Mari wakes. She thinks she might be caught in a poacher's trap. She looks around. It's FAR worse.
She's in a poacher's warehouse. She's trapped in a small jar. Someone must've thought she was a bug. And with good reason; she's now less than a thousandth of her normal size.
She would say she's up the Zambezi without a paddle. Except she knows the Zambezi, and it doesn't make its own poachers' traps...not even upriver, as trap-like as that place is, especially among its rapids...
They didn't leave her with much clothes on; just a set of revealing tan lingerie. Her head was already shaved. At her normal size, she was already smaller than most women. Men wouldn't stop prowling around her.
And they won't stop now. Mari's pretty damn sure of that.
She must get out. But where to start?
If she were an ant, she could probably do this. And yet...
She loses control. She sees the top of the jar. Before she knows it, she's inside one of the holes in the lid. Now she's on the lid.
She blinks. All is back to the way it was, with one major difference. Mari's atop the jar; she was inside it. She has no memory of getting up here.
Something's different. There was a lot more that happened between her and that herb and medallion besides a size change; she just knows it...