She's definitely somewhere else.

Hard, uneven stone can be felt but not seen underneath her feet, hidden by a thick, low fog spreading everywhere. Light comes from something akin to a moon, its blue hue filtered through clouds that likewise cover the entire sky. The landscape around Vetareh seems to be nearly unbroken sameness, with the occasional dead tree the exception that proves the rule. She can't see that far, though; even if not as thick as the fog covering the ground, there's a thin mist everywhere that blurs and covers the more distant parts of the landscape. Through the mist, she can spot mountains in one direction, and what might be ruins but might also be a village in another.

She glances around herself with slowly growing alarm. Is. Is she dead? She doesn't feel very dead. Just to check, she glances down at herself, and—nope, flesh and blood, pulse and everything. Okay. So she's... not dead. So that's one set of good news for the day. Except, well, actually death might be a bit more solvable. It's not like there haven't been accidents before, and her parents would certainly make sure she was resurrected. This... might not be so easily solvable. She thinks she might just be in the Mists. The Mists are not precisely known for being what one might call 'navigable.' Or what one might call 'safe.' But maybe she's not in the Mists. Maybe she's just in a very boring, very samey, very flat, very misty... no it's the Mists. It's definitely the Mists.

First order of business: no, there is no leftover weird magic phenomenon on this side of the weird magic phenomenon. Damn. There goes the faint hope of just being able to jump back through and go home. No other apparent easy solutions are making themselves known to her.

For a few seconds she tries to think of one anyway, then decides that standing around indecisively didn't exactly help her the last time she tried it. The ruins-or-village might perhaps be promising. Hesitantly, she begins walking toward it, trying not to make a sound. Trying not to breathe too loudly. It might not help, but it makes her feel slightly better. Something to manage instead of just her completely justified bubbling panic.

It turns out to be fairly easy to not make sounds—the air is unnaturally still, and the fog seems to absorb sound better than it by rights should. Her steps sound hollow and muffled, and she herself can barely hear her own breathing.

As she approaches the structure, it becomes clear that they are in fact ruins—few enough buildings that this is either only a displaced fraction of a settlement, unfamiliar architectural style and all, or a simple roadstop that might be more common farther into the continent than in her country of origin.

Great.

Okay, what does she have on her. Her scepter, her knife, clothes, boots, some money. No water or container for water (does she need to eat and drink while she's wandering the Mists? she doesn't know.) so she's going to need to try to find one of those. Then, hopefully some kind of food. If she turns out not to need to eat and drink while wandering the Mists, then they're for when she gets out of the Mists. She does not by any stretch of the imagination believe that she will be lucky enough to wander back into Tyria in Orr. She'd consider it lucky if she landed in Ascalon, or even Elona. Or anywhere in her world at all, really.

Cautiously, she begins looking through the ruins for things that a person wandering the Mists might perhaps want to have. Do these ruins have anything of that sort available?

No. These ruins seem to be ancient enough that anything of the sort that could have survived whatever event brought their destruction about would long since have rotted off or gotten broken, lost, or stolen. A tall stone archway lies half-crumbled on top of what might have been a house but could as well have been a commercial building of some sort; what was probably once a plaza is now only a mostly-circular open space with the vague memory of a fountain in the centre. There are no living plants, here, but evidence of wild growth abounds on the dark walls and scattered debris; possibly the Mists neglected to transport them in this echo, when it did.

And then, in the edge of hearing—a scraping sound, no louder than a whisper, with periodic pauses just long enough to maybe lead her to believe she'd imagined it all along.

Well, that's about what she expected, really, but the Mists are weird, so it was worth checking. 'Try to find useful things to salvage' is a set of habits she would like to do more of. It could get her useful things that could keep her alive in or out of the Mists, and it's something to do that will keep her from going mad from wandering aimlessly in the Mists. Good things all around. As long as it doesn't get her eaten by something dangerous, anyway.

She freezes when she hears the scraping sound. Speaking of something dangerous. That doesn't sound like the sort of sound a portal might make. That sounds like the sort of sound a dangerous denizen of the Mists might make. While she can defend herself, she'd really rather not. On the other hand, she'd like to know what sorts of creatures she might get ambushed by in the future. Maybe she can get some more information about what's going on and then sneak away. At the very least, knowing where the thing is will aid her in sneaking away from it.

Her knife's reflective; a pretty (and practical) thing polished to a mirror shine. Key word there being 'mirror.' She draws it, slides closer to the nearest wall, edges quietly to a corner, and carefully turns the blade to look around the corner.

The mirror shows her... nothing, beyond the ruins she's already been exploring. Now that she's close enough, if she adjusts for how strangely sounds propagate in this place, the sound is very definitely coming from something she should be able to see through the mirror. It continues, stopping and resuming at regular intervals, and sounding like it's moving away from her.

Okay. That's terrifying, and she kind of wants to curl up in a corner and have herself a very quiet cry, but okay.

She thinks she'd like to stay right where she is until the sound goes away. That sounds like the thing to do that will not attract the attention of the whatever-it-is. She will be so very quiet and patient and watchful for ambushes.

It takes a while to go away; it's very very slow.

Slow is good, objectively speaking. It means that it's less likely for her to get ambushed by a fast thing. It means that if she gets chased she might be able to outrun it. It means that the thing is probably not suspecting anything is strange or wrong, and there's no reason for it to speed up. Slow is good.

... But also incredibly, indescribably boring. There's not even anything interesting to look at, she's just. Here. In a misty, boring expanse, hiding behind some ruins and jumping at shadows. Even the terror gets a bit dull, after a while. She clamps down on the urge to fidget with her knife, her clothes, her hair, her scepter. Damn her inability to sit still. It very well might get her killed. She has the sneaking suspicion that things in the Mists are very patient. Too much impatience might very well lead her right into a trap. Then again, that very fact means that she's not going to win in a contest of patience, either. Maybe she should treat her impatience and sense of time as an asset to be taken care of, not a thing to be suppressed.

Maybe she's just thinking herself into knots because she's scared and alone and in an indescribably strange and dangerous place.

Eventually, impatience wins out. Her own sanity is an important, precious resource. People go mad from wandering in the Mists. She is not going to stay sane by doing... whatever it is that she's doing. There is clearly nothing she wants in these ruins, so that settles that. Time to go. She can just... sneak away from the scraping noise. Somehow she doesn't think it matters very much which direction she goes instead, as long as it is away.

The sound does not meaningfully change when she starts moving, and eventually she's far enough away to be unable to hear it altogether.

Good.

Okay, are there any landmarks that she can wander her way towards? She would like a change of scenery.

Now that she's gone past the ruins the mists in that direction are thick enough to also cover the mountains she'd seen when she arrived. But other than that, no, there are no other discernible landmarks. The dead trees seem to be fairly randomly spaced and not indicate anything other than an aesthetic.

Wonderful.

She briefly considers trying to keep track of where she's been so she can navigate back to it if she needs to, but she suspects the Mists aren't going to stay still. Why would they do that? They're the Mists. (Very quietly, a voice in the back of her mind informs her that she's doomed. She resolutely ignores this voice. She's only doomed if she gives up.) There are no regular landmarks to navigate by, anyway. Probably best not to worry about it.

This decided, she picks a direction at near random and walks. Something will probably come up eventually.

