problem with incantations here, so I'll need a while to think how to do it." He'll have to derive healing incantations from fundamentals, without relying on the Order being present here.

"We only recently arrived here... where are we, actually? We just sort of... appeared outside the city."

"You had a teleport accident? This is Kenabres."

"In Mendev, on the eastern border of the Worldwound," she tacks on when their faces look like they might have had a greater teleport accident. "It houses one of the Wardstones, and most of the crusaders and crusades pass through this city on their way to fight the demons."

"I'm Anevia Tirabade, by the way, and this is Seelah, a paladin of Iomedae."

Asking more questions now is likely to make them appear too weird and probably complicate the near future, so he doesn't.

"Pleasure to meet you, though I would prefer the circumstances to be better."

"Likewise! Do you have a way to get out of here? I really want to go back and help defend the city but, uh, those walls don't look climbable, and Anevia has a broken leg and I'd need to get her somewhere safe first."

"I guess we can go along the fissure and see if there's somewhere we can just walk out?" Presumably someone will eventually get around to, like, lowering a rope ladder, but only after the fighting's done.

"I think the two of us could climb out, but I don't have a way to get you too. We can go along."

Can Anevia walk?

By leaning on Seelah and taking it easy, yes.

After a few more zigzags of the fissure, they come on two more people. This time one of them is already dead; he looks as if one of the demons savaged him before he fell down. The woman standing over him turns her rapier warily in their direction.

"Who are you?"

"We're friends! I'm Seelah, a paladin of Iomedae." She introduces the other three.

The young woman relaxes. "I'm Camellia. Like you, I fell down. I tried to help this man, but he was already dead..."

"Do you want to come with us? We're looking for a way back into the city, hopefully without a fight since Anevia is already wounded."

"I would appreciate that. I have a few spells, but I would feel much safer in a paladin's company."

That is an entirely appropriate thing for someone to feel! Seelah feels an inner glow of Validation.

Anevia checks the dead body briefly, but it is so mangled that she cannot tell who it was, and there are no identifying papers in its pockets.

After the next corner, they come upon an... object on the floor. It looks like a hand-sized scale, shed by a huge lizard (or perhaps a dragon), except that it is glowing with silver light.

"What's that?"

"It looks like one of Terendelev's scales, except for glowing. Can any of you see magic?"

He never learned proper Sorcery, it didn’t seem a promising avenue for healing his sister, or any other major problems with the world, but his father did teach him the basics. He'll try sorcerous methods for feeling magic flow.  

The scale's is clearly magic and the magic is good and it wants him to know what it does so he can use it: to resurrect someone whose dead body he has. 

Admittedly it would be nice if he could use it to resurrect Terendelev, but it's willing to be used on anyone, really, raising people is Good.

"It is indeed magic, apparently it can resurrect people?"

He feels guilt for everyone he failed to save. He also feels guilty for not saving everyone yet, but seeing Terendelev die, right after she healed him from affliction unknown, without even knowing who he is, that pains him much more sharply. 

"Do you think it could restore Terendelev herself?" he asks Anevia/Seelah/Camellia. 

She puts her left hand on his shoulder, in a gesture of wordless reassurance. 

Anyone who looks at it, can see it covered in orange scales, which definitely aren’t a sign of health. 

"Raise dead works the same on every mortal creature, as far as I know, including dragons, but I'm no expert. Terendelev died at least one during the Fourth Crusade, so it's clearly possible even if it requires a more powerful spell."

She is curious about the orange scales but it doesn't seem relevant or urgent, and she can't just ask when she doesn't even know their background yet. The golden prosthetics (?) are exotic enough already.

"We should take it, then. And use it to raise Terendelev if we can, or give it back to her if someone else does it first."

"We should." he agrees. There’s still a way to heal it all. He'll hold on to that hope. 

The chasm opened by Deskari's strike eventually connects to a series of more natural-seeming caverns.

"I've never heard of natural caverns below Kenabres. And I really ought to have, if there's a way from them back up into the city."

The caverns also contain some giant centipedes, which implies they are large enough to contain enough of whatever the centipedes eat, and a breeding population.

When centipedes prove aggressive, it actually takes longer for her to confirm that Miquella won’t be too upset about them killing insects in this situation, than to actually dispatch them. 

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."

"I see. Let us waste no more time then, you were looking for something?" He asks Lann. 

"The remaining relics of our ancestors are stored in this hall. Among them is a holy sword, left by one of the angels who fought together with humans in the First Crusade. If we bring it to Chief Sull, I hope to convince him that the time has come to rally the tribes to go help the crusaders on the surface - and rescue those kids on the way! But now we can't find it because the earthquake brought down half the room."

"It's a fool's errand. None of us can use the sword. It's not an ordinary weapon - it's made from heavenly flame and burns any of us who touches it." Also, it's stuck into a stone.

"I'll wrap it in something! The point isn't to use it as a sword, it's to rally the tribes!"

He'll help them look, and figure the rest out later.

Trying to rally multiple tribes of unknown race and allegiance to travel a dangerous maze to join the fighting in the city probably isn't the quickest or the surest way for them personally to make it back up, but if it works out, these underground crusaders could turn out to be a big help! 

Unfortunately, Anevia can't help them search.

Seelah is very excited about finding an angel's relic sword and will enthusiastically turn over every stone in the room if that's what it takes!

Whether due to luck or skill, Miquella and Malenia are the first to find it, a gleam of warm light revealed under a pile of broken stone that whispers and beckons to take it up.

Miquella will be the one to take it.

The wound on his chest reopens and weeps blood, even as his mind is assaulted by the thoughts and sensations of another - or are they memories of someone else who visited this cave before?

The vision does not feel hostile to her, and yet it is full of hostility.

"Treachery! They trapped me and stabbed me in the back! The people I descended from Heaven to protect, my sworn allies!"

There they are, the traitors - somewhere in the gloom, just beyond the angel's failing sight - what are they waiting for, he is not so weakened that he will die unaided -

Next to him/him, a quiet moan. A girl with golden braids who refused to side with the traitors, who stood by him and paid for it with her own life. They both refused to run for the sake of the other.

If I use the last of my strength to heal her, they may kill her anyway. If I use it to fight them, she will die of her wounds. What should I do? What should I do? 

The vision conveys an agony of indecision - a pain greater than any wound, felt when you do not know the road to take -

Heal. It is, after all, what he dedicate his life to. It's not really a choice at this point.

"Flee," he begs the girl. "You cannot save me, so save yourself." But he is so weakened he cannot tell whether she lives or dies.

Memories assault him. A priestess in colorful robes observing the stars. The girl he saved, a young paladin, taking her first vows as she holds the Inheritor's sword. A great angel, his face obscured by a helmet, addressing a crowd, and his voice rings out into the distance: "only if you are willing, and only if you are ready. There will be no turning back..."

