They turned to see the elf already following his own advice, sprinting away from his own spell at top speed. Jason and Humphrey glanced at one another and did the same. A few seconds later there was a cacophonous explosion behind them as a force wave blasted them off their feet.

Jason pushed himself up from where he had sprawled in the sand, head ringing from the noise. All he could hear was a rushing sound, like the ocean. Kneeling in the sand he wavered, unsteadily. Humphrey tapped his arm and pointed where the elf had gotten back up and continued running. Jason nodded and, after a dizzy false start, followed picking up his sword from where he’d dropped it.

Jason staggered forward, an equally unsteady Humphrey at his side. They caught up to the elf who had stopped to avoid running into elementals from the other direction. Still unable to hear, Jason felt the air stirring, loose sand flittering along the ground.

Looking back the way they had come, he saw a burning orb surrounded by a vortex of air, dragging things into it. Closer to the orb, the suction was clearly more powerful, sucking up the sand elementals as they struggled to escape. Those that were caught up passed through the orb, splattering out the back as gobbets of molten sand.

Humphrey tapped Jason on the shoulder again, gesturing the other way. Jason looked to see Phoebe and Gabrielle handling the elementals just fine by themselves. The adventurers fighting back-to-back were doing less well as elementals converged on them.

Jason took a healing potion from his belt, Humphrey doing the same from his own. They each thumbed the stoppers off their vials and drained the contents. Jason’s head cleared, the rushing noise in his ears replaced with actual sound.

Behind them, they could hear the suction of the vortex. Ahead of them was what sounded like muffled explosions as Phoebe blasted apart elementals with bare-handed special attacks. From Gabrielle's direction was a regular smacking sound as her iron staff burst open more elementals with raw strength.

“Your lady friend is kind of scary,” Jason told Humphrey.

“Not the time, Jason,” Humphrey said, wings appearing briefly as he used a special attack to leap away. He landed like a grenade near the pair of struggling adventurers, sweeping away elementals.

Jason took a couple of steps and used the leaping power of his boots to follow, arriving in the space Humphrey had just cleared.

“You have to make time for relationships,” Jason said, his sword cutting through an elemental. “Time and communication.”

The two adventurers they had come to support went from almost overwhelmed to completely unnecessary. Humphrey and Jason each took a side of the pair and moved around them, clearing out elementals like they were trimming a hedge.