She has landed in a perfectly innocuous looking bit of wilderness on the shore of a lake. There are lilypads.

The Gate comes down with a snap before she can think about whether she wants to immediately go back. Ouch. 

She extends her Othersenses, wincing a bit at the headache. Any nodes or ley-lines around? Any minds? 

There is a mind over there! In the lake, under the water.

Huh. She doesn't know of any aquatic species that are people. 

Also it's unethical to read people's minds without asking. 

Jisa almost does it anyway, but catches herself. She's had the ethics conversation enough times by now. 

:Hello?: she tries instead. 

Water suddenly sprays out of the lake, slapping a lilypad smack dab over her nose and mouth and holding it there.

What?

Jisa tries shoving it away with a burst of force and forming a mage-barrier over her face. 

It shoves away, and then the water sprays HARDER.

Well, she has a mage-barrier over her face now and it's a sturdy one - it'd really help in maintaining this state of affairs if there were nodes around here, can she find any - 

:Please stop!: she sends. :I'm sorry if I offended you!: 

:DIE DIE DIE: is the opinion of the underwater mind. The water loops around behind her and tries to break her neck.

There are ley-lines, but not nodes.

Aaaaaaaaah this is not what she wanted to happen at all! She was trying to be friendly! It seems very unfair that she's getting attacked for that! 

Jisa drops to the ground in a ball, chin tucked in, so she can more easily shield her entire body, it's not like she needs her eyes to see what's going on. Ley-line energy is better than nothing, it's less efficient for tapping but she can get enough for a fireball. What happens if she throws said fireball at the water trying to break her neck. 

Steam hisses. The mind moves farther away, still underwater, and stops attacking her once it's got up a good head of steam swimming to the nearest river.

Maybe it's noticed she's capable of defending herself and is going to leave her alone now?

Jisa is ready to try Mindhealing it to stop if it attempts anything else, but for now she leaves it alone and instead cautiously backs further away from the lake. 

It flees and flees and flees. It swims real fast and is presently out of range.

Jisa gets some distance from the lake and eventually sits down and casts some wards and another sturdy shield, and then lets herself shake for a bit. That was really scary. 

Eventually she's calmed down enough to be actually curious about her surroundings, as opposed to just tracking them out of fear that another weird lake creature will show up. Water elemental? She's never seen them manifest physically like that without being summoned, and the water elementals she knows aren't hostile like that either. 

Anyway, she should figure out where she is. 

Jisa isn't very good at scrying yet, and wishes she had Farsight too like Van, but she manages the spell after a couple of tries, drawing power from another ley-line. She sticks the scrying-point very high in the air above her head, to get a better view, and scans the land for any other sign of people. 

There is this lake, and a river leading away from it, and a few miles downstream perched alongside the river there's a farm village.

She could theoretically do a blind Gate thataways, except she's way too tired. Instead she weaves the most thorough physical shields she can over herself, in case another piece of river tries to strangle her, and then gets up and starts trudging toward the village. She keeps all of her Othersenses extended, still. 

Once she has time to think, she's both aware that probably she should try to go home, and also very reluctant to do so, because by now Enara will probably have told Treven what she did and Treven will probably have told Uncle Van and all of them will be furious to her and she's not looking forward to the lecture at all. Also she's too tired for a complicated long-range Gate anyway. 

She keeps walking. 

The water doesn't try to attack her again.

Walking a few miles seems to take an endlessly long time when one is tired, but eventually Jisa reaches the village and looks around. Is there anyone about? 

Yup. Some women sitting on their front porch carding and spinning wool. Some kids chasing a cat down the street. A man supervising a person with transparent feathered wings while the latter magically puts windowpanes in windows, turning a bucket of sand into perfect clear glass already in place.

Oooh, neat! She watches that for a moment with mage-sight before heading up to one of the front-porch women. 

"Hello, do you speak Valdemaran?" she tries. 

They evidently do not. They blink at her, and shake their heads, and call to the person supervising the glass-winged person. The man and the glass-winged person walk over. He says something.

Jisa doesn't understand it at all! She could probably read his thoughts but she holds off for now, and instead tries the same greeting in Rethwellani and Hardornen and Tayledras and all the languages she speaks even a few words of. 

The man looks at the glass-winged woman. She looks very scared of him and shakes her head when he asks her a question, and keeps shaking it when he asks her an angrier question.

Oh no! 

Jisa holds up a hand, trying to get the man's attention, and makes a 'stop' gesture, waving her hands in front of her. And then tries to smile reassuringly at the winged woman. 

:Can you understand me?: she asks the winged woman, mostly on the idea that she looks kind of magic and that might mean she's Gifted or at least easier to Mindspeak with. She could apparently Mindspeak a bit with the lake-creature but it was kind of hard to understand. 

The winged woman's eyes go slightly wider. :What are you?:

:A mage. And I have Mindspeech too. Have you not met mages or Mindspeakers? What are you?: 

The woman turns around and follows the man back to the window they were working on. :He's a mage but I don't know what a Mindspeaker is. I'm a Glass:

:Oh. I don't know what that is either, maybe we don't have Glass where I live. Do you know the name of the country we're in right now?: 

:Rixo:

:Oh, I haven't heard of it: She must have been right about the range increase, and ended up further from home than she's ever been before. Which is neat and she feels smug about it, and also pretty nerve-wracking. :Um, are you all right? You seemed scared that he might hurt you, or something: 

:He can make me do this: (she's working on the windows again) :but he can't make me talk so he has to threaten about that if he wants something translated:

:Oh: A sinking feeling. :How does he make you do things - is he using compulsions?: She's suddenly pretty angry! :If it's that then I could free you, if you wanted: 

:I don't know what that is. It's the amulet he's wearing:

:Oh. Um, I'll look at it with my Othersenses: She turns back to the woman for a moment, shaking her head and making an apologetic face, and then tries to go on Mindspeaking with the Glass without making it obvious she's carrying on a silent conversation. :What kinds of things can he do? I know there are different schools of magic in other parts of the world: 

:Do you mean what elements he has?:

:Um, sure? We don't usually talk about mages that way in Valdemar, so I might not know what that means: 

:He has Fire and Wood and Stone:

:Mmm. Does that mean he can cast fireballs or, I don't know, make wood and stone statues with magic? Or something else?: 

:It means he can do some magic of those elements - I don't know that much about it, I'm a Glass, not a Fire or a Wood or a Stone:

:Are there other mages who have Glass? What sorts of things can they do?: 

:Most of the things I can do, just - smaller because they're humans and not elementals:

:What kinds of things can you do? Make glass out of sand, I can see, what other things?: 

:I can see better than you too:

:Huh: Jisa isn't sure how that's related to glass but maybe that's not the most important question right now. :Um, anyway, do you - want me to get you out of here? I would rather know more about what he can do as a mage, and I should pretend to leave first and come back under an illusion or something, but I'm pretty powerful and I can probably rescue you if you need rescuing: 

:It's the amulet, I can't do anything he doesn't want me to while he has the amulet:

:So if I can steal the amulet then you could just get away?: 

Are the man or woman paying attention to her or looking suspicious right now? Jisa has been wandering around a bit, pretending to look absently into the distance and occasionally stopping to glance at features of the town. 

:You could steal me: Glass confirms bleakly.

The kids have lost track of their cat and are stalking her through the streets.

