Interesting. She walks further into it, wondering what sort of place she's stumbled onto this time.

It's a cave, it's very definitely a cave. The next change in features is floating rocks—from pebbles to boulders, some of them sporting more of the red crystals. The mist starts thinning again and she can see a person in the distance, fighting what seems to be another person, this one made entirely of lightning and as tall as two adult human males.

"Why is it always fighting," she wonders to no one in particular. "You'd think sometimes there would be something for important and historical tax implementation."

She proceeds towards the person and the lightning person, idly wondering if this is going to be one of the ones she can talk to through illusions, or if there will be nothing for her to do.

The person dodges a lightning bolt, and three spheres of red light are floating lazily in their general direction. The presence of a Flesh Golem betrays this person as a necromancer, in another parallel of the first echo she saw. The person is wearing a fairly interesting choice of armour set but it doesn't seem to be hindering them any. They are wielding a scepter in one hand and a long sharp-looking knife in the other, but they quickly and dexterously switch to a long two-handed staff which they use to cast a chilling effect on the lightning person.

And then the mists dissipate completely, the lightning person looks directly at Vetareh, the necromancer shouts "Look out!" and his Flesh Golem tackles her out of the way of a lightning bolt that hits the exact spot she'd been standing on.

What the—?

There's a rush of sensory experiences. Tiredness and temperature and wind and proper sound and the air in her lungs and she's not in the Mists anymore. She takes half a second to adjust, then huffs a little laugh. She did it. She actually did it.

Which of course is precisely when she's tackled by a Flesh Golem.

"Figures," she snorts.

She scootches out from underneath the Flesh Golem, because this is a bad place to be, much as she appreciates the quick save. She dumps a hex on lightning person; she is very sure about whose side she is on, here. Somehow she expects the necromancer will like the effects of it. Then she gives a sharp whistle. C'mon, lightning guy, do that lightning thing again, she dares you.

It tries, just as the necromancer makes an arcane symbol appear under the creature that makes it move way slower.

"No," she informs the lightning person in a bright cheery tone, and interrupts the lightning thing.

"Thank you for the save, by the way!" she calls to the necromancer. It just seems polite.

"Welcome!" he calls back before closing one fist and making a creature made of shadows with six eyes appear out of thin air. It actually looks quite adorable.

The necromancer grunts as he casts another spell but immediately makes another large symbol appear on the ground below the lightning person and as the symbol disappears the humanoid visibly falters.

Aaaand hex. This one's a delicate but potent little thing that would be disrupted by the lightning person actually managing to do anything, but somehow she thinks that it will have some trouble. Would lightning person like to be so foolish as to try to cast anything?

Not quite yet! Lightning person does nothing visible but the spheres of red lightning start moving towards Vetareh. The necromancer makes a further symbol appear below them, and after a puff of black smoke they start going away from her. "—hey, thanks for that," he says when he notices that this is the third spell that he's cast much more quickly than normal. He switches to the scepter and knife again and points the scepter at lightning person, making skeleton hands emerge from the ground to pull and scrape and punch lightning person.

Now lightning person tries to cast.

"You're welcome!"

She waits for the right moment, and—interrupt. "Still no," she informs the monster sweetly.

Then her second hex goes off and the monster experiences violet colored regret.

It staggers back, and a plague of ethereal green spirit locusts is dropped on its head.

And then the necromancer is covered with dark green shadows and he instantly teleports towards the lightning person and does a series of things a bit too fast to follow and the lightning person suddenly fizzles out.

Well, that's a thing she hasn't seen before. She raises her eyebrows slightly. Okay necromancer, calm down, no need to show off too much just because she's a lady.

"Was that the only one?" she affirms, because she really needs to get that out of the way before she attempts to do anything else.

The shadows around him disappear, and he removes his mask to reveal a handsome if unnaturally pale face with a thin scar from a cut to his right eye. He has one earring on each ear, both of them gold with a bright purple spherical jewel in the middle. "I hope to Grenth it was. Are you alright?"

His minions rejoin him and stand in formation behind him.

"I am not injured," she confirms, which is not the same thing as being all right. "I realize this is a weird question, but what year is it?"

"It's, ah, 1329 AE. Are you sure you're...?"

She lets out a breath. 1329 AE. That's... such an impossibly large number. She flicks a finger to do some quick illusionary math. 263 years. That... is a very long time.

"I was in the Mists," she says very softly, staring at her little illusionary numbers. "And just finally found my way out. I don't think I'm all right."

"Oh, fuck," he says. "I'm so sorry. How—how long...?" He saw the numbers but they—they could be anything, and time in the Mists doesn't necessarily pass at the same rate...

"I'm from Orr," she says, a little wryly. Her body language is casual, but her eyes are sad.

"That's—it—it was destroyed over two hundred and fifty years ago—" He takes a step forward, then looks down at his hands and quickly unclasps his gloves and removes his shoulder guards (the fire in these pieces going out as soon as they get detached from him). He leaves the pieces of armour behind and takes another tentative step forward—not so threatening, anymore, without the spikes and the fire...

"I know," she agrees, softly. "Shortly after I—got lost."

She looks at him, and doesn't... really know what to say. What could she possibly say?

Yeah this... looks like a hugging situation. He takes the extra two steps needed to reach her—he's a tall guy—and slowly, with enough time and space for her to back away if she wants to, hugs her.

Oh. Oh, hugs are things that people can have when they're not in the Mists, aren't they. Yes. Sure. That.

She's just going to tip ever so delicately into him to sob into one of his available shoulders. That sounds like the thing to do right now.

He's warm—either because of the fire that was around him just now, or because of the battle, or because that's just how he is—and he's actually very tall. He wraps his arms around her and lets her sob, not saying anything. He's not sure there's anything to say.

If there are things to say, she definitely doesn't know what they are. She's just... she's so tired, yet also strangely wired. She wants nothing more than to collapse and cry forever, except for how she wants to never ever cry again and go live a long and aggressively happy life just to spite the Mists, because fuck that fucking place.

"Well. I did it. I made it out. D-do I get a prize?" she mumbles into his shoulder.

He chuckles a chuckle that rocks his whole body. "I'm not sure I have prizes to distribute; I left them all back home. I apologise for my lack of foresight."

"'Sfine. This also works." She squeezes him a little. "And I'm not even crazy." She blurbles a little half-giggle, half-sob. "I think."

"I can testify to that. You look and sound one hundred percent non-crazy, and I would know, I have fought a lot of crazy before."

There is the little giggle-sob again.

"Lucky you," she informs him.

"Oh, no, I guarantee you that to find this much crazy to fight it takes more than luck; it takes skill."

Well now she's just helplessly giggle-sobbing into his shoulder. Look at what he's done.

That's alright, they can hug for a while and he can very carefully run his hand down her back slowly in soothing motions.

