Vetareh glances towards the asura in alarm. She...

... is absolutely useless right now, in almost every sense of the word. Also defenseless. A large portion of her magical defenses are currently fried on account of replacing her spells. Are they under attack? Does she need to hide and wait for her spells to finish settling? Because that's about all she's going to be able to do right now, if they're under attack.

James draws his staff and readies himself but no one follows the asura through the gate.

"Windall, what happened?" Taimi says, quickly limping over to the asura.

    "The Fire Islands! Our party... lost," he breathes, falling to his knees. "We shouldn't have strayed from the main outposts! Cami held them off as long as she could, but..."

"No!" Taimi gasps, covering her mouth with both hands. "Did she make it?"

    "No. She... They changed, Taimi. The Destroyers there."

"Oh!"

"Changed?" James asks in alarm. "How?"

    "Like Risen... and Mordrem. Unstoppable."

"Risen and Mordrem? What do you mean?"

    "They're not like they were. Different attacks, a different... feel. I don't—"

"It's okay, it's okay." Taimi looks up at a researcher. "Take him away and get him some care."

The researcher nods and two med golems walk over to Windall to carry him.

Vetareh's spells settle in, and she internally sighs in relief. Phew. She's no longer powerless and defenseless. That was nerve wracking. She makes a note to herself to minimize swapping spells, because she's around James, and James is an incorrigible trouble magnet.

"... They've been absorbing the dead dragons' magic. And they don't... necessarily work like we do. Instead of just converting the magical energy they gather into something else, maybe they could use the magic they get. In order to augment their minions. Or at least other dragons' magic, maybe not all types, I don't want to make too many assumptions."

Taimi gasps again to look at Vetareh. "Of course! That's why Mordremoth was able to—the Mordrem, Commander!"

"What about them?"

"The ones who came from the blighting pods! Mordremoth had its minions, the sylvari, right? But it was able to create more, new ones from the dead! That power came from Zhaitan! Killing Zhaitan caused the other dragons to absorb the death spectrum, but we only saw it in Mordremoth because it was active." She takes a deep breath before continuing with the obvious conclusion. "Then we killed Mordremoth, and now Primordus has absorbed some of the death and, and... planty... ness... I think..."

"Can we test that theory? I'll go and get you a sample from these new Destroyers."

"That'd be amazing, Commander! You two be careful, and let me know what you find!"

He turns to look at Vetareh. "I don't want to assume..."

"Aw," says Vetareh, fondly. It's very sweet that he doesn't just assume she's definitely going to come along, but she's definitely going to come along. "There might be variation in how much death and plant are in each minion. I bet if I'm paying attention I might be able to pick up on it, and we can get Taimi a variety of samples so she can figure out if and what the range of variation is."

"That would be so useful!" Taimi exclaims in delight.

"Well. Do you want to prepare or something?"

Because let's be real, here, James is totally eternally ready for Adventure.

She considers. "No, my spells have resettled, I'm good to go." Pause. "... Maybe another cup of coffee? In a little travel cup."

"Clopp! Cup of coffee here, to go!"

    "Yes, Taimi!" a nervous-looking Asura replies, and goes to fetch Vetareh's coffee.

Vetareh beams. Ah, yes. A bunch of magic nerds all running on ludicrous amounts of caffeine. It reminds her of home.

Once she has her coffee: "Thank you, Clopp." Coffee sip. "Okay, ready now. Onwards to adventure and whatnot."

Taimi types some stuff into the same console James did earlier to reach the Dragon Lab. "Okay, that gate will take you to the Fire Islands. Good luck!"

"Thank you."

And now: onwards to adventure, and whatnot!

James steps through right after her.

The other side of the gate is: warm. Very, very warm. One might even say sweltering. They're inside a cave of obsidian, and there are a few tents and a couple of asura with various technomagical instruments around.

    "Commander. Welcome to the Fire Islands," says an asura researcher who notices them. She then turns to Vetareh. "And Ms., uh..."

"Vetareh, hello," she says, with a polite little bow.

James is looking around at the... scenery...

"The place's name is fitting. I'm surprised anything can survive here. Can you give me a status report?"

    "We're still assessing, but our preliminary findings are... troubling. Primordus's arrival is having a profound impact on the island. The Destroyers are surging in record numbers, and there's been a marked increase in the local seismic and volcanic activity. I've been trying to get word to Taimi, but the atmospheric interference is wreaking havoc on our long-range comms. I doubt you'll get much use out of that communicator she gave you while you're here."

"About the Destroyers—we received word that they've been exhibiting new abilities. Changed somehow. Vetareh and I are here to gather samples to confirm the report. Where should we begin our search?

    "Hm... Not long ago, we sent a scout east to locate a nest—I'd begin your search there."

Vetareh sips her coffee and briefly regrets that she's not an elementalist. She could make this into iced coffee. Oh well.

To the east! She even has a compass now, she can just check which way east is and then go that way! She represses the urge to cackle at how she has more than two objects. ... Well. Two objects and a useless bag of coins. Three objects, one of which earned her ire. Now she has more than that, and none of her objects have earned her ire yet.

The cave faces the south and opens to a very, very small peninsula on unreasonably warm waters. To the east there's water and the rest of the island, and to the west there's the start of a treacherous path that probably circles the volcano this cave is in.

And above them, visible everywhere, are lines of magic like the ones James took to get them out of the cave he found Vetareh into. "Shall I carry you again, my princess?"