Jisa makes an apologetic face at the woman she tried to approach, and waves, and then trudges back the way she came looking disappointed. 

She keeps her Othersenses fully open, using Thoughtsensing and Empathy enough to notice any suspicion or intent to follow her, though she avoids doing more thorough mindreading than that.

Once she's sure that she's out of sight, she covers herself with an illusion - it's hard to do well while moving but she's had a lot of practice by now - and starts creeping back into the village. Again, she holds her mind-Gifts open, listening passively to pick up any sign that they've noticed her return. 

There is some sort of festival being set up as more people troop in from the farms. People are changing into fancier clothes and assembling a potluck in the village square. The Glass is still with her owner, standing silently by while he bounces a little boy on his knee.

Jisa gets in as close as she dares, and stares at him, trying to pick out the amulet either with her eyes or mage-sight. 

He's wearing it too snug to pull over his head and the chain looks pretty sturdy. It is definitely magic. It's actually surprisingly simple, magically, it's pretty obvious how you'd do this if you wanted to make a new amulet to catch an elemental with.

Huh. Jisa doesn't currently want to enslave any elementals, actually, the entire philosophy at the White Winds mage-school is that they only work with the spirits voluntarily. She studies it anyway, though, until she's pretty sure she could copy it if she wanted. 

Maybe this will also show her how it could be broken with magic? 

Looks like she'd have to be touching it.

Hmm. 

Weeeeell, okay, she doesn't want to leave the poor elemental trapped. Can she very slowly and carefully sneak closer without him noticing her? She's ready to run away the instant she sees a reaction in his mind. 

He's not looking for invisible mages. (Glass looks right at her, but doesn't tell him.)

Then eventually she's pretty close. 

:I am going to try to break it and I need you to run away very fast: she tells Glass, in careful directional Mindspeech even though the villagers seemed oblivious to her Gifts before. She, too, is ready to run away very fast. 

She stares at the amulet a bit more, and then her illusion-concealed hand darts out and touches it and she tries to snap the spell in a single motion before sprinting away. 

:I can be fast. Watch out: warns Glass.

This turns out to be because there is an explosion of shards in all directions, when the amulet breaks, and the owner is speared through the neck and all down his back and the kid on his lap has one in the eye and passersby are grazed or impaled and the potluck is full of glass and everyone's screaming -

- the Glass is flying away, some people are pointing and yelling -

Aaaaaaaaah that is not what she wanted to happen at all! Unfortunately Jisa isn't a Healer and she has no idea what to do! She could pull the glass out of the kid's eye with magic but that might make it even worse!!!

She still has her physical shields up and the glass doesn't hurt her and she manages not to scream and to complete her planned sprint back. 

:I wish you'd told me that would happen!: she sends to Glass, wherever Glass is. :I'd have shielded the tiny kid!: Probably she should have shielded the man too but she feels a lot less sympathetic toward him, given that he was keeping the elemental captive. 

:You made it sound like you were going to steal it, not break it, I didn't have time!:

:But I told you–: Jisa stops, thinks. :I wasn't sure until I was closer if I could get it without breaking it. It's not like I even wanted it, though. I'm sorry I didn't give you more warning: 

Does it look like the man and the kid are getting medical attention from the other humans, or is everyone too panicked? Jisa isn't sure what to do in the latter case but she can't just run away, this is her fault for being careless and stupid. 

The man's dead. They seem to be trying to coach an eight year old through healing the eye injury but the eight year old is pretty freaked out.

Aaaaaaaaaah she feels really terrible about this actually! The man was keeping a sentient creature enslaved, which is horrible, but she didn't mean to kill him! 

...Maybe if she very very gently starts pushing with her Empathy, to calm down the eight-year-old who's trying to do healing, that will help and also no one will notice? 

No one notices. The eight year old takes some deep breaths and stops the bleeding.

Jisa calms down some of the others too, and then tiptoes back out of the village and finds a spot nearby to cry. 

:I'm not going to take you prisoner: she tells Glass. :In case you thought I was going to. You can just go if you want. Although if you're willing to stay and help me, I want to find a bigger city so I can get maps and figure out where I am: 

:I'm not going anywhere near a city! You want north for the one they hit on market day:

:All right. Thank you. Er, why don't you want to go near a city?: 

:- you saw! They're slavers! I wouldn't last a minute!:

:- Wait, does literally everyone in this country enslave elementals? Gah. That's horrible. I thought it was just him but I guess that was stupid of me: 

:Not everyone's a mage but more and more are and a city will have loads: She's getting farther and farther away, it's more of a strain to reach her.

:All right - er, good luck, I guess, I hope no one else catches you...: 

And she's going to sit here and cry about how she's an idiot and feel very sorry for herself for a while, although she has enough sense to shield herself and put up wards first. 

Nobody bothers her. The festival is canceled, the glassy food thrown away, unsafe even for pigs. Crying people go back to their homes.

Jisa spends the night curled up burrowed under a hedge, feeling incredibly miserable and also ravenously hungry but utterly unwilling to steal any food from the village where she just accidentally murdered someone, slaver or not. She does not sleep very well, only partly because of misery; she's also very jumpy at the prospect of wild elementals who want to murder her showing up, and every small sound wakes her. 

No elementals approach the village to bother her.

In the morning she's not very well rested, but her reserves are somewhat replenished despite not having enough food or sleep, being near ley-lines helps. 

...Maybe she should just go home? 

She tries to do the same Gate but in reverse. 

It doesn't work. 

She sits down and sobs against the hedge for another five minutes, and then shakes herself. Come on. Stop being a baby about it. 

Another few minutes later, Jisa is on her feet, walking north and scrying ahead of her. She also keeps an eye out for any kind of plant she recognizes as edible. 

Well, there's a lot of farmland she could steal carrots or barley or sesame seeds from.

Jisa feels bad about it but eventually digs up some stolen carrots and munches on them as she walks, Othersenses still extended to warn her of approaching minds. She finds herself trying to avoid thinking about the fact that she's trapped, which is stupid, not thinking about it won't make it stop being true, and the way to fix is it to research Gates some more. But she's tired and upset and doesn't think she can focus on Gates anyway. 

She scries a mile ahead again, from high up in the air, checking for any sign of a city. 

There's a city she will reach when she's gone another four miles, through some more villages.

She walks and walks and walks and walks and walks. She waves to people when her route takes her through villages but doesn't try to talk to them, and makes apologetic faces and tells them she doesn't understand if they try talking to her. She wants to save her Mindspeech for people in the city, who are more likely to know things. 

Elementals are not very common in the villages, but she sees two accompanying a woman with a cartful of magic objects coming the opposite way along the road, one with sparking, lightning-crackly wings and the other with no visible wings at all except that her shadow has them, big feathered ones. The Shadow seems not to be experiencing the same lighting conditions as everything else and it's impossible to make out her features.

Jisa doesn't know what to do! She isn't sure if she can free them without causing giant explosions of lightning or whatever shadows are made of! She kind of freezes up, and doesn't do anything, just keeps walking. 

The woman with the elementals doesn't seem to want to talk to her either.

Here is the city. There are lots of elementals here. Ones with crystalline wings. Ones with carved wood feathers. Ones with leaf-feathers. Ones with wings of water or fire. One with wings made of shifting sand, one with wings of molten lava, and all the kinds she's seen before too. Some have invisible wings, but they can be distinguished with mage-sight, or by their silent obedient following of someone with one or more necklaces.

