The fellow standing guard next to the sign on the wall around the pen which says Miscellaneous/Temporary - Not For Sale - Authorized Personnel Only yelps. "He's - inside!" he exclaims, pointing at the door to the office.

Aya is in Miscellaneous/Temporary - Not For Sale - Authorized Personnel Only, sitting on the ground leaning against the wall, squinting up through the awning over the pen to keep the slaves from keeling over of sunstroke. Crying, recently slapped, shackled, confused.

"I can't - leave my post - sir."

"They took my mirror - and my necklace and my holy water - I tried to call you."

"My fault," says Prime. "I should have checked sooner. I apologize. Are you all right?"

"There is someone in there that should not be," says Prime, almost pleasantly. Almost. It turns out, 'almost' is pretty far from pleasant. "I would like her to not be in there."

"There must be some mistake, certainly, sir. Who are you looking for?"

"Her name is Ayabel. But if you would like a physical description as well, I can provide."

"If you'll come into the office with me we can look over the relevant paperwork."

"No, thank you. She's free - what was it, three-fold? Mmm. No, four. I am quite certain."

"Sir, if you're referring to the girl who came in claiming Aelare's blessing, that's no longer valid in this province; divinity no longer grants exception to property law."

"Is it? How interesting. I know a god who would take exception to that."

"Thievery is p-punishable by the amputation of a hand, in Tharlo," squeaks the slaver, edging towards the office.

"My, is it? Well, if this counts as thievery, then by all means, let me be a thief. I'll be 'stealing' everyone, then."

"Poor souls. So inconvenient that you can't keep thinking feeling human beings under your complete control to be beaten, raped, imprisoned, and worked to death. Such a pity. It must be quite trying, I don't know how you'll cope. But, I like to think of myself as a reasonable man, so I will even be kind enough to offer a sum of money to give your employees as their final wages while they find a new career."

"Sir we're not cruel to - I will give her to you if you will go away. One hundred percent off."

"No, alas, that deal has flown," says Prime. He punctuates it by flying. "You see. I disagree. You hit her. And you keep arguing with me. I don't know how it isn't obvious, but you have exactly zero authority over me. You called me a thief. Now I am one."

"It should. I mean - the only magic native to Tayane is the kind you get by falling into magics, so it would have no reason to specify that other kinds shouldn't count."

"Mmmhm. That seems exploitable. If the law is changed, of course."

"Yeah. Alternately you could try to get us into the nearest province where it does apply before fixing the marks. Or a country that doesn't have slavery."

"I am excessively magic. I think with Aya's necklace we might be able to all hold hands and fly out of here or something. Or I just am a very scary individual at anyone who tries to stop us while you walk merrily there. Either."

"We have to be less chained to the wall, first, and they took my necklace - and my mirror and my holy water."

"I love you."

"Thank you for that. What's the nearest non-slavery country, and are there provinces that accept Aelare's blessing between there and here?"

"Tsopix. We border the provinces of Viore and Oyin, either of which would be on the way, but last time I checked the entire country accepted Aelare's blessing, so obviously my information's out of date."

"Well, then anyone that would like to stay in the country but be free can ask on the way to Tsopix. Any issues with that, anyone?"

The office has a large CLOSED sign up in the door, but there are no police immediately evident.

The owner shakes his head vigorously and then draws the blinds so Adarin can no longer see inside.

"Augh!" exclaims the owner. "Get out of here! Closed, we're closed!"

"I'm retrieving stolen property," says Prime dryly. "And also the keys."

"If you dropped something you'll have to come back for it when we're open," says Security implacably, and he shoves Adarin in the chest with the club towards the door.

"Shoo," he growls, and gone is any trace of pleasantry. It is an order. Punctuated by Prime floating a foot off the ground.

The guard attempts to tackle him.

The guard is not literally knocked unconscious, but he does stagger.

"Go away, please," sighs Prime. "Killing you would make an annoying mess."

Stagger, stagger, roar, attempt at grabbing.

