does he have his holy symbol, he could stand to channel some energy maybe

He does have his holy symbol! He can channel energy! If this does anything to the wound, it's not anything he can feel.

"Hey, somebody!" (A different voice this time; this one belongs to a woman, and her Hallit has some sort of accent to it.) "We got a wounded fighter! Can we get a healer over here? Someone with more than just a Lay On Hands, I'm pretty sure he just channeled."

 "My, my, would you look at this?" (Male, different from the first voice, with a Mendevian upper-class accent, if Blai's met enough Mendevians to distinguish.) "But why would you drag a wounded fighter into the middle of the festival square? Couldn't he be carted off somewhere else, like... oh I don't know... an infirmary? Or an accommodating ditch?"

"Make room, everyone step back! Now, what's the matter? What happened to him?" (An elderly man comes into view, wearing his own symbol of Iomedae, with a stern expression; when he sees Blai's holy symbol, his face softens.) "That wound looks nasty — you said a channel didn't touch it?"

 "Yes, Prelate."

"Lesser Restoration." 

The pain in Blai's chest slightly recedes, and the worst of the bleeding stops, but the chest wound is still there and still painful.

He gulps slightly more air as the pain/oxygen tradeoff improves. ...he's never actually had Tongues cast on him, so his question is not "is this more like Tongues or more like Comprehend Languages", but: is it like Comprehend Languages? If it is he can't expect anyone to understand him in return. What does he have in his spell slots, is it still the same day - or has he been unconscious for all the intervening dawns -

He has the same spells that he remembers preparing at dawn this morning. If he's already expended any of them, they seem to have been... replenished, somehow? (Any food or water that he's created has disappeared.)

His subjective experience of the translation effect feels subtly different from and more comprehensive than a Comprehend Languages.

Maybe it's Tongues. "Thank you," he rasps. "Where am I?"

"You're in Kenabres," says the man who healed him. "Market Square, near the Inheritor's temple."

 "We found him barely alive outside the city walls," says the man who called for a healer.

The man who healed him frowns. "The enemy usually doesn't stray this close to the city, and my healing magic could barely touch your wound. Someone fetch Terendelev!"

(There are noises like an argument in the background, though it's still a little hard to focus on them, and then someone takes off running.)

"How did - I get to - Kenabres -" He's been there, once, when he was assigned to escort a Chelish fourth-circle party around the rim of the Wound for the teleport locations they would aspirationally be able to use in another few fights, but not for long.

"You don't recall why you're here?" says the man who healed him in a suspicious tone. "Where were you before?"

"Menador in Cheliax."

The man seems to find that incredibly suspicious. He squints at Blai for a couple moments.

"...Regardless, bearing weapons is not permitted during the festival, even if you are a fellow servant of the Inheritor. We will return your mace after the festival."

One of the crusaders attempts to pick up Blai's mace.

"- I don't think I'm - in festival attending condition - anyway - is there somewhere out of the way I can -"

"Terendelev is on her way now, she'll be able to heal you if anyone can."

It's then that a silver-haired woman stops by his side. "My dear Prelate — please, for the sake of the festivities, stop interrogating this poor man. He has been through enough already. Heal."

The wound in his chest closes and the pain recedes, leaving only the dull ache of a mostly-healed injury.

"There. You may rest in the Temple of the Inheritor if you would prefer to avoid the festivities, but either way, please be careful. This wound is no ordinary injury, and no weapon I have heard of in Mendev or Menador could have inflicted it. I have managed to get you back on your feet, but even my magic cannot heal you fully. Sooner or later, its pain may return."

"Thank you very much, Lady Terendelev. Which way is the temple, please?" That he did not visit last time he was here.

"It's just a short walk, right over there."

 "I can show him the way, ma'am," says the man who first called for a healer. Now that Blai can get a closer look at him, he seems to be a halfling, dressed in the same uniform as the rest of the Mendevian crusaders here.

He can probably get up now. Is his mace still on his person since he declined the festival invitation?

The man who ordered it taken is looking at him so suspiciously about it, but doesn't seem to feel like he has any grounds on which to overrule Terendelev.

Then he will go to a temple of Iomedae for the first time.

As he reaches the steps of the temple, the ground begins to shake. A few of the festival-goers shake off their magical disguises; vrocks swoop down from the sky; babaus appear seemingly out of nowhere. On the other side of the square there's something that might be a Vrolikai.

All of them start to attack the festival-goers, targeting civilians and crusaders more-or-less indiscriminately, save that all of them are steering clear of Terendelev. None of them are attacking Blai or his companion, at least not yet.

(Areelu Vorlesh had not been planning on calling down the attack quite this early, but needs must.)

That's - unusually bold, an unusually strong force - if they were holding a festival they can't've had any warning -

- he's not going to have much chance to be suspicious of how they aren't targeting him before he charges into the thick of it to drop a Prayer wherever it looks like it will go farthest.

One of the crusaders who sees this flashes him a grateful smile and then returns to attempting to smite the babau she's engaged with. 

Some of the demons notice him casting and decide he looks like a great next target! (Sure, they're not supposed to, but 'following extremely clear orders' is a bit of an advanced skill for demons.) Others of the demons notice him casting and decide they'd rather go after some squishy civilians rather than anyone who might possibly land a hit on them! This brimorak has apparently decided to ignore all of the actual people in favor of lighting random structures on fire!

Across the square, Terendelev is firing off Flame Strikes where the demons are clumped together, and the man who healed him seems to be holding his own against a Vrock. Most of the other crusaders are not doing nearly so well; the Prayer helps, but there's only so much can do for someone who's not even a strong enough paladin to be immune to fear.

There's a buzzing sound in the sky, and some sort of dark black cloud approaching the square from above.

IS THAT ACTUALLY FUCKING DESKARI okay whatever is going on here his job is to make sure the smallest possible number of demons, whether that number includes actually fucking Deskari or not, gets past the local defenses and disperses into the world. Step this way so he doesn't blind any crusaders and - Burst of Radiance - and then the mace comes out.

The crusaders appreciate this! They take the opportunity to take down a few more of the now-blinded demons.

Also, yes, it is in fact Deskari, accompanied by a cloud of locusts.

"Behold, crusader gods, behold, Iomedae, you poor Imposter," he says, his voice loud enough to shake the festival banners. "Your city will fall to me. Your followers will feed my hunger."

It's really very confusing that this is happening after the closure of the Worldwound but maybe Deskari just doesn't need such conveniences. He focuses on the adjacent demons. They aren't all dead and that's a problem.

However the demons got here, they seem no less vulnerable to being hit with a mace! This one is dead now. This one is trying to stab him — no, now it's running away? This dretch was already injured and goes down in a single hit.

"Deskari, Lord of Locusts, LEAVE. MY. CITY."

Terendelev moves like she's casting a spell, but when she completes the gesture, she's transformed herself into a dragon, as tall as the nearby buildings with a wingspan to match. She takes off towards Deskari, breathing a cloud of gas at him and his locusts—

And Deskari swings it at her once, twice, and she falls, her head cleaved straight from her body.

"Let the feast begin."

Wow, you hear about high-level fights being settled in a round or two but that was - yeah exactly that thing that just happened, he guesses. Is anyone already on prying a scale off for a Resurrection later, she's got to be worth the Arch-Healer's attention. If nobody's obviously doing it he'll maneuver his way through the demons to attempt it himself. Actually he'll do it even if someone is obviously doing that.

No one is currently doing that! He can push his way over some dead bodies and past the ongoing fighting towards Terendelev's body. (The demons seem to have converged on 'don't attack the guy with a mace who's actually managed to kill anyone.')

As he's peeling off the scales, the halfling from before — changes course and beelines directly for Blai, for some reason? He glances nervously between Blai, Deskari, and Terendelev's corpse.

"What're you going to do — fight or flee? If fleeing's your plan, let me help you out, I've got a scroll here with a good protective spell!"

(To someone with even the most basic familiarity with scrolls, the size and amount of ink suggests that it's clearly a first-circle spell, whatever it is.)

