If the Adamants are causing problems by making metal and that's making it take four pounds of copper to buy a sheep you just have to make that illegal, he doesn't know why other cities aren't trying it. If anybody starts up he'll make them sell their Adamant to the university, that's all. - this is probably less important right now than the thing about the dead guy. Who does that? If you want to commit suicide by elemental you go somewhere nobody's around...

That's also an interesting thread, Jisa decides. She pokes his mind again, slightly less carefully this time, in the direction of thinking more about people who decide to free their elementals, and how they do it, since she thinks they're mostly not the kind of mage she is and therefore probably don't use mage-sight to see how to snap their own amulets... 

The mayor is not a mage himself but he is pretty sure that after a few people tried manumitting their elementals because of customs about not keeping slaves longer than twenty years, or because their elementals convinced them to somehow, and all those people were instantly murdered by their elementals, people have stopped doing it except when they're actually trying to die of it. It looks very quick, he supposes. Though surely you could also agree to sell your elemental and give the money to your family and have the elemental kill you equally quickly in the way one normally controls them. Whatever. Some people he'll never understand.

- wait, what, she thought it was the amulets that were killing the people. But, hmm, maybe she wasn't watching closely enough? Or was just making assumptions? 

Jisa tries to recall the scene both times, as clearly as possible in every detail. She has a very good memory, Mindhealing helps with that and so does the fact that she was incredibly alarmed both times. 

The amulets did break, because she broke them, but the elementals were definitely letting off a lot of magic and both the people died of that part.

Oh no she feels even worse and stupider that she didn't notice that part until now! 

Maybe she can set-command them not to? Jisa is very aware that non-consensually putting set-commands on people is extremely unethical and is the sort of thing that might get her expelled from the Mindhealers' Collegium, but it's better than either letting all the slaves stay enslaved or murdering their owners in the process of freeing them. Right? 

Jisa can imagine Van's disapproving expression perfectly. But Stef would think it was reasonable. 

She looks for the nearest elemental. 

The nearest is an Adamant being tapped while a mage puts enchantments a house down the street.

:Hello. I want to free you and I can do it with magic but apparently you would kill your owner if I did? Can you decide not to do that?: 

:I've... never been freed before, I don't know. She deserves it though:

:Um, I mean, that's fair for you to think. Just, I'm not really willing to free all the elementals in the city if it means hundreds of people are going to die. Um, also I noticed a problem where you might just get captured again so I'll need to do something about that, maybe I can make you invisible, but I don't really know how the capturing works either: 

:I think if they can't see me they won't know to do it. Some elements let you people see invisible things though:

:Um, do you want me to try anyway? I'll make you invisible and maybe if you fly really fast, no one with those elements will have a chance to get you - and I can make a distraction - but I can't promise it'll work:  

:Yes I want to get out!:

:All right. I need to take my time setting this up. And, um, I'm going to use something called a set-command for you not to hurt your owner, because that's really important to me, that's a condition of rescuing you: 

:She's evil. She'll catch someone else and hurt them too:

:I know - but...: Jisa trails off. And then just does it anyway. :Do not harm her: Just in case that somehow doesn't work on elementals, even though she can read them fine with Mindhealing, she is going to shield the hell out of the woman before trying to break the amulet. 

The amulet breaks. The woman shrieks, absolutely convinced she's about to die. The Adamant tries to swat her in the head with a metal wing while taking off but doesn't connect and then he's gone.

Illusion of invisibility! She's not good enough at illusions to make it perfect so there's still a faint shimmer moving through the air. She adds some magical shielding for good measure, before the elemental is out of range for delicate mage-work. 

The woman grabs a chunk of the broken amulet and mashes it into shape, squinting at the shimmer, and is about to recapture the fleeing Adamant.

:STOP: Jisa orders her, and then she sprints away as fast as she can, because she's still herself under illusion but she's doing a lot of magic at once and it's hard to maintain and all of it must be very suspicious. 

The woman stops, standing stock still in the street, helpless, while her initial scream attracts people from the surrounding houses.

Jisa hides behind a house, pressed to the back wall, and is just barely still enough in range that once the elemental is far far away she'll try to dig out the set-command and free the woman. 

When she's free she can explain to all these concerned people what happened and which way the Adamant went! They'll get a hunting party together with a Glass to see through whatever it was doing - did you know that was an Adamant power, no, did you? - they'll go catch it before it hurts anyone -

Everything about all of this is so concerning! And confusing! 

Jisa creeps behind them at a distance once the hunting party is assembled, reading all of their thoughts including the Glass, trying to figure out what's going on. 

The Glass is VERY DEPRESSED but will do what they tell him as the path of least resistance.