Alrighty. He will bring this itinerary to the group, then.

His party can be located! Are they going to the manor house first, since it's closer than the succubus, or does he have some other plan?

Manor on the way. Maybe some of the scrolls will even be useful if they find a succubus.

Then they can set off!

The demons have apparently finished ransacking the manor house; most of the furniture has been overturned and destroyed, and all the easily-lootable valuables have been looted already. The scroll cache is still intact, though, hidden exactly where it was supposed to be. The cache contains several scrolls (including one Haste, two Web, one Suppress Charms and Compulsions, and various first-circle scrolls); it also includes some fancy paper suitable for scribing more, and several vials of spellbook-quality ink.

...The Chief didn't mention the ink, but he's not going to stop them from taking it, right? It's not like it can do the dead lady any good.

He can pick it up and the blanks too! Blai isn't going to leave it here in a cracked-open scroll cache that more demons could park in at any moment! If he tries to use it instead of returning it to the dead lady's husband to dispose of as he sees fit they will have words.

Well, it's not like he was going to be able to copy anything into his spellbook while they were on the move regardless. Hopefully the rich guy who owns the place is smart enough to notice that the wizards being able to fill up their spellbooks will help him to not be eaten by demons.

Anyway, once they've divvied up the scrolls between the wizards and they've had a chance to look them over they can carry on through the city.

Does that mean 'tell the party interesting facts about scrolls'? Nenio is pretty sure that means 'tell the party interesting facts about scrolls'. Did they know that skilled wizards have occasionally claimed to be able to prepare spells directly from scrolls, even if those spells were not in their spellbook? Unfortunately, none of them ever responded to her letters requesting permission to watch, which made it difficult to determine whether they were exaggerating their abilities.

On their way out of the manor, they see a couple other people, going into the manor. 

"—Oh, did you already get all the good stuff?" one of them asks in a disappointed tone.

Okay cool he just learned how to do this. Theoretically. Fuck. It looked achievable when Irabeth was doing it but all that's running through his head now is stuff like "you place yourselves in company with demons, which may explain how you have walked the streets without them taking you for suitable prey".

Irabeth... asked questions? It might have been loadbearing that she was specifically chewing out someone she had authority over... it's been too long a silence, it's going to go from "withering" to "dumb" any moment now.

"Are you normally thieves, or only when there's the added thrill of running across demons on the way between targets?"

"...You idiot, that's a paladin."

 "We haven't been stealing from any people," says the one who originally asked Blai the question. "It's not like dead people are getting much use out of their silverware."

"Oh? Did you attend the funerals of the occupants? And the readings of their wills?"

"I saw Deskari show up, seems like that's close enough."

"I saw that too, shall I take your possessions since you are clearly dead?"

On the one hand, he can't really blame the looters, but on the other hand that was really funny.

"How about this. We both go our separate ways, and if someone comes complaining that we took their stuff we'll give it back."

"Every time you speak, you leave me less convinced that it is best for the eventual recovery of the city that you walk through it freely."

 "Would you rather we have just tried to stab you—"

(The other guy elbows him.)

"Well, strictly speaking it would be worse, but mostly for you."

"Look, I don't think it helps either of us to get into a fight. We're not cultists, we haven't been attacking people, not even the ones who look really loaded."

 "Come on, you can't get mad at me and then say things like that. At least offer him a cut of the loot."

"He's a paladin, they're not allowed to take bribes."

"I am a cleric. If paladins had a monopoly on decent behavior I could not very well expect better from you. If you simply enjoy this activity, there are licit ways you could go about it, retrieving things for people who are sheltering away from home for what you might choose to refer to as a 'cut'. If you don't enjoy this activity then you're going to get yourselves killed at the hands of either of crusaders or demons, both wandering Kenabres in force and neither of whom are likely to be much swayed by this quality of argument, and then you will appear without any of your loot in the halls of Judgment having died doing something you didn't even enjoy; why?"

Oh, okay, so he is allowed to take bribes, and he's shaking them down for a share before he lets them go. That's kind of annoying but it makes sense.

"We'd be happy to make a donation to the people who are sheltering, sir."

"A donation... of the things you stole?"

Yes??? That's how bribing people to look the other way works???