"What am I supposed to do?" Thayna said, exasperated.

It was still early in the morning. Thayna had snuck out on her own, not wanting John to be caught up in her own problems any more, and decided to reach out to someone more knowledgeable about dealing with mages. She made her way to Mordrell’s scrying pavillion, where instantaneous long-distance communication was performed.

Thalana's face was suspended within a shimmering blue orb of magical water, the lazy look of someone who had just awoken hanging drolly from her face. Her normally straight hair was frazzled with errant, uncombed strands scattered about her head, her half open eyes peeking through the messy tangle with disinterest. Her hand materialized inside the orb’s field of projection as she brought it up to stifle a yawn.

"Your attendant- John, was it not?" Thalana replied as she brushed a stray lock of hair from her eyes, "From what you've told me, he seems to have the right idea. If you're so keen on stopping Mordrell's treatment of their tiny human inhabitants, then it's best to face them directly."

"But-!" Thayna said, furrowing her brows anxiously, "There has to be more that I can do! The thought of meeting Mariette the Vampire myself is enough get my hands shaking, so how am I supposed to persuade her like this?!"

"However you can," Thayna said with a passive shrug, "I'll have you know that mother has already made preparations for...’diplomatic relief’ in case your visit to Mordrell turns sour. Whatever you do is, in her eyes, of little consequence to Farum."

Thayna stood there, furious and hurt that her mother had so little faith in her. Her hands rolled into angry fists and a seething rage inside threatened to erupt at any moment. Did she really mean so little in Thelina's eyes?

"Well, look at this from a different perspective," Thalana continued, "With mother covering for you, you're free to do whatever you want in Mordrell. You can continue your little crusade on human treatment, and use whatever’s in your power to get your point across to Mariette, free of worry of the repercussions that mother has already taken care.”

Thalana’s eyes narrowed into a stern, piercing stare. “Or you could face the Vampire like a meek little kitten,” Thalana said with hidden venom, “And have them think that the Farums had become weak.”

Thayna gulped. It became clear what was at stake here. Facing down Mariette the Vampire was no longer an option; it was a requirement.

Thalana held her serious expression for a moment longer, then collapsed back into her lazy, fed-up expression. She let out a long sigh, running her hand through her ruffled hair, holding her head up in annoyance. “Tharsia should be the one telling you all this,” Thalana complained, “I can’t keep up with such sober conversation.”

“...And you’ve lost your eloquence of speech, too,” Thayna remarked.

“My elegant rhetoric glows brightest in the dim of night,” Thalana said with a mockingly bardic tone, “And is sullen by the obstinate shine of morning sun and evening ale. Now be off with you, my kitten, you’ve a big day ahead of you.”

“I’m not sure I can do this…” Thayna muttered insistently.

“You can, and you will,” Thalana said with renewed fire, “We are not so easy as to back down in the face adversity; your pride as a Farum demands it.”

Thayna just looked down dejectedly, with no way out in sight. However, she was still a representative of Farum, and it was high time she acted like it. She straightened her back and sat upright, looking intensely back into the blue orb containing her sister’s face. “I just need to talk with her,” Thayna said solemnly.

“That’s right,” Thalana said with a smile, “It seems you’ve decided on what to do.”

Thalana removed her hand from her head and looked her sister directly in the eye, locking stares down fiercely with a final, stern message, “Show them what it means to be a Tha Fire Sister.”

As communications were cut, the blue orb fizzled out once, then splashed back down in its liquid state into the basin below. The mage who had opened the channel for Thayna standing behind the basin gave the foreign mage a cautious, suspicious look, before quickly saying, “The Mordrell scrying pools guarantee all communications to be confidential and are privy to no one but the sender and sendee...as permitted.”

“Hmph,” Thayna said with a dismissive tone, “Even if you snitch on my conversation, it’s already too late. I’m already on my way to face the Vampire.”

John was in a pickle. The silver haired mage named Silestria had picked him up from his table and brought him to her own, where she was thankfully seated alone in, but also unfortunately meant that John was also alone with the gigantic mage before him. Silestria twirled her silver hair with a finger in one hand, clutching John’s diminutive body tightly in the other. A smile was splayed across her face, one that made John nervous to see. He wondered what she had in mind for him....

“Now that I’ve gotten a good look at you,” Silestria said, lifting John up to her face, “It looks like you’re not a Numbered. A waylaid traveler like me, perhaps? Mordrell is a splendor for us mages here, but what business does a little man like you have here alone?”

“Well,” John said, struggling against Silestria’s grip, “For starters, I’m not alone. My....er, mistress left me to the inn as she went about her business on her own without me. I just tagged along with her until recently.”

John’s interest was piqued when he remebered what Silestria just said, however. “You said you were a traveler, too?”

“Yes,” Silestria said, her smile opening to show massive white teeth bared underneath, too close to John for comfort, “I hail from Thamond, some distance away from Mordrell, I’m afraid. As for why I’m here...let’s put it at pleasure, for now.”

John didn’t like how she said ‘pleasure’. There was something going on behind that adamant smile of hers.

“I noticed you having a scuffle with that Numbered girl,” Silestria said conspiratorially, “You’ve taken a fancy to her, aye?”

“What?” John exclaimed, “No!”

