Legend of Ransera

Talon engaged the monstrosity. The sound of a hundred mouths all shrieking, screaming, moaning, laughing, and even begging all rose in a cacophany of ungodly noise.

The caverns shook as the draegir battled a voidstone infused horror.

---

Aoren heard Hilana. He knew that the priority was not the abomination that was now locked in furious combat with the love of his life. Logically, he knew that Talon was not just strong enough, but was clever enough to overcome the challenges presented with fighting a creature that distorted the very fabric of reality around it.

All the same, he could not bring himself to move. It was not until Aurin barked his command that Aoren shook himself out of his stupor. The dragon nodded and joined the others, stepping up to the partial cave-in. With the weight of the oppressive voidstone lifted off of them, it was easier to stir his aether into motion. He cast his senses across Nyxus and looked through the shadows of the Warrens until his sight guided him to the group of the miners. They were in a makeshift shelter within a cave. They looked to be holding their own against some shinaegri. Fortunately these ones did not look to be voidrillium tainted. He blinked, returning his senses to the material world.

“Hilana, Athalia, have your lava bombs at the ready. There are shinaegri that the miners are fending off. Only a handful and not quite so tainted as what we just faced.” He gave a grim smirk. “Make a splash, cause a distraction. Then get to the miners and start rounding them up.”

He looked to Aurin.

“The miners have bunkered down in a cave. It will be immediately ahead and to the right. If you can, it looks like you've got a few tricks up your sleeve. Get to them. Start ushering them back toward the mine shaft.” He looked at Hikami and Yumiko.

“As for us? We will take out the shinaegri while Aurin, Hilana and Athalia get to the miners.” Aoren waited only a moment to make sure everyone understood their part. He then turned to the partial cave in and drew in a breath. The flow of the elements came easier to him now that Talon was drawing the focus of the voidstone cursed monstrosity. He reached deeper into the well of power within him, took hold of the rock and stone and began coercing it to crumble away into the rock around it. He enacted sculpting to reshape the stone to create a viable pathway, at least as viable as he could given the circumstances. As soon as the pathway was clear enough, he shouted.

“Go! Go!” Time was not their friend in this moment and it was better to act swiftly.

Aoren's knack for the knowing trick must have outstripped his own, or else he just wasn't as confident pouring all of his awareness through rock and dirt when body horror was trying to skull fuck a god as an appetizer before devouring them and the miners stuck below like a treat in a dog's chew toy. But, all the same, it was good to know what was waiting for them. Aurin was, if nothing else, a man who liked to know things. Specifically, he liked to know things that other people didn't want him to know, but knowing things that increased his chances of survival were also clutch.

Good as his word, he wove his wards to support their tunnel; none of them were dwarves or moles or miners, so he figured cheating with magic was their best bet.

When the women began fire bombing the gross monsters, he made a mental note to tell Hilana that she was a lava bomb in the sack when it was slightly more appropriate. He often said things inappropriately, but there was a method to it, at least in his head.

But once they reached the miners, he considered the situation.

"Fuck that," he said. "Stabilize anyone bleeding out or something, but..."

He found a stable-seeming wall and leaned his hands against it. Arcas was good for a couple of things: cock-blocking the flesh demons; dampening the voidrillium effects. It was still more difficult than it ought to have been, but he could feel the slipstream here. He knew the slipstream near the Tranquil Gardens.

So, while the healers were healing and the tanks were tanking, the Railrunner concentrated entirely on coordinating their safe exit from these unholy premises. For all the power he had accrued, Aurin barely considered himself any sort of official magic-user. He had tricks. He had mastered these tricks, but only Traversion had come with an honest-to-gods instructor, and Valencia Grey knew her shit. As such, so did Aurin.

When he had all the threads crossed, connected, and woven to bridge here and there, he pulled them taught like a boy playing cat's cradle. The stone under his hands rippled as if made of water, turned to light, and then showed the cultivated greenery outside the emergency entrance to the hospital, as well as a few startled passers-by. The faint entropic pull of the voidrillium had made it difficult to connect, difficult to create, and difficult to maintain, but he was certain that the passage itself would be safe.

He stepped back and out of the way. The portal was large enough that the sisters could easily pass through with a patient betwixt them. Dragons and Avialae might have to duck their heads, but they could fit if they wanted to. He hoped they all knew when to fight and when to retreat, though, because he didn't intend to play hero.

"Well, don't just gape. Time to see the physicians, no?"

Aurin would do what he could to help the ambulatory through the portal. If necessary, he could vault the immobile through personally. It took some effort to maintain the portal, but he had long ago learned to multitask. He didn't know if their front line would fall back or win the day, but he could maintain this point of egress for quite a while as long as Arcas kept the voidrillium at bay.