Vetareh does not roll her eyes, because she's accustomed to hanging around self important nerds. Instead, she dutifully looks very impressed, like the good little assistant that she is.

"Vetareh," she clarifies, feeling like this is going to be a theme. "Thank you, we can hardly get any proper research done if we're dead."

She looks at James. "Lunch before we head out?"

"Wonderful idea," he agrees.

    "Yes, yes, good luck to you two, now I have this wonderful device to study," says Quickk, quickly engrossed in figuring the device out.

"We'll leave you to your work," she says, amused.

A picnicking location is acquired and a blanket unfurled for sitting while eating. They're within eyesight of the asura, so that if a lava wurm shows up, they can maybe help out before Quickk and his worried helper get toasted and eaten.

This seems like a fairly peaceful spot that Quickk has found. Doubtlessly the dwarves chose it for the device for this same reason. There are some embers and some more dangerous flying fire elementals in the distance, but there's no direct path from them to this spot and the sources of lava and fire are about as far from here as they can be from anywhere in these islands.

James and Vetareh can have their picnic in peace.

Oh good! That is the preferred way to have a picnic.

As they eat, she asks, "Are we getting paid? Because I got the impression that we were not getting paid."

"Only for collecting bounties here and there," he shrugs. "Not for helping various scientists with their pet projects."

"Ahuh. That's what I thought. Fortunately for me, I'm mooching off of you already."

"And I'm sure you will get your share of bounty rewards. Not to mention all the body parts of various monsters, those can be pretty profitable."

"Oh, that's true. I was thinking in terms of the scientific benefit more than the economic one. I suppose I'm not much of a mooch at all, am I."

"Not at all. And I am sure your books will sell for much."

"That's the plan! Though since I haven't written them yet, that's rather getting ahead of ourselves."

"I have full confidence in your abilities."

"Thank you, darling." And for that, he gets a kiss.

He returns it earnestly.

Eventually they're done eating.

And then they can head out west to find the mursaat fortress and hopefully turn on the device that'll prevent the islands from exploding!

"If the dwarves set up this device in a mursaat fortress, there has to be a safe way to get to it. Because then otherwise how would they set it up?" she muses. "So we just need to figure out how they did it and do the same. Hopefully."

"It might be that the answer is 'the Fortress was safe before Lazarus returned'," he says, walking over to the western lip of the plateau. "It might be that it's still safe, if Lazarus's word is to be believed."

"True. Well. This will probably be very interesting. And by interesting I mean 'ludicrously dangerous.'"

"Just the way I like it," he says casually, before offering Vetareh his arms and taking out his glider.

"Of course," she snorts, amused. She obligingly moves so he can easily pick her up.

"At least there will be interesting magic to look at and take apart," she muses. "With lots of tricks and traps where a spellbreaker mesmer would be useful to have around."

"You, my dear, are getting the spirit." Pick up, hop, wheeee.

Whee!

"That, and I still don't particularly want to explode!"

"Exploding spells are relatively uncommon. I hear the mursaat went for unbearable agony more frequently."

She considers this, and mentally weighs it in comparison to the prospect of enduring an eternity in a boring misty expanse and watching her mind slowly beginning to unravel from the strain and loneliness. Yeah, no, she'll take unbearable agony just for the novelty of it, thanks. She can switch back once she's tired of it.

"Charming. But at least I won't be bored."

He hasn't put his mask back on so she can see the sappy look on his face even though he's not looking down at her.

Vetareh beams up at him fondly.