It's very overwhelming and Jisa isn't sure what to do. Also she's ravenously hungry. Raw carrots are not a balanced breakfast.

She wants to figure out what to do about the slaves, but also she can't think very well through the hunger, so instead she looks for a marketplace, and peers at what kind of coin the locals are using. 

Looks like copper coins, rough around the edges but stamped with a face.

Jisa has some Valdemaran coins in her pocket. They're also copper, albeit not with the same markings. 

She goes up to a stall selling bread and tries her greeting phrases in various languages again. 

The guy doesn't understand her but at least doesn't call over a slave to try to threaten into translating.

She shows him one of her copper coins and gives him a hopeful look? 

He weighs it in his hand. Yeah, she can have two loaves of bread for that.

Jisa beams at him and bobs her head and accepts her two loaves of bread. She looks around for a place to sit and eat them. 

There aren't public benches, but there are low walls around some buildings and she wouldn't be the only person sitting on one.

Jisa sits down and looks around curiously while she devours her first loaf of bread, after which she's less hungry but can now notice that she's very very thirsty. Is there a public water pump or fountain in sight? 

There's a well over there.

Jisa heads over to the well and hauls up some water for herself and drinks it, and is finally less distracted by bodily signals of distress. She sits down on the wall again and looks around, this time more attentively, and with her Othersenses as well - what kinds of magic are being done around here, if any? 

The magic she can see is being done exclusively by people who are plausibly under twenty. People are using it to do things she can't see the results of at all, maybe their own scrying; and starting fires; and mending metal objects; and, now that it's getting dim, some are lighting their ways home, usually by making their hands glow but there are variations.

Huh. A lot of it is sort of like what mage-gift can do, but Jisa is increasingly suspecting that something here is a lot more different than she's been guessing. 

And that, maybe, she's somehow much further from home than she realized. 

...All right, she should actually try to talk to some people. Glass had never heard of Mindspeakers; she doesn't know if it'll alarm the human locals. 

It seems worth trying once, though. Maybe with one of the children, who are less likely to know what's normal or not? 

She approaches a little boy playing, smiles brightly at him, and attempts Mindspeech at him. :Hello! Can you understand me?: 

He says something back at her, furrowing his brow.

She tries again and this time reads his surface thoughts. 

He doesn't know what she's doing and can't even guess what element it is! He should probably go home because he doesn't know the rules for this situation.

All right she's definitely not trying that on any adults! Jisa makes an apologetic face at the boy, ducks her head, and heads off in the opposite direction until she's out of sight. 

She starts looking for enslaved elementals again. It seems like at least she can talk to them without getting mostly confusion and suspicion. 

There's a Stone over there. The human is providing light while the Stone works on paving a street.

Jisa stays sitting where she is, to minimize the human looking at her suspiciously. 

:Hello: she says to the Stone. :I'm not from here and I'm trying to figure out where I am. Also I would like to free you if I can, but the last time I tried to break an amulet it exploded, I don't know if the Stone ones do that: 

:- the amulet exploded? Well, you could probably break it in some way that didn't make it explode - I've never seen one broken though - you're in Rixo, in the city of Casox: the Stone replies.

:I don't know why it exploded. I'm a mage and I broke it with magic, but I think I must have a different kind of magic from the kind mages here have. Do you know what countries are next to Rixo?:  

:Lots of them - there was a war, the country that used to cover the whole region fragmented - there's Usath and Oranx and Itasu and Parco and Isamdo and Yeon and I might be forgetting some:

That's a lot of countries and Jisa hasn't heard of any of them. She thanks the Stone anyway, automatically. 

- on the one hand, trying to break another amulet in the middle of a busy marketplace after what happened the last time is a terrible idea. On the other hand, SLAVES. Maybe she can put a shield around it and to protect the man himself, and additional shielding to cover passerby, and that'll hopefully be enough to catch it? The locals don't seem to be able to detect magic being done, which is interesting. 

(Also why are all their mages so young, she's still confused about that...) 

:I am going to try to free you: she tells the Stone, and she starts weaving the shields for it. 

:You should stand back: he advises.

:- Are the people close up going to be hurt?: She zooms in with a scry and checks the man's amulet up closer, just to check if his necklace is looser or more fragile-looking or something, maybe she can steal it first and then destroy it somewhere far away. 

:I don't know, I've never been freed from an amulet before:

Well, this time Jisa is going to try ripping the necklace off its wearer first with a blade of concentrated mage-energies, aimed away from the back of the man's neck, so the necklace might pull and choke him briefly but she shouldn't cut him with the spell itself. 

He's very alarmed about this and grabs for the necklace while it's pulled. The Stone's wings go around the man so she can't see what she's doing anymore.

Aaaah that's very frustrating! She can still sense the necklace and the mage's life-aura with her Sight, as well as find his mind with Thoughtsensing, but it's less precise.

Jisa is going to try to yank and tear really hard and if that doesn't work to grab the necklace and fling it high into the air, she'll just do the breaking motion anyway and hope the shields are enough. 

The mage is making choking noises, and the Stone is helping hold the necklace in place, now.

When it breaks, the man falls over bleeding - she can't see exactly how, the wings are in the way still - and the Stone launches himself into the air, wings working surprisingly well for being made of crystal - the stone street beneath their feet is covered in glittering stalagmites, erupting upward, and one is poking through the human's leg -

:Can you stop that: she asks him, alarmed, :I don't want him dead - I want to rescue all of you but not if it means killing all the humans -;

:I'm not trying to kill anybody - I'm flying away as fast as I can - AUGH -:

She can just barely see him collapse out of the sky, hear him hitting the ground.

She almost sprints in that direction, but stops herself, she doesn't want to give away that she was the necklace-breaker. Instead she stretches out her Thoughtsensing to figure out what just happened, she can easily reach miles with it. 

Apparently someone else saw him flying loose and - caught him again before he could get away.

Gah. She's so mad. Obviously this is going to be more complicated in a big city. 

:I'm sorry!: she tells the Stone. :I think I need to come up with a better plan. Can you help me with that?: 

:Not right while I'm being beaten for escaping I don't think: he replies absently.

:I'm sorry!: Jisa feels terrible about this! 

She keeps her Thoughtsensing anchored on his mind, and gets up and starts walking in his direction, at a normal hopefully-non-suspicious pace. She dares a glance at the man she tried to free him from; is he dead too? 

Super dead.

Aaaaaaaaaaaah. 

She marches purposefully for the streets and looks for the mind of the man currently beating his new slave, and this time she ruthlessly tries to read all of his thoughts too. 

He's over there! He doesn't understand why somebody let their elemental go in the middle of the city but if this one is really good at seducing humans into bad decisions or something it had better be too scared to try again! When he feels like it's had enough he can sell it to the university, they make sure their students know you can't manumit these things.

Jisa's Mindhealing range is a lot shorter than her Thoughtsensing range, but she can illusion herself before she comes around the corner, and get close enough, and - angrily, but she notices the anger and accepts it and tries to let it dissolve because angry Mindhealing is a bad idea - and she pushes and tells the man that no he does not want to beat his elemental anymore he definitely feels like it's had enough just look at it. 