"Were you in the middle of something?" she wonders, after the sobs have sort of... calmed down for a little while.

"In a manner of speaking. I was... investigating this place."

'This place' being the barely described cave, which now that she can pay attention to it seems rather... expansive. The ceiling is very high—some twenty or thirty meters high—and there are red crystals everywhere, emanating an eerie red glow that's the main source of light in the cave. There are floating stones, boulders—in fact, there's one piece of floating rock large enough to support what looks to be a small stone arena or temple of sorts. There are trails of orange and blue light flowing in the air from place to place, but they don't seem to do... anything. Just exist, and be pretty.

She hums a confirmation.

"Well, if you're in any kind of rush, just, you know. Pick me up and carry me with you to where you need to go, because I'm not unhugging right now, sorry."

He laughs again. "I am afraid my investigation might involve some more physical altercations so I will perhaps wait until the hugging is done."

"Ugh. How very reasonable of you."

"I cannot claim to always be reasonable, but I do try to at least sometimes be."

Giggle.

"That's the spirit." Leaaaan. He's very warm and comfy. Very quietly, she wonders, "... Now what?"

"...to be quite honest I am not certain. I cannot exactly, ah, take you anywhere safe right now. This was not the best place for you to come out of the Mists to, I have to say."

"Figures," she snorts. "Okay. What's the—horrible flaming disaster I have landed on this time? I expect there is one."

"There is indeed one. If you come from Orr you do not I expect know about the White Mantle?"

"I do not, no. I might have seen glimpses of them in echoes in the Mists, but I didn't always get names for the things I saw."

"Each of the three human kingdoms responded differently to the Flame Legion's attacks. Ascalon fled, Orr sunk, Kryta was usurped by the White Mantle. They sacrificed people to their gods on magical stones called Bloodstones." He gestures with his head towards a crystal. "One here exploded. The explosion was big enough to wipe out half of Tyria, except it mysteriously collapsed in on itself and only destroyed this small area."

"... So where did all of that stored power go instead." Yes, she is starting to see why this is worth investigation.

"Exactly. Not that I'm not grateful, but yes, it does require some closer investigation."

"Yes, agreed. Um." A little regretfully, she pulls away so she can look at him properly. "Look, if there's no way to take me to a safe place, then don't. This sounds important. Instead, I can aspire to be a duckling, and follow you around. It's not exactly like I'm a helpless waif, here."

"I did notice that, yes, you put on quite a show. What was that?"

"What," she wonders lightly, "do you not have mesmers anymore? Pissing people off is absolutely standard mesmer fare where I come from."

"—huh. Mesmer would make sense. Nowadays they focus more on illusions and clones and environment manipulation, it would be strange to see a mesmer who did not summon a single phantasm during a fight."

"Really? That's... interesting. I'll want to look into the theory of that later, if they've managed proper clones. I focus less on illusions and more on, ah. Direct meddling. Therefore it's my job to piss people off."

He grins. "I tend to make a habit of having pissed off people coming after me so I believe you are in good company." Pause. "And I just realised I do not know your name."

"Oh, yes, I apologize." She takes a careful step back so she can sketch a curtsy that would look very out of place at court for its antiquity. "Vetareh, pleasure to meet you."

"—the Lost Princess of Orr, of course." He sketches a bow that's mostly Krytan except for the foot placement that's more Orrian and a little flourish of the hand behind his back that's distinctly Ascalonian. "I am James Orland, Commander of the Pact and now leader of Dragon's Watch. It is an honour to meet you."

This statement startles a laugh out of her.

"The lost what of Orr?" she repeats, archly. "I'm not a princess. I was in no way in line for any thrones. I'd be closer to inheriting Ascalon's throne, my parents immigrated to Orr to get away from most of the fighting of the Third Guild War."

"Well, yes, but that usually gets elided over in the bards' stories."

"There are stories about me? In which I am declared a lost princess?"

"It was said that your beauty was such that Grenth and Balthazar fought for your favour, and when their contest could not be decided they brought you to their realm so that you could decide. Some variants of the story include you picking Lyssa instead." Pause. "The stories got one thing right, at least."

There are several things she could say to that, such as, 'Picking Lyssa instead of the two boys fighting over me sounds very in character,' or, 'I see the bards were so enchanted by the idea of a lost beauty that they exaggerated extravagantly,' or, 'That sounds like much more fun than what I actually got.' But none of them come to her lips, because the whole premise is absurd, and moreover, she hasn't been flirted with since she was in Orr. The latter turns out to be more relevant than the former. He is distinctly not unattractive, and he's the first person who's touched her in what feels like centuries, and if he thinks she's beautiful then he can just keep touching her—

She turns a delicate shade of pink, more from that particular line of thought than the flirting. Not that she minds the flirting.

"Um," she says, instead of all of those other, much more clever things she could be saying.

He laughs. "Anyway, princess, I believe I should continue my investigation. Will you accompany me?"

... Right, they are still in a cave, and there are still important things besides her touch starvation, loneliness, and his pretty smile. Right. She doesn't particularly want to tackle the poor man for casually flirting with her. Well, not intellectually, and not necessarily immediately, anyway. Focusing back on important business while she acclimatizes to not being in the Mists sounds like a wise course of action.

"Oh, no, I was planning to sit in a cave forever and count the floating rocks." For some reason her wit is the first thing to come online. Possibly from its frequent use as a coping mechanism in the Mists. ... That might perhaps cause her problems down the road, but she can't bring herself to care very much. At least she's saying something instead of another 'um.'

"Put your clothes back on," she informs him imperiously, "you might offend my delicate princessly sensibilities."

"As Her Royal Highness wills it," he says, with a perfunctory but respectful bow. He reattaches the shoulderguards and wristguards and then puts his mask back on, then he looks around and hmms. "Gliders had not been invented back when you are from, had they?"

She smirks at him. Oh, this is going to be trouble, isn't it. She's in trouble. Or maybe he is, or they both are. They'll probably find out at some point.

But not tackling him to have her way with him is much easier when he's covered in spikes, fire, and his pretty face is safely hidden away, which makes things much easier.

"No, I'm afraid not. They do what they sound like, though?"

"They do. If it would please the princess, I would offer to carry you up. I had been meaning to go explore that temple when I was ambushed by that anomaly."

"I will graciously allow it."

He steps up to her again and offers his arms to carry her, bridal-style.

Yep. She will agree to this. She'll even cast an enchantment on herself to make herself a bit lighter, that seems like the smart thing to do when one is a passenger on a glider. If weight were a very difficult thing to mess with, mesmer enchanted bags would be much less convenient.

"Your gauntlets are uncomfortable," she informs him, once she's in his arms.

"I apologise for the oversight. Next time I will remove them." He peers around then walks over to an oddly-shapped boulder that's surrounding a few crystals. He steps on his Flesh Golem's helpful shoulders then onto the boulder, and the air is noticeably warmer there. "Ready, princess?" he asks with no sign of exertion.

