"That's going to be trickier than anticipated, if it was just Beren and the King and the people that went with them - I have no idea why I expected that, but I did - if it was just them then once I have the teleport improved for range and capacity I could get them all... It'd only take like thirty seconds but I wouldn't be able to get everyone out I don't have enough energy.  I could get twenty-five or thirty..."

"I can get thirty and that will probably convince Gorthaur to kill the rest which is terrible but also sounds like it's leaving them better off than they are..."

"Yeah - just, get Beren, you've got to -"

"Do you think you can identify him with osanwë? And check who's still alive..."

"I think so - you can't take me with?"

"I can - or I'll be able to, anyway - and I will on the first trip at least for you to point him out and tell me who's still alive, but it means one fewer person we can save each trip, and fewer trips because I have to teleport you in with me..."

"Is there a way I can sing you more of your magic energy -"

"I don't think so... It's not tied to physical energy or anything like that. Some people can extract it from their or others' blood but it's a really rare talent and there are not many records on blood magic and I don't know anything about it."

Malak feels kind of guilty about lying to her, but it's necessary and worth it in expectation.

"Maia magic can do all kinds of random stuff but not fast enough - and if no one understands it then it'd be harder to write a song for it anyway."

"Yeah.  I'm sure people understand, but I didn't get a typical education and... I'm not actually convinced that you'd be better off with a theorist, at least in the short term. We should find somewhere to camp near here until I can get the teleport improved enough. Downwind, if wind patterns are consistent enough around here and your trees-do-you-favors power can figure that out..."

"Yeah, I'll ask them."

And they go set up camp. The winds are obnoxiously inconsistent, so they have to move farther away (travelling inolfactably) to where the two of them both think is probably out of werewolf nose range. Lúthien watches the island and sings. Malak stops worrying about their shapeshift and spends most of their time spellcrafting. Mostly, this involves meditating, occasionally broken with experimentation.

A week passes. By the end of it, Malak can teleport with seven squirrels. They think once they get it working with humanoid passengers they'll be able to bring seven with them - the limitation is not total mass, but mass-per-target.  They get back to meditating.

She works on a better healing song because she can't think what else would help.

A better healing song is an excellent idea. It also means that Malak gets to listen to Lúthien singing while they work, which is definitely a quality of life booster.

They stop working on bigger targets and start focusing on range for a bit.  60 ft.  250 ft.  1000 ft.  It only takes a couple of days, but then they have to compress those developments down so that they can try out the target-size implementation they thought of...

Malak idly wonders if more people are dying inside or outside the simulation while they delay. They ask Lúthien to estimate the population of the world for them, and conclude that it's probably outside. Not that they can do anything about those.

Another day and they can teleport with Whisper and six squirrels, which is theoretically equivalent to seven owls. Two more, and they teleport with Lúthien. (They fall silently out of a tree and grab her and teleport on the way down, and apologize afterward. They needed to confirm that it works even if it's not expected.)

So we can do it now -

If we wait for tomorrow I'll be able to squeeze one more trip in, save seven more...

I know. It's hard waiting when we have everything we need, but.

He could die tonight.

Seven people who are not him will definitely die if we don't. If this is real then that's not a sacrifice I am willing to make. If this is real they're already sacrificing half the prisoners in the name of concealing all their capabilities they are not going to sacrifice seven more because one of them is part of an adorable romance.

I'm sorry. I'm going to meditate now and recover energy and we can leave before sunrise tomorrow.

...

I don't know if you're thinking of going yourself but if you do then Gorthaur will catch you and read your mind and make it harder for me to save him.

If I were going to do that I'd have done it the first day.

Malak meditates for eight hours - works as well as sleeping for magic recovery.

Let's go.

Was there a bridge on the other side of the river?

Yep.

Unfortunate, it would have been nice if they could put a river between the werewolves and the escapees.

If they had been thinking about plans instead of just how to teleport things bigger than squirrels then they would have asked Lúthien if she could manage to make a large boat or raft or something while they were working on spells.

You will probably need to sing healing while we run, and endurance if you can do that. Pursuit seems likely.

They position themselves a ways south of the bridge on this side and they and Lúthien are invisible and...

(still no pop)

They're in the dungeon again.

No amount of healing is going to have these people in any condition to run again.