There is a sharp intake of breath. "Miss Wex?" 

Oh come on, isn't her situation already annoying enough!?

"Somebody get Terendelev!" Hulrun barks, before laying a hand on her collarbone near the wound in her chest and casting a Cure. 

(Obviously he did a cursory check for her identity first. Faint aura of Good, no aura of Law or Chaos, it matches what he would expect if this is, in fact, Lucette Wex. He's immediately moving on to more rigorous means of verification, of course, not assuming that's good enough--)

Terendelev does not take long to show up. 

The first thing she does is cast Heal, in what seems like the longest standard action of her life. It...doesn't erase all of the damage, she can see that, but it stops the bleeding and closes the wound, which is--enough to be going on with, for the moment, even if the lack of complete eradication does not sit well with her. 

The next thing she does is drop to her knees and take her daughter's hands. "Lucette. What happened?" 

Lucette pushes herself half-upright, her other hand coming to cover the place on her chest that doesn't hurt anymore. "I don't know. I don't remember. I...the last thing I recall...I think I was walking home from the temple of Shelyn..." The Shelynites run a soup kitchen for Kenabres's poor, and Lucette had been helping. 

Terendelev frowns. "Whoever it was that took you, they made sure to do it while your Mama and I were out of town. We came back as soon as we heard, but nobody was quick to decide it was worth a Sending--we hadn't begun searching for you in earnest yet, and you've been missing several days."

"Well, that's not good, but I don't know what it means..." 

"Neither do I. Nor do I know what caused that wound...I have not healed it entirely. For the moment, it is closed, yet...I can sense that it remains, beneath the surface, waiting to re-emerge." 

Well. That's ominous. Lucette would like a hug about it, please. 

Of course. Hug. 

Terendelev looks up and frowns. "Does anybody see what happened to the men who brought her in?" 

Hulrun frowns and looks around. When he doesn't see anything, he barks orders for some of his junior inquisitors to try to find them. 

"I don't necessarily suspect them of anything, but I want them to show me where they found her, so I can look for evidence there." 

Hulrun nods grimly. Not that he's as optimistic as Terendelev about the innocence of the men in question, but either way they ought to be found, and it probably won't hurt anything to give Terendelev first crack at them. 

"Lucette." 

Lavinia took longer than Terendelev to show up, for reasons including but not limited to "she wasn't the one being yelled for" and "is not, in fact, a Fucking Dragon," but she's here now. 

More hug. 

"Hi, Mama, I'm," she can't say fine, she can't assume the incompletely healed wound won't come up, "not sure what happened to me, but at least now we know where I am." 

Knowing where Lucette is is so important after she was mysteriously kidnapped!!! Soooo much hug. 

Hug hug...hug?

...Is it just Lucette or is that more bugs than usual. 

A colossal figure appears in the air just above them.

It is wreathed in bugs, obscured by them, surrounded by satellite swarms that look briefly like wings or arms or extra heads or nothing that makes sense. Perhaps it is made out of bugs all the way through. They make a horrible droning noise, loud enough to drown all conversation.

The only thing clearly visible is an enormous bone-white scythe, poised over their heads -

Oh fuck no.

Oh absolutely the hell not. 

"DESKARI! LEAVE MY CITY."

The implacable scythe flashes down, almost faster than the eye can see, again and again and again and again -

And Terendelev's severed head rolls on the flagstones, away from her body and into the swarms of hungry locusts.

"BEHOLD, IOMEDAE. BEHOLD, MY DESTRUCTION OF THE LAST VESTIGES OF YOUR INHERITANCE."

Everything seems to happen at once.

People start frantically running away in every direction, towards the Cathedral or the church or the lower city. Several dozen demons take this as their cue to drop their disguises and attack the closest mortals who don't look too dangerous.

The inquisitors, paladins, clerics, soldiers, and assorted adventurers present for the festival attack the closest demons. Other humans are fighting on the demons' side; it's unclear whether they are also demons in disguise.

Pandemonium reigns.

No--

Nonononononono--

"Mum!" Lucette screams, anguished, lunging forwards--

Lavinia grabs her and shoves her in the other direction. 

"Get to safety," she hisses, and then runs forwards. Not to fight Deskari, she's not an idiot, but if she can get to Terendelev's body--

She reaches it, managing to stay out of Deskari's notice until she gets there. 

She lays a hand on the side of her wife's dead body and they both disappear in a flash of light. 

The only upside to the presence of many lesser demons is that very few people commit suicide-by-Deskari in order to test the possibility that it's all very intricate illusion. Nevertheless, someone in the crowd takes a potshot at him with a crossbow.

Impossibly, it hits.

There is a horrible rasping sound, which overwhelms and disorients anyone standing too close, and then Deskari turns and growls - A GNAT SNAPS ITS JAWS AT THE LORD OF LOCUSTS -

He strikes down at the ground with his scythe and it splits open, a chasm that runs through half the city, toppling walls and houses.

It passes under the crowd, sending many plunging to their death. It passes under St Clyde's Cathedral and brings it down on those who sought refuge inside. 

And it passes under Lucette.