She hums an affirmative and leans into him. It is a good thing he is covered in spikes, fire, and his pretty face is put away. Or a very bad thing. She hasn't decided.

And he—

—jumps—

—and a large green glider appears on his back and immediately catches the strong updraft coming from the warm Bloodstone crystals below them. They're still not high enough to quite reach the floating temple but the purposefulness with which James is angling his glider suggests he knows how to get there.

Oh.

Gliding turns out to be fun.

Her breath catches in her throat, and then she lets out a little giggle of delight.

His mask hides his grin. "Having fun there?"

"Oh," she giggles, "yes."

At long, long last, she's not in the Mists. Instead she's free, free, free in Tyria and she can go gliding and flirt with pretty men and finally begin living again. If she hadn't already done quite a lot of crying earlier, she'd be tempted to start again.

"Good. I can teach you to glide sometime, it's really useful. Get ready." And then they reach another updraft—how James found it is a mystery—and now they're gliding above the arena/temple, which has no ceiling and absolutely nothing in it except for a circular pedestal in the middle.

Her breath catches again when they reach the second updraft, and then she's back to giggling.

"I'm going to hold you to that. I would like to glide."

"And now we land..." He shifts his weight back so that he's mostly standing in the air and the glider slows down a lot and starts a smooth descent. His feet touch the ground with a soft thud that doesn't jostle Vetareh at all, and he says, "Here we are, princess."

"Thank you," she says, smiling up at him. "You're never going to stop calling me princess, are you, playing along with the joke at all has cemented it and it will forever haunt my steps, won't it."

"If you ask me to stop I will of course stop."

"Ah, I see." Yep, sure is a good thing his pretty face is covered. Such a good thing. "Well, it is rather cute. It's fine so long as it's clear to other people that it is a joke, and that I'm not actually an Orrian princess. That could get uncomfortable."

"I expect most people will not assume anything of me just calling you that, if you do not tell them where you're from. They will probably assume, ah, some things from it, so I might restrict myself to only doing so in private, if you prefer."

"What things do you expect they'll assume? I don't exactly have cultural context anymore."

"That we are 'an item'," he says, quotation marks audible in his tone. "This is especially true of anyone who is aware of the rumours about the Queen and a certain member of her guard."

"Ah," she says. "Perhaps save that for if we decide we'd like to give them that impression, then."

She gives him a wry look. "You realize you still haven't put me down."

"I would not want to unceremoniously drop you without warning," he explains, and then gently sets her back on her feet.

"Ah," she repeats, a little amused.

... Then something occurs to her and she looks at him thoughtfully. "Are you this flirtatious with everyone?"

    He tilts his head and seems about to say something when a voice behind Vetareh says, "Not this flirtatious," which makes him jump.

"Caithe! I didn't see you there."

    "And that was by design," says... apparently it's a woman made of plants. "Who's this?"

Vetareh doesn't jump, but she does freeze, and her hand twitches to her scepter. She does not like being taken by surprise. Being taken by surprise only happens with very, very dangerous things in the Mists. Then she notes James's familiarity with the person responsible, and she consciously wills herself to relax. Fortunately, she did not go so far as to cast a hex, though it was a near thing.

She takes a single measured step to the side and pivots to look at the woman. Plants. Okay. Sure, whatever, not important in comparison to random plant lady being stupid enough to sneak up on her. She's seen weirder things, who cares if the woman is made out of plants.

"Vetareh. Hello." She fixes 'Caithe' with a look. If Caithe was clever enough to be that sneaky, then she is clever enough to know what almost just happened. Hopefully she is wise enough to never do it again.

"She's a friend," James tells Caithe, a touch cold, which in contrast to how he's been treating Vetareh must be quite a shock.

    Caithe points a wan smile at Vetareh. "Hello." Then she looks at James again. "Are you...?"

"Trying to figure out why the explosion reversed itself and the trail led me here." The pause in which he tries to get his bearings and not bite Caithe's head off is barely noticeable, but it's there. He assumes a more professional tone. "Look at these marks," he says, gesturing at glowing red marks on the ground that lead to the archway out. "Could these have been made by a torrent of magic?"

    "Possibly," she says, not showing any surprise at his sudden shift in demeanour. She throws Vetareh a very short glance before looking at James and continuing. "You think something or someone was behind this? Or was it a natural disaster?"

Vetareh does not actually find it all that shocking that James is cold towards this person. She doesn't really like her either, and she's only known her for about a minute. Still, they clearly have a working relationship of some kind, Vetareh can follow that lead instead of growling at Caithe.

"We might be able to just check," she says, thoughtfully. "Magic of this magnitude doesn't just dissipate. It leaves—echoes." Sometimes to the Mists themselves, as she well knows. Ha, ha. But the Mists are very good at absorbing whatever is thrown into them. Not many things can make that claim.

... Except, perhaps, things that were used to absorb large amounts of magical energy from human sacrifice. Any material wouldn't do for that, it would have to be something that was already inclined to pick up magical energy.

"Bloodstones were used to absorb magical energy, correct? So why would the ones here be any different?"

    Caithe looks at Vetareh again, this time with a measuring gaze. "That's actually quite a good idea. Bloodstone magic could be used to reproduce whatever happened here..."

"Good thinking," he says to Vetareh, far more kindly than Caithe did. "This pedestal seems to be at the nexus of it all, so there's a good chance we will be able to reproduce it. We should go find some Bloodstone crystals."

"Thank you," says Vetareh, smiling a little. She likes being clever. "Yes, preferably a few from different sections around here, to get a more complete picture. The shards wouldn't be absorbing the whole picture, just the ones they were magically blasted with."

Unfortunately for her, there aren't actually any bloodstone crystals in the immediate vicinity. Which makes sense, this was the center of the explosion. Instead, they're all over everywhere in this incredibly vertical location. Some, on floating rocks. As a person that does not have a glider.... yeah she's not going to be much use, here. Unless she wants to go splat, anyway.

"I think I'd be getting in the way in collecting them," she observes.

James nods. "We will be back in a few minutes."

    "Lead the way, Commander," Caithe says softly.

"Have fun."

Well, while they're doing the boring menial labor part, she'll do the tricky scholarly part. She's highly attuned to magic anyway, what with specializing in disrupting enemy magic. Maybe she can get some kind of picture of what echoes they're dealing with here, and how they can best position and use the bloodstone crystals.

It doesn't take two minutes for the first explosion noise to be heard.

...

Well, she's a little stuck on her floating rock, isn't she. But she can go over to the edge and see if James or Caithe are screaming and on fire or something.

They seem to be fighting a trio of floating, glowing, animated weapons! They're not visibly hurt or needing help with that.

