"...the Mists... that sounds a bit like some conceptions of the Astral or Ethereal planes. We don't strictly have to go through one of the Transitive Planes like that, it's just convenient sometimes. But, like, if I were a bit stronger I could take a tuning fork and take one of you on a trip directly to the Elemental Plane of Fire."

"The what!!!"

"Maybe he just skips them altogether," suggests the blindfolded feline person. "Or something else weird's going on."

"The Mists are the space between worlds, as we understand it," says the female human. "Outside conventional time and space, a year can pass for you there with only a second passing here or vice-versa, or even stranger things like going back in time. Or, like they said, you can find other worlds, there."

"Yeah, there's temporal anomalies in the Transitive Planes sometimes, you have to be careful going through. It sounds like you guys have natural portals to one of the Transitives and you've got - some sort of cargo cult built up about it? Hmm. Do you project into these Mists when you dream, or do the spirits of the dead live there?"

A floating skull pops out of Haruk's back and starts floating over his shoulder. "Big furry guy, you've been there recently, right? It smells Ethereal to me."

"Yes, I have," says furry guy, folding his arms.

"Spirits of the dead's trickier. The humans go to their Underworld which is just another place. We go back to the Eternal Alchemy."

"We return to the spirits of the wild, and I think the sylvari go to the Dream of Dreams. Don't know what the furry guys get."

He shrugs. "We don't think about it much."

"So where are you getting all of those spirits from?" Bol asks. 

"Wherever they like to be," he grunts.

"How about we introduce and maybe start leading our new friends away from the destroyed Inquest lab and towards civilisation? I'm James Orland, Commander of the Pact."

"I'm Kasmeer and this is Taimi. The big burly one—"

"Hey!"

"—is Braham and the furry one is Rytlock."

"Haruk'chathrah, just call me Haruk. This is Bol. Don't mind if he says something incredibly rude, he's like that. It's nice to meet you all."

James, who seems to be the Commander of the Pact (are these people the Pact? who is the Pact? he seems leadery), turns and starts walking elsewhere, putting on a helmet/mask of further rags and fire, and everyone else seems to follow.

He looks at Bol. "So, what was that you were saying about the dead?"

"Oh, your boy Rytlock is full of ghosts so I thought these Mists of yours would be more like the Ethereal Plane than the Astral, but I'm starting to think they're more of a primordial soup of both than anything else, and that we're entirely outside the realm of my experience. Which is fun! Does mean we'll have the Hells of a time getting home, but it's not like he actually liked the place particularly. You should send a prayer Lathander's way, jabbuk, see if you can get a response. Probably not, but it'd be interesting if you did, right? Oh, and one for Eilistraee, I know you've had your differences but she's at least got a piece of her domain over here."

"Different gods, too. Not that I would expect them to be the same."

"Yeah. Lathander's the god of the sun, and healing, and general prosocial behavior in kind of a vague way? Haruk worships him primarily. And Eilistraee is the goddess of drow who aren't total bastards, drow being Haruk's species, but Haruk feels weird about her because his mum worshipped her despite being a total bastard."

"Yes, thank you Bol. Taimi mentioned your gods - left?"

Kasmeer shifts a bit as she walks, looking uncomfortable, but doesn't say anything.

"So," says Taimi, "as far as we can tell the human gods came from some other world and brought humans with them, hundreds of years ago. And about... is it two hundred and fifty? Two hundred and fifty years ago, they left. Shrines don't work anymore, can't visit the Underworld or the, what was Balthazar's place called again, the Fist... no..."

"Fissure of Woe," says Kasmeer.