Okay, it's done. He makes it stand up and follow him in the direction of the campus.

:I'm so sorry!: Jisa tells the elemental. :I made him stop as soon as I could. Are you all right...?: That feels like a really stupid question. 

:Still immortal: he replies wearily.

:- Oh, are elementals here immortal?: She...isn't actually sure that the elemental spirits she knows about are? She's very confused. 

:Yes:

Jisa follows the man at a distance, so he won't notice her. 

:Oh. Um, anyway, I still want to try to free you? And all the others if I can? But I need to take a step back and be smart about it. Can I ask you more questions later if I think of them?: 

:Guess so: He sounds pretty depressed.

All right. Think. She needs to be smart about it and do some actual planning. 

What would Van do. 

...Vanyel would be absurdly powerful at it and use half a dozen Gifts she doesn't have, which isn't really fair. 

Van is also good at strategy, though, he's an advisor to her father. Jisa has had lots of conversations with the King about policy, actually. She has no excuse to be this terrible at having plans, she just hasn't been trying to think. 

She looks around for a more comfortable place to sit than a stone wall, where she can think for a while undisturbed. 

She could sit under that tree, there's some grass there. She could sit on somebody's porch steps.

Jisa takes the spot under the tree, it seems like someone might try to talk to her if she just waltzes up to their porch. 

She stares into space for a long time. It keeps feeling like her brain is bouncing off rocks. 

- Eventually she sighs. She needs to know things, and the elementals are slaves and have no reason to trust her so it's not that surprising they aren't entirely helpful. And she can't ask the locals because she doesn't speak the language and they don't know what Mindspeech is, and/or it doesn't even work on them. 

Reading their thoughts is very unethical but slavery is ALSO very unethical so probably that cancels out, right? 

What would Van... Well, if he was going to do an unethical thing to win, he would at least be efficient about it. Reading random people's thoughts isn't efficient. 

She searches again for the mind of the Stone she failed to rescue, over at the university. 

He is being haggled over. The university wants the discount on account of his having just killed somebody.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaah Jisa feels so bad about that. And so stupid. She was such an idiot, trying basically the same plan a second time and hoping it would work. Why can't she have Fetching. Van would use that to steal the amulet. 

:Hello?: she says. :I want to know who's in charge of this city and where they live: 

:I've never been to the mayor's house: says Stone, as his new amulet is handed over to the university elemental rental person.

:- I'll try to find it anyway, thank you:

And Jisa starts scrying high above the city again, looking for the most upscale part of the city, and for particularly fancy houses there, probably the mayor would live in a nice house right? 

Most of the architecture is unfamiliar and unimpressive compared to what there is in Valdemar, but there is a nice section with houses that look new and probably magically constructed, made of wood and stone and glass and metal.

Well, if she goes there at least she can select for rich people, who might know more things even if they're not the mayor. Jisa gets up and trudges in that direction, and once she's reached the newer probably-magically-constructed houses, she starts hunting for minds to read. 

People are mostly going to bed, except the ones who have magic lights, which isn't all of them even here. It's getting dark. She can find the mayor, because apparently his wife thinks it's hot to talk a whole lot about how he's the mayor in bed.

At least now she knows. Probably the mayor is not thinking any interesting thoughts about running the city while in bed with his wife, though, and Jisa doesn't actually want to read the thoughts he is thinking. 

She looks around for a place near his house where she can hide and sleep. 

He has a garden. There's an elemental and a mage supervising the elemental in there, working on the plants with the last light of the day.

:Hello: Jisa says to the elemental, hiding out of the mage's view. :My name is Jisa and I'm from far away and I want to figure out how to rescue you and the others who're slaves. If I hide and sleep here tonight, can you not tell anyone? Also I wondered if you know things about how the city is run and all, since you work at the mayor's house: 

:I don't have to tell anyone, if she doesn't see you herself. But I don't just work here, my owner visits a lot of gardens and farms:

:Oh, all right. Er, could you warn me if she sees me?: Jisa, hidden under an illusion, looks for a place where she can curl up in the cover of some tall plants or something and put up wards. 

:Okay:

The mage finishes using the elemental on the garden, and then they leave.

Hopefully no one else will come do more garden work in the middle of the night. Jisa puts up her wards and curls into a ball in part of the garden where she isn't very visible even minus the illusion, and tries to sleep. 

Nobody interrupts her. There are some deliveries to the house before dawn but they're not that loud. At sunrise everyone gets up.

Jisa creeps out of the garden too, and moves a house down and sits under a tree, and then she looks for the mayor's mind again and reads his thoughts. 

The Appointee will be visiting today, they have to make sure the darkroom is ready for him. He has a stack of paper - paper is such a useful invention! - delivered to update him on everything going on in Casox from yesterday. People are still using copper in the market, good, they're supposed to. Rixo isn't near enough the sea to benefit from a seashells and salt based money system but if you just regulate the Adamants copper's still fine. Somebody... freed their elemental in the middle of the street?? Doesn't everyone with an elemental know that kills you by now? Street's damaged, impassable to carts. Needs someone with a Stone to fix it. Elemental was recaptured and sold to the school, that's good.

Jisa wants to know more about these regulations on Adamants, presumably a kind of elemental that can - forge coins, maybe? 

Does the man notice if she very very cautiously probes his mind a bit, poking at that train of thought?

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.

Sigh. 

:Hello: Jisa says to the Glass. :I'm the one who freed the Adamant, please don't say anything to them about that. I'm really confused about this place. Can you tell me why they think the Adamant is going to hurt a bunch of people now?: 

Glass kind of.... blinks, but doesn't say anything to her or the humans.

What is the Glass thinking about. 

Everything is meaningless and horrible and always has been and always will be.

Oh no. She wants to help it very very badly! 

:I want to free you too but I need to use mind-control to stop you from killing your owner so I get in less trouble if I get caught: She's going to get in SO much trouble anyway if she gets caught, but Jisa hopes that'll be more convincing than 'she doesn't deserve to die even if she enslaved you' which is her actual reason. :I'll make you invisible too and stop your owner from catching you again but you'll need to be very fast. Um, and if everything still feels meaningless and terrible afterward, I can try to help with that, I'm a Mindhealer: 

That sounds fake.

Jisa is aware on some level that she is doing a whole lot of things in a row without thinking them through at all and some of the things were a terrible idea and Uncle Van would be giving her SUCH a lecture about all of this, but also that elemental is so sad and it makes her so sad and she doesn't know what else to do, she can't just leave it there. 

This time she does less shielding on the slaver, because the set-command worked last time - although she didn't have time to get it off, but at least it was fairly specific and shouldn't prevent the elemental from defending themselves against anyone else. 

:Do not hurt your owner: she commands, and then she uses magic to snap the amulet and immediately throws an illusion and some magic shields at the Glass. :Fly away fly away do it now–: 

Glass supposes it is at least abstractly interesting if he can fly away now. He spreads his wings.

His owner seizes him by the wrist and Glass's wings are full of hairline cracks, suddenly, and the glass is raining to the ground in a fine rain, and the Adamant's owner is scooping some up in her hands and forming it into a ball for the Glass's owner to replace his amulet. "What is going on?" demands the Glass's owner. "That wasn't me!"

:Stop let them go don't move: Jisa ordes all of the humans around the Glass. :Sorry sorry sorry can you try again: 

The humans stop.

