"They'll need Dispel Magic," says Mahdi as hammering sounds start. " - or I guess they can dig around it, or might have some ability that does the same thing."

"It's four hours until sunrise."

"I am not confident in my ability to spend them sleeping."

"I could take Plane Shift, at dawn. Gets us out of here a little less conveniently but it would get us out of here. If Abadar doesn't think we should open the gate."

"Verita, do you think you know how to open the gate?"

"I - I dunno, maybe - "

She looks at it again. It's big and ancient and important and the thing that she exists for, the thing her powers are supposed to fit.

She stops holding Imrainai and gets up and stares up at it. Runs her fingers over one of the angel's outstretched hands. 

Nothing immediately happens. She starts whispering something that sounds like Celestial.

" - to be clear I am not a hundred percent sure we should do that I just wondered whether you knew how. If you don't we'll think of something else."

"I - don't think I know right now."

"Okay. Doesn't even help to be able to open it if you don't also know how to close it.

- go the fuck to sleep, you two, I'll wake you up if anything changes."

"Silence," Fazil mutters, and lies back down.

She keeps staring at the gate, thinking.

New voices join the argument on the other side of the dome.

That sounds like a lot of people.

She goes back to whispering under her breath, pacing a ways away from the gate and looking up at it every now and then, searching for words that have the right kind of magic in them.

" - are they gonna break through?"

"Yes. But I don't know how long it will take them."

"How long do you think - "

"If they have to dig around it might take them four hours. If they just have to run back to the nearest city and find the nearest caster strong enough to dispel Mahdi - then it depends how far that city is and how many casters it has, right, it could fall any minute or it could take them four hours."

Nod.

Korva's down here. If they all die then - everyone else'll be fine, right, and she'll go wherever, but Korva -

She goes back to the gate. She whispers something. Takes the stance of the angel, arms stretched out to the sides of the gate, palms pointing in towards it, and whispers, whispers, whispers, searches for the right magic in her words -

And suddenly her hands erupt in flames.

The carvings in the surface of the gate glow brilliant white, almost too bright to look at. The great stone slabs begin to move into the walls. A crack of daylight appears in between them.

Mahdi and Fazil wake up.

"I didn't tell her to do that," Hagan says. 

Then he reaches for his bow. Sighs. Reaches for a knife instead.

And they brace themselves for a look through the door.

" - sorry."

She stares out the gate.

There's... a meadow. A pretty idyllic-looking meadow with a dirt road running through it. In the distance there's a forest, and beyond that there are mountains.

"Detect Magic," says Fazil suspiciously.

The gate is super magic. The meadow is not.

"Can you close it, Verita?"

"Uh - "

She says something in Celestial. Her hands erupt in fire. The gate lights up again and starts closing.