Then, in the vision, the shadows in the corner grow darker. A buzzing sound fills the cavern, and Miquella's wound burns with pain - he is not sure if the pain is also in the vision - their head pounds and their heart clenches with unnatural fear -

And a monstrous figure emerges from out of the shadow.

It looks like Deskari. Perhaps the demon lord has grown over the years since, perhaps he shrunk to fit the cavern; or perhaps a demon lord of evil and chaos, parts of whose very body are made of swarming locusts, does not care about such petty mortal concerns as a constant shape.

Its voice changes from one moment to the next, from the roar of Deskari defying Iomeadae to the whisper of a slinking shadow, as if behind it there is nothing real and at the same time there could be everything and anything at all.

"The foolish angel struggling on the rocks, like a fly with its wings torn off... Where is your goddess now, angel? Where is her self-assured herald? How is it that you are dying here alone, fallen so far from Heaven?

Lariel's thoughts become easy and calm, for he knows who is in front of him. 

The vision does not convey that he knows it to be Deskari, or something else. Angels' thoughts are not like those of mortals. He simply knows it to be the Enemy.

And faced with the Enemy, he is calm and at ease, for there are no more choices left to make.

His sword flames to life as he slices at the shadow-monster, and for a brief moment it recoils from Heaven's light.

The next moment, a swipe of the monstrous scythe leaves him lying on the rocks. Dying, in truth.

"You will kill me, monster," Lariel says calmly. "This I know. But one day, someone will come here and raise up my sword."

With his dying strength, he plunges the sword into the stone, and the vision fades. The last thing Miquella hears, as Lariel's strength leaves him is - "they will come and..."

Punish traitors? Protect the innocent? Vanquish Deskari? There is no telling what the angel had hoped for with his last breath.

The latter part of the vision resonates less with Miquella's soul - for him, there aren't Enemies, never would he utterly forsake anyone. But he picks up Lariel's sword, raising it high, and proclaims:
"Angel Lariel, you may be gone, but you shall not be forgotten. I promise this as Miquella, the Unalloyed."

It feels like the right thing to do.

It is light in the shape of a sword. It will be a sword if he wants it to, smiting his foes, but it can also be light: a source of revelation.

It shines brightly for him now, dazzling everyone for a moment, but it is more than a light for the eyes. It speaks to your heart, promising aid, hope, allies. It calls you to join the eternal and unfailing cause of Heaven, and it makes you stronger and braver if you choose to respond to the call, because it tells you will never be alone.

The mysterious wound on Miquella's chest closes again, almost as if it opened only in the vision.

He keeps it a light, and keeps the sword shape, because it feels like an important symbol to people around him.

"I had... some sort of a vision. Lariel, saving a girl, somewhere in similar caves, before being attacked by... Deskari, but smaller somehow."

Everyone rushes over to him.

"That was it! The light of Heaven! Lariel... That's the name of the angel who fought with our ancestors - it was on the pedestal."

"Chief Sull will have to admit the time has come to rally the tribes, now. Will you come with us and show him the sword's light?"

"Is rallying the tribes neccesary? Getting a large group to fight in a coordinated way will be hard, and if we can't, it's worse than going with a small group."

"Taking the tribes through is madness. Lann's madness," Wenduag hisses.

"No-one in the tribes can make it through the maze. I'm the only survivor of the last group who tried. We were young and foolish, and the darkness claimed us one by one until only I was left."

"Taking everyone there is madness. The young and old and infirm, some will die and all will be a burden on the rest. And if we do make it through, what then? What use a crowd of people barely able to fend for themselves on the surface! We would need protection from the demons, not provide it!"

"If the tribes stay here, with enough hunters to guard and feed them, a few strong hunters can be spared to help the surfacers. With your help, maybe we can make it through the maze." Malenia does look very impressive, just by having those incredible ?things? for limbs, but looks can be deceptive.

"I wish I could take a small party to rescue the kids! It would mean not waiting for all the tribes to gather, and not waiting for Chief Sull to make up his mind to even start that. But the Chief has forbidden us from taking others into the Maze, because it's too dangerous, and the light of Heaven's sword is the best way I could think of to move him."

"I am the best guide to the Maze. I'll guide a party of fighters through. But I will not be a party to taking the old and infirm there to be massacred!"

"We can go with you, and rescue the children? Then there wouldn't be a need to risk the rest of your tribe."

"We still need permission from Chief Sull to go ourselves."

"You only need his permission because you think so," Wenduag mocks. "Does he stand over your shoulder when you hunt alone, telling you to take a risky shot?" 

"The village isn't far out of the way to the Maze. You can stay there if Sull tells you to. I will guide the strangers through the maze, if they think they are strong enough."

"And then what? They want to go back to the surface. Are you going to guide them up and stay there?"

Wenduag really wants to scornfully tell Lann that she's strong enough to make it back through the Maze alone. Unfortunately, she has spent the last three years telling him she isn't.

"Worried I'll get to be a crusader without you?"

"I'm worried you won't come back to the tribe, Wendu!"

"What would your tribe do, if we call them? Can we show them the light, and then go into the maze before them?"

"I already said I would guide you."

"I hope Chief Sull will agree that if the tribe's going, we should scout ahead. And use your help while we have it and there's still have a chance to rescue the kids." Since it looks like they won't wait for the tribes before taking Wenduag up on her offer. Not that they really have a reason to wait, if they think they can make it through the Maze.

"Then we show Sull the Light of Heaven, and then to clear a path through the Maze."

It's a plan, at least!

Lann and Wenduag lead them through more giant-vermin-infested tunnels until they emerge on the shore of a little subterranean lake.

A shaky bridge leads them to an island, dimly lit by torches just bright enough to overpower the omnipresent bioluminescence. And it is full of people, no two quite alike, all with the traits of different animals haphazardly mixed in; going about their daily lives, fishing, mending tools, children playing, and everyone stopping to stare at them as they pass.

Lann leads them up the knoll and to a seated man whose face is halfway blended with a rat's snout. He is probably old and clearly infirm, one eye white and rheumy, the meager hairs on his head hanging on in bare tufts.

"Chief Sull! We found the angel's sword! And demons have attacked Kenabres, causing the earthquake, which also opened a fissure into the far tunnels. These people fell down and want to go back up through the Maze."

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

Chief Sull isn't one to jump to conclusions or to action, he has to be prodded into it.

"Gather the tribes! Anyone who can hold a weapon! We can still save the young ones, and this is our chance to clear out the Maze and reestablish contact with Kenabres! We've been waiting for the right moment, and now they need our help!"

"Ah, Lann... Alwaysh dreaming, and believing your own dreamsh. You trusht shtrangersh becaushe you want to believe, but you're too hashty. I'm the chief, I can't rishk the tribe on faith. Our kind don't have good thingsh happen. Show me the proof."