The Glass's wings are still in a million pieces. He can't fly away.

Jisa freezes on the spot for a moment, and then she snatches up the Glass in the gentlest force-net of magic she can manage while she's kind of completely panicking, and invisibles them again, and pulls them to where she is so she can hold them in her arms and run away. This time she leaves the set-commands because otherwise they're going to come after her. They might come after her anyway... 

...can she manage a Gate, she's eaten proper food and had a better night's sleep, maybe she can manage a blind unscaffolded Gate back to an isolated spot on the road a couple of miles back...

...and she does this and staggers through and the Gate comes down. She stands rooted to the spot, chest heaving for air, apologizing to the Glass over and over in Mindspeech while barely aware that she's doing so. 

Glass sits on the ground.

:Are you in pain?: Jisa asks Glass. :Will your wings heal by themselves if I take care of you for a while?: 

:Yes: he replies to both.

Damn it she so badly wishes that Stef were here. Or Mother, even, despite the inevitable lecture it would earn her. She helped Shavri figure out how to imitate Stef's Gift with Healing, but she can't imitate it with Empathy or Mindhealing, which is dumb and unfair. 

:Is there anything I could do to help with the pain?: she asks. 

:Don't think so:

:Do you need, er, food, or a fire to stay warm or anything?: Jisa starts reading the Glass's surface thoughts again, they're being so uncommunicative. 

The wings hurt a LOT and are taking up most of his attention. He doesn't need to eat or keep warm. It has been a long time since he ate anything, his owner stopped bothering rewarding him for stuff after he was good and broken.

Jisa can't actually painblock but she can use Empathy to help the Glass stay calmer, make him kind of woozy the way pain-drugs make people. :I'm going to try some magic and see if it helps you feel better: she says, and pushes calmcalmcalm and reassurance and safesafesafe. 

Glass's response to this is to lie down on his side.

:Is that all right or should I stop: Jisa asks, though she keeps doing it for the moment. Also keeps reading his thoughts because she's not really expecting him to answer. He's SO traumatized and it's very upsetting. 

Glass does not have a strong opinion on this topic. He is sort of dissociating.

Jisa's going to keep doing it, then, he does seem less distressed by the pain in that state and she supposes that's preferable. 

:Do you know how long your wings will need to heal on their own?: she asks. :What kind of taking care of do you need in the meantime? I can keep you safe so no one enslaves you, but I don't know what else you need: 

He doesn't know how long it will take. Before when his owner did that he'd put new glass on the stumps for Glass to reshape into wings. Elementals don't need much, it's part of why they're such good slaves.

:If I get you new glass can you fix them the same way?:

He supposes he can do that.

Oh, right, she's back in the wilderness and stealing glass will be annoying. :Can you make the glass from a bucket of sand? I saw a Glass doing that before, I can get you sand more easily: 

Yeah, he can do that.

Jisa has to lighten up on the Projective Empathy a bit in order to focus on finding sand. She puts up a shield-barrier and wards around the elemental and keeps glancing back at it worriedly while she hunts around. 

Everything is horrible and awful but that is normal, thinks Glass.

Jisa eventually finds some sand, or at least very sandy soil, which she can try to sift to get just the sand and then carry back in her tunic folded up to make a pouch over her belly, since she doesn't actually have a bucket. 

She sits down beside the Glass. :Here. Can you make this into glass for me, please: 

He glances over at it. Now it's a lump of glass.

She picks it up, staring at it in awe for a moment, and then holds it against the stump of one wing. :Can you fix your wings now: 

He can see around corners, apparently, so he gets a good look at it and it fuses onto the stump and turns into a wing, gradually filling in details. The other is still a stump, he didn't have enough sand for both.

:I'll get you more sand, just hang in there: Jisa goes sand-hunting again and comes back a few minutes later with her tunic-pouch full of sand. :Here you go: 

He fixes his other wing. It doesn't hurt any more. Physically.

:You should get some rest now: Jisa tells Glass. :I promise I'll keep you safe and I won't hurt you or let anyone else hurt you, and I want to help you - get better. I know you might not believe me yet because you've been mistreated a lot and you're traumatized: She gets the second loaf of bread from the city market out of her tunic pocket. :I know you don't need to eat, but if you enjoy eating, you're welcome to have some of this: 

He thinks he used to enjoy eating but it's been a long time. Chewing sounds like a lot of work right now.

Jisa sits and eats her bread and tries to actually make herself think about her situation, and why she keeps impulsively doing things half at random. She's - just killed two people? Well, technically the elementals killed them, and at least the first time she didn't have the information to know that would happen, but - that's not really an excuse. Van would have done his homework first. Maybe even Stef would have.

- it's painful to think about and it's only half because she's a killer. She's so lonely. And scared. She misses Treven and Enara desperately and everyone is going to be so angry with her for doing an untested Gate experiment without asking for help and she's been trying to avoid thinking about any of that. Which is stupid. 

Okay. Think. She needs to deal with her feelings, first, and then be less of an idiot. 

Eventually she pulls off a very small piece of bread, from the nice soft part in the middle of the loaf, and offers it to the Glass. 

Sure, whatever, he'll open his mouth. The bread tastes like bread. One time he claimed to like bread but he was probably lying because everything is horrible.

Maybe Melody would know what to do to help? Jisa does not. Actually, probably this is a case where Melody would say the patient needed some time to even be ready to do any processing their trauma, and Jisa ought to leave them alone. 

What does she need? 

- well, a way back to Valdemar would be great. She'll get shouted at so much, but also this place is incredibly horrible, and Uncle Van and everyone else will agree on that and maybe they can help. She'll work on the Gate research. 

Also she needs help. Allies. The problem is that elementals are, well, weird aliens, and the entire reason she rescued this one is because they clearly can't look after themselves at all. And she doesn't know if there are literally any humans here who are against slavery. She could wander around reading minds until she finds one? Not very efficient though. 

:If I find another Glass who's free, or I free them: she asks the Glass with her, :will they help look after you until you're doing a bit better?: She has no idea whether to expect a helpful answer, but it seems worth asking anyway. 

He doesn't have friends any more. Friends are for people who can move around and talk whenever they want.

:Hey, hey, it's all right, I'll take care of you until things feel less horrible and you can move around and talk again, and then you can make new friends: 

Sigh. That doesn't get her anywhere in terms of finding helpful allies, though. She's still scared to talk to the human locals, but - maybe it's worth trying it again anyway? If she tries with an adult at a more remote farm then she won't be in the middle of a city where they can immediately send a lot of people to chase her. 

:I'm going to pick you up and carry you: she tells Glass, and she does this, and does another scrying-spell high above her head to spot the nearest farm. 

He's pretty heavy, though the wings don't add much weight, it turns out, he's just an adult man.

There is a farm that way. Looks like mostly lentils and wheat.

Jisa is a Herald-trainee. She works out a lot. Still, she's pretty tired after carrying the elemental a half-mile. 

:I'm going to leave you here with wards and a shield: she tells Glass. :If I sense anyone coming, I'll come back for you, but no one should be able to find you: And she conceals the elemental in the tall wheat, with the promised wards plus a somewhat sloppy illusion, and keeps walking by herself, feeling ahead for minds. 

There is a farm family there, mom and dad and grandma and six kids.

