She can pet the baby turtle. It reacts with a surprised noise and looks around in confusion.

That... gives her an idea, actually. Hm.

Are there any writing implements available in this outpost?

There probably are! But the thin mist from before starts appearing again around her, slowly, and the people there start turning transparent...

Well. Damn. She should have tried that earlier, but she doesn't regret her actions in the... whatever that was. She doubts testing communication methods would actually get anywhere. Maybe she just actually affected the real world in Tyria, but... she doesn't think so. She recalls stories of ghosts acting out events in the Mists. It sounds like this was that.

It was pretty nice, though. Kind of fun, to be the resident guardian ghost, unstoppable and nigh all powerful. The whole thing almost wasn't even soul crushing.

She waits for everything to fade back into thin mist, and then plops down onto the ground to have that cry she promised herself.

Everything doesn't; just the people involved in the event. The corpses in the distance also disappear, as do the turtles. The outpost is still there, but deserted and covered by very thick mist.

It is deathly silent again on this side of the story.

That's... interesting. She notices it, while she's busy crying. Maybe it's in some kind of loop, acting out the events over and over again. Well, if the place isn't going anywhere, then there's no rush to put a stopper on her emotions right now. She's going to finish up her crying, and then she'll go see if she can communicate with the necromancer.

She'd thought she was home—

It is a rather long cry.

Then before she's done she'll see mist thinning again and the necromancer's party arriving once more. They're slightly worse for the wear than last time and one of the baby turtles is hurt, but they're all alive.

Well, that's one for 'they're in a loop.' She supposes any and all efforts here are useless but for the resources they get her.

She wraps up the crying, scrubs at her eyes, and stands. Okay. Onwards. Writing implements? Are any available?

It turns out that no, they're not, the outpost is empty beyond what the looped people can perceive when they arrive.

Damn. All right.

She goes walking back to where the loop starts.

It is as she has seen it the first time.

Yep, that's about what she expected.

She walks up to the necromancer and boops his nose.

He blinks, looks around, rubs his nose, and tries to push her away.

She takes a measured step back before he can do that, because she'd rather not be pushed.

... Wait, she's being stupid. She's a mesmer. She's a fucking mesmer. Illusions are not her specialty, but she can do them.

She makes a bright violet illusionary butterfly. It lands in front of him and flutters its wings. Flutter once, twice, he can see the butterfly, yes?

He blinks again then says, "There's a mesmer somewhere here, take position."

Yes, because a mesmer would definitely give themselves away by making a butterfly, and then be hostile towards the people they just revealed themselves to. Yep. Mm-hm. That's what a competent mesmer would do.

She rolls her eyes, then carefully starts constructing a little illusionary map of the area. Then, she starts adding in the turtle's walking path, with locations where the tree people will ambush the turtle people and where they will come from.

"Who is this?"

She leaves the illusionary map where it is, and starts spelling words in illusion.

'Mesmer trapped in the Mists. Trying to find exit, found you instead. Helping.'

"The Mists? How did you get there? How are you talking to us?"

She erases her last message, then writes: 'Bad luck. No idea. Standing in front of you, you can't see me. Can poke you and be poked back.'

"Do it to me."

She pokes him in the shoulder.

He looks at his shoulder and furrows his eyebrows. "Something is—trying to make me forget this."

She winces.

Well, he's in a loop, no reason not to tell him.

'You're in a time loop. This is the third time you've made this run that I've seen.'

His frown deepens. "A time loop? How? Around what?" He pauses, focusing on something behind her, then cries, "Incoming!"

Everyone prepares for battle, and a warrior raises his shield in front of a turtle to protect it from an arrow.