He raises Lariel's sword, and covers the village with light, a light of hope.

Shiiiine.

Everyone in the village stops what they were doing as hope hope hope is beamed straight into their hearts.

Some of the neathers hug themselves, or each other. Some start shaking, or praying, or both.

Chief Sull blinks away tears from his bad eye. "Sho it'sh true... the angel did not forshake ush. Back, back from the dead he came, to shave ush and our children."

"I'll shend a messenger to gather all the tribesh. It will take time, but they will all come, for the Light. Wait, Lann. Wait, uplandersh. Resht a while in our hutsh. Our home ish your home."

"If you lead everyone into the Maze without even scouting ahead, they will be massacred," Wenduag says coldly, "and I will have no part of it."

"She's right, Chief. And we can't wait until tomorrow to rescue the kids. The uplanders want to go now and I think Wenduag and I should go with them."

Chief Sull sighs. "If we must follow without sheeing the Light, we will follow. Go, Lann, Wenduag. Make ush proud. Remember we are the underground crushadersh."

"Anevia, how's your leg?" he asks.

"Still broken. Why, did you expect it to heal over a few hours?"

He was hoping a bit that it would, but he does know that the properties of his home aren't universal.

"We can stay for about an hour for me to figure out healing, or go to the Maze right now. Wenduag, do you expect it to make a difference for the kids?"

"I don't know how to guess that."

"We'll want healing ourselves when we go into the Maze, not just for Anevia. It's probably worth waiting for, but are you sure you'll have it in an hour?"

"I think so. I know how the spell works, I'll just need to adjust it to work here..."

"Then we should probably wait. I have a few lay on hands but not enough for six, and the children might be wounded too. We don't have any wizards, so we can keep on fighting as long as we have healing."

"Let us find some place to rest, then."

They are welcome to rest in the tribe's huts and buy supplies from its trader and cleric-of-Abadar Dyra!

But first, they are accosted by an older human man in fine dress.

"Finally, someone else from the surface! I was beginning to lose hope!" His eyes dart to Camellia's face, and then stay firmly away.

"Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Horgus Gwerm - no doubt you have heard of me if you've spent any time in the city. And I have a proposition for you: if you lead me safely to the surface, I will pay you a thousand crowns."

Anevia smiles ruefully. "Of all the people to meet down here... I am glad you survived the fall!"

"A miracle of Abadar, to be sure. And I am sorry to see you wounded; that makes two of us who need safeguarding."

"Miquella's going to heal her! We're waiting for him to, uh... figure it out, but he says it'll only take an hour. But we're going into a dangerous situation; we can't in good faith take civilians with us."

"My offer stands. If it is too dangerous now, then come back for me after you've cleared the way."

"Of course. We'll set off for the Shield Maze once I can get Anevia healed, it's supposed to lead to the surface. Once we have a safe route, you're welcome to come."

"I will wait here, then." Anevia is welcome to sit and chat with him to take her mind off her leg while she waits for healing.

...they are welcome to rest in the tribe's huts, etc!

(Seelah gently intercepts Dyra, who is very eager to trade with surfacers, so that Miquella can have some quiet to concentrate in.)

He'll sit down, and focus on rederiving healing magic from fundamentals, which to outside observer looks like tracing golden shapes in the air with his finger.

Malenia sits next to him, unclasps her arm, and removes her helmet, revealing her face to be also consumed by disease, including both her eyes. 

She looks tired, but is still ready to fight, should anyone threaten them.

Noone here has any reason to threaten them! Some people are obviously very curious about Malenia's condition, but it would be rude to ask even if she wasn't guarding her brother's concentration.

(Some people give their hut a wide berth; what if the disease spreads?)

Eventually, he does have a fundamentalist version of healing. It's much harder to do without relying on the Erdtree, and he derives it in a rush, so it ends almost directly applying Regression, which makes it much more exhausting than it needs to be, but it should work.

He calls Anevia, and anyone else who might need healing, because it's actually simpler to do it in an area, than tightly focused on the target.

This village is actually much better off than most neather tribes, because Dyra channels twice a gong, so there's just their party with its assortment of scratches and bruises - and Horgus Gwerm, who it transpires was badly wounded by his fall and only mostly cured by the one channel since.

It's not entirely unlike a Channel, though more powerful and slightly less gentle. Being a hastily-constructed incantation, it 'snaps' everyone back to health. 

It does nothing for Malenia, of course. Her problem is much harder to fix. But Anevia's leg should be fine now.

"Thank you!" Anevia puts weight on her leg experimentally, then does a little jig. "Good as new!"

It felt somehow different from normal divine healing.

A channel or a cure spell closes wounds over several seconds, the body's natural healing driven in fast forward motion. Camellia has a lot of experience watching people be healed of various wounds, and this - wasn't normal.

Some powerful spell like Heal might be truly instantaneous, but who would cast a Mass Heal to fix one broken leg?

Miquella has some rare kind of magic, then, and those often end up - important. Something to ponder.

Wenduag is oblivious to any potential difference between this unassuming little man in white robes and Dyra, in power or in kind.

"Ready to leave?"

"Yes. Let us waste no more time."

Then they can take a boat to the opposite shore from the one they came from, and after a last short tunnel, arrive at a wall made of worked stone with a door standing slightly ajar.

"This is the way into the Maze. I don't know who built it or why, but it's not whoever lives in it now. There are monsters, vermin and elementals like the ones we get in the tunnels but worse. There are humans sometimes, down from the surface; I tried talking to them once but they attacked me. And there are some - things, in the dark, that killed most of us one by one when I first came here with my friends." She shivers. "I still don't know what that was."

"I haven't been in for months. It could be better now, or worse. I can lead us to what I think is the way up, because it keeps going up stairs, but I never made it to the surface. And there are other doors I never opened."

"Can you see in the dark? I can, a little, but Lann can't."

Seelah and Anevia are boring humans who can't see in the dark at all.

Miquella also cannot.

Malenia, also cannot, but doesn't need to.

"Then we'll have to use torches - I brought a few. Anything inside will see us coming before we see it, though."

The torches he produces aren't bright enough to light the far end of a large room.

She'll go first, unless Wenduag wants to lead, and be ready for a fight.

Wenduag will be right behind her to give directions and look for danger, but she will fall back if fighting seems likely. The rest will follow a little farther behind with the torches.

(This means Wenduag and Malenia will still be silhouetted by the torchlight, but at least Wenduag won't lose her night-vision and might be able to shoot things outside of the light's range.)

The doors are stuck half-open, but they can squeeze inside.

The first room is small enough for it to be clear quickly that it's empty. There's a single door in the far wall, and a strip of the floor leading to it is painted red like a welcoming carpet; the whole floor is smooth and painted with intricate designs, and there are candle-stands and banners hanging on the walls, all with the same red-on-white symbol.

There are also two sculpted goat's heads hanging on the far wall, framing the door.

"Those are Baphomet's," Anevia says grimly. "And his cultists love secrecy, so if they're displaying them openly, it means either they're sure no-one else will ever come here, or it's someone else who wants us to think it's Baphomet's cult."

"If there's people here, will we have to kill them? I would prefer not to, but we are currently quite constrained in our options..."

"If they're hostile - and certainly if they're cultists of Baphomet, who are both hostile and lie about it - I don't see what else we can do. Cultists are executed in the city even when there isn't a demon invasion. We need them out of here so the tribes can go through, but more to the point, the tribes are going through to help us fight the demons, and Baphomet is on the enemy's side."

"It's wrong to kill someone who honestly repents, but I don't see how they could do that in the middle of a fight, or how we could tell. I want to give people the chance to repent and mend their ways, and I hate killing people who'll probably go to the Abyss and become demons themselves. But I don't see what else we can do! In a war it's us or them!"

"I don't think it's wrong to kill demon cultists. They've made themselves the enemies of all good and law-abiding people, and they can't be up to any good down here. Even if we didn't need to clear the Maze, I wouldn't want them anywhere near the tribe!"

Wenduag is mystified by this preference of not killing any people ever and can't offer any useful advice.

Anevia's assessment is reasonable, he isn't going to hold Seelah's warring ideology against her, and Lann's desire to have them away from the tribe is understandable, though he still wishes he didn't need to kill them to do it. He's not voicing any of that, though.

Also, apparently people here do go somewhere when killed, that's important to know.

"Alright then. Let's go clear the way." he says, with grim resolve.

The next room is a long hall, its far end lost in darkness. Advancing reveals a big pile of rubble that cuts it in two; someone collapsed the ceiling to form a barricade, or the recent earthquake might have done it.

There are also three men huddled on the near side of the barricade. They try to hide in the shadows, but Wenduag and Miquella can both spot them, and there aren't enough shadows to hide in anyway when the torch gets near.

One of them shoots a crossbow at Wenduag. Another shoots a glowing missile at Malenia, which hits no matter how well she dodges and bludgeons her a little.

The third charges her with a glaive, as Wenduag dodges the bolt and falls back.

She tries to dodge the missile, and is surprised when it hits her anyway, but it's not a significant impact. 

The one with the glave can be impaled on her sword, as she moves towards the one who shot the missile.

He fires a crossbow at her on pure instinct and then freezes in mortal fear as she moves towards him, nonchalantly holding up a struggling man in full armor impaled on her sword.

The other wizard goes down under the concentrated fire of three archers.

She dodges the crossbow bolt, and in the same motion, slashes at him.

As she pulls the blade back, the impaled man slides off it.

Wenduag has already seen Malenia dispatch centipedes, but that was a glimpse of - something else. She'll definitely want to stay on her good side until she's sure Savamelekh is stronger. (She's not holding out much hope for Hosilla anymore.)

As the person here who has seen the most by far of powerful people fighting, Anevia is very appreciative. She wishes Malenia hadn't fallen into the crevasse with them and was helping fight off the demons in the city.

"We'll have to go through other rooms to reach the far end of this one."

"Unless Malenia can jump over it while holding us," Anevia suggests, because it pays to check. Even if she can't, knowing whether it's entirely laughable or just a bit outside her abilities will be useful.

"Unlikely."

Oh well.

Wenduag leads them through a series of rooms. Most of them are empty, but one has several -

"Are those mongrels?"

Right on cue, the mongrels scream and attack the nearest party member.

With their hands and feet. They don't have any weapons, and they're not saying anything. Just crying out in anger, and trying to pummel anyone they can into submission.

"What the hell!" He's going to shoot them out of instinct but, uh, maybe they should at least knock them out for questioning or something?

She kills the one who rush her, but will try to knock the others ones out, hitting with her hand and not the sword.

Hitting people bare-handed doesn't normally kill them, but hands aren't normally made out of solid gold.

One of them ends up stable, but will need healing if he's to wake up reasonably quickly.

Current version of his healing spell is very exhausting, perhaps they can wake him up if any of them also need healing?

"We shouldn't spend healing we might need ourselves."

"I think I knew that one" - he points to one of the dead bodies. "Hovlan, a hunter from another tribe. We used to meet sometimes, out in the tunnels, but he stopped showing a while ago."

"He used to say he wanted to try the Maze... I thought he was just joking."

"Their bodies are reddened, all over. Maybe they found a disease in the Maze that drove them mad." Wenduag draws back, as if afraid of being infected.

"I hate to say it, but I don't think we should use up our very limited healing on someone who didn't look like he could hold up a conversation, right before we walk into another fight."

On they go.

The next room is a dormitory. Or perhaps it is a barracks, because everyone here is armed and attacks them on sight.

There are almost twenty men with glaives and crossbows, apparently including some clerics who cast bane and bless and other first-circle spells (and who also have glaives).

Luckily, about half of them are unarmored and taken by surprise; perhaps they were in fact trying to sleep.

If they hold the door they can fight them one or two at a time, but their archers won't help much. If they push in, they'll be surrounded in a tight space. If they fall back, they'll be surrounded in a much larger space, or the cultists might bar the door against them while they get reinforcements.

Seelah will follow Malenia's lead, because they totally forgot to agree ahead of time on who leads the party, and Malenia is clearly stronger than she is which is a good proxy for being more experienced as well.

They don't care about the furniture here, right? Because she's going to go in, spinning her sword around at impossibly high speed.

She can shred both cultists and furniture! Unfortunately Seelah can't help her very effectively while she turns the whole room into a blender, because that looks, uh, not necessarily very discriminating? She and the others can at least take care of any cultist who run in their direciton.

The remaining cultists try to run away through another door. While screaming at the top of their lungs for help.

Yeah, she isn't entirely used to fighting with a party at her side.

At least one of those running away can get a thrust from her sword, the rest will probably get away.

Shooting them in the back is hard, because Malenia's in the way and they're out the other door.

"Do we pursue?"

"We're not here to kill everyone, we need to find the kids. Wenduag, which way?"

They're back in the long hall, past the obstruction. There are two more doors here. Wenduag thinks the one they should go through isn't the one the cultists ran to.

There's also a large basin full of fresh-seeming blood.

"If they get reinforcements they could attack us from behind while we're fighting someone else," Anevia warns.

"We should check where they ran off to, see if they are regrouping."

Then they'll go after them! This door has stairs that lead down again, while they've been consistently going up, towards the city.

"I don't know what's down there," Wenduag cautions.

At the bottom of the flight there are two doors again, but the cultists left the one they used open. They're huddled in a small room, arguing with the presumed-reinforcements.