She tries grandma, on the basis that someone elderly is more likely to have heard of weird things. And she illusions her hair to look blonde, as a kind of halfhearted disguise. 

:Hello, can you understand me?: 

:Go away! I don't want to hear any voices, thank you: replies the grandma.

:It's just me talking!: Jisa waves. :I have a different kind of magic from your mages here, but I'm a real human. I don't know the language: 

Grandma narrows her eyes. Calls over her family to have a look at Jisa and confirm that she's there.

Jisa bobs her head and smiles at them and then, tentatively, also tries greeting the couple in Mindspeech. 

They think that's VERY WEIRD. One of them grabs the nearest kid and starts interrogating her about whether that's a thing mages can do.

Jisa waits to see how this question will be resolved. She reads their thoughts a bit, in case they suddenly decide she's a ghost or spirit that needs attacking or something.

They come to the conclusion that this is NOT a thing mages can do and she must be some weird hybrid elemental maybe???

Jisa is worried that they're going to try to enslave her?? But it seems to her like it's some sort of magic thing, and since she's in fact not an elemental, probably it wouldn't work on her. Hopefully. She's putting a lot of weight on that 'probably' and is aware that's not a good way of reasoning but she feels stuck. 

:I think I might be from another world: she says. :I traveled here doing a magic experiment, and at first I thought your mages were like the kind of mage I am, but - it seems very different: 

They are confused about what she could possibly want from them. The mother rounds up all the kids and hightails it to the neighbors'.

Ughhh this is so unreasonable, nothing she tries is working. 

:Um, sorry: she tells the grandmother. :If you're willing to answer some questions, I have a lot, but I can also - go away...?: 

:I already told you to go away!:

Jisa sighs and goes away. She ducks into the wheat and illusions herself while out of sight, so she can walk without anyone following her back to the poor elemental, who she checks on with Thoughtsensing. 

If he lies here long enough, he will eventually be noticed, and that's... probably bad... probably another mage will make an amulet for him... yeah, that would be bad, he thinks.

He's having preferences! The Mindhealing-student part of Jisa thinks that's very good. 

:I didn't manage to talk to the people at the farm: she tells him. :I think we're going to have to sleep rough tonight - well, I guess I don't need to sleep. And tomorrow I'll try something else: She can go back to the university again, or at least get in Thoughtsensing range of it, and try to talk to the Stone she failed to rescue. :Um, can you fly next to me, or should I pick you up again: 

He supposes he could fly. He's not sure if following her is a good idea, though. Maybe he should fly very high and go to the ocean and sink to the bottom where humans can't go.

:Um, you can do that if you want? I'm not keeping you prisoner. Just, you seem in - not great shape, and I have Mindhealing training so maybe I can help, and also once you're doing better I really need help from a local to rescue more elementals: 

He doesn't know what Mindhealing is. Helping her with rescuing elementals sounds hard, like someone who can do things should probably have that job instead.

:I don't need you to do anything hard: she promises him. :I just don't know any of the obvious common-sense things that everyone knows here, so I have a lot of questions: She starts walking, very slowly, hoping the elemental will follow. 

He watches her, contemplating whether he should go with her, or go dive into the sea, or just lie here forever.

Eventually he gets up and follows her.

Jisa watches her surroundings with all her Othersenses wide open, still very twitchy, and looks for a spot where they can camp and have some concealment and shelter from the elements. She knows how to do a weather-barrier, fortunately, but she's out of food again, and the wheat and lentils in the fields aren't very edible without cooking. 

She tries to put her questions in order. :Um. Do you know much about how humans here do politics - is there a king of Rixo?: 

:No, they call him the Appointee:

:Did he get appointed? How?: 

Any sign of a good campsite yet? 

:I don't know. I can't vote:

There's an okay-looking spot sheltered from wind by some trees over there.

Jisa spends a while making a nice cozy camp for them, with a weather-barrier and lots of wards, and then beds down on some soft-ish dead leaves. She's thirsty but she can cope until morning, and her feet are very tired and sore. Normally she has a Companion to ride and doesn't have to do so much walking. 

:What - did your owner do to you?: she asks the Glass. :I, er, you don't have to talk about it, if you don't want to, just, it sounds really horrible and I'm angry about it: 

:Lots of things: he says. :Less if I behaved:

:I'm sorry. That's really unfair: She hates this world a LOT. 

Yeah. That doesn't seem to require a reply.

Jisa can't think of anything else to say, so she works on testing Gate variants for a bit, and maybe makes a bit of progress but it's hard to tell. Also it's getting dark and she's very tired.

:I'm going to sleep: Jisa says eventually. :Wake me if you need anything, though. Are you comfortable?: 

Not especially but like, it doesn't matter. :Sleep well:

Jisa lies down, but she's not instantly sleepy. :Is there anything I can get you to be more comfortable, tomorrow? It seems important: 

She sure asks a lot of questions.

Shrug. Jisa goes to sleep, and manages to sleep pretty solidly this time unless the wards trigger an alarm and wake her. 

Nobody bothers her.

Jisa wakes up incredibly thirsty and ravenous and with a wad of dead leaves stuck to her face. She lies there miserably for a bit. :I don't suppose you can help me find a stream or something: she says sleepily to the Glass. 

Yes all right whatever. Over there. She's reading his mind, right? It's that way.

:I'll stop reading your mind if you tell me to but you seem to have a hard time with talking sometimes so it seems easier. Thank you. Do you need water: 

Not especially no.

Jisa tromps over to the stream, uses magic to sterilize a handful of water at a time before slurping it. She ends up wet all down her front, but no longer thirsty. The hunger is if anything worse. 

:I need to go back to the city to talk to an elemental at the university: she tells the Glass. :Would you rather come with me and I can hide both of us with illusions, or stay here with the wards? Or, I mean, you can go anywhere else you like too: 

He has decided he likes the going to the sea and diving to the bottom and looking at fish or something idea.

:All right, um, good luck: And she heads off, not appearing to look back, though she's totally still reading his mind. 

He flies up up up up up as fast as he can, till he's a speck in the sky, halo down to nothing because it's just a froth of rainbows and wouldn't help people mistake him for a bird. He looks far far away - sights the sea - flies to it. He'll be safe under the sea and everything will be horrible but the horrible will stop happening quite so much to him.

Probably that's what he needs? And it seems good that he's having goals about it. 

She walks back to the city, keeping an eye out for edible plants. 

She's been this way before, it has the same stuff.

Jisa is obscurely disappointed about that even though it's very stupid to be. She nibbles halfheartedly at more carrots; she doesn't even like vegetables, she's just hungry enough not to care. 

She eventually reaches the city, and digs out more coppers in order to mime her way through buying more bread at the marketplace. 

She can get bread for her coppers.

She smiles at the bread-seller, and then heads off in the direction of the university, munching her bread with great satisfaction. 

If she reaches ahead with Thoughtsensing, can she find the Stone she rescued earlier? 

Yep. There he is, in a barracks with other elementals, talking about what it'll be like there for him.

