That feels terribly easy to say when you're not the one on the leash.

[ local man who's never been beholden to someone else in his life faced with the looming threat of being beheld. it's going okay. ]

Wonderful. We do love a 'me' problem, don't we.
I'm guessing there's no secret secondary source of mana that I could avail myself or some secret trick that breaks the whole stupid system in half, is there?