Unfortunately being terrified of Malenia means they're constantly glancing back, so the two groups see each other at about the same time.

"Rally, or I'll feed your guts to the dretches!" bellows one of those who hadn't faced her before.

Thrust, slash, slash?

One of the newcomers is a cleric of Baphomet who can bless and bane and channel and swish his glaive! ...not at the same time, though.

Thrust, slash, slash works quite well, especially since the cultists are still stuck coming at the party through a narrow door and right into Malenia's range.

Unfortunately, the noise attracts the people behind the other door, who want to pacify the scene with extreme prejudice!

They have red skin and black horns and scimitars, and they run right into the party's squishy archers.

"Demons!" Seelah shouts as she tries to interpose herself, but the corridor is too wide for her to hold back all three of them at once.

Anevia tries to retreat back up the stairs; she didn't do this earlier because she was afraid of other reinforcements hitting them from the rear.

He backs up with them, and raises his hand to throw a disc of holy light at one of the demons.

It's easy to hit one of them with it, because they're in melee for the express purpose of hitting him back!

Cambions are immune to electricity and poison and resistant to fire, acid, and weak spells. In other words, they're the weakest demons on the ladder, barely above dretches. 

They have no idea what makes some light holy, but Miquella's spells are not weak and and one of their number has just been burned to death.

The remaining two swing their scimitars at him in a frenzy.

Seelah throws herself at one of them and the three archers pepper the other, but it will take them some turns to put both of them down!

He is much tougher than he looks, and though the scimitars do wound him, golden blood showing, it's not a significant damage. He can get out of their range, but he can't really throw another disc with Seelah there.

She has, by now, dealt with the cultists, and can carefully stab one of the demons.

With Seelah and Malenia working together, Miquella and the archers can escape the melee, and then the result is not in doubt.

Seelah grimaces. "We should be more careful. Someone could have died just now, if we had been unlucky!"

"I didn't stay at a distance because I didn't know if they had more reinforcements behind us. In retrospect, Miquella was enough to hold this door and you should have been guarding the one they came from. It's easy to see the right plan in retrospect, though."

Lann has a shallow gash across his chest. "I'm in favor of being more careful - we weren't even helping much, because we couldn't shoot past Malenia into the room!"

Seelah lays her hand on him, and the gash shrinks and disappears.

"We have more archers than fighters, normally we'd let them fight from a distance. But Malenia is so much stronger than everyone else, I think we - didn't want to risk anyone else actually fighting? That's good if it works, we don't want to risk people needlessly, but then the archers shouldn't be right next to the melee... I don't know what to do, then."

"We have to be more careful with angles we can be attacked from. I can deal with the main threat, and Seelah and Camellia should watch the doors and other openings for potential attacks."

Camellia actually enjoyed the crazy melee! She got to stab the demons in the back while they kept trying to attack other people!

"I'll watch out for more attackers," she promises.

The small room the cultists were in looks weirdly unfinished; the near wall is made of the same regular stone as the rest of the Maze, but the far side looks like it's still being excavated. There's another (closed) door in the side wall.

The door the cambions came through (and left open) leads to a different, much bigger room. There's a pit with decomposing bodies, and the far end has prison cells and what looks like implements of torture. The whole place stinks horribly.

There is also yet another open door - or at least, an open doorframe, the door itself seems to be missing - and four sigils on the wall next to it, glowing in different colors.

"Ugh, this place really is a maze. Maybe we should check the bodies for clues, or a map." They've been moving too quickly for proper looting.

Wenduag is having serious second thoughts about her role in all this.

She planned to take them straight to Hosilla, and the side with the victor. This will be harder if the victor is Hosilla, who then demands to know why all her men have been killed.

On the other hand, she's pretty sure Malenia can kill Hosilla. And if Savamelekh happens to be here and kills Malenia, he probably won't care too much about Hosilla's men... if they can take out Hosilla herself first, Wenduag might even become Savamelekh's new chief minion.

Anyway, she doesn't have much choice anymore; if she vanishes into the shadows and disclaims all responsibility, Lann will insist on making the party search for her to make sure she's alright.

"I warned you. If those were all of them, we should go back."

He'll quickly search thorugh the cultsits' possesions. Though it's obvious that he doesn't have experience in looting, he's reasonably efficent.

Anevia joins him in the search.

"It seems they have a leader called Hosilla, and this was one of her two lieutenants," she reports. "He had orders to do - a bunch of things we probably don't care about - earth elementals for excavating this place, raising lizards for meat... No mention of the missing neather children."

She turns another page. "Apparently there's a 'paladin sword' here somewhere and he was told to rearrange some pictures to hint at the key to the room it's stored in? 'Yellow, blue, red, yellow.'" 

There are also four potions of cure light wounds, several scrolls of bane, and of course their weapons and armor and spare arrows if they need those.

(Lann and Wenduag pick up two of the cambions' longbows; they seem well made even if the style is a big offputting.)

A 'paladin sword' sounds intriguing (and makes her worry about the paladin whose sword it was), but they don't know where it might be and they need to look for the missing children -

"It might be that door with all the colored sigils?"

Huh. Anevia looks past door, which opens into a small storage door.

"That's definitely a sword," she agrees. Looks untrapped, too. 

"Is that Radiance?!"

"Radiance? Is that like Heaven's Light?"

"No, nothing like that - it's just a sword, maybe a bit magical - it's famous," Seelah says reverently. "Because it belonged to Yaniel, a legendary paladin from the first two crusades. After she died in the sack of Drezen, the sword was put in a museum. It can't be very powerful, or someone would have kept using it!"

She frowns. "The cultists must have stolen it in the confusion... I'll restore it to its rightful place." She hefts it consideringly, but decides to pack it away in favor of her usual sword; if she scratches Yaniel's sword she'd never forgive herself.

"How did she become so famous if she didn't even have a powerful sword?" Wenduag wants to know.

"Oh, she didn't become a legend for being strongest paladin of her time," Seelah chuckles, "although I bet she was plenty stronger than me! No, she's a legend for what she did. Yaniel was known for never leaving anyone behind. Never sacrificing men for a tactical advantage, never sending anyone on a risky mission without going herself... I've heard some of the commanders didn't like her because of that, because she wouldn't pay the cost to win the battles, but her men adored her."

"And once, they gave her a mission she thought was too dangerous, or maybe she disagreed with them for some reason. So she went into the Wound alone without her men, and not only did she survive, she brought back other crusaders she rescued!"

"She died defending Drezen to the last while others evacuated. But she lives on in our memories - as a true paladin and hero."

"She sounds very brave. You admire her?"

Seelah blushes. "Yes, I - I've always felt an affinity with her. Or with her legend, at least. I know what it's like to conflict with your commanders, to feel that while your orders are good and just they're not your real calling."

