Branislava worries about her cousin. She seems more than a bit unstable. The bandits enforced silence among the captives and so did the wizard who had bought them, so she has not spoken with her since before the assault on their ancestral village. Granted, these are not the best circumstances. Yet her father was a retired soldier. She should know even better than normal people that she was lucky that the bandits have not just discarded her daughter as a nuisance or raped her and then slit her throat because a mother just weeks after giving birth is not as fast as other women and would not sell for as much money.

In fact, this ritual has told her why she herself is still alive. All those musing apply doubly to herself. That wizard wanted a pregnant woman. Her husband’s dark tales from distant lands contain a kernel of truth after all.

Just going to sleep like the new wizard was tempting, but her legs have gone numb for lack of circulation. She needs to walk a little to loosen up. Yes, there are chests and closets to look at in the room, but touching a wizard’s stuff does not look like a good idea to her. That tall northern girl keeps looking at them. Letting her make the first attempt is not the worst idea she has had lately.

Helena has stopped nursing and is heading for the doorway. She feels her cousin’s hand on her shoulder, gripping her roughly. „What do you think you are doing?“ her cousin hisses harshly. „Isn’t that obvious? None of them is watching. We need to get out. Our clothing is probably still in that antechamber. We can flee.“ she replies.

Branislava shakes her head. „Did it not occur to you that they also know this? Didn’t you notice that he took a few steps towards the doorway but then stopped?“. She points at a piece of leather that looks as if detached from the boot of one of the guards. „Pick that up. I can’t bend down so deep anymore.“

Her cousin obeys and hands it to her. She flicks it at the doorway. There is a flash of lightning. The two other women in the room say something incomprehensible. They don’t sound happy. She makes a calming gesture with her free hand and leads her cousin back to the stele she was bound to.

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„Don’t trigger the system unnecessarily. He may have arranged for escalating responses.“ Anjali scolds them. She is not ready to let some peasants kill her after she has survived her own sacrifice. Yes, eventually they will have to get out of this chamber, but throwing random objects into the barrier is not going to help. This is an emergency containment system, designed to keep dangerous stuff locked in. Even if they exhausted the energy storage behind it, the system would not just benignly shut down. She needs to do something about communication. But what? From the look of the people, they are in Europe. She has had a few geography lessons about that, nothing more.

Stolen novel; please report.

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„Don’t wake them up!“ Hildegard hisses. Making people who can turn objects to dust just by touch angry by waking them up when they really need their sleep is not a viable tactic. Especially not if you have a room to search for useful stuff while they are out of action.

Sometimes you have to take a risk. The room holds three closets on the wall that also features the exit, one of them padlocked and two chests each arranged on the other sides with a huge, empty blackboard covering the wall opposite the exit. She opens the first closet. A selection of brooms. Wooden sticks with straw bound to them. A bucket and some very dirty rags on the floor.

The young Indian woman joins her in heading for the second closet on the other side of the doorway. In fact, by the looks of it, she herself is the youngest in the room. The two other women are easy to understand in terms of status. Both look like commoners. She, however, looks sophisticated but without insistance on status usually found in nobility.

The second closet turns out to be unusuable though it is far more interesting. Bottles filled with mysterious liquids are useless if the labels are written in script you do not know. Glass beakers though unusual and presumably valuable are useless if you have nothing to drink. Metallic stands and three-sided pyramids made from stone are also unusable. A whole bucket made from glass is spectacular, but also useless.

The first chest just holds mats commonly used as paddings for chairs and chests. The second however, while not strictly necessary, is highly welcome. It holds plain linen sheets. Again Hildegard wonders about that woman. While the three of them have furnished something like primitive dresses or robes out of the sheets, the Indian has made something like a loincloth with a hoop around her breasts. It leaves her legs scandalously free. For fighting, however, this looks like a superior solution.

Then she surprises Hildegard. She folds a sheet, takes another sheet and puts the folded sheet under the wizard’s head and puts the other sheet onto him as a blanket. After a short hesitation she also puts a sheet onto the demoness.