Eight minutes and seven questions in, Nayoki bolts into the hall where they're standing. "Leareth! Alarm - we are under attack–"

Leareth had already gone still, a second or two before her arrival, no longer hearing the words Tarinda is reading off from Sing. 

"Under attack?"

Leareth, completely expressionless, turns back to her. "Nayoki, yes, I noticed." 

"That is a really appallingly large number of gryphons." 

Leareth is busy free-scrying the space above the underground bunker. "- Iftel," he says after a moment. "I recognize the standard. Why in all hells does Iftel have gryphon cavalry, I am not sure." His voice is still level. "Sing. How long do you need to - build yourself, here, and be able to defend yourself?" 

"If you widen this gate it can send robots through now without having to get up to local manufacture," Tarinda reports.

For what feels like a very, very long time, but is probably only ten seconds, everything seems to hold still. 

This is ridiculous, the timing - it has to be that it showed up to Foresight, somehow, the gods - Vkandis, this time - could sense that he was about to obtain new magic, when They couldn't see Tarinda's non-magical work as clearly. And then Vkandis must have directly showed them where his facility is, somehow, because it's not at all visible from the surface - was there a spy - it doesn't matter now–

He's pretty sure of Sing. The questions were in order of importance, and - for any normal magnitude of decision, this would be more than enough paranoia and caution. It's - not the level he would prefer, here. But - he's not sure how many minutes they have. 

How sure is he that Sing is better than Vkandis. 

...About as certain as he's ever been of anything outside his own head.

This is really, really not the way he had wanted to have to do it, but–

"All right, go," he snaps, and widens the Gate. 

Tarinda tugs him out of the way as robots start streaming through. There are a lot of them.

Leareth, for just a moment, lets himself sag against the wall. He's waiting for his body to produce some adrenaline about the 'being attacked' bit, but at the moment he just feels very, very tired, and like none of his decisions can possibly matter anymore. 

Sing feels differently. A small robot (most of them are cylinders, four feet by one and a half, but this one is fist-size) perches on his shoulder and starts interrogating him about magic.

Nayoki is talking to him at the same time, which is too many things. 

He tells the robot to wait one second. Barks orders to Nayoki. "All right, please continue." 

If Sing wants to use magic - if Sing thinks it can use magic - he's committed at this point and he might as well help it do so as fast as possible. 

Distant explosion, audible even from their deep-buried position. The hallway shakes, dust trickling down from a corner of the ceiling. 

Some robots are tunneling. Some down, some up.

Sing will find other mages and interrogate them about magic too in parallel.

:Nayoki, tell all of them to cooperate with Sing: 

She does. 

Another, more violent explosion. 

- okay that has to have been literally a Final Strike, this is an absurd level of blatant intervention, what.

Leareth is also getting too drained to hold a conversation, hold the Gate, and stand up at the same time. He gives up standing, that seems like the least importance piece here, and sags to the floor against the wall, coughing a bit as more dust filters down from the ceiling. 

The robot on his shoulder stabs him a little bit. It doesn't hurt. "Precautionary salve," it explains.

A robot that has tunneled to the surface rockets into the sky and is immediately followed by a hundred more and they set about drugging all the invaders unconscious except for one which sort of bites a gryphon to devise gryphon-appropriate drugs first. The airborne ones can be gently caught in midair. A couple of robots that manage to get enough altitude glom onto each other and make for the moon.

If he tries to hold the stupid Gate any longer it's going to drain him unconscious. "Hope it's enough - can do another later..." He drops it. 

There are gryphons, most of them already unconscious because they're very visible, and also a lot of humans on the ground, and some lizard-like sapient species and a cat-like species and a wolf-like species, none of whom are susceptible to the drugs the humans are, and some of them are mages who can do very good illusions to hide themselves, and can put up air-bubble barriers around their heads when they see what's happening.

This isn't enough to avoid the same fate for long, but there are two more Final Strike-level violent explosions, and on the second one the ceiling caves in over Leareth and Tarinda's heads, dumping several tons of earth and rock. 

They fall through Gates to land on the palace lawn in Haven. Tarinda sits up, laughing.

"Ow," Leareth says, though it already hurts less, he wonders if the healing-salve is doing something about the impending backlash. "That was more dramatic than I would really have liked." 

:Vanyel?: 

:Gods! What are you doing here? Is something - is there an emergency–: Vanyel is now running as fast as he can toward where he can sense Leareth and, yes, Tarinda's minds.