Do not fool yourself, all of us are enslaved to one thing or another, be it people or places; alchemaic chemicals or personal decisions.

Freedom as a concept is an illusion, a concept often tied by the masses to one’s personal power or wealth.

Yet is the King of a nation free? No, in some ways he is the greatest slave of all.

So what then is freedom? Is the only path to it an annihilation of all karmic bands? Perhaps, but such a fate I would not wish on my most fiendish of enemies.

For are we not defined by our bonds just as much as our actions and environment? In the end I leave the freedom, the choice of whom you will become and what chains you choose to bear to you and you alone. Use it well.

-Philosopher Kyne; last recorded discourse before his disappearance...

When Guppy awoke once more Batty was thankfully silent, and while she still felt on edge the raw emotional flip flopping of seething emotions no longer pressed against her.

Now what had she been doing? Oh right, planning her escape. Now what was plan C going to be...

Just as Guppy was pondering whether she should dislocate her thumbs in a bid to escape her cuffs the door to her cell swung open, causing her to blink at the sudden light that entered in the form of a cold blue magitech lantern shining directly at her face.

“Feeling like behaving yourself this time?” Came a challenge from...Her.

Guppy got a look at her jailer once the lantern was hung on a hook by the door, and now no longer blinded, she gazed upon her captor, greedily taking in her few defining features.

The woman was wrapped just as tightly in black cloth and leather as their last encounter, she balanced lightly on the balls of her feet, moving with a fluid grace that made Guppy irrationally jealous for a brief moment.

The woman raised a tiny cube and with a click Guppy felt her chains slacken, allowing her to rise up and sit upon the bed. The manacles and chains were still there to encumber her movements, but they were no longer attached to the bed.

Guppy briefly considered the possibilities of plan D: a hastily made affair consisting of strangling the wretch with her chains and retrieving whatever the heck that box was to get rid of the rest of her trappings before escaping once more. Maybe her earthen magic was next to useless here, but the distance between them was short and she knew these chains were strong.

Her thoughts must have been to easily read for the leather clad crime against women spoke up once more.

“I wouldn’t get any idea’s little girl. I previously took you down in far fairer circumstances than your current allotment. Any further stupidity will be met with exacting and painful punishment. Now follow, my master wishes to gaze upon the source of all these recent disturbances in the city.”

Guppy took a moment to consider her options and they seemed rather slim, so when her captor turned and walked out the door she shrugged and followed to meet her new 'employer'. They would slip up eventually, and then she would be free, she could feel her magic pulsing in tune to her heartbeat within her, it was just a matter of time.

So when Guppy was led down a maze of corridors up to a rather large and intimidating door she wasn’t impressed. It had not been that long since she stood in front of a far more terrifying one, and overcome the trials that lay within.

This big hunk of iron and steel did not scare her one bit, not the thuds, clanks or whirs that sounded as it unlocked itself were impressive, she had seen the inside of Arkanissius, this lump of scrap couldn’t compare with the least of her Master’s creations. She wasn’t scared of the one ahead, not one bit.

………………………….

Emily stood still as her Boss’s office gradually unlocked, watching the girl for signs of any stupidity she would have to crush with her peripheral vision.

The girl put on a brave face at the spectacle, more so than most who came here, but a slight quiver shook her muscles before she could clamp down on them.

Spirited then, but ultimately just a scared little girl, but Emily could have known that from their fight, the girl, Gupalagia had put up far more of a fight than expected, or than she had any right to, wasn’t the girl a blasted null? It had been tricky to subdue her without damaging her too badly, and now the mystery surrounding the young woman had intrigued her Boss, and the one he reported to had been similarly interested.

Emily did not envy the girls fate, and though her true value remained to be seen she had but three paths left to tread. So Emily tried not to be unkind towards the girl caught between larger forces who with a single misstep on her behalf could and would grind her to dust.

The door finally swung open and Emily gave Gupalagia a gentle push before following her in.

…………………………………

Guppy felt a gentle shove and stumbled forwards through the large arched doorway, taking in a rather peculiar office filled with filing cabinets, bookshelves, no windows, a massive desk, and one middle-aged Man dressed in a Black robe currently poking and examining a strange doll of a beast Guppy had not seen before. Some long eared plushy thing that seemed strangely...still? It brought a small frown to Guppy’s face but another ornament to the left of the desk caught her eye.