What in the fuck has possibly possessed this halfling to think this is an appropriate time to approach Blai with """a good protective spell""". The only first circle spell with a name that takes longer to say than that which Blai can think of is Refined Improvised Weapon. "Be about something more useful," he snaps. Scale off? Scale in pocket? Back to fighting?

Scale off! Scale in pocket!

Halfling flinches, reaches for ... a crossbow, apparently, but a pretty weird-looking crossbow? ... then apparently thinks better of it and ducks out of Blai's view.

At this point the demons solidly seem to be winning. There are a few crusaders still fighting, but they're clearly outnumbered by the demons, and no one seems to have any sort of plan for what to do about Deskari.

Yes, well, this is a fine way to die. Possibly he will wake up in three weeks in a temple with Arch-healer Naima standing over him and then go about his Convention business, if it's all that important. If it is not he will wake up in some afterlife and the more demons he gets the more likely it's Heaven.

Deskari has started swinging his enormous scythe at the square itself. Giant crevasse near this building, giant crevasse near this wagon, moderately sized crevasse near this banner—

—giant crevasse right where Blai was standing—

When Blai comes to, he's at the bottom of an enormous crevasse, at least fifty feet below the surface. He can still hear occasional shouts, but most of the noise from above has been replaced with the drone of locusts. 

Blai himself is remarkably uninjured, for someone who just fell fifty feet.

That's weird. He has... mysterious Feather Fall in addition to mysterious Tongues? But at least he has a channel left if he needs it. And Light. He lights up his holy symbol.

With the help of the Light, he can make out the contours of the cavern he's in. It extends all of about fifteen feet in the one direction, but much farther in the other direction, past the point where the tunnels fade into darkness again. 

"Hello?" a woman calls from farther down the tunnel when he casts the Light. "Is someone there? We could use some help over here!"

"Coming!" He hurries forward.

Down the hallway is a Garundian woman wearing a holy symbol of Iomedae, standing over a pile of rocks. She gives him a relieved smile when she sees his own holy symbol.

"Thank the Inheritor. There's someone trapped under these rocks, but I'm not strong enough to move them myself, can you give me a hand?"

He nods, gives each of them a Guidance, and sets about hauling.

Working together, they can uncover an injured woman in leather armor. She smiles weakly at them. "Thanks for the rescue."

She moves to get up, but winces. "Damn it, I think my leg's broken."

"Do you need a Moderate or just a Light?"

"A Light will get me back on my feet, at least. I think I'd need a Moderate to be at most of my strength, but I don't know what else is down here, it might be best to save it."

He nods and burns the Forbid Action for it. "Cure Light Wounds."

"Thanks for the help." She clambers to her feet. "I'm Anevia Tirabade, of the Eagle Watch." (Wince.)

"And I'm Seelah, paladin of Iomedae." She looks at Blai expectantly.

(Both Anevia and Seelah are speaking Hallit with an accent; Seelah's is more Katapeshi than anything else, and Anevia's is completely unrecognizable.)

"Select Blai Artigas. Would that we were meeting under better circumstances."

"You can say that again. I don't know what the city is going to do without Terendelev."

"That is among many things I do not know," he agrees. "I got a scale off of her, in case the Arch-Healer comes by at some point."

"The who now? It'd be worth the cost of the diamond, if we can get a cleric to come all the way out here, but if the demons are smart they'll have planned for that."

"...the Arch-Healer Naima Cottonet? My understanding is that she's some kind of arcane healer and not a cleric."

Probably whoever that is is really important where he's from? It would be great if she were actually a powerful caster and interested in helping out with the Wound, but even odds he's from some backwater where being able to cast a Restoration makes you some kind of hero out of legend.

"'Fraid I've never heard of her."

"I suppose not everyone can have. If more people may have fallen we should perhaps move along to find them."

Nodding all around.

A little further down the tunnel, a half-elven woman, covered in blood, is standing over a mutilated body, holding a rapier.

"Who's there?"

"Relax, friend, we're not demons or cultists! We fell down here when Deskari attacked. I'm Seelah, and this is Anevia and Select Blai. We're looking for a way to the surface."

She visibly relaxes, allowing her eyes to linger for a moment on Seelah and Blai's holy symbols. "I am ever so glad to hear that. I am Camellia, and I too fell victim to Deskari's... rampage."

...is there blood on the rapier?

Not at this moment! There's definitely blood on her hands, though, and blood on her outfit, and blood in her hair...

"Are you injured, miss?"

"No, Select, I was thankfully spared the worst harm of the fall." She glances at the mangled body of the man beside her. "Alas, I cannot say the same for him. I tried to heal him, but... I fear I was too late."

"You have quite a lot of blood on you, miss."

She sighs. "Yes, I am afraid I will most likely need to replace this entire outfit."

"Kenabres is overrun by demons, and you're worried about your outfit?"

"If you are not injured," says Blai, "and you attempted to heal this man, I would expect some blood on your fingertips, and a little transferred from there."

"Perhaps it would be so, with the magic of the gods, but the magic of the spirits can at times be more... personal."

Seelah frowns. "If she's Evil, she's not strong enough to detect, at any rate." Admittedly most people aren't, but probably she's not a demon in disguise or anything?

"I don't have Detect Magic today to check for an Undetectable Alignment, but it's probably possible to land well from this fall while too weak to detect. I would hardly know about the magic of the spirits. Are they well-known in the city, perhaps this is my own ignorance and you would have expected any passersby to be familiar such that you didn't think to disclaim unprompted."

She sniffs. "Even uncultured barbarians know about the shamans of Old Sarkoris."

"I've heard of the shamans, sure, but I've never heard of them being quite like... this. Only ever met a couple, though, and never for very long."

"I have met someone who called himself a shaman and he did not attempt to heal people with full body contact."

"Perhaps his spirit was simply less connected to the spark of life that runs through every living soul. Or perhaps he was deceiving you about the true nature of his powers."

"It is certainly always possible that someone is attempting to deceive me," says Blai levelly.

"I'm sure I misunderstand you, Select."

"That is also possible. Ser, what do you think?" he asks Seelah.

She fidgets with her holy symbol. "I've got a bad feeling about her, but... if we abandon her, and it turns out this was all a big misunderstanding, I don't think I could forgive myself."

"And - I didn't get your rank, Tirabade?"

"Head of Counterintelligence for the Eagle Watch." She laughs bitterly. "Fat lot of good I did us today. I say we bring her, I'd bet good money she's up to something but if she turns on us it's three to one. I want her where I can see her, though."

She sniffs.

"Very well, I concur."

Then they can proceed down the tunnel!

The tunnel has: More corpses! Another of Terendelev's scales, shining as brightly as Blai's Light! Centipedes the size of Blai's arm!

He picks up the scale and gives it to Seelah. "Since I already have one, in case both sets of possessions don't make it out for whatever reason."

Do centipedes like being hit with his mace?

She tucks it among her possessions reverently.

The centipedes do not like that at all. All they wanted was to kill the intruders and instead the intruders are killing them? They will try to bite him about this but they aren't very good at it.

He does have a Delay Poison but it's far better not to need it.

The centipedes are quickly dispatched.

Further down the tunnel brings: More corpses! Another scale! Flies the size of Camellia! Lizard longer than Blai is tall!

Anevia can have this scale. The flies and also the lizard can have the mace.

All they did was attack a heavily-armed group of adventurers and now they're being killed about it? Life is so unfair.

(None of the rest of his companions have nearly as much fighting experience as he does, but all of them are at least competent with their weapons; Seelah fights with a longsword, Anevia fights with a longbow, and Camellia has a little spellcasting of some sort in addition to her rapier.)

Down the hallway is a room with the remains of some sort of artificial structure. Crumbling stone columns still bear traces of more elaborate carvings, and even many of the stones in the rubble were clearly worked by someone's hands.

The man digging through the rubble now is a — tiefling? Maybe Abyss-spawn tieflings look like this? He almost looks like he's divided in two, one half human and the other half lizardfolk or something, but even the human-looking half still has a large curved horn protruding from the head. 

