She's in motion, on a - stretcher? It's swaying. There are voices in the background, speaking an unfamiliar language, agitated. 

The stretcher is set down. Someone is scolding someone else.

Someone casts a Cure Moderate Wounds.

It doesn't help.

"Rúmil?" she murmurs. What is this, Valarin - can she pick up what people are saying if she listens a bit to their minds, just a touch -

- not an ordinary injury - 

- demons this close to the city -

- someone should get Terendelev -

And another mind is approaching. The person is in human form, but her mind is obviously that of a dragon; the dragon is not interested in being mindread thankyouverymuch.

The dragon casts a Greater Restoration.

That does, in fact, make the horrific pain in her chest stop.

She wasn't reading anyone's minds more than she needed to get the words they were saying right in front of her, even heinously injured she had THAT down, but that is by far the most utterly legit choice a dragon has ever made of which she is aware, possibly over and above healing her awful chest injury! She heaves an enormous lungful of air - twice, actually, chest injuries are awful for breathing - and blinks a few times and says "thank you".

In Pax. Since, uh, that's a dragon. Pax is pretty widely spoken, probably a dragon will know it.

The dragon doesn't seem to know it. She looks quite surprised by this. 

The other people are still talking. "- city crawling with cultists. What's your business here?"

"I don't think she understands you, Prelate," says the dragon (while Bella cannot directly understand the dragon it's easy enough to parse what everyone else thinks the dragon is saying.)

I can, mostly, just - not by listening - where am I?

"This is the city of Kenabres, on the Sellen."

"You were found outside the city, badly injured. Some guards carried you in."

"Do you know how you were injured?" asks the dragon. "It was no ordinary injury, and even my magic only eased the wound's grip on you, I did not cure it."

I don't remember being hurt. I don't remember anything since I was in - - that is a dragon, and therefore Valinor is an infohazard. - well, nowhere near Kenabres or the Sellen, what, uh, continent is this.

"Avistan."

"In distant places I've heard the continent called Kelliten," says the dragon, "or Taixi, or Folanji, or Swerovan."

I... don't recognize any of those names.

" - we're at the Worldwound," someone else says, "heard of that?"

No and it sounds memorable.

A bit of a tired laugh. "It is."

"This is a demonic plot, perhaps to distract us while Baphomet's cultists infiltrate the city," someone grumbles. 

"Then perhaps wisdom calls for you to return to your work, Prelate," says the dragon, "and this young woman and I will work out what happened to her. I do not think she is a demon."

"There's more demons with telepathy than wizards who have it up even when found bleeding out in a field," observes the Prelate.

I'm - the telepathy isn't a spell. I was born with it. It's not too rare among humans where I'm from.

"- it is extraordinarily rare here," the dragon says. "I've heard of it only thirdhand, rumors of rumors. If you'll forgive my curiosity, are you fully human?"

Uh, as far as I know, and I did grow up knowing both my parents.

The Prelate strides off, glaring back at them frustratedly. There are, by this point, quite a few more people gathered around curiously, eating fried food and staring; there's a crowded town square visible in the direction the Prelate is striding. 

"Today is the day of a festival," the silver dragon says, "the anniversary of the founding of our city. I would speak with you more, and more closely inspect your strange magical injury, but my presence is necessary so that the townspeople can celebrate unafraid, this close to the Worldwound. Do you see the temple of Iomedae, across the town square?" She points it out. The holy symbol emblazoned on the front of the building is a shining sword. "If you come there tomorrow, we can speak further."

Uh, understood, thank you. Apparently this is one of the dragons that just adopts a town, that's one of the better kinds except for how Embries was one that adopted a university, so.

The dragon strides off, still in human form. One of the other people nearby - a woman in plate armor, the same sword-based holy symbol on her chest - offers Bella a hand standing up. 

Does she contain the ability to stand. - does she wear on her feet the ability to - okay, yes, she has everything she was wearing, boots included, possibly they're broken but she's not going to cast a Detect about it - she takes the hand, she stands up. Adjusts her weight to check for wobbles and finds the boots in working order. Surprising.

It's a city. A poorer city than most in Bella's original home, and a much uglier city than any in Valinor. The streets are paved, but aging, and the buildings mostly have thatch roofs. The town square is full of revelers - children playing party games, drunk people singing.

Welp.

She will - uh - take off and pocket most of her jewelry, first thing, and then go looking for someplace she could sell it.

There's a jeweler's shop, presently locked up.

Well, heck. Is that because it's getting on nighttime or unrelated.

Probably because of the festival! The other shops look similarly locked up.

Well, hopefully the festival won't go on too long. She spirals out from the jewelry shop, checking to see where she might be able to spend the night or buy food.

There's an inn. There are some street vendors mostly serving the festival clientele right now. There are some bed-and-breakfasts.

That person over there is a demon in disguise. That one too. Also that other one. Also now that she's thinking about it several of the people who were nearby right when she regained consciousness.

OKAY she is going to whisk herself real REAL fast into that temple and hope it is not a demon temple.

Normal temple! To the shining-sword god! They have a statue of her in the middle of the room, a woman in armor with a heavy shield and a sword. 

There are side shrines to lots of other gods that one might want to venerate and that are presumably on good terms with Shining Sword god. There's a young woman in a priestess's vestment at the back. "Can I help you?"

Hello, uh, my entire everything is a super long story but I can tell when people are demons and spotted some outside, are you who I tell?

"Hells. Yes. I'll go get Hulrun, can you come with me? Will you be able to tell again if you see them again?"

Yes and yes I will but I do not expect to be of the slightest use in a fight with any.

"That's what we'll get Hulrun for, he's a fourth-circle inquisitor of Iomedae." She's grabbing a cold iron sword herself, too. "Are you detecting Evil or are you doing some other thing?"