Oh. Good. Not the part where they're fighting, the part where they don't appear to be hurt or needing help with that.

She considers yelling 'Don't die,' but decides to save it for after they're done fighting, so as not to distract them.

Eventually they batter the weapons down enough that they stop moving.

And since they are no longer busy, she yells, "Good job! Keep on not dying!"

He turns around and laughs. "We'll try!"

"I only acknowledge results, James!"

"Yes, ma'am!" he calls, saluting.

Caithe smiles and shakes her head then says something, to which James nods then waves at Vetareh before resuming his search.

She smiles and waves back, then goes back to attempting to sort through the magical echoes.

Other monsters and creatures continue to show up and attack James and Caithe. They continue to successfully survive.

Good.

The details of the beginning of the explosion are the equivalent to magical mush to her unaided eyes, but she can see enough of the echoes to see the general arc. The explosion started here, and the waves of magical energy of this flavor went that way, and that other flavor went this way...

She expects to have a decent idea of where it will be best to place all of the bloodstone shards by the time James and Caithe return.

And return they do, in companionable silence. James's body language is also somewhat less cold towards Caithe, now.

That's interesting. Maybe it was some kind of past drama, or being upset about being interrupted while flirting with her. Or something. She doesn't really know. It's probably not her business.

"Welcome back!" she chirps, brightly. "Bloodstone crystals, please? I think I know where best to put them."

"Here you go," James says, handing her three, and Caithe gives her another three wordlessly.

"Thank you," she says.

She peers at them to get a good idea of which flavors of magic each one has, then carefully begins distributing them into positions on the pedestal that look kind of inscrutable to outside viewers.

"Okay. That should do it. And none of these feel so magically charged that they should explode, so if we're careful we won't be looking at a mess."

"Good, I always like it when things don't explode."

    "Is there anything in particular we need to do?" asks Caithe.

She smiles at James. James continues to be cute and it continues to be a good(?) thing that he's covered in spikes and fire.

"Not really. Though—I suppose I do need you to not do things. No magic for a little while. We'll essentially be gently nudging faint magical echoes to be a bit louder, and they can get drowned out by other, stronger magic nearby. Which in this case would be just about anything."

It is really nice to just be an expert in a subject again. It's even nicer to solve actual problems that actually matter, instead of running around in a realm where nothing matters at all. She's having real actual effects on the world!! She's solving a problem because she's very clever! Ahahahaha!!!

"Okay," she says, clamping down on her urge to bounce up and down like a small, excited child. "Give me a bit, this shouldn't take too long."

Then she begins gently magically nudging the shards appropriately. A lot of this is finicky finesse, with a heaping of guesswork, but she just so happens to be rather attuned to knowing what signs imply echoes getting stronger. If she's just patient and watchful and careful, she should get it to work...

The Bloodstones emanate light that crosses in the centre of the platform, showing the echo of a person standing on it. There are other people around, wearing white armour and robes, waiting while Bloodstone pours its power into the person in the centre—

—then the person starts glowing, as brightly as the lightning creature from before—

—and explodes, turning everyone around them to ash.

Vetareh winces. Another mark down for why proper safety protocols are important.

"... Well then. Not a natural occurrence at all."

    "No, not at all," sighs Caithe. "Who would have done something like this...?"

"Someone who just absorbed the lion's share of a Bloodstone's worth of magic... Could have been Caudecus. I have to find Canach and warn him... if he's still alive."

"I saw white armor and robes," offers Vetareh, who's probably the best at spotting little details like that. Since she's had the practice. "But I think that's all the detail we're going to get. It's not worth the time investment, the echo's not going to want to stretch to before large amounts of magic got thrown around. So we can leave now to find and warn him, there's not much reason to stick around."

    "White Mantle, certainly," observes Caithe.

"—oh, sorry Vetareh. Canach is... a friend, who's been tasked with finding Minister Caudecus who we suspect is behind this whole fiasco," James explains.

She looks at him, then raises her eyebrows slightly.

"And you're worried about him still being alive. So." She recasts the enchantment that makes her lighter and looks at him expectantly. "Gauntlets off, sir, I appreciate the explanation, but it can happen on the way there."

Caithe raises an eyebrow at 'gauntlets off' but doesn't comment as James gingerly detaches the gauntlets and stashes them in a small mesmer-enchanted space-warping bag attached to his waist.

        "Commander! Are you up there?" comes a voice from the ground level.

    "Sounds like someone's looking for you," Caithe says softly.

Vetareh nods, and continues looking expectantly at James. She notes that it seems to be a thing that people just call him 'Commander' instead of his first name. ... She might want to start doing that so as not to give the wrong impression.

He steps up to Vetareh and, when she's ready, picks her up. Caithe very much does not say a word. He starts gliding down towards the person who called him.

Vetareh is starting to like Caithe.

She clamps down on the urge to giggle with delight at the gliding, but she permits herself a fond smile. This is still pretty lovely. Gliding on her own sounds fun, but it's also pretty nice to get carried around by a dashing necromancer.

They land and Caithe shadowsteps to where they are. There is a human in a military uniform of sorts there. "Commander! Ah..." She looks at Vetareh as James carefully sets her on her feet.

"Thank you," she says to James.

To the human in a military uniform of some sort: "Hello, the Commander found me in a cave."

    The human nods and looks at James again like it's all in a day's business. She clears her throat. "Canach ordered us to find you. Minister Caudecus is in the area."

"Canach's alive!" James exclaims, and there's a subtle relaxation of a certain tension in his posture that might not have been noticeable before it was gone. "I need to tell him what we just witnessed. Point me in the right direction. ...uh, Caithe?"

    "You know what, I think I'll stay a moment. Maybe poke around some more."

"Are you sure? Will you be okay?"

    "It's fine, Commander. Remember? I'm a shadow."

He nods and looks at Vetareh.

She kind of has to wonder what his days are like, if people think finding random women in caves is normal for him. Probably like this one. Actually, this might be a slow day.

"I am not a shadow. So I think I'll just be going with you."

He nods and looks at the other human woman again. "Lead the way, officer," he says, and Caithe disappears into shadow.

    The officer salutes and starts walking towards the other end of the cave. "I believe Canach tracked the Minister into the floating coliseum."

"I wonder what he's up to."

...

Vetareh looks at him.

"Really. Really. The Minister's potentially an unstable magical experiment gone wrong and could explode with power at any minute, and that is the terrible pun you decide to make?"

"I don't see you making a better one," he says without looking at her. The officer snickers then coughs to pretend she didn't.

"'Let's hope he's not too high on power.' 'I see he's keeping up his habit of looking down on everyone.'" She pauses, and tries to come up with a third one, and only manages several innuendos. "... Though honestly, there's more material available in the realm of innuendo than anything else."

James cracks up and the officer takes this as permission to also giggle some. "I'm curious about the innuendo."

