It'll last five, maybe five and a half minutes, if Brightstar keeps trying to do things, and he will be worse at things. When he stops and reassesses it'll discharge. It could happen any moment, he looks like he's stopping and reassessing - but sometimes a few seconds to really think is all you need to permanently think better of your course. He's got a Forbid Action ready, probably the right thing to aim it at is 'using magic', exploding is a kind of using magic. Why do scores of horses know a state secret, that's not a secret, that's a horse conspiracy.

Forbid Action lasts only a round. If they can't get around the shields to let Nayoki do something more thorough, they're going to have to physically beat him unconscious within the first six seconds after the spell goes off and drag him out of channel range.

(Does Blai have any idea how many fucking horse conspiracies there are in Haven. It's surprisingly possible for Companions to keep secrets from their Heralds but apparently impossible for them to keep secrets from each other. He had no idea when he was a human Herald just how much of every day the Companions spend on gossip.) 

...If Blai can forbid him from using any magic, even just for six seconds, that - might or might not cause him to stop shielding, but at the very least he won't be able to do anything to stop Nayoki from shredding them and then set-commanding him, and she can probably do that within six seconds more easily than they can beat him unconscious. 

Vanyel seems to have switched to private Mindspeech with Brightstar, and it would certainly be nice if this was enough to get him to reassess his course of action at least as far as "not Final Striking with Vanyel literally right there" but Seldan is not sure they can afford to count on that, it seems dangerously possible that even if he does start to reconsider the Star-Eyed Goddess might be able to directly possess him, that's not common but there are legends and clearly She cares a really absurd amount about killing Leareth. And also Leareth is still injured and under debris and might be dying and right now Vanyel is no longer making progress on unburying him.

(All of this goes by in less than a second at the speed of thought.) 

- they should do it. On Nayoki's mark, so she's ready to take down Brightstar's shields within six seconds. 

He pulls Nayoki into rapport as well and wordlessly shoves the plan at her. :Go?: 

A very brief pause while she absorbs that. 

:- I am ready.: 

Well he doesn't love attacking the guy during the middle of what might reasonably be understood as a parley but the guy CAN EXPLODE and might be POSSESSABLE by a god with NO respect for the concept of intervention budget, so.

"Forbid Action."

Brightstar stumbles as Nayoki follows up with a strike at his shields, and - presumably as a result of unexpectedly not being able to do anything with magic - yells and tries to run at Blai. 

He hasn't actually shaken off the Qualm yet, and he promptly trips on some of the dimly-lit rubble and falls on his face. 

Nayoki has half of Brightstar's shields down within four seconds, including the one against Mindhealing, and then he's set-commanded and he stays down. 

(Nayoki has a wicked headache at this point and she's really hoping she doesn't have to hold off too many other people that way - Vanyel should hurry up–) 

Vanyel is finding himself genuinely pretty upset at having his attempt at talking to Brightstar interrupted that way! 

...and now is absolutely not the time to dwell on it. He goes back to trying to heave up that particularly large slab, probably Leareth is under it - 

:- Got him: 

This part is also pretty upsetting! It's good that Blai has spectacularly impressive healing magic because they don't have any regular Healers with them - maybe reinforcements are catching up but they might be having their own gryphon problems or White Winds problems outside Nayoki's set-command radius - and Leareth's injuries do not look that survivable. It's remarkable he's still alive after what must be five minutes trapped under there. 

There shouldn't be any enemies in a thirty-foot radius who are merely injured and not also set-commanded not to be able to move. 

Thank you, Seldan. He double-checks the line of effect and channels.

Leareth wakes up unable to move; most of his body is still pinned. He's completely uninjured, but the debris is still really hot and he's still completely unshielded so this state of affairs doesn't even last a second. 

Within a couple of seconds, though, and only mildly scorched, he manages to concentrate enough to, one, SHIELD HIMSELF at least haphazardly against further physical or magical attacks and, two, blast his way free of the remaining rubble. 

- what's happening, there was - earthquake, Jisa, then a discontinuity, clearly something went wrong - 

He will try to read every unshielded mind nearby, which is mostly just Brightstar (set-commanded and lying in a state of confused miserable panic) and Blai. 

He doesn't have another channel so they need to haul him out of there and then he can drop the Comp. Lang. for a Cure Light. That rock looks small enough to move. What if Brightstar's set-command doesn't hold. What if there really was a serious parley negotiation happening there and he jumped too early, he needs to get on the same page with Seldan about that kind of thing, maybe they should have read more of the Acts instead of playing all that chess. What if there is another earthquake. What if he casts the prophecy and it reveals some heinous emergency they need to deal with while he's low on spells. What if there are more gryphons coming and they claw Seldan and he runs out of healing, he doesn't have a Breath of Life scroll yet. Leareth had better not die and strand Blai on this planet where you can't buy a Breath of Life scroll. Haul haul haul. Why are all these rocks so hot, is that a normal earthquake thing.

All right, he's - standing up is hard, Leareth is dizzy - probably from soaking up way too much heat while attempting to use magic heavily and not able to breathe that well for a few seconds, he's in some pain but he thinks it's fine...

