Vetareh swallows her shriek and forces calm.

The gods are gone. They have left. Resurrection does not work. Death is final, except in the cases where one's soul can be chained to their rotting corpse and twisted into a puppet by a monster. Dragons exist, and want to eat the world. Without Grenth, the Underworld might fall into chaos, and all the souls therein might be eaten by whatever happens to be hungry. It all seems like a cruel, cruel joke. She's out of the Mists, but now the whole world is broken.

This is not calm. This is distinctly not calm. This is cold unrelenting fury at the injustice of it all. Strangely enough, it's not as debilitating as one might expect. Sort of the opposite. The world is broken. There are no gods to fix it. Therefore; it's her job.

Or, well. Not just hers. Other people also exist in the world, and she's hardly going to get anywhere useful with her god complex if she cuts herself off from them. And James is absolutely right, and she knows it. There is a time-sensitive thing that needs doing, and she does not have time for this.

"... Yeah," she agrees. She sounds calm. She doesn't know where it's coming from. "Time-sensitive quest first, then I can explain my tragic backstory. I'm good to go."

Because clearly she's not flinching and leaving now just because she knows death is permanent. As fates go, death isn't the worst one. She'd know.

    "Yes..." says Canach. "Let's go find the minister." He leads the way, but James hangs back a bit to stay closer to Vetareh.

"Sorry about not mentioning it earlier," he murmurs. "It hadn't occurred to me—"

Oh, oh honey no, she doesn't think he did anything wrong.

"Hey, no," she murmurs back. Fuck it, discretion's in shambles and she's no longer concerned about keeping a lid on where she came from anymore. He's wearing spiked and flaming gauntlets, but she can still reach out to (briefly) hold his hand. "It sounds like they've been gone almost as long as I have. It'd just be—normal, to you. And it's not exactly easy to relay almost three hundred years of history, especially when it sounds like the history's been so busy. It's okay."

"History has admittedly been quite busy," he agrees. "The Flame Legion charr are no longer in power, that's important... I think you didn't have asura and norn around?"

"Nope, no idea what those are. Actually, I don't even know what the Flame Legion charr are or why it matters that they're not in power," she says, wryly. "If you haven't noticed I'm just kind of rolling with it."

"Flame Legion is the faction that destroyed Ascalon and that was in charge of the war, but I suppose maybe I should wait until after this to actually try a more thorough explanation," he says, mirroring her wryness.

"Little bit. Not strictly relevant that I know right this second, either. I doubt anything will shake me up quite as bad as the gods having abandoned us, and I think I handled that pretty well." Pause. "I'm an atheist now, by the way."

    "Welcome to the club," calls Canach from on ahead. Marjory elbows him, and James snickers.

"Eavesdropping much?"

Vetareh snickers, too.

"I'm not even sure if listening to us counts as eavesdropping. They're right there."

Rytlock snorts, then looks out at a magic storm forming out in the horizon. "The loose magic here has certainly turned this area into a war zone."

She considers commenting that it's not the most cheerful homecoming, but then decides that she doesn't want to potentially persuade people to ask her questions just yet, so she stays quiet and looks out at the magic storm. Welcome home, Vetareh. Here's your new world.

Aaaaand now she's back to being fully sad/angry at the brokenness of the world again. Hooray.

    "So, Commander, you really think Caudecus caused the blast to reverse itself?" asks Marjory.

"Possibly. Vetareh, Caithe, and I found ground zero and determined something or someone soaked up most of the magic."

        "Hmm. The timing of his escape was suspicious," muses Canach.

"He might not be the one to have soaked up the power. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm getting the impression that he wouldn't have been brave enough to personally try it. It'd be risky to put that much power into someone. It's more likely to kill the subject than anything else. Most mortal beings just aren't able to handle it."

"He is also... somewhat troubled," Canach explains.

"Well, if he has soaked up the power, it hasn't yet killed him, but it might be well on its way to it. If we're lucky it'll be a slow bleed-off."

"I should hope we'll be so lucky, but... Anise has described him as a 'cockroach'."

"What a charming description. Hopefully he stops being our problem soon enough."

Marjory is frowning, though. "But what was Caithe doing here?"

"Investigating the blast. She asked that I forgive her for stealing the egg and... everything."

"Hmmm... I don't know if I'd be able to. I don't think people can change that much."

"Ever the cynic," snorts Rytlock.

"See? Point proven. I'll never change, either. Ask Kasmeer."

"She seemed... sad. I didn't get the impression she was insincere."

"It would be hard for me to blame Caithe for her actions while Mordremoth was alive... But let's save the philosophical arguments until after the minister is dealt with."

"Then let's lay the man to rest!"