Princess Jade looked forlornly out of her tower window.

Outside of her window was a wide forest, filled with trees of all shapes and sizes, and fascinating creatures. Looking down, she was greeted with the same visage as always – about a ten-story drop to the ground. If she were to jump out, she would impact the ground with a velocity of about 600 meters per second, which would not be good to say the least. Climbing out wasn't an option either – the tower wall had gaps where mortar was put in between the bricks, but they were small enough that she couldn't get a good handhold.

Sighing, she turned around to face the room she had lived in for as long as she could remember. Ahead of her, on the far side of the room, lay the steel door that had taunted her with the possibility of freedom all her life. Jiggling the doorknob, she was unsurprised to find it as locked as always. The princess had surmised that it led to a stairwell, although she had never seen it used – if her captor ever came to visit, he always liked to use a teleportation spell.

The altar to her left contained a bunch of figurines of the gods. Sometimes, even though it was most certainly blasphemy, she would like to act out stories with them. She picked up the figurine of the Knight and held it for a bit. She couldn't tell why, but the Knight was her favorite of all the gods. She pocketed the statue.

The princess flopped down on her couch in a most un-princesslike manner, with her head hanging off the edge of the couch and her legs splayed up in the air. Looking around the room, she marked off everything in the room. I've already read all the books on my bookshelf, used every chemical in the chemical set, tried on all the outfits in the wardrobe, used every page in the drawing pad for this month, and prayed to that stupid Bard like a million times for someone to rescue me. Groaning, she rolled off the couch onto the floor and stared up at the ceiling.

Unfortunately, she knew no rescue would come. The tower was protected by several enchantments courtesy of the wizard who held her here that would prevent any outsiders from finding her. And yet, she still held onto the hope that someday she would be able to escape this wretched place.

How are you ever going to escape if you just keep rolling on the floor like that, though? she thought to herself. Jade sat up. She was right – how was she ever going to escape if she didn't try? And she knew exactly how she was going to do it.

She opened her junior chemistry set to reveal a bunch of long-forgotten experiments. Shifting through a mound of test tubes, she finally found what she was looking for – a test tube she had left open, which had contained some chemical long ago, but had long since decomposed into magnesium. She dumped the entire thing on the ground at the door.

She grabbed a few other chemicals to combine to start the fire. Magnesium burns very, very hot, she narrated to herself, as she prepared to start the fire. Hot enough to surpass the melting point of steel. Adding a bit of each chemical, she quickly ran to the other side of the room. A brilliant flash of light caused by the burning magnesium filled the room for a second, then died out. When she turned around, there was a hole large enough for her to crawl through in the door.

Quickly, she scampered through the hole onto a large stairwell. She knew she needed to move fast, as the bright light may have caught the attention of her captor. Surely enough, while she was hurrying down the stairs, she heard him bellow from her abandoned room and then start to chase her.

The stairs seemed to last forever, but at last she reached the bottom. All that remained between her and freedom was a wooden door. She sprung to the door and flung it open, revealing an expanse of forest in front of her, a sense of freedom which she had never comprehended before from her little room in the tall tower. Her breath caught in her throat as she tried to take it all in. But then she heard her captor's footsteps getting closer and, realizing she had to escape now or possibly be forever trapped, darted into the forest.

Behind her, the captor muttered under his breath, cursing himself for letting the little girl escape, and for giving her a chemistry set in the first place. Opening a spellbook kept at his waist, he began casting a spell. The spirits of the dead raised from their eternal slumber gathered around him, bound by the spell to service to their new master. He ordered them to find and capture the girl, and bring her back to him. With this, the ghosts spread out in all directions, searching for the princess.

The princess knew she couldn't run forever. Already, she was out of breath from running so much, and she leaned up against a tree for support. As well, her captor knew many arcane spells which he could use to find and seize her, and it was only a matter of time before she was brought back to her prison. Unless, she thought, fingering the figurine in her pocket, I get some help.

She had her doubts, of course. The gods, or at least the gods she had prayed to, had not answered any of her prayers before. But at this point, belief was the only option. And so, she raised the statue of the Knight to her lips, and whispered to it, "Help me."

She lowered the statue. It didn't seem like anything had happened, but that was often the way it worked with prayer. But then she heard footsteps behind her, and her heart sunk as she realized that the Knight had failed her, that she was going to be put back in her tower forever, that she would never experience this freedom ever again...

The Knight stood before her, in the flesh. "FOLLOW ME, IDIOT."