"She's gone now," Aersilae shook her head, "a thousand doors close themselves and none are opened. This is foolishness; the mortals will be crushed in their stone shell." Spurring her horse with her mind, she searched the streets of Outlook for all the fey she could find. Any and all nature spirits she reached out to. They came to her, and eventually she had assembled a group of a dozen. It would have to do. Telling them to wait near a sally port she dismounted and got onto the walls to survey the situation.<br/><br/>"The situation is bleak, madam," a sentry she asked for a report told her. "We've seen the demons mobilizing to that ridge; from there they have the high ground, and we're sure to take a beating from whatever they're up to." The man was shaking; she reached out with her mind to calm him. His emotions were strong, although he suppressed them well, and thoughts floated to the surface as she felt him subconsciously react to her Empathy.<em>My family's inside the walls,</em>he though.<em>They want us to retreat. We're never going to get everyone out in time if we don't leave now. They've damned them.</em>Yet still he was here and fought. Unable to help him, she considered the ridge; the same river she had tried to go to earlier ran by its base. She considered the dark masses moving around on top of the ridge.<br/><br/>"Suppose that ridge were to collapse," she suggested. "What then would the demon forces do?"<br/><br/>"I haven't a damn clue," the sentry admitted, "but they'd have to find somewhere else to shoot at us from, and recover from whatever they'd lost in the mean time." She nodded. That was what they would do; she and her fellow nature spirits could get to the river and shelter there in the water from the enemy's fire. When the pivotal time came, they would divert the course of the river and course it through the air to slam the cliff's side while the others freed tree roots and split rocks essential to holding the natural structure up.<em>Hopefully</em>, she thought,<em>that's all we'll need</em>.<br/><br/>She went looking then for Jurai Katsurage to tell him of her plans, and found him with a human healer. She did not know her name, but she recognized her as a fellow champion.<br/><br/>"Hail and well met," Aersilae said to the woman, then turned to Jurai. "Jurai, we need to discuss strategy."