What?

... Did she break the loop?

Are they back at the start?

They are.

Great.

She skips the small talk and goes right to illusions.

'I'm a mesmer trapped in the Mists. I don't know how to get out and I don't think I can get help. Do you know how I could find my way to an exit?'

"Everyone stand ready," necromancer guy says immediately, then reads the illusion. "Uh... I'm afraid I don't? I would suggest going to the Battle Isles, it's the only portal to the Mists I know of. How did you get trapped?"

Around and around she goes...

'Accident and bad luck. I don't know how to get to the Battle Isles from here. I was in Orr and did a lot of walking, I don't know where I am in relation to everything else.'

"...Orr? Orr was sunk over two years ago."

"What?" she hisses, out loud.

'What?! How?' she writes.

"Vizier Khilbron cast a dark magic to try to destroy the charr that were invading and overwhelming Orr, but it destroyed the whole peninsula. The Vizier became an undead lich because of the magic, but—he's dead for good, now."

'That doesn't make any sense. The charr couldn't have gotten to Orr. Ascalon's in the way.'

"...Ascalon's been in ruins for over three years, now. I'm from there. I saw it be destroyed by the charr with my own eyes."

"Friend, we must not delay, we need to deliver these turtles to the hatchery," says same guy from last time. He looks at the illusion. "You could accompany us."

'What year is it to you?'

And how long has she been wandering the Mists?

"It's 1073 AE."

She stares at him.

It was 1066 AE before she fell into the Mists.

Seven years. At least. Seven. Possibly longer, because the Mists get weird with time, and this looks like it's a copy from the past. She doesn't think the Mists copy from the future.

No. No no no no no no no she wants to be back in the middle of grey mist again, she wants to be bored again, she doesn't—no.

It could be fake. The things he's saying are absurd, and she knows he's not real. The charr, overwhelming Orr? Ridiculous. Orr's as strong as Ascalon, that's why the Third Guild War isn't over and done with, even if the charr made it through Ascalon they'd be weakened enough not to get through Orr. The Vizier becoming a lich because of magic that destroyed the peninsula? Absurd. Insane. That's not how magic works, you don't accidentally become a lich.

She tries to write something, tries to tell him he's not real, but illusions are tricky. And she is emotionally compromised. She tries to form words, but the illusions shatter into violet glass and disappear before she makes it past 'You—'

And then she stares at her hands and doesn't... do... anything.

"Hey? You okay?"

"We should go."

"—yes, Argo. If—if you want to follow us and continue talking I'll still be here, okay? But this is very important and I have to go."

She doesn't really care what the echo wants to do. If it wants to go away, sure, that's fine. It can do that.

Thoughts form in her head and she scrapes up some resemblance of calm. This is an echo. This is an echo in the Mist, and it can't help her. She needs to leave, and she needs to try to find another way out. She's wasting time standing here trying to get answers from a thing that is not a person.

This decided, she has the clarity of mind to manage an answer.

'You can't help me anyway. And I can't help you. I'm sorry. I'll go.'

"...okay. Good luck. I'll—try to return here and find you if I can." Onwards they go to this iteration of the loop.

"If I had any luck at all," she says, "I wouldn't be here."

It'd be smart to stay, to try and get as much maybe-information from these things as possible, to try and figure out if there is any way at all for them to help her. But she doesn't want to be here anymore. She wants to go home. She won't get that by staying here. She might not get that ever, but she definitely won't get that if she stays here and holds onto people that aren't real just because they're more interesting than walking around in mist some more. And she doesn't know how long this is taking. And she doesn't know if the loop is based on anything real or not.

She leaves.

The area surrounding the loop is also part of the jade sea, but it gets less and less defined the farther from it she is, boats no longer appearing and waves getting smaller and more regular.

Until eventually she's back to the hard rock and dead trees from before. Or perhaps it's somewhere else; at any rate it's impossible to distinguish any one place from anywhere else.

The direction doesn't matter.

She picks one, and then she goes back to walking.

