"How dare you imply--" starts Lann, puffing up like he's about to do something unhinged like challenge Daeran to a duel for the Knight-Commander's honor, and is interrupted by being hit so hard he skids about ten feet backward and hits a cave wall.

Wisely, he at this point shuts up.

Daeran opens his mouth to say something else snarky, considers the tenor of Kalika's narrowed eyes now pointed at him, further considers the fact that he would probably wake up in the hospital tent tomorrow with a splitting headache if he got hit even half that hard given that Lann, for all his interpersonal faults, actually is remarkably resilient against injury, and chooses the better part of valor.

Why are non-wizard adventurers like this. It is the worst.

Someday she will be so good at defending her wizards that she does not need to have any non-wizards. 

she is so tired. 

On the bright side, Lann's people actually are pretty useful. 

They say that the Knight-Commander of the Fifth Crusade redeemed Zacharius from his lichdom, that like the Eighth Act of Iomedae Herself she had had only to talk to him and he had miraculously found the strength to return to himself. 

"....they all think you're a holy martyr," says Kalika, fascinated. "Uniformly. I've never heard even a single counterclaim. Even Iomedae gets people who are very sure she must secretly be a fraud, especially in Mendev, where everyone is very suspicious of any legendary heroes they cannot look in the face like Galfrey."

"I am, of course, uniquely excellent," sniffs Zacharius smugly. 

"They're also like that about Yaniel, I think this is just what happens when you die in a suitably pathetically Good manner even after you're interesting enough that you could have done something else," points out Daeran, helpfully. From, of course, a carefully selected position five feet behind Kalika where someone who lunged for his throat would have to pass directly through her to do so. 

(He would not normally have volunteered to be one of exactly three people for Nenio to dimension door through an apparently solid wall at 5am after being woken up in the middle of the night by an assortment of bullshit just because the Knight-Commander wanted to investigate an illusory mystery right this minute, but the alternative would be following Seelah and Regill back down the mountain to spend the next several hours doing medical triage, in the cold, without even an Endure Elements because everyone is catastrophically out of spell slots and yesterday's Communal expired overnight, and he would actually rather be lit on fire.)

"Fair, true. Still, Yaniel as far as I know wasn't doing lich research before she died... though I suppose given the circumstances I see before me I must conclude that I wouldn't know, would I. We'll have to keep an eye out for evidence Seelah's sword is going to turn out at any second to be demonic, that would be really inconvenient."

"Oh but that would be so fun," grins Camellia. "Imagine the chaos. The screaming." She's covered head to toe in the black blood of gargoyles and ghouls and soldiers who were going to be ghouls in five minutes but hadn't finished having human blood yet, etc., and glowing both literally (with the remnants of her combat buffstack) and figuratively (with immense self-satisfied glee). She will probably remember to have manners in like five minutes.

"Would it. I'll be sure to write on the response checklist that they should ideally call you instead of me." Kalika really does not like it when there is screaming and chaos. She would prefer ideally for there to be Zero noises. Unfortunately some problems are not best solved by hitting them until they stop making noises, but rather by talking to them with your face. Sigh. "Zacharius, you had a proposal?" 

Zacharius fully ignores this series of asides. They are irrelevant to his one (1) goal. He is looking steadily, unblinking, at the Knight-Commander of the Fifth Crusade, and therefore the only person able in principle to release him from his bonds, if he can convince her she should. 

He explains, therefore, at pontificous length, his proposal. He'd be happy to take on an apprentice and teach the secrets of the ideal form of lichdom, you see, if they'll help him retrieve his phylactery so that he can stop being geased to only serve the interests of the crusade, which of course he's already not doing particularly in this locked basement where his foolish past self put him, so they wouldn't even really be worse off for it, and don't Good people believe in freedom, and by the way did he mention he's the coolest of wizards and can tell them so so many cool facts, though of course many of them he can't say because the geas prevents it, such a shame... 

"I am very likely interested in your proposal but I have several additional questions--" begins Nenio, excitedly. She is not even slightly trying to carefully stand behind Kalika. He's a wizard, if he decides he wants to kill her he'll do it by casting a spell he thinks will oneshot her which will be fascinating to look at and the healer boy is Right there.

(Daeran will, admittedly, absolutely Breath of Life the insane fox girl if she provokes the lich like an idiot even though he, too, is down to cantrips. He has an emergency scroll which he was specifically instructed not to spend on anyone other than Nenio, Kalika, or Woljif, in that priority order, and he's annoyed about having to be ready to cast it with two seconds' warning but he can. He really does Not want to have to deal today with the Knight-Commander being furious with everyone about losing both her favorite wizards in the span of sixteen hours even if it is in both cases manifestly their fault. She won't punish anyone who doesn't at all deserve it, but the problem with Mendevian armies is that actually nearly everyone deserves it at all times.)

(Kalika is not being sentimental about this. Nenio gets up before Kalika if necessary because Nenio can cast Raise Dead.) 

"Regrettably I'm quite sure that's illegal." 

"But his knowledge could be so useful to my Encyclopedia?" says Nenio, somewhat plaintively, "and I suppose probably also your Crusade as a side effect? And! Surely the paladins cannot object! Arguably he is even more lawfully obliged to follow the rules than they are!" 

Kalika contemplates this. "Technically not false. You don't even like necromancy?" 

"Technically! A geas is an enchantment! I suspect that lich boy may have invented a novel form of--" 

"Okay we're going to stop you right there before we fall into the metaphorical pit of fascinating research questions for twelve hours and Anevia rightfully concludes we've died down here in this literal pit like idiots. Zacharius, you are welcome to come serve the interests of the current Crusade from a nice command tent instead of this incredibly depressing basement, if you'd like. I'd certainly prefer that if I was you." 

"You are a silly swordwielding mortal who cannot accomplish anything interesting without help. I should suffer the indignity of a command structure because....?" 

"Well, I will in fact probably go find your phylactery so that I can look at it and investigate whether my mysterious wardstone power is doing something like it, and this is clearly your most plausible avenue of obtaining it, although of course I am making no commitments at this time to handing it over if that seems like it might harm my interests. Nor for that matter to disenchanting it for you, that seems like a you problem. But I well might hand it over, if it seems like it might be useful to me for you to have more of your brain online, an argument you will certainly have an easier time making to me on the strength of more than thirty seconds' acquaintance."

...Zacharius has one (1) goal and she is right that his one (1) goal is clearly best accomplished at this time by cultivating a potential ally who might do the thing he wants as opposed to being alone in a locked basement with zero potential allies.

Unfortunate! 

Ah well. Such is unlife. 

He puts on a horrible skeletal smile and says, "Oh, of course, Knight-Commander. I have now seen due to your wisdom the errors of reasoning that I have fallen into in my solitude, et cetera."

Ember (who apparently can also cast dimension door judging from how she followed them down here for some reason, proclaiming sunnily that she thought there might be an opportunity to help someone), claps her hands in delight like she thinks he's being completely sincere.

Hm. That seems perhaps not great. It's probably fine.