There on a pedestal under a glass dome stood the tree she had auctioned off, glittering and gleaming in the steady light that illuminated it.

Guppy tried, and failed, to suppress a small gulp.

she thought.

Evidently her gulp was heard because the Man in Black, whom Guppy couldn’t help but feel that even his descriptor deserved capitals, sighed and put the doll away into a drawer in his desk before turning to look at her.

A slight smile graced his narrow face as he looked at her, it felt unnatural upon his visage and came off creepy as heck to Guppy, who felt the hairs on her neck rise even as ice pricked her veins.

For Guppy knew that gaze, it was not lascivious but The Man in Black looked at her not as a person but a thing, a thing that would be discarded once it’s interest or purpose was fulfilled.

She had seen the same cruel smile, the same piercing, flaying eyes two years ago from a serial killer as he was led past where she stood in the crowd to the stocks by the royal guards. His gaze had been terrifying to her, brief though it was, and his grinning face had kept it’s joke in death as he swung and twitched.

Guppy pulled herself together just in time to hear The Man in Black speak.

“Miss Bright, it has been a pleasure reading my employee’s contrasting and increasingly surprising reports of your adventures, so much so I decided to personally meet and evaluate you.”

His words were polite, but Guppy could not help but let a slight shudder flow through her at his voice. It was suppressed, buried even, but the psychopathic tinge to his intonation was there, she had heard it from the killers last words, and more recently from the witch in red, though hers had been far less constrained.

“So many...surprises you’ve given me; more than what I expected out of your little family from you alone, and with the revelations from your sister and brother included this has been a most profitable week for me indeed. And so against my better judgement I will answer three questions, within reason of course, before you leave me.”

Guppy stood,unsure of herself all of a sudden, this Man...brought her here to answer Her questions? The arrogance and ridiculousness of it all made her bristle, her fear temporarily forgotten as anger rose.

This did nothing but widen The Man in Black’s smile, who silently waited for her to speak. Guppy took a long breath to calm the thudding of her heart, she did have questions that needed answers and despite wanting to know who he was and where they were she had better questions to ask; so she raised her eyes to meet his and spoke.

“Where. is. my. family?”

“Hmm, a better line than questioning where you are or who I am, but still a predictable question my dear, and one you should have already guessed at. We procured them both earlier this week, though not for the reasons you might expect.”

Guppy opened her mouth then closed it, eliciting a slightly toothier smile from The Man in Black, she had almost fallen into his trap of asking ‘why’ after his leading statement, no, a far more important question was…

“What is going to happen to us?” Guppy asked.

“Well now that's the important question now isn’t it? And you even framed it nicely for a maximum of information retrieval, Emily over there just lost a gold royal, she bet you’d ask that last, or more segmented. To answer your astute question your fates will be as thus. Your brother is apparently a smithing prodigy and will be kept occupied with such. Your sister will be released but kept under our purview in sufferance of your brother’s happiness and co-operation and as possible bait. You however, will stand trial, the gold you made was cast into false coinage and already is being distributed, undermining the value of our nation’s currency, the irony is that though slightly diluted in the casting their content is purer than the legitimate coinage.”

Guppy stood as the words washed over her, her locked knees the only reason she did not stumble. She- she was going to stand trial?

“The public verdict will inevitably be death.” grinned The Man in Black as he continued to watch her.

Guppy could not resist, a part of her warned against it, but she could not help the word that escaped her lips. “Why?”

Her answer wiped the smile from The Man in Black’s face, revealing a hint of disdain before the mask descended once more.

“Such a boring pedestrian question, but I did promise three answers did I not? I suppose it segways into my plans for you at least, note I said ‘Public Verdict’. The girl Gupalagia Esme Bright will be executed, a brown hair, brown eyed body hung and disposed off, your public records have already been reverted to your old appearance. A new employee of ours called Henrietta Cooper is transferring from a district branch to our treasury division, you will report to work tomorrow, Emily here will fill you in on your new identity and any miscellaneous details. But before you leave to take up your new exciting life as a junior auditor I have one more item of business with you.”

The Man in Black reached into his desk and retrieved a clear crystal carved into a do-decagon. Guppy recognized it, and elemental testing stone.

“I am curious how a tested and registered null was able to perform magic without any magitech devices or cores, the initial report was double checked and the examiner questioned under a truth spell, but both came back with no signs of foul play. Now if you would Henrietta.”