"That's why I came to the Wound. I hoped - I hope - my mission's here is clear. I just need to do the best I can, save as many people as I can. I'm not very smart but I know that much."

"There is wisdom in choosing the path you follow. Well, let us go find this Hossila, and save the children."

Wenduag leads them back to the long hall with the pool of blood and through the door they haven't tried before, which leads to a large empty room and then stairs leading up.

"I made it this far once, but the door was locked." It's unlocked now; maybe the cultists don't like locking it when it's in frequent use.

She advances up the stairs, ready for a fight.

The stairs end at a balcony overlooking another room. A man with a glaive stands ready at its center, looking challengingly at whoever comes up.

Another woman with a glaive is hiding past the door, ready to chop off the head of the first person to step through.

She doesn't need to see someone to know where they are. It's not the most adventageous position, but she can handle it. She rushes at the man in the center, ready to step to the side should another glaive descend on her.

She dodged? Eh, let her Hand deal with the fighter for a moment; she can strike their squishy rear. Who's next through the door?

Luckily, the next person through the door is at least slightly resistant to glaives!

How long can you last, little paladin, against a fully buffed Hosilla? Baphomet's top inquisitor in Kenabres is going to investigate this question!

She can feel her smite took, and she heals herself every round before striking back, but - 

"She's really strong! I need some help here!"

Unfortunately everyone else is stuck on the stairs behind her, and Camellia, their only other melee combatant and healer, was bringing up the rear.

Camellia can push past the others, but then she's stuck casting Bless and cure spells on Seelah; she didn't know she had to prepare ranged options in a party with three archers! 

(Hosilla will pretty much shrug off any of her hexes and spells that can be ignored through force of will.)

Are you human? You look human to me. How do you feel about this human bane enchanted glaive blessed by Baphomet?

"Back! Get distance from her!" Seelah can't last much longer, which means everyone behind her probably won't last at all.

She can last long enough that Malenia dispatches the Hand, and turns around to fight Hosilla.

Will a couple of quasits distract her again?

They will, but Hosilla would still be either distracted by defending against her, or take a hit from a very big sword.

Ugh! She only half-blocked that and does not want to be hit by that sword again!

A good swordsman can step inside a glaive's reach; the paladin was weak and stupid, but this golden warrior is dangerous. And her minion is dead.

How about, instead, she pushes past Seelah, who is barely standing and in no shape to stop her? And then she'll run down the stairs, and if anyone unarmored ends up stuck on her glaive it's their own fault for standing in the way.

She'll have trouble pursuing, so she takes a moment to deal with the quasits.

He tries to get closer to Hosilla, to be able to throw discs at her.

Shit, how did she end up in the way? Is she going to die because she tried to heal a paladin?! That is the most pathetic thing she can imagine! I'll stick a rapier through your eye, you cultist bitch!

And yet, the glaive is mightier than the rapier. 

...or so she'd thought, but apparently this woman isn't fully human? Damnation, it'll take her a few seconds to switch to half-elf bane!

Seelah lets Malenia past her, because she really doesn't think she can defeat the cultist in time before someone dies!

She does have one last lay on hands left; maybe she can take on a couple of quasits before dying.

"For the Inheritor!" she bellows, because her lungs are the one part of her that doesn't feel like it's been glaived half to death. And charges.

Malenia sees the opening, and leaps at Hosilla.

Oh for - can she do the thing again where she pushes past the next enemy?

That depends, can Camellia push someone in front of herself first?

The next person in line behind Camellia is Miquella, who has been pushing forward, so this works out for both of them!

How about Hosilla takes a disc of holy light? 

Also, if she tries to strike him with the glaive, he isn't either human or half-elf, and she's unlikely to have any idea what the correct specification to hurt him is.

She can't dodge it in the tight quarters of the stairwell, and it burns at her. The golden warrior is hacking at her back again. Hosilla realizes she's about to die in this miserable dungeon, and this makes her very angry.

This is unfair. Everything is unfair. She should have had more, more of everything.

She can't avoid dying by an act of pure will, but she's double-damned if she's going to die alone.

Hosilla ignores Malenia and puts all she has into a cleaving blow aimed for Miquella's neck.

He can't dodge it in the middle of casting the spell, but it's not a fatal hit for him, though now there's quite a bit of golden blood spilled around.

If Hosilla ignores her, she will get stabbed, in addition to Miquella's disk.

With Hosilla fallen, the archers can finally come up to help Seelah get rid of the quasits.

"I still don't know what we should have done, but probably not that! Going up the stairs in single file and then letting the enemy get in between us!" Despite her words, Seelah is grinning; they took down a powerful cultist with no casualties, just a lot of bruises.

Anevia is kneeling down over Hosilla's body. "She had a lot of nice gear," she reports, "some of it probably magic. Miquella, can you identify this stuff? There's a pendant and two rings, besides her armor and glaive. Ooh, and she was carrying correspondence, that could be useful!" She carefully smoothes out several letters, stained in shades of red and gold, and quickly skims the contents.

He's better with crafted items than naturally magic ones, he'll take a look at her gear.

These magic items have been crafted in a tradition over ten millenia old and informed by civilizations from other planes!

The pendant and one of the rings are for protection. The other ring is linked to some other magic item far away and doesn't do anything actively if you put it on. The glaive can hit with extra oomph and frightens nearby people when it does. The armor isn't magical.

"The pendant and this ring do protection, the glavie seems to induce fear, and this ring is tied to something that isn't here, I can't quite tell what's it  supposed to do."

If he can't identify them precisely than she'd rather not put any of them on, but if someone else wants to put on a dead cultist's ring of protection, Anevia won't - no actually she will try to argue them out of it, that stuff came from an empowered of Baphomet! Don't put it on without a proper Identify spell, that's how you get cursed!

That is very sensible and also Wenduag will claim this ring of protection as her prize if Anevia doesn't want it. (To keep, not to wear right away; she's not stupid.)

Division of unidentified loot is really far down her list of priorities at the moment, and will remain there until she sees Irabeth alive and well. What worries her more is possible infighting over loot, and if she abstains and Miquella and Malenia are too strong to bother with it and the two neathers can agree between themselves, things should more or less work out.

She glances at the others to see how they're taking it.

Wenduag is also looking at Malenia for permission and/or approval.

Camellia doesn't want a pendant or a new ring and has no use for a glaive.

Lann doesn't mind getting a pendant instead of a ring, or honestly nothing at all as long as they find the younglings they came here to find! Is this really the time to be splitting the loot? They haven't won yet.

Malenia isn't interested in picking up trinkets from the cultists, at least for now.

Strong and lets her have stuff she didn't really fight for: best boss.

This is even better than Savamelekh happening to be here and squishing everyone except her! He'll never learn she helped them and she'll never have to grovel to that bitch Hosilla again.

