"It's appreciated," he says. "I would also appreciate a chair, and perhaps a meal."

"Do you object to a minimally invasive scan of your mind? The fact that you've been disenfranchised through no fault of your own doesn't guarantee that the spell chose a non-dangerous target. If you do object we can certainly arrange for a chair and a meal within the circle."

"...Define minimally invasive."

"All I need to know is whether you're dangerous, so that's all I'll look for and all I'll find," says Keo.

"Thank you," says Ekador. He sits down. The much-travelled block of wood goes back to his pocket.

"I see," he says. "That sounds... convenient, given the circumstances."

"If there's anything else that could make your stay here less inconvenient please do let me know," says Keo. "How about I show you to one of those empty rooms, and Korulen's father will be here presently to talk to the girls about what's next for them?"

"Reasonable," says Ekador. He stands up again.

Keo leads him out into the hall, and down to the end. Behind a door at said end is a small boxy room with no other exits. She waves him in.

He follows, inspecting the small boxy room curiously.

Ekador makes a startled sound, abruptly made aware of the fact that he is in a box not physically supported by any structure he can detect, and that box is now falling. He reacts on instinct - the walls of the lift chute are made of wood, the lift likewise; the movement of one relative to the other is directly perceptible to him and he can likewise directly cause it to stop, by commanding the lift and the walls to behave as though they are one solid object despite the intervening space. He does not so much decide to do this as do it and then understand how he did.

"Yes," he says. "I suppose on reflection it's obvious that there was magic at work, but I reacted to apparently falling before I had time to question that appearance. I apologize."

"...Can you undo it, or do I need to teleport us out of here and arrange for repairs?"

They descend at a not-uncontrolled-falling pace.

Ekador relaxes when this becomes clear.

Then the lift starts going left.

"How does it do that?"

"The lifts are enchanted to travel through the chutes via the most efficient non-interfering path available," says Keo.

"That seems more... complicated than the magic I'm familiar with," he says. "But then, so does summoning me at random out of a chair in another country."