"Bullshit."

Isabella smiles. "Alright." Her tone shifts, becoming brighter and cheerier. "My father owns this castle, but he's away on business. Would you like to come in?"

"I'm already in your castle," Cam says. "And strongly suspect your father is dead or something, though you haven't mentioned him."

"Eighty years dead, yes. It appears that your device works, at least against voice alone. Would you care to look into my eyes for this next part? Also, can you tell when I'm trying to nudge you?"

"The eyes thing has a verbal component, right? I could set up something similar to my audio thing with a pair of glasses but it would be way more obvious. I can sort of tell, more of a tone of voice thing than anything else."

"That's good. It takes a little practice for people to be able to notice sometimes. The eyes thing does have a verbal component, but it's sufficiently different that glasses might be necessary."

"And it can be recovered from in short order, no lasting side effects?"

"Side effects would only be likely if you were dominated for an extended length of time. A test should be reasonably safe."

"Right. I suppose if you were going to do this maliciously you could have done it without warning me." Sigh. "Go."

She meets his eyes, and there's an immediate feeling of pressure as she speaks. "Raise your right hand."

Cam hisses. His hand twitches, but that's all. "Okay, unless that was at full oomph, my earplugs aren't helping me here."

"Would you care to try it again without them? It would be useful to know wether the earplugs have any effect at all."

"Sure." A bit of wire materializes sticking out of each of his ears; Cam pulls and they turn out to be hooks attached to bits of electronics.

Isabella waits for all the electronic bits to be cleared. "Again, then." She raises her eyes to meet his once more. "Raise your right hand." This time, the pressure is at least twice as strong.

"That's stronger," says Cam, although he materializes a block of ice chained with more ice around his wrist fast enough to keep his arm from going up very far. "And now I have a block of ice, do you have a use for ice or should it be chucked outside and allowed to melt?"

Cam goes and puts the ice out the door; the bit around his wrist appears to spontaneously melt. "Yeah. Do people wear glasses in this world? What do they look like?"

"The ones I've seen have been wire-rimmed, with thick lenses, but anything that appears to be made out of brass or wood would likely pass without too much comment."

"Okay..." Cam fiddles with his computer. "Thick lenses helps... Unrelatedly I can cure some forms of color-blindness temporarily..." Fiddle fiddle. He puts his ear-things back in. Eventually he comes up with a pair of glasses, with slightly chunky brass frames and glass lenses. "That took some doing." He puts them on, and blinks. "Ugh, the delay is just slightly noticeable. Do my eyes look more distorted than they ought?"

"The glasses are a little unusual in their style, but not so much as to attract comment. I can't tell if your eyes are any different than they should be for lenses that thick."

"Okay, good. Try me again."

Cam wags his tail. "Success."

Isabella grins. "A good start, at least. Should I put a bit more force behind it?"

"Uh, what's the worst case scenario if you explode my glasses or something?"