Part of the telepathy package, not too uncommon where I'm from. I can identify people as individuals and by species sort of like recognizing faces except it works through walls and illusions and stuff. It's super super not safe to do anything telepathic with demons, if I'd been trying to talk to one like I am with you I would be having a problem right now.

"Oh are you a psion? I thought those weren't a real thing." Out the front steps of the temple and back into the town square. 

....where kind of a lot of these people are actually demons in disguise. Ten of them, a dozen of them, a dozen more over here -

"Where's Hulrun?" she demands of the nearest paladin -

IOMEDAE!!!!!!! booms a rasping, grinding, terrible voice that stuns half of those who hear it in their tracks. BEHOLD THE DEATH I SOW!!!!

- is Bella stunned in her tracks or can she run for the hills.

She can run!!!!

Until a chasm opens up beneath her!! Then she can fall.

She screams about that! And fights the temptation to fly! Broken legs are survivable!!!!

Honestly this underground tunnel which was just abruptly renovated to have a skylight is probably a better place to be than the aboveground right now, what with how aboveground there's presumably a fight ongoing between some demons and an ancient silver dragon. This underground tunnel just has Bella, and up ahead a couple of other people who fell through and are still moving.

Has she broken anything?

Seems like somehow no! Must be her lucky day!

Are the other people demons?

Nope! Distinctly human, both of them!

Then she'll shuffle over to them.

The armored woman who helped her to her feet earlier is trying to improvise a splint for the other woman, who did break a leg in the fall. "- oh good," she says, "the more we can find the better. Do you have anything that'll do for ropes or leather straps? Where are my manners - I'm Seelah. Paladin of Iomedae."

"Anevia," says the woman with the broken leg. 

She has an arcane healing spell that'll do even up to missing body parts.

No she doesn't. She has this nice embroidered sash. She unties it. "Bella."

Seelah takes it. "Well, welcome to Kenabres, Bella, I wish it could've showed you a bit of a friendlier face - did anyone see what happened."

"Deskari," says Anevia. "In person."

"Inheritor preserve us all."

"I am sure She's trying."

Who is Deskari?

"He's a demon lord," Anevia says, while Seelah ties the splint. "The Lord of Locusts. - Terendelev is dead. She'd have had about as much chance against him as I'd have against her."

"He won't dare spend long on the Material," says Seelah. "He's probably already gone. We've just got to drive the lesser demons out, keep people safe."

There were a lot of those. - I can tell them apart from everybody else, though I can't do much else about them, I'd gone into the temple to offer to do this, the person there was looking for somebody called Hulrun when - it happened.

"You can tell them apart from everyone else? You mean with Detect Evil? A lot of the demons around here have ways to hide from that."

No, it's a telepathy thing, none of them were bothering to hide from that - well, that I noticed, obviously. It's just an extra sense I can use to recognize people that doesn't get covered by the same kinds of illusions.

"Oh, that's clever! That'll be really useful, when we're back up on the surface, one of the biggest problems we have is that demons like to disguise themselves as innocent people."

"Right now I think we have kind of a lot of problems," Anevia says. "But by all means let's make for the surface. Do these tunnels lead there?"

"I don't know, but staying here won't lead there, so I guess we'll try them."

Bella can fly.

No she can't.

She'll follow Seelah and help Anevia move along with the broken leg.

Then they'll come quickly to another survivor, standing over the mangled body of a dead elf.

" - demons didn't do that."

"There's all kinds of things down here. I tried to heal him, but too late."

"You have healing?"

"One left."

"Well, hopefully it's not that far to the surface."

It's an awfully discrete amount of healing to have left but - yeah, the emergency situation handily explains that. How can you tell it wasn't demons?

They'd have stolen his stuff, and if they were in too much of a hurry for that they wouldn't have half-eaten him, and if they for some reason did the wound would be poisoned. 

This is when they are encroached upon by an enormous man-eating centipede.

Shit, that does not count as something she can knock out with telepathy at all. She hides behind Seelah. If it really, really does come down to life or death - okay no she will make a policy about life or death situations in a calm moment if she ever gets one, right now her policy is NO SCIENCEMAGIC.

Seelah, being a paladin, is heavily armored and moderately competent to kill things with a sword and can handle the giant centipede, with some help from Camellia and with Anevia attempting to operate a longbow while leaning against a wall and not totally able to stand. 

She can also handle the next several giant centipedes, though she does say after the fourth one that she really hopes they're in fact headed towards the surface. 

On that topic Bella cannot really reassure her and couldn't even if she were doing magic! She will instead operate as a crutch for Anevia and try to pay attention to the possible approach of enemies that are smarter than giant centipedes.

After a while she'll notice some minds up ahead, of ordinary person intelligence, to the left of where they're plodding through territory that now also contains giant spiders and giant slugs (and normal-sized spiders and slugs, but those are less dangerous.)

There's some people up that way. None of them are demons, though I don't know how good a recommendation that is down here.

How many?

Just two. Anything smarter than an animal that isn't a demon I can likely knock unconscious, if that matters here.

- seems like a good option to have, though hopefully they're just some more survivors in the same straits as us. 

"Hello?" she calls, heading in that direction. 

"Who are you? Stay where you are!"

"I'm Seelah, a paladin of Iomedae! We were thrown into these tunnels when Deskari attacked and opened up a chasm."

"Is that what caused the earthquake? There was a major one, about an hour ago. Collapsed some tunnels. Some people were saying it's a sign that we're not meant to be down here anymore."

       "Sure, Lann," says an impatient voice behind him, "tell the first outsiders you meet everything."

"They might be able to help!"

Has it been a whole hour? What do you need?

