Ulmwin yells out a quick apology toward wherever the startled cry came from, before no doubt spending only longer to get back into a position where he can possibly navigate, belatedly answering Randy's call.

"Sorry, I took on some bad smoke and completely lost them," he says, still coughing, before glancing back up.

"I can get back in the air, but might have to retrack them- Anyone else still got sights on them, any clue on the portal?"

"I'd have to rest for a bit before I could try detecting where the portal itself is. By the time I could, the hell hound would surely either be gone or joined up with others." He looks around in frustration. " I can't seem  to get enough of a handle on these things in order to track them normally.  Maybe if it was daylight or if it was some other surface than cobble stone...."

"One of those things will come sooner or later, but I'd hope we can do something before then..."

"We can split up and look?"

Dornikal asks.

"I'll fly back up for now, see if I might be able to spot anything else from higher up," Ulmwin states, hoping to at least get some clue through that.

Randy gives a reluctant nod to splitting up. "It's about the only option right now.  Ulmwin can try to track them from the air. The rest of us can split up into groups and look around. Don't go off by yourselves." Here he gives a look at Dornikal." If you get jumped by a pack, you won't last long by yourself.  If I run into something, I'll try to alert the rest of you with this." He points to the Horn of Silent Warning.  "If the rest of you run into something, try to get Ulmwin attention so he can give you some cover until you can hole up. Then he can come get the rest of us.  Now lets figure out which streets we're going to cover."

"Aye think aye can handle a pack of those little pups, by Dumathion's grace."

Dornikal says primly.

Watching Ulwmin fly away Dornikal sighs and digs in his pack to pull out the ebony fly.

"Aye can also provide some coverage from above, but aye think ye might be better on it Randy."

He will drop the figurine into Randy's hands.

Randy eyes the figurine with a slightly panicked look on his face, which turns first white and then an interesting shade of green. " I, uh...I'd rather not if possible. I don't seem to do so well in the air...."

"Oh, right. Aye understand that..."

He turns and looks at those assembled appraisingly before his shoulders slump and he steps back and summons the fly mount by tossing it on the road behind them. He then has a quick discussion in dwarven with the fly,

"Okay fly, ye don't like meh and aye don't like ye but this is important so we need to work together."

He waits for affirmation from the fly before mounting it and raising into the air, unsteadily, to help Ulmwin with the aerial scouting.

Perception: 25

"By Moradin's beard!", the dwarven woodworker exclaims as a huge fly bursts forth buzzing from the little statuette. 

Dornikal is interrupted when stating that the fly doesn't like him by a buzzing protest and a wet, hairy proboscis suctioning at his shoulder, only to retract with sad buzzing when Dornikal continues that he doesn't like the fly. It's feelings seem hurt, but it resignedly acquiesces to his commands. 

"I'll stay with the ground crew! Need a good, logical dwarven perspective!", Longarr calls up. "Wouldn't catch meh dead on a thing like that.", he mutters to Tinker, Randy and Coljin.

Up in the air, Dornikal and Ulmwin can see that there are other spots in the city that are aflame, though at least were. The spot they just left they can make out flying figures, one of which seems to be unleashing intermittent torrents of water at the blaze, and they seem to be winning the battle against the fire. From the subsidence in flame in some of the others Ulmwin saw before, it's possible there are more than one fire crew, or the one at this blaze has already hit some of the others.

As the fly spirals higher, Dornikal can make out what maybe a pattern. Of the blazes, both growing, subsiding and being battled, there seem to have been a couple of small fires set along a path from the larger sites, of which they encountered hellhounds at one. These smaller, more recent flames seem to be on routes heading up the gradual rise towards the University. If multiple portals opened as Randy reported and hellhounds spilled out into the city and set aflame to the area before peeling off (or being run off, in the case of the trio you battled), and were converging on the University grounds, one might expect it to look exactly like this.

Dornikal takes a deep breath at the fly spit on his shoulder but keeps his expression neutral. Eye only twitching a bit.

Once in the air, and the fly behaving, he gives it a hesitate pat.

"Good fly. Ye keep it up and aye'll give ye a name."

On spotting the pattern, he'll shout down,

"We need the fastest route to the University, they look to be congregating there!"

((Give me an Animal Handling check, Dornikal.))

Randy mutters to himself "The University  potentially involved again..."  He turns to Tinker  "We need to take the most direct route we can to the University.  Can you show us the way?"

Animal handling: 9