“Oh come on,” Silestria said, releasing John onto the table, pointing her now freed hand to the kitchen door, “She’s a Numbered. If you wanted me to, I could call her over and make her submit to you. Wouldn’t that be what you want?”

John held his head down. With a mage backing him, he could get whatever he wanted, including Katie-

NO! John thought to himself, snapping him back to his senses, I can’t believe I even considered it for a second. I’m not interested in Katie, and I’m not using a stupid giant mage to get her for me!

“Sorry, miss,” John said with a shrug, “Katie may be Numbered, but I won’t treat her any less human than myself.”

“Hmm, hmm” Silestria hummed, amused by what John said, “So you sympathize with the girl? Then let me test you.”

“Test me-” Before the question mark could even be appended to his sentence, John was swept back up into Silestria’s grip.

“You know, we have customs in Thamond,” Silestria said as she pulled something out from behind her, “It’s customary to present your magic to someone you’ve just met, so that there are no secrets between you and the one you are greeting. I happen to specialize in teleportation magic.”

Silestria took out a thin rod; a wand of cobalt blue, Emblazoned on its surface were runes and engravings of an arcane nature, and the grooves glowed as she brought it closer to John. Just as he tried to back away, John felt a weightless sensation envelop him, and instantly, he was brought under the table, sitting between a massive pair of lightly pedicured feet. The toes leaned in on him, grappling him down to prevent him from escaping. The right foot clamped his body, the toes scrunched tightly against his chest, their soft pads pushing into John like soft pillows, but with a boney log inside ramming into his ribs. The other foot covered his legs entirely, stepping down with the ball of the foot onto John’s feeble frame. Silestria didn’t aim to crush him, but John still felt the oppresive pressure and heat bearing down on him from beneath his new prison.

Oh great, John thought, More feet.

“Now,” Silestra said, “Here’s the rules of your test: for every one thing I tell you to do which you don’t do, I’ll have the Numbered girl do for me. It’s really just that one rule, but how far would you go before you dump it all on her?”

The right foot shifted, grinding the ball into John’s chest a bit before displaying the entire sole to his head. This can’t be good.

“We’ll start easy,” Silestria said. She couldn’t see what was going on from above the table, but just feeling the tiny man underneath her was enough to get her excited, “Why don’t I just smother you for a while with my sole?”

John wasn’t even allowed to protest this time. He couldn’t let Katie be subjected to this, so he took the sole that was coming down on him without complaint, and grit his teeth together as the impending wall descended on him. His nose was the first to feel the bare, leathery underside of Silestria’s foot, then slowly, it plastered onto the rest of his face. He gagged at the oppressive smell of feet at such close proximity, but as he tried to suck in air, only more odor flew into his lungs. Squirm as he may, but under the weight of a fifty foot tall giantess’s foot, there was no escape from his sole prison.

“Yes,” Silestria cooed, “Just like that.” She began stirring her foot around John’s body, touching him in unexplored places while keeping her sole on his face. Her toe ventured for his crotch, but was disappointed that all was flat there.

John was completely at the mercy of Silestria’s feet, and he wanted to scream at the treacherous position he found himself in, the fear that a careless step was enough to end him. Do it for Katie, he would remind himself, She doesn’t deserve to be treated like this. But even as he tried to push his courage to heroic limits, he was unable to suppress himself.

“Please!” John yelled as he tilted his head to the side just enough to get a word off from under Silestria’s sole, “You can’t do this!”

“Of course,” Silestria said, and instantly the feet came off, and John caught a breath of sweet, fresh air once more, “But then, I will have to do this to your Numbered friend then…”

“NO!” John shouted, but stopped himself before he made any more unhelpful comments, “I mean, I’m only human! Surely, I can’t stand the weight of a mage forever like this? Maybe...lighten the load for me?”

There was a momentary pause. Without a line of sight of Silestria’s face, John had no way of knowing how what he said affected her.

“So, you think me heavy, aye?” Silestria said with the exact same tone of voice she had been using all along, but John definitely felt much more dread upon hearing them. “Perhaps we’ll postpone the test, and I’ll give you a lesson.”

John shrieked as a massive black object materialized instantaneously beside him; something made of thick, smooth fabric and longer than John lengthwise. John immediately recognized it to be a shoe.

“Oh, no, no, no, no,” John said.

“Be a dear and get in- …you know what?” Silestria said form above, “I’ll do it myself.”

John felt Silestria’s massive toes clamp down on either side of him, and he was lifted up and put right into the black shoe, face first. The inside smelled the same as what he smelled of Silestria’s sole, and he flailed as he realized he was going to be surrounded by this smell as well as utter darkness once her foot had put on the shoe fully.

“I suggest you lie flat down,” Silestria commented before John saw the last glint of light blotted out by the giant foot entering the shoe. Her foot slid across his body slowly, creeping up from the legs, across his pelvis, crawling across his abdomen and chest, and finally parked the toes right above his face. John felt immense heat, the confines of the shoe trapping the foot’s warmth inside the sparse space, and his entire body was immobile under the tyrannical pressure of Silestria’s foot.

“Let’s go for a walk,” Silestria said kindly. Her wide smile shone through John’s mind even as the pressure and darkness pushed down on him. He was nothing but Silestria’s foot cushion for the day. John tried to scream, but was muffled by the confines of the shoe. He wasn’t going to survive the first step-

CRUNCH