It's Maitimo. The Enemy couldn't have broken him.

They want to be surer than that.

Because he's a noble fool.

She bristles, just slightly. Because it matters.

I have an idea but I really hope you can come up with a better one.

What's your idea?

She makes a face. I'm not sure how horrifying this sounds, but probably at least some - I can do a variant on the pinning hex that lets people move a little ways from where they're pinned to, and I can put a bunch of those together to make paths. It'll take a while, but I can make it so they can move around the whole palace - or most of the whole palace, they still shouldn't have access to weapons, they said - but in any room they're in, people can get away from them if anything happens. And other places, too - we're not sure how much space they'll need to not feel trapped, but if it's just that, I can do it.

And remove it once he's satisfied it's no longer necessary?

She nods. It'll be completely removable.

Okay, seems fair enough. I'll ask Maitimo's regent.

All right, thank you.

Macalaure, he's trying to figure out how to come back if he might be rigged to fight us.

They brainstorm a few minutes, then - can you do something triggered by moving too fast, or by picking up a weapon -

Moving too fast, yeah. Moving in certain ways, too. Weapon, no, unless they're all made of something distinctive or something.

Moving in ways that could hurt someone. Might be a less destructive way to do it. And - anything with a blade? That distinctive enough? There are obviously other weapons but they'd be harder to keep quiet and easier to react to -

Someone would have to show me which movements were unsafe, my magic doesn't do abstractions like that. And I can only tell things about the parts of an object that an enspelled person is touching, and even that's limited; 'things with blades' definitely doesn't work. Maybe if I start getting into mental triggers - knowing they're holding a weapon, intending to attack someone - but I'm not sure those'd be trustworthy under the circumstances, how much do you know about what it's like?

We have no idea. He might not want to be doing it at all. It probably won't affect him.

Mm.

If there was a way for me to see someone like that, that'd help, but it sounds like there's really no way.

I need to get going - a couple more things to think about, I can do a reverse pin hex to keep them out of certain places - wherever you have your weapons - and my first thought was a plain pinning hex with a password trigger, but then you have a problem making sure all the right people know the password and nobody else does. Maybe there's a way to use those in combination that I haven't thought of yet.

I'll ask. I really think he's fine without magic. He's my brother.

Sigh. Hug? Probably hug. I'm not happy about it either. But I think we have to trust their judgement on it.

At least for now.

Mmhmm.

After a bit hopefully he'll see he's safe.

Yeah, hopefully.

A bit more hug, and then, I really do need to go.

Okay. Take care.

You too.

Back to the cave. Oatmeal is done, she moves it away from the fire. They had a couple good ideas but nothing amazing, they're going to think about it.

Okay.