This time the fellow goes down, groaning.

Aya's stolen magical items are undamaged and not hard to access. The keys, though, are themselves in a locked cabinet.

And now he has all the keys.

He shall celebrate by going to free everyone.

Aya hugs him hard once she has her arms free to do it with, and then takes half the keys and helps.

"The staff lets people fly," sighs Prime. "And I need someone that is not either me or Aya to hold it and fly with it so they can carry other people."

"All you need to do to fly is to concentrate on meaning to. It gets very easy very quickly," Aya tells that person. She divides everyone else up into three groups and has them all hold hands. She cannot resist the urge to give Adarin a kiss before she collects her group and flies up through the awning gap with them to lead the way out of the province.

"All right then. Who wants to declare that they have the Blessing of Aelare?"

They can't really raise their hands, since they are in long handholding chains. There are murmurs of assent.

Right then! They land (Prime gives instructions for their third, less experienced flight enabler) and then Prime starts turning relevant tattoos to the color of skin around them. He frowns at the new one Aya's gained, but doesn't comment. He just looks vaguely upset.

"Sadly, no," sighs Prime. "I sort of. Used just about all of it." Awkward pause. "But I can probably mirror Cypress or something and ask him to send a large chunk of gold."

"Have him get Revelation to make local currency and send that," she suggests. "Just the once. We'll come back and get everyone else as harmlessly to the economy as possible later. Two hundred seo per person should be plenty and not a major cause of inflation."

"I do. Annoying, but hardly awful."

"I can make it stop hurting -" She reaches for him. "Only while I'm touching you, but still."

She takes his hand. The headache goes away. "Please don't hurt yourself."

"I'm fine," he assures.

"Who, our alts?"

"Yes. Absurd and incorrect, but I want to all the same."

"I don't think they'd especially appreciate it." Nuzzle. She motions the ex-slaves over to distribute their little bags of coins.

"Probably not, no."

"I'm so glad," she sighs, when all of the slaves have received their cash and given Aya their names and lists of people they want looked up and sent to find them and dispersed, "that you're real."

"Me, too. Um. Why was it in doubt that I wasn't real?"

Squeeze. "It's okay."

He smiles, a little. "I'm glad you're okay. Well." He touches her bruised face. "... Mostly okay."

"I'm fine. It doesn't hurt. The anaesthesia thing only works when I'm touching someone, but I always count as touching myself." She leans on him.

"It doesn't mean you're not injured to not feel hurt," points out Prime. "But - I suppose practically it doesn't really matter. I'll just be upset on your behalf."

"... Down with slavery, liberty for all, I exercise supreme self control if we ever visit that province again and don't punch anyone that touched you...?"

"I mean in the shorter term. We don't have an emergency that warrants calling in a Zev for a portal, so we have a while to kill in Tayane."

"Oh. Mm. I'm not sure."

"I didn't hand out all the coins. This is probably enough to get a hotel room while you recover mana."

"Yes, but ah - is it going to be a problem that you're technically an escaped slave? Should we go to another country where you're not that?"

"We could go to Tsopix, but we'd have to change the currency and I have no sense whatever of how far it will go."

"... I'll leave it up to you to decide, you know the place better than I do. I can hide your tattoo, certainly. If that'll work for a few nights without issue, that'll be easier, I think."

"It should work. If it was a provincial and not a national law change."

"All right. And if it doesn't - I will go be very angry at things until they realize that trying to keep you as a slave is a very bad idea."

"I know you will." Nuzzle.

"I'll keep the bodycount down," he says lightly. "I think I did admirably earlier, considering. Though I did hit a rather - slow man over the head. ... Several times."

"Was he okay?"

"He's alive, certainly. I can check on him when I'm not so low on mana."

"Which ideally means sleep. All right, let's look for a hotel."

"Mhm. I'll follow your lead, my dear."

"Good. Keep doing that."

"I have no plans to stop existing."

"Good." Snuggle. "I love you. So much."

Sleep, indeed.