"I can get a quote from an auction house tonight and come back and collect them tomorrow," Mahdi says. 

"How much do you figure -"

"It's mostly eccentric Osirianologists with no taste, right, it makes it hard to predict how much they'll go for. A couple hundred apiece, probably."

And then they are beset upon by a furiously spinning whirlpool of water that falls right down from the ceiling and then flings itself at them in the form of a crashing wave.

Oh for fuck's sake - SHIELDS - mage-sight, what is it–

"Haste."

Fazil taps Vanyel's shoulder. "Freedom of Movement."

The wave crashes into the shields at full force, rears back as if disoriented, does it again.

Mage sight is confusing like it was for the dragon but this is definitely alive and his Thoughtsensing is more informative. It is very angry and it would like to murder them a lot because they betrayed it.

Perfect. Vanyel pours more power into the shields, stretches out to find where the nearest node is. 

:I apologize: Vanyel tries Mindspeaking at it. :Did we betray you by breaking through that door? It's been abandoned a really long time and no one is here to protect anymore: 

-  confusion! Anger! Slamslamslamslam! He betrayed his deal with the water elementals whereby they would provide the city with water and the meatpeople would protect the homeland from the intrusion of darkthings! He should die for it.

There's a node barely within reach.

Vanyel draws on the node and reinforces his shields; he can hold this for a few minutes. Probably less than five minutes if it keeps going at them like that. 

:Should you get out?:

:I'm going to try to talk to it, but can you relay to the others what's happening? Mahdi should be ready to Dimension Door us out, I think: 

And he turns back to the water elemental. :Can we talk? It wasn't me who made the deal. I'm from another world. What are the darkthings that intruded on your homeland? Maybe we can help you: 

Slamslamslamslam a meatthing just like him (it sends an image; the man is of Fazil and Mahdi and Hagan's ethnicity, tall and bald and bearing no resemblance to Vanyel whatsoever) signed a pact with the water elementals that he would drive back the darkthings spilling into the Elemental Plane of Water and in exchange they would water his city. But he ran off to another plane, breaking his word.

"Let us know if you need us to kill it, Van - elementals go back where they were summoned from when they die, they're not really here -"

"Noted." 

:It wasn't me. There are lots of different humans. He's probably dead, the city has been buried for ages and humans don't live that long. I'm sorry he broke his word, that's pretty awful of him: 

Slam. If the water elemental must visit its vengeance upon his descendants instead it will DO THAT. 

Sigh. :'Fandes, I might have to kill it - well, not permanently, it'll just go back to the Plane of Water - this isn't going very productively. I'm concerned this is going to be a recurring problem, though: 

And back for one last try. :I have literally no idea what the darkthings are, I'm not from here. Can you tell me any more, or think an image of one at me? I don't know that I can help, but I can try: 

:It's not especially listening but he's trying one more time before killing it: Yfandes relays to the others. :The water elemental is claiming some human broke a deal with its people, Van is concerned that we'll keep getting angry water elementals coming after us in here unless we figure this out: 

Darkthings look like an oil slick on the water, and have too many claws and too many teeth and are VERY BAD.

It looks vaguely like an Abyssal demon to him, but Vanyel isn't sure - maybe Yfandes can try to bounce the shared mental image to the others, do they recognize it? 

(He reinforces his shields again.) 

"'some kind of demon' sounds about right?"

"This city was abandoned thousands of years ago, there's probably not still a problem in the Plane of Water? - has the elemental been trapped here this whole time, I thought all summonings ended when the caster died -"

:It's been thousands of years since the betrayal happened: Vanyel tells the creature. :Have you been here in this plane since the man betrayed you?: 

They came through the portal! Not a normal summons! Now they are stuck here!