"'Careful, if someone excites him too much he might explode,' 'Maybe he's just looking for some alone time after his body's new changes,' 'He's reached that age where people get experimental,' wait, no, that one's more of a pun, damn."

He laughs harder at those puns and at the last one causes an actual cackle.

She giggles a little herself. At last, all of that time spent practicing her wit in the Mists is paying off!

"Okay, I think I'm done now. There are a few more I could make, but they wouldn't be as good. I will not lower myself to such indignities."

"I would not dream of requesting it of you."

They reach a point of the cave where... it becomes rather obvious just how deep underground they are.

The answer is "very." They are very deep underground. The hole to the surface is very, very high.

She looks up. Yeah, wow, that's extremely underground.

".... 'I think the Minister went too deep,'" she adds. "Sorry, there turned out to be one more."

Both of them crack up again.

"I believe you will need some assistance to reach the top," James says between giggles, offering his arms again.

"Yep, I believe you're right about that."

She recasts her enchantment, then: here she is, in his arms again.

This time he makes his glider appear before they're in the air, and he doesn't take one of the updrafts again. Instead, he walks to one of the light lines that are pointing up and out of the cave and—

—their bodies are covered by a slightly tingly type of forcefield—

—and he's riding the magical line as if an impossible-to-feel wind is carrying them, up up up...

At an audible level that only James can hear, she makes a little, "eeee."

...that might just be too adorable for words. It's a good thing he's too busy conducting the glider for it to really be weird if he doesn't use words.

Eventually they reach the lip of the crater, and eventually they're far above the lip of the crater. The line of magic ends some fifty metres up in the air, and James angles his glider towards the west. "I can take it from here, officer! Thank you for your help," he calls.

    "Yes, Commander!" the woman says, and she starts gliding southwest.

And now there is a pretty view to look at! While she's being held by a dashing necromancer as they fly through the sky! Today is a good day. She happily leans into James and admires the view.

"So I get the impression that I should not be calling you 'James' in front of people if we don't want people assuming things of us," she observes.

"—I suppose most people do call me by my titles, huh? I leave that choice up to you, princess."

"Do you. All right." Leaaaan. "You know it's sort of convenient that you're covered in spikes and fire. Or maybe inconvenient. I haven't decided."

"When you decide which you can explain to me your reasons."

"James. I have been in the Mists for a very long time." She raises her eyebrows meaningfully and looks at him.

"And I'm sure all you want now is some time to get your bearings and get used to being in the real physical world again, is it not?" he asks a touch too innocently.

"You are very lucky that you are covered in spikes and fire," she informs him, sweetly. "Because I do not want to distract you while you're rushing to avert a disaster and help your friend. But I have been very tempted."

"Oh, I'm so sorry. I definitely wouldn't want to tempt you. Perhaps I should stop."

—Nope, not doing the first thing that she wants to do in response to that. That would be dangerous. Nope, nope, nope.

She takes a deep breath, because she is an adult, and she is better than her base impulses.

"You're a bad man," she says, instead. "A very bad man who is so very lucky that he is covered in spikes and fire, and really high up in the air. So lucky. But I can promise to be very good and not distract you while we're doing important things. How about that?"

"Sounds altogether like a very sound plan."

"Mmhmmm. And then when we are done doing important things I am going to tackle you." Pause. "... With your permission," she adds, because that's important.

"As the princess wills it," he says with a distinct smirk in his voice.

"A very bad man," she affirms. Then she takes another deep breath, and wrestles the conversation in a different direction so as not to potentially distract him.

"So! Plant people are a thing now?"

"—right, you wouldn't have met sylvari. There was a very large tree in the Maguuma Jungle, and it started sprouting them as fully-formed adults a bit over twenty-five years ago. Caithe was one of the twelve firstborn. Canach is a secondborn."

"Ah. Okay. And do you and Caithe have some kind of history? At first I thought you didn't get along with her, but then you returned and were... closer to fine than before."

"Some kind of history, yes." He looks at the distance between them and the floating coliseum. "It's a bit of a long story and needs quite some context, but she did something that—at the time—looked a lot like betraying me and her other friends. It turned out fine in the end, and she just shed some light on why she did it and apologised. The whole story involves the reason why I'm called Commander and a good deal of things that have happened between the sinking of Orr and today."

"Ah. All right. I get the impression I'm going to be playing catch up for a while. Any big things about the world I should know about?"

"There are enormous eldritch dragons attacking the world and eating its magic and if they are not stopped the world will end. My friends and I killed two of them. There are four still alive."

She blinks one long, slow blink.

"Good job," she says, because that is the most important thing, followed by: "and can I help with the third?"

"You most definitely can, although we do not currently have plans to deal with them." Pause. "And it occurs to me that you might want to know... One of the dragons, Zhaitan, the first one we killed, he... he was asleep under Orr, and when he rose he lifted Orr back up. It is now an island. And he was the undead dragon, so he rose many Orrians as undead."

Vetareh—twitches a bit, and growls.

"Thank you," she murmurs, "for saving me the trouble of hunting him down and killing him."

"You're welcome," he murmurs. "The undead are not yet all gone, but there are people working on it."

Nod. "Thank you," she repeats. "Sorry, I'm not—one of those people that gets fussy about what happens to my corpse after I leave it, I just. My father was a necromancer, and so I'm opinionated about how the dead are for the defense of the living. Not as some giant monster's playthings."

"...Zhaitan also used the souls of the dead in their animated corpses."

She inhales with a hiss through her teeth.

"He's dead, his main lieutenants are dead, we're working on cleansing Orr again..."

"Right," she agrees, carefully taking slow, measured breaths. "He's dead, you killed him, his lieutenants are dead, everyone he trapped in their own rotting corpse is either free or on their way to being free. He is dead, and he's not coming back, and if he does so help me I will rip him to pieces with my bare fucking hands—" She sucks in another breath, and closes her eyes. No, calm. "Dead. He's dead. Very dead."

"I'm sorry, this was not the best way for me to—tell you—"

"I don't think there could be a best way. I don't think this is that kind of thing. I think it's just, just bound to be awful no matter how you could have approached it. You don't have anything to be sorry for. I'd rather know than not." Lean. Carefully measured breaths. "The important thing is that the bastard is dead."

"Extremely dead. We—did not know they could be killed, before."

"I realize the others are probably just as bad in new and exciting ways, but I am glad you found out with him. I'm glad he was first." Deep breath. She's calming down a little now. "He's very extremely dead. Thank you, on my own behalf and on, on whatever ability I have to thank you on Orr's behalf."

He nods. "Heads up." Aaand updraft.

She leans into him and lets herself make a little sigh. Yes, that's very soothing, gliding is so great.