Nayoki is there, that's good. 

:Gate out?: 

Can someone who has not just set-commanded a couple dozen minds in quick succession Gate out. Nayoki is not sure she can. 

:I need a door, I can't–: Helpless look around at nothing but broken rocks. :We should get Brightstar.: 

Leareth can Gate out. He's - pretty sure everyone else who was anywhere near him is dead, or he would have been able to feel other minds in range - the caves extend a long way, if any of the kyree are still alive he's not managing to reach far enough with Thoughtsensing to find them - he should not stand here and spend any longer trying, he needs to not be here and then he can...catch his breath, and figure out what's happening...

:Get Brightstar if you want but we are not waiting for you:

She's scraping enough strength together to shield them, a set-command won't help if anyone can hit Leareth's Gate with a levinbolt from more than fifty years away. She does not want that Gate up for more than three seconds. 

Blai and Seldan are coming with, right? Vanyel has apparently decided to take his chances here rather than leave Brightstar, which is probably valid - they can send in another party to get him soon, probably, or maybe some of the backup will get to them eventually, but either way Leareth needs to not be here and so they are not waiting for Vanyel to pick up the teenager and haul him over here. 

It's not the tidiest-looking Gate he's ever managed, it's wavering a bit around the edges, but it goes up - big enough for a Companion - and Leareth stumbles through. 

...you cannot leave a helplessly enchanted man who you might have interrupted mid-parley in a hot barely breathable environment unless you have a much better reason to be in a hurry. Blai is going to help Vanyel with Brightstar.

This is honestly kind of a relief because for a moment there Leareth was wavering on the other side of his Gate like he might be considering trying to hold it longer rather than leave Vanyel there alone, and it’s in fact not ideal for Vanyel to be there alone with Brightstar but also Leareth should not do that! And this way she gets very little argument from him when she snaps at him in Mindspeech to take the bloody Gate down now. They’ll send more people in to pick up Vanyel as soon as she can get someone in here to pull a Gate-location out of her head.

Leareth takes the Gate down, takes one step toward the wall as though to lean against it, and then seems to give up and settle for crumpling to the floor instead - he’s behind shields, it’s safe now, stupid to keep wasting energy on standing…

Well now Nayoki is alarmed! 

At least Leareth managed to get them back to the Gate-terminus room in the main base the two of them work out of, rather than instinctively going for some random records cache. She can go to him and Mindspeak for help without having to push her range. 

See? Blai is such a Herald already! 

(Seldan thinks it's a reasonable call but he hadn't been inclined to push one way or another. Blai is the one who'll have to bear the brunt of fighting off any additional gryphons while low on spells and without Nayoki there to handle them before they're even in sight. He's very proud of Blai and any alarm he might be feeling about Blai's safety can go behind his shields where it won't be a distraction.)

Really he's not sure how many more gryphons there can possibly be, it feels like between them their party took down a lot of gryphons. They just need to get to Vanyel, make sure no one manages to attack him while he's too distracted to notice in time, and find some downed trees or something to make Vanyel a door-shape to put a Gate on since he doesn't know the unscaffolded-Gate technique. Or maybe they won't even have to because Leareth's people will get there as backup - some of them must be out there, Nayoki had send out an order before they Gated here, and he was too busy to notice additional Gates at the time but now he can look for other minds.

Vanyel reaches Brightstar, manages to roll him over so he's at least face-up, and then runs into the problem that Brightstar is significantly taller than him and there's absolutely no way he can lift him alone. 

Well, he's not alone, though Blai is not sure where they are lifting him to.

They should put him over Seldan, and then they'll be able to move more easily in search of trees in case that's a faster way to a Gate out of here than waiting for purported reinforcements from Leareth's people - 

- the communications-barrier is abruptly down, so it seems that finding whoever was casting it is what some of the reinforcements Nayoki called for were handling. Seldan doesn't really have Mindspeech range to Haven from here, but he can reach Waymeet and do his very best to impress on all the Companions in range that they need to communicate to Haven immediately what happened here. Especially the part where Jisa was nearly killed in an unsanctioned attack on a location their allies (well, Stef's allies, but same difference) had offered as a safe base for both Jisa and Leareth, who all the Heralds and Companions should now know isn't their real enemy here. They don't really need the message that Jisa is fine, they would know if it were otherwise because of Treven, but Jisa is fine. A lot of the kyree aren't, though. 

...actually while they're still here he should look for minds still alive under the debris, he's pretty sure no one else close to Leareth's location survived but maybe further out, it sounds like the cave system was extensive... 

He's scanning and finds a group of people who seem to have trapped a trio of very angry gryphons in three different midair spherical force-barriers, so that's presumably Leareth's people - though he's going to ask them politely to let him briefly read them so he can confirm, they're all responsibly properly shielded - anyway that would explain why they're not, in fact, having a gryphon problem...

...seriously he remembers navigating over a bunch of the spindly fallen trees, why are none of them nearby now that he wants them - not actually a mystery, this is where the fireball from the weapon or whatever was hottest, they're probably all burned...