A bunch of people are missing. Either trapped when the tunnel collapsed, or - more likely - went into the shield maze, trying to get to the surface. I want to get the rest of the tribe to go after them, but - they're scared.

There's an angel's sword in this room. It's buried under rubble, right now, but in the hands of a righteous warrior it's very powerful. I wanted to - see if I could get it to work for me. It never has before, but - we never needed it to save a bunch of people before, and angels should care about that sort of thing, right?

...anyway, step one is just finding the sword, because that half of the room was buried in the earthquake, and then I guess we can see if anyone can wield it.

I'm not sure how the sword will help if you normally live down here and can cope with the other things that live down here already, does it - solve mazes?

The shield maze has more dangerous things in it than the tunnels do. Demons, I suspect, though most who go in don't come out so I don't know for sure. 

It also might help when we get to the surface. They don't - like mongrels, on the surface. 

Indeed, Camellia is pursing her lips and looking vaguely appalled.

Is there no more straightforward way to the surface than through the maze?

Not without powerful magic. 

Bella looks at Seelah, who is probably a decent candidate to wield an angelic sword if Lann can't do it this time (how many times is he planning to try the same thing with slight variations anyway?). Seems plausible the most efficient way out is to help them with the rubble and see if you or Lann can activate the sword.

"Happy to help," says Seelah, and they can start hauling rubble. She'll take the big pieces if everyone else takes the small ones. 

Yup. Moving rubble is not hubristic or scientific at all and Bella can do plenty of it.

And then her hands will brush across something colder to the touch than the surrounding rock, and - her chest hurts, again, at the site of the injury Terendelev healed, it feels like blood is dripping down her shirt -

-- and there are memories here that are not her own, of being cornered in this cave, dying, frightened and furiously angry. And then the memories overwhelm her senses and there's nothing but chittering insects, filling her vision, crawling over her to devour her -

IT IS SCREAMING TIME AGAIN

" - Bella? Bella are you okay?" No more insects, no more dying, no more bleeding wound. The sword Bella touched is glowing blazingly bright. 

she is NOT touching that sword any more

she is patting herself down to see if the injury reopened

Nope, she's fine.

It - did something to me - how sure are we it is a, uh, a good sword.

" - well, an angel wielded it. I'm pretty sure angels are always good."

"Something could've happened to it since then, though." Seelah frowns at the sword. "It's not Evil."

Well, it gave me some kind of very unpleasant vision when I touched it but, uh, maybe it only does that to psions or something.

Seelah considers, but not for very long. "I'm going to touch it. It didn't cause you lasting harm."

It doesn't cause Seelah lasting harm but it also doesn't light up blazingly bright for her. It's just a perfectly nice sword.

Is it supposed to do something dramatic if it's working? I used to have a magic dagger but it wasn't flashy.

"I was kind of hoping it would light up like it did for you. It could be it's still magic, though, I don't actually know a lot about magic."

"I think it's supposed to light up like it did for her."

Even if it's the most helpful sword ever forged I don't think I can swing it if it's incapacitating me at the time!

"Did you hear that?" Seelah says sternly to the magic sword. "That was bad. If you are trying to be helpful you must not do that. Bella isn't an angel, so you need to use your - not-angel rules, if you have those.

Want to try it again?"

I think if it were a person I would have been able to notice, so, no, I doubt enormously that that helped and I do not want to try it again but I guess it didn't kill me the first time.

She pokes the sword very gingerly.

The sword does not send any terrible visions this time! It just glows! And...maybe gives everyone a tiny bit of supernatural protection, as a very small apology. 

"That definitely did something."

Okay. I will hold the sword until it does something else horrible and I will see if it holds up okay against giant spiders and stuff like that in spite of the fact that I got a B in Basic Knife.

"I think the light's doing a little bit of - soothing and strengthening us - all by itself," says Seelah encouragingly, apparently not hurt by the unwillingness of the sword to function for the paladin who actually knows how to fight with a sword.  

"With this, we can go into the Shield Maze and save the missing children."

       "Lann, that's still a terrible idea," says the other mongrel.

Bella does not have enough context to have strategic opinions on the viability of this plan! She gives the sword a couple experimental swings.

It's probably helping her at least a little bit relative to her baseline ability to swing a sword. It has not made her a master swordsman overnight but probably someone who'd get an A in Basic Knife.

"I can take you all to the mongrel camp. Then we can show them the light, and make plans for the Shield Maze."

What-all's in there? What is a shield maze, anyway?

It's a huge old fortress. I don't think it was a maze originally, but it is now, the route through it to the surface is very hard to find. 

Okay. I don't have a better idea.

"We press on, then, I suppose! Lead the way, Lann."

There are more giant vermin. Lann and his companion, who is still glaring daggers at everybody, can shoot most of them before they get close. "Earthquake scared them all up out of their burrows," Lann says after shooting a giant centipede off the ceiling before it can drop on his head (it still does drop on his head, but it's dead when it does.) "Things aren't usually quite this bad."

         "It is madness to take the tribe through the Maze," Wenduag says. 

"There's safety in numbers. And Lariel's sword is a sign that it's time."

Bella practices with swording the ALREADY DEAD vermin on the way to get a feel for how hard she needs to swing to get it through carapaces and out again. She has no comment on how mad it is to take the tribe through the maze.

It's been probably another hour, and a lot more dead things, by the time they reach the underground bog in which rises the underground island where Lann's tribe is camped. Those persons without supernatural endurance are fairly tired. 

Lann and Wenduag run up to argue with their tribe's leadership. 

"What a deeply unpleasant place," Camellia says as soon as they're out of earshot.

"Oh, it's not too bad. I'll take a roof over my head even if it's made of stone and smells of rot. - we should probably not attempt the Shield Maze tonight." She's looking worriedly at Anevia, who has been doing a steadily worse job of hiding that she's in pain. 

