Mival has meanwhile approached in turn and does not miss a word! He can hear with his own ears a direct testimony from someone who personally knew the famous hero about whom almost nobody knows anything for sure anymore!

"The... flood..." the ghost woman promptly falls back into a state of acute sadness, bringing an ethereal hand to wipe the equally ethereal tears from her eyes "This means the trap was real... So it's true. It wasn't a nightmare. Rajmund, my precious. My servant Jhessail. That damned Jhessail Buckman! She tricked me without mercy. I just wanted to be with Rajmund forever... I have never wanted anything else... And for this very reason... for this very reason... I was the cause of his end! I..."

But whatever Rephis is about to say, it almost seems too heavy to rise to her lips and earn the exit - she bursts into ethereal but no less desperate tears again...

Spira steps forward with genuine sympathy and concern written across her face.  "We are so sorry, my Lady.  But you also had loyal servants whose fidelity lasted beyond the grave,  The castle town that your husband founded yet flourishes, and your memory and his are still so revered that the descendants of your burghers wanted to learn the truth of what happened that horrible day and avenge you, and so they sent us.  And when we came to the upper passages, the shade of a captain of your guard remembered his duty and aided us to find a way down here where we swear to you that we will do all in our power to learn if justice may yet be done even now.  We have encountered minions of the foe who speak of a Lombulluth creature as if it yet lived and as if it was ultimately behind the attack."

===888===

Persuasion 19 (to gain the Lady's trust and soothe her as much as can be given the situation)

Past with Thetis: 

"Well, that's up to you, of course.," Spira replies with a wicked sparkle in her eyes and a suggestive wink towards Darvin to imply that she quite understands the situation.  "But if you really WANTED that goodbye kiss ... well, there's no reason it has to be entirely one or the other, now is there?"  She winks encouragingly in case her point is not glaringly obvious.

Before Thetis departs:

The nereid smiles at the prospect of a 'goodbye kiss', as if reconsidering it, but Mival points out: "I think Thetis had in mind a truly... definitive kiss for Bytwoeff — You see, Spira, she has the power to drown her partner by kissing him! But that would put us back into the vicious cycle of revenge... maybe it's better not to."

"You're a real killjoy, Mival!" the little aquatic creature feigns indignation. "I'm almost tempted... to give you the goodbye kiss, then!" and approaches, looking playfully threatening...

The doppelganger, however, plays along and doesn't back down, winking: "What kind of hero would I be if I backed away from the threats of monsters?"

Laughing, Thetis then kisses him for real... but without drowning him, since when the two part, Mival is still alive and well—and apparently satisfied.

After that, the young girl in the skimpy shell dress gracefully waves her hand in a final farewell and disappears into the water, as if melting into it.

In the presence of the ghost woman:

The pain of her memories seems to prevent the ghost woman from continuing, but after she meets the empathetic eyes of Spira, whose words seem to have deeply touched her, she finally finds the strength to speak again: "Lombulluth... I had forgotten that unpronounceable name—but I haven't forgotten the abomination to which it belongs. A huge, disgusting fish, with tentacles sprouting everywhere, and which led a band of equally horrible creatures. It must have been an enemy my precious had made during those absurd adventures for which I always begged him not to go."

"That day, a trap was sprung for everyone," she goes on. "A deception for everyone. My servant Jhessail Buckman, cursed be she for eternity, was in league with Lumb... Lamb... that one, in short. She convinced me to lure my Rajmund down here! But how could I know... How could I imagine... I only wanted Rajmund with me forever. I had to pretend I was taken hostage. Send word that, for my own safety, he alone should come down to face my captor. Rajmund would save me - and the risk of losing me would eventually remind him of my value to him!"

"But when he, my precious, came... it didn't happen at all as agreed" the ectroplasmic tears are now streaming almost continuously, dispersing shortly after leaving the eyes. "The kidnapper who was holding me hostage disappeared. The wall next to us gave way. And water poured everywhere. Water and... monsters. The one with the impossible name and several others. They must have prepared everything carefully in the previous days. My Rajmund found himself fighting under their conditions. Alone, against so many. Trying to protect me, as well as himself. Hampered by the water. And none of his beloved underlings came to help us! No one! No one swam underwater to us".

"Sometimes, I hope it's all just a terrifying nightmare" Rephis confesses. "That I may wake, with my precious coming here for me. That it is not true what I remember. That my Rajmund's courage was ultimately in vain, as the great claw of a crustacean-like horror finally managed to tear open his chest, stopping once and for all that burning and daring heart. After witnessing that horrifying scene, I decided to end it all. I killed myself by inhaling water deeply and letting myself drown. Yet not even that went as I wanted." She curls up in a fetal position, shaking with sobs (though, given her nature, instead of sinking to the floor, she simply floats). "Nothing is over. I am here. Always. And always alone - more, much more alone than I ever felt in life."

"I am not sure what holds you to this world Rephis. I am truly saddened to hear of your loss of both Rajmund and the torment you have felt since," Roxana says, trying to console the spirit some more. "Don't ever think though that you caused your husband's death. You were deceived by others.  It is their crime." There is a longer pause before she adds, "I doubt it is much consolation, but I think we crossed that crustacean horror yesterday. And we were able to defeat it."

Rephis seems to be able to divert her despair into a furious, partial satisfaction, upon hearing of the crustacean horror's death: "Well done! Death to those who have hurt my precious me!"

Then, the deceased noblewoman focuses on the opening words of Roxana's speech: "What holds me to this world? Perhaps I've simply clung to the desperate hope that everything was a nightmare. Perhaps I'm still waiting for Rajmund to come back to save me, to tell me that somehow he's made it once again. To tell me that he's realized he loves me and that he'll leave that absurd life of adventures to stay with me forever. Perhaps I can't accept that, by letting myself be deceived, I was partly the cause of all this..." While speaking, she stood up again and fixed her gaze on the interlocutor—so she also notices Mival, who is close to her, and suddenly...

...Suddenly, Rephis begins to stare at the Doppelganger carefully: "No! It's not possible! And yet it is so! Too many similar traits... Plus... I feel it in the depths of my soul: you are a descendant of him! Of my precious! Of my Rajmund!" trembling, she approaches to caress him "I don't know if it is from anger and indignation, or from relief and happiness, that I am about to explode right now... You are his descendant... So in a certain sense he still lives in you... And this should be a joy capable of suddenly projecting me to the top of Mount Celestia... if it weren't for the fact that it is not to me that you owe your birth. For Rajmund and I didn't have children. So... he... my precious... is necessarily with someone else, who got his lineage!"

Mival, paralyzed by surprise and clearly unsure of what he should say, simply looks at her with wide open eyes, letting those elegant hands pass through him; hands that would like to caress him, but can only pass through his cheek, his flesh, his body...

Roxana too is surprised. "You believe Mival is a descendant of your husband?"  She glances over at Mival. "That's a surprise. But perhaps rather than a descendant perhaps it is just a common ancestor? Descended from a brother or uncle or something? Not that we know one way or another." She shakes her head, looking back to Rephis. "You seem though pleased to see that has lineage has proceeded on to today. You loved your husband so much that just knowing something of his continued pleases you?"