It takes a while. It's not clear how much of a while; after enough walking the ruins, too, disappear behind fog. The temperature is unchanging; neither cold nor warm, almost uncomfortably lacking in differences. The unevenness of the ground is random enough to eventually become dull, itself. The muffled, repetitive sounds of her steps might be enough to lull her to sleep, if her body felt the slightest inclination to get tired. It doesn't seem to. Her muscles are neither awake nor asleep, they merely are, which might be good if one plans to walk for a very long time without stop but feels as uncanny as the stillness of everything else. At times she is able to hear sounds, but they're rare enough and faint enough that those might, in fact, just be her brain playing tricks on her.

The first hint of change comes in the form of the sound of her footsteps getting slightly less muffled, with a slightly different clacking than what it's been.

So that's the 'does she even need to eat' problem sorted. She does not need to eat. Or drink. Or sleep. Just as well. It's not like there's much to salvage here. What a silly thought that turns out to have been. All there is to do is walk, or not. Go towards what might be sounds, or not. Just to mix it up a little, she changes her mind on which it'll be. It doesn't really change anything. As she's rapidly discovering, the tales of dangerous things in the Mists are the exception, not the rule. Mostly the Mists are just... very boring. Very dull. Very themselves. There's nothing to do. She can sit down and cry, and does so sometimes, but it's hardly very fulfilling. Or she can walk.

She does quite a lot of walking. She has no way to know how much, she doesn't have the patience to count her steps or count her heartbeats. She instead lets her mind drift off into amusing itself with logic puzzles of her own creation. Or the minutiae of songs half-remembered, or the layout of the streets of Arah, or her own home, or the college that she studied at. She thinks of stories her parents told her, of their time in the Guild Wars, of how the sacred streets of Arah had run red with blood, how they'd left and helped and decided to stay. Eventually, despite her reservations towards attracting attention, she starts toying with magic, creating little idle illusions to break up the monotony. That proves to be the best of the lot, with puzzles that stay still when she's not looking at them and don't change on a mind's idle whims.

The fear bleeds away. The anger at the idiots that caused this fate bleeds away. Her nervousness towards meeting unfortunate denizens of the Mists bleeds away. If anything, that last one sounds kind of interesting, at least it'd be something to do. She wonders, idly, if everything she feels is just going to fade into a general apathy, if the only thing she'll care about is stopping this unending monotony. She wonders how long she's been here. It's not like she knows. Less idly, she wonders if she should stop. She does have her knife, and she's starting to think she'd rather be in the Underworld than this fucking place. Would Grenth catch her if she died here? Or would she just wander some more in the Mists, her fate ultimately unchanged? She doesn't know, so she doesn't entertain the thought for very long.

What she does know is that she doesn't want this to be her end. She doesn't want to be the girl who killed herself in the Mists because going on was too dull. She wants to claw her way out of this godsforsaken place, breathe real air again, move her limbs and feel them tire, to hear the unmuffled sound of her feet beneath her and the breaths from her lungs and the wind around her. She wants to see something other than mist. Wants to talk to someone besides herself. Wants to hear song and dance to it and smile and laugh and be held by someone, anyone, and see her parents again, and see Arah again, and, and, and—

She goes on.

And on.

And on.

And then—

The sound changes. At first she thinks it might be her imagination finally beginning to unravel into madness, but—no. No, she's not imagining that, or if she is, it would break her heart not to act upon it. She sucks in a breath, and then she seizes the moment. She fumbles to the coins at her hip; who cares if she's without money at the end of this, she'll be out of the Mists. Which way is the sound getting less muffled, if she throws these coins in these directions which way makes the most noise?

Straight ahead, apparently. And the light in that direction seems slightly—bluer? No, the light itself is actually whiter, the ground reflecting it seems to be bluer.

Forget caution, forget self preservation, if running straight towards the light is going to get her killed then good, at least she won't have to live for another eternity regretting not going towards it, like the mountain or the scraping sound—

She sprints.

Definitely different! The ground is harder and the unevenness more—purposeful. Actually if she's not careful she might just trip on a bit of ground that looks just a tiny bit too much like an ocean wave.

Okay, good, purposeful is good—she trips, and corrects herself, and keeps moving, she has no idea how long this phenomenon will last, she has no idea if it's a way out or not. Please be a way out. Please let this end. If it isn't, then—then she still wants to sprint towards it, at least it's more interesting than everywhere else she's been to. But please be a way out. Please. Pleasepleaseplease, Dwayna, Lyssa, anyone, anyone at all that can hear her and listen and get her out, please, let this be a way out.

If it's a way out, it's not obviously so. The fog covering the ground remains, but the mist in the air starts dissipating, and she can see farther away. She seems to be standing on a solid sea, turned to jade somehow. There are ruins of ships stuck in it, pieces of them frozen forever in the stone. She can even see, if she looks, sealife, encased in and preserved by the jade.

Sea life that's familiarly Tyrian.

Well now she kind of just wants to collapse to her knees to cry from relief. She decides she can do that later, she needs to not die of exposure on a sea of—jade? Why would there be a sea of jade? Whatever, doesn't matter, she doesn't care, she's out she's out she's out—

Is there some kind of, of landmark, in this strange jade sea, some direction that will get her towards people?

There's... voices? That's definitely voices, a bit distant but not too much.

Aaaaaa yes talking talking people people yes please—

She is going in the direction of the voices. Yep. That's a thing she's doing right now.

There are people, yep. And... turtles. A couple of very, very large ones, carrying cannons on their shells, and a bunch of smaller ones being escorted.

    "...with us," one of them is saying. "We'll need all the help we can get."

Another one—he has what's recognisably a necromancer's Flesh Golem following him—replies: "Your fight is my fight."

    "Watch yourself out there. The Kurzicks are a dastardly bunch."

Great she landed in the middle of this whole thing—

—but on reflection she doesn't really care, it's inconsequential next to she's out she's out she's out.

"Excuse me!" she calls, rushing forward. "Excuse me, hi, I'm—I just—I'm not—I was in the Mists."

    "Pay particular care to their juggernauts, the golem-like things that resemble walking trees," the first one continues as if she hadn't spoken. "They're especially dangerous to the turtles."

"I'll take care of them," says the likely-a-necromancer.

She blinks, confused. What?

"... Hello?" she says, tentatively, heart dropping. A heart that... isn't beating any faster. In a body that isn't tired. No—

Vetareh reaches out to wave a hand in front of the likely-a-necromancer's face.

"Well then, good luck. We'll see you at Creon Jade Mine," says the first one before turning around and going in a different direction. Likely-a-necromancer—doesn't pass through her as if she were a ghost, but he and his companions and the turtle start moving and going around her as if she were a feature of the landscape.

She sucks in a breath, and swallows her tears.

"You really, really suck," she says conversationally, to the Mists. No one can hear her, but that's not the point. "You suck so much."

Then she scrubs her palm under her prickling eyes, and—well. She's not out, but it is definitely the most interesting thing she's seen in who knows how long. She's not going to waste this chance by crying now. She can cry later. She'll have the time. Instead of crying, she trails after the group and their giant turtles, keeping her sniffling to a minimum and hanging on to their every... everything.

The group of people seems to be escorting the turtles along the jade sea, and at first everything's fine... except then they're met by a different group of people accompanied by tall armoured plant humanoids. Who do not seem to be very friendly.

Yeah, this was predictable.

She wonders, idly, if the damage and destruction from the fighting might hurt her. She clamps down on the urge to rush out in front of one of the big turtle's cannons to see. No, that's not a healthy coping mechanism, suicidal tendencies can stop right here, if the Mists did this shit to her then she's damn well not letting this fucking place kill her. If she has to subsist on spite alone to survive, then she will.