"No, I can't just walk away," he's saying as they enter. "It's got to be here somewhere." He notices them and blinks rapidly. "—Wenduag!"

A... blue spider-person?... steps out from the darkness in the back of the room. "Lann? Did you find — who are you?"

What the fuck are these guys. Well, besides "not attacking on sight", which is a relatively promising thing for them to be. "Select Blai Artigas."

The rest of Blai's party gives their names as well.

Lann seems cheered by the Iomedaeans, at least. "The four of you are crusaders from the surface, then? Do you know what's happening up there? We felt the earthquake, but we don't exactly get a lot of news from the surface."

"I am presently in a very confusing and irregular situation but am I suppose temporarily operating as a crusader. Deskari attacked in person heralded by a considerable force of lesser demons. Lady Terendelev was killed."

"Terendelev was killed?" He glances at Wenduag. "In that case we have to get to the surface."

"Lann, if you try to bring everyone through the Shield Maze, they're all going to die."

"What is the Shield Maze?"

"It's a deadly labyrinth infested with monsters and cultists. Most people who go in never come out."

"Our people's stories say there's a path to the surface through the maze." He sighs. "Going alone would be suicide, but if we can just find the angel's sword, we can convince Chief Sull to call together the tribes—"

"What, and get all of them killed too? Is this about the kids again? The kids are dead by now, Lann."

"You don't know that!"

"...presumably if there are cultists they have some way in and out for supplies?"

Wenduag fidgets with the end of her scarf. "However they're getting them, it's hidden well enough that no one's managed to find it."

"But some of them are human, right? So there has to be some way to the surface, we just need to find it."

"Or they're doing it by teleport, are they powerful enough to do that?"

Lann looks pointedly at Wenduag.

"I don't think any of the cultists can teleport. Maybe some of the demons." Fidget.

"Aren't the Wardstones supposed to prevent that?"

"Well, they clearly weren't preventing it today."

"It'd depend where relative to the line the relevant parts of the maze might be, I imagine, even under non-Deskari conditions."

"Most demons can't bring passengers, so if humans aren't common underground the cultists must be coming down somehow. Not every day Deskari cuts a hole in the middle of Market Square."

Lann nods emphatically. "That sounds right to me."

"You're just saying that because you already wanted to try to make it through the Maze."

"If someone," the spiderperson perhaps, "could climb up the crevasse and get rope, it might be better to go up that way? Though I also don't know if Kenabres is in any position to gracefully receive you."

On the one hand, her extra limbs don't actually do that, but on the other hand, if she can come up with a way to do it anyway then maybe she can stop them all from poking their nose in the Shield Maze?

"Don't suppose you've got anything that could help me get a proper grip on the wall?"

"Wendu, we can't just leave the kids behind!"

"Chasing after corpses won't help anyone!"

"With a sufficiently climbable rope the stronger climbers can make several trips to get all your people wherever they care to be even if the children and infirm cannot make the climb alone, and then when a sufficiently powerful strike team can be made available they, unencumbered by civilians other than those they are rescuing, may be able to use whatever intelligence you have on the maze to clear it out."

"Would a strike team be willing to stick their necks out for a bunch of mongrel kids?"

"I don't know. If no one sufficiently powerful is willing to do this, then it is unlikely to be done, even if you try to bundle the mission's completion with other things people might otherwise wish to see accomplished."

That sounds an awful lot like 'no, but we're too polite to say it.'

"I'll help get everyone else safely up, but if you can't find a strike team wiling to take the job I'm going back even if I have to go by myself. ...I still want to find the sword, though, it'll be easier to get the rest of the tribes to follow us up to the surface."

For fuck's sake. She's not really sure how a 'strike team' is supposed to work, but maybe she can tell them that there are a bunch of incredible magical treasures hidden in the maze and then point them to the room with the elemental or something?

"It would really help a lot if you had some idea what circle of party would be called for to accomplish the task."

"Dyra's the only caster in our whole village, and she can't walk quite right. But Wendu's been in and lived to tell the tale." Pointed look at the spider-creature.

"Me and some of the other kids used to dare each other to go in. I'm the only one out of all of us who's still around, and I wouldn't be if I were picking the kinds of fights Lann wants to pick. Lann and I are the best hunters in our tribe, but I don't know how that compares to uplander magic."

"You're - an archer? At what distance can you hit a man-sized target more than three times of four?"

"If it's not moving?" (Why would she be trying to hit something that couldn't even move?) "At five paces I could hit it every time, no problem. At ten or twenty paces I think I'd nearly always hit, unless I got really unlucky. Most of the time the caves are too twisty to line up a shot much further than that."

(If she's telling the truth, she's definitely a better shot than a green recruit, but a veteran archer from the Worldwound would still be better than her.)

"Then you might be a fit party member for a second circle caster if you were forming up into such a group but most likely not higher than that. Survival alone and not success, though, means luck as often as power, so the maze might want a stronger team."

She shoots an I-told-you-so look at Lann.

"Much as I'd love to watch the pair of you squabble like animals, perhaps we should see about sending our arachnoid friend here to the surface for rope?"

"I don't think anyone is going to be in a position to sell her rope until the combat has died down and I don't know how long that might take, but probably with those numbers longer than this."

"Would it work to tie a lot of smaller ropes together?"

"With enough skill at knots."

"We've got some smaller ropes back at the camp. It might be worth a try."

Nod.

Lann is not happy about abandoning the search for the sword or trusting the fate of his tribesmen to a bunch of strangers, but he doesn't actually have an argument against trying this first.

"It's not far, we can show you the way. ...Mind you, I don't know how many people will want to take apart their huts to make a big rope."

So just threaten them until they give in, obviously. "If you can't even get them to help with that you'll never convince them to come up to the surface."

"I guess you're right."

The path to the not-tiefling's camp has: giant piles of rocks! (Lann and Wenduag clear these out of the way; both of them are much stronger than a typical human.) Man-sized spiders! More miscellaneous large bugs!

It doesn't seem like Wenduag was exaggerating her skill. Lann's aim is a little worse than hers, but his shots are faster, and he's excellent at noticing incoming blows just in time to dodge out of the way.

Blai is going to be the frontline combatant in this group and that is OK. He doesn't even feel the need to blow a Divine Favor on any of these; that's worth saving for demons.

The village is significantly poorer than anything Blai has encountered in Cheliax. Some of their huts are barely staying upright, and most of their tools are ceramic or wood rather than metal, though they do seem to have a few metal knives, currently in use gutting overlarge rats and bizarre eyeless fish.

A wrinkled mongrel man looks over their group as they enter. "More uplanders, eh?" he says.

(Other people Blai may find notable are the middle-aged human man standing off to one side, and the mongrel woman wearing a holy symbol of Abadar sitting at a table nearby.)

Camellia's eyes linger on the human man for a moment, but then she looks away.

An Abadaran! He will nod politely at the Abadaran! And at the old mongrel, sure. Is the human going to explain himself, uh, at all.

The human was waiting for them to finish with the chief, but he'll speak up when he notices Blai looking at him. "Horgus Gwerm — no doubt you've heard of me, but it's a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I fell into the tunnels during Deskari's attack, but it's good to see signs of... civilization. I don't suppose you'd be interested in taking a commission to escort me back to the surface?"

(It doesn't take much familiarity with Mendevian clothing styles to guess that this man is extremely wealthy. He seems to have sustained minor injuries during the fall, though his clothing itself is unharmed.)

The Abadaran waves happily at their group! 

"I'm afraid I don't recognize the name, I'm not local. I believe there is a plan in place to make an exit and I would expect you to get best results from traveling with the group should that prove successful."

He pinches the bridge of his nose. "You must be very new indeed not to have heard of House Gwerm! We may not be nearly as prominent as certain families, but we more than make up for it in our patronage of Kenebres's cultural events — the attack on the festival couldn't have happened at a worse time, really—"

Camellia is giving him a Look. 

