I can do a lot of different things with the triggers, if you have a better idea than this it's probably just that I didn't think of it, not that I can't do it. But it'd have a petty simple trigger - just a password, and if someone says that, you're teleported to a spot and pinned there. I'd usually do it so that once you're pinned, moving someplace away from there stops the pin, but you have other teleport spells, so I can't - another password to deactivate it, maybe, or teleporting to a specific spot that you wouldn't otherwise teleport to, I don't know - something someone other than me can do, anyway, if it's teleporting to a specific spot I can make some necklaces or whatever that they can give you to do that. And I'll have a way of deactivating the spell entirely, in case we need to replace it with one that works differently, or if we find a way to make sure it's not needed.

I am not sure that's sufficient to make it safe - they'd have to get the password out, and if the Enemy learned it he could use it too - but I'll discuss options with them.

Sigh. Yeah. I can do more restrictive things, but I really don't want to.

It's a better trigger that we'd need, not a more restrictive response to it.

Yeah, but if the trigger's the problem, the solution might be to do something that doesn't need one as much - looser restrictions but most or all of the time, maybe. But I don't like it.

If we can't think of a way to make me safe I have to stay here.

Sigh.

Let me test what I'm thinking of, then.

She sits and trances for a couple minutes, and then teleports to one side of the cave. She tries walking along the wall, and aside from one spot where she unexpectedly teleports a few feet forward in mid-stride, this works normally. Then she tries to walk toward the center of the room, and when she gets about four feet from the wall she's teleported back next to it. Seems like that might work.

Trying something that restrains someone within a boundary? In general that kills Eldar, whether you do it with walls or with spells.

Basically, yeah. I was thinking I could make it big enough - not all of any place, so people can get away, but part of any place you want to go to. But if it doesn't work that way, I guess not.

That might work. I'm stuck in the cave and it's okay because it's not technically imprisonment - also, the Enemy has a way around it so you cannot die in Angband, it's possible that's an alteration to us and I can now endure imprisonment indefinitely.

She nods. If you can tell if it's not enough I can do something about that, the way this works it's not especially hard to add places or let you out of it entirely for a while without having to recast the whole thing afterward.

I'd be able to tell. That might suffice, that and not letting me near weapons.

And if we come up with something better we can do that instead. She sighs. I hate this.

It's going to be a project to cast everything but I can do a lot of it while you're still here.

Run it by my brothers first, see if they think of any loopholes.

Yeah.

Do you actually want this? Of the options we have?

Whatever things would be the right things to do if this were real, and don't give the Enemy useful information, are the right things to do.

Torturing you is definitely not the right thing to do and this is a hex we're talking about. One that might hurt you in a way that I don't actually understand.

I can't see why torturing me would be an exception to that rule.

Well, I do.

If you actually want it, of the options available, that's fine. But 'spend a couple days thinking about things that might hurt less' is an option that's available.

Sure. Let me know if you think of any.

All right.

I'll go tell your sibling, too, maybe one of them will come up with something.

I'm sure they've been thinking about it a lot.

Yeah.

And here she is back with Carnistir.

Hey.

Hey.

Turns out walking is not the actual problem. They'd been talking like there was a way to know if they'd be safe to be around, I hadn't realized there isn't.