Miko nods. And digs!

She also keeps an eye on the beautiful-and-holy-and-sacred aura below.

Clearing two and a half feet of dirt isn't that hard, not with a good shovel and a +7 Strength bonus. It's not long before the shovel clangs on metal. A little more lateral digging reveals the sword.

It's covered in dirt. It's still beautiful. The blade is shining silver, etched with delicate golden runes. The hilt unfurls like a pair of white-gold eagle's wings, with a perfect opal set between them.

Seelah looks on it with awe.

Lann looks on it with awe, too.

Wenduag looks on it with something very like dread.

Miko hesitates. What if she's too unholy to touch it? She's not scared of being injured, of course, but…

It would still be unbearable.

Still, she's the closest. And even if it—burns her—she's just handing it to Lann.

She reaches in.

She touches the sword, and it's... confused. That's what it is. It doesn't understand what's happening, who this is. She's a champion of the gods, a worthy wielder. She's an undead husk, a mockery of all that is right. She's been taken in by fiends, she's someone to save. She's just a woman like any other, in over her head.

It doesn't know what to do. It's not an angel - it's all that's left of one. It wants to do the right thing. It doesn't know what's right. It knows what's good, but that's different. There's a thousand good things you could do every second, and only some of them are right. It's desperate to do what needs to be done. It's been down here for a hundred years, unable to do anything - they sealed it away, that's not what you do with a sword. It wants to help. But so much is happening, so suddenly, and it doesn't know how to help or who to help or what to help with.

All of this rushes through her in the first moments she's touching it. It's pulled in so many different directions that it's paralyzed. If she lends it her own guidance, it would believe her, whatever she said, just so that it doesn't rip itself apart.

During times of stress, the brain sometimes overstimulates the vagus, the longest nerve in the autonomic nervous system. This can lead to nausea, pain, and muscle tightness in the chest. In another word: heartache.

The undead don't have biological functions. It comes of the whole "dying" thing. But they often imitate biological functions: walking, speech, in some cases feeding. And intelligent undead can have emotional reactions of equivalent complexity to the properly alive.

In short: even if it doesn't make physiological sense, undead are perfectly capable of being overwhelmed with emotion.

She doesn't know what to do either. She was planning to hand it over to Lann, and logically speaking that's the right thing to do! He has a noble cause and everything.

But.

She empathizes with the sword, more strongly than with anyone else she's met. She—

Doesn't want to leave it alone?

This is, objectively speaking, foolish. She's just as lost and confused as the sword is, unsure what she needs to do for the gods to take her back. Both of them need someone better to guide the way.

She picks it up, brushes the dust from the hilt.

It reaches out to her again, and it feels -

the way their hearts are broken alike -

blades that cannot wield themselves -

to have had a master and to be left uncertain -

it shifts, in her hand. The broad, straight blade narrows, curves itself. The inscriptions are rewritten. The wing-hilt wraps itself tight, the proper guard for a katana.

And it glows, with a soft silver light.

???

She looks up at the others, then back at the sword. It's—beautiful. It's so beautiful and she feels guilty for feeling… she doesn't even know what she's feeling. Relief? Happiness? It's the same way she felt nearly twenty years ago when Shojo told her he saw power in her, that the Twelve Gods had chosen her.

She turns to Lann.

"Will this… will this still serve as a sign? For your people?"

"Yeah," he says, still awed. "If you back me... they'll know coming back to the surface is the right thing to do."

"It isn't, Lann!" Wenduag finally bursts out. "Do you know what the surfacers think we are? Demonspawn. Do you know what they do with demonspawn?"

"How would you know?" he growls.

"You're not the only one who knows how to find tunnels upwards, you lizardbrained jackass!"

She suddenly feels much more comfortable stepping up into a leadership-type position, now. On account of the angel sword.

"But you aren't demonspawn. Lariel knew that, and I'll vouch for you as well."

Wenduag looks at her, and there's anger in her eyes, but mostly it's fear.

"And who do you think you are? You, with your shiny sword and your eyes that look through the earth and your heart that doesn't beat?!"

"I am chosen by the Twelve Gods of my homeland," she says, because while I am a paladin isn't true on her character sheet it's still true in her heart. She thinks like a paladin, she's been a paladin for years, she was the strongest of the Sapphire Guard even before its numbers were whittled down to nearly nothing by a mad lich.

(She just has to show the Twelve Gods that she's still worthy of serving them.)

"Gods," Wenduag spits, "only help those who don't need help."

And she scurries off into the shadows.

"Wenduag, don't be a - she's already gone," Lann groans.

He turns back to Miko. "...I'm sorry for her. She... she's good to have on your side, but it's too easy for her to decide you're not on hers."

Wow, that doesn't sound like anyone Miko knows at all! She nods sympathetically to Lann.

"Are you worried that she'll try to stop us?"

"What? No! I mean... she'll be furious. But she wouldn't hurt us. She'll... brood, and probably come and try to argue with me tonight, when she can perch on me like a night terror and look dramatic, and say everything she wants to say without other people listening... she's kind of predictable, really." He sighs fondly. "She'd say the same of me."

Nod.

"All right."

She looks at the others.

"What's the plan, now that we've found the sword? Will it be possible to get an escort before the entire community is mobilized? If my help is needed, I'll gladly provide it, but there was a disaster on the surface and I'm sure several of us are anxious to be out of this cavern."

He frowns. "I want you to show off that sword once today, to Chief Sull, and once tomorrow, to whatever other Chiefs he can gather in a gong and a half. Old men don't trust easily. But once that's done, I'll personally bring you through the Shield Maze. It's the quickest and most direct route... and it's dangerous, too, but you've got Lariel's blade."

That doesn't sound too bad. Plus, it's not like she has concrete obligations on the surface. She does want to touch base with the Prelate again, and Terendelev, once she's been Raised, but she hardly expects them to be waiting on her. She can be patient for eighteen hours, especially since eight of them will be…

Oh, right.

She'll still probably be fine.

"I have no objections. Does anyone else?"