"I think so. Hmm. Give me a minute." He closes his eyes then grunts, which causes his hands to glow green and two small creepy corpse-y things emerge from a green glow on the ground. "I'm gonna use them as bait, see if there's a timer or something."

"Huh. You don't need corpses? I am going to want to hear you explain how you do that later. Well, go on little guys, die for your master."

He laughs, and one of the bone minions runs on ahead. Several spikes emerge from the holes and pierce the minion, making it melt into slimy shadow that eventually dissipates. The second bone minion runs ahead as soon as the spikes are gone, and they don't emerge this time. "Couple of seconds..." Then that second minion runs back and the spikes kill it. "Yeah, timer or something."

"Good to know. So, minion blood sacrifices so we can pass, then?"

"Yep. Just gimme a couple more sec—there we go." He summons minions. "Whenever you're ready."

"Ready," she agrees, with a nod.

First minion runs, is gutted, spikes go down—

- and then running! She gets safely across without any new piercings.

"You know," she observes, "these don't seem like very good traps to me. No points, failing grade."

Second minion, and he also escapes grisly death by spikes. "I'm sure it must have made more sense before this was a floating rock and everything had been exploded."

"I mean, not really! These are not very subtle, but they're in the way of everyone that would want to come through! So people that live here can't go around them and have to do the whole song and dance every single time, and the people that explore the place can easily see them and avoid them with casual minion sacrifice! ... Or possibly poking it with a stick, it might have been smart to try that, too."

"Minions are cheap enough, but you have a point. Maybe there was more to it before it was blown up? This could have been a decoy trap and the real one was on a wall or came from the ceiling."

"An illusion of a rug over it would have helped, and wouldn't leave holes after use, but that doesn't solve the practicality problem for the people living here." Huff. "But maybe there's an off switch somewhere we don't know about, or it got stuck always on from the explosion. ... Fine, maybe this was actually practical at some point in time."

"The illusion of the rug would certainly have been dispelled by all the magic storms popping around here." He looks around. "Anyway, I don't see Canach, let's go on."

"Yes, sorry, onwards."

Onwards!

There's another trap by the next door but the next "room" contains a plant person, a human, and... a charr.

"Canach, glad to see you're alive. I was afraid you'd been caught in the blast."

    "Hmm," says plant person.

James nods. "Your troops?"

    "Some of them are still looking for you," he says, curtly and professionally, "and the rest are forming a perimeter around this place. But the minister is my job. And then I ran into Rytlock and Marjory."

        "Who's that?" growls the charr, hiking a thumb at Vetareh.

"Canach, Marjory, Rytlock, this is Vetareh. Vetareh, these are Canach," he nods at the sylvari, "Marjory," human, "and Rytlock," charr.

Huh. A charr. ... Okay. It's not like she's met any before, and it's not like this one could have possibly taken any part in invading Orr. James isn't freaking out, so it's probably fine. Even though the charr is blindfolded. For some reason.

"Hello. Pleasure to make your acquaintances." She considers how to explain herself, and decides to make James do it. These people seem a bit too important to accept the handwave of 'he found me in a cave,' and she doesn't particularly want to get into 'I fell out of the Mists' right now.

"I found her in a cave," James provides helpfully. 

    "...of course you did," sighs Canach. Rytlock grunts, and Marjory smiles and waves at her.

        "Anyway, Canach, you're here under the orders of...?" Marjory asks.

    "Countess Anise's. I have been tasked with ensuring the well-being of the minister, who is innocent until proven guilty."

Vetareh smiles a little at James's explanation. Okay then, finding her in a cave is an explanation suited for everyone.

"Well, the innocent-until-proven-guilty minister might have eaten quite a lot of magic from the bloodstone, so he might be troublesome to return home safely. Or primed to explode. I'm not actually sure. So, uh. Be aware of that."

    "If he did, we can't just let him loose on Kryta... or maybe all of Tyria is his prize this time," says Marjory.

"The safety of the world is outside my remit," Canach says, neutrally.

            Six mesmer portals choose this moment to appear, and White Mantle troops emerge from them. "For Kryta!" one of them shouts.

        "We have company," says Rytlock, drawing his sword.

"Why am I not surprised."

Those portals are alarming, she makes a note to keep an eye out for them in the future, and try to find the person responsible. She doesn't like ambushes. But since they've been ambushed, clearly it is her job to destroy any enemy casters. Are there any obvious candidates for her to torment?

There are some people with staves?

Eenie, meenie, miney... ooo, that one looks like an elementalist. She'll take that one.

She's in a bit of a rush, on account of the ambush, so she'll make this quick. Hex, hex, hex, one after another—backfire, wastrel's demise, wastrel's worry. The first will drive any spell someone casts to instability so that it, well, does precisely what the name implies. The latter two will prevent easy hex removal of the first, and also explode a little if no spell is cast. Pick your poison, elementalist, she's got all kinds.

Her interrupts are going to be held in reserve for now in case anyone looks like they need it, and the group hex that slows down enemy casting and speeds up ally casting is going to wait on them being a bit more grouped up.

Her interrupts turn out to be unnecessary; with the help of her first hexes and the rest of the group they all make short work of the White Mantle.

"These guards weren't affected by the Bloodstone like the others I've fought," James says. "They must have arrived after the explosion."

    "Then it is likely they came with Caudecus," says Canach. "We're close."

Well, that was a terrible ambush.

"And sending his retinue to die at us doesn't count as the minister changing your plans to return him home?" she asks of Canach.

"They're not officially his retinue," says Marjory. "Canach here is making something we might call an uncharitable assumption."

    "Mm," mms Canach.