The festival is going well, which means it's only a matter of time before something like this happens. There's an entire squad of guards standing around the stretcher and doing exactly nothing to solve the problem. Useless.

"Step back, everyone! What happened here? What - who did this?"

"Demons, prelate! We found her barely alive outside the walls."

Well, technically one of the scouts did, but he left as soon as he reported it, and there's no use in him getting credit now.

She's still bleeding and her chest is barely moving, but she doesn't seem dead yet. He's lived much longer than his fellow inquisitors by assuming anything out of the ordinary is a demonic plot and he's not going to give that up now. He'll play along, but he's watching for any slip-up.

"And none of you had a potion?" He rushes through a prayer to Iomedae, but her chest wound stubbornly fails to close. Probably cursed, or an illusion. 

"You there! Yes, you - stop dithering and gawping and make yourself useful - go and get Terendelev!" Either this is genuine and Terendelev can help, or it's not and Terendelev can destroy them. 

There's a lull as they wait - none of the guards want to meet Hulrun's gaze. The festival continues on around them. The sun shines down out of a blue sky, people laugh and shout as they drink and game, and the scent of pie and ale fills the air.

Estel is waking up. She has a headache, and she has no idea where she is, but those voices sound like Hallit-accented Taldane, so... not in the Wound? Probably safe to respond. Not that she's great at faking anyway.

"Where am I?"

"You're in the town square, disrupting the Day of the City. Who are you?"

"Estel, currently of the Steel Exiles. Which city?"

He's never heard of the Steel Exiles, which makes this rather suspect. Sometimes adventurers show up to try and help and have ridiculous names, but mostly when that happens it's a succubus and her thralls. She's obviously not being helpful, so he's still considering his options when the choice is taken out of his hands.

The ground trembles and a low keening buzz cuts through the air. Portals rip through space and demons launch themselves through, tearing into the partygoers and scattering blood across the cobblestones. Mortals in the square stagger as the fabric of the Abyss twists their senses, nausea and bile rising in their guts while the thick acrid scent of congealed blood overwhelms everything else.

She has never run into this particular monster before, but she has plenty of reflexes for it nonetheless. She tugs the armor back in place and staggers to her feet, using her pike to lever herself to standing. And while she's taking a round to get up and mobile, asks herself some questions.

Is this demons?* It's probably demons. This tastes like the Abyss.

Where are there demon attacks in a city?** 

Uh, there's a city along the wardstone line in Mendev, isn't there? And that would match the accents. So... she has a duty to help. And falling back on training is easier than thinking anyway.

"Right. Not where I expected to fight demons today, but it'll do. Teleport specialist, fifth circle, where do you want me?"

* Knowledge: Religion roll: 20, Knowledge: Planes roll 24
** Knowledge: Geography roll: 20

A lot of things are happening in that round. There are several dozen demons in the square at this point, mostly schirs and dretches slaughtering the partygoers with ease. The few people who start to fight back effectively get jumped by nabasus or vrocks. There's even a vrolikai standing in the ruins of the stage, three of its arms idly eviscerating the band while it looks around.

A monstrous voice reverberates through the city, "Behold, crusader gods, behold. Iomedae, you poor Imposter. Your city will fall to me. Your followers will feed my hunger." The sky darkens as clouds of locusts flow overhead.

Hulrun is a little busy and doesn't actually hear her. His sword is wreathed in flame and light and the way he ripped through the nearest schirs has earned him a nabasu* to duel. It's fangs are currently clamped on his left arm and tearing through the bracer while Hulrun tries to get enough leverage to drive his sword into its gut.

Terendelev could clear the square of demons with Holy Word but she doesn't want to kill all the non-good people in it. In a few rounds that won't be a problem. She calls down a flame strike on one cluster and changes back to her normal form, claws and wings and tail whipping out to shred the demons nearest to her.

"Deskari, Lord of Locusts! Leave. My. City!" She roars her defiance at the sky and coils her body to launch up out of -

No. He plunges down out of the swarms and pins her to the ground with Riftcarver. The scythe swings up faster than anyone in the square can follow, then comes down. Terendelev's head goes flying and eighty tons of silver scaled meat collapses beneath his claws. 

That is a silver dragon, and not a young one, and it just died like a chump. This just ceased to be winnable.

The name Deskari actually takes slightly longer to register than that, but doesn't exactly change her reaction.

Also, Estel's chest is bleeding quite a bit, from a wound she does not remember receiving.

That fucking hurts but it is not important right now. She'd never have made Signifer if something like pain could keep her from casting or assessing a battlefield.

So. The correct place to be is not here, but she is really extremely good at teleportation and can bring four passengers on a dim door from five yards away, more if they're carrying children. And pop six yards unaccompanied in half a moment.

So she's going to sight a cluster of civilians where she can grab at least that many, be in their midst with a thought, call "Evacuating you, don't resist", and aim for eight hundred feet away down one of the boulevards.

You know, if that works this close to a godsdamn demon lord.

The wound and the demons and the swarms of bugs and the sickening rasping underneath it all are definitely not helping, but her rescuees are absolutely not resisting. There's a couple huddled against each other and a wall, each holding a kid, and she can pull in two more nearby adults while she's at it - one of them in the last instant before a bardiche could hit his chest.

She's the most interesting food left in the square at that point, so he's on his way over when her spell completes. A million eyes looking down from the sky show exactly where she went. He has other plans and little time, but he can reach her from here.

"Run and die, mortal gnat." Riftcarver slams down again, empowered by his will, and shears straight through the street. The city rips in half for a mile in front of him, a chasm opening up beneath Estel's feat as everything around her collapses.

Then he springs out of view to the west.

Well shit. They're probably not going to survive this fall, are they.

Ow. She's not doing great about it either. She valiantly struggles to hold onto consciousness, and might even have managed it if not for that chest wound, but she passes out down in the dark.

She comes to an unknown amount of time later, lying in a pool of blood and filthy water. The only light comes from bulbous glowing mushrooms hanging from the walls of the cavern.

She survived! Good, she wasn't entirely sure of that part.

She will cast light on her pike and... she doesn't have fly hung today or know how far down she is. One more dim door. Let's... search for other survivors.

Though also she ought to check, do her bags of holding* still have all the trade goods she was headed south with?

*three, each 'type I' with 30 cubic feet and 250 pounds capacity

Three bags, all accounted for once she picks up her scattered belongings. She finds the bodies of two of her rescuees nearby in the cavern, mangled by the fall. No sign of the others - either they landed elsewhere or left without leaving a trail. There are two exits - smaller caves cutting out from this one. If she kept her sense of direction during the fall, one is to the north and the other is back southwest towards the market square.

So whatever gave her a huge sucking chest wound wasn't interested in looting her even of the easy stuff. Future problem?

Let's go with hopefully-southwest.

At a tight corner of the cave up ahead Estel spots three giant spiders lurking in their webs near the ceiling.