"So," she says, attempting to change topics a little so that she can get some distance from her anger, "if he was one of the dragons, I am definitely available for further dragonslaying. I don't—I don't want monsters like that to exist in the world." Lean. "I figure after the Mists I get to have a long and aggressively happy life, it's not my problem if they just so happen to be stupid enough to try to get in the way of that."

"We are of a mind, then," he says, grinning under his mask. "I, too, would rather have a very long and happy life."

"Good." She smiles prettily up at him. "You're..." She's not sure how to put her feelings into words without it coming out wrong. It's much easier just to say something witty and irreverent, she has a lot of practice with that. Not with feelings. "... I'm glad you were the person I landed on straight out of the Mists. I like you."

He chuckles. "I am glad you were the person the Mists spat out at me."

"That's not nearly as flattering as my declaration," she points out, amused.

"Is it not?" he asks mildly. "Heads up." And another updraft.

She makes a little happy squeak at the updraft, then snorts.

"Mmmm, no. Most other people you would have gotten would have been... less okay than I am."

"I suppose that's true," he concedes. "I am glad I met you regardless of circumstances. How's this?"

"Much better," she hums. "I'm so glad to be here."

He laughs. "Last one..." And after that updraft they reach the enormous floating rock where the coliseum is.

He looks for a spot to land at the lowest outcropping of the rock and finds the ruins of what was a plaza or a room of sorts.

After he puts her down, she notes that this is reasonably secluded, then gives him a speculative look. "James? Take off your helmet for, mm, thirty seconds?"

He obliges. "Miss my face?"

"Terribly." She leans up and very gently presses a kiss to his cheek. "Thank you. Carry on, clothes may go back on now."

"Wouldn't want to overwhelm the princess," he agrees, and puts his helmet and the gauntlets back on. "Let's find Canach and perhaps a traitorous minister, shall we?"

"Let's!"

He goes through the doorway on the wall that's still standing and there's another wall with another doorway on the other side of that space, but he stops a couple of feet before it and peers at the spot on the floor directly in front of the doorway.

There are several circular holes on it.

"... Huh," she comments. "Good eye. Trap?"

"I think so. Hmm. Give me a minute." He closes his eyes then grunts, which causes his hands to glow green and two small creepy corpse-y things emerge from a green glow on the ground. "I'm gonna use them as bait, see if there's a timer or something."

"Huh. You don't need corpses? I am going to want to hear you explain how you do that later. Well, go on little guys, die for your master."

He laughs, and one of the bone minions runs on ahead. Several spikes emerge from the holes and pierce the minion, making it melt into slimy shadow that eventually dissipates. The second bone minion runs ahead as soon as the spikes are gone, and they don't emerge this time. "Couple of seconds..." Then that second minion runs back and the spikes kill it. "Yeah, timer or something."

"Good to know. So, minion blood sacrifices so we can pass, then?"

"Yep. Just gimme a couple more sec—there we go." He summons minions. "Whenever you're ready."

"Ready," she agrees, with a nod.

First minion runs, is gutted, spikes go down—

- and then running! She gets safely across without any new piercings.

"You know," she observes, "these don't seem like very good traps to me. No points, failing grade."

Second minion, and he also escapes grisly death by spikes. "I'm sure it must have made more sense before this was a floating rock and everything had been exploded."

"I mean, not really! These are not very subtle, but they're in the way of everyone that would want to come through! So people that live here can't go around them and have to do the whole song and dance every single time, and the people that explore the place can easily see them and avoid them with casual minion sacrifice! ... Or possibly poking it with a stick, it might have been smart to try that, too."

"Minions are cheap enough, but you have a point. Maybe there was more to it before it was blown up? This could have been a decoy trap and the real one was on a wall or came from the ceiling."

"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.

"I admit to that," he nods, and onwards they go.

The next room contains two more Bloodstone crystals, but these don't react to their presences; instead, they seem to be feeding forcefields around two Bloodstone elementals.

"Mmm," she hums, peering at this. "This is a bit better. The shields look passable. But putting these after the draining crystals just makes it obvious how to break them, so I don't think it's into the realm of 'good.'"

She considers. "We're in a rush, so I'll try the quick method for dealing with ancient magical artifacts."

That is, hitting it. She picks a bloodstone crystal, and dumps the wastrels' hexes onto it. It's not like the crystal is going to be casting anything. Hopefully the hostile magic will cause the crystal to turn unstable to start draining magic, but if it doesn't, they have a spare.

Hitting the crystal does cause it to turn unstable, and it does start draining Vetareh.

"Good. Now, point in the right direction..."

She can cast backfire without some of its teeth. Just a little instability, not enough to blow up the crystal, just enough to disrupt its aim, so it goes for the closest target instead of her.

That works; the drainage hits the closest elemental's shield and both shield and crystal explode.

Elemental is not happy with this. Elemental charges. James summons a Flesh Golem to intercept it in its path—it's shorter than the elemental but bulky and made of muscles and spite, so it does its job.

Blink. Oh. Yes. She's not in echoes in the Mists anymore, people can actually attack her in response to her meddling. That is important to not forget.

"Ah. Right. Thank you James. Shield's down, you can all kill it dead now."

She'll assist with this endeavor, in fact!

The elemental... is fairly more durable than the White Mantle were. And mostly a physical attacker.

Ugh. Physical attackers. Why. Who would do that, when magic exists? ... Probably people that are annoyed with people like her, really. That's fair enough, actually.

She's just going to chain wastrels' hexes. And stay far away from it. She is squishy and delicate and looks better when she's not a smear on the floor.

The other four are nowhere near as squishy and delicate, and James's minions (he has now summoned a shadow one like the one from earlier, too) do a very good job of keeping the elemental busy.

Oh good. Then it'll eventually go down. Luckily for her, she is secure in her worth to the group, because she already took out its shield. She doesn't have to be good at everything.

And soon enough the elemental... explodes, sending James careening out at the wall.

She flinches. That. That wasn't enough to kill him, right, he's fine...?

Whoops how did she get over here next to him so fast, it's a mystery for the ages.

"James, darling, make some kind of affirmative sound if you have continued succeeding at not dying."

He grunts in what sounds like an affirmative sound!

    "The Commander's taken worse," says Rytlock.

        "Like that time with the puppets," suggests Canach.

            "Or in Tarir," remembers Marjory.

    "Or the paneer incident," Rytlock grunts.

            "Rrrr," shudders Marjory. "Let's not talk about the paneer incident."

"Oh, good. Then I'll consider this practice for all those other times he'll no doubt make me very concerned for his safety." She addresses James again, and her voice softens a little. "Do you need help, or do you just want to walk it off...?"

"'M fine. Walk it off," he mumbles, then groans as he resumes an upright position.

    "Shall we, then, Commander?" Canach asks, and this time he... fails to sound completely neutral. Looks like someone else was also worried.

"We shall."

