"Ah. Well, normally I'd offer t'share some o' my ale but I'm dead as a doornail and got no ale."

She huffs half a laugh, despite her nerves. "Pity. Though I probably shouldn't be drinking under the circumstances, but thanks anyway."

Vetareh considers how long this ghost has been here, alone, bored, with nothing but broken constructs and lava crabs for company.

"I have some illusionary puzzles, if you'd like to see some of them?"

The ghost scratches his ectoplasmic chin. "Puzzles, eh? What're they for?"

"Dealing with omnipresent boredom, mostly. I fell into the Mists for a while, I had quite the motivation to amuse myself."

"The Mists! How'd you get out?"

"Luck, stubbornness, and a lot of wandering." She doesn't quite know what kind of conversation she wanted to have with a ghost, but talking about the Mists definitely isn't it. She regrets even bringing it up; her plan had been to commiserate with someone that might understand, but now she just feels like a neat specimen to be studied.

"Do you want me to try to put up a sign, or something? So you don't have to stick around to warn people about the ah, death and destruction that awaits them beyond?"

"...that might be a good idea..."

He doesn't sound like he loves it, though.

"... I don't have to, of course. And I doubt a sign could actually do as much as a ghost that can find and warn people and answer questions could."

There's his conversational out, if he wants it, though she's damned curious about why he isn't desperate to get out of this place.

He nods. "Yeah, and anyone can put up a sign, people might jus' ignore it. Anyway, those puzzles..."

She is absolutely fine with the both of them just blithely ignoring their traumatic histories and their complicated set of life (and post-life, in his case) choices in favor of sharing neat illusionary puzzles!

Look, she has some that have pretty colors!

He'll play with them, and even be decently good at them!

She is delighted that someone feels something more than detached frustrated loathing for them from sheer exposure, really. And it's nice that all of her hard work in the Mists is not going unnoticed. It almost makes it feel sort of like all of that awful time was worth it! Almost.

At one point Grumby looks up from the puzzle and blinks at something in the distance. "Well either he's back now or we got mursaat again."

"Hm?" she says, blinking and dropping her concentration on updating the illusion for his progress in the puzzle. She can keep it active without concentrating, but changing as a result of his actions takes actual focus and care.

She looks over to the something in the distance. Is the maybe-a-mursaat walking in slightly clunky bird feet boots?

He sure is!

She beams, and waves at him. The tension she'd been carefully smoothing over and ignoring disappears, though Grumby might not be observant enough to notice. He didn't die the moment she let him out of her sight! Hooray!!!

"He's back. Mursaat obnoxiously float everywhere, whereas I couldn't believably fake it with an illusion."

"Hello again, princess," calls James's voice from the mursaat-like person.

    "Wait. Princess. Vetareh. Mists." Grumby stares at her. "Are you...?"

"Whoops."

"Oh no. I mean, yes, I am, but the princess part was poetic exaggeration by the bards after the fact, I am definitely not in line for any thrones."

    "Well, I met two celebrities today! I'll be telling this story."

"But we," says James, removing the helmet, "are done here. We should get back to Rhoban."

It would be very rude for Vetareh to ask just precisely who Grumby would be telling this story to, so she doesn't. But she thinks it.

"Have fun," she says instead. Then she looks to James. "We should! You... didn't take any notes on the interior of the fortress, did you."

"I'm... afraid I did not. There was not much of note."

She makes a long-suffering expression, then steps forward and hugs him.

"I'm glad you're okay," she says, in lieu of telling him that there definitely were a lot of things of note in there, he just wasn't specialized in noting them.

He wasn't, that's true.

He changes back to his spiky uniform, bids Grumby farewell, and back to Rhoban they can go.

They can leave the mursaat disguise with Grumby, so that someone later can perhaps don the armor and do a more thorough job of studying the fortress. She'll... send some asura this way. Even though they wouldn't fit in the armor unless two stood on each other's shoulders. They're smart, they'll figure a way to use it. Right? Right.

Hopefully the trip back to Rhoban will be uneventful. ... And filled with hand holding. Look, she was worried, okay.

Both things happen! And then they reach the skritt camp again and Rhoban's broken-off bust is waiting for them there.

    "The isles are downright peaceful. Guess you found all of the contraptions, eh?" he calls when he spots them. "Of course, it won't be long until the torrent builds up again. Perhaps by then I'll have these skritt whipped into shape..."