:Hello: Jisa sends. :It's me again. I need to learn more about how things work here and make a proper plan, if I want to rescue all of you. Can you help me learn things?: 

:Maybe? What do you need?:

:Um, I think the thing I really need is allies. Are you friends with other elementals, who I could try to rescue all together? Do you know if there are any humans who are against enslaving you and just don't have enough political power to stop it, or something: 

:I'm just getting to know these ones. I had friends, in the wild... I don't know if they got away though:

:How did you get captured?: 

:I was sleeping, up on the mountain where I used to live and when I woke up the hunter had me, and sold me to the man you first saw me with:

:I'm sorry: Jisa thinks for a moment, munching bread. :Um, do all countries enslave elementals or only some of them?: 

:Rixo used to be part of a big empire that fragmented. The empire enslaved elementals. I don't know about places that were never part of it:

:How long ago did the empire fragment? Do you know what made it fall?: 

:Not that long ago but I don't know how long exactly... I think the emperor freed his elementals and died:

:How much does that happen? People deciding to free their elementals, I mean: 

:Almost never any more:

:Is that because the elementals always kill the person freeing them: 

:I guess that would be a reason:

:Do the humans have laws or institutions or military organizations built around capturing elementals? What's the organization setup there, or is it just random people with magic doing it?: 

:It's just random people taking up hunting:

:If I decided to start freeing a lot of elementals, would the humans mount some kind of organized response?: 

:I'd think so:

:What would that look like? Do they have an army?:

:I don't think they leave one lying around all the time but they'd raise one, I think:

Jisa's head is starting to ache. Trying to plan an entire war by herself, it turns out, is really hard! 

:How long would that take?: she asks. 

:I have no idea:

:What about combat magic? I guess mages can make the elementals who're still enslaved fight - do they have their own magic they can use for that too?: 

:Yes. Not as strong as ours but they can do combinations, and make artifacts:

:And - how about free elementals? How powerful is one of you in a fight, compared to a mage?: 

:They can amulet us pretty fast if they have one ready. We're stronger if it gets toe to toe but they don't have to let it, and usually bring slaves along to hunt anyway:

Jisa thinks hard. 

:- I think I need to steal one of the amulets. So I can figure out how it works, and - maybe I can make a new kind of magic shield for you that stops it from working. Do you know where they're made, or stored, I don't know, just somewhere I could maybe steal one that's not around a person's neck?: 

:They aren't wearing the ones here all the time. I should ask the other elementals, here, if there's anything else you should know - or you can, so no one hears:

:I should do that: Jisa agrees, and starts reaching around with Thoughtsensing for other nearby minds. 

There are five more elementals currently not checked out and hanging around in the barracks. Water, Shine/Shadow hybrid, Fire, Earth, Wood. There is also a student mage keeping watch over the amulets but only wearing two of them at the moment (the hybrid and the Fire).

Jisa might as well just try to Mindspeak all of them at once, it's not that much harder than doing one at a time. She gives her by now very practiced speech about being from another world and wanting to rescue the enslaved elementals but needing more information to plan, and then she repeats her question about stealing an amulet to study. 

They all try to respond to her at once, except the Fire, who is not quite as depressed as the Glass who flew away to the ocean but is still pretty nonagentic.

Wow, she should really have thought of that, Mindspeakers have conventions for group links but these people have never heard of Mindspeech.

:One at a time, sorry!: And she narrows the link to just one of them. :What was that?:

The Earth repeats, :You should wait until night when fewer of us are checked out:

:Oh. Right. Er, what does ‘checked out’ mean?:

:The students borrow us for practice:

:Practicing what?:

:Magic. But they can use us for anything while they have us:

:How many of you are there when you’re all here and not, um, checked out?:

:We're never all here at once, but twenty:

:And where are the amulets when you're not checked out?: 

:Under guard round the clock in the room between us and the building's exit:

:Thank you: 

Jisa tries to scry in said room. 

No dice.

Oh. Huh. Jisa supposes it's not the first time the local magic has interacted with hers; she can break the amulets but they do show up as magic to her mage-sight. 

Just to make sure she's done all her homework, she continues through the other elementals, except for the non-agentic one, and repeats approximately the same questions, seeing if she gets anything new. 

The Water thinks she should talk to a student named Maurabel. The Wood thinks it makes perfect sense to kill humans for owning elementals and she should just do that till they cut it out. Penumbra is shy and says Water can speak for her.

She asks the Water where to find Maurabel.

She has checked out an Adamant and is probably in a workroom, over thataway.

Jisa thanks them, promises to come back that night, and heads thataway. 

...She's going to talk to Maurabel but first she's going to read her mind to see what the deal is, can she do that from outside the workroom. 

Maurabel is doing - nothing at all with the Adamant, actually, she is reading a book and the Adamant is also reading a book. This book was not scribed very well, she wonders if there's a way to do magical printing - you'd want Water and Wood for sure...

Huh. 

What's the Adamant thinking? 

She LOVES this part. She has read this poem five times and this is the BEST part.

Awww. 

Jisa spends a moment smiling to herself, and then shakes herself and refocuses. She takes a deep breath, and knocks politely on the workroom door. 

Maurabel gets up and opens the door. "...who are you?"

"Jisa," she says out loud, pointing at herself. "Maurabel?" 

"Yes, what is it?"

Jisa isn't reading her thoughts anymore, since she feels like she saw enough for the ethical violation not to make sense anymore, and she has no idea what the young woman is saying. 

:I don't speak your language: she tries sending. :I think I ended up here by accident from another world. The Water in the elementals for rent room said to talk to you: 

Maurabel looks at her. And at Adamant. And back. :Are you reading my mind:

:Not anymore! I, um, might've read it a little bit, because everyone here is horrible and I kept making awful mistakes when I didn't know what was going on! You seem not horrible though, which is probably why the Water told me to talk to you. I need help freeing all the elementals without murdering more people: 

:You can hear what I think at you but you are not otherwise reading my mind at all and aren't going to?:

:Yes. I promise I won't read your mind again: It's a little bit hard since she doesn't shield, but Jisa has lots of practice with un-Gifted patients, she can thickness her own shields enough to 'hear' the loudest surface thoughts being shoved at her but not the rest. :It's considered really unethical where I'm from, I just - I was getting so overwhelmed and didn't know what to do: 

:You can come in: She waves Jisa into the room. Adamant looks up. :How young does an elemental have to be to talk to you?:

:- Er, sorry, what? I don't know what age has to do with it, and I didn't ask how old they were but I've been able to talk to everyone I tried it with so far: 

:Out loud, I mean, how young do they have to be to speak your language:

:What?: Now she's even MORE confused. :I, um, didn't know them speaking my language was a thing, I haven't tried that at all, how does that even work?: 

:Elementals coalescce in the wild knowing all the languages in use in the world at the time:

:- See, one of the reasons I've been looking for friendly people is that I don't know any of the obvious things like that! None of the elementals thought to mention it. Anyway I think I might actually be from a different world because all the magic here works differently. I guess I could try talking to a really young elemental out loud, do you know which of them here is youngest?: 

:This one, actually, but she's six, have you been in this world for six years?:

:No, I've been here for...three days...?: She has to count the different places she's slept to guess, wow, she hasn't been doing a good job keeping track of time at all. 

:So to talk out loud you'd need a brand new elemental, oh well. I guess this works as long as you DEFINITELY don't read my mind because that's very fucked up:

:I have practice not reading people's minds even when they don't shield, I was training as a Mindhealer. Sorry, you probably don't know what that is here. It's a different Gift from Mindspeech that - helps people recover from problems in their mind rather than their body: 

:You are correct that I have never heard of it before.