Instead, she scurries far out of what she expects the general range of the fight to be, and carefully sits down on a large bit of jade wave to watch. Maybe with these observations she can spend the next however-long-it-is she'll be walking picking apart their spells. That sounds like a new thing to get bored of.

Large bit of jade is a good vantage point to see various other groups of people with tree humanoids stationed at strategic positions here and there.

Neat. She hopes the turtle people make it with their little adorable baby turtles alive. Because she likes seeing reminders of there being cute things in the world, and it would kind of suck to have them instead die in front of her.

She starts taking notes in illusion, on what's going on and what sorts of things it looks like they're doing. Tactically, magically, whatever. She's curious. It's not like she'll be able to keep the notes, or anything, but the act of 'writing' them down might help her remember things. Doing something also keeps her from crying, and it's not more walking, so. She'll take it.

The likely-a-necromancer acts as their leader, and he seems to be extremely competent at what he does, showing a deep knowledge of both strategy and tactics and leading his team along the path. He instructs them to try to take the enemies (at least the human ones) alive when they can but to first and foremost focus on the mission objective of getting the turtles across.

That's pretty cool. She likes seeing competent leadership.

Maybe she can pick up how his Flesh Golem thing works. It looks interesting, and she's always one for understanding any and all magical disciplines available. Is it going to at some point die and require recreation?

It does die at one point while taking hits from one of those tree-things, but the necromancer's other minions (he's been collecting them whenever enemies die) replace it and eventually tree-thing's killed. Necromancer takes a pause to bring a new golem to the battlefield.

She takes copious notes, and tries to commit them to memory. It'd be nice if she got something out of this torment, just on principle.

Idly, she wonders if she can interfere with them in any way. ... Sure, let's try it. She stands and twirls her scepter between her fingers, watching the tree people and waiting for an opening.

This one opponent starts casting a fire spell...

Nope. Instead, have a flare of carefully timed and aimed magic, that will disrupt it just so.

It's interrupted. The people around him are briefly confused but immediately seize the advantage to knock him out.

Huh.

... That might actually make this kind of fun.

She allows herself a small smile, then begins playing guardian. This tree person gets an interrupt, and this one gets a hex, and this one gets to have their magical energy stolen. None of this matters, but it is fun to recall that, oh, yes, she is very good at what she does.

The tree people are going to have a terrible, terrible time of it.

They are. Likely-a-necromancer starts becoming quicker on the uptake and presses the advantage instead of questioning what's going on with his opponents. They make quick work of this wave and continue on.

Vetareh trails after them. She'll be staying well out of the range of all fights, because if she can hurt them, she vaguely suspects the reverse is also true. But playing guardian sounds more fun than taking notes she probably won't remember, and there's no reason not to work to keep her skills sharp.

The party goes on along the length of this sea, and eventually it reaches an outpost on the other side, all turtles having survived the trip.

Oh, good. The little cuties made it through all right.

Since it's safe now, and since no one can actually see her, she closes the distance between her and the baby turtles and leans down to pet one. Gently. Can she pet the baby turtle?

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.

Well, this time she's actually in the middle of battle, isn't she. Damn. At least no one knows she's here. She can just kind of... hide behind the big turtles and hope nothing hits her. She helps with the fight itself.

Somehow, she has the sneaking suspicion that he's going to have forgotten everything she just told him by the time it ends.

He hasn't. "Are you still here?"

'Yes. Do you still remember everything?'

"I do. You mentioned a time loop. That's—worrying."

'Yes.' She hesitates, then adds, 'I think you're here in the Mists, too.'

"...I'm pretty sure I'm not."

    "Friend, we must go," says one of the people in the party. "Mesmer—care to accompany us? We can continue conversing on our way."

'Sure,' she agrees. Obligingly, she starts walking, moving her illusions with her. 'Have you gotten tired from anything you've done? Do you need to eat or drink?'

"Yes. I haven't eaten since I left the last outpost and this trek is not very restful."

'Okay. Do you know how someone trapped in the Mists could get out, then?'

"...my best bet would be going to the Battle Isles and using a portal there. There might be others, but that's the only one I know."

'I don't know how to get there from here. It's all grey mist. Except here.'

"We might be able to find someone who could pierce the veil here, then? If you're in the Mists but can talk to us and see us then maybe the veil is thinner."

Yeah, she somehow does not think that's what's going on.

'Could this be done before you get the baby turtles to the outpost? That's when the loop resets.'

    "We can't delay the turtles," the man who objected the first time says.

"But we could send someone ahead without them," necromancer guy says.

    "We need everyone—"

"We don't, really. We have redundancy." He looks at Vetareh's illusion. "Do you think that would be sufficient?"

'Yes. And I'll help with the turtles.'

This is absolutely not going to work, but hey, it's something to do besides walking in endless mist some more.

"Myra, you go," necromancer says to someone sporting daggers and with a bandana covering her mouth.

    "Gee, thanks, boss, way to say I'm expendable."

"You're fast and you can hide very well, your shadow stepping is very good—"

    "Fine, fine, I was just joking. I'll be back soon." And she disappears in a puff of black smoke.

'Thank you,' she adds.

Well. Time to protect some turtles, then. Luckily, she's done this before, so she knows what to watch out for and can warn them ahead of time before something happens.

Except...

...the mist starts thickening again. Their voices slowly become echoes as they start fading from the world—

What?

... Did she break the loop?

Are they back at the start?

They are.

Great.

She skips the small talk and goes right to illusions.

'I'm a mesmer trapped in the Mists. I don't know how to get out and I don't think I can get help. Do you know how I could find my way to an exit?'

"Everyone stand ready," necromancer guy says immediately, then reads the illusion. "Uh... I'm afraid I don't? I would suggest going to the Battle Isles, it's the only portal to the Mists I know of. How did you get trapped?"

Around and around she goes...

'Accident and bad luck. I don't know how to get to the Battle Isles from here. I was in Orr and did a lot of walking, I don't know where I am in relation to everything else.'

"...Orr? Orr was sunk over two years ago."

"What?" she hisses, out loud.

'What?! How?' she writes.

"Vizier Khilbron cast a dark magic to try to destroy the charr that were invading and overwhelming Orr, but it destroyed the whole peninsula. The Vizier became an undead lich because of the magic, but—he's dead for good, now."

'That doesn't make any sense. The charr couldn't have gotten to Orr. Ascalon's in the way.'

"...Ascalon's been in ruins for over three years, now. I'm from there. I saw it be destroyed by the charr with my own eyes."

    "Friend, we must not delay, we need to deliver these turtles to the hatchery," says same guy from last time. He looks at the illusion. "You could accompany us."

'What year is it to you?'

And how long has she been wandering the Mists?

"It's 1073 AE."

She stares at him.

It was 1066 AE before she fell into the Mists.

Seven years. At least. Seven. Possibly longer, because the Mists get weird with time, and this looks like it's a copy from the past. She doesn't think the Mists copy from the future.

No. No no no no no no no she wants to be back in the middle of grey mist again, she wants to be bored again, she doesn't—no.

It could be fake. The things he's saying are absurd, and she knows he's not real. The charr, overwhelming Orr? Ridiculous. Orr's as strong as Ascalon, that's why the Third Guild War isn't over and done with, even if the charr made it through Ascalon they'd be weakened enough not to get through Orr. The Vizier becoming a lich because of magic that destroyed the peninsula? Absurd. Insane. That's not how magic works, you don't accidentally become a lich.

