Jessica slowly came back to consciousness. Why were her arms so sore? Her vision was blurry, her head was aching and there was a bad taste in her mouth.

Where was she? What had happened to her? Why was she busting to pee?

As the world around her slowly came into focus, her memory also started to come back.

She’d been at the Golden Bull for dinner. She had been with Monty and Sara, her fellow triplets, getting some triplet time. While she loved her other brothers and sisters, that special triplet bond just needed some ‘us’ time every now and then.

They’d gone out mid-week to escape the madness that was their normal life. Yeh, with their combined 13th birthday this weekend, they’d wanted to have a quiet night to themselves. Jessica could remember dinner, dessert and getting into the coach afterwards to return home, but nothing after that.

Looking around, she started to piece things together. Her feet were shackled to a wooden post and her arms were manacled to the top of the same post. OK, that explained the sore arms and shoulders. Looking around, she could see Monty chained to the post to her left and Sara chained to the post on her right. The three of them formed a triangle and they were in the middle of a double spell circle. With her brain and eyes functional again, she started to analyse the circles.

“Hey, Sara, Monty, you alive there?”

“W…w…w…what happened?”, said Sara.

“No, I’m dead”, replied Monty.

Jessica snorted at Monty’s joke. “We alone in here?”

Both siblings replied that they couldn’t see anyone.

“Right, we need to figure out what these spell circles are doing. The inner ring seems to start between me and Monty, while the outer one must start over the far side somewhere. The inner ring looks to be a transformation spell, can anyone see enough of it to figure out what it’ll do?”

Monty replied after a minute, “It’s transferring or transforming our body into a container? Our soul is to remain contained, but our magic is to be…I think it’s ‘translated’? Yes, translated.”

Sara picked up the discourse, “Yeh, translated and enhanced. But our mind is to be… What would ‘antorio meloshepha’ do?”

Jessica felt her heart go cold. “Wipe or reset”.

After a pause, Sara continued, “The outer ring starts as a standard magical containment and protection for those outside of the ring.”

Monty continued the translation. “Then there’s a script for isolation? No, hidden and masked? Yes.”

Jessica completed their translation, “And it finishes with a scrubbing spell to remove the magical signature from all of us and whoever is doing this. There is a partial third ring, looks like a randomised teleporter.”

“Well, shit.”

“Come on Jess, how do we stop this?”

“Sort of depends on who’s doing this.”

Sara replied, “It does explain why Drengle was in the front of the coach with the driver.”

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“Drengle? That makes no sense! He’s under Magical Contract with our family. He can’t do something like this to us. He’d brain would fry from the contract backlash,” said Jessica.

Monty sighed and said, “Maybe not. Been learning all about magical contracts this month, and as part of that I reviewed all the core staff contracts. His is a bit…strange.”

“Strange?” Asked Jessica.

“He’s contract is a short-term one, and it only requires him to ‘not attack or kill us’ and to ‘work towards a good, long-term outcome for us.’”

Interrupting the conversation, a balding, middle-aged man entered the room. “Fortunately, no-one noticed that when I swore that I changed that last word, so I’m contractually required to work towards a good, long-term outcome…for me.” Drengle Marntil stepped through the door and looked around. “Great all is in order. It’s time to get this party started.”

Jessica launched a foul, detailed tirade at Drengle, calling into question his manhood, family, upbringing and skills as a teacher. Strangely, it was the last ones that seem to affect him the most. Her eyes glanced to her siblings, pleading for help.

They didn’t know what she was trying to do, but trusted she had a plan. Jessica always had a plan.

The three of them now started to taunt they captor. Gleefully reminding each other of all of the embarrassing things that had happened to Drengle during his time as one of their tutors.

After a couple of minutes of this, Drengle snapped and cast a spell, dropping a ring of silence outside of the two spell circles. He turned away from them and continued his preparations to empower the circles.

Jessica looked at Monty and said, “What can you do? These shackles are enspelled, so my magic is locked away.”

Looking embarrassed, Monty said, “Remember when you two caught me, Fred, John and Mac signing our names in the snow last winter?”

Both girls gave a heartfelt “Ewww.”

“I could probably wipe out one, maybe two, possibly three sets of glyphs that way.”

Jessica put aside her distaste and started to think through the spellwork. “OK, under no circumstances do anything to the inner ring. You have to wipe out the end of the middle ring, where it says ‘antorio meloshepha’ and the glyph before it. But the outer ring is different. If you can wipe the whole set that is going to hide the magic, that will be best. Also, make sure that you break the outer edge of the spell ring at least twice, three times if you can manage it, but don’t break the inner ring.”

“Jess, you do realise that writing your name in the snow with pee is a fairly inexact science?” The worry in Monty’s voice was obvious.

“I have great faith in the immaturity of my brother,” Jessica said with fervour.

The glyphs in the third ring began to glow, as the magic filled them, one by one.

Jessica screamed, “Do it! Do it now!”

Monty did some sort of strange dance. After a moment, Sara realised he was using the friction with the wooden post to re-arrange his clothing. A minute later, the first glyph in the second ring was starting to be empowered.

With a look of concentration on his face, Monty started to pee, bringing the stream back to the centre ring and carefully erased the set of glyphs he needed to.

The power flowed around, empowering the remaining glyphs in the second ring.

Meanwhile, Monty repeated the process with the third ring, finishing with a flourish, breaking the outer ring the third time. The remaining few glyphs in this outer ring quickly powered up.

Drengle had finished empowering the array and had turned around to gloat. He dropped the silence spell and began to strut around the outer ring. “Well, I thank the three of you for making me incredibly rich. The Borchuffs had put a 150,000 gold piece bounty on each of your heads, so this will give me nearly a half million gold.” He noticed Monty’s clothing in disarray, and a puzzled look crossed his face. Glancing down, he saw the missing glyphs and a look or horror crossed his face. “No! What have you done?”

Monty said, “This,” and proceeded to pee on the man.

Drengle squealed like a pig, but it did what Monty had wanted. It kept him distracted and in front of the breach in the outer ring. The spellform had finished powering up and the rings activated.

Monty looked at his sisters and said, “Love you both”.

Power flared, Drengle was thrown violently back against the room’s wall, slouching unconsciously to the floor. It also overpowered the glyphs on the wall hiding the triplet’s signatures from those looking for them. The lack of the glyphs to hide the magic, caused a magical beacon to light up that the whole city would see. Pain poured through the triplets, as they felt themselves being folded into a smaller and smaller bundle. As the troops assaulted the tower they were in, looking for the triplets, the final part of the spellform enacted and what remained of Jessica, Sara and Monty were teleported away.