Max dipped in and out of sleep, like a small boat on stormy seas. Time slid by, flashes of movement and arguing passing without understanding.

The mental fog slowly cleared and he found himself somewhere strange. It was green and yellow, round and musty. Like he was in the belly of a huge beast. Lily and James were lying to either side of him, still asleep. Gus was facedown with his butt in the air. Max slowly sat up and got a better look around.

Light filtered through a membrane in the ceiling. They were in an organic room, with slimy branches covering a narrow exit. This was a prison. Ebba and Yang were already up, whispering to each other on the other side of the room. Max stood up and stumbled over.

“What’s going on?” he whispered.

Ebba pulled on her silver tunic. Max realized that they had taken her cargo shorts of holding. He looked away to give her some privacy.

“They captured us. Stole our stuff. The only reason we are alive is our cards. If they kill us, they get one. If they convince us to hand them over, they get all of them,” Yang said.

Max sat down hard. “I can’t give them my cards, even if I wanted to. I picked Specialize.”

“Don’t let them hear that,” Ebba said. “It’s the only thing keeping you alive. They are getting someone with the right bell card to strip us of our cards. If they realize you can provide them nothing, they’ll kill you. Keeping any of us alive is a risk. The governor may be gone, but none of the Elders would condone this. They need to get rid of us as soon as possible.”

Max swore softly.

“Not too loud. Ebba’s working hard to give us some awake time. If the guards catch on they’ll come in and hit us with Sleep again,” Yang whispered.

Max was fully awake now and made the connection. “We’ve been in here for a while, haven’t we? They’ve been regularly dosing us with mind magic to keep us asleep. But Ebba, now that you are awake, won’t your Disregard card make things easy?”

Ebba slashed a lower hand negative. “No. We are in the heart chamber of a living building. That means its aura smothers ours. None of our cards should work at all. My Disregard card is high enough to work, but at a greatly reduced effect. I’ll run out of mana in about ten minutes.”

This time Yang swore. Max ran his hands through his blond hair. They needed to get out of here before the criminal with the bell card got here and mind controlled them. What did he have to work with?

His belt was gone, which was a real blow. He had a string saw in his pack that would be perfect for cutting through the cell bars. Everyone else's packs were gone too. His pockets were empty, his shoes were missing. He supposed he should be thankful they left him with a shirt and pants. That was something, at least. He vaguely remembered an episode of MythBusters where they showed that getting a shirt wet and twisting it around some bars could bend them.

He walked over to the cell ‘bars’. They could be better described as wooden tendons dripping with snot. They crisscrossed everywhere, so even if he was able to bend them, it wouldn’t open up a space wide enough to slip through.

The other three had woken up by then and he gave them the same whispered run down that Yang gave them. James immediately freaked out. He was concerned that they were going to be killed, but absolutely frantic that they were locked in a small space. He was claustrophobic and the stress of the situation made the condition flair up.

Max said, “It’s fine, buddy. We’ll get out of this in just a bit. I know you can’t calm down, but you can breathe deep for me, can’t you?”

“No! I can’t, I can’t take a breath. The walls are closing in,” James said and cringed back.

There was stomping from outside the cell and a single word. “Sleep.”

...

“You called me in too early,” a voice said. “I told you they have to be awake for this to work. I told you having a merged bell card slotted was dangerous. I can’t walk around like this.”

“Sorry. They are lower leveled than I thought. Most people shake off the effects by now.” Kalle replied.

“Whatever. Provide me some tea and we’ll come back in 24 minutes. If they aren’t awake by then, you can splash them with water or something,” the first voice said.

Max waited for the sounds of them walking to fade away completely before he cracked an eyelid. He was in a pile of sleeping bodies, still in the same cell. He carefully sat up, making sure not to jostle James. They didn’t need him freaking out again.

Ebba and Yang were already awake, just like last time. They must have upgraded their system in a way that let them shake off the effects easier. They were sitting together, but not talking.

Just like last time they were awake, no one had an idea of how to escape. Ebba had said that their cards wouldn’t work in here, but Max decided to try it anyway. He just needed some material he could transmute into a hammer. He looked around, but the only free material was the clothing he was wearing. Actually, he was wearing something new.