"I don't know how much good one night of sleep is going to do me. I suppose more than none."

Bella's not used to being tired in quite this way, anymore, with no treelight, no timeslide necklace she can take off to sleep so that nothing seems urgent and any insomniac anxiety she's picked up will melt away. She has nothing against resting but is also having a hard time imagining it will help.

If we're going to sleep here and I'm not going to need my subtle arts - uh, psionics - stamina to talk much more or do anything else, I can soothe the pain, probably long enough for you to get to sleep if not much longer past that?

A weak grin. "That'd be neat."

"Bella shouldn't run down the last of her powers for it but I actually want to talk a little bit more! If we all know what each other can do, we'll be able to help each other out more. And it's easier to fight with friends than strangers."

"Optimistic of you to assume that on speaking more we'll become friends."

"What, are you secretly a demon? I get along with most folks who aren't."

"How very Good of you."

"Are we doing introductions? I'm Anevia. I'm an archer, a better one when I have two working legs. My wife and I moved to Kenabres about three years back. We'd done some adventuring, figured it was time to -" snort - "retire."

I'm Bella. Where I'm from psions aren't too uncommon and we often train to be therapists; I was in school for that before I was, uh, interrupted by an interplanar transport accident. That's basically true whichever way you look at it, right? So most of my skills aren't combat-relevant but I can knock people unconscious - unless they're demons, not safe to do anything to those - and talk to people telepathically and notice them through barriers and illusions and stuff.

"That'll be astoundingly useful, if we make it out of here alive."

"The Inquisition will adore you."

Her tone is very slightly mocking and both Anevia and Seelah make a little bit of a face.

" - anyway. I'm Seelah. I'm a paladin of Iomedae, and I defend the Kenabres Worldwound barrier, when I'm not stuck underground."

Is the Worldwound where all the demons are coming from? There were a really weird number of them up there.

" - oh right, you're from really really far away. So a hundred years ago, some terrible person tore a fifty-mile-wide rift to the Abyss open, and any demons who wanted to come through can, so of course lots of them did, and did horrible things as they're demons. And the forces of Good had to find a way to stop them, so they came up with the Wardstones, which have a powerful effect like a Forbiddance against demons, stops most of them crossing through and even the strong ones are weakened when they make it through. There's more than a hundred wardstones, in forts in a ring around the rift. And we patrol the barrier, and try to catch demons sneaking through so we can kill them while they're weakened. But some do sneak through, especially ones that can make themselves invisible and so on, those are hard to catch with patrols, so there's a lot more demons around here than most places."

Yikes!

"It's not great! And Kenabres was pretty safe, because it had Terendelev, but things are probably going to be pretty tough, now."

Lann comes back. "Chief Sull says the tribe can go into the maze at dawn. I worry that's too late."

"I don't want to leave your kids in danger, but if it's going to be a tough set of fights, then - yeah, we should take it in the morning. I'll have healing, Camellia'll have healing -"

"I can also prepare some spells in the morning that might help us."

"I guess. I just worry it'll be too late."

"I know. But you get into a fight you're unprepared for, you die and fail to help anyone. - you missed our introductions. I'm Seelah, a paladin of Iomedae. This is Anevia and Bella and we hadn't gotten to Camellia yet so it was news to me she can apparently prepare spells! Are you a wizard?"

"I am a shaman. The spirits of the land assist me. I was in Kenabres for the festival."

"And I'm Lann. The uplanders call us mongrels. We're descended from the heroes of the First Crusade, who fought alongside the angels."

Do you have an endonym?

" - we call ourselves neathers. But it's not a big deal, it doesn't really matter what people call us."

I'm used to it mattering a lot so I thought I'd ask.

I just don't want to get upset about stuff that isn't going to change.

"Right, Lann, do the mongrels mind if we spend the night here? And do you have anything we can sleep on, I completely forgot to pack my camping gear."

If we're done having conversations I need to understand and participate in, we should set up Anevia somewhere I can help her sleep.

Lann can get them set up in the tent of someone who is presently out. It'll be crowded, and the bedding is fungus, but it's warm and dry and Anevia will look considerably better as soon as she's no longer upright. 

Do you want me to address the pain first or just try to put you to sleep directly?

"Honestly the pain's not too bad if I don't move. I just, like a fool, moved. A lot." Sigh. "I doubt the pain will wake me if you put me directly to sleep."

Okay. Say when?

"Now's good."

Sleep.

Then Bella will have some temporary privacy; Camellia is looking for better accommodations and Seelah and Lann are out front discussing the available forces for tomorrow's adventure.

Privacy, but no paper.

She will lie down in the same room as Anevia and knock herself out.

When she wakes up, Lann is frying them some rats. Seelah is praying. Camellia's in some kind of trance. Anevia is redoing her splint, teeth gritted.

"Morning. - should we not talk to you, so you can save your powers for the Maze?"

Talking isn't very expensive, and psionics won't be any good against centipedes and demons, just nondemon person-type enemies.

Well, hopefully we don't run into any of those. Fighting demons beats fighting people, any day. 

How're you doing?

Not good but this is actually mostly because of my interplanar travel accident than anything acutely going on.

That's pretty understandable! - for what it's worth, with the ability to detect demons, you can easily make the money for a Plane Shift or two. If we don't die.

That's good to hear. She can see her parents again. A very small consolation, but any of one.

"Bella! Anevia! How are you feeling, are you ready to go?"

"I'm not going to get more ready," says Anevia grimly. 

Same, unless there's breakfast to be had.

"Lann fried some rats for us!"

She is not excited about eating rats but she's about to do a lot of tromping and possibly swordfighting so she'd better eat. Rat.

