Taimi's communicator decides to start talking again; this time, it's louder and clearer.

"- this area recently experienced a large flood of magical energy. I'm not sure from what exactly, the fractal doesn't reach that far, but it feels, hm, planty? And very, very large. But whatever it is, it's moved the timetable up for the inevitable cataclysmic explosion this time bomb's hurtling towards. I've been trying to calculate the expected size of the explosion, but the new energy has thrown off all my calculations and the ambient magic those idiots keep stoking has destroyed all of my notes. Again!"

"...this is clearer than it's been before," he says out loud, having acquired the bad habit of speaking to the voice that can't hear him over the course of running into this weird anomaly all day long. "Of course Mordremoth's death would've powered up the Bloodstone. I should check whether Taimi included that in her calculations."

"Regardless, the hypocenter of the inevitable stupid explosion is fairly obvious, even if it was debatable before - they seem to be planning some kind of ritual next to the hole they cracked in the - I guess I don't know for sure it's a Bloodstone, in the really really big magical repository that has every indication, but no outside confirmation, of being a Bloodstone. I don't know why they've decided to go and conduct a ritual down there - I'll need to look through their letters without disturbing the fractal too much, I don't want to reset this again and risk destabilizing it further. It's a terrible plan, though, but what else is new when it comes to this cult."

—wait. Wait. Wait a minute. Fractal?

Ah, fuck.

Okay, he thinks he knows what's happening with this weird voice. He... might need to go talk to Dessa about it. Assuming he's not a fractal, that is, that'd be depressing. Not that he knows how he could tell, and he thinks there isn't much he can do without outside help. 

But, well, it makes sense that there'd be fractals of what happened here in the Mists, it's a very big and magical and historically important event, and it also probably thinned the Veil by a lot.

And maybe that person could still be here. 

He keeps going.

There are, predictably, more things to kill.

And also more from the mysterious voice from the Mists.

"- ritual was definitely under new management. I don't understand - there's obviously more competence to the new guy. But he seems to have decided that it's all going to blow anyway, might as well make it the most spectacular explosion Tyria's ever seen. And that's from a damn Orrian, if anyone knows their spectacular explosions it'd be -"

The voice seems to break a little, then stops.

"... it'll certainly blow a hole to the Mists, at least. I might be able to use this. If it doesn't kill me. If there's a Tyria to even return to after this blast. If - ugh. No, enough, think through the problem..."

Yeah! That's what he was thinking! And if there's anywhere such a hole would be—

—wait, Orrian?

Wait.

Wait.

Wait a gods damned minute.

Oh that's going to be fucking hilarious.

So, the crater is actually more of an enormous hole, and it opens into a cave. If there's anyway for him to find this person...

She'd probably be at the center of where the explosion occurred; there are signs of a torrent of magic coming from that direction.

Predictably, there's a lot of magic at this location.

And one little subtle twist in the air that doesn't feel the same as the rest of the magical cacophony. If he weren't looking for it, or something like it, it would be very easy to miss.

The communicator crackles as James draws close to it, but the voice of the Mists doesn't say anything.

"I don't actually know what to do about this," he says, out loud.

The communicator crackles -

"- hello???"

"Oh, good, that works! Hello!" —wait, he does not want to be intimidating and spiky right now. He pulls his helmet off and withdraws the fire and spikes from his armour. "I'm James, it's nice to meet you! It seems like you might be stuck in the Mists? And if I'm not a fractal, I might be able to help! Somehow! Hopefully you will know how!"

There's a little relieved laugh.

"Hi, James. Nice to meet you too, probably. Technically speaking I'm sort of between the Mists and Tyria, because being fully on the Tyrian side during the explosion would have gotten me vaporized. Uh - you should just need to stabilize your side of the rift and then I should fall through?"

"That seems like something someone who is not me would definitely know how to do."

"Oh, um. Extend your personal shield to cover the little - it's not really a rift, more like a bubble? It's being held together mostly by the pressure of the ambient magic, the plan had been to wait for things to settle down enough that it would burst on its own. But shielding it should probably be enough."

"Understood!" Time to make his experimental shield spell that was developed by a sixteen-year-old supergenius over the past few days interact with this woman's only shot at escaping from a fate worse than death! What could go wrong?

Nothing, apparently!

With a little yelp of surprise, a red haired woman is dropped out of the air, and into his arms.

He was thankfully already expecting to need to stabilise her. "It worked! It's a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance. Welcome back to Tyria."

"... Hi," she says, a little shyly, smiling beautifully. "Um. Thank you. It's, uh, still standing? Not torn apart by too many explosions?"

"It is, somehow, still standing, Bloodstone explosions notwithstanding. Am I correct to guess that I am speaking to Lady Vetareh of Orr?"

This seems to catch her by surprise!

"I - yes? How do you - I mean, yes, I'm Vetareh, though I am not for the record a Lady, and, uh, I'm not mistaken in that Orr blew itself up five minutes after I left?"

"The story may have gotten embellished over the centuries. It sometimes calls you a princess, and says you saved the lives of somewhere between a few and a few hundred Orrians by closing a chaotic rift to the Mists from the other side. And I have been following—echoes of your voice, all over the place, commenting on the White Mantle's experiments. And you mentioned being from Orr, and believing that you were witnessing a fractal, so coupled with the clear deep understanding of magic the commentary suggested... I made a guess."

"Oh." Blink blink. "Good guess. I - I'm, I'm just surprised I was... remembered at all, much less had a story t-that," oh no, now she wants to cry, she wasn't forgotten and abandoned in the Mists, even when her entire country blew itself up, it's just that no one could find her...