She tries to write something, tries to tell him he's not real, but illusions are tricky. And she is emotionally compromised. She tries to form words, but the illusions shatter into violet glass and disappear before she makes it past 'You—'

And then she stares at her hands and doesn't... do... anything.

"Hey? You okay?"

    "We should go."

"—yes, Argo. If—if you want to follow us and continue talking I'll still be here, okay? But this is very important and I have to go."

She doesn't really care what the echo wants to do. If it wants to go away, sure, that's fine. It can do that.

Thoughts form in her head and she scrapes up some resemblance of calm. This is an echo. This is an echo in the Mist, and it can't help her. She needs to leave, and she needs to try to find another way out. She's wasting time standing here trying to get answers from a thing that is not a person.

This decided, she has the clarity of mind to manage an answer.

'You can't help me anyway. And I can't help you. I'm sorry. I'll go.'

"...okay. Good luck. I'll—try to return here and find you if I can." Onwards they go to this iteration of the loop.

"If I had any luck at all," she says, "I wouldn't be here."

It'd be smart to stay, to try and get as much maybe-information from these things as possible, to try and figure out if there is any way at all for them to help her. But she doesn't want to be here anymore. She wants to go home. She won't get that by staying here. She might not get that ever, but she definitely won't get that if she stays here and holds onto people that aren't real just because they're more interesting than walking around in mist some more. And she doesn't know how long this is taking. And she doesn't know if the loop is based on anything real or not.

She leaves.

The area surrounding the loop is also part of the jade sea, but it gets less and less defined the farther from it she is, boats no longer appearing and waves getting smaller and more regular.

Until eventually she's back to the hard rock and dead trees from before. Or perhaps it's somewhere else; at any rate it's impossible to distinguish any one place from anywhere else.

The direction doesn't matter.

She picks one, and then she goes back to walking.

The Mists are neither completely boring nor completely exciting. They are the space between worlds, the proto-reality from which all other realities emerge; Tyria is but one of the worlds in it, as are the gods' realms, the Rift and within it the Hall of Heroes, and countless others that humans in Tyria have never heard of. They're the raw matter from which worlds are made, and they borrow aspects from them once they exist, both feeding them into other worlds and just recording them forever in themselves. From the Mists, you can reach everywhere, but you are nowhere.

The vast unknowable space between worlds is, mostly, empty. But she runs into other things than emptiness; other stolen places, other looping echoes. A fight between a hero and an undead king; a stone colossus, trapped by cultists performing a dread ritual; a submerged city, krait and largos fighting over treasures hidden within; a war between soldiers wearing long robes invoking spirits of the past and humanoids afflicted with some horrible disfiguring disease. Sometimes they move, and loop; sometimes they are still, only the undying structures with no life or liveliness to tell the story of what one did day-to-day there.

There are, she'll find, other people there, as lost or perhaps more than she is. They're rare, much rarer than the pieces of stolen reality, and most of them too far gone to really interact with her.

There are, she'll find, demons there; mishmashes of creatures from many worlds, fleshy creatures with too many eyes and teeth, beasts that are made out of concepts and whose reality is given more form by knowledge and fear, things that were never meant to be, anywhere, but by the very nature of this unreality come to exist. If she's smart—and lucky—she can avoid their attention. She does not want their attention.

This is not fair. This is not right. If the universe were fair then she would not be here. She doesn't deserve it. No one does. Death is a mercy compared to this. If she had her way, all of the Mists would burn and the space between worlds would be gone. This is stupid, and would probably break all of reality, but 'wandering in the Mists' is a torment that should not occur to anyone. Especially not to her.

Fortunately for her, spite is quite the motivator.

As she figures out relatively (as things in the Mist go, anyway) quickly, the necromancer from the first looping echo wasn't lying. Or false. Every time she finds someone she can question about Orr, they're either from the far distant past, or they agree with him. The charr invaded Orr, and Orr blew itself up. Her parents, having lived in Arah, are almost certainly dead. No resurrections, either, what with there being too many people for anyone to possibly sort through in the window available for a resurrection. They died never knowing what happened to her. They probably still don't, and they wait for her still in the Underworld. Everyone she ever knew and ever loved is dead. It's just her, alone in the Mists.

Well, all right then.

Her regrets get discarded like the rubbish that they are. She no longer has the patience for them. So what, if she wasn't quick-thinking enough to avert or avoid the disaster that got her here in the first place? She has not lost. Not yet. So what, if she doesn't know the way out of the Mists? She has forever. She will find it. So what, if everyone else that she meets is either not a person or crazy? She isn't. Not yet. Her loved ones do not know where she is and must think the worst possible fate has occurred to her, and in a way it has. But in another way, it hasn't, because the worst possible fate is the one she's running from. Despair. Hope is a bitter pill to swallow, but she takes it with every stubborn footstep, every comforting echo she turns away from. Maybe she's chasing a fool's errand, maybe it's impossible, but at least that's better than never having tried at all. Step (She will get out), step (She will get out), step (She will get out).

This horrible place may not have her. It will not take her sanity, and it will not take her will, and without those it will never get her.

She talks to echoes. When the echoes allow for it, she assists different sides in their conflicts just because she can. Because she enjoys it, and nothing else. There doesn't need to be another reason. She learns and theorizes and watches history play out through a thousand broken mirrors, and she keeps on living with herself. Maybe the things she has learned will never get used, maybe they'll die with her, but then she'll arrive at the Underworld and have so much to show for it. Or maybe she won't, and all she'll ever have is the knowledge that she fought. Maybe that's enough. She steals laughter and wit and fun from this damnable place. She is—beautiful. Terrifying. A creature that has walked through the Mists and will come out sane. She is not so arrogant to think that her mental fortitude is infinite, but it doesn't need to be. It just needs to last long enough to get lucky. Just once. Or maybe it's really a thousand times, but what does she care? She has forever, which in practice means 'until her sanity gives out.'

Her sanity takes a very long time to give out. Or maybe it doesn't. Maybe her flavor of insanity is 'I will do the impossible.' To be honest, she's fine with that.

She walks on.

There's another echo. Echoes start in a myriad ways but this one is reminiscent of her first one: the non-sound of her footsteps changing. It's still rock, but it's different rock, and the light slowly turns red. Red crystals start dotting her landscape, some of them mere glints on the ground, some jutting out taller than she is, sharp points threatening the now-present ceiling.

Interesting. She walks further into it, wondering what sort of place she's stumbled onto this time.

It's a cave, it's very definitely a cave. The next change in features is floating rocks—from pebbles to boulders, some of them sporting more of the red crystals. The mist starts thinning again and she can see a person in the distance, fighting what seems to be another person, this one made entirely of lightning and as tall as two adult human males.

"Why is it always fighting," she wonders to no one in particular. "You'd think sometimes there would be something for important and historical tax implementation."

She proceeds towards the person and the lightning person, idly wondering if this is going to be one of the ones she can talk to through illusions, or if there will be nothing for her to do.

The person dodges a lightning bolt, and three spheres of red light are floating lazily in their general direction. The presence of a Flesh Golem betrays this person as a necromancer, in another parallel of the first echo she saw. The person is wearing a fairly interesting choice of armour set but it doesn't seem to be hindering them any. They are wielding a scepter in one hand and a long sharp-looking knife in the other, but they quickly and dexterously switch to a long two-handed staff which they use to cast a chilling effect on the lightning person.

And then the mists dissipate completely, the lightning person looks directly at Vetareh, the necromancer shouts "Look out!" and his Flesh Golem tackles her out of the way of a lightning bolt that hits the exact spot she'd been standing on.

