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An adventuring party recruited from Osirion teleports into Azir on the 8th of Desnus. Rahadoum's recruiting contact in Osirion wrote ahead to note they were expected. Couple of guys he's known a long time - a wizard, a ranger - and a new guy, sorcerer, probably to replace the cleric they usually travel with. They spend two days in Azir getting oriented and head out to the front. The ranger wears an unusually high quality amulet of Nondetection; the sorcerer wears a headband for intelligence, which is a bit unusual as sorcerers usually don't need it to cast, but some variants do; they are otherwise unremarkable. Chaotic Good, Lawful Neutral, no reading, which could mean neutral or 'hiding it'. They work quickly and effectively, manage resources reasonably well, get recommended to higher-ups for a closer look on that account.
:I think people can wait a week or two for their gawking: He checks again with Yfandes. :We're going to move them and then all of the Heralds are leaving with me. The Tayledras are staying. I expect you don't want to come to Ostenso for whatever Leareth wants me for, but if I'm wrong, you'd be welcome to use our Gate. Also, thank you so much for your help:
:We should deliver a thank-you fruit basket to the temple or something: Yfandes sends with a mental laugh, including Nefreti.
:Right, I figured. Well, good luck:
Vanyel scopes out the area with Farsight while Savil, Jaysen, and Starwind line up in front of the three other ward-stones, ready to Gate them out as soon as he's figured out where and shared the mental image with them.
The soldiers advancing in from the previous edges of the Worldwound hasn't advanced far because of the warped terrain and their infighting.
Well, then the ward-stones will go to just inside their line. He asks Yfandes to warn whoever's in command. Probably it'll be nice for them to get a break, too.
And - Gates, all at once, and now the barrier snaps into place to cover the full hundred-mile radius again.
<Leareth, I'm bringing the rest of the Heralds too. Are you ready for me to head over?> The Gate-location he has is an abandoned barn on the edge of town, presumably not where Leareth will be arriving, but they can meet up easily enough once in Mindspeech range.
Leareth and Aroden have selected two Gate-locations on opposite sides of the area where most of the civilians are being transported to the demiplane. The Gates are about to go up.
<Ready>
Three different Gates go up nearly simultaneously in Ostenso; mages, wizards, soldiers, and Heralds stream through.
The trumpet archon will absolutely come.
On the other side of the Gates there is a panicked crowd of civilians rushing into a demiplane whose other end open into Dis, the second layer of Hell!
Now they're even more panicked! And some of them can fling some fireballs.
Leareth, kind of distracted, sends an image and direction-sense of his location. :Can the other Companions Broadsend messages to these people the way Taver can?:
:Then please tell the civilians that Aroden is here reclaiming his country and wishes to minimize bloodshed, and will not harm anybody if they surrender. Probably nobody will believe it but it seems worth saying: Pause. :If you can do a very, very strong shield, we could use one here: and he sends an image of the opening to the demiplane.
Vanyel anchors his Farsight on it and as soon as they're out of the barn Yfandes breaks into a gallop in that direction; he's belted into the saddle so he can focus on distance-casting, it's not exactly fiddly work, just put a giant barrier-wall right in front of the demiplane and make it strong strong strong, there are nodes in reach, he can put quite a lot of power into it.
Companions reach ahead with Thoughtsensing, locate the panicked crowd, divvy up amongst themselves, and soon everyone is hearing a voice in their head, announcing that Aroden is alive, has returned, and is reclaiming Cheliax from Hell.
Maybe the trumpet archon can do something helpful here? Vanyel isn't sure what its abilities are.
It could paralyze every enemy or civilian who hears its trumpet but that honestly looks like overkill right now; it can do it elsewhere, if there are panicked civilians being packed off to Hell elsewhere. It can do mass healing without Fazil's radius limit. It can banish some devils, if it sees any.
And it can raise the dead, usually, but it has already done that for the Heralds a couple times at the Worldwound and will be very tired if it does it again.
Vanyel has a very quick back and forth with Leareth and then very gratefully Mindtouches the archon again. :There are devils in Corentyn and Kintargo transporting civilians to Hell. If you can go there - we can't spare the personnel yet, it sounds like - can you teleport yourself there...?:
Is his mage-barrier holding?
The trumpet archon disappears.
The mage barrier is holding; the civilians mostly don't have anything to take it down with, and the wizard who presumably set up the demiplane is choosing not to be present to fight about it.
Aroden can dispel the demiplane, which seems like the right call here, except that there are a lot of civilians who were just shoved through it and are now on the other side. It's obviously a trap to send people in to retrieve them, but - can Leareth or his mages do anything from the outside?
It doesn't seem to be an anti-magic demiplane; Leareth's Othersenses work fine in it. He stretches them as far as he can, sensing for minds - that part is easier, his Thoughtsensing range is pretty long - and then pushing his mage-senses to their limit to see if he can compulsion any of them into coming back through on their own.
There's a crowd of terrified civilians right on the other side and some of them can be made to turn around and come back through. They're white-faced and trembling and crying and holding little children and their loved ones who were no so compulsioned are screaming at them in confusion but they cross back into the mass of scared confused civilians on this side.