Just as Grimalin felt the right words on the tip of his tongue, the two bird creatures landed on the ground, on each side of Francesca and Kharon as if to envelop them. He shouted the words, even though it wasn't exactly necessary and felt himself shimmering back into a physical existence next to Francesca and Kharon, who was whirling back and forth with one of the armored figures, who had all shed their cloaks onto the ground. "Grim?" Francesca was so startled by his appearance that she slipped, nearly fell to the stones, juggling her sword precariously in her arm at the same time and parrying a blow from one of the armored figures with one leg touching the ground. "Take my hand." When she didn't answer, he yelled, "Take my hand for the love of all that isn't hell!" He felt her fingers slip into his hand while he reached out for Kharon, who by now, had circled back toward them.
"Raven, take my hand." Kharon said nothing, but clasped Grimalin's shoulder instead.
At first, nothing happened.
The bird creatures, which were hulking vultures with human features except for their feathers, wings, and bid heads, were now close enough to step on them in one motion. The same shrill scream sounded out and a third landed almost on top of them just as Grimalin yelled out the last word of the spell and they felt themselves coalesce into being somewhere else, somewhere further away.
Grimalin rolled out of thin air on top of a slanted, tiled roof and caught himself just before he fell to the solid stone street below. What in the abyss? Teleport spells don't work like that. "Francesca, no,no, oh gods."
Everything seemed to be happening in an exaggeratedly slow fashion. Kharon dived off the roof, but not to his death, his lanky legs swinging in the air as he held onto Francesca, who was being borne into the air by a...Vrock. Grimalin's wracked his brain for something to do. Anything. Any spell.
Any at all.
Vrocks can resist just about anything. Grimalin watched helplessly for a moment while the Vrock attempted to fly higher, but before it could reach too far above the rooftops, three arrows cut through the night in succession, three shining arrows, striking the Vrock in one of its' wings.
As it careened closer and closer to the ground, Grimalin stopped thinking period and cast fly on himself, shooting out into the air like a cannonball. Just as the Vrock started to hit a sort of death spiral toward the ground, Grimalin reached a close enough distance to cast fly on both of his friends at once, though neither of them seemed to have broken free of the demon bird at all.
The clarion call of a horn sounded in the distance and an unmistakable magic missile hit the demon. Two signs of the Waterdeep City Watch finally making it here. By then, the Vrock was on the ground, though Kharon seemed to have inexplicably extricated himself and Francesca from its' grasp as they ran down a nearby alleyway.
"What am I still doing up here? And, where is up here?" Grimalin had paused in the air, just about at roof level with most of the buildings, one of which was now almost decimated from the Vrock crashing into it before it slid to the street.
In that particular building, three figures were already scrambling down a winding flight of stairs to the street. "Blast it." Grimalin glimpsed a pack of watch soldiers coming up the street ahead of him and quickly turned in the same direction that his friends had gone, sweeping his form down and then up just enough to avoid the rooftops as he flew, scanning the ground for them.
Just before he reached the bleeding edge of the city docks, with the shining lights of all of the moored ships twinkling at odd points in the abyss that was the bay, he saw them running under the lantern lights of the dock road and endeavored to land. "Grim," Francesca and Kharon, uncharacteritically, enveloped him in a hug at the same time. "How are you even here?" Francesca spoke first, though Kharon looked ready to ask the same, his icy eyes twinkling in the lantern light.
"We thought that you fell, back in Dragonspear." Kharon was still silent, his eyes searching Grimalin as if he were about to discover the answer to some sort of impossible puzzle, with a glance. I did. "Let's just say I experienced Avernus a little too long and have only just returned."
His eyes glinted and the shade of a grin crossed his visage before Kharon's voice cut the night. "I fail to see the amusement in this. We just almost lost you at the basalt tower and now you're just here?"
"We were all there, what do you want me to say?" Grimalin felt his anger rising like a boiling kettle over a fire and held back the magical energy that seemed to often come with it. "I'm back now, how about a welcome or a good to see you?"
Kharon looked as if he would react in a similar fashion, then his face seemed to soften like stone turning to clay. "It is good to see you Grim, but we clearly are not safe here." He motioned to the sky. As if I need a reminder of the Vrocks at this point. "I wouldn't dream of traveling anywhere again without you two," Grimalin reached over and ruffled Kharon's spiky white hair as if he were a child, until the Tiefling pushed him off, feigning anger, then grinning in an instant.
"Boys, it's past time for us to be gone." Francesca pointed towards the bay.
"So when do we start swimming, then?" Kharon's response got him a punch in the arm from Francesca, to which he winced, but laughed after a moment. Four piers down, they found themselves at a tiny stone building proclaiming itself to be the, "Mariner's Last Rest."
Opening the door to the tavern, they quickly drew the glances of all of the patrons, which to Grimalin, looked to be about fifteen in number, despite the obviously late hour of the night. At the same time that the fire and torchlight hit his eyes, he felt the exhaustion of his spell casting and the ordeal of the night catch up to him and swayed on his feet.
Kharon caught him as Fransesca was already talking to a dark-skinned half-elf female who Grimmalin recognized as Felara Huan, one of the only ship captain's to ever sail the entire west coast of Faerun more than once, top to bottom. Hopefully one of us has money. "As long as she doesn't mention the demons, we're good." Kharon nodded glanced at Grimalin, then pointed his head towards Francesca. "Here's to hoping," Grimalin muttered under his breath, though he chortled softly as well.
Soon, she returned with news that they had secured passage, though with the last of the funds that she had on her from her family inheritance. "The rest either burned up in that fire or is stuck in a bank that isn't safe to go to." So, we're broke for now. Grimalin's brow furrowed.
"Since Grim was just in hell, he's out and I was who knows where," Kharon turned out his pockets, then sank his head in mock shame when nothing came out. "Yeah, we'll talk about that later and you'll have to tell me everything." In response to that, Kharon looked uncharacteristically ill, though Grimalin knew him well enough to know that he was truly anxious.
Fransesca gave him a glance out of her peripheral vision as she continued to look at Grimalin. "So, we leave in mere minutes. It's the next pier over."