It contains calories and tastes about as unappetizing as you'd expect. Camellia does not eat. No one else complains; what would be the point? 

And then they can get going. Lann knows the way into the fortress, though he's never been very far into it. His friend Wenduag, he says, has, but Wenduag is nowhere to be found. They tromp. There's ruined furniture and ruined artwork and doors rotting on their frames which Seelah can kick open -

- and then, noticeable to Bella before anyone else, there are person-not-demon minds, not human but only the way Lann's not human, four or five of them in a room up ahead.

People over there, I think neathers but I'm not familiar enough with the local species to be positive.

"Maybe the missing ones?" Lann heads ahead a little faster, which means that he rather than Seelah is in the lead when the neathers - they are, in fact, neathers - run at him with glazed eyes and supernatural strength and blood dripping from their teeth. 

THAT doesn't look right and they should all fall down unconscious now.

"Wow, nice," says Seelah, who had been preparing to stab. 

" - I know these people. Something's wrong with them."

"Oh, I thought maybe that was just what mongrels are like in the morning before they've had their rat breakfast."

"What are you, twelve? Knock it out."

"How long are they going to be unconscious, Bella -"

I don't know, it depends on them - I can wake them up, but by themselves it could be minutes or hours.

" - then I propose we leave them and keep going. We can get help if we make it out."

"I just don't understand what happened." 

"These are the kids who went missing yesterday?"

"No. Months ago. We figured something ate them. - let's just keep going."

I can try to find out but - not something I would usually do on strangers, might be dangerous to me too, and would probably take more time than we want to spend here.

I'll come back for them.

There are some more in the next room.

Bella warns the party again. And she has enough stamina to knock down another bunch, but she's running pretty low after that.

"WIll a lunch break help you any, or is a full night of sleep kind of deal?"

It doesn't strictly have to be sleep, I passively recharge all the time, but I'd need a couple hours not doing anything more intense than talking and not too much of that before I could take out another party that size. I don't want to kill them, though, what if they're fixable? And I'm not good enough with a sword to take them down nonlethally unless it's enchanted for that, which I haven't had the impression any of us know!

"If we wait a couple hours the ones we left behind us will wake up, though. - I don't actually think angels usually carry Merciful swords, if it's enchanted past a little bit of swordsmanship I'd expect it to be Holy or something, but you can take a swing at me if you want to check."

If you're sure you'll be able to tell? She hefts the sword and gives Seelah a poorly-calibrated swat on the arm.

It cuts her. "Pretty sure that's not Merciful, yeah. We could try to rush them and beat them unconscious but I think we should expect if we do that we'll kill some."

"They're rabid beasts."

If you got rabies - or whatever the heck they have - I wouldn't want to kill you over it either.

Camellia looks genuinely puzzled by this. 

"I can try to take them down alive. I just want everyone clear that this will still kill them some of the time."

"Can't paladins do Merciful weapons, if we're making all this fuss?"

"Fancy paladins can. Yours truly doesn't even have the immunity to fear and disease yet, I'm worried about getting into melee with these guys because they might bite me. I don't think sitting here for hours is the best plan, though. Time for the demons to learn we're here and plan their own ambush."

I assume there are no resurrections in the offing - Lann, how many people went missing in the first place?

"Over the last six months we've had six people go missing, not counting the four kids last night. But I haven't recognized all of these people, just a couple of them. The rest must be from other tribes."

The Church can only afford resurrections for great heroes who'll go on to save many more lives. Costs as much as outfitting a whole patrol with magic weapons so they don't die in the first place.

About how many other tribes are there - if we guess your tribe lost a normal number -

"Four tribes I've heard of."

So, you lost ten, we've seen nearly that many, there are probably ballpark forty total but we might not run into every bunch of them and we might run into some of them only after enough tromping around that I can put down one or two... Seelah, will you be more able to avoid killing them if there are fewer in a group?

"I'd expect so, yeah."

Okay. So as long as they don't come too thick and fast I'll try to thin out the group and let you focus on taking down the rest. Probably the best we're going to do unless Camellia has a useful spell she's willing to lend.

Camellia is pouting. "I have spells for grace and strength for warriors, not for getting mongrels their beauty sleep."

Okay, so nothing from Camellia. And maybe the layout is such that we can avoid some groups altogether, I'll keep a mind out.

Onward.

They can get a long way without killing people. Seelah is not very experienced at using her sword without intent to kill someone but if it's one on one she can generally manage it, and if they're careful about their positioning and Bella's using her magic to thin the enemies out it's usually one on one. Camellia takes up the rear. There is definitely no way to nonlethally shoot someone full of arrows, so Lann preserves his fire for -

- the demons, because yes, there are also demons. Dretches are supposed to be the weakest kind of demon, but they're fast moving, can make the air sickening and hard to see through, and take less damage. Seelah has to smite the second one because it's clawed her half to death, and after that heals herself but with a grimace. "I wanted to save the smite for something worse than a dretch."

Well, maybe that'll be the worst thing we run into today, says Bella with a feigned optimism that is not well supported by the way she's rearranging a scarf to filter the air for her. She does NOT know what she's doing with the sword but can at least hold it and stand in front of the people with range in case something gets past Seelah to take a swipe at the rest of them.

Humans up ahead.

Humans, Bella reports. If they are super lucky that means it's the surface!

No, it just means these humans are demon-summoners in the middle of a demon summoning ritual!

Well, fuck that. She can't knock them unconscious but she can make them all smell sights and hear proprioception, that's cheap. Quick, don't know how long that'll confuse them -

Seelah kills them. 

Camellia helps!!!! 

There's a locked door at the end of the room. Seelah turns back to the humans to search them for a key or something. "We've got to be close to the surface, if there's cultists down here -"

Bella can search dead cultists for keys.

Key. 

