just says <protected> for some reason.

This is shown so you know mobs won't attack, while in dialogue.

that isn't clear at all & i highly doubt that's the intended purpose. Also is this an artemis thing or a wynncraft thing

I introduced the "" label, but I only ever intended it to be a temporary thing to show that the detection of protection status was working or not. I agree with @Symmettry that the purpose is likely unclear and confusing for all users.

My plan was to actually change the Overlay into a proper Screen when faced with a protected dialogue. That way, you would be able to click on the continue button (or select an appropriate answer to a multi-reply dialogue) using the mouse. We could design the screen to look just like the overlay, so there would be no visual differences, except for a "Continue" button. (It would likely need to have a special texture rather than a vanilla button, which might look out of place in that context.)

For non-protected dialogues then, we could be more clear that you are not protected, preferably by some graphical design rather than text (e.g. like a ⚠️ icon or whatever).

I understand if not everyone would appreciate having a Screen, so if this functionality is turned off, the ⚠️ could be replaced by a 🛡️ when you are in a protected dialog. I think it would make more sense than the "" text.

Having the overlay be a screen could be interesting and it would probably solve the issue discussed in #2510 by the text being hoverable to display the transcription as you can't currently hover an overlay

Please feel free to take a stab at it. :) I imagine it will make a huge impact to the play feel of Wynncraft, to be able to click "Continue" instead of sneaking...

Unfortunately I will not have the time available to implement any of these ideas.