"Okay, so let me see if I've got this straight," Jason said as he walked down one of Caldera City's streets with Alex.  "You discovered a way to imbue items with your Domain."

"Basic enchanting 101, right."

Jason scoffed.  "More like, 'forgotten lore from before our civilization was created'."

Alex shrugged.  "Tomato, tomahto."

"And refresh my memory," Jason said, "did you do this before or after the first time you saw a slave being mistreated?"

"Mmmmm, immediately afterwards, I believe."

"And you're claiming that there was no connection between the two?"

"What?" Alex asked, pretending to be heartily offended.  "Noooooo!  No, no, no.  It is a total and complete coincidence that as soon as I realized that slave culture was alive and well in this country I spent the next several months researching ways to apply my Rejection domain on a large scale.  Total coincidence!"

"Uh huh," Jason said, clearly not convinced.  "So then you made as many Rejection artifacts as you could and handed them out to as many people as you could."

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"Right."

"And then... what?  What did you expect would happen?"

"Well, I was hoping the slaves and familiars would somehow get their hands on them.  Poof, instant freedom!  No more mind-control, no more slave collars.  The ones who were treated well would be able to stick around if they wanted, but as equals instead of slaves."

Jason gestured around him.  Half the town was on fire and the sounds of chaos and property destruction could be heard from several different directions.

"And the ones who were mistreated?" Jason practically yelled.

"Welllll... I must admit, I didn't see that one coming," Alex admitted.  "I had no idea they would band together so quickly to free more and more slaves, and I don't even know where they got those firearms from!"

An explosion rocked the city quarter.

"Explosives," Alex corrected himself.  "Firearms and explosives."

Alex and Jason stood in the abandoned street, listening to the sounds of chaos and anarchy as the former slaves turned against their former masters.

"Let's get out of here," Jason said.

"Yeah," Alex hastily agreed.