"The Gwerm family is minor nobility in Kenabres," she clarifies. 

"Noble or not, it's all the same down here," says the wrinkled man who greeted them. "What brings you to our village? I'm afraid we don't have much to offer guests, but we can give you some fish stew once it's cooked..."

"The last time I was in Kenabres I did not learn its nobility, and it was some time ago, I apologize, Lord Gwerm." Back to important things. "I have a Create Food prepared," he offers. "It might not feed the entire village alone but it can supplement what you have.

Horgus Gwerm seems appeased by this. "It is good to be among servants of the gods, especially at times like these."

 "You must be very powerful, to conjure food out of nothing," says the wrinkled man. "Magic the likes of that has not been seen down here since our ancestors first sought refuge beneath the surface."

"Yes, yes, everyone loves the uplander. We need as much rope as you can get so we can go back up top, got it?"

"I don't know if that's a good idea, Wenduag. The surface has always been dangerous for our people, and if the End Times are truly upon us I cannot imagine it will be any safer."

"Blame Lann. He's the one who won't shut up about our 'duty'."

"Create Food is third circle. I can take requests, but everything will come out undersalted and when I woke up unexpectedly in Kenabres I was without my bag, where I kept my salt."

Miscellaneous people he has not been introduced to want to know if he can make fried rats on a stick, or diced rats on a bed of moss, or fish stew but less chewy.

Horgus Gwerm will gently suggest that perhaps Blai could also make ... the sort of food they make in his homeland, as a form of cultural exchange?

What about roast apples with custard?

Can his spell do alcohol, or just water?

"...Can it make a rope if I eat the rope after?"

"I am not sure if I will do rats in any preparation justice, but I can do fish stew. I will need a pot in which it may appear and I can attempt to imitate the sort with which I grew up if that is desirable. Roast apples with custard is quite doable. I think alcohol is not. I... do not think any edible rope would hold the weight we have in mind."

The wrinkled mongrel thanks him, provides him with a large ceramic pot, and ushers Lann over to a corner of the camp to have some kind of whispered discussion.

 "How much rope do you need?" asks the Abadaran. "Some people would probably be willing to exchange rope for your food. Or to exchange money for your food and then rope for your money, but getting everyone down here to agree on which currencies to take is kind of a work-in-progress." 

(Her tone suggests that she is not at all sure Blai has encountered the concept of exchanging his labor for other things he values.)

"The rope plan is only worthwhile if someone can freeclimb the crevasse, which hasn't been established, but -" His best estimate of the depth of the crevasse.

"Hmmm. What sort of timeframe are you hoping for? Will you have time to prepare more spells or do you strongly value reaching the surface today? Are you willing to purchase rope at a discounted price corresponding to your likelihood to succeed, or are you only willing to purchase rope for a plan that will definitely work?"

"I don't think there is a terrific hurry... Fiducia, I am not actually sure how, if we are doing this transactionally at all, I might have wound up with sole responsibility for the purchase."

"—If everyone who would like you to have rope wants to get together to purchase it from everyone who has rope, that seems perfectly reasonable and I'm happy to facilitate it! I wanted to suggest that you could sell your Create Food before you cast it, in case it changes how you allocate the food you're creating, but if you'd prefer to cast the spell now I won't interrupt you."

 "I don't suppose you people take gold on credit, to be paid once we reach the surface?" says Horgus Gwerm, not sounding very hopeful.

"I... could probably find someone... but I don't think many people will accept an outsider's promises of future payment at any rate you're willing to offer."

 Gwerm looks at Blai. "I am willing to offer your party a thousand gold crowns if you can return me safely to the surface, divided amongst you however you feel is fair. If you want to spend some of it purchasing, ah, rope, you have my permission to allocate it thus, so long as they understand that I will not be able to pay until we reach the surface."

That's a frankly outrageous amount of money for hiring a thrown-together party of this average circle though that is somewhat ameliorated by there being no one else to hire and no payment until the mission is completed. "It does not sound as though I can directly spend it on purchasing rope, but if the Fiducia is willing to broker - shares of the Create Food to be sold for rope - then I suppose that may work out. If someone can make the climb, which I don't believe anyone's yet confidently claimed to be able to do."

"If it keeps you all out of the Shield Maze I'll try."

Seelah looks Wenduag up and down. "I don't mean to insult you, but do you think that's going to... work?"

"It's what I've got. Take it or leave it."

"Don't suppose any of you've got a summoning spell prepared?" She looks at Camellia. "Or a familiar, or anything like that?"

"I'm afraid the spirits have not blessed me with the companionship of such a creature."

"I can prepare a summon tomorrow but I have a pretty limited command of the relevant languages to ask it to do anything much, and that much rope will be quite heavy."

"If you expect to want to keep your own slots open, I can sell you an Ant Haul tomorrow in exchange for... hmmmm... a dinner-and-breakfast portion of the Create Food spent on roast mushrooms for me? I also accept surfacer gold, although to take it on a promise I'd want someone to vouch that Horgus Gwerm is honest and keeps his word."

The corners of her smile twitch. "Lord Gwerm is Lawful, yes."

"I can't say he's honest, but he keeps his word. If he says he's good for the money he's not going to stiff you."

"Does anyone have a good command of Utopian or Celestial, to tell an Ant Hauled eagle to bring a rope - and, I suppose, a note, the eagle won't be able to tie the rope to anything - to the top of the crevasse?"

Everyone else glances between each other.

"I know a couple phrases in Celestial?" says Anevia. "I could tell it to 'smite evil' and point at the top of the rift, and hope it gets the picture?" Long pause. "I assume a servant of the Inheritor's got no way to get anything that speaks Shadowtongue."

Camellia raises an eyebrow at Anevia.

"I could attempt to entreat the spirits to grant me magic of relevance, but I have no way to be certain whether it would work until I make the attempt."

"I bet I could get it to go up if I threw rocks at it and missed on purpose."

"I am not optimistic about any of these plans. I could prepare a Share Language but I think it might simply fizzle, on an animal target."

"Don't suppose there's any way you can get one that speaks Hallit if you ask really nicely?"

(Anevia does not sound very optimistic that this plan will work)

"I heard a story once about an adventurer who tied the end of his rope to an arrow and shot it clean across a river. No idea if it's true, though."

"A lantern archon or an arbiter inevitable would have truespeech, but I don't think either could manage the rope even with an Ant Haul. I suppose I could Planar Inquiry one of those and send it to ask for rope to descend from above."

"You could get an archon and an eagle, and have the archon tell the eagle what it's supposed to do? Kind of a lot of slots to spend on one rope, though, it feels like there's got to be a better way. Don't suppose Abadar's got anything helpful?"

"I can get a Floating Disk as a domain spell, but I've never found a way to get it more than a few feet off the ground."

"Generally speaking they can't unless you can; it'd follow you if you flew."

"Can clerics do that?"

"Most cannot. If you get Floating Disk as a domain spell you will be able to do so should you reach third circle."

She looks at him with big eyes. "Wow. That's so cool. ...I'm not an adventurer, but it's still cool."

"...We could ask Abadar to bump her up to third? Can you pay him to do that? I dunno, I'm running out of ideas."

"Abadar does do fiat circling for the Pharaoh of Osirion in particular, but we must assume it is phenomenally expensive and none of us, not even Lord Gwerm, can afford it."

"The proposal to employ a Planar Inquiry seemed the most reliable to me," says Horgus Gwerm, "but I defer to your judgment. Even an imperfect plan seems superior to living out the rest of our days like this." He gestures around the village.

"A Planar Inquiry would in the best case eat up quite a bit of the promised gold in payment for the outsider but perhaps we cannot do better."

"Is it possible to pay a lantern archon on credit, or would we need to donate our jewelry to the cause?"

The latter would be a problem for him, since his 'jewelry' is all from a Sleeves of Many Garments, but he's sure he can persuade Camellia to give up anything but her amulet if necessary. (He's never understood why his Mendevian brethren are so insistent on paying extraordinary sums for individual outfits, when a Sleeves of Many Garments can replicate any of them at less total expense.)

