"But you're not sure if it's that kind of ring?"

Meanwhile, Anevia has been stripping Hosilla of her bloody armor (in case she wakes up) and ended up finding some rather interesting correspondence!

"Either she's the rare cultist who actually writes down her plans and keeps her secret letters unburned, or the more common kind who fakes those. Either way we should get this intelligence upstairs. If this is to be believed, the Tower of Estrod was taken over by cultists weeks ago."

"The Tower of Estrod? That's where the museum is with Radiance! I mean, the copy of Radiance." Seelah frowns. "I could swear I heard the Tower of Estrod mentioned somewhere else today..."

"The librarian said one of his books claimed to be from there," Anevia supplies. "That's a little evidence in favor, I guess."

"I recognize that my personal offense that they would choose somewhere I like to make their nest is irrelevant, but I am in fact annoyed. ...We should probably bind Hosilla and heal her a little bit before the vrolikai starts wondering why she's been beaten unconscious." 

Anevia will tie her up very expertly! There's no way she'll get free, or cast anything with somatic gestures.

She can hobble her legs in a way that would let her walk slowly if she proves cooperative, but Anevia's not very optimistic about this. Tying her legs means they'll have to carry her around, but at least she won't be able to kick at them, or (with an extra hogtie) even squirm too much while being carried.

(If your have to drag your prisoner kicking and screaming, you're doing something wrong.)

Healing her requires using what is in fact their very last potion, but she agrees it's the prudent thing to do.

"Okay. Well. This ended better than it had any right to, given the involvement of a vrolikai. We should probably warn the rest of the Neathers, I don't want to bet that the tunnels won't become an unpleasant place once it finds out its little nest has been cleaned out and your people know what it's been doing to them." 

Grrr! Rrrraaah! Did you forget you healed her? Hosilla's not about to let you forget!

She's tied and disarmed and unaware of why they brought her back, which lets her hope they're stupid enough to knock her out again, which might, just barely possibly, cause Savamelekh to investigate.

"Hello!" Lucette says brightly, pinching Hosilla's cheek in a parody of an affectionate aunt. 

I will BITE OFF your FINGERS!!!

(Except not in so many words.)

Man, good luck trying to bite off dragon claws. Actually she'll have to be relatively careful not to cut the inside of her mouth on them, if she tries that. ...Actually Lucette should remove her claws from Hosilla's mouth so she doesn't, like, use them to knock herself back unconscious from blood loss or something. 

Blasted mongrels!

Hosilla sulks. And plans her revenge. She only needs them to leave her alone for a few minutes...

"So! What can you tell us about what you were doing to the Neathers? It wasn't the librarian's area of interest." 

"What, d'you want to get in line? Are you showing off for Savamelekh and me, so you're chosen for elevation?" She's being sarcastic, obviously, but in her current state it might be hard to tell what she's aiming for from her tone.

Condescending head-pat. "I'm not a Neather." 

"Could have fooled me." There's no real point to this conversation but the only alternatives she can see are torture and self-mutilation, so she'll take it.

"Well, don't feel too bad about being fooled, you're not the first person to make that mistake. I'm Terendelev's daughter." 

"You're -"

Hosilla starts laughing, a little shakily.

"So, what, Deskari killed your parents, and you and your friends ran underground, and then you found someone your own size to pick on?" Very valid of her, a real shame about Hosilla being in the way.

"Oh, nah, ending up underground was an accident. And Deskari only killed Terendelev; my other mother made off with her corpse before he could get around to killing her. I'm trying to get back to the surface and also rescue children, because," she gestures to herself, "Good, you know. Oh! Also, we noticed your Prisoner's Ring, so we're just going to haul you around for a while and not kill you or anything else that could maybe tip off the fucking vrolikai."  

Well, damn, that rules out one-half of her two escape plans! 

"Glad you're keeping me informed, don't let me keep you," she says with feigned disinterest.

"Nah," Lucette says, physically slinging Hosilla over her shoulder as the party moves back towards the entrance with the kids, "we're also going to have to supervise you to make sure you don't bite out your tongue or something. It'd be bad for the local tribes if the vrolikai came back as soon as the surfacer adventurers left." 

Oh, she thinks Hosilla's going to kill herself to get revenge? Nah, that's, like, plan D at best.

She doesn't want to annoy her captors too much, though, because freedom of speech is valuable, so she'll settle for a shrug. Being carried sucks but doesn't really register on the scale of 'being captured and tied up with all her men dead' to 'being lectured by Savamelekh for hours on end'.

Cool, cool. 

"Lann, if we recommend that the Neathers evacuate to the surface to get away from the vrolikai, how d'you think they'll take it? Will it improve our credibility any if we bring back Hovlan's body?"

Lann grimaces. "They - I mean we - I think some of us might take it poorly. Bravely going up to help save the city feels very different from running away from danger, even if the action's the same, you know?"

"People will probably ask, if we're not going crusading but trying to get away, is it really safer fighting demons up there than finding a dark corner of the tunnels to hide in until the danger passes? And once some decide to stay - the sick and old who'd need to be protected anyway, maybe one of the more remote tribes - others will start asking, is it right to go up to fight for others while our own are in danger here below? We could tell them there's nothing they could do against a vrolikai, and - I don't know what people will decide. I'm sorry."

"If there's a safe refuge, somewhere our people can stay on the surface that'd be safe from the vrolikai while the others went out to fight the lesser demons, I'm sure everyone would go for it. But if people see it as a choice of where to hide... they might not choose to hide somewhere unfamiliar, among strangers."

"...of course we have to tell them about the vrolikai, and I still think we should all go join the crusade, I just - wish I could be sure it was safer for those who won't be fighting."

"...Yeah. If it would soothe spirits, we could--just--mention the vrolikai and also exhort everyone to go crusading separately...probably a lot of what's going to be possible depends on how the crisis on the surface gets resolved."