And now the party has an unconscious surprise foreign wizard who doesn't need to breathe. And their attempts to suppress the Bag of Holding so as to keep the books in its associated extradimensional space Away From Daemons haven't succeeded yet. Well, perhaps the stable casualty should also be Away From Daemons. Dividing effort is a massive hassle, but her nose and mouth get covered so that she hopefully doesn't try to breathe void, and she gets shoved into the bag, and then the bag entrance isn't.

Some informational cleanup of the books happens anyway, as the bibliodaemon team was issued glasses suitable for targeting extradimensional spaces. While this would allow them to hit the unexpected entity with memory spells, they don't actually know what memories to target. They'd like to just kill her, but they don't have suitable attack spells for this. No, given the constraints it's better to focus on the books.

The Jubjub is very loud and very good at disrupting the ritual and otherwise turning the tide of combat.

It is utterly unacceptable for the bibliodaemon team to be captured intact. They know too much. The ones who can manage it smash their glasses before self-destructing. The ones who don't are still set to self-destruct on unconsciousness.

The ritual is not erasing itself as much as it should, but there's nothing to be done about that.

And eventually, the daemons can no longer fight, though a fair number of them manage to fly off while invisible or teleport off before being neutralized.

The Jubjub is somehow still here. It is also being fed. Food is good and important. Daemons are not filling.

(Daemons are the disposable part of a healthy and balanced breakfast, in that you'd better dispose of them if you want to stay healthy and balanced to enjoy your breakfast. Digestion not recommended if you are not a Jubjub.)

The bag is working! Time to take the wizard out of the bag. And check on the books.

Somehow, the wizard actually looks better having spent some time forcibly prevented from breathing.

"Can we get a Diagnose Disease over here?"

Yup, someone can be found for that.

The unconscious human wizard has extremely strange biology. Like, "not made of elemental matter" strange. It's really closely analogous to normal human biology on a broad structural level, though! Brain looks weirdly shaped but apparently that's normal for her.

Also, she's recovering from … something analogous to a systemic vital air deficit, but for not-made-of-elemental-matter people. Presumably because she can't breathe vital air? But she's not a water-breather either.

She's probably going to need more Concealed Breath or something until someone figures things out, and this cleric is not that someone.

Can anyone else cast Concealed Breath. Or give or sell a single charge of an S4 Pearl of Power or equivalent. Or do a specialized Life Bubble.

If the adventurers will pay for a Restoration scroll so the cleric has a free slot for it.

Yeah, fine. Whatever. …and sorry, cooperative wizard, but we are going to insist on searching strange people under the circumstances, especially those dressed in Asmodeus's colors. Hopefully this is just a fluke.

This is not a fluke, there is an unholy symbol. What a mess. The person can get some spare clothes that shouldn't have any potential surprises, but is going to get restrained and have her spellbook confiscated. Conveniently(?), "prevent the patient from breathing because that seems to make things worse" and "prevent the prisoner from performing verbal components" go together here.

Also, let's maybe delay waking her up until we've recovered from the fight. And pump her full of nonlethal damage to make sure she doesn't wake herself up. And sleep. Sleep is important.

The fight went great! The Jubjub Bird is amazing! …also, Kenchlo is very, very dead.

And the sum total of evidence is strongly suggestive that soul senescence did not exist prior to the Sealed War of Aiquzall, which would explain the importance to the daemons of book-redaction, bard-destruction, and self-erasing-ritual performance that looked kind of like weaving a daemon into the souls of the 'songbirds'. The one memory-modification attempt that went through made a party member forget book titles, but this isn't actually a big deal. Unlike the book tampering, which unfortunately is, most of those weren't backed up.

Now that there are more spare resources, a containment setup can be finangled. A Lesser Geas, a less hasty configuration of restraints, and someone's telepathic familiar is available as a relay, since preventing breathing and somatic components also prevents speech. It's … irritating … to be planning to spend this many S4 slots on Concealed Breath, but at least it's doable with leyline boosts. Dream Feast isn't a great long-term plan, but it's fine in the short term.

And Carissa can wake up, with memories of the battle, followed by vague dreamy memories of impressively delicious food that don't really have much context or make much sense.

She also can't see things, or hear things, or move, or breathe. For some unclear reason, this last issue is not causing her to suffocate.

…

There's a message in her head, now. «The daemons you encountered earlier have been defeated. We are going to ask you questions. You may respond to us on this channel.»

If they're sustaining her without breath and using telepathy they're almost certainly also reading her mind.

«Understood. I am a member of the Chelish military, signatory to the Worldwound Treaty. Kidnapping me from the Worldwound is likely a violation of your paladin's god's treaty agreements.»