"Right. I'll go piss off the other elemental now. Someone please keep it from squishing me in its anger."

Other elemental: welcome to the world of not having a shield anymore!

The fight goes much like the previous one did, except this time James is smart enough to dodge the elemental explosion at the end.

Good! That's good! He should not be near elemental explosions! She expects he'll do it anyway, because that seems to be the sort of person that he is, but she is going to take her victories where she can get them. Little victories.

Onwards!

    The next door is closed, and they can hear muffled voices on the other side. "Work faster! These Bloodstones won't collect themselves!"

James tiptoes over to the door (which is lacking in traps) with a finger raised to his (concealed) lips.

She edges a little closer, but not quite as far to the door, then purses her lips and tries to get a feel for the magic on the other side. Luckily for her, she has had so very much practice feeling bloodstone related things lately.

'Large bloodstone crystal on the other side. No large power source indicative of person/thing that absorbed the bloodstone's power,' she writes, where everyone (except, she supposes, Rytlock, unless his whatever-he-has is good enough at detail work to catch illusionary letters) can see it. She looks at Canach. He's the one that's supposed to be doing the 'rescuing' of the minister, after all, this seems like it's his show.

No further noises seem to be forthcoming.

    "Sounds like we have some fun ahead of us," growls Rytlock.

        "I will take the lead, Rytlock," says Canach. "I was given specific orders on how this was supposed to be executed, and cannot afford for you to blindly smite."

    "If that's a blindfold crack..."

        "Commander, care to take the door?" Canach says in lieu of responding.

"With pleasure," says James, opening the door with a kick.

        Canach is the first to rush in. "Minister Caudecus, it seems that you have..." He pauses and looks around. The room contains a Bloodstone crystal in the centre, surrounded by White Mantle. No one's obviously ministerly. "Oh. He's not here. Feel free to smite."

    "With pleasure."

James opening the door with a kick: kind of hot. Not that this observation shows in her face, or anything, her sense of professionalism isn't inclined to let her sink into eating the eye candy. ... Proverbial eye candy, since he's still covered in spikes and fire.

She surveys the room and—for the love of Dwayna they're still not grouped up—

"If we're smiting, can we get them to clump up in a large convenient group so I can hex them all?"

"With pleasure," says James before he grunts and sends a gauntlet made of shadow in the direction of the White Mantle farthest away from the group, and then the gauntlet is pulled towards them and every other White Mantle in the room is dragged with them. "Clumpy enough for you?"

"Yes, thank you," she says, flashing him a quick smile. Everyone in that group: enjoy your new hex that slows down all spellcasting and speeds up all spellcasting of anyone targeting you.

Now, is there someone that looks like a good mesmer torment target?

There's a fair share of elementalists and mesmers on the team.

    One of the White Mantle—this one's wearing finer robes, probably a lieutenant or something—gets up with a roar and swings her enormous hammer overhead to hit the ground with it, causing the ground to literally crack and shake. "Do you actually think we'd let you take him from us?"

"He's not yours to keep," says Canach from where he's getting up.

    "These fools must be taught their place!"

Whoops, down goes Vetareh, that's annoying.

"Already know," she grumbles mostly to herself, as she drags herself back to her feet, "above you, but thanks for checking."

Right, let's take this anger out on—uh, not the mesmer, the mesmer has several copies, and she cannot actually tell which mesmer is the real mesmer—the elementalist. She would like to dump her trio of mean choice hexes on them while she tries to figure out how she can tell which member of the clone brigade is actually real. Damn, she hates fighting without enough knowledge of the magic at play, this is so annoying, she's going to have so much studying to do.

That's okay, James seems to have the mesmers well in hand, what with the green shadowy shroud he's enveloped in and the way he's swinging his staff around like a scythe and swirling through the battlefield like the very shadow of death.

She appreciates James very much, and would probably appreciate him more if she were less busy. However: she is kind of busy. She interrupts a spell from someone else that looks large scale and nasty, recasts her stolen speed hex just before it dissipates over its subjects, and also does her best to persuade that one elementalist to curl up in a ball and cry about the bad woman and her hexes. This is much more her element than dealing with large physical combatants—keeping track of a bunch of things at once, flickering her attention around to whomever seems like they need it the most, and very quietly causing a lot of trouble.

The Important Lady roars as the White Mantle are taken down and jumps towards the Bloodstone crystal. "Magic from Bloodstones empowers me! What do you have? Nothing!" she cries before hitting it with her hammer and getting encased in a shield similar to the jade constructs from earlier.

Vetareh rolls her eyes, and then about five seconds later, the Important Lady no longer has magic from bloodstones empowering her. It's almost like it was a bad idea to put shielded elementals in front, in a place where Vetareh could safely figure out how to dismantle the shield. Instead of not doing that.

    "No! Kill that mesmer!"

(Which is a jolly good moment for a flesh golem to tackle her.)

(But that doesn't stop lots of White Mantle from suddenly noticing she exists. Watch one mesmer behind her now—oh wait no it's three—no, four—no, two, the other two exploded—)

It's so nice to have her hard work appreciated, except also ow.

She growls, then picks a mesmer to put a hex on, but hexes are too slow. She needs speed, so she casts her spell to viciously twist the hex to shatter it—that was a clone, but at least she knows which one is real now—and then the real mesmer can eat several interrupts, in a row, because fuck them.

Canach uses that moment to knock said mesmer out.

But there goes the lady with the shield again. And more White Mantle going after Vetareh.

Except, of course, now James uses some countermagic of sorts—on the Bloodstone crystal, creating a connection of thick red mist between himself and it. He positions himself so that this red mist is touching the White Mantle's shield until it implodes—and then the shield is on James himself.

    "KILL THEM! KILL THEM BOTH!" shrieks the dazed White Mantle.

James is so great, and she's going to tell him so when they are not in the middle of... this thing.

"I'm just going to hide behind you now," she informs Canach seriously.

She takes the opportunity to steal someone else's magical energy to heal herself, because ow, and then goes right back to what she'd been doing before. Priority towards the ones that are trying to kill her, because she'd like to not be dead, thanks. Also, somewhere in that, her stolen speed hex ran out, that can be reapplied.

And in due time the opposition is reduced to only that one unfairly durable lady, who's finished by a blow of Canach's sword. "Well, that was that, then," he sighs. "You have a peculiar fighting style," he directs at Vetareh. "I hope you usually have people around to hide behind."

She lets out a relieved breath of air. "Yeah. It's wonderful for screwing the other guys up, except for how it kind of sucks. But the idea is to win, not to live, since once the fight's over you can just resurrect me."

Everyone stops and stares at her.

"...resurrection hasn't worked in over two centuries," says Marjory. "Not since the gods left."

    Canach turns to James and gives him another look that apparently is very communicative, to James.

"Wait, what."

