Between the magical Healing and Cam's medical treatments, Vanyel is looking a lot better. He seems to be asleep rather than unconscious. 

Oh good. Cam checks his blood pressure and suchlike to see if he needs any more little tweaks to get on his way to 100%.

He could use a bit more of a blood transfusion and a top-up on pain drugs, but mostly he’s recovering very well. Velgarth Healing is pretty good at what it does.

Cam supplies blood, with drugs in it.

Shavri thanks him absently. They don't need anything urgently from him right now, and also the room is kind of crowded and Savil isn't willing to leave - maybe Cam can park himself in the room next door, so he's nearby in case of any emergencies but not in the way? 

Would Jisa like to come along?

Jisa spends a moment looking torn - she's very worried about her Uncle Van - but Shavri promises to call her right away with Mindspeech if Vanyel wakes up or if he gets worse at all, and Jisa agrees to follow Cam next door. 

Cam gives her some fried cauliflower and a chicken sandwich, he's not sure when anyone's going to next remember to feed her. And then he checks on his mail again and also the battery staple.

No new mail from Leareth or from any of the Heralds. 

The agent back in Lineas does not seem to have successfully gained entry to the Palace. He's sitting in his room at the inn, writing a letter and looking fretful. 

The woman from the temple of Astera is now in the capital city of Baires, in a nicely furnished waiting room of some sort in their palace. The letter she brought with her is nearby, but no longer on her person; it's with a tall, handsome, golden-haired man, who currently seems to be...having an argument with another man? The second man is older, dressed very lavishly, and wearing a slim gold circlet on his head, which at least hints that he could be the King of Baires. He looks stressed. Judging by their features in Cam's miniature plastic diorama, the two men could plausibly be related, though the presumed-King is a lot older. 

There's a document in front of the King, on very official-looking stationary, and the younger golden-haired man seems to be trying to hand the King an elaborate gold seal ring. The King is apparently somewhat reluctant. At the scale of Cam's default miniature diorama, the writing is too small to read. 

Well, he can conjure the writing separately.

...The results are incredibly un-reassuring.

The letter is, apparently, a secret order where the King would authorize a certain "Vedric Mavelan" to carry out a "contingency plan" ahead of the previously-planned schedule, to "take down" the royal family of Lineas, and pave the way for the Mavelans to step in and "rescue" the other tiny kingdom. Which, of course, would result in their ending up in charge. 

...okay. Cam cannot be very precise from here, but he can get his space station, still overhead, to tell him the distance from here to some Lineas landmark and put some drones down in the area and navigate those from there. Big drones, in case he needs to pick up the entire royal family of Lineas and remove them from the situation.

The royal palace in Lineas is a pretty big landmark! Its architecture is elaborate; from above it almost looks like the wings of an enormous bird, folded to protect its nest. Right now, most of the people inside are in bed or in the process of making their way there, except for a few servants who are cleaning. It's quiet and peaceful and - at least from the vantage point of Cam's drones, which can't detect magic - it doesn't look like anything is wrong. 

Little drones perch unobtrusively near windows and stake out the entrances.

(Elsewhere, Vedric Mavelan obtains the King's seal on his orders and departs the royal suite, looking both incredibly pleased with himself and slightly nervous. He heads down two corridors and some stairs, to what looks like a Work Room, and parks himself in front of an enormous crystal mage-focus.) 

It's getting pretty late; by the time Jisa finishes her food, she's drooping. She drags her chair over and sort of leans against Cam. 

Pat pat.

This is around the point at which all hell breaks loose on Cam's drone feeds. 

It starts in the parlour of a fancy, formal guest suite – currently empty and dimly lit by a couple of lanterns, but one of Cam's drones has a good view through a window. There's a violent blaze of light, and then, abruptly, terrifying, twisted black creatures, all leathery wings and too many clawed limbs and eyes placed disturbingly at random, explode from nowhere and start to fill the room. 

Ah shit.

The drones start breaking windows and evacuating everybody they can lay claws on.

Everyone is screaming and panicking! They're not really any less scared of the drones than they are of the Abyssal demons! 

Which, incidentally, are still swarming into existence, from an epicentre of...an ornamental dagger hung on the wall? 

One of the little drones can grab that dagger and once Cam has a bead on it he can surround it in a tungsten sphere.

This doesn't get rid of the existing demons - the dagger and its spell is still intact inside - but it sure does prevent any new demons from getting out from the focus! 

The other drones have successfully gotten a decent number of people out, and the demons...don't seem to be able to follow? The magical shields aren't visible to Cam's cameras but the demons can't pass outside the walls of the palace, despite all the conveniently broken windows. None of the victims of the attack are actually dead, but a number of them are slashed up by demonic claws and bleeding. 

Jisa stirs sleepily against Cam's shoulder, and yawns. "Cam? What're you doing?" 

"Remind me later to show you video games! Ones more suitable for kids," he chirps while he pilots drones carrying bleeding people out of the danger zone and - yes, 'Healer' is a conjurable parameter, he will dump them on the nearest concentration of Healers' doorstep, with some assorted bandages, and then send the drones up up and away.

Not everyone is out of the Palace yet; there are some people with bedrooms that don't have windows, or that only have windows too small to pull a person out through, and there are still a couple dozen demons loose in the hallways. The demons, however, are apparently incredibly stupid; their method of getting through locked doors is to attack them with claws and teeth until this either happens to get the lock or else tears the door apart entirely. (They're not much better at unlocked doors, either.) And, with slightly more warning, the terrified people trapped in rooms are able to throw together additional barricades. 

The nearest collection of Healers is conveniently near the palace, at least.