"I expect that a lantern archon would accept my or the Fiducia's or Ser Seelah's word on it but I do not at this time command such funds directly enough to be thus comfortable promising them to a cause of the archon's choice. Perhaps you have an account with the surface Bank of Abadar and could write a note for the archon to deliver while it's up there? - an Inquiried archon would be really present, not summoned, so I would dearly wish to have some way to be sure that whatever reinforcements have arrived and the demons have been driven back and, ideally, that the bank in question still exists, lest some demon take a shot at it..."

"I would certainly be willing to authorize the lantern archon to withdraw an appropriate sum from my account, if that's sufficient for the spell. If the Bank of Abadar in Kenabres has been destroyed, it would also be able to withdraw the sum at any other branch, but I admit that making the journey to Nerosyan might be rather difficult under the circumstances."

"Quite. Without better intelligence on the state of the surface I am not at all sure I can countenance risking an archon; if we cannot think of anything else I'll have to pray on it. We are for the moment at least not in immediate danger that there's any call for a hasty decision."

"It doesn't sound like you're planning to, but if you do end up deciding to purchase one of my spells, I'll need to know by the evening before so that I can prepare it," says Dyra.

"Understood."

At this point Lann walks back over to the group, frowning. He kicks at the ground.

"Chief Sull doesn't want to bring the rest of the tribe up to the surface. He thinks it's too dangerous."

"We're the descendants of the first crusaders! This is what we were born for! If we don't try to help, what's even the point?"

"If you don't enjoy living underground then attempting to migrate to the surface is a reasonable thing to do. Even your civilians can still support a war effort by producing the supplies a military needs, by having some of their number enlist, by paying taxes to those who organize those projects - but today a demon lord attacked in person. The effort of getting you integrated into whatever response is going on up there and provisioned and trained and so on would better have happened a year ago. A month ago, even."

"I've tried to get a group together to fight through the Shield Maze before, but no one listened. There hasn't been another way up in thousands of gongs, until today. But if things up there are as bad as you say, that makes it more important to help, not less."

"It is easily possible for untrusted new recruits, especially ones who come with a large civilian population, to be more trouble than they are worth if they come at a time when everyone has more important things to do than evaluate and settle them. If you had already been there when the demons arrived, you could have been of some help. But whether your arrival now aids or hinders the response depends on a lot of things we do not know."

"Most of us are hunters, not civilians." He sighs. "But if you really think we should leave everyone else here for now and come back for them later, it's not like I know how uplanders run their armies."

"My perspective as any single perspective is limited. I think this is not a time for the lot of to rush into Kenabres bow already drawn trailing children and elderly behind you. An adventuring party's worth, or even several of those, could more easily find a place, I'd expect."

Nod. "We can point out the best hunters, but if most of the tribe is staying here, enough of the hunters need to stay back to keep everyone fed..."

"The rats and fish are hunted, not just - trapped or netted? Or they aren't the standard fare?"

"We catch the fish in nets. We hunt the rats, and other game when there is any, and it's also the hunters who keep the giant bugs away from Neathholm."

"And here I thought you were about to tell me that mongrels consider the corpses of giant flies to be a delicacy."

That reminds Blai, maybe now that they're in something like a civilization they should see if the mongrels are equipped to lawfully arrest Camellia on suspicion of murder. ...he's not sure it's a great idea. She's docile right now, and the mongrels do not seem to be a powerful people easily equipped to hold casters, even novice ones. So instead. "That reminds me, we should set a watch. Do you normally do this - I suppose perhaps except for the Fiducia you have no particular connection to the time of day so perhaps someone is simply awake at all times?"

"Most people sleep at around the same time — makes it easier to plan meals and so on — but there are always some people awake at night. We won't be offended if you'd rather keep your own watch, though. —There's an empty hut you all are free to sleep in if you'd like."

"What is the added benefit of sheltering in a hut while already in a cave?"

"Keeps out the bugs. ...The little bugs, not the man-sized ones. And it's warmer."

"That makes sense. It's room enough for how many at once?"

"It should fit all of you if you don't mind getting cozy."

"We are not most of us previously acquainted. So, another reason to have a watch rotation."

Right. Well, obviously they can't give Camellia a watch by herself, but leaving her out entirely would be more conspicuous. It's probably safest to pair her with... Blai, he's the hardiest, and if she decides to go for someone who's sleeping he should be competent to stop her long enough to rouse everyone. They should still be far enough out from dawn that they can split the schedule three ways and get everyone at least six hours. If she really needed Gwerm to take a watch, she could probably spin it, but it'd involve horribly insulting the mongrels, and that doesn't really seem worth it.

"Right, Camellia, Select Artigas, you two can take first watch, so you can get a nice unbroken block of sleep before you have to prepare your spells. I'll take second watch. Seelah, you can take third. Any objections?"

"Fine by me."

"I suppose that is acceptable."

Clerics do not need unbroken sleep to prepare spells and he's not sure if shamans do but he certainly likes unbroken sleep and if she stays up late Camellia's that much less likely to decide to pull something instead of crashing when it's her turn to lie down. "Very well. But first I should Create us some supper. Ten minutes."

And everybody's suggestions can be incorporated into a nice big feast spread.

Everyone is extremely enthusiastic about this!

Some of the children in the village want to know if they have stories about fighting demons. Or other monsters, that would also be okay, but they especially want to hear about fighting demons.

He can probably adequately sanitize some stories about fighting demons so they are still true and do not call into question how exactly he spent most of the last twenty years, sure. Especially if they don't have to be firsthand stories.

The children are so excited about this!

Seelah has a few stories about fighting monsters on the way up to Kenabres, but none of them are nearly as popular.

After dinner, Dyra is selling spots in a channel for anyone who wants them for one seashell or equivalent. Horgus Gwerm pulls Anevia into a corner for a quiet conversation. Lann attempts to correct one of the kids' aim with a shortbow. 

Does Blai have anything else he wants to try to do before the party rests for the night?

Well, anybody might choose to find it interesting that he's setting up a chessboard but he'll play alone if that's not the case.

A kid with furry shoulders and claws watches from a short distance. After a few minutes, he approaches and starts to ask questions, under the apparent belief that Blai is reenacting battles between the crusaders and the demons.

"This isn't - representative of anything. It's a game."

"Oh. ...Does it make you better at fighting demons?"

"Not really."

"So it's... pretend?"

"...something like that. Yes."

"...Okay."

The child wanders off to talk to the other surfacers and leaves him to his game. No one else interrupts him.

Look, kid, there aren't any demons here right now, he's got a suspected murderer to keep half an eye on, and he's obliged to have fun once in a while. He will sit up playing chess with himself for his whole watch period.

...When Camellia notices that he's continuing the chess into their watch, she will offer to play against him.

"Only if you wish to, of course, but I'm sure that playing against yourself can hardly match the thrill of the real thing."

Is it in some sense fucked up to play chess against someone whom you are going to have arrested at the first real opportunity? ...no, not really, he doesn't think? You're not supposed to solitarily confine people and if you are going to visit someone who has already been arrested you might as well play chess with them then if they offer and there is no obvious discontinuity except insofar as she might possibly conceive of playing chess with her as some kind of armistice, which would be really very stupid of her, he made his suspicions pretty clear. ...can he safely assume she is not stupid, given that she stood over a guy while covered in his blood and tried to play it off really badly. Maybe not? Is there a good way to make this plain without provoking an immediate fight, and if there isn't, should he provoke the fight, or not. He pops his present Guidance on this question.

...if she's stupid, nothing he can say that is not at least potentially provocative will get through to her, and if she is not stupid she already knows the score. There is no point in saying something coy and hedgey. He can't think of anything direct to say ("this does not constitute an agreement not to turn you over to the Watch as soon as we reach the surface"??) which doesn't risk her flying off the handle here and now while everyone else is trying to sleep. He'll just have to avoid making any positive statements about not arresting her, he guesses.

