"I think you mean return him to safety," says Canach politically.

Rytlock chuffs. "I'll never understand human politics."

Snort. Yeah, Rytlock, she won't, either. Or maybe the better term for that is 'doesn't care to.'

They reach the top of the stone stairs, right outside a door to a circular room that's presumably the coliseum. James raises a finger to his lips again—

—but it turns out to be quite unnecessary; with the way someone's yelling in there, they wouldn't hear the party anyway.

    "Why do I feel like I'm repeating myself? YOU follow MY orders! I don't know where these delusions are coming from... There is one White Mantle, do you hear me? ONE!"

        "Minister, I understand but—"

    "But! But! Quiet! Now tell me again what this pile of rocks can do. Are there magic words? How powerful is it? Well...?"

"That would be him."

"Reminds me of a boss I had at the cotton-candy stands when I was younger," Marjory says, shuddering lightly.

"'Pile of rocks,'" she observes in an undertone, frowning. "Somehow I don't think he means another elemental."

He gives James a look and then looks back at the door.

"Use your words, Canach," says James, sounding amused, but he does kick that door open, too.

Canach walks in and starts his speech: "Minister Caudecus, it seems you have been taken prisoner by the White Mantle. Please, allow us to return you to the safety of the Royal Palace."

    "Let's drop the charade, shall we, you ignorant leaf! I will not be returning to Divinity's Reach until I wear the crown!" calls a man who's presumably minister Caudecus, standing atop a standing ground on the coliseum wall across the room from them. There are two more White Mantle to either side of him, high-ranking if judging by the robes, as well as several other White Mantle scattered in the actual coliseum, all of them surrounding a pile of green-purple stone and taking pieces of Bloodstone crystals around to it. More White Mantle start filing onto the top of the wall surrounding the coliseum, coming from a staircase behind the minister.

"So you're saying," Canach continues, neutrally, "that you work with the White Mantle."

    "Are you quite touched? I'm their supreme leader! And they will carry me all the way to the throne of Kryta!!"

He offers James another one of his meaningful looks.

"Yes, I witnessed his words also."

"Then by the providence granted to me by Countess Anise, Caudecus Beetlestone," intones the sylvari, "for the crime of high treason I sentence you to death."

    "Get them! Turn this thing on!" Two White Mantle do something to the pile of rocks, and it begins floating and taking an... unusual shape. "What do you think of my latest find, Commander? It was a bit of a fixer-upper, but nothing a few Bloodstones couldn't mend."

Vetareh sighs heavily, and waits for the floating pile of rocks to inevitably get shielded, because no one in the White Mantle seems to have an ounce of creativity. They seem to just be shoving bloodstones into everything. She hopes the Minister isn't married, because if so, the spouse must be very unhappy.

Look at that, she's right! It has a shield.

"My guess is he was not the one to absorb the Bloodstone's magic."

Look at that! And now it doesn't have a shield. What a shocker, that. This task completed, the construct can then get a bunch of hexes dumped on it, layered one after another.

"I don't think it went into this thing, either," she observes.

This one hits significantly harder than the Bloodstone elementals. And through whatever vagaries of fate, the White Mantle have noticed she's a mesmer, now, and there are three of them going her way. James's Flesh Golem tackles one of them and James himself is holding another one off.

The third one's hers, then. (Also, James is great.)

Her hexes don't really slow the third one down enough for her taste. She decides that, actually, now is a good time for her knife to see some use. For some reason her attacker was not expecting her to produce a knife from a sleeve and flicker forward to stab them in the jugular. Weird. Not really her problem, though. The blood maybe is, but that's a for-later problem.

She goes back to enemy harassment like she did not just viciously stab someone. Hello, spellcasters, Vetareh will be your worst nightmare for this evening.

    "I wanted to see this thing trample Kryta! Get in there and save it!" growls Caudecus, and a couple more White Mantle jump in and do something to make the Jade Construct get shielded again.

(The others are respectively either fighting it or downing other White Mantle.)

Vetareh considers it her job to make sure that Jade Construct does not have a shield for any reasonable length of time. She puts a brief hold on being a nightmare to bring that shield down again.

Has anyone else decided that she needs to die right now, yet?

Ooh yes quite a few people have. Fortunately it seems that they are not very competent, at least in comparison to the Commander and his friends.

Oh, good! Then she'll just leave her defense to them and go right on back to being a nightmare. Interrupts! Interrupts and hexes for all! ... Well, where they'd do the most damage, anyway.

One curse here, one reaping there, the spirit of an ancient dwarven king from behind, and the pile of jade crumbles to pieces.

   And then out of completely nowhere they are all trapped in place and unable to use magic, courtesy of a mesmer spell by the lady standing next to Caudecus. "You will not stop me!" Caudecus raves. "The Krytan throne was built upon White Mantle blood, and we are its rightful heirs!"

Son of a bitch. She should have expected this and countered it. It's not really clear how she would have done that, but she should have, clearly. She hates not having complete magical understanding of everything around her, and she especially hates losing. She can't help but feel that this is a personal mark against her honor as a mesmer, to get beaten at her own game. Rrrrrgh she's going to learn all of the magic ever and show everyone in the modern era why Orr was a magical force to be reckoned with.

How does the trapped in place and unable to use magic work, can she tell, is there a way for her to wiggle out of these stupid restraints so she can shove half a dozen hexes and several interrupts down the enemy mesmer's throat?

Hmmmmmm maybe, if she doesn't get distracted by the truly absurd amounts of magic appearing behind Caudecus in the shape of a floating humanoid with bird feet in golden armour. "You are a heretic, Caudecus! And you shall lead no White Mantle, for I am their GOD!"

    "What? It—it can't be...!"

She notices, and realizes immediately that this was where the bloodstone's magic went, but no she's not getting distracted, this is a mark against her honor, and she's damn well getting out of it right this fucking second!