And does it go to the door? (And is anyone behind the door?)

Big demon!! Some smaller demons! Some neathers!

There are demons through this door, FYI, and a handful of neathers. Is there like anywhere else they could go from here.

The basement?

Well, that doesn't sound likely to be better. She'll give Seelah the key and take up her position holding a sword in front of the ranged and vulnerable.

It's a towering demon, six armed, fourteen feet tall, wreathed in black flames, cackling madly as it induces the terrified neathers to consume the flesh of a captured angel, the whole deal. It turns, contemptuously, to look at them, and Seelah tries to stab it even though she is very obviously and very ludicrously outclassed because it's not like there's some alternative that looks less doomed -

- and Bella's chest bursts open and starts bleeding, again, but this time the bizarre ripples of memory and sensation that accompany the chest wound are - under her control, mostly, more like watching a TV show that happens to be in her brain than like being inside one - and the power that's surging through her doesn't want to attack her, it wants to help, if she can only direct it -

WELL CAN IT ATTACK THE DEMON THEN??

SURE!!!!!!! HOLY FIRE DEMON BLAST!!!!

She doesn't kill it, but she terrifies it, which is nearly as good, because it Teleports out, and then it's just a matter of taking down its much, much, weaker minions. 

- she'll kill minions now, ask questions later.

Can it do more holy fire blasts??

Okay, apparently that's a once per day thing. Is she still bleeding.

Yeah she's kind of lightheaded and there's definitely some blood soaking through the front of her shirt. 

Then she's going to stand back with Everybody But Seelah and try to catch her breath.

Camellia will totally be on the front lines whenever they're not insisting on nonlethal force. 

The minions die under a hail of arrows and some stabbing, and Lann rushes over to the mongrel children who, predictably, are starting to go monstrous and rabid from the angel-eating ritual. 

" - you need healing, Bella?"

Might not work. This - thing - isn't normal. Save it for later.

"If you say so."

"I think we're near the surface. I hear running water, and smell something that's not cave air."

"Well, that's not nothing. Bella, take a protective amulet I got off one of the minions, you very obviously have the worst ratio of offense to difficulty-of-injuring. Can psions wear armor?"

I've never tried it but it won't interfere with doing psionics.

"I'll keep an eye out for something that makes you a bit harder to impale but won't interfere too much with walking if you're not used to it."

"Bella, do you know what's wrong with them? The mongrel kids? The ritual - did we interrupt it? Or are they going to turn out like the other ones?"

I don't know, I'm sorry, if I were going to poke and prod them I'd be looking at their own memories and it looks like what they remember is being forcefed an angel. Is the angel super dead.

Yes. 

Poor angel.

No one is having a particularly great day. Or week. 

"Shall we press on?"

Guess so.

Anevia was right to think she'd heard running water. There was a canal adjoining the great room where the demon conducted its rituals, and a stairwell on one side of it, and at the top of that - Kenabres.

It's - as Bella can tell from a distance - full of demons. And humans and orcs and tieflings and so on, of course, but lots of demons. 

Well, there's tons of demons up there, but hopefully we can get backup once we're up the stairs.

"The city's defenders will surely still be fighting," says Seelah, and plunges ahead. " - uh, want to point me in a direction where we'll find mortals rather than demons, or at worst a mix of both?"

Up the stairs and hang a left and it's solidly eighty percent there far as I can detect.

Off they go.

It's not only eighty percent, but rising; there's fighting and the mortals are winning it. At the center of them is a half-orc, paladin, same god as Seelah, stabbing things very viciously. She glances at them very briefly, just long enough to evaluate them as 'not more demons', and doesn't glance back until the room is all mortals no demons. 

Then -

"Gods. I thought -"

And Anevia limps across the room to fling herself into orc paladin lady's arms. "Yeah. I, uh, got a little lucky, made a couple friends.

Uh, these are - Bella, Seelah, Lann, Camellia."

Hi. Do you want this magic sword? I am not a sword person.

- half-orc paladin looks questioningly at one of the people behind her, who steps forwards to study the sword. 

        "....to the best of my ability to detect anything at all, that's just a completely normal sword," he says.

"Nah it was glowy and let Bella smite a demon with holy power or something," Anevia says, still clinging. 

Also it aggravated my mysterious and possibly cursed chest injury when it did that so I'm not sure it's good for me to hold onto it.

"I am worried it's a demonic plot of some kind," the woman says tiredly, "no offense intended. - I'm Irabeth Tirabade, commander of the Eagle Watch. Why doesn't someone wrap up the sword for now and put it in a bag and we can look at it more closely back at headquarters - we've gathered the survivors to the Defender's Heart. If you all are combat-capable, though, this is the building with the wardstone and we need to clear it out and secure it."

"I've been not completely useless sitting in the back with a longbow -" 

"You have a broken leg. Alina can take you and any civilians to the Heart."

I'm running on fumes psionics-wise but I'm - walking wounded? Not sure if you need me, you seemed to be able to find the demons on your own.

"She can tell where demons are even when they've concealed themselves from ordinary divination because she's a psion."

"That's extremely useful and much less so for this specific fight than it will be everywhere else in the city, why don't you head back to the Heart and let us know if any demons have already infiltrated it and then we can plan from there once we've retaken the garrison." Irabeth gives her wife a quick kiss on the forehead. "Onwards, crusaders. Iomedae is with us!"

"Good to know she's not secretly a demon," Anevia says fondly. 

Was that a concern on your mind? Bella asks, resuming helping Anevia walk.

Oh, I'm not worried about whether the woman I married is a demon, but whether the thing going around with her face is - yeah, it's the kind of thing you want to worry about.  The previous commander of the Eagle Watch was a cultist of Baphomet posing as a paladin, had successfully fooled nearly everyone. 