"White or black?"

"White, if you please."

Camellia has clearly played before, and knows the standard openings particularly common among the Mendevian elite. Her greatest weakness is her overaggressive playstyle; she's competent enough to avoid allowing her pieces to be captured for no benefit, but it isn't difficult to bait her into exposing a valuable piece by giving her the opportunity to capture a weaker one. She has a habit of licking her lips whenever she captures one of Blai's pieces.

Non-Chelish people yelling with their faces is usually less disturbing because usually they are not yelling I AM A MURDERER. He will defeat her and offer a handicap for the next game.

She accepts graciously. She uses a different opening this time, but otherwise keeps her strategy broadly the same.

The strategy of yelling that she's a murderer? That one? The handicap is at least enough that he can't casually bait her at every opportunity, he does need some of his pawns to live.

If he's being conservative with his pawns, she will take the opportunity to make some more aggressive moves towards his other pieces. She's staring at the board intently.

The only piece that is decisive in winning or losing is the king. If he has a strategy which will allow him to checkmate her king, it does not matter, at all, if she takes any piece not participating in that checkmate beforehand.

Then he will win, again! Does he want to play again?

Always. (He'll take another one of his pawns off.)

She gets much closer to victory this time, whether from the extra handicap or just luck! When she's getting very close she misses an opportunity to force mate-in-four in favor of exposing her own queen to capture his.

Then they will finish the game with no queens and the widowed white king in checkmate.

Again? (If he keeps increasing the handicap, she will eventually manage to win.)

Yes, he'll nudge it up by degrees till she manages a win and then they can park there - for the rest of their watch, if she's game.

She is perfectly willing to do this. The rest of their watch passes uneventfully. 

And then they can pass it on to the next shift and get some sleep.

Camellia does not murder anyone during the night.

Dawn comes at the usual time. (No one down here has enough sense of what time it is to wake him in advance, but the intuitive sense that he should wake up and pray is perfectly functional.)

Oh good. Hup.

If they don't think of a way up the crevasse they are eventually going to have to try the shield maze.

He'll take a summon - he will in fact take a third circle summon, it's a good generic option and can turn into thirty seconds of lantern archon instead of thirty seconds of axiomatic boar depending on the needs of the situation. Burst of Radiance served him well yesterday. He does not need Spark; he'll take a Detect Fiendish Presence in its place. Bless, an Abundant Ammunition since they're big on archery down here... Weapons Against Evil, he can do that one now... Air Bubble. Divine Favor as usual in the domain slot. He'll keep the Delay Poison in case a centipede gets somebody. He doesn't have foci for Shield Other but it does cross his mind, his party being squishier than he is. ...Spear of Purity, is that a real spell or a sex joke - aha, it's a real spell. .....Lay of the Land. Since they might need to do the maze. Qualm and Prayer.

Also, Iomedae, he's really confused. He should probably have examined these mysterious bracers earlier. He's really feeling not having his armor. He's looking likely to be late for the convention, unless the archmages swing by to curbstomp Deskari and pick him up while they're there.

Oh, it's that (very confusing) soul — huh, it looks like it's now in a position to actually take any actions that achieve its goals! That has the potential to be extremely valuable! In expectation it would in fact be worth an extraordinary outlay of resources to keep him alive and return him to the surface, even considering the substantial resources she is already allocating towards containing the immediate emergency, but she has worse visibility on many aspects of the situation relevant to assessing which of the plans he's considered are likely to work and will unless he indicates otherwise presume him competent to pick a suitable one. Tiny payment to Abadar for information on his cleric, it's worth it in expectation in case she's missing something obvious — okay, several of the alternate plans specifically rely on that cleric preparing specific spells that she is not in fact preparing.

Blai can have exactly the spells he requested.

Whereupon, if there are no pressing emergencies, he will examine his mysterious bracers that have appeared in the same subjective instant as his bag and armor vanished.

The bracers are metal, in an unfamiliar style, and fit perfectly around his wrists; if he pokes a finger at the inside, they resize to fit.

The right bracer is inscribed with "Blai Artigas" and the left bracer is inscribed with "I promise." The writing on the left bracer is Hallit, but he nevertheless understands it perfectly.

...Detect Fiendish Presence was probably the right call for today but hopefully he will have the slot to spare for Detect Magic at some point. Do they come off?

They do!

With the bracers off, he can no longer read the left one, except insofar as he presumably remembers what it says. (The right one still just has his name.)

How the fuck did he come by monogrammed bracers of Tongues.

Well. He'll wear them.

They continue to fit perfectly!

Does he want to do anything else before he touches base with the rest of his party?

He will grab a leftover roll-with-an-egg-in-it from last night if the mongrels didn't eat all of those; what are the party all up to?

Camellia is packing up the materials that she apparently uses to commune with the spirits. (None of it is obviously murder-related; it appears to consist mainly of dried plants.)

Seelah is polishing her armor, looking more cheerful than she did yesterday.

Anevia is still sleeping. (So is Horgus Gwerm.)

How-Do-You-Turn-"Head Of Counterintelligence"-Into-A-Usable-Rank-To-Address-Someone-By Tirabade has some of a broken leg to sleep off; Blai is unsure but charitably perhaps so does Lord Gwerm, who must also have fallen.

Are Wenduag and Lann around?

It takes a minute to find them, but here they are having an argument in the corner of the village. 

"...just set your hand on fire," Wenduag is saying. "What do you even want it for? You already agreed to drop it with Sull."

"An angel's sword could still be useful even if we aren't trying to convince anyone of anything. We'll be fighting demons — oh, hello, Select."

"Good morning. Is the setting one's hand on fire metaphorical?"

"Depends who you ask. ...It belonged to the angel Lariel, and people say that when our ancestors tried to wield it, it burned anyone who touched it. But no one's seen it since before I was even born."

She hisses. "It'd burn any one of us. You just think you're special." She jerks her head at Blai. "Maybe it wouldn't burn him, or the paladin lady. I'm sure Heaven likes them just fine. But that doesn't mean it wants you."

"If the idea is to get a magical weapon into the hands of the forces of Good it may not matter very much if it's picky."

"Exactly! Gather up the rest of your party, it'll be easier to find it the more hands we have looking."

"I will ask them. I'm not in command." He drifts back that way.

Anevia and Horgus have not woken up in the last five minutes. Seelah has donned her armor. Camellia has not murdered any of them.

"Lann remains interested in looking for the purported angel sword."

"It's probably just a barbarian legend, but if you're set on looking for it I suppose I would be willing to help."

Seelah looks indignantly at her. "These people are our allies! Just because their houses aren't as nice as the ones in Kenabres doesn't mean they're lying."

"They wouldn't have to be lying to be operating on thin information, Ser, and they might be. But the sword could be real and if real is probably valuable."

Nod. "Still, no sense in wasting time. Lead on."

Blai nods and beckons Lann over. (And wonders if Camellia is working on actively circling up to evade arrest later or something, but there's no helping that; anything powerful enough to help her is powerful enough that he'd be putting someone else's life at risk having her sit out.)

Here's Lann! "The stories of our ancestors say that they left it near Lariel's grave. —That's where we were looking for it when we first met you."

"If the location is known so precisely why hasn't it been collected before?"

"It's probably under one of the big piles of rubble. Not a lot of people want to dig through a pile of rocks just to find a sword that they're scared might burn them."

Well, it's not like Blai didn't know that they weren't throwing particularly capable adventures who do capable adventurer things, he supposes. He will bap everybody with Guidances and start hauling rocks.

It's just a short walk back to Lariel's grave, and then there are plenty of rocks to go around. He has to refresh the Guidance several times as he digs through rocks, rocks, more rocks, even more rocks—

This rock looks much like the rest, but when he moves it out of the way there's something shiny and metallic under it.

"I may've spotted something." Will it tug loose?

The moment he touches it, the metal begins to glow, starting with the hilt of the sword and expanding in an instant to fill the room. His companions are no longer visible, and the columns of the room stand intact, with none of the piles of rubble he was searching through a moment earlier.

