"I... have a damaged mind. Talking like this is helping."

:Oh! Oh no — are you, I mean. Um. Is there a reason you haven't healed it yet?:

"I—"

Heal it? She's thought before about what could have happened if they'd drawn straws differently, if her eyes and pattern and self had stayed swaddled and Rasha was the one who learned of the tangle, saw the knots and loops that are the true world. Going back to that state of unknowing... is very tempting, certainly.

Do they still need an enlightened caster? ... Probably, if they want to be able to get back to where they came from. Maybe Greater Teleport will be enough, or maybe they'll need something can go even further, but either way she wouldn't be able to cast it unenlightened.

"— it's a requirement, for the higher forms of our magic."

Dominika hisses through her teeth.

:I'm sorry. That must suck. Do you ...? No, none of my business. I'm not sure we have any cloudwater here, though, so you might get a bit thirsty. I'm glad that chatting with you helps, though. Once we've got everyone dug up, I could try doing a deeper look at your mind and seeing if I can help more directly? I'm not a licensed therapist or anything, so it's understandable if you don't want me poking around in there, but I do have a natural talent with mind-magics.:

Oh man, cloudwater?

Yeah, it's pretty wild.

And she asked a question. "If you'd like to take a look I wouldn't oppose. I would warn it could be transmissible from a close enough view."

Ten minutes is enough time that she double-checked before casting, but not enough she's going to triple-check. Hermes.

A sqrt(2)-metre-to-a-side pillar of earth vanishes from below, and re-appears to topple immediately some distance away. There is now a shaft, shored with subtle glowing white light, at the bottom of which is Kolya. He may have suffered a small fall as all the dirt encasing him suddenly vanished down to the level of the bottom of his lower foot.

The kid darts forward and squirts him, so he's not hurt for long. Kolya says something grateful sounding and makes a hand gesture at the side of the hole.

:Oh, thanks, that will save us a lot of digging. Do you think you can grab the others, or should we dig in sideways? I think it's a much shorter reach sideways.:

:Also, Mikhail points out that vodka is distilled, and we do have some of that. So I guess it's your choice between getting thirsty or roaringly drunk.:

Ah damn, going in sideways probably will be more efficient. Time to remake the spell again. "I can dig the tunnels sideways, give me a couple minutes. ... It's a good idea, thanks."

"Hah. We'll be able to make our own water, but thanks for the offer."

Well, if the mysterious strangers are going to get people out with magic she will go grab a rope to dangle down to Kolya so he can scramble back up.

:So where are you folks from? We don't get many visitors up here in the mountains.:

Where are we from, Lorelei?

"Well, before here we were near the town of Greyston. We unfortunately have no idea where that is physically located with respect to here."

"A long way, I'd guess. Our home... well, we haven't run into any people with minds undamaged enough to speak in a long while. Wouldn't shock me if Lorelei and I were the only ones on the continent we came from, maybe the planet."

She's grimacing slightly, but not showing much emotion on her face as she's working. The pain-misery-regret is much closer to the surface of her mind than normal, though; fairly tightly woven with the words she speaks.

:... yikes. I don't think the Americas are that bad? Unless there was a recent catastrophe, I guess. Is 'a long while' more than fifty years or so? That's about how often someone attempts the Siberian crossing, I think.:

"More recent than that, I think. We were in the Nether when the bombs went off, got trapped in there for a bit. Less than ten years since it happened, though."

:... the Nether?:

She knows she didn't mishear, on account of being a telepath.

:I've never heard of that. I guess if it's that recent it could be the Americas. I hear they've got a big endorheic basin.:

"I..." She pauses for a second to think. "Is a big basin relevant for how your healing water works?"

:... yes? Distilling elixir turns it back into cloudwater. And it's empowered by the Philosopher's Stone, which is hidden in the sea somewhere. So in an endorheic basin, there's no route from the Stone to the cloudwater, and it stays that way even though it's in contact with the ground.:

After a moment's thought she adds:

:That's one reason that people avoided Kyrgyzstan before they got a canal.:

There's a sinking, twisting feeling in her gut. She whistles softly and says, "We're really far from home, huh?"

"Well, the ocean sure isn't made of healing potion where we came from."

She shivers slightly, then executes the hex she's been constructing throughout this conversation with Hermes'. The patterns swirling around her fade away, and new passages appear under the ground from Kolya's original position in the hole to each of the other people trapped underground. The people within suddenly find the pitch blackness that surrounded them replaced with the soft white glow of the shoring on the walls and ceiling keeping the tunnels from immediately collapsing.

Dominika spends a moment prodding everyone into an orderly retreat, and they help each other out of the hole, brushing dirt off and grumbling.

:They say thank you,: she translates. :While we have it here we're thinking we might try to pin the Lord's tendril down more thoroughly, make him less of a nuisance. We'd welcome help with that, but, uh.:

One of the villagers says something unintelligible.

:Yeah. If your magic wounds you it seems like the kind of thing to use only at need, and we don't actually need the help, yeah. We have some chains and self-setting anchors we can use. Can we offer you some dinner? The non-fighters of the village are holed up in the inn, since it's the sturdiest structure that will hold everyone.: