Callista’s eyes widened in horror as she realized what I was asking. "You... you want me to sign my own contract?"

I nodded, my expression impassive. "It seems only fair, doesn't it? You came here to force me to sign it. Now you get to enjoy what you were going to do to me firsthand."

Her hand trembled as she gripped the pen, tears streaming down her dirt-smeared face.

"Sign it," I said firmly, "or you can stay in the floor.”

With a choked sob, Callista pressed the pen to the parchment. As soon as the tip touched the paper, a small drop of blood welled up inside of the onyx form of the pen, filling it with red that spilled onto the page. She gasped in pain but continued to write, her signature shaky but legible.

I observed the process via the Astralscope, watching how golden threads extended out from the contract and the tube in my hands, wrapping themselves around Callista’s Blue-tinted Aura that radiated from her body akin to lines of a magnet.

The wriggling gold threads coming from the blood contract looked quite similar to the blue threads that Cali’s collar was using. I made a mental note which I’d have to add to the Codex about understanding and figuring out exactly how to dismantle or repel this sort of mind-control magic.

As soon as she finished, the parchment rolled itself up. I slid it into the golden tube, watching as golden lines between tube and scroll interlinked into a curious shape that sort of resembled a very specific, stable fractal, visible through the Astralscope as it hovered and pulsed on the round end of the tube.

I’d have to copy this shape down on paper, try to understand how these hexagrams worked.

"Now," I said, turning my eyes from the examination of the golden tube to Cali, "let's test this out, shall we? Callista, I order you to tell me the absolute truth from now on. Tell me about why you really came to Svalbard from Bernt.”

Callista's entire face twitched. "I... I came because I knew of a survivor in a dragon-ravaged village," she gasped out, the words seeming to force themselves from her throat. "Such survivors are rare and incredibly valuable. I thought... I thought I could easily convince you to sign the blood contract. The acquisition of a Champion is a rite of passage for us… Felix Arcanicx. Every girl in Iridium has one or m-more. I… I wanted my first to be special, a genuine barbarian h-hero born from all-killing flames!”

I pointed the Arcanoelastic remote at the floor once more, setting the knob to its lowest setting. Then, I pressed the switch to liquefy the wood around Callista. I threw her a rope and pulled her out of the floor. With a sickening squelch, her body came free from its prison.

She gasped, coughed and sputtered, drawing in deep breaths as she crawled out of the magical mire onto the hard section of the floor, trembling and covered in dirt.

"Stand up," I commanded.

Callista's body jerked upright, her movements wobbly and somewhat uncoordinated as the gold threads from the tube did something to her Aura to push her body into motion. She stood before me, swaying slightly, her once pristine white leather dress now stained and torn.

"So, how does it feel?" I asked curiously. "To be on the other side of the contract?"

"Bad," she whimpered, her cat ears flat against her head. "Like I have no control over my actions. Please, Ioan, I'm sorry!”

“Sorries don’t pay the bills,” I said.

“What?” She blinked at me.

Her gemstone necklace suddenly ignited once again, flickering with silver and blue spider-leg strings reaching out to my face. Stormy growled as she swatted at them.

“I order you to take that damn necklace off!” I barked, retreating away from her.

“I c-caaan’t,” Cali cried, clawing at her gemstone collar with her shaking fingers. “It’s magically bound to stay on my neck, and can only be removed by a high-Sorceress Enclave from the Iridium Istria Maggelanum!”

“Fine, just stop using it in my presence then,” I growled. “Disable it right now or you’re going back into the floor!”

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The blue and silver threads became less vibrant and thin, but didn't vanish.

“Looks like it's still functioning,” I said.

“I can't disable it completely!” Cali whimpered. “I can only increase or reduce its effect. It’s entwined with my Aura!”

I grabbed a pair of witch-soil augmented wire-cutting pliers from the pile. I had pilfered the pliers from the smithy and kept them very close to gemstone 62 for around two weeks, magically reinforcing the metal along with a bunch of other tools.

One would think that a medieval blacksmith wouldn’t be able to produce wire cutters, and yet there were some out-of-place things in Svalbard such as the inkwell that were likely brought here by the far more magically advanced people from the South such as Callista.