 Lariel's grave, too, is gone. In its place, Blai can see an angel, badly injured, lying on the ground, hand gripping a sword; in the same moment, he is the angel, and through the angel's eyes he can see a crowd of people, people he had come down from Heaven to protect, standing around him and closing off all escape. The wound on his chest, or perhaps the angel's, is bleeding again. To one side of him is a girl, terribly wounded, and a dreamlike sense of certainty tells him both that every other person he can see betrayed him, tricked him, left him to die the final death of an outsider, and that this girl alone fought by his side so that he could have even the tiniest chance of victory. The others jeer at them, jeer at him. They will die here, they say, and he will have bought nothing by his sacrifice.

There is anger burning in the angel's chest, fear twisting in the angel's stomach. He is running out of time, and he knows it. The same sense Blai would normally have for his own spells tells him that he has a healing spell left, a weak one. It would probably not be enough to save the girl, even if she managed to escape. It would certainly not be enough to save him. Or, with his other hand, he could take his sword, call on its magic, and try to strike down the traitors. But even if he could somehow kill every last one of them, he knows there is another power, far stronger than any of them, hiding somewhere far beyond his reach, and it is too late for him to defeat it. Either path will probably be futile, but inaction will certainly be.

The pain is immaterial, the mockery is immaterial. Annihilation of the soul is material and getting his ally out makes that happen only half as much - wicked people being free to kill again matters and cutting some of them down would make them less effective at it - Iomedae, what would You have of me - She doesn't answer, of course.

When Sarenrae smote Gormuz, this, he is given to understand, was a mistake, even though they really had been corrupted by Rovagug's influence, really had slain Her herald -

- he heals the girl.

Blai can only watch, now, as he relives the angel's memory. The angel's healing staunches the blood coming out of the girl's side, though the wound itself remains open. She tries to get to her feet, but stumbles. A dozen conversations pass through the angel's memory in an instant — the girl before him, asking if it's true that the angels are departing on a mission to stop the demons forever — an army of angels, swearing an oath of service — a hundred mortals, stargazers and paladins and repentant bandits and Sarkoran refugees, standing side-by-side in that first desperate attempt to drive back the hordes of the Abyss—

Don't waste your strength healing me, says the girl, your mission is more important, and it would bring her comfort to know that he would have died regardless, but every extra sentence of communication to her costs Heaven another drop of its resources, and Heaven will need all the resources it can bring to bear for what is to come.

A shadow emerges from the other wall of the cave, and with the angel's last strength it tries to strike at it, but its blows are too slow and too weak to do anything but cause it pain. In his last moment, as the shadow taunts him, he plunges the sword into the rock, willing as he does that its power remain until someone arrives who will wield it for the cause of Heaven.

The angel's eyes close, and Blai's eyes open, and he's standing in the half-collapsed room once again, surrounded by his companions. The sword is gone, but in its place Blai has something that feels almost like an extra orison, with a somatic component almost like the motion to draw a sword.

Seelah has fallen to her knees in prayer.

"That — you found it!"

"- where did it go - the -" He fumbles through the sword-drawing somatic in case that materializes it somehow.

The image of Lariel's sword appears in his hand, made of pure golden light, and bathes the area six paces in every direction in a warm glow for an instant. Blai feels very slightly hardier, as though someone had just cast a Virtue on him, and his companions are blinking at him like something happened to them, as well. He has a sense that the light could be used offensively too, the same way it's harder to fight when you're facing into the sunset, and that just like a Prayer it can help his allies and harm his enemies at the same time.

"What was that? For a moment there it looked like you were an angel!"

"I'm - not, the sword's doing something - I had an entire vision of Lariel's death, why would there be a vision embedded in the sword! -" Is the lightsword still there or does it vanish after a round?

The sword vanishes, but the Virtue-like sensation remains even after it's gone.

"Heaven has blessed you, Select Blai. If I had to guess, the vision could've been... something Lariel wanted you to know? But I've never had a head for theology." She laughs.

"Perhaps Heaven had more budget to spare at the time?" he wonders faintly. The sensation of choice in the vision was probably an illusion. Lariel did something and Blai - was steered that way in its grip and rationalized it, or guessed correctly what a real angel would have done and would've found himself confused if he'd gotten it wrong, something like that.

Shrug. "All that talk about 'budget' never made much sense to me. People say the angels fought with us during the First Crusade, and that they haven't been back since, but trying to guess why feels like a fool's errand."

"If Iomedae could have prevented Deskari from laying waste to Kenabres and slaying Terendelev, she surely would have." She licks her lips.

Please stop screaming about the murder, Camellia, it's going to be awkward to present as evidence at your eventual trial because his monogrammed bracers of Tongues do not tell him the Hallit for "screaming with your face". "Yes," he says, "nothing about the gods' behavior makes sense without intervention budget underlying it, to my mind, but - this could I suppose be a very old intervention, placed under time pressure..."

"I think it was waiting for someone worthy." Tiny wince.

"It wanted - someone who'd wield it for the cause of Heaven, I imagine Ser Seelah would have had it if she'd touched it first." He'd try to give it to her but under their present conditions he thinks concentrating the surplus random power in the single strongest party member may be a winning move over distributing it more flatly. He may try this later.

Seelah looks a little uncertain of that, but she doesn't object.

"As exciting as this is, if you are finished with the 'sword', perhaps we could begin to make our way towards the surface? I hope you have managed to devise a plan to return through the rift without need for the" (she wrinkles her nose) "maze, but if we must venture inside, the spirits did bless me with an orison that functions in a compass-like manner."

"I do not have a plan for that. We did not come up with one last night, no inspiration struck me at dawn, and my spells this morning were prepared on the expectation that we might have to fight our way up through the maze. If you have a plan for that, please tell us."

"...It seemed possible that after a night among the barbarians, you might have reconsidered your reluctance to call an archon to communicate with the surface."

"I can summon one. This will last only thirty seconds, but it will not permanently destroy a servant of Heaven who runs afoul of a vrolikai."

But it would be so fascinating to see the last moments of a creature for whom death was truly the end.

...Even Camellia has the sense not to say that.

"Then I suppose we had better set off for the maze."

"We should get Wenduag first. And Anevia."

Sigh. "I suppose, if you insist."

She's really very chatty and opinionated for someone who can't shut up about murder. How has she lived this long, was that one her first time? "I'll want to ask Wenduag about the layout of the maze, and it will also matter if it's extensive enough that we can't expect to clear it, only to identify a path - in which case someone will need to get rope topside and come down for anyone unfit for the adventure that way, should we successfully escape with word and find a loosely functional Kenabres above."

"Well, lead on."

Wenduag is easy to find back at the camp. Horgus Gwerm and Anevia have also woken up, and are eating breakfast together.

(The camp was definitely more than a minute's walk from Lariel's grave, but the Virtue-like effect is still present.)

He doesn't know how many times a day it can do that (it might only feel like an orison) but it's nice to know that it's a minute-scale buff and not a round-scale one! "Good morning. We found the sword, which... transmuted itself into a sort of magical effect when I touched it. We mean to assay the shield maze."

"I'm afraid I won't be able to accompany you through the maze," says Horgus Gwerm. "My fighting skill simply isn't what it used to be. But if you can clear a path to the surface, you shall have my reward, however you go about it."

Wow, that is the opposite of what she wanted here! No way she can talk them down from it if they were able to find the sword, though, Lann says surfacers go crazy for anything that seems like a miracle.

...This guy is really good at fighting. Maybe even strong enough to beat Hosilla.

"Alright. When do we leave?"

"Who else needs to be notified? Is there anyone else who will care to join us? Has everyone eaten?"

"We should tell the Chief before we set out." Sigh. "I don't think anyone else is joining us."

Glance at Wenduag.

"I'm still eating, but I can finish up while you talk to him."

Nod. Blai will accompany Lann to the chief, if Lann wants.

"Hey, Chief. We're about to head out for the Shield Maze." 

