"Huh - I somewhat regularly experience being pulled to another world from my home, and this seemed like that until it clearly was not."

"I've seen plenty of islands that... used to be inhabited," she says. "This is the first I've seen that still was. I think this place has lots of ways to acquire new people."

"I don't know if it can put me back."

"I've been trying to find a way back to my home world for eight years. Nothing's worked yet, but I'm not about to stop trying."

"Usually I can only be summoned by a human from the mortal world - which I strongly suspect is not the one you're from - thereto, and then returned via concentration by or death of the summoner."

"I don't know if the mindless person-things count - but there was no visible circle, which usually means light projection diagram -" He hands her a paper bowl of garlic potato chips. "- or something else entirely is going on."

"I think you're my new favourite person," Sable remarks. "Not that there's much competition these days." She starts eating the chips. "Mmf - honestly, I have no idea how it got you. I don't know anything about your world's magic. And I've never seen one of those mirror snakes in Terraria, so I'm not even sure this is where they come from, but even if it is that's not what happened to you."

"I got nothing on the mirror snakes. I'm kind of impressed you can still, like, talk, if you've been here for years and showed up when you were twelve."

"I talk to the mindless person-things. And myself. I talk to myself a lot."

"How many mindless person-things are there?"

"A bunch. It depends on the island. You start with just a guide, but more show up later - there's a merchant when you gather enough coins, a nurse after you eat enough heart candies, a dryad after you kill the right monsters. Some of the islands I've been to had ones I've never seen on mine. The ones on my island call me Sable, but the ones on other islands call me whatever their person's name was, before their person died. It's very creepy. And if one of your mindless person-things is killed, a new one for that role shows up soon afterward, looking exactly the same."

"That's distinctly creepy. What happens if you move a mindless person-thing to a different island?"

"I've never tried. I'd have to carry one," she says, shuddering slightly.

"Probably not a high priority experiment anyway. What is this box protecting my person from?"

"Walking corpses and giant flying eyeballs come out at night and try to kill everything. If you leave your mindless person-things alone, they'll wander right into the monsters and die."

"Well, that's unpleasant. Is he going to starve in there if I don't feed him?"

"No."

"How convenient for him."

"As much as things can be convenient for someone who doesn't have a mind, yeah."

"Yeah. So what leads you to explore neighboring islands, and is that haze unpleasant or difficult to get through?"

"I started exploring because I wanted to see what was past the haze, and if there were any people there. I kept exploring because sometimes I find useful things on the islands, and I keep hoping I'll run into another person while they're still alive. I guess that one finally panned out. The haze - it's not uncomfortable, just a little disorienting."

"Couldn't see through it even with binoculars, it's weird stuff."

"You can't see through it while you're in it, either, but it only lasts a few seconds. Weirdly, it lasts a few seconds no matter how fast you were going when you flew in."

"This place is like a very intense art piece called 'Physics: Let It Be Fucked, Well And Thorougly'."