I approached the merchant, enchanted wire cutters gleaming in the firelight. She flinched as I brought the blades close to her neck, her eyes wide with fear.

"Hold still, it’s snipping time," I commanded.

Her body instantly froze in place.

With careful precision, I slipped the pliers beneath the ornate collar and pressed the blades closed with all of my witchy strength. An ominous, deep screech resounded from the pliers and the collar as the magically augmented blades fought against the magically augmented chain.

Cali’s eyes stared at the pliers in horror as blue and violet sparks began to rain down from the spot where the witch-iron fought against the chain.

I pressed harder with a growl.

Warmth rushed across my entire body from my feet to my fingers. The pliers groaned, metal bending. I put all of my strength into it and with a brilliant snap the thread finally gave, the collar slipping off Cali’s neck and clicking down to the ground.

Callista gasped.

"How... how did you do that?" she whispered.

“Guess I'm a high Sorceress now,” I said.

“But…” She blinked at me. “That… that’s not possible, you’re a boy! Even a high-level Champion wouldn’t be able to tear apart the lavalier! The thread holding it on my neck is augmented with the power of a Star-Shard specifically against being torn apart or off by male hands! Had you touched it, with your fingers or a blood-blade, it would have knocked you out!”

“I didn’t use my hands,” I commented. “What kind of an idiot uses their bare hands to rip a metal chain?”

Cali blinked at me.

I looked at the bent pliers in my hand and then grabbed an iron hammer from the earth pile.

"No!" Cali cried. "The lavalier is priceless! It's been in my family for generations. Please, I beg you, don't destroy it!"

I paused, the hammer hovering over the fallen necklace. "Why shouldn't I? It's a tool for enslaving people."

Tears streamed down her face. "It's... it's more than that. It's my protection, my livelihood. Without it, I'm... I'm nothing."

I lowered the hammer slightly, studying her face. "Explain."

Cali swallowed hard. "The lavalier... it's not just for charming men. It enhances all of my abilities. My Dealermancy, Tonguemancy, Detectomancy! Without it, I'm… vulnerable. As weak as a lowborn waif!”

I raised an eyebrow. "Dealermancy? Tonguemancy? Detectomancy? What are those?"

"Dealermancy is... it's the art of making favorable deals. Persuasion, negotiation. Tonguemancy lets me quickly remember any language I hear," she explained. "Detectomancy helps me sniff out hidden gold and find Star-Shards. They're... they're part of what makes me valuable as a merchant!"

“Well that’s too bad! You should have thought about that before you shattered my belief in human decency," I growled, bringing the hammer down on one of the blue gems with a resounding crack.

Callista let out a strangled cry as the gem cracked, blue sparks flying in all directions. The necklace seemed to writhe on the floor, as if in pain. I squinted at it through the Astralscope lenses. Something changed within the auric imprint the gems were projecting. Even without being on Callista’s neck, blue spider-legs stretched from the lavalier, reaching out to grab at my face. I struck it again and the blue legs came apart into more sparks.

“How is it moving on its own?” I asked.

“I didn't know it could do that!” she cried. “I'm not an Artificer and I haven't taken it off since it was bound to me!”

I raised the hammer into the air again.

"Please, stop!" she begged, reaching out towards the necklace only to hiss as she was held back by my previous command to stand still.

I ignored her pleas, methodically smashing the smallest blue gem. With each blow, Callista flinched as if I was striking her directly.

The gem appeared to be magically reinforced too, refusing to yield to my witch-hammer.

“Hrm,” I pursed my lips as I grabbed my magnifying lens and witch-pliers. I turned the lavalier in the air, examined the gem through it and the Astralscope. The crack I made with my hammer was somehow slowly repairing itself.

I focused my witchy eyes on it, squinting harder through the Astralscope.

Time slowed to a crawl around me as my heartbeat accelerated a hundred times as the fight or flight reaction kicked in. The fire in the fireplace ceased flickering as each lick of flame stilled, became suspended in time. Flying sparks crawled upwards, slower and slower till they too stopped.

Oh no. Nope, nope, nope.

I recognized the microscopic things crawling across the crack in the gem right away.

Seeing them made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

“What the shit?” I mentally snarled as I brought the twitching lavalier closer to the light of the static fireplace making sure not to touch the cursed thing with my fingers.