His utility belt was back on his waist. Why had they given that back to him?

It took his sleep-addled mind a moment to catch up. They hadn’t given it back, the belt was cursed. It returned on its own. He grinned and reached into the belt’s leftmost woven metal pouch. He grabbed and pulled out ... a beaded bracelet. Shit.

It had been at least a day since they were imprisoned. That meant he had to run through the belt’s curse and use five objects. As he slipped the beaded bracelet onto his wrist, he found himself hoping that it had only been one day. If it had been more than that, his pack would be lost forever.

The beaded bracelet disappeared as it fulfilled its purpose and Max quickly opened up the next pouch. This time he pulled out a box of baking soda. His mind stuttered to a stop. How was he supposed to use this? He could only think of baking and science fair volcanoes.

“What are you doing, Max?” Yang said.

“I have my belt back because of the curse. I have some stuff stored away that can help us break out of here, but I have to satisfy the curse by using this random junk,” Max said. “Do you know a way we can use baking soda here?”

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“My mom used to clean floors with it,” Yang replied.

“Ok, sure, it’s a floor cleaner,” Max said as he poured the whole box on the floor and mashed it around with his hands. The moistness of the floor was soaked up by the baking soda and left a cleaner organic floor behind.

The box disappeared as soon as he saw the clean floor. Next was a plastic fork. Max swore to himself. It would be easy to use in some situations, but infuriating in this one. He shook his head and looked around the room. Hair! He used it to comb his hair. It took a while for the magic to agree with him that this was an acceptable use of the fork. It wasn’t until he cleared some tangles with the fork that it dissolved into nothing.

James groggily sat up. Max fell to his knees and covered his eyes. “Hey buddy. We got out, but you aren’t allowed to see just yet. It’s a secret.”

“Yeah? How’d we get out?”

“Don’t worry about it. We just need you to be quiet right now.”

James stretched out his hands, one finding the wall and the other waving in empty air. “Uh, are we still in jail? That tiny, tiny jail?”

Max grit his teeth. “Sorry, Ebba. I need your help. Give him a kiss and keep him quiet.”

“What!?” Lily whisper-yelled.

At the same time, Ebba, “Now is not the time for affections.”

“Please. It’ll reset his brain,” Max said. “We need you to keep him quiet.”

James sputtered, “Don’t do that, Ebba. He’s just being weird. I can be calm.” His breathing hitched as he said it though, belying his words.

Ebba leaned over and gave him a gentle kiss. James immediately froze, unable to move.

Max felt a little bad about the chaos he just created, but there hadn’t been time to think of a better solution. At least he hadn't asked Lily to give him a kiss. If he had asked either of the human girls to kiss him, that would cause problems for weeks. He reached into the next pouch and pulled out a toilet paper tube. He immediately put it to his eye and peered through it like it was a spyglass. He used to do that a lot as a kid.

When the cardboard tube disappeared, he opened the next pouch. He pulled out a TV remote. “What the hell, belt?” Max muttered to himself.

“How can we help, Max?” Ebba said.

“I don’t think you can. I need to use this remote, and it goes to a device that I don’t have,” he said and slowly blinked as he stared at the small plastic device.

A glance towards James showed that he was still sitting stock still with his eyes closed. Lily was softly talking to him. Whatever she was saying just made him more and more nervous.

Ebba asked, “How does it work?”

“It uses an electric charge to create infrared light that bounces off a sensor in the television to change channels,” Max said, half to himself, half to her. He handed it over while he thought.

She poked at the buttons while he ran through possibilities. He couldn’t reprogram it to work with a different device, not that he had any still working. He couldn’t reuse the batteries in anything else. It would take some serious mental gymnastics to convince himself it was a toy. It wasn’t edible in any sense of the word.

Ebba handed it back and said, “I can’t think of any ideas either, sorry. The light is too brief to use as illumination.”

“Wait. You can see the infrared light this gives off?”

“Yes, of course. You can’t?”

“No, humans can’t see that end of the spectrum,” Max said and tapped the remote on his chin. He had an idea forming and he stared at his belt to double check. Once Inspect finally triggered, he reread the drawback section.

Belt is bound to the user and will return within hours if taken off. Dimensional pocket will always be the last pocket opened. The utility belt’s objects must be used for their intended purpose (as defined by the wielder’s understanding) before the dimensional pocket can be used for the day. If objects are not used that day, the stored contents of the dimensional pocket will be lost forever.

The TV remote must be used for its intended purpose, as defined by Max. What was the remote’s core purpose? It was a signaling device. It was a universal remote. It didn’t have to be for a TV, it just had to signal.

“Ebba. I wanna try something out. Face that wall and raise your hands when you see two flashes of light. Lower them when you see one,” Max said and pointed the remote at the wall.

This was a bit of a stretch, but it was the remote’s intended purpose. It was creating a signal that resulted in an effect he wanted. He pressed the button twice, she raised all four arms. He pressed it once, she lowered them. She turned to see if it worked.

A wave of relief washed over him as the remote disappeared. That had been close. Max held his breath and reached into his pocket again. This would be the last one. It was heavier than the others had been. He pulled it up revealing ... bolt cutters. A shocked smile spread across his face. The random objects weren’t always useless.

He walked over to the cell door and placed the small blades around a wooden tendon. It barely fit. The bolt cutters were designed for cutting smaller things, like chains. He leaned into it and pushed the long handles together.

The organic cell bars protested, but eventually relented. The heavy duty cutter made it all the way through. The bolt cutters disappeared. That was the first time he was sad to see a cursed item go.

Ebba reached forward and pulled on the bar, slowly bending it. “It’ll grow back together if we let it.”

Max nodded seriously and reached into the sixth pouch. This one was his dimensional storage with 3.7 cubic feet of space. He hefted out his pack and rummaged around inside until he got to the bush tools. Gus was looming over him, so Max handed over his handsaw. It was small, but it was better than nothing. Gus got to work right away.

The real treasure was his hand chainsaw. It looked a little like a garrote, a wire between two rings. But instead of piano wire, this one had tiny chainsaw links. He wanted to use it himself, but he knew Ebba was stronger. He handed it over and showed her how to use it.

She leaned back and pulled one ring, then the other. The serrated links quickly bit into the wet tendons. Bits of slime flung off onto Gus, who was sawing nearby. Ebba’s hands blurred and the saw cut through the wood like butter. In less than four minutes, they had cut the entire door off.

Max reached into his bag and handed Ebba a pair of hammers. He had stored all of the hammers he had made for the team in his bag, so he had three more left. He gave Gus and Yang one, keeping the last for himself. Before they left the cell, Max grabbed a pair of sweatpants from his bag and handed them to Ebba. They were too tight on her, but now no one would be distracted by a half naked Lunuk.

Ebba thanked him and said, “Everyone, prepare yourselves.”

Max tucked away his pack into his belt. He felt a little nervous about using his belt again. He had just seen how difficult the morning tasks could be. Still, he needed to be combat ready and a backpack would only get in the way.

Before they snuck out of jail, Max pointed to the slime and said, “Shouldn’t we block our ears or something? Bell magic works with sound, right?”

Ebba shuddered and said, “I won’t be sticking that in my ears, but feel free to do it yourself.”

Max grimaced and followed through with his idea. James followed suit, but no one else created slime earplugs.

The six of them slowly crept through the long hallway and out into the room beyond. It was constructed of the same slimy wood, but with blocks of black stone embedded as well. Max recognized the style. They hadn’t been taken far, this was the same construction as the Paj neighborhood near the anti-spinward gate.

Yang whispered something to Ebba, but Max couldn’t hear what. He slightly regretted his decision to slime himself, but defense against the Lunuk bell cards was vital.

There were two exits to the room, standard doors this time. Ebba chose the one on the left and quietly led them to the next room. It was a sitting room, with tables and cushions on the ground.. Two Lunuk were sitting at one table, sipping tea. They turned when they heard the door open.

Kalle was quick to react, shouting, “Sleep.”

He wasn’t fast enough. Ebba was in motion as soon as she spotted them. She hurled a hammer at the younger Lunuk and started sprinting across the room. The hammer spun end over end, its super strike activating midair. The leading edge of the magic hit Kalle in the head and shattered his skull.

The older Lunuk didn’t flinch as he was splattered with blood. He turned and stared down Ebba as she sped towards him. He shouted, “Die.”