"Are you sure this is a good idea? The Shield Maze is very dangerous, you know. You could take some time, think it over, maybe try it in a month if it still seems like a good idea?"

"A month? Are you insane? All the kids will be dead by then, and everyone on the surface too!"

...Blai's not sure if Lann means "everyone in Kenabres" or "everyone on Golarion". Kenabres either got sufficient reinforcements to mount a meaningful defense or it didn't, already, yesterday; if it didn't, the demons will find someone who can in the course of trying to sweep through the whole world before spending a month on wiping the place clear of life, and if it did, the fighting is probably all but over. Big fights are over in a round or two. But this is his - reasonably confident - speculation, not something he directly observed; he holds his tongue.

"If you are truly set on this path, I will not order you to stay, but you should be prepared for the possibility that you'll just be throwing your own life away." He turns to Blai. "And you, surfacer, it is strange to have so many of you among us, but I hope Lann has not given you the impression that you are not welcome to stay. The walls of our cave are sturdy, and ever since Dyra was blessed by the gods few of us have fallen ill."

(Not that he's thrilled about keeping a pack of surfacers around, but it would be wrong to force them into the Maze.)

"That is very kind of you. I do not think I can accomplish much of value to my goddess here in this village, so one way or another I must leave it."

"Gods watch over you, then. And Lann, please try not to get yourself killed."

"You got it, boss."

"Before we walk into the maze there's a spell I want to try, as close to the entrance to it as feasible; it should make navigation a little easier, if not unravel the maze part of the maze for us altogether. I'd also value whatever you can tell me about the place itself and the enemies within it - what spells and tricks did the cultists pull out, what kinds of demons did you see there..."

"Wendu's the one who'd know about most of that — WENDU! CAN YOU COME OVER HERE!"

Sure, here's Wenduag.

He lowers his voice. "Select Artigas is looking for information about the Maze. What sort of demons you saw, what sort of things can the cultists do, that sort of thing."

Right, okay, she can't lie, but she can leave things out.

"They worship the Demon Queen's mate, but their god is weak. Most of his priests die in one or two blows. But they can call on his powers to harm everyone within five or six paces, and most people are too weak to stand more than two or three of those. The spell his priests cast the most often is" (she switches to Abyssal for the incantation) "Divine Favor. His favored priests are stronger than that, strong enough they could kill me before I killed them, even if I caught them by surprise. Some of the cultists have their own magic, to make powerful creatures of rock or ice their slaves, or to shoot invisible slings that never miss, or to call down roaring fires, or to pull other tricks. His warriors fight with metal weapons, mostly glaives, as well as with crossbows."

...She probably can't avoid mentioning the neathers.

"Some of his cultists are neathers—"

"You never told me—"

"What, and let you kill yourself running after them? Some of his cultists are neathers, but they don't hesitate to kill other neathers. And the whole maze is littered with traps, but they're different every time. The demons change too. The most common are—"

She proceeds to describe dretches, cambions, schirs, and babaus. (She is just not going to mention Savamalekh. If Savamalekh is there he'll kill them all, and they won't be able to hurt her for lying.)

Blai nods at all this seriously. "We are understrength for a babau, but less so for the others. Do you have cold iron arrows?"

Headshake.

"I think Dyra's been stockpiling a few."

"Cold iron weapons will harm demons that would shrug off the force you could bring to bear with a normal arrow. ...I will go offer to write her a letter of introduction to Fiducia Boian, the Worldwound insurance adjuster, in the event of our success, and see if that will cause her to part with them." Off to wherever she's parked.

Dyra is sitting at the same table as yesterday. She seems to have acquired slightly more miscellaneous objects than she previously had.

"Hello again!"

"Hello. I hear you have some cold iron arrows. Would you be willing to exchange them for, conditional on our success - the odds improved somewhat by those arrows - my promise to then write you a letter of introduction to Fiducia Boian, who circuits the Worldwound as its insurance adjuster? He is a fifth circle cleric and would be more than competent to bring you up to speed on any Abadaran catechism you've tended to lack living in this village. I am well enough acquainted with him that I believe he'd take a meeting with someone I recommended on my recommendation and if he wouldn't he would at least know to expect me to pay him back for any inconvenience he felt was incurred over a timescale I cannot expect you to rely on me for."

That sounds... way too good to be true? But he's empowered by Iomedae, and she's reasonably confident Iomedae is an honorable god who wouldn't accept unfair dealing from her people.

She nods. "I have twenty. I'd be willing to trade them for that, if twenty is enough that you're still willing to offer."

"It is, yes." He would have made a BAD Abadaran not having any particular number in mind when he brought this up. "May we meet again on the surface and in Fiducia Boian's company." And he will give her a little bow before he brings the arrows back over to the archers. "Only for demons," he says. "It's not useful for cultists or any other kind of monster."

Nod. She and Lann split them fifty-fifty.

Now then.

"Lay of the Land."

Blai's proprioception expands, and where he would normally be able to sense his own limbs, now he can sense the caverns around him. Here's the path he took after he fell, his own memory of its twists overlaid with the intuitive sense the spell grants him. Here's a tunnel, leading to an artificial structure that feels almost like a gash in the land; here's a lake, and across the lake a shorter tunnel leading to the same structure. If he backtracks a little bit there's something that looked like a dead end but wasn't exactly. The spell isn't giving him a map, exactly, any more than he would be able to draw a self-portrait with his eyes closed purely from his own sense of his body, but it's enough to navigate from.

The spell can't tell him the exact layout of the maze, but it can give him an intuition for its general structure. Here's the main floor; if he goes this direction, there's something-that-presumably-corresponds-to-stairs down, and more stairs down nearby it, leading to something that feels like a very shallow version of the lake he's next to. Here's the deepest part of the lake. If he starts at the main floor and goes in this other direction, there's what might be stairs or might be a tunnel, less steep than the other path downwards; it feels like it's somehow blocked, a little like a tunnel that's caved in but not exactly. If he goes in yet a third direction, there's some sort of twisty path upwards, similarly blocked, and then a little bit downwards again, and then up and up and there'd be open sky.

The streets of Kenabres are less than a hundred feet above Blai. (Vertically closer, actually, than the place that leads out to the sky.) There are divinations that would be blocked by the ground between them, but Lay of the Land is not one of them; it would hardly be very useful if it were. He can't get a great sense of specific buildings, or even specific streets, but Kenabres is built on land just as surely as a forest is. As Blai reaches outward, he can sense that that land is marred with small crevices and massive rifts, with piles of rubble large enough they practically feel like small hills, with entire blocks of houses collapsed and near-impassible. The city center is very nearly divided in two; the city walls are in pieces. Throughout the city, there's a sense of pervasive wrongness, as paths that are supposed to connect to each other are cut off by dead ends and destroyed streets.

"I think the path out is blocked. That's likely to be recent, with all the damage from yesterday's attack, so it might be loose rubble we can clear; I'm not sure from here."

"Seems like it's worth trying, at least."

"Yes. Any last minute preparations, anyone? Camellia, would you care to tell us what spells you have available, do any of you want the list of mine?"

"The spirits granted me two uses of Sleep, one of Unbreakable Heart, and one of Enlarge Person. For my orisons, I have the direction-sensing spell I mentioned earlier, a new one that appears to have some sort of moment-long protective effect, Light, Guidance, and Resistance. I presume you will be able to provide any necessary healing."

"And I've got three Lay On Hands."

(To Blai:) "It'd be good to know what you have for planning, yeah." 

"I've just cast Lay of the Land at second circle; remaining I have Guidance, Create Water, Light, and Detect Fiendish Presence; Bless, Abundant Ammunition - that won't duplicate the cold iron but if you run low otherwise it will let you hold out in a longer fight - Weapons Against Evil, Air Bubble, and Divine Favor; Delay Poison, Burst of Radiance, Spear of Purity, and Qualm; Summon Monster III and Prayer."

"I've never heard of half of those."

"Which ones? I can explain them." Not, in the case of the Spear, that well, but still.