What the—?

There's a rush of sensory experiences. Tiredness and temperature and wind and proper sound and the air in her lungs and she's not in the Mists anymore. She takes half a second to adjust, then huffs a little laugh. She did it. She actually did it.

Which of course is precisely when she's tackled by a Flesh Golem.

"Figures," she snorts.

She scootches out from underneath the Flesh Golem, because this is a bad place to be, much as she appreciates the quick save. She dumps a hex on lightning person; she is very sure about whose side she is on, here. Somehow she expects the necromancer will like the effects of it. Then she gives a sharp whistle. C'mon, lightning guy, do that lightning thing again, she dares you.

It tries, just as the necromancer makes an arcane symbol appear under the creature that makes it move way slower.

"No," she informs the lightning person in a bright cheery tone, and interrupts the lightning thing.

"Thank you for the save, by the way!" she calls to the necromancer. It just seems polite.

"Welcome!" he calls back before closing one fist and making a creature made of shadows with six eyes appear out of thin air. It actually looks quite adorable.

The necromancer grunts as he casts another spell but immediately makes another large symbol appear on the ground below the lightning person and as the symbol disappears the humanoid visibly falters.

Aaaand hex. This one's a delicate but potent little thing that would be disrupted by the lightning person actually managing to do anything, but somehow she thinks that it will have some trouble. Would lightning person like to be so foolish as to try to cast anything?

Not quite yet! Lightning person does nothing visible but the spheres of red lightning start moving towards Vetareh. The necromancer makes a further symbol appear below them, and after a puff of black smoke they start going away from her. "—hey, thanks for that," he says when he notices that this is the third spell that he's cast much more quickly than normal. He switches to the scepter and knife again and points the scepter at lightning person, making skeleton hands emerge from the ground to pull and scrape and punch lightning person.

Now lightning person tries to cast.

"You're welcome!"

She waits for the right moment, and—interrupt. "Still no," she informs the monster sweetly.

Then her second hex goes off and the monster experiences violet colored regret.

It staggers back, and a plague of ethereal green spirit locusts is dropped on its head.

And then the necromancer is covered with dark green shadows and he instantly teleports towards the lightning person and does a series of things a bit too fast to follow and the lightning person suddenly fizzles out.

Well, that's a thing she hasn't seen before. She raises her eyebrows slightly. Okay necromancer, calm down, no need to show off too much just because she's a lady.

"Was that the only one?" she affirms, because she really needs to get that out of the way before she attempts to do anything else.

The shadows around him disappear, and he removes his mask to reveal a handsome if unnaturally pale face with a thin scar from a cut to his right eye. He has one earring on each ear, both of them gold with a bright purple spherical jewel in the middle. "I hope to Grenth it was. Are you alright?"

His minions rejoin him and stand in formation behind him.

"I am not injured," she confirms, which is not the same thing as being all right. "I realize this is a weird question, but what year is it?"

"It's, ah, 1329 AE. Are you sure you're...?"

She lets out a breath. 1329 AE. That's... such an impossibly large number. She flicks a finger to do some quick illusionary math. 263 years. That... is a very long time.

"I was in the Mists," she says very softly, staring at her little illusionary numbers. "And just finally found my way out. I don't think I'm all right."

"Oh, fuck," he says. "I'm so sorry. How—how long...?" He saw the numbers but they—they could be anything, and time in the Mists doesn't necessarily pass at the same rate...

"I'm from Orr," she says, a little wryly. Her body language is casual, but her eyes are sad.

"That's—it—it was destroyed over two hundred and fifty years ago—" He takes a step forward, then looks down at his hands and quickly unclasps his gloves and removes his shoulder guards (the fire in these pieces going out as soon as they get detached from him). He leaves the pieces of armour behind and takes another tentative step forward—not so threatening, anymore, without the spikes and the fire...

"I know," she agrees, softly. "Shortly after I—got lost."

She looks at him, and doesn't... really know what to say. What could she possibly say?

Yeah this... looks like a hugging situation. He takes the extra two steps needed to reach her—he's a tall guy—and slowly, with enough time and space for her to back away if she wants to, hugs her.

Oh. Oh, hugs are things that people can have when they're not in the Mists, aren't they. Yes. Sure. That.

She's just going to tip ever so delicately into him to sob into one of his available shoulders. That sounds like the thing to do right now.

He's warm—either because of the fire that was around him just now, or because of the battle, or because that's just how he is—and he's actually very tall. He wraps his arms around her and lets her sob, not saying anything. He's not sure there's anything to say.

If there are things to say, she definitely doesn't know what they are. She's just... she's so tired, yet also strangely wired. She wants nothing more than to collapse and cry forever, except for how she wants to never ever cry again and go live a long and aggressively happy life just to spite the Mists, because fuck that fucking place.

"Well. I did it. I made it out. D-do I get a prize?" she mumbles into his shoulder.

He chuckles a chuckle that rocks his whole body. "I'm not sure I have prizes to distribute; I left them all back home. I apologise for my lack of foresight."

"'Sfine. This also works." She squeezes him a little. "And I'm not even crazy." She blurbles a little half-giggle, half-sob. "I think."

"I can testify to that. You look and sound one hundred percent non-crazy, and I would know, I have fought a lot of crazy before."

There is the little giggle-sob again.

"Lucky you," she informs him.

"Oh, no, I guarantee you that to find this much crazy to fight it takes more than luck; it takes skill."

Well now she's just helplessly giggle-sobbing into his shoulder. Look at what he's done.

That's alright, they can hug for a while and he can very carefully run his hand down her back slowly in soothing motions.

"Were you in the middle of something?" she wonders, after the sobs have sort of... calmed down for a little while.

"In a manner of speaking. I was... investigating this place."

'This place' being the barely described cave, which now that she can pay attention to it seems rather... expansive. The ceiling is very high—some twenty or thirty meters high—and there are red crystals everywhere, emanating an eerie red glow that's the main source of light in the cave. There are floating stones, boulders—in fact, there's one piece of floating rock large enough to support what looks to be a small stone arena or temple of sorts. There are trails of orange and blue light flowing in the air from place to place, but they don't seem to do... anything. Just exist, and be pretty.

She hums a confirmation.

"Well, if you're in any kind of rush, just, you know. Pick me up and carry me with you to where you need to go, because I'm not unhugging right now, sorry."

He laughs again. "I am afraid my investigation might involve some more physical altercations so I will perhaps wait until the hugging is done."

"Ugh. How very reasonable of you."

"I cannot claim to always be reasonable, but I do try to at least sometimes be."

Giggle.

"That's the spirit." Leaaaan. He's very warm and comfy. Very quietly, she wonders, "... Now what?"

"...to be quite honest I am not certain. I cannot exactly, ah, take you anywhere safe right now. This was not the best place for you to come out of the Mists to, I have to say."

"Figures," she snorts. "Okay. What's the—horrible flaming disaster I have landed on this time? I expect there is one."

"There is indeed one. If you come from Orr you do not I expect know about the White Mantle?"

"I do not, no. I might have seen glimpses of them in echoes in the Mists, but I didn't always get names for the things I saw."

"Each of the three human kingdoms responded differently to the Flame Legion's attacks. Ascalon fled, Orr sunk, Kryta was usurped by the White Mantle. They sacrificed people to their gods on magical stones called Bloodstones." He gestures with his head towards a crystal. "One here exploded. The explosion was big enough to wipe out half of Tyria, except it mysteriously collapsed in on itself and only destroyed this small area."

