Sofya was awoken and led from her mean accomodation through the labyrinthine complex, through endless marbled corridors until arriving at last at a heavy wooden door. Opening it, her escort pushed her through. Without even being spoken to, she felt the now-familiar kind of presence slip easily, comfortably into her mind: here in the centre of the Duke’s power they were unconcerned with instructions and demonstrations. The presence walked her past the threshold, not turning as the door was closed behind her. The room had a low ceiling, but a square in the middle of it let in bright sunlight. The room was dominated in its centre by a stout, upright wooden board that was fixed with iron brackets to the floor and ceiling. There were two other people in the room, dressed in the regalia of the Duke: a short old man with chaotic white hair, and a taller woman. Sofya could tell that the mental presence was that of the woman, who now through invisible puppetry had her strip her clothes and stand in front of the board. The man stepped forward and fastened the manacles which stood from the board around Sofya’s wrists and ankles, then disappeared behind her and did something which tightened her already stretched limbs.

The mental presence receded as smoothly as it had inserted itself and the woman nodded to the man. “Right,” he said, brusquely. “Even with the finest mental control this goes better if you can’t move, you see.” He busied himself at a broad counter which Sofya could barely see out of the corner of her eye. He returned to her field of vision a few seconds later holding a velvet cloth and a small pair of forceps. With no ceremony at all, he plucked a gem — unseen before but now sparkling in the light from above — from the cloth with the forceps, and knelt before her. Only when the gem neared her belly did she begin to feel something strange - waves of power emanated from it in steady pulses, washing over her and prickling her skin in their wake. She felt the cool metal of the forceps brush her bare skin and immediately afterwards a penetrating warmth. To her surprise, the man released the forceps and turned away, but the stone remained touching the skin below her navel - she could feel it still, though couldn’t bend to see it.

The pulsing stopped abruptly but the prickling remained - an intensifying itch that sank into her flesh. The old man spoke up again, “Don’t worry, the itching is normal. It’ll improve a bit once I give the conduit something to do.” Sofya noticed the woman, still standing by the door, rolled her eyes slightly - presumably talking captives through what was going on was not part of his official duties. The itching was maddening and Sofya struggled against her bonds, but could hardly budge. Just as she thought she would scream, the man returned to stand in front of her. “A fine body you have, but all mages with your abilities need different assets I’m afraid.” Without giving her time to comprehend this statement, the man placed one hand on her belly above the gem, and another on her breast over her heart. His brow creased and his eyes closed as he started muttering an incantation. Almost immediately, to Sofya’s relief the itching receded, only to be replaced just as quickly by a terrible wrenching. Waves of spasm passed through her, every muscle fibre straining against… against what Sofya did not know, but whatever it was the spell was doing, her body rejected utterly and without doubt. Sofya imagined the wood she was bound to creaking and splitting behind her, but it did not yield in the slightest. Unable to scream or even grunt, so violent were the convulsions, her body railed soundlessly against whatever was being forced into it via the conduit stone, but could not escape.

After an eternity the spasms abated first into jerks, then twitches, leaving Sofya breathless, dimly aware that the murmuring spell was not over. Finally he lifted his hands from Sofya’s naked body, leaving behind a tingling memory. She was unshackled and fell into the arms of the woman. She tried to take a step but stumbled, and allowed herself to be half walked, half carried back to the room where she had been awoken not long ago.

Sofya awoke from a troubled sleep without any knowledge of how much time had passed. The barred window showed that it was afternoon, but whether it was the same day or not, she had no idea. She was aware immediately of two things: firstly, the prickling, itching feeling was, although not unbearable, still present — and concentrated on her sex, chest and thighs. Secondly, she was ravenously hungry.

Rising from the pallet, she saw that there were several plates and bowls on a low table, holding bread and cold soup. She attacked all with gusto, pausing briefly to investigate the souvenir of the spellweaving: the gem that was now married to the flesh of her abdomen as if she had been born with it. With no light behind it, it had little sparkle, and sat there dully. As her hunger abated a little though, it gave way to a deep, deep exhaustion. The prickling did not keep her from slumping back to her nest, a soup-soaked lump of bread falling to the floor as she fell back to sleep.

When Sofya next woke, the window was black as coal. Rising groggily, she was immediately aware of a change in her still-crawling skin, of a distinctly unfamiliar weight to her chest. She felt there tentatively, and the gasp that burst from her seemed to echo around the small room. They had changed her. Her body was different and, though it was impossible to see in the blackness, Sofya thought she could imagine how it was different. The feeling of that one touch lingered on her breast and in her mind, a feeling like no other. It had felt… wonderful. She shuddered, overcome in spite of the shock with exhaustion, and lay back down, trying not to let the blanket touch anywhere sensitive. Her thoughts went unbidden to the demonstrations in the town square, how all the captured mages were similarly… well-endowed.

