Anevia is hiding in the dormitory and can't physically stop Hosilla from leaving, but she can try to draw her attention enough to keep her here for a minute. If Hosilla attacks before the others get here, she'll run for it.

"Help!" she calls out in a voice filled with pain, as of a cultist left for dead among the wounded, stewing in his pain for an hour. (She is very good at performing pain.) "Is someone there? ...Hosilla?" Her voice becomes panicked. "Don't leave me in here!"

Ugh, those useless pitiful weaklings. But Hosilla does, in fact, want to question one of them about what the fuck went down here, and maybe find a way to blame them for it.

"Come here!" she commands in her best voice of authority. And retreats back towards the winding stairs, because she is not stupid.

"I'm coming - I think my leg is broken - argh!" Anevia can do an excellent imitation of limping on a broken leg, courtesy of this morning, but she doesn't want to show herself, because Hosilla can probably tell she's not one of hers; she wants to draw this out. She pretends to limp (loudly, painfully) across the dormitory, as she peeks out at Hosilla across the room.

This also helps mask the sound of Lucette flapping back across the pile of rubble; the others are taking the long way around and will need another half-minute to get there.

"She's retreating," she whispers to her, and breaks a chair against the floor; it makes a satisfying splintering crash, which can hopefully be taken for the sound of a delaying accident.

"Imbecile! If you're not here in three rounds I'm locking you with the carrion! Crawl on your belly if you have to, maggot!"

Well, someone is here in three rounds. Hosilla probably wasn't expecting it to be a charging half-dragon and paladin, though. 

And a charging Camellia! She's not as physically imposing as the other two but she strives to make up for it with her battle-cries.

(How effective they are on a veteran cultist who wasn't really bothered by the slaughtered remains of her comrades remains to be tested.)

Crusaders and mongrels working together? What the Abyss is this unholy alliance? Maybe they're just random adventurers.

"Up the stairs!" she barks at the prisoners. She'll have to delay them a round or two before she can retreat and lock the door.

Eh, she can take them. Hosilla isn't some pathetic cleric of Baphomet. She's an unholy inquisitor, and every bit as effective as the ones working for Hulrun.

Bane weapon, on the - she doesn't know if 'mongrel' is a valid target and she has no idea what's inside the armor - the half-elf. And a judgement of destruction, to strike true. She's not walking away from this.

Urgh, this is what comes of being so helpful!! If left undisturbed she might limp away from this, but not very quickly. 

A stupid risk to have taken, but the rush of rushing into stabbing range! Pity how she didn't make it all the way to the stabbing...

But also, this is what paladins are for. Seelah will guard her to her dying breath, not because she particularly likes her - they barely know each other - but on sheer principle. They're so convenient that way! Camellia promises herself she really has nothing to worry about here, and can try to forget the pain of her wounds by watching Hosilla get stabbed by other people.

Seelah will absolutely try to push Hosilla off of Camellia so she can't finish her off. She can't even be angry with her, she's not trained - or, trained to fight with her rapier, but clearly not trained for real combat - anyway she'll focus on being angry with Hosilla.

She does have to fight defensively to avoid the same fate; this is one tough cookie, for all that she's alone.

The neather kids walk obediently back to the stairwell, but they're wounded and slow and aren't trying to run because, well, they weren't ordered to and it hurts!

"We're here to save you! Get away from her - don't do as she says!" Lann can't run towards them because the melee is in the way, and also he can't run because he needs to carefully shoot into said melee, but he tries to move around the room in a way that'll end up next to the children in a few rounds.

They are terrified of disobeying Hosilla, and she just killed (?) one of their would-be rescuers, and also her orders already have them moving away from her! What else should they be doing?!

And Lusilla pauses for a moment in her swording of Hosilla and starts singing. 

She's going to take a beating, retreating from them towards the stairs (and to use her glaive effectively), but she can, in fact, take it for another round, especially with a judgement of protection.

"Run," she barks at the prisoners.

She doesn't want to mess with the bane weapon settings for mongrels in the middle of a fight, so she takes a stab (metaphorical and literal both) at the armored woman. Humans are the most common by far, let's go with human, do you have squishy human bits inside your armor?

Unfortunately she does! She's lucky that only one of Hosilla's blows lands (see: fighting defensively, uses of), but Seelah isn't sure they can win if Hosilla is that strong! Is she using some sort of smite Good? And she can't smite her back, she used hers up -

Baphomet's protection isn't going to be enough to keep Hosilla from sprouting lots of arrows.

The neather kids do their best to run!

One of them, emboldened by seeing Uncle Lann and by the song - she doesn't understand any of the words but they just sound so, so something - anyway, she runs to the far corner of the room, where Lann will hopefully make his way.

The other two run towards the stairs, or try to, because one of them is limping and the other is trying to help him and so they don't quite achieve a running speed.

Noooo her prisoner is getting away! The ritual needs to go through tomorrow, or Savamelekh really will be angry at her!

She has to make a split-second decision between getting away and coming back later with reinforcements, or trying to kill all her enemies here and now.

Running for the door and locking it while holding it closed is also risky. And Hosilla is, fundamentally, a simple sort of woman. When people attack her, she likes to kill them back. But she doesn't like her odds, here - oh, blast it all!

She bull rushes (*) the two prisoners who are still going the right direction, takes the two parting stabs in her back, makes it to the stairs and slams the door shut as she fumbles for her key.

(*) Empowered cultists of Baphomet get bonuses to bull rushes, bull's strength duration, and bullying.

Seelah runs after her and tries to push the door open, but it's honestly pretty hard!

Lucette shakes her head at Seelah, and stops singing so as to hear better. 

She draws from a pocket a key she had gotten from a dead cultist who also had a very interesting note on his person, and listens for Hosilla's getting far enough away that Lucette can unlock the door again without being noticed. 

Unfortunately, this door has one keyhole on Hosilla's side but two on Lucette's! It apparently needs two keys to unlock; at least, inserting the key into either one doesn't do it.

Hmm. How curious.

She bets she can pick one of them while using the key in the other.

...it still takes her almost a minute to manage, by which time Hosilla has gotten away. 

Meanwhile, Seelah can feed Camellia one of their last healing potions!

"That was a brave but -" she doesn't want to say stupid, stupid is the kind of things Seelah does, this was - "completely reckless charge! You shouldn't run ahead like that! Even if you, uh, really want to get at the enemy, which is a very understandable and fundamentally Good impulse!"

Is the woman some kind of berserker? She uses magic, though...

Camellia makes a face. "I think I learned my lesson," she says dryly. "Let the armored paladin take the first hit from the scary cultist."

Those are fundamentally sound tactics for someone with a needle-thin excuse for a sword and barely any armor!!

Not that Seelah's judging her, it's just that - that combination doesn't seem to be chosen for its melee effectiveness. Which is very valid of her, because no-one should have to dedicate their life to combat who doesn't want to and also spellcaster, but. She really scared her for a moment there!

She grins. "Make sure that you do," she says, offering Camellia a hand up.