"... So where did all of that stored power go instead." Yes, she is starting to see why this is worth investigation.

"Exactly. Not that I'm not grateful, but yes, it does require some closer investigation."

"Yes, agreed. Um." A little regretfully, she pulls away so she can look at him properly. "Look, if there's no way to take me to a safe place, then don't. This sounds important. Instead, I can aspire to be a duckling, and follow you around. It's not exactly like I'm a helpless waif, here."

"I did notice that, yes, you put on quite a show. What was that?"

"What," she wonders lightly, "do you not have mesmers anymore? Pissing people off is absolutely standard mesmer fare where I come from."

"—huh. Mesmer would make sense. Nowadays they focus more on illusions and clones and environment manipulation, it would be strange to see a mesmer who did not summon a single phantasm during a fight."

"Really? That's... interesting. I'll want to look into the theory of that later, if they've managed proper clones. I focus less on illusions and more on, ah. Direct meddling. Therefore it's my job to piss people off."

He grins. "I tend to make a habit of having pissed off people coming after me so I believe you are in good company." Pause. "And I just realised I do not know your name."

"Oh, yes, I apologize." She takes a careful step back so she can sketch a curtsy that would look very out of place at court for its antiquity. "Vetareh, pleasure to meet you."

"—the Lost Princess of Orr, of course." He sketches a bow that's mostly Krytan except for the foot placement that's more Orrian and a little flourish of the hand behind his back that's distinctly Ascalonian. "I am James Orland, Commander of the Pact and now leader of Dragon's Watch. It is an honour to meet you."

This statement startles a laugh out of her.

"The lost what of Orr?" she repeats, archly. "I'm not a princess. I was in no way in line for any thrones. I'd be closer to inheriting Ascalon's throne, my parents immigrated to Orr to get away from most of the fighting of the Third Guild War."

"Well, yes, but that usually gets elided over in the bards' stories."

"There are stories about me? In which I am declared a lost princess?"

"It was said that your beauty was such that Grenth and Balthazar fought for your favour, and when their contest could not be decided they brought you to their realm so that you could decide. Some variants of the story include you picking Lyssa instead." Pause. "The stories got one thing right, at least."

There are several things she could say to that, such as, 'Picking Lyssa instead of the two boys fighting over me sounds very in character,' or, 'I see the bards were so enchanted by the idea of a lost beauty that they exaggerated extravagantly,' or, 'That sounds like much more fun than what I actually got.' But none of them come to her lips, because the whole premise is absurd, and moreover, she hasn't been flirted with since she was in Orr. The latter turns out to be more relevant than the former. He is distinctly not unattractive, and he's the first person who's touched her in what feels like centuries, and if he thinks she's beautiful then he can just keep touching her—

She turns a delicate shade of pink, more from that particular line of thought than the flirting. Not that she minds the flirting.

"Um," she says, instead of all of those other, much more clever things she could be saying.

He laughs. "Anyway, princess, I believe I should continue my investigation. Will you accompany me?"

... Right, they are still in a cave, and there are still important things besides her touch starvation, loneliness, and his pretty smile. Right. She doesn't particularly want to tackle the poor man for casually flirting with her. Well, not intellectually, and not necessarily immediately, anyway. Focusing back on important business while she acclimatizes to not being in the Mists sounds like a wise course of action.

"Oh, no, I was planning to sit in a cave forever and count the floating rocks." For some reason her wit is the first thing to come online. Possibly from its frequent use as a coping mechanism in the Mists. ... That might perhaps cause her problems down the road, but she can't bring herself to care very much. At least she's saying something instead of another 'um.'

"Put your clothes back on," she informs him imperiously, "you might offend my delicate princessly sensibilities."

"As Her Royal Highness wills it," he says, with a perfunctory but respectful bow. He reattaches the shoulderguards and wristguards and then puts his mask back on, then he looks around and hmms. "Gliders had not been invented back when you are from, had they?"

She smirks at him. Oh, this is going to be trouble, isn't it. She's in trouble. Or maybe he is, or they both are. They'll probably find out at some point.

But not tackling him to have her way with him is much easier when he's covered in spikes, fire, and his pretty face is safely hidden away, which makes things much easier.

"No, I'm afraid not. They do what they sound like, though?"

"They do. If it would please the princess, I would offer to carry you up. I had been meaning to go explore that temple when I was ambushed by that anomaly."

"I will graciously allow it."

He steps up to her again and offers his arms to carry her, bridal-style.

Yep. She will agree to this. She'll even cast an enchantment on herself to make herself a bit lighter, that seems like the smart thing to do when one is a passenger on a glider. If weight were a very difficult thing to mess with, mesmer enchanted bags would be much less convenient.

"Your gauntlets are uncomfortable," she informs him, once she's in his arms.

"I apologise for the oversight. Next time I will remove them." He peers around then walks over to an oddly-shapped boulder that's surrounding a few crystals. He steps on his Flesh Golem's helpful shoulders then onto the boulder, and the air is noticeably warmer there. "Ready, princess?" he asks with no sign of exertion.

She hums an affirmative and leans into him. It is a good thing he is covered in spikes, fire, and his pretty face is put away. Or a very bad thing. She hasn't decided.

And he—

—jumps—

—and a large green glider appears on his back and immediately catches the strong updraft coming from the warm Bloodstone crystals below them. They're still not high enough to quite reach the floating temple but the purposefulness with which James is angling his glider suggests he knows how to get there.

Oh.

Gliding turns out to be fun.

Her breath catches in her throat, and then she lets out a little giggle of delight.

His mask hides his grin. "Having fun there?"

"Oh," she giggles, "yes."

At long, long last, she's not in the Mists. Instead she's free, free, free in Tyria and she can go gliding and flirt with pretty men and finally begin living again. If she hadn't already done quite a lot of crying earlier, she'd be tempted to start again.

"Good. I can teach you to glide sometime, it's really useful. Get ready." And then they reach another updraft—how James found it is a mystery—and now they're gliding above the arena/temple, which has no ceiling and absolutely nothing in it except for a circular pedestal in the middle.

Her breath catches again when they reach the second updraft, and then she's back to giggling.

"I'm going to hold you to that. I would like to glide."

"And now we land..." He shifts his weight back so that he's mostly standing in the air and the glider slows down a lot and starts a smooth descent. His feet touch the ground with a soft thud that doesn't jostle Vetareh at all, and he says, "Here we are, princess."

"Thank you," she says, smiling up at him. "You're never going to stop calling me princess, are you, playing along with the joke at all has cemented it and it will forever haunt my steps, won't it."

"If you ask me to stop I will of course stop."

"Ah, I see." Yep, sure is a good thing his pretty face is covered. Such a good thing. "Well, it is rather cute. It's fine so long as it's clear to other people that it is a joke, and that I'm not actually an Orrian princess. That could get uncomfortable."

"I expect most people will not assume anything of me just calling you that, if you do not tell them where you're from. They will probably assume, ah, some things from it, so I might restrict myself to only doing so in private, if you prefer."

"What things do you expect they'll assume? I don't exactly have cultural context anymore."

"That we are 'an item'," he says, quotation marks audible in his tone. "This is especially true of anyone who is aware of the rumours about the Queen and a certain member of her guard."

"Ah," she says. "Perhaps save that for if we decide we'd like to give them that impression, then."

She gives him a wry look. "You realize you still haven't put me down."

"I would not want to unceremoniously drop you without warning," he explains, and then gently sets her back on her feet.

"Ah," she repeats, a little amused.