Some time later, morning sun streaming through the small opening, Sofya was awake and her mind was clear of the sluggishness she hadn’t realised had plagued it since whatever spell had been cast in that room with the board. As awareness returned, she started upright as she recalled what she had felt in the darkness, the unfamiliar feeling in her body an unwelcome reminder. She flung off the roughspun blanket and gaped at her body in disbelief.

The long limbs, slight swells of her breasts, the defined angles of her bones — all were replaced. Her old self was still recognisable in that body, but only just. Where once were angles there now was smooth, yielding, supple flesh. Her once slender thighs were now pleasantly rounded. And her breasts — her breasts! — loomed, an unremitting presence at the bottom of her field of vision, achingly full, pale nipples standing proudly, begging to be touched and suckled.

Sofya tried to stand, but everything seemed wrong. So used to running, her legs betrayed her, wobbling — she overcompensated, overbalanced and fell back to the stone floor. Gritting her teeth, she tried again, took one, two faltering steps before falling a second time. Her breasts shook in a way she was unaccustomed to. She crawled the rest of the way to the door of the cell, and dragged herself to her feet. She pounded on the wooden boards of the door and screamed into the dark corridor: “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME?!”

She was answered only with silence.

“Can you help me?” asked Sofya, pointedly, drawing close so that the others wouldn’t overhear, guess her purpose. It was clear that something — that thread she had extracted — was dulling them, but judging by the defensive posture he had assumed when she burst in, she still needed to be circumspect.

He understood without further explanation. “No, not me, I… lack the skill. But her,” he pointed to the woman reading, who had in the meantime started gasping, “she has it.”

Sofya wasted no time in crossing the room to take her hand, doing her best to ignore the man enthusiastically licking her. She realised he was stroking himself at the same time. Misinterpreting the taking of her hand, the woman, whose long black hair had fallen across her face, guided Sofya’s to her breast. It made little difference to Sofya, who once more closed her eyes and reached out for the thread. It didn’t come out so easily: the woman was older and the thread was better incorporated into the fabric of her mind.

Still, with some effort and a little time, it slipped loose and the pair came out of their reverie. They found that they had gained a small audience in that time, one voice piping up, “what are you doing? Who are you?” They had to work quickly if those whose minds still contained the purple threads were not to realise what was happening, if the situation wasn’t to get out of hand, and Sofya turned to the blinking woman, whispering:

“Can you release more of them?”

“I — ah — I think mm think so. I think so.” The man showed no signs of slowing and she showed no signs of stopping him.

“As quick as you can then. Prioritise more who can help.” Sofya rose to attend to the one who had spoken up.

She proceeded like this for several minutes, holding hands, pulling on those threads, until she heard a whistling sound from outside. Seconds after she heard shouts outside and boots inside. The whistle was her signal to leave, and she was at the door, into the corridor, down the stairs and into the grounds in a flash. She spared no glance behind her, trusting that the guards would not have expected her to know to flee, hoping that the mages inside to be able to hold their ground and complete her work.

As she crossed the grassy expanse to the boundary wall, she thought on the mission. She had directly freed five in that room, two of whom had had the ability to go on to free more. A crash behind her hinted at the ensuing struggle. She hoped as she fled.

It was several days before Sofya saw another human being. During that time, meals were delivered — always, it seemed, while she slept — by some anonymous visitor. Once she tried searching with magic, but immediately doubled over, her last meal splattering noisily over the floor and she was left, retching and whimpering, for an hour before the effects of the blocking spell abated.

She was left plenty of time to consider her fate. With little else to think about than the displays in the town square, missing as her recent memories were, dreamt up scenes of public humiliation tortured her mind in the lonely cell. Sofya could only imagine that her altered body was preparation for her own ordeal.

Eventually her interminable reverie was broken by footsteps which halted outside her door. Instinctively she snatched the rough blanket to cover herself as she heard a key turning in the lock and the way into the passage yawned open. With only the small room to pace around, the unsteadiness in her new body was still apparent as she got to her feet to face the intruder.

Even as the figure entered the cell, she felt her mind submit unwittingly to it. The unsteadiness melted away and the blanket fell from limp fingers, leaving her exposed to the woman whom Sofya dimly remembered had escorted her to her alteration days ago. Accompanied by a short man with bushy eyebrows holding a slate, she stepped towards Sofya and looked her up and down. “External observations,” she said, and the man held up the slate. “Breasts good.” The man’s pencil scraped lightly. “Legs good” — scrape. The woman walked around Sofya making several more observations and the pencil noted each one.

