Why is that how it works? Asked David, looking at Jason.

  We don't know, answered Jason But! We are conducting tests to determine how it works. Would you like to look at some of them he asked eagerly. Yes, David confirmed.

  Jason pulled up several images, documentation, and other references on the console.

  The first test, Jason said passionately, is to see precisely what we can tell from our sensors when the rune array is Active. He gestured to the blown-up photo of the rune array in question.

  Thus far the sensor data has been inconclusive. Next off we are using our magic senses to find out what we can on how it works and we have been getting contrary reports on what it feels. Then we tried different mana types and found that only the standard mana type worked. After that!”

  he was cut off by David asking “How much mana?” “Er, 150 to 175 standard units?” Jason informed David after a moment David nodded to himself “Please continue” David requested “Well as I was saying”

  Jason got back into the rhythm of his info dump "We're next going to see what happens when we bring it on to other universe rule sets to see if we can determine a commonality between the universes that will yield us interesting information. We haven't determined what we're going to try after that, however. Have you got any suggestions?” Jason asks, looking up from the console,”

  "Prime universe logic.” David responded intently. Jason sighed. “Not everything can be explained away by their rule set”, “but nearly everything is at least made sensible by that rule set.” David rebutted.

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  Jason rolled his eyes. “I don't think this will be explained by that, given it's both magic and it's an unexplained and unexpected magical effect, but I'll put it onto the list.” he quickly put his words into action. David hummed before asking the question that he had been thinking about.

  “Why would the slavers even want this on their slaves? A magical rune to make it so that they can escape their binding seems counterintuitive.” He flatly said.

  Jason paused for only a moment hovering over the console. “It lets them escape physical bindings, not magical contracts and the like, and they can use that to achieve their ends. So it better to have them be able to escape most forms of restraint so that the slavers who have access to the magical contracts can get them back from whoever stole them if they are Stolen.”

  David absorbed that before nodding, “That is a possible explanation.” He finally said. “It could also be that some of the people we arrested were not slavers, but instead were grifters.” “Well they could be both” he amended at Jason’s look.

  Jason then asked “But why would they . . .” the look on his face showed that he had realized what his earlier explanation had painted a picture of and explained why they would sell themselves like that “But we have been helping for months and-”

  “we are not everywhere.“ David cut Jason off “We do not know everything that is going on and we are not known to all and those who do know us may not trust us” David took a deep breath “we can only do our best” he finished.

  The silence hung between them for a moment. Then the console beeped, taking both of their attention. Jason said Professionally after a moment, "Well you are right in that it uses prime universe physics at the very least, along with magical application."

  "But these are only the preliminary results. We'll have to go over the rest of it in more detail.” David nodded, then turned and began to walk out of the room. “Thank you,” Jason said to David who paused at the doorway.

  “You are welcome and thank you for your efforts in subduing some of them.” He responded and left the room.