Another armored mercenary stumbled out of the portal and kept on running. Iris mentally sighed and wondered if ANY of their friends would be able to get back to them. She was getting worried. Were they injured or worse? Trapped? No, unless they were in some sort of null-magic cell, her portals SHOULD appear near them.The frame of the great doors had partially given way, opening one of them just barely enough for someone to squeeze through. Maybe someone was near enough to use the doors instead of the portal. Iris split her attention between the doors, the portal, and her music. She was able to keep the portals open just by playing, after singing to create them, so she could focus on more than her music.
The light from the stars and moons was a little brighter than the light from a full moon on Earth, letting everyone see clearly for a limited distance. The front of the fortress was just inside their limit of recognition, so they'd know who came through the doors, if anyone did.
And someone did, quicker than Iris suspected. One...two...three...four people wiggled through and dashed for safety: Sterling (*Huh? I thought he was leading the swamp group, so what's he doing here?*), Zak (*Where was she, and how did she wind up here?*), Kimmy (*Whew! That little kenderkin got out OK!*), and some pastel-haired elf woman (*Who's she?*). ((OOC: EO, should I recognize you in your new form? IIRC, the last time Iris saw you was when you were Fru-fru Beast.)) Oddly enough, the ladies were bound with what looked like strips of cloth, torn from what had to be Zak's outfit, judging from its tattered condition. Zak was also gagged with a strip of the same cloth.
"Fay, take my dagger and cloak," Iris instructed her friend. "Cut Zak, Kimmy, and that elf woman loose and give Zak my cloak before she freezes."
As Fay obeyed, the portal began wavering, and Iris realized she had weakened it by speaking. She began singing the words that fit with the melody she was playing, "Where in all this madness do I go?/Baby, baby, if you know, whoa...."
((Tag! BTW, the portal will firm up without anyone on the other end noticing more than a slight waver, if that, and anyone passing through it will exit unharmed even if he/she entered while it was wavering. Iris will sense when there's no more living creatures in the fortress and stop playing then, letting the portals collapse. Please tell me when everyone's out so I can write that post.))
