The battlefield was slowly shifting. The initial attack had sown chaos and death amongst the adventurers, most of their casualties coming in those early minutes. The battle slowly started to shift as the strongest adventurers came to the fore and the expedition leadership managed to give the defences some semblance of order. Once a rough-but-definite battle line was established, the construct creatures were being ground to pieces against it.

* * *

The rescue expedition formed up in the marshalling yard. Emir gave out directions, breaking the group into an incursion team and a support team. After that, he directed one of his people, a woman named Hester, to open a portal. She traced a circle in the air which started shimmering, revealing an image of a city on the far side. Emir stepped through alone and the portal collapsed, only powerful enough to send one gold-ranker through. The others would have to wait for the ability to come off cooldown before they could follow.

Hester was the closest Jason had seen to another Asiatic person in this world. He chatted with her as they waited for her portal ability to become available again. She told him she could only open the portal to places she had previously visited, which was normal for long-range teleport abilities. The closest place to the aperture the expedition had travelled was a city to the north called Boko.

The first task of the expedition had been to return the Ustei to the northern territories in their monstrous sand barge. The city of Boko was where the Adventure Society decided to return the Ustei slaves, along with any women and children that had wanted out of the tribe. Many had been seized from small communities in the region in the first place.

The time between uses for Hester’s power was based on range. At the distance between Greenstone and Boko, it would be available again after an hour, one of several limitations. The more powerful the people going through the portal, the fewer people could use it before it collapsed. Hester was silver rank, but her portal ability had already reached gold. This was the only reason her portal could transmit the gold-ranked Emir at all.

Emir would spend the hour requisitioning vehicles from the local Magic Society branch. Everyone else would go through the second portal Hester raised, including the silver and bronze-rankers Arella had rounded up. Unlike the initial expedition, these were the best Greenstone had left to offer, the top people from every family. They were all ready to go and rescue their family members, with no shirking or hesitation among them.

The support team included Jory, a number of priests from the church of Healer, plus various other volunteers with healing abilities. Rounding out the numbers were Adventure Society functionaries and officials going along to provide general support and assistance. Unless there were a lot of afflictions going around, that would be Jason’s role as well.

* * *