And here is a Maitimë in person. She smiles distractedly at Isabella. "Okay. Now a good time?"

"Now's fine."

"All right. What not being able to do something because of an oath feels like, what having to do something because of an oath feels like - you can't do memory, right, we can't check that -"

"I have no memory-modifying powers."

"Okay. Want to check what happens if we try those?"

"Sure. Give me some leadtime in case it's complicated, don't plan to swear something in two minutes -"

Look ahead -

Maitimë gives her some leadtime. Maitimë drafts some firmly harmless oaths - "I swear for the next twenty minutes not to say 'potato', I swear in the next twenty minutes to clap my hands at least five times, I swear for the next twenty minutes to keep my hand on this desk -" - "look okay?"

"I think so. Maybe don't combine hand-on-desk with clapping, that seems awkward."

"Okay." And within-this-hypothetical future she instead takes a ring off. "I swear for the next twenty minutes to keep this ring on this desk." And she bounces the sensation - a sort of currently-not-very-intense compulsion to do that, which flares up abruptly if she tries reaching for the ring to move it, or shaking the desk, or asking Isabella to move it for her -

And if Isabella goes for it on her own -?

Grabs her arm.

How far does that escalate if Isabella's really determined to knock the ring off -?

Picks her up and pulls her away, whimpering - please don't do that just leave it alone - and she bounces the sensation - the intensity flares up whenever the ring is actually close to getting moved, it doesn't oblige her to disable everyone in the vicinity or anything, just to get in their way or convince them to stop -

If Isabella pretends to be convinced then suddenly lunges for it -

Tackles her, holds her down - her ears are bright red -

- huh -

Isabella drops out of look-ahead. "I can't figure out what happens if I actually get the ring off the desk - other results were -" Bounce.

"Well that's terrifying. We should probably set one where you can break the promised condition but it's going to have to not be a strength thing. Uh. Sorry."

"I do not go around investing my self-esteem in my physical imposingness. What would work?"

"I'm not immediately thinking of anything -"

"If you swear to beat me at Governor that takes longer than an hour and implies backchaining which doesn't work..."

"Yeah. Any oaths you could use precognition to beat we can't use precognition to check and I do not want to check without it, that looked terrifying -"

"Yeah. You could swear to keep some information from somebody and then have to convince me not to tell them? Unless that just makes you knock me unconscious or something."

"Or I could tie myself to the chair and have less range of motion to fight you over the location of the ring."

"That could work too."

Are the tips of her ears red again yes they are. "We can do the other tests first, they should be more straightforward -"