"Do you take off all the constraints when you touch it?"

"Can't, some of them are built in. I used to comply with school minimums too, but Penumbra's looser than that."

"Okay. Worst-case we'll get the necklaces and scout for another mage who can unrestrict them."

"Once they have them they can do anything they want. You have to be sure of them."

"Understood."

Sigh. "I hope this works."

"Yeah. Since the rainforest might be relevant either way, do you want to go to Cene first? Or afterwards?"

"First."

Anitam arranges with Cene a three-day trip for Maurabel to see Cene and the offered rainforest.

And she will go ahead and take a plane because that's interesting and Penumbra can save her magic.

Anitam plans the school retrieval operation for once she returns.

She comes back without incident loaded up with souvenirs and an entire case of Cene's finest berry-jam-filled chocolates.

Anitami reds say they have reason to believe that Biyani reds would not mind very much if the aliens happened to stir up horrendous chaos in the course of rescuing some kids.

She lets Maurabel know this, a bit reluctantly.

"I kind of don't want to stir up horrendous chaos."

"Yeah, me neither. I think what they probably mean is that there's some kind of plan for if the situation holding the kids hostage was disrupted but it might not be a plan we like."

"Is there a way to find out?"

"They trust me not zero, I don't think they trust me that much. Or trust that it'd be up to me if it were actually important. I'll try."

"If we get a bunch of helpfully inclined Shadows and the kids happen to be somewhere dark we could get them out."

"Why don't you get to that right now, and I'll tell our reds to tell Biyan's reds that there might be a way to get the kids out safely without even any chaos."

Nod.

Penumbra takes soldiers and their gear to a wooded area not too far from the school for them to run it if they find themselves needing to do so, but not easily found by random travelers; the Amentans have scent-masking chemicals so they won't be found with dogs as Penumbra takes them back home one by one afterwards. They send a squad of eight, which takes more than a week, then Maurabel. They study some phrases in the local language so they'll be able to yell at people and attempt to soothe elementals. They wait till Penumbra is full up on magic.

She can shadow-walk them all at once, after it's full dark and the moon has set.

Only a handful of elementals are checked out this late at night, but their barracks is guarded. Soldiers and Penumbra and Maurabel have hearing protection against the sonic thing, and the guards go down except for one who has some sort of applicable ward; that one they hit with a net gun and a cocktail of four knockout drugs in the hope that at least one works on humans and if any of them are poison Maurabel can water-heal him in time to save him. He's out but not before he has time to yell. Some lights come on in the dormitories and the study tower.

The checkout clerk is still keeled over from the noise but grabbed some amulets before being completely overcome with the need to twitch on the floor and dry-heave. Elementals are standing over him, interrupted in his attempt to force them to heal him. They can't help her but she can reach between their legs, pull the necklaces out of his hand and clear them, get the rest out of the safe, murmur quick to some of the Shadows.

Shadows go out to the soldiers who are standing ready to interfere if anyone wakes up enough to come bother them, which is looking likely - there's someone with a Fire, there's someone holding a lantern -

Shadows bring soldiers and Maurabel in a total of three trips back to their camp. They have stolen twenty-two elementals.

They trickle back to Anitam, Maurabel first, elementals after. The Shadows and Shines can share some power with Penumbra so she doesn't take a whole month to bring everyone where they're going.

Anitam welcomes them with nice hotel rooms and a wide array of tasty foods and people to confirm they are not under any orders except the ones that can't be cleared and to answer any questions.

The elementals kind of cluster around Maurabel and are nervous of the Amentans, but eventually spread out into their own rooms and confirm in the languages Kefin learned a little of that they're still amuleted but not worse than that.

Oh good. Do they know whether there's a way to safely set them entirely free?

A few of them have been temporarily free before being recaptured and totally murdered the people who let them go. It was a very intense experience, being suddenly free, and then all of a sudden, murder had happened. They don't want to hurt Maurabel but there is no telling what might happen.