Sofya noticed control of her body return to her and then, without further warning, the mage pinched her nipple. A bolt flashed through her body, causing her to gasp involuntarily. “Nipple sensitivity good.” It wasn’t pleasurable exactly, but it hinted at the possibility. She jerked, gasped and moaned as the woman tweaked and fondled her all over, culminating between her legs. Under the circumstances, trapped and scared, any extra pleasure her body could have provided was lost, and Sofya was able only to whimper in protest.

Finally satisfied, the man made his last marks and the mage’s power over her reasserted itself. Sofya fell silent and followed them smoothly out of her cell, arriving once more via a confusing maze of corridors at a laboratory. A spindly woman with short hair stood by the door as she and her handler entered, Sofya stepping liquidly over to the table which lay in the middle of the room, laying herself on its hard surface. As she placed her wrists and ankles into the waiting cuffs, a sense of deja-vu touched her, but she was unable to place it. The cuffs were pulled tight, then she heard a clicking sound as the cuffs pulled her arms and legs until she thought they would pop from their joints. She opened her mouth and a wooden bar was placed in it and tightened behind her head, then she felt the mage’s presence recede.

“WHAT THE FUCK?!” she tried to say, but through the bar it came out incomprehensible. The intent was, nevertheless, clear. A disembodied voice told her, “it’s time for the rest of your changes. We can’t constrain your mind at all for them, and so…” That was all the explanation she seemed to be getting. Silence for a while, then the voice returned, chanting a spell. With her natural talent, Sofya could feel the terrifying power in those words, stronger and more awful than any utterance she had heard. The room seemed to darken as the chanting grew louder, and she felt a growing pressure in her head, as if the mage was somehow not as experienced as all her colleagues were in the mental arts — she retained control of her muscles, and yelled hoarsely through the bit in her mouth.

The pressure mounted inexorably until Sofya realised she had started to shake. It was as if her body knew instinctively the character of this assault on her mind and then, suddenly, she tensed with every fibre of strength against her restraints. The cuffs creaked and the table made a single cracking sound. Her yelling was cut short as every muscle pulled in an effort to break free, but she barely arched an inch higher from the surface to which she was strapped. After impossible, painful minutes, her muscles screaming, she felt something collapse within her, like the first slip that presages the inevitable collapse, felt something unknown begin to course into her in response to the mage’s accelerating chanting. Her mind had been overcome but her body kept up futile struggle, shaking and vibrating as her physical strength too failed. The spell reached a fever pitch, her brain felt like it was bursting and on fire, her muscles like they were going to tear their sinews from her bones when, as sudden as the sensation had started, the spell was over. She screamed once and collapsed back against the table, exhausted, and passed out.

Hooves drummed out a steady rhythm on the dusk-cloaked road to Felsberg. After a while the pair split up, cutting through fields to arrive at different gates to the city. Sofya approached from the Northeast, slowing to a walk to allow her horse to cool down as she drew near. A throng formed on the road before the gate as citizens tried to return before it was locked for the night. Though the guards manning the barrier were clearly more alert than those at the North gate earlier, the papers she had received from her companion passed inspection and she was in the city once more.

Off the open road and again surrounded by people, it took all of Sofya’s self-control to maintain an air of calm. Little was known about the Duke’s mage hunters, so as far as she knew, any passer-by could be one of them. It would take less than a moment’s concentration for them to notice the tell-tale trace of magic left on her - to one of the hunters it would be covering her skin, dripping from her hands, as plain to see and smell as if she had been swimming in a pig sty.

Forcing these thoughts aside, Sofya stabled the horse and walked on to the pre-arranged meeting place. Off the thoroughfare into a quiet courtyard, hushed voices ushered her down narrow steps to a basement doorway into a cellar. Past casks and candles and other stores into a dimly-lit room. The man and woman already there leapt up at her arrival and long-laid plans went into motion.

Although her skin could not be changed, everything she wore and carried would be further soaked in magic and of assistance to a mage hunter. She stripped as quickly as possible, her embarrassment invisible in the candlelight, and threw the tainted clothes into a bucket. The woman handed her a flask of crystal clear, but pungent smelling liquid. Sofya poured a little onto her hands and started rubbing it all over herself, while the woman did the same to speed the process. Mercifully she stuck to Sofya’s back, though that did not prevent her from blushing furiously. Everywhere the liquid touched she felt a very peculiar, though not entirely unpleasant sucking sensation, as it drew much of the aura that still clung to her out. It left her feeling chilly as it rapidly dissipated.

