After setting up the librarians with some water and the best defenses that you can help them to muster, you shoulder your gear and grab the usable weapons and armor from the crusader, then head north as directed toward the orphanage.
Everywhere, the city is a mess of carnage. Bodies lie fallen in the streets - some half-eaten, some burned, some torn limb from limb. Buildings are damaged, with doors splintered, in some cases walls broken open, rooftops torn up. Debris and broken furniture in some places makes barricades, in others simply forms piles of trash that the party must skirt around or over.
Rats swarm about the crevices and howls and screams call out in the distance. Embers waft across the sky from an eastern wind.
You reach the orphanage a short time later, having carefully picked your way through the streets with your guard up. After listening at the windows and the door, you cautiously enter, and find spattered bloodstains on the floor, including three human (adult) bodies and two small demonic creatures (imps? quasits? something of that sort), but no children. There are bloody tracks and signs of battle.
There were several small footprints in the center of the large room, but they all head out of the southern door in an orderly line.
The place holds several desks and chairs, and a pile of rope - cut in several places - lies in the center of the floor in a large central room. A trapdoor looks to go to a basement.
Arloric examines the scene and sniffs the floor.
"There was a battle here. A group of people fought and killed these people and...those demons. At least two of them were heavily armored. Bunch of smaller prints here door, going out the door in a line."
He closes his eye and thinks.
"If there were children here, they're long gone, and judging by the scene, I'd say whoever killed this lot did it to rescue them. We may have some allies in the city!"
Aberus squats to the ground to examine the bodies, taking some time to inspect the wounds. "The demonic things were struck by a weapon infused with a holy power, almost certainly a blow from a paladin. Much like our friend Uriel has done. My guess is it's what killed them." He scratches his chin absentmindedly as he examines the adults. "These three, though, were struck by both spells and weapons."
He stands up and faces Arloric. "We need to be cautious. We don't know where happened here, or which side won the skirmish. We only know who died."
The elf will cast detect magic to see what she might be able to discern.
The sight of the orphanage isn't exactly a comforting one for Alexa, at least at first. Arloric & Aberus' explanations of what's happened here seems to calm her nerves somewhat.
"Should we follow the children's tracks?"
"Yes, but I'd like to have a look down there first"
Aberus descends into the empty basement and finds several small rooms, including some that look like workrooms and an office, but they've already been ransacked.
There's also a small grate in the floor that seems to lead into a small tunnel (only a small creature could fit into it), but it's been conspicuously barricaded shut.
Aberus studies the grate in the floor and what looks like a tunnel beyond it. He sounds concerned as he calls out, "Alexa! Can you come have a look at this?"
Alexa comes over to take a look.
"Do you think something came up through here?"
You don't see anything that looks like a trap. It looks like it was boarded up from the outside, maybe to keep something from coming out from inside?
Aberus scratches his chin and says, "Someone didn't want the children escaping through here, maybe? I can't really make sense of it."
perception check
Aberus crouches down and regards the enclosure dubiously.
Aberus sits up suddenly and unexpectedly. He stares at the grate for a moment then says, "There's someone down there!"
He crouches back down and speaks, loudly, into the tunnel. "Hello! Yes, there is. Do you need help?"
"Help..." says the voice weakly, followed by a piping, grisly voice.
"All right," says the other voice, "Listen carefully! Open the grate and move away or the kid dies painfully!"
Alexa, in response, slides into the shadows, her short sword in her hand.
I don't know who you are, but you won't be holding a child hostage for much longer.
"S-s-sure thing. Umm...Whatever you say!"
Aberus quickly puts a protective spell on Arloric...
Aberus walks around Arloric, stopping when the tiefling is directly between himself and the grate.
Arloric smashes open the wooden boards with several blows. A few moments later, you see a malnourished child crawl out of the hole. He's covered in sores and shivering, with dirt all over his body.
Sitting on his shoulder, with its tail wrapped around his neck, is some kind of tiny fiendish creature. Its tail has a pointed stinger that is very deliberately resting against the boy's neck.
"Here's how this goes," says the tiny fiend. "The boy and me are going to walk out of here and go up on a roof. You stay down on the ground. Then I'm going to fly away and you can have him. Otherwise, I pump him so full of poison he'll vomit up his own spleen. Deal?"
From her hiding place, Alexa's eyes widen when she sees the fiend whose stinger is at her little brother's throat.
She starts scanning the beast, trying to determine what kind of fiend it is...
Arloric follows Aberus and Alexa's lead, but when they find Miles, he gasps and glares, his face darkening in anger.
"Why are you here, creature?"
"Same reason as the rest of my pals! To carve out a little niche of my own here in this world with suffering for others and glee for me! So now you suffer - you let me go, or else I finish off the brat! The weakling couldn't even dig out the dirt tunnel we were stuck in by that last group of do-gooders!"
"And what's to stop us from hunting you down after we've let you go? Not all among us are paladins."
"Unless you can fly that's not gonna do you much good, idjit," sneers the fiend.
Alexa grimaces, and starts creeping forward, trying to sneak up on the imp while it's distracted with its gloating & sneering.
Aberus steps forward, his right hand outstretched as he crouches down.
"Whoa, whoa there! No one is going to hunt anyone down, OK? Look, we're going to let you out." He tosses his mace a couple of feet in front of him, letting it crash heavily to the ground. "See? We're all friends here. Look. I'm taking my sword out slowly, OK?"
Aberus starts to very slowly pull his sword out, grabbing with his palm and fingers over the top of the hilt instead of around the pommel, so as to look non-threatening.
Aberus pulls his scimitar out, and then sloppily tosses it forward, near his mace, where it clatters to the ground.
"See that? I'm unarmed. Nice and calm!" he says, his voice slowly getting louder. "You don't need to panic! We're all calm here, got it?! Nice and calm! SO JUST RELAX AND STAY CALM!"
Arloric looks at Aberus incredulously, not noticing Alexa sneaking around him...
The fiend, gloating while it clings to Miles' neck, fails to notice Alexa sneaking around behind Arloric. It shouts back at Aberus, "Yeah you better panic! This kid's gonna get killed if things go wrong, and they're going wrong PRETTY! DARN! QUICK!"
Alexa creeps up behind the imp and lunges for its stinger!
Alexa's hand wraps around the little beast's stinger and she wrenches it away from Miles' neck. The tips of her hair flare a bright orange, and her hair stands on end before burning a bright orange.
"They're going according to plan. I will enjoy watching you die, you little wretch." She growls, her voice filled with quiet, unquenchable rage.
The imp lets out a comical "Grrrkk..." ask Alexa grabs its stinger and whips it off from Miles. It struggles to escape her grasp!
The imp wriggles and manages to get its tail free... but this costs it valuable time.
Miles, meanwhile, simply falls over on his side and breathes shallowly, his eyes looking up at his erstwhile ward.
Aberus grabs the wand with his free hand and triggers the spell, creating a scimitar of pure force next to the imp.