That sounds like it ought to be very hard to pull off but I will, uh, be alert to it. I'm not up on the local, uh, religions?

- huh. I mean, I figured you wouldn't know Iomedae since She's a Starstone god, but I guess I imagined the ancient gods would be the same in other worlds. I guess even if they are the same gods they probably don't have the same names. Baphomet's a demon lord most famous for irritating Asmodeus, getting eternally trapped in a maze, and then making it his divine realm and walking off to the Abyss with it?

I guess it's possible we have these under different names where I grew up but the story does not in fact sound familiar to me.

I guess the Abyss is supposed to be infinite and we mostly only know of the demon lords who bother causing trouble here. 

There's an invisible demon observing them from midair, on the left.

Don't look right at it but there is an invisible demon about ten feet our left, is it worth engaging before we get where we're going?

...probably not. It's worth stopping it from getting into the Heart but if it doesn't try that it doesn't seem worth the risk it's stronger than us.

So they will BLITHELY IGNORE THE INVISIBLE DEMON en route.

The major gods around here are Abadar - banks, trade, cities - Iomedae - war, where it's not stupid or Evil - Gorum - war, no such restrictions - Torag, dwarf god of honor - Pharasma - birth and death - Sarenrae - healing and redemption - and Erastil - farm and family.

Huh. Biggest names where I'm from were a god of, like, humans and their salvation, and a nature god? Plus lots of less popular ones.

- we had a god of humans but He died, caused all kinds of problems. There's a nature god, Gozreh. Probably His worship is big in some places but Mendev's at war with the Abyss so we are inclined towards gods with an interest in that.

Our god of humans also died - he did some thing about incarnating as a human and then dying and then coming back as a god for some reason that never made sense to me.

Huh. If ours is doing that He hasn't gotten to the part where He came back yet. But He died a hundred years ago and that's when the Worldwound opened and a ton of other terrible stuff happened and now the world sucks. I don't know all that much about it, honestly. Irabeth's Iomedae's and She really seems like by far the most reasonable god, if you must pick one.

And must you?

Hmmm? No. Mendev bans some faiths but doesn't require any.

Oh, that's a relief, I need more than the one sentence blurb to really get to know a god.

I have never really seen the appeal myself, outside the case where they're giving you powers. 

They're the best game in town for that at home, too, if what you want is healing. Physical healing.

Healing and clean water and the ability to smite demons. Paladins are pretty much invaluable at the border. 

The Defender's Heart is a two story building, an inn and tavern with a courtyard, a tall wall, and anxious archers posted on all the roofs. It's densely packed with resting soldiers and frightened civilians. People recognize Anevia, and only side-eye Bella a little. 

Only three of the civilians sheltering inside are secretly demons!

Three demons in here.

Thank you. Point them out to me and I'll tell Irabeth's people?

That one - that one - and that one there - and maybe have them go after them one at a time so the other two don't know they're made?

Yeah, we'll try to draw them away from the civilians with some excuse and then ambush them in a meeting room or something, one at a time. Do you have a sense of how dangerous they are?

No, I can't read them more closely or they'll fry my brain.

Understood. We'll handle it. And she goes off to talk to some people.

Bella is going to find somewhere to sit down. Her boots are very comfortable but she has been tromping a lot.

There's not enough space for all the people sheltering here to sleep at once but there's space to sit. There are children crying, and slightly older children playing, and slightly-older-than-that children looking after the little ones, and injured people, and elderly people. Not all that many able-bodied adults, aside from the guards Anevia is now talking to.

There's a bar serving stew and bread and beer and - clothes? Trinkets? Maybe it's just a general purpose store right now. 

Are they charging?

Not for food, yes for everything else.

She'll take some bread and stew, then, and then go see if there are any immediate child complaints she can address.

This child is scared of demons!

This child is scared of that bigger child who shoved him.

This child is sad because his daddy died.

This child is sad because his daddy is away fighting and might die.

This child is sad because she wants an apple and no one will give her an apple.

This child is sad because he was promised cake at the festival and then not given cake.

This child is sad because his daddy is a cultist and was executed in front of him.

This child is sad because he lost a TOOTH and when he told his mother she just burst into tears instead of praising him.

Well. She can congratulate the one who lost a tooth on this achievement, and let the one who is scared of the bigger kid sit near her in case that's deterring.

Anevia's people manufacture an excuse about identification of bodies and call some people over one by one, including the three demons; Bella can't see from here what happens after that but Anevia looks more relaxed, when Bella next sees her. 

And a while after that some people carry in the remnants of the Garrison assault, most of them in pretty poor shape. The wardstone fortress is held by extremely powerful demons, apparently, and was not retakable. There were survivors only because demons are not very strategic and did not bother much with pursuit.

Is Seelah alive? Irabeth?

Seelah's alive! There is a horrifying hole straight through the front of her armor that presumably until recently corresponded to a horrifying hole straight through her, but paladins are pretty tough.

Irabeth is dead. The Church might in her case be willing to pay to raise her; Anevia is arguing about it with a priest of a different god in the corner of the tavern.

"Bella!" says Seelah, exactly as cheerful and optimistic as she sounded this morning. "You made it here safely!"

Yeah, and found three demons in here too, I think they got handled. Uh, is there backup coming to try again with the fortress...?

"The Church'll send us backup unless somewhere else needs it even worse, but it's not rare for somewhere else to need it even worse, and I don't know for sure if anyone successfully got word out that we need backup. Irabeth had some plans if this failed, but -" Gesture at Irabeth's mangled corpse. "I guess we should ask Elin, the Eagle Watch second-in-command, where we're needed now. ...probably I should see if I can get the armor mended first, actually, or find any new armor in my size."