Fresh clothes followed, simple but well-fitting, then the man ushered Sofya out of the little room, through the stores and up the stairs into the city. Darkness cloaked it and only a few people were abroad at this hour. Now able to move through the streets without leaving a trail to follow, they joined those few and moved off to the next safehouse.

The next stage of the plan was the one Sofya dreaded the most, in spite of its necessity. “I don’t know if I can do this,” she had said, matter-of-factly, to Roenne. Roenne had looked at her and tapped her chipped pipe against her lip, as she always did when thinking.

“I think you can,” she’d said, eventually. Somehow, that had been good enough. “It will be hard,” she’d continued, but you are stronger of spirit than you realise.” Sofya tried to summon the swell of pride those words had inspired in her at the time, but to little effect.

The room she awoke in was different. Not luxurious, but comfortable. Clean linen sheets slipped from Sofya’s body, her breath catching in her throat as she was reminded of how it had been changed. The memory led inevitably to her most recent treatment, and Sofya found herself gasping for breath, the room spinning.

When she regained her senses once more, she was not alone. The upside down face of a man loomed over her as her eyes opened. “Ah!” it said, and withdrew, reappearing right side up. Sofya started to draw the sheets over her body, her cheeks flushing as she realised her nakedness, but the man grasped her wrist firmly. Withdrawing the sheet again, he passed his hand over her abdomen, and said, “calm.”

The effect was obvious and strange. Sofya’s worries didn’t cease, but they receded, accompanied by a soft tingling which emanated from the gem below her belly button, the gem she had almost forgotten. It reminded her of the effects of intoxicant herbs, which she’d smoked a few times long ago. While she was still concerned about such things as why she had been transformed into some slattern, what her captors intended to do to her in this state and, indeed, what this man in her room intended, they were no longer pressing. They were questions that perhaps would be answered at some point in the future. It seemed unimportant to cover herself or, really, to do anything in particular. Abstractly, Sofya considered these facts with curiosity. While their import of course didn’t worry her, it certainly interested her: the gem clearly provided some conduit to her mind, the means of lasting control that the mage hunter had alluded to. It wasn’t total though: she retained her rational mind, and part of her knew that she shouldn’t be calm, should be trying to find a means of escape, should be terrified.

The man watched her as she processed the effects of this single word. “Don’t worry, it takes a little time the first time. You should read about what used to happen before we realised ‘Calm’ was the best first command!” He chuckled to himself. “My name’s Henrik. I was only scheduled to pop in this afternoon, but you caught a touch of the vapours. It happens — nothing to be worried about if you were worrying about anything!” He patted Sofya’s arm as one might comfort a sick child. “It’s more common with the ones like you who were good with mental magic. We don’t really understand why.”

“You should also realise that the effects haven’t acheived full potency yet — that will come with time as your mind attunes to the magic. That normally takes about a week, during which time I and my colleagues will be checking on you. Once you’re fully attuned, we’ll have your public demonstration which… well I suppose you’ve seen but from what I hear won’t remember, so I’ll explain that in due course… and then you’ll be put to good use, which someone will also need to explain. How does that all sound?”

It took Sofya a moment to realise the question required a response from her. “I… fine?”

“Good! Everything sounds fine to someone who’s Calm. So, I can tell the spells have all worked, I just need to check one more thing for now — how do you feel about escaping?”

“I suppose I…” before she could form a reply, he interrupted

“Oops, almost forgot. Honest.” Once again he passed his hand over her belly as he said the word. She felt the concept take hold in her and any notion of dissembling receded into the realms of remote possibility, like a half-considered plan for three summers hence.

“I suppose there’s not much point but… I would still like to try if any ideas occur to me,” she replied after this.

“Oh, what a shame. Occasionally they’re just not interested, you see. Unfortunately we can’t yet command you to stay here in a way that doesn’t impede the attuning — it’s more complicated and it taxes the developing link. We don’t fully understand that either to be honest, but it does mean I have to lock you in for now. Alright then, I’ll make a note of what I’ve done with you — things can get terribly muddled otherwise — and I’ll leave you in peace for a bit. See you soon!”

The key in the lock finalised his departure. What an odd demeanour, thought Sofya to herself. Maybe he’s been manipulated the same way, and commanded to be strangely chipper. She had to admit, begrudgingly, that the calm that blanketed her was welcome relief from the fear and anxiety that had been her only companion for… well, for as long as she could remember, almost. Though I suppose if I were in full control of my thoughts, I would find such a notion itself cause for anxiety.

In the corner of the room was a small shelf of books, and Sofya selected one and — calmly — started reading it.