The Mists are neither completely boring nor completely exciting. They are the space between worlds, the proto-reality from which all other realities emerge; Tyria is but one of the worlds in it, as are the gods' realms, the Rift and within it the Hall of Heroes, and countless others that humans in Tyria have never heard of. They're the raw matter from which worlds are made, and they borrow aspects from them once they exist, both feeding them into other worlds and just recording them forever in themselves. From the Mists, you can reach everywhere, but you are nowhere.

The vast unknowable space between worlds is, mostly, empty. But she runs into other things than emptiness; other stolen places, other looping echoes. A fight between a hero and an undead king; a stone colossus, trapped by cultists performing a dread ritual; a submerged city, krait and largos fighting over treasures hidden within; a war between soldiers wearing long robes invoking spirits of the past and humanoids afflicted with some horrible disfiguring disease. Sometimes they move, and loop; sometimes they are still, only the undying structures with no life or liveliness to tell the story of what one did day-to-day there.

There are, she'll find, other people there, as lost or perhaps more than she is. They're rare, much rarer than the pieces of stolen reality, and most of them too far gone to really interact with her.

There are, she'll find, demons there; mishmashes of creatures from many worlds, fleshy creatures with too many eyes and teeth, beasts that are made out of concepts and whose reality is given more form by knowledge and fear, things that were never meant to be, anywhere, but by the very nature of this unreality come to exist. If she's smart—and lucky—she can avoid their attention. She does not want their attention.

This is not fair. This is not right. If the universe were fair then she would not be here. She doesn't deserve it. No one does. Death is a mercy compared to this. If she had her way, all of the Mists would burn and the space between worlds would be gone. This is stupid, and would probably break all of reality, but 'wandering in the Mists' is a torment that should not occur to anyone. Especially not to her.

Fortunately for her, spite is quite the motivator.

As she figures out relatively (as things in the Mist go, anyway) quickly, the necromancer from the first looping echo wasn't lying. Or false. Every time she finds someone she can question about Orr, they're either from the far distant past, or they agree with him. The charr invaded Orr, and Orr blew itself up. Her parents, having lived in Arah, are almost certainly dead. No resurrections, either, what with there being too many people for anyone to possibly sort through in the window available for a resurrection. They died never knowing what happened to her. They probably still don't, and they wait for her still in the Underworld. Everyone she ever knew and ever loved is dead. It's just her, alone in the Mists.

Well, all right then.

Her regrets get discarded like the rubbish that they are. She no longer has the patience for them. So what, if she wasn't quick-thinking enough to avert or avoid the disaster that got her here in the first place? She has not lost. Not yet. So what, if she doesn't know the way out of the Mists? She has forever. She will find it. So what, if everyone else that she meets is either not a person or crazy? She isn't. Not yet. Her loved ones do not know where she is and must think the worst possible fate has occurred to her, and in a way it has. But in another way, it hasn't, because the worst possible fate is the one she's running from. Despair. Hope is a bitter pill to swallow, but she takes it with every stubborn footstep, every comforting echo she turns away from. Maybe she's chasing a fool's errand, maybe it's impossible, but at least that's better than never having tried at all. Step (She will get out), step (She will get out), step (She will get out).

This horrible place may not have her. It will not take her sanity, and it will not take her will, and without those it will never get her.

She talks to echoes. When the echoes allow for it, she assists different sides in their conflicts just because she can. Because she enjoys it, and nothing else. There doesn't need to be another reason. She learns and theorizes and watches history play out through a thousand broken mirrors, and she keeps on living with herself. Maybe the things she has learned will never get used, maybe they'll die with her, but then she'll arrive at the Underworld and have so much to show for it. Or maybe she won't, and all she'll ever have is the knowledge that she fought. Maybe that's enough. She steals laughter and wit and fun from this damnable place. She is—beautiful. Terrifying. A creature that has walked through the Mists and will come out sane. She is not so arrogant to think that her mental fortitude is infinite, but it doesn't need to be. It just needs to last long enough to get lucky. Just once. Or maybe it's really a thousand times, but what does she care? She has forever, which in practice means 'until her sanity gives out.'

Her sanity takes a very long time to give out. Or maybe it doesn't. Maybe her flavor of insanity is 'I will do the impossible.' To be honest, she's fine with that.

She walks on.