Guppy rankled at her new name, she was conflicted, but a life of drudgery under an assumed name still had hope, death was final and had none. So she bit her thumb with her canines and dripped a drop of blood upon the crystal, She would be lying is she said she wasn’t curious as well.

The blood diffused into the crystal, and as the blood faded a point lit up brown, earth affinity, expected and verified, then another lit up, a vermilion red for a fire affinity, then cerulean blue for water, then-

All the rooms occupants took a sharp intake of breath as on after another point lit up, until all twelve points were colored and glowing.

Silence reigned as The Man in Black lent back in his chair, the most open and honest expression expression of surprise and delight showed briefly before he regained control. He tapped his index finger on the desk as he thought for a full minute before opening his mouth once more.

“This...changes things, plans will have to be remade, you really are full of surprises Miss Cooper. Too many secrets and too much potential to just let go. You’ve given me quite a headache I must admit.”

He rubbed his temples in tired motions before rising from his seat and removing a small flat ovoid stone from some inner pocket, then turning and waving it over a small chest that sat on the bookshelf behind his desk. Both briefly glowed in a violet light before he grasped the chest and placed it gently on his desk, then smoothly opening it with his slender fingers and removing a delicate crown of both stunning beauty and woven complexity that had lain within.

“This was once called Queen Neferrishia’s Choker, mithril, gold and orihalcum spun and enchanted for one purpose, to collar a queen. Now Miss Cooper, why don’t you try it on?”

Guppy recoiled from the slave band, its beauty sinister and cold in the light of its nature, a slave collar for all it was a crown.

She turned to run, but was met and grasped by her captor, by...Emily.

And her struggles did nothing as the woman flipped her around and planted her down face first onto the cold, hard floor.

Guppy lay partly dazed and could only watch as The Man in Black walked around his desk, he gave a hand gesture and Emily raised her up off the ground to her knees.

she mentally promised.

The promise of violence in her eyes brought The Man in Black up short.

“Now don’t look at me like that Miss Cooper, this is in your own best interest after all, in fact it is the only way you walk out of this room alive at all. But it's only fair, and necessary I suppose that you understand the outcomes here. This crown must be willingly accepted for it’s magic to work, magic which allows it’s binder may impose three commands upon the bearer, only three, but they will last until your death. Choose carefully now my dear, for your family is only ~so~ indispensable.”

called Guppy

Batty stirred from his melancholic huddle within her mind.

{I tried fifteen times already, my magic is gone from me, even my memories of it hazy and dim. We are doomed, doomed, doom-}

Guppy stopped listening to the lizard, his whining was an annoying distraction right now. Alright, no magic from the formerly majestic dragon then, and her earthsense found no willing ground she could manipulate. Her limbs were restrained, her face swelling slightly.

Dignity, none to be found. But, she would not lose her siblings, and she had no doubts that this terrible fiend in front of her would kill them just because he had threatened he might, should she refuse.

Her emotions fought and struggled as Emily and The Man in Black patiently waited, Guppy screamed in rage and fear, stomach felt like someone had scooped her insides out and despair finally took hold as Guppy could find no other answer to her predicament.

A piece of her broke then, and her limbs sagged where previously they were taught and struggling.

“W-Will you promise that my family will be kept safe?” she finally asked through her trembling lips.

“Of course.” Came her response, the demon positively purring in his victory.

“I-I accept.” Guppy said quietly, her head lowered in defeat.

She felt a cold band rest upon her, and then there was pain as a thousand needles lanced into her head, the crown dissolving and leaving only a simmering, shifting tattoo upon her forehead.

Her chin was raised by one of his hands, and Guppy saw his maniacal grin through watery eyes.

“Obey the King of Darish first and foremost.”

Burnt flesh scented the air and Guppy loosed a scream as agony seared her mind and forehead both. The light dimmed but remained hovering over a glyph now engraved upon her forehead.

“Serve the country of Darish and all those within of higher rank, unless an order contradicts the King’s Commands.” came the next command.

Again agony descended and then was gone as a new glyph settled upon her, Guppy’s limbs trembled and flailed within Emily’s grip, somewhere within her Batty was impotently raging and unable to escape, then once more her law was decreed.

“Live.”

This agony was the lowest, or maybe her nerves were deadened, but the last of the shifting light disappeared and the now three glyphs on her forehead overlaid and merged together, settling down in permanence.

The last command was the cruelest of them all, and Guppy felt tears stream down her cheeks as her consciousness faded away.