Elsewhere:

It's the day of the big invasion and he's unrelatedly busy killing some annoying demons when a little light in his mind, connected to a ring he's wearing, turns off.

Of all the bloody days, she had to choose this one to bite it. He's annoyed and angry and can't even take it out on her without getting someone to raise her first, and then getting them to do it again afterwards. (Being a demon of death can be so inconvenient.)

He could go make his pet wizard scry her body, but it would take an hour and he doesn't want to wait an hour because he is angry.

What the Abyss, he'll go handle it himself. He was going to go there tomorrow anyway. Terendelev's dead and no-one else in the city can threaten him and anyone coming in at the last moment to fight crusaders wouldn't be dungeon-crawling anywhere near his pet project.

Deeper darkness. Greater teleport, to one of several disguised side-chambers in the dungeon ("maze", if you insist, but he'd seen better mazes from Deskarites) reserved for that purpose.

A wall of perfect blackness moves smoothly into the room where they first fought Hosilla, as fast as any human (or neather) can run away.

Oh shit -

Wenduag doesn't even bother crying out, she just bolts for the stairs with the intention of never stopping and never looking back even if she hears Savamelekh Himself, because to look upon his face when He is angry is to die.

She doesn't even notice that the approaching demon is covered in a shroud of darkness, but she does notice that it's likely much more powerful than anything they fought here before. She engages the demon cautiously.

Seeing Wenduag's reaction, he knows they're in troubly, even if he isn't entirely clear on the exact nature of it. 

He'll try to get in front of everyone and cover them, because it seems that he can actually take hits even better than Seelah.

Seelah would like to charge right in but she can't, actually, fight in total darkness, and neither can Anevia or Lann shoot into it to any real effect!

One interesting fighter with something like truesight, and a bunch of rabble who can't do anything.

He can stab her every second and more, with four long hands that can reach all the way around her body if she closes in. The very few mortals who are strong enough survive that for more than a couple of rounds will, instead, die of the concomittant energy drain, if they had no idea they'd be facing him and neglected their death ward. And at the same time he can bite her and sting her with his tail, which confuses the weak of will. And if she has truesight to pierce his darkness and still looks him in the eyes, she has only herself to blame.

How dead is the golden-limbed woman, after a round?

Not particularly dead.

She takes some of the dagger hits, and it seems like the energy drain is working at her, until she lunges at him and lands her own hit, and then she's at full strength again.

Hey, that's his thing! ...but it'd be stupid to stand here trading vampiric touches to see who drops first.

But he has a tried and true way of dealing with crusaders (anyone who kills one of his minions, on the day of the big attack, while wearing that much gold, is probably a crusader): stab them in the minions, that's where it really hurts them, and then threaten them to stab some more.

He flies up to the ceiling of the room, which is conveniently two stories high, and hides the darkness-emanating pebble. The warrior has four minions in the room; are they foolish enough to look him in the eye?

And if they don't want to look him in the eye for some reason, but still want to look at him to aim their puny arrows, how about they look at the sheet of paper with a symbol of death that he just unfolded and is holding over his chest?

He tracks the cloud of darkness as it flies up, and he knows that his companions likely do the same. He feels the wave of death emanating from the now-dispersed darkness, and while it passess around him, he knows it spells an end to everyone around him.

He brought them here, and now they are going to die. He led them, and they followed him to their death.

The worst thing is, he knows the exact concept that can save them. He studied it extensively, when he sought a way to cure his sister that was within the bounds of the Order he was born in.

The absence of Death, that negative space within the enforced rules, ensuring that some things are truly eternal. 

If only he was a god in truth, if he had the power to enforce that Order around him, at least on a small scale –

Something responds. Something that resonated with his heart, and lives there still.

The Light of Heaven glimmers, and shines, and swells into a roaring torrent of golden light that sweeps the room from roof to floor.

There will be no more darkness, it promises. No death and decay. Not here, not today. Only the strength and the splendour of life, the life that is itself the greatest Good as long as it does not serve Evil.

For this one moment, the Light of Heaven blazes.

What the Abyss was that? That little mortal had a mass death ward in her pocket?! He didn't even know that was a thing! And she used it as a reaction the moment she saw him, before his symbol of death could kill the other minions! He didn't know that was a thing either!!

This, together with the golden warrior, is quickly growing from an annoyance to a concern, which is to say: there's a real (tiny! but real!) chance he'll actually lose this fight, if he's stupid enough to keep fighting it.

He is very angry and will become much more angry if he learns these people messed with his mongrels and not just with Hosilla. Luckily, he is an old and wise demon and knows how to deal with that safely.

Greater teleport, to some demons he can safely kill kill kill until he's calm enough to check what the Abyss is going on here.

Some things are too fast for ordinary mortal eyes to track.

Seelah sees a great bolt of light, the same light she saw around Miquella when he picked up the angel's sword, descend from Heaven (*) and clear away the darkness to reveal a great demon; she blinks, dazzled for just a moment, and the demon itself is gone, erased from reality. 

She grips her sword tightly and looks around for enemies, but it makes her feel small and - foolish. Like an ant in the presence of giants fighting, trying to sting their iron-shod feet.

"What. Just happened?"

(*) Heaven isn't really up above us; a ceiling is as metaphorically Heavenwards as the sky.

"I... I think it fled. It had... almost killed all of you, and only Lariel's light prevented it... I'm sorry, we're being too rash..."

He leans on Malenia, exhausted after channeling the light.

"If that was needed just to drive it away it must have been a very strong demon!

"Did you see what kind of demon it was?" Anevia wants to know, because the obvious implication is that it's liable to come back, somewhere Miquella and Malenia aren't.

"And is Lariel's, uh... legacy going to keep doing that?"

"I'm not familiar with the kinds... It tried to blanket us all with pure Death, is that identifying?"

"I don't know, I... didn't expect it to do something like that at all? I have no sense of its power.."

"A 'death demon' sounds like nabasu," Anevia says, "they can fly and generate darkness."

"Nabasu turn people into ghouls and also grow stronger when they do it, and luckily after they've grown strong enough they invariably fuck off - nobody knows why - anyway, instead of seeing nabasu grow infinitely strong, or all of them reach the same strength and stay there, we keep seeing weak ones get stronger and then leave. We thought they lose the power after a while, or maybe they use it up on something."

"A powerful nabasu could kill all of us except the two of you, but I think it would still take it a minute or two. If one found a way to grow stronger than usual... that could be very dangerous."

"There's a cleric spell called death ward that protects from nabasu abilities, but it's fourth circle and doesn't last long, so you're usually out of luck unless you have a strike team prepared for a nabasu or a lot of convenient scrolls."

"Wenduag hasn't come back - Wenduag!" Lann shouts back down the stairs; they're clearly not being stealthy anymore, but there's no response.

