"An illusion of a rug over it would have helped, and wouldn't leave holes after use, but that doesn't solve the practicality problem for the people living here." Huff. "But maybe there's an off switch somewhere we don't know about, or it got stuck always on from the explosion. ... Fine, maybe this was actually practical at some point in time."

"The illusion of the rug would certainly have been dispelled by all the magic storms popping around here." He looks around. "Anyway, I don't see Canach, let's go on."

"Yes, sorry, onwards."

Onwards!

There's another trap by the next door but the next "room" contains a plant person, a human, and... a charr.

"Canach, glad to see you're alive. I was afraid you'd been caught in the blast."

    "Hmm," says plant person.

James nods. "Your troops?"

    "Some of them are still looking for you," he says, curtly and professionally, "and the rest are forming a perimeter around this place. But the minister is my job. And then I ran into Rytlock and Marjory."

        "Who's that?" growls the charr, hiking a thumb at Vetareh.

"Canach, Marjory, Rytlock, this is Vetareh. Vetareh, these are Canach," he nods at the sylvari, "Marjory," human, "and Rytlock," charr.

Huh. A charr. ... Okay. It's not like she's met any before, and it's not like this one could have possibly taken any part in invading Orr. James isn't freaking out, so it's probably fine. Even though the charr is blindfolded. For some reason.

"Hello. Pleasure to make your acquaintances." She considers how to explain herself, and decides to make James do it. These people seem a bit too important to accept the handwave of 'he found me in a cave,' and she doesn't particularly want to get into 'I fell out of the Mists' right now.

"I found her in a cave," James provides helpfully. 

    "...of course you did," sighs Canach. Rytlock grunts, and Marjory smiles and waves at her.

        "Anyway, Canach, you're here under the orders of...?" Marjory asks.

    "Countess Anise's. I have been tasked with ensuring the well-being of the minister, who is innocent until proven guilty."

Vetareh smiles a little at James's explanation. Okay then, finding her in a cave is an explanation suited for everyone.

"Well, the innocent-until-proven-guilty minister might have eaten quite a lot of magic from the bloodstone, so he might be troublesome to return home safely. Or primed to explode. I'm not actually sure. So, uh. Be aware of that."

    "If he did, we can't just let him loose on Kryta... or maybe all of Tyria is his prize this time," says Marjory.

"The safety of the world is outside my remit," Canach says, neutrally.

            Six mesmer portals choose this moment to appear, and White Mantle troops emerge from them. "For Kryta!" one of them shouts.

        "We have company," says Rytlock, drawing his sword.

"Why am I not surprised."

Those portals are alarming, she makes a note to keep an eye out for them in the future, and try to find the person responsible. She doesn't like ambushes. But since they've been ambushed, clearly it is her job to destroy any enemy casters. Are there any obvious candidates for her to torment?

There are some people with staves?

Eenie, meenie, miney... ooo, that one looks like an elementalist. She'll take that one.

She's in a bit of a rush, on account of the ambush, so she'll make this quick. Hex, hex, hex, one after another—backfire, wastrel's demise, wastrel's worry. The first will drive any spell someone casts to instability so that it, well, does precisely what the name implies. The latter two will prevent easy hex removal of the first, and also explode a little if no spell is cast. Pick your poison, elementalist, she's got all kinds.

Her interrupts are going to be held in reserve for now in case anyone looks like they need it, and the group hex that slows down enemy casting and speeds up ally casting is going to wait on them being a bit more grouped up.

Her interrupts turn out to be unnecessary; with the help of her first hexes and the rest of the group they all make short work of the White Mantle.

"These guards weren't affected by the Bloodstone like the others I've fought," James says. "They must have arrived after the explosion."

    "Then it is likely they came with Caudecus," says Canach. "We're close."

Well, that was a terrible ambush.

"And sending his retinue to die at us doesn't count as the minister changing your plans to return him home?" she asks of Canach.

"They're not officially his retinue," says Marjory. "Canach here is making something we might call an uncharitable assumption."

    "Mm," mms Canach.

Sigh. "Politics."

Onwards!

The next fun thing in this house of delights turns out to be another Bloodstone crystal, this one thin and taller than James, and as soon as they spot it the crystal connects to everyone there with a red lightning stream. Vetareh feels no pain, but on the other hand she does start feeling rather fatigued...

"No," she informs the bloodstone crystal, crossly. Crystal: meet her hex, backfire, it would like to have a word with you.

The flow of the lightning stream reverses itself for a second and then the crystal explodes into dust, and the lightning stops.

    Canach nods curtly at her. "Good job," he says.

(And James has a mask so Vetareh doesn't see the expression he's wearing as he looks at her.)

She definitely can't! It is again fortunate that he's covered in spikes and fire, but this time for reasons she's not aware of.

"Yep. Honestly, what kind of shoddy magical work is this?" she mutters, stalking forward. Hex, hex, hex, one explosion after another. Bye crystals, you will not be missed.

"To be fair, I needed to learn fairly ancient magic to be able to counter these, myself," James comments lightly.

    "Yes, that is impressive," Marjory adds. "Countering the magic of these Bloodstones returns whatever magical properties it absorbed. I know a certain big-eared asura who'd love to be here to study this..."

        "I heard that!" comes a slightly distorted young voice from somewhere on James's back.

And James freezes.

Vetareh also freezes. She turns to slooooowly look at James.

"Well," she observes. "... So much for discretion?"

    Canach... looks at James.

"Taimi..." James starts. "How much... have you heard...?"

        "Oh, don't worry about it, pooh-bah, I'm not listening all the time, I have better things to do with my time than spy on you," says the voice coming out of the probable communications device attached to the neck of James's armour. "By the way, nice to meet you, princess!"

            "Princess?" asks Marjory, who looks like her face is doing its utmost not to turn into a smirk, while Rytlock starts laughing.

She closes her eyes and wonders if she could invent an invisibility spell on the spot. Probably not. "... Lovely to meet you too, Taimi. Please don't call me that, I'm not actually a princess."

    "Sure. Anyway, I should get back to something actually interesting. Bye!"

        "Is she always...?" Canach starts.

"Yes. How about we get back to what we're actually here to do?" asks James.

            "Why don't you two lead the way, Commander?" asks Rytlock.

So Rytlock is clearly a sadist, and she was a fool to not immediately be racist towards him based on his species. A fool.

Still, she doesn't want to stretch out this agony any further, so: yes, let's lead the way with James. While everybody no doubt giggles behind them. Yep.

"This is your fault," she informs James, matter of factly, but without any real heat.