... Then something occurs to her and she looks at him thoughtfully. "Are you this flirtatious with everyone?"

    He tilts his head and seems about to say something when a voice behind Vetareh says, "Not this flirtatious," which makes him jump.

"Caithe! I didn't see you there."

    "And that was by design," says... apparently it's a woman made of plants. "Who's this?"

Vetareh doesn't jump, but she does freeze, and her hand twitches to her scepter. She does not like being taken by surprise. Being taken by surprise only happens with very, very dangerous things in the Mists. Then she notes James's familiarity with the person responsible, and she consciously wills herself to relax. Fortunately, she did not go so far as to cast a hex, though it was a near thing.

She takes a single measured step to the side and pivots to look at the woman. Plants. Okay. Sure, whatever, not important in comparison to random plant lady being stupid enough to sneak up on her. She's seen weirder things, who cares if the woman is made out of plants.

"Vetareh. Hello." She fixes 'Caithe' with a look. If Caithe was clever enough to be that sneaky, then she is clever enough to know what almost just happened. Hopefully she is wise enough to never do it again.

"She's a friend," James tells Caithe, a touch cold, which in contrast to how he's been treating Vetareh must be quite a shock.

    Caithe points a wan smile at Vetareh. "Hello." Then she looks at James again. "Are you...?"

"Trying to figure out why the explosion reversed itself and the trail led me here." The pause in which he tries to get his bearings and not bite Caithe's head off is barely noticeable, but it's there. He assumes a more professional tone. "Look at these marks," he says, gesturing at glowing red marks on the ground that lead to the archway out. "Could these have been made by a torrent of magic?"

    "Possibly," she says, not showing any surprise at his sudden shift in demeanour. She throws Vetareh a very short glance before looking at James and continuing. "You think something or someone was behind this? Or was it a natural disaster?"

Vetareh does not actually find it all that shocking that James is cold towards this person. She doesn't really like her either, and she's only known her for about a minute. Still, they clearly have a working relationship of some kind, Vetareh can follow that lead instead of growling at Caithe.

"We might be able to just check," she says, thoughtfully. "Magic of this magnitude doesn't just dissipate. It leaves—echoes." Sometimes to the Mists themselves, as she well knows. Ha, ha. But the Mists are very good at absorbing whatever is thrown into them. Not many things can make that claim.

... Except, perhaps, things that were used to absorb large amounts of magical energy from human sacrifice. Any material wouldn't do for that, it would have to be something that was already inclined to pick up magical energy.

"Bloodstones were used to absorb magical energy, correct? So why would the ones here be any different?"

    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."

"I saw white armor and robes," offers Vetareh, who's probably the best at spotting little details like that. Since she's had the practice. "But I think that's all the detail we're going to get. It's not worth the time investment, the echo's not going to want to stretch to before large amounts of magic got thrown around. So we can leave now to find and warn him, there's not much reason to stick around."

    "White Mantle, certainly," observes Caithe.

"—oh, sorry Vetareh. Canach is... a friend, who's been tasked with finding Minister Caudecus who we suspect is behind this whole fiasco," James explains.

She looks at him, then raises her eyebrows slightly.

"And you're worried about him still being alive. So." She recasts the enchantment that makes her lighter and looks at him expectantly. "Gauntlets off, sir, I appreciate the explanation, but it can happen on the way there."

Caithe raises an eyebrow at 'gauntlets off' but doesn't comment as James gingerly detaches the gauntlets and stashes them in a small mesmer-enchanted space-warping bag attached to his waist.

        "Commander! Are you up there?" comes a voice from the ground level.

    "Sounds like someone's looking for you," Caithe says softly.

Vetareh nods, and continues looking expectantly at James. She notes that it seems to be a thing that people just call him 'Commander' instead of his first name. ... She might want to start doing that so as not to give the wrong impression.

He steps up to Vetareh and, when she's ready, picks her up. Caithe very much does not say a word. He starts gliding down towards the person who called him.

Vetareh is starting to like Caithe.

She clamps down on the urge to giggle with delight at the gliding, but she permits herself a fond smile. This is still pretty lovely. Gliding on her own sounds fun, but it's also pretty nice to get carried around by a dashing necromancer.

They land and Caithe shadowsteps to where they are. There is a human in a military uniform of sorts there. "Commander! Ah..." She looks at Vetareh as James carefully sets her on her feet.

"Thank you," she says to James.

To the human in a military uniform of some sort: "Hello, the Commander found me in a cave."

    The human nods and looks at James again like it's all in a day's business. She clears her throat. "Canach ordered us to find you. Minister Caudecus is in the area."

"Canach's alive!" James exclaims, and there's a subtle relaxation of a certain tension in his posture that might not have been noticeable before it was gone. "I need to tell him what we just witnessed. Point me in the right direction. ...uh, Caithe?"

    "You know what, I think I'll stay a moment. Maybe poke around some more."

"Are you sure? Will you be okay?"

    "It's fine, Commander. Remember? I'm a shadow."

He nods and looks at Vetareh.

She kind of has to wonder what his days are like, if people think finding random women in caves is normal for him. Probably like this one. Actually, this might be a slow day.

"I am not a shadow. So I think I'll just be going with you."

He nods and looks at the other human woman again. "Lead the way, officer," he says, and Caithe disappears into shadow.

    The officer salutes and starts walking towards the other end of the cave. "I believe Canach tracked the Minister into the floating coliseum."

"I wonder what he's up to."

...

Vetareh looks at him.

"Really. Really. The Minister's potentially an unstable magical experiment gone wrong and could explode with power at any minute, and that is the terrible pun you decide to make?"

"I don't see you making a better one," he says without looking at her. The officer snickers then coughs to pretend she didn't.

"'Let's hope he's not too high on power.' 'I see he's keeping up his habit of looking down on everyone.'" She pauses, and tries to come up with a third one, and only manages several innuendos. "... Though honestly, there's more material available in the realm of innuendo than anything else."

James cracks up and the officer takes this as permission to also giggle some. "I'm curious about the innuendo."

"'Careful, if someone excites him too much he might explode,' 'Maybe he's just looking for some alone time after his body's new changes,' 'He's reached that age where people get experimental,' wait, no, that one's more of a pun, damn."

He laughs harder at those puns and at the last one causes an actual cackle.

She giggles a little herself. At last, all of that time spent practicing her wit in the Mists is paying off!

"Okay, I think I'm done now. There are a few more I could make, but they wouldn't be as good. I will not lower myself to such indignities."

"I would not dream of requesting it of you."

They reach a point of the cave where... it becomes rather obvious just how deep underground they are.

The answer is "very." They are very deep underground. The hole to the surface is very, very high.

She looks up. Yeah, wow, that's extremely underground.

".... 'I think the Minister went too deep,'" she adds. "Sorry, there turned out to be one more."

Both of them crack up again.

"I believe you will need some assistance to reach the top," James says between giggles, offering his arms again.

"Yep, I believe you're right about that."

She recasts her enchantment, then: here she is, in his arms again.

This time he makes his glider appear before they're in the air, and he doesn't take one of the updrafts again. Instead, he walks to one of the light lines that are pointing up and out of the cave and—

—their bodies are covered by a slightly tingly type of forcefield—

—and he's riding the magical line as if an impossible-to-feel wind is carrying them, up up up...

At an audible level that only James can hear, she makes a little, "eeee."

...that might just be too adorable for words. It's a good thing he's too busy conducting the glider for it to really be weird if he doesn't use words.

