Bruno reached in his jacket and pulled out a flint lock pistol and fired it towards the upper tier of the Black City where his ship was docked. Hopefully, his first mate would see it in time.

Neven and Serna leapt onto Kana's back while Irzen hobbled over to Lysana and rode her as best he could. War Scribe had nearly reached the ground and had not slowed up one bit.

The Venger/Night Mare Monster began to dive towards the Adventurers and spewed from his mouth a black reddish fire that seemed to wash over the fallen tower and would have consumed them all had not Serna activated her shield.

Quake grounded herself and added her own earth based shield to Serna's magical one, "IT WON'T HOLD FOR LONG! LADY! A LITTLE HELP HERE!"

The Shield Maiden gritted her teeth in determination as she bore half the brunt of Venger/Night Mare Monster's attack. When the creature completed its strafing run and flew off to circle around again, Serna did her best to hastily retreat with her friends.

Quake aimed the deck gun down and adjacent of the monster and fired two shots one on either side. ***BOOM! BOOM!*** The buildings closest crumbled and caved inwards creating a massive dust and debris cloud obscuring the party from view. "KANA grab Serna! I'll be right behind you!"

"Not good! Not good! Not good!" The Drowling looked back and saw the others in peril, "Does anybody have anything that can STOP that thing?!"

"Now you care?!" The elementalist skidded to a halt, "Since when do you care about us? You're the immortal, why don't you do something heroic like,--" She was cut off when she heard Quake yelling for help.

"I am doing something heroic, you ninny!" War Scribe snapped, "I'm trying to lead us out of here through the only reliable back door that I know. If you can top that, Alyson, then please step up to the plate and do better! If not, shut up and keep running!"

"This being heroic, Scribe!" Growled the elementalist feeling frustrated that she couldn't do anything to help out. She hated running. She'd rather fight back but this city gave her a reason she had to get out.

'Take Neven!' Kana Pathed to her sister. 'I'll take Serna back to help the others.'

Lysana sided up to Kana and grasped Neven off of her back as gently as she could and ran toward safety, or to create distance, while Kana ran back to Quake so Serna could help with her Shield.

"What in the Realm?" Neven gasped before he realized what was going on.

"Lysana," Irzen realized what The Monk was trying to do, "Can you support the both of us and still run? We might be too much weight. Are you sure you can do this?"

"Yeah, Willow, you are probably right. Bruno, where's that airship you promised me? THey're gonna have to clear us a pickup point while providing covering fire. Shoulda brought two." Roberts took up pace with the rest of the fleeing party.

"Waiting for your airship may not be the best option, Bruno," Willow offered as he quickly ran down the fallen tower, "We should reach the ground as quickly as possible and flee the way we came. As long as he keeps his current form; these buildings will hinder The Dark Lord's flight and give us plenty of cover to avoid the full force of his attacks."

"You go to ground, elf! You and your friends run for your lives if you can. Me, I've been running far too long." Bruno grinned as he noticed his ship coming into view, "Retreat and fight another day, elf. Har! Har! Har!"

War Scribe was the first to reach the ground. One of the undead Lizardmen tried to walk up to her and grab her but she caved in its head with her tome. Turning back to the others, she cried, "Move it people! Move it! We don't have all night!"

*********

Above the city towers an air ship appeared. It looked like a scaled down version of onethe ships from Jupiter Ascending. All metal with vertical feather bladed sails atop and on bottom. However, they were not fully deployed due to city towers and limited space. Figures could be seen by War Scribe, Willow and Alyson as it approached.