Caithe looks at Vetareh again, this time with a measuring gaze. "That's actually quite a good idea. Bloodstone magic could be used to reproduce whatever happened here..."

"Good thinking," he says to Vetareh, far more kindly than Caithe did. "This pedestal seems to be at the nexus of it all, so there's a good chance we will be able to reproduce it. We should go find some Bloodstone crystals."

"Thank you," says Vetareh, smiling a little. She likes being clever. "Yes, preferably a few from different sections around here, to get a more complete picture. The shards wouldn't be absorbing the whole picture, just the ones they were magically blasted with."

Unfortunately for her, there aren't actually any bloodstone crystals in the immediate vicinity. Which makes sense, this was the center of the explosion. Instead, they're all over everywhere in this incredibly vertical location. Some, on floating rocks. As a person that does not have a glider.... yeah she's not going to be much use, here. Unless she wants to go splat, anyway.

"I think I'd be getting in the way in collecting them," she observes.

James nods. "We will be back in a few minutes."

    "Lead the way, Commander," Caithe says softly.

"Have fun."

Well, while they're doing the boring menial labor part, she'll do the tricky scholarly part. She's highly attuned to magic anyway, what with specializing in disrupting enemy magic. Maybe she can get some kind of picture of what echoes they're dealing with here, and how they can best position and use the bloodstone crystals.

It doesn't take two minutes for the first explosion noise to be heard.

...

Well, she's a little stuck on her floating rock, isn't she. But she can go over to the edge and see if James or Caithe are screaming and on fire or something.

They seem to be fighting a trio of floating, glowing, animated weapons! They're not visibly hurt or needing help with that.

Oh. Good. Not the part where they're fighting, the part where they don't appear to be hurt or needing help with that.

She considers yelling 'Don't die,' but decides to save it for after they're done fighting, so as not to distract them.

Eventually they batter the weapons down enough that they stop moving.

And since they are no longer busy, she yells, "Good job! Keep on not dying!"

He turns around and laughs. "We'll try!"

"I only acknowledge results, James!"

"Yes, ma'am!" he calls, saluting.

Caithe smiles and shakes her head then says something, to which James nods then waves at Vetareh before resuming his search.

She smiles and waves back, then goes back to attempting to sort through the magical echoes.

Other monsters and creatures continue to show up and attack James and Caithe. They continue to successfully survive.

Good.

The details of the beginning of the explosion are the equivalent to magical mush to her unaided eyes, but she can see enough of the echoes to see the general arc. The explosion started here, and the waves of magical energy of this flavor went that way, and that other flavor went this way...

She expects to have a decent idea of where it will be best to place all of the bloodstone shards by the time James and Caithe return.

And return they do, in companionable silence. James's body language is also somewhat less cold towards Caithe, now.

That's interesting. Maybe it was some kind of past drama, or being upset about being interrupted while flirting with her. Or something. She doesn't really know. It's probably not her business.

"Welcome back!" she chirps, brightly. "Bloodstone crystals, please? I think I know where best to put them."

"Here you go," James says, handing her three, and Caithe gives her another three wordlessly.

"Thank you," she says.

She peers at them to get a good idea of which flavors of magic each one has, then carefully begins distributing them into positions on the pedestal that look kind of inscrutable to outside viewers.

"Okay. That should do it. And none of these feel so magically charged that they should explode, so if we're careful we won't be looking at a mess."

"Good, I always like it when things don't explode."

    "Is there anything in particular we need to do?" asks Caithe.

She smiles at James. James continues to be cute and it continues to be a good(?) thing that he's covered in spikes and fire.

"Not really. Though—I suppose I do need you to not do things. No magic for a little while. We'll essentially be gently nudging faint magical echoes to be a bit louder, and they can get drowned out by other, stronger magic nearby. Which in this case would be just about anything."

It is really nice to just be an expert in a subject again. It's even nicer to solve actual problems that actually matter, instead of running around in a realm where nothing matters at all. She's having real actual effects on the world!! She's solving a problem because she's very clever! Ahahahaha!!!

"Okay," she says, clamping down on her urge to bounce up and down like a small, excited child. "Give me a bit, this shouldn't take too long."

Then she begins gently magically nudging the shards appropriately. A lot of this is finicky finesse, with a heaping of guesswork, but she just so happens to be rather attuned to knowing what signs imply echoes getting stronger. If she's just patient and watchful and careful, she should get it to work...

The Bloodstones emanate light that crosses in the centre of the platform, showing the echo of a person standing on it. There are other people around, wearing white armour and robes, waiting while Bloodstone pours its power into the person in the centre—

—then the person starts glowing, as brightly as the lightning creature from before—

—and explodes, turning everyone around them to ash.

Vetareh winces. Another mark down for why proper safety protocols are important.

"... Well then. Not a natural occurrence at all."

    "No, not at all," sighs Caithe. "Who would have done something like this...?"

"Someone who just absorbed the lion's share of a Bloodstone's worth of magic... Could have been Caudecus. I have to find Canach and warn him... if he's still alive."