"Then by the providence granted to me by Countess Anise, Caudecus Beetlestone," intones the sylvari, "for the crime of high treason I sentence you to death."

    "Get them! Turn this thing on!" Two White Mantle do something to the pile of rocks, and it begins floating and taking an... unusual shape. "What do you think of my latest find, Commander? It was a bit of a fixer-upper, but nothing a few Bloodstones couldn't mend."

Vetareh sighs heavily, and waits for the floating pile of rocks to inevitably get shielded, because no one in the White Mantle seems to have an ounce of creativity. They seem to just be shoving bloodstones into everything. She hopes the Minister isn't married, because if so, the spouse must be very unhappy.

Look at that, she's right! It has a shield.

"My guess is he was not the one to absorb the Bloodstone's magic."

Look at that! And now it doesn't have a shield. What a shocker, that. This task completed, the construct can then get a bunch of hexes dumped on it, layered one after another.

"I don't think it went into this thing, either," she observes.

This one hits significantly harder than the Bloodstone elementals. And through whatever vagaries of fate, the White Mantle have noticed she's a mesmer, now, and there are three of them going her way. James's Flesh Golem tackles one of them and James himself is holding another one off.

The third one's hers, then. (Also, James is great.)

Her hexes don't really slow the third one down enough for her taste. She decides that, actually, now is a good time for her knife to see some use. For some reason her attacker was not expecting her to produce a knife from a sleeve and flicker forward to stab them in the jugular. Weird. Not really her problem, though. The blood maybe is, but that's a for-later problem.

She goes back to enemy harassment like she did not just viciously stab someone. Hello, spellcasters, Vetareh will be your worst nightmare for this evening.

    "I wanted to see this thing trample Kryta! Get in there and save it!" growls Caudecus, and a couple more White Mantle jump in and do something to make the Jade Construct get shielded again.

(The others are respectively either fighting it or downing other White Mantle.)

Vetareh considers it her job to make sure that Jade Construct does not have a shield for any reasonable length of time. She puts a brief hold on being a nightmare to bring that shield down again.

Has anyone else decided that she needs to die right now, yet?

Ooh yes quite a few people have. Fortunately it seems that they are not very competent, at least in comparison to the Commander and his friends.

Oh, good! Then she'll just leave her defense to them and go right on back to being a nightmare. Interrupts! Interrupts and hexes for all! ... Well, where they'd do the most damage, anyway.

One curse here, one reaping there, the spirit of an ancient dwarven king from behind, and the pile of jade crumbles to pieces.

   And then out of completely nowhere they are all trapped in place and unable to use magic, courtesy of a mesmer spell by the lady standing next to Caudecus. "You will not stop me!" Caudecus raves. "The Krytan throne was built upon White Mantle blood, and we are its rightful heirs!"

Son of a bitch. She should have expected this and countered it. It's not really clear how she would have done that, but she should have, clearly. She hates not having complete magical understanding of everything around her, and she especially hates losing. She can't help but feel that this is a personal mark against her honor as a mesmer, to get beaten at her own game. Rrrrrgh she's going to learn all of the magic ever and show everyone in the modern era why Orr was a magical force to be reckoned with.

How does the trapped in place and unable to use magic work, can she tell, is there a way for her to wiggle out of these stupid restraints so she can shove half a dozen hexes and several interrupts down the enemy mesmer's throat?

Hmmmmmm maybe, if she doesn't get distracted by the truly absurd amounts of magic appearing behind Caudecus in the shape of a floating humanoid with bird feet in golden armour. "You are a heretic, Caudecus! And you shall lead no White Mantle, for I am their GOD!"

    "What? It—it can't be...!"

She notices, and realizes immediately that this was where the bloodstone's magic went, but no she's not getting distracted, this is a mark against her honor, and she's damn well getting out of it right this fucking second!

Well maybe there's this...

"I am the last mursaat. Many years ago, you knew me as Lazarus the Dire. I have returned from the brink of existence!"

    "No!" cries the minister. "You are a false god! The White Mantle is mine! Don't listen to him!"

Perhaps if she looks at that thing...

"Empty words formed by the forked tongue of a snake. The human seat of power and its current monarch are inconsequential. We are destined to face more virtuous pursuits."

Aha! She can shatter the hex!

Right, she only gets one chance at this, and she'll be the only one not still frozen, so she'd better not waste it. Luckily for her, there is a very large magical thing nearby, who is very loud. It's awfully easy for little things to get lost in comparison. Like when she needed magical silence to study the echoes; the enemy mesmer might just miss Vetareh breaking free. She's got to make her one chance count, which means picking her moment. She shatters the hex, stifling a little whimper at the pain; she did not make this spell to be nice, it's for shattering hexes on enemies, not allies, but it will do in a pinch.

Instead of immediately falling to her knees from the release, or rushing at the enemy mesmer, or giving any indication that she broke free whatsoever... she stays completely still. There's a slight twitch to her limbs after she breaks free, and the slightest of quivering from the pain of the shattered hex, but to the casual viewer from far away, nothing has happened at all. There's no reason to give herself away, after all. Her scepter's still in her hand, she's armed and ready and waiting for her moment to catch everyone off guard.

"My true believers, you're welcome to seek shelter in my light. To those who doubt... you're welcome to burn." And all the White Mantle except for Caudecus and his protecting mesmer catch fire.

    "Don't stand there with your mouth agape!" Caudecus yells at the mesmer. "Get me out of here!"

Now looks like it's a good moment.

"No," she hisses, and slams the mesmer with an interrupt.

No time to waste, she has to capitalize on this moment; she sprints forward. She'd been hoping she'd have enough time for her shatter hex to recover from being used, so she could free someone else, but clearly she's not getting that. Instead she'll will just have to handle this herself.

"What are you waiting for?!"

    "I—that woman, she stopped me—" The mesmer tries to create three clones and lash out at Vetareh.

Interrupt. Then the stolen speed hex, just for good measure.

Come on come on come on, get to her soon enough to stab her before she does something else, come on, she doesn't have infinite interrupts she can't interrupt the next thing this woman does—

She makes it to her and her knife's in her hand and she is going to fucking stab her—

The next thing she does is place a portal under Caudecus, not reaching herself so that Vetareh isn't transported with. Caudecus disappears and—Lazarus seems to have left at some point when no one was looking.

Rrrrgh—!

"Bitch," she snarls, but this woman is now more useful alive than dead, so she checks her knife and instead breaks her nose.

Then she grabs her by the hair and brings the knife to her throat so she can't fucking do anything else, the bitch.

"You surrender," she informs the mesmer, in a tone that says there is no space for 'no.' Her knife is very sharp, and it agrees. "You will end the hex on them."

That second one: also not a request.

She doesn't bow her head, but the hex does end. "I like her," growls Rytlock with approval.

Canach looks at where Caudecus was standing then sighs, walking over to the stairs where Vetareh is.

James dusts himself and follows after him. "Is that Valette Wi?"