"How about," James starts, "we continue on our time-sensitive quest and answer everyone's questions after Caudecus is well on his way to a Krytan prison sorry I mean palace?"

Vetareh swallows her shriek and forces calm.

The gods are gone. They have left. Resurrection does not work. Death is final, except in the cases where one's soul can be chained to their rotting corpse and twisted into a puppet by a monster. Dragons exist, and want to eat the world. Without Grenth, the Underworld might fall into chaos, and all the souls therein might be eaten by whatever happens to be hungry. It all seems like a cruel, cruel joke. She's out of the Mists, but now the whole world is broken.

This is not calm. This is distinctly not calm. This is cold unrelenting fury at the injustice of it all. Strangely enough, it's not as debilitating as one might expect. Sort of the opposite. The world is broken. There are no gods to fix it. Therefore; it's her job.

Or, well. Not just hers. Other people also exist in the world, and she's hardly going to get anywhere useful with her god complex if she cuts herself off from them. And James is absolutely right, and she knows it. There is a time-sensitive thing that needs doing, and she does not have time for this.

"... Yeah," she agrees. She sounds calm. She doesn't know where it's coming from. "Time-sensitive quest first, then I can explain my tragic backstory. I'm good to go."

Because clearly she's not flinching and leaving now just because she knows death is permanent. As fates go, death isn't the worst one. She'd know.

    "Yes..." says Canach. "Let's go find the minister." He leads the way, but James hangs back a bit to stay closer to Vetareh.

"Sorry about not mentioning it earlier," he murmurs. "It hadn't occurred to me—"

Oh, oh honey no, she doesn't think he did anything wrong.

"Hey, no," she murmurs back. Fuck it, discretion's in shambles and she's no longer concerned about keeping a lid on where she came from anymore. He's wearing spiked and flaming gauntlets, but she can still reach out to (briefly) hold his hand. "It sounds like they've been gone almost as long as I have. It'd just be—normal, to you. And it's not exactly easy to relay almost three hundred years of history, especially when it sounds like the history's been so busy. It's okay."

"History has admittedly been quite busy," he agrees. "The Flame Legion charr are no longer in power, that's important... I think you didn't have asura and norn around?"

"Nope, no idea what those are. Actually, I don't even know what the Flame Legion charr are or why it matters that they're not in power," she says, wryly. "If you haven't noticed I'm just kind of rolling with it."

"Flame Legion is the faction that destroyed Ascalon and that was in charge of the war, but I suppose maybe I should wait until after this to actually try a more thorough explanation," he says, mirroring her wryness.

"Little bit. Not strictly relevant that I know right this second, either. I doubt anything will shake me up quite as bad as the gods having abandoned us, and I think I handled that pretty well." Pause. "I'm an atheist now, by the way."

    "Welcome to the club," calls Canach from on ahead. Marjory elbows him, and James snickers.

"Eavesdropping much?"

Vetareh snickers, too.

"I'm not even sure if listening to us counts as eavesdropping. They're right there."

Rytlock snorts, then looks out at a magic storm forming out in the horizon. "The loose magic here has certainly turned this area into a war zone."

She considers commenting that it's not the most cheerful homecoming, but then decides that she doesn't want to potentially persuade people to ask her questions just yet, so she stays quiet and looks out at the magic storm. Welcome home, Vetareh. Here's your new world.

Aaaaand now she's back to being fully sad/angry at the brokenness of the world again. Hooray.

    "So, Commander, you really think Caudecus caused the blast to reverse itself?" asks Marjory.

"Possibly. Vetareh, Caithe, and I found ground zero and determined something or someone soaked up most of the magic."

        "Hmm. The timing of his escape was suspicious," muses Canach.

"He might not be the one to have soaked up the power. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm getting the impression that he wouldn't have been brave enough to personally try it. It'd be risky to put that much power into someone. It's more likely to kill the subject than anything else. Most mortal beings just aren't able to handle it."

"He is also... somewhat troubled," Canach explains.

"Well, if he has soaked up the power, it hasn't yet killed him, but it might be well on its way to it. If we're lucky it'll be a slow bleed-off."

"I should hope we'll be so lucky, but... Anise has described him as a 'cockroach'."

"What a charming description. Hopefully he stops being our problem soon enough."

Marjory is frowning, though. "But what was Caithe doing here?"

"Investigating the blast. She asked that I forgive her for stealing the egg and... everything."

"Hmmm... I don't know if I'd be able to. I don't think people can change that much."

"Ever the cynic," snorts Rytlock.

"See? Point proven. I'll never change, either. Ask Kasmeer."

"She seemed... sad. I didn't get the impression she was insincere."

"It would be hard for me to blame Caithe for her actions while Mordremoth was alive... But let's save the philosophical arguments until after the minister is dealt with."

"Then let's lay the man to rest!"

"I think you mean return him to safety," says Canach politically.

Rytlock chuffs. "I'll never understand human politics."

Snort. Yeah, Rytlock, she won't, either. Or maybe the better term for that is 'doesn't care to.'

They reach the top of the stone stairs, right outside a door to a circular room that's presumably the coliseum. James raises a finger to his lips again—

—but it turns out to be quite unnecessary; with the way someone's yelling in there, they wouldn't hear the party anyway.

    "Why do I feel like I'm repeating myself? YOU follow MY orders! I don't know where these delusions are coming from... There is one White Mantle, do you hear me? ONE!"

        "Minister, I understand but—"

    "But! But! Quiet! Now tell me again what this pile of rocks can do. Are there magic words? How powerful is it? Well...?"

"That would be him."

"Reminds me of a boss I had at the cotton-candy stands when I was younger," Marjory says, shuddering lightly.

"'Pile of rocks,'" she observes in an undertone, frowning. "Somehow I don't think he means another elemental."

He gives James a look and then looks back at the door.

"Use your words, Canach," says James, sounding amused, but he does kick that door open, too.

Canach walks in and starts his speech: "Minister Caudecus, it seems you have been taken prisoner by the White Mantle. Please, allow us to return you to the safety of the Royal Palace."

    "Let's drop the charade, shall we, you ignorant leaf! I will not be returning to Divinity's Reach until I wear the crown!" calls a man who's presumably minister Caudecus, standing atop a standing ground on the coliseum wall across the room from them. There are two more White Mantle to either side of him, high-ranking if judging by the robes, as well as several other White Mantle scattered in the actual coliseum, all of them surrounding a pile of green-purple stone and taking pieces of Bloodstone crystals around to it. More White Mantle start filing onto the top of the wall surrounding the coliseum, coming from a staircase behind the minister.

"So you're saying," Canach continues, neutrally, "that you work with the White Mantle."

    "Are you quite touched? I'm their supreme leader! And they will carry me all the way to the throne of Kryta!!"

He offers James another one of his meaningful looks.

"Yes, I witnessed his words also."

"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."