I can come with you to talk to the Eagle Watch if you think I ought to whenever you're re-armored.

"Sure, I'll catch you then." She smiles at her. "Hang in there, we aren't beat yet."

Thanks.

There's a little kid crying because a bigger kid pushed her, and another little kid crying because her daddy didn't come back with the others. There's someone drunkenly expounding on a unicorn-hunting adventure he went on, and someone else playing music, not very well.  Anevia stomps away from her conversation with the priest, not looking very happy, and then immediately gets distracted by breaking up a fight among some refugees, one of whom accuses another of stealing his coin purse. 

Well, at least Anevia can stomp now. Bella occupies herself with the kids for lack of anything immediately pressing to occupy her. She can sing to them. Keeps a metaphorical eye out for demons.

Seelah comes and finds her about half an hour later, wearing armor that's notably worse-fitted but does not have a giant hole in it. "Shall we go ask Elin where we can help out?"

Sounds good. She pats a kid on the shoulder and gets up.

Elin is a very tall very young man, kind of twitchy. "The main things we're trying to do right now are find survivors and bring them back here, and find a way into the Garrison that's not through the front door. There's supposedly a tunnel, but I don't know where its entrance is, or who would know. Before the attack, we were warned by this kooky old elf calling himself the Storyteller, and if he's still alive it'd be pretty bloody useful to talk to him again, now that we know he wasn't just kooky. 

- also, if you find any scrolls of Sending, or anyone who can cast it, we're out."

"So we can't tell anyone we need help?"

"We told them. When Deskari attacked, and again when the Wardstone was moved. I think we should figure we're on our own, but I'd try one more time, if we had the means. We can make use of scrolls of most everything else, too. -  Oh, you also have permission to bring supplies back to the Defender's Heart from any abandoned residence you run across. Irabeth wrote an emergency order for it, just note what you took from where and the Church'll try to compensate people later, if anyone survives."

"I can read a bit but I can't so much write - Bella, can you write -"

Uh, not in this language, but in mine yes.

"That probably works, you can read it out to someone when we get back who can copy it out to our language. Elin, do you have anyone who can go with us? Bella's really useful and we should be trying really hard not to get her killed."

Elin pinches his forehead between his fingers. "I don't really. - do psions do truth spells? There's a prisoner in the basement, an accused thief, who says he'll help if we let him out but I am assuming he's full of shit. If he's not you could take him, he's a bit of a wizard. I need Anevia here unless she manages to wheedle a diamond out of Rathimus so we can get Irabeth back. Count Arendae's got a substantial security staff, but you'd have to fight your way to his place and it's on the other side of the chasm Deskari opened."

Not truth spells per se but if he wants to let me read him I can do that. - diamond?

" - as the material component for a Raise Dead. Rathimus can cast the spell but he's a bloody Abadaran and won't give us a discount. A loan, yes, but I don't have the right to spend the Church's money like that."

Bella rummages in her pocket. Rubies, agates - there, this ring has a diamond in the middle of all the garnets, it's a shame to wreck Mahtan's lovely setting but he would certainly understand, she pries the prongs apart and offers it.

Elin blinks disbelievingly at her for a second, then breaks into a broad grin. " - wow. Right. Okay, if we can raise Irabeth then Anevia can probably go out with you, then you've got a paladin and an archer and maybe a bit of a wizard, we're not going to do better than that. Let's bring this to Rathimus, then."

"Shall we go talk to the thief while they do the Raise?"

Yeah. - please neither of you tell anyone about the jewelry, it's in my pockets to begin with so I won't look quite so lootable. Diamonds aren't valuable where I was but I didn't happen to be wearing many today - unless it's okay if they're other colors? can you ask the cleric?

"I'll ask," Elin says. "- and of course. I won't say where we got it."

Thanks. It's just it's such a long, complicated story - not really time to get into it anytime soon.

And off to meet the thief.

"I'm an innocent man. I had nothing to do with it."

So, that seems possible, and I can check. I don't want to pressure you to let me read your mind, but I don't actually have the authority to unilaterally let you out on my own recognizance, just recruit you if you read sincere.

He blinks rapidly. "Can you say that again but less paladin-y."

I can read minds. I'm not doing it right now. I don't like doing it without permission, and it's a lousy sort of permission that's done in exchange for things like not being in prison. However, that's all I am presently offering.

Okay I may possibly have some of the stolen property but I still don't want to die here while the city's overrun by demons. It's not like the jewelry shop owner needs it anyway. I think Irabeth'll let me go with you if you tell her you want my help.

Will you give back the stolen property?

It's my grandfather's! It's mine by rights. And I don't even know if the jewelry store owner is still alive, and he sure doesn't need one more fancy thing in his store with a hundred of them!

Well, do you need it?

Yes! 

To get you out of this cell with its return or for some more pressing reason?

It's mine. It was my grandfather's. It's the only thing I have from my family. I couldn't just have it sit in a shop window for some rich guy.

How'd it get there if it belonged to your family?

I don't know! I hadn't seen it in years. It went missing - was stolen, probably - when I was just a kid. And then - there it is, in the window. Really I was just retrieving my own property.

I can see the argument. I guess this isn't really the time to get into the weeds on that. You're serious about helping out with various post-demonic-invasion errands and want to let me read you about it?

Yeah, I'll help you out. I'm not in the market for more enemies, and I haven't got anywhere to go. - my crew thinks I ratted them out about the jewelry shop heist. 

Can you confirm very explicitly that it is okay if I check.

- yes! I said okay!

Thanks.

She checks.

He has been assuming she was reading his mind this whole time! He isn't planning to run off at the first opportunity, entirely because there's no where to run off to and psions are scary!

...I guess that's good enough for a temporary thing. Uh, I really wasn't reading your mind except to translate what you said, before.