Eventually they reach the lip of the crater, and eventually they're far above the lip of the crater. The line of magic ends some fifty metres up in the air, and James angles his glider towards the west. "I can take it from here, officer! Thank you for your help," he calls.

    "Yes, Commander!" the woman says, and she starts gliding southwest.

And now there is a pretty view to look at! While she's being held by a dashing necromancer as they fly through the sky! Today is a good day. She happily leans into James and admires the view.

"So I get the impression that I should not be calling you 'James' in front of people if we don't want people assuming things of us," she observes.

"—I suppose most people do call me by my titles, huh? I leave that choice up to you, princess."

"Do you. All right." Leaaaan. "You know it's sort of convenient that you're covered in spikes and fire. Or maybe inconvenient. I haven't decided."

"When you decide which you can explain to me your reasons."

"James. I have been in the Mists for a very long time." She raises her eyebrows meaningfully and looks at him.

"And I'm sure all you want now is some time to get your bearings and get used to being in the real physical world again, is it not?" he asks a touch too innocently.

"You are very lucky that you are covered in spikes and fire," she informs him, sweetly. "Because I do not want to distract you while you're rushing to avert a disaster and help your friend. But I have been very tempted."

"Oh, I'm so sorry. I definitely wouldn't want to tempt you. Perhaps I should stop."

—Nope, not doing the first thing that she wants to do in response to that. That would be dangerous. Nope, nope, nope.

She takes a deep breath, because she is an adult, and she is better than her base impulses.

"You're a bad man," she says, instead. "A very bad man who is so very lucky that he is covered in spikes and fire, and really high up in the air. So lucky. But I can promise to be very good and not distract you while we're doing important things. How about that?"

"Sounds altogether like a very sound plan."

"Mmhmmm. And then when we are done doing important things I am going to tackle you." Pause. "... With your permission," she adds, because that's important.

"As the princess wills it," he says with a distinct smirk in his voice.

"A very bad man," she affirms. Then she takes another deep breath, and wrestles the conversation in a different direction so as not to potentially distract him.

"So! Plant people are a thing now?"

"—right, you wouldn't have met sylvari. There was a very large tree in the Maguuma Jungle, and it started sprouting them as fully-formed adults a bit over twenty-five years ago. Caithe was one of the twelve firstborn. Canach is a secondborn."

"Ah. Okay. And do you and Caithe have some kind of history? At first I thought you didn't get along with her, but then you returned and were... closer to fine than before."

"Some kind of history, yes." He looks at the distance between them and the floating coliseum. "It's a bit of a long story and needs quite some context, but she did something that—at the time—looked a lot like betraying me and her other friends. It turned out fine in the end, and she just shed some light on why she did it and apologised. The whole story involves the reason why I'm called Commander and a good deal of things that have happened between the sinking of Orr and today."

"Ah. All right. I get the impression I'm going to be playing catch up for a while. Any big things about the world I should know about?"

"There are enormous eldritch dragons attacking the world and eating its magic and if they are not stopped the world will end. My friends and I killed two of them. There are four still alive."

She blinks one long, slow blink.

"Good job," she says, because that is the most important thing, followed by: "and can I help with the third?"

"You most definitely can, although we do not currently have plans to deal with them." Pause. "And it occurs to me that you might want to know... One of the dragons, Zhaitan, the first one we killed, he... he was asleep under Orr, and when he rose he lifted Orr back up. It is now an island. And he was the undead dragon, so he rose many Orrians as undead."

Vetareh—twitches a bit, and growls.

"Thank you," she murmurs, "for saving me the trouble of hunting him down and killing him."

"You're welcome," he murmurs. "The undead are not yet all gone, but there are people working on it."

Nod. "Thank you," she repeats. "Sorry, I'm not—one of those people that gets fussy about what happens to my corpse after I leave it, I just. My father was a necromancer, and so I'm opinionated about how the dead are for the defense of the living. Not as some giant monster's playthings."

"...Zhaitan also used the souls of the dead in their animated corpses."

She inhales with a hiss through her teeth.

"He's dead, his main lieutenants are dead, we're working on cleansing Orr again..."

"Right," she agrees, carefully taking slow, measured breaths. "He's dead, you killed him, his lieutenants are dead, everyone he trapped in their own rotting corpse is either free or on their way to being free. He is dead, and he's not coming back, and if he does so help me I will rip him to pieces with my bare fucking hands—" She sucks in another breath, and closes her eyes. No, calm. "Dead. He's dead. Very dead."

"I'm sorry, this was not the best way for me to—tell you—"

"I don't think there could be a best way. I don't think this is that kind of thing. I think it's just, just bound to be awful no matter how you could have approached it. You don't have anything to be sorry for. I'd rather know than not." Lean. Carefully measured breaths. "The important thing is that the bastard is dead."

"Extremely dead. We—did not know they could be killed, before."

"I realize the others are probably just as bad in new and exciting ways, but I am glad you found out with him. I'm glad he was first." Deep breath. She's calming down a little now. "He's very extremely dead. Thank you, on my own behalf and on, on whatever ability I have to thank you on Orr's behalf."

He nods. "Heads up." Aaand updraft.

She leans into him and lets herself make a little sigh. Yes, that's very soothing, gliding is so great.

"So," she says, attempting to change topics a little so that she can get some distance from her anger, "if he was one of the dragons, I am definitely available for further dragonslaying. I don't—I don't want monsters like that to exist in the world." Lean. "I figure after the Mists I get to have a long and aggressively happy life, it's not my problem if they just so happen to be stupid enough to try to get in the way of that."

"We are of a mind, then," he says, grinning under his mask. "I, too, would rather have a very long and happy life."

"Good." She smiles prettily up at him. "You're..." She's not sure how to put her feelings into words without it coming out wrong. It's much easier just to say something witty and irreverent, she has a lot of practice with that. Not with feelings. "... I'm glad you were the person I landed on straight out of the Mists. I like you."

He chuckles. "I am glad you were the person the Mists spat out at me."

"That's not nearly as flattering as my declaration," she points out, amused.

"Is it not?" he asks mildly. "Heads up." And another updraft.

She makes a little happy squeak at the updraft, then snorts.

"Mmmm, no. Most other people you would have gotten would have been... less okay than I am."

"I suppose that's true," he concedes. "I am glad I met you regardless of circumstances. How's this?"

"Much better," she hums. "I'm so glad to be here."

He laughs. "Last one..." And after that updraft they reach the enormous floating rock where the coliseum is.

He looks for a spot to land at the lowest outcropping of the rock and finds the ruins of what was a plaza or a room of sorts.

After he puts her down, she notes that this is reasonably secluded, then gives him a speculative look. "James? Take off your helmet for, mm, thirty seconds?"

He obliges. "Miss my face?"

"Terribly." She leans up and very gently presses a kiss to his cheek. "Thank you. Carry on, clothes may go back on now."

"Wouldn't want to overwhelm the princess," he agrees, and puts his helmet and the gauntlets back on. "Let's find Canach and perhaps a traitorous minister, shall we?"

"Let's!"

He goes through the doorway on the wall that's still standing and there's another wall with another doorway on the other side of that space, but he stops a couple of feet before it and peers at the spot on the floor directly in front of the doorway.

There are several circular holes on it.

"... Huh," she comments. "Good eye. Trap?"

"I think so. Hmm. Give me a minute." He closes his eyes then grunts, which causes his hands to glow green and two small creepy corpse-y things emerge from a green glow on the ground. "I'm gonna use them as bait, see if there's a timer or something."