"We should look for her. She could be in danger alone. Going back through the rooms we've cleared already should be less risky, right? And we still haven't found sign of the younglings. Maybe they're in one of the rooms we bypassed - there's no way they could have gotten past Hosilla or that demon."

"Unless they've been captured, and watched over by Hosilla."

Lann shudders. "I don't want to imagine what a cultist might want with our kids... But if they met, best to hope they were captured and not killed."

Anevia peeks through the far door. "The construction looks different here," she reports, "I think these are the storm sewers under the city. Unless the cultists deliberately imitated them."

"Let's go back and look for the kids, then."

Going back to the long hall with rubble in its middle reveals no sign of Wenduag.

"We left too many footprints when we came through and fought here. If Wendu was trying to hide her trail, there's no way we'd find it. Hells, if she met and fought more cultists I'm not sure we'd notice the signs, with all the bodies and blood that are here already!" Most of the bodies are in the adjacent dormitory but a couple were cut down by Malenia in the hall as they tried to flee.

"Do you think she'd have gone back to the neather camp? We can check in with them before we look everywhere we haven't been yet."

"She might be there, or hiding in some dark corner... But she clearly isn't coming back for us." Lann is torn between feeling betrayed and guilty. Running away from this nabasu was apparently the right thing to do, except that Wenduag couldn't have known that; abandoning your friends and allies in a fight is horrible, but he wouldn't want Wendu to risk her life just to come back for his corpse, if she somehow convinced herself they were all dead...

"If we go back we can warn them about that nabasu!"

"And we need to make sure she didn't get into any more trouble. Let's go."

He really wants to find the missing younglings, but they've been missing for many hours; Wenduag only has a few minutes' lead. It makes sense to go after her, even though she can generally take care of herself.

They retrace their steps without meeting anyone else.

The crowd of neathers at the entrance to the Maze has grown large; a hundred or more are now present. At the crowd's center Chief Sull is debriefing and/or berating an angry Wenduag.

"Wendu! What happened? Do you have any idea how worried we were?!"

"How are you still alive?!" she blurts.

It's ridiculous to imagine that they beat Savamelekh. Are they all working for him now, even the paladin? Did he enchant them? It seems just as ridiculous to imagine that Savamelekh, incensed by Hosilla's death, wouldn't kill and hurt at least a few before sending the cowed remainder to do his bidding.

Wenduag has no idea what's going on and she is terrified. It feels like any moment, the darkness will spill out of the door behind them -

No, no, Savamelekh wants the tribes, he doesn't want to kill them or he would have -

But then why let go the interlopers who promised to bring the tribes to the surface -

The only thing she knows to use to overcome her fear is anger, but she doesn't dare be angry at possible servants of Savamelekh and what remains is anger at everyone else, and the universe, and maybe herself for being too weak.

"She ran back out a few minutesh ago, confushed, talking about the darknesh - she shaid the darknesh took you all, and she ran. And she could not explain more." Sull hates shaming Wenduag in public like that, but everyone except the returning party already knows.

Seelah frowns. "Maybe she was magically afraid? That's no shame, powerful demons have fear auras."

No, you dolt, she was mundanely and perfectly rationally afraid, but she can't say this.

Wenduag doesn't know how to act ashamed or contrite. She has an excellent understanding of feeling weak and acting it out in groveling, but groveling before Chief Sull, or before Malenia in Sull's presence, is unlikely to help. (She'll still grovel later, in private, if it seems indicated.)

"I failed you," she says simply, and bows her head.

"You were afraid. You were right to be afraid, whatever it was, it was very powerful and deadly. It was close to killing all of us."

"But," he raises his hand, flaring the Light of Heaven, "Lariel's Light saved us, and chased the demon off."

Did it? Or is that just what they want her to pretend in public?

She can imagine Savamelekh cowing and coercing them all, but not in the span of a few minutes. It has to be magic, an enchantment, but she doesn't understand why he'd do that -

Shiiine.

The Light of Heaven doesn't descend in a bolt of lightning anymore. It doesn't grant power or sound a call to arms; it won't chastise the unfaithful and scourge the wicked.

But it speaks to every heart that wants to stand against Evil and cannot find the courage. Everyone who cowers alone in the darkness, who shies away from their own desires for distant unattainable Good while Evil is right here holding a knife to your throat.

You are not alone, it whispers. Help others, and you will be helped. Together, you are stronger. Together, you can stand against the darkness.

I gave myself for you. I would do it again. I will always be by your side.

"Let's go, Wenduag. We still have to find the kids."

She ought to be terrified of what Malenia might do to her once they're alone, but the light stole that option from her.

She doesn't know what else she can say or do.

She follows.

"Are you alright?" Lann asks her quietly. He really wants to ask "would you rather stay behind," but Wenduag takes offence at any suggestion she's weak or a liability and it only gets worse when there's a reason to suspect it's actually true.

...

"I'm fine. Save your worry for the kids." What else is she going to say? No, she's absolutely not fine, please escort her back to the camp again? But she can't even find the energy for a sarcastic reply.

The first door they hadn't opened before before leads to a small room full of bookshelves.

The second door reveals stairs down into a flooded basement; they can wade through the water but it makes stealth hard. There's another door (locked), a room with a large water elemental that ignores them as long as they don't approach it (and doesn't respond to speech), and finally - at the end of a short corridor - two barred cells, one of which contains the three missing neather kids.

Oh thank the gods, Lann was so worried! He could ignore it as long as he was doing something to find them but now it all rushes back, and into hugs (through the bars) and tears and angry-but-relieved demands of "what the Abyss were you thinking?!"

"Oh good," Anevia deadpans, "I'm useful to the party after all!" She sets to picking open the lock.

They were thinking they'd go up to the surface and become real crusaders and work for paladins and get to fight demons, instead of Chief Sull who thinks 'underground crusaders' should just live and die underground without ever doing anything!

Only they found the demons before they found the crusaders, and they were so terrified (until like a minute ago), and they're very very sorry and will definitely never do it again!! Because Lann will help them do it right next time, please, they'll be such good crusaders?

"You should be safe now. Do you know if there's anyone else here?"

They didn't see any more neathers but there were a lot of those humans who locked them in! They could hear them running and shouting about something just a few minutes ago.

"I can pick the remaining door's lock. Back me up if it goes wrong?"

She will stand next to the door, ready to attack should things go wrong.

The door unlocks easily, but someone must have been listening with their ear pressed against it on the other side, because as Anevia works there are muffled screams of "please go away!" and "leave us alone!"

"They'll be a danger to the tribes if we leave them here," Lann says flatly. "Is there a place for them topside?"

"Confirmed cultists are executed in time of war... and this attack is worse than just a war. I don't know what else we can do with them. Just keeping them imprisoned for trial would take guards away from the fighting..."