Okay. How did you get here, is your world accessible -:

:I was experimenting with a kind of magic we have, called Gates, you can use it to make a doorway between one place and another. I haven't figured out how to get back yet but I'm pretty sure I can with more research, since I got here in the first place: Ow ow ow now she's thinking about missing Enara and Treven again. Maybe not that. Maybe think about something else. 

:Are you the one who killed that guy yesterday, the one the Stone was with -:

Aaaaaaaaaaah. 

:........Yes: She takes a deep breath. :It was really stupid. I hadn't figured out yet that the elemental was doing it, I thought it was the amulet exploding - it'd happened before with a Glass - I know it was very dumb to try again but I - I don't know what I was thinking. I guess it was too upsetting not being able to do anything: 

:My understanding from talking to ones who've been freed before is that they're not sure they can help it, like it feels like they might be able to in theory but when it actually happens it's overwhelming and the most obvious thing to do is to let out all the pent-up everything they've been prevented from doing for however long. Nobody has ever survived letting one go. My plan was to accumulate as many as possible and then see if I could free them all at once when I got old if I never had a better idea:

:Oh, um, I found a way to do that. It's just. Incredibly unethical and I would get expelled from my Collegium back home if they knew I'd done it: Wow and she really needs to find those people she set-commanded and then ran away from, and undo it, probably the set-command would stop affecting them once the context was different enough but it's not like she's extensively tested set-command interactions. 

:...what did you do?:

:I, um. Used Mindhealing to - make them not hurt the human. Then took it off right away once they were free and flying away and I hid them with an illusion. But it's not a great solution, the Stone got re-captured right away by someone else, I - really shouldn't mind-control the entire city and also I don't think I even can: 

:Can I have more detail on 'used Mindhealing to make them not hurt the human':

:There's something I can do called a set-command, it's fast and it's basically an order - it works best to get people not to do things, like a block: She fumbles through an explanation of how set-commands work, suddenly very worried that she's about to get shouted at by this person who seems to hate the entire concept of mindreading let alone mind control. 

She doesn't look exactly comfortable, but she does not take this opportunity to figure out how to yell with her brain. :Well, it sounds like it works, and it's reversible, but you do need to be more careful to have it actually work, as you've noticed:

:I decided I needed to stop doing things and spend awhile learning things instead and then come up with a proper plan. I was looking for people who would help me. It seems like you are?: Her face looks so hopeful about it. 

:I mean, I'll do my best! Asking the university elementals was a good idea, they have more downtime and opportunity to trade information than most:

:I'm glad I figured that out! I kind of only came here because the Stone who I, um, unsuccessfully tried to rescue got sold here. Anyway, I...think the plan occurring to me right now is to keep working on getting a Gate home, so I can bring more help, and also maybe try to steal all the amulets from the guarded room once it's night? And then I can destroy them somewhere far away from people and I think the elementals won't kill me if I just took the amulets to free them and I'm not actually wearing them?: 

:I don't know if that would work, if you're not a mage and the amulet isn't yours... it might:

:It might be safer to do it with the set-command anyway but at least I'd have time to talk to the elementals about what I was planning and get their consent, Mindhealing is fine with consent, that's literally my job: 

:Is it. Having the latitude to warn them first sounds ideal:

Nod. :And - I should probably wait to do that. Because the mistake I kept making was being really impatient and doing things too fast without waiting, and - I don't know, maybe I'm slowing down too much but I think I should try to err toward the opposite mistake for a bit: 

:In your world are there lots of people with abilities like yours?:

:Um, it depends which abilities and what you mean by 'lots'. Several hundred Mindspeakers in my kingdom, but less than a dozen Mindhealers or mages. Some places in the world have more though. And there are other Gifts I don't have: 

:Hm. Have you been, like, telepathically buying food -:

:No, I was managing to mime things to the baker at the market and show them my money. And I, um, stole some carrots from farms. If you have ideas about how I can get food, that would be really good. I'm nearly out of the coin I had on me: 

:Kind of depends on how much attention you want to attract, which, if you have gotten a couple people killed, might be 'none':

:I don't think anyone knew it was me, but it might be easy to put together if this happens really rarely and I'm the newcomer in town: 

:Very rare, and the sort of thing you'd see coming - melancholy temperament or something. But maybe you can duplicate something we can do and pass as one of us, what can you do?:

:Um, with mage-gift I can - make light and heat, or start fires, and shield things - make wards...: Jisa goes down the list of her mage-curriculum. It's quite varied. 

:Okay, we have some of that. If you're sure you won't be recognized on sight you could claim you've got Fire and Shine and Adamant and that you don't want to go to school and are trying to earn pocket money doing little magic chores but don't know how to do everything people will have heard of. Most people older than about my age aren't mages, there's stuff you have to eat while you're pregnant to make your kid likely to be a mage and that was only discovered recently, so it's not that weird for someone your age to want to do magic for cash. The problem is that you don't speak the language and it's downright bizarre for elementals not to be able to either. Is one of the ones you got away maybe willing to help you out?:

:I guess I can ask. Um, and I wanted to ask you, could you help me learn some of the language? It might be less suspicious if I speak enough to communicate a bit: 

:Yeah, sure: She can give her "hello" and "goodbye" and "thank you" and "yes" and "no" and "I don't speak this language, my elemental will translate" :though of course actually you'd be doing the translation with Mindspeech and the elemental will speak some completely unrelated language:

:All right. Um, if I have an elemental, will it be suspicious if I don't have the amulet for them? I can see them with mage-sight, but I don't know if mages here can do that: 

:Nobody will be able to tell by looking if it's fake. I can mock one up for you: "Adamant, may I have a little of your halo?"

"Mm? Yeah, sure -" Adamant peels off a bit of metal from her arm and hands it over. Maurabel starts shaping it into something convincing.

Jisa watches, quietly impressed. 

"Here. It's not weird to wear it while the elemental isn't with you, it just looks like you left them home," says Maurabel, handing it over when she's done.

:Thank you!: Jisa puts it on. :I'm really glad I met you, this was so helpful. Er, can I ask one more favour?: 

:You're not about to leave right now, are you? I don't even know how I'd find you again!:

:Oh! No, I don't want to leave, I just - don't want to take up more of your time than you're happy with. I have a lot more questions, actually. The thing I wanted to ask for was paper, or something else to write on, so I can take notes: 

:Yeah, I can do that: She has a lot of paper, bunched together in a notebook with magic connecting all the paper directly, but she peels off the back half of it.

Jisa takes the paper with a grateful smile. :All right, can you help me go through what all the types of elemental are and what powers they have? I've been picking it up in bits and pieces but haven't been through it systematically: 

:Your basic elemental types are Adamant, Fire, Water, Air, Earth, Glass, Ice, Lightning, Shadow, Wood, Stone, and Shine, in no particular order. All of them do what they sound like - direct manipulation of metal, fire, water, light, darkness, etcetera. There are also occasionally hybrids, which have all the powers of both types they're hybrids of - I've never heard of a triple, I don't know if that's impossible or not - and have appropriate idiosyncratic halos and wings. They mostly have healing applications of one sort or another though some of those are very limited; some people think they all do and we just haven't discovered some obscure Shadow and Wood and Glass healing abilities. Those are the generalities, I can get specific if you like: