Uh, yeah. Oaths seem like they could be dangerous on the same level and in some of the same ways as hexes, I'm definitely going to be careful about them.

Good. Not everyone is.

...yeah I can imagine, if it's something just anyone can do, wow. Hexes are at least limited by the fact that only mages can cast them, there's reasons we're careful about who's allowed to learn magic.

I don't really like being careful about who's allowed to learn things. I understand sometimes you'd have to be. But I really dislike it.

I mean, have I explained hexes yet? They can be really awful, you get into 'pretty clearly torture' territory really fast there.

You haven't. Presumably it's the use, not the knowledge?

Yup. When a mage is casting on someone they have complete control over what exactly the spell does, the spellbearer only has whatever control the mage builds into the triggers, and they don't have to build in any control at all. And there's no way to break a spell on a person - deactivate, yes, if the casting mage sets up a trigger for it and you know what it is, but if they don't, that's it, this is your life now. For an example where the casting mage wasn't trying to torture anyone - back during the war with the elves, we were actually doing okay at first, we're really good at hiding when we want to be. So what they did was they managed to catch a bunch of kobolds away from their tribes, enspell them to burst into flame the next time they slept near other people, and then let them loose. We lost four tribes to that before a Speaker survived one and got to another tribe to warn them.

I'm so sorry.

Magical fire? Or are kobolds very flammable? It's strategically important or I wouldn't ask.

Yeah, if you ever notice me having a nightmare it's probably about that. I wasn't even alive then but the story leaves an impression.

That spell form makes fire, like, you could cast a spell on a rock and have the rock be on fire; I'm not sure if it can make fires that are different from regular fires like you'd get from wood or anything but the fires can be bigger than makes sense for what's making them.

My brothers will definitely want that one, for making metal tools.

Well. If osanwe works for getting it I can get you close enough, probably.

Osanwe doesn't work through portals, though. Or are you imagining I'd stick my head through?

...that might work. But I was imagining that we'd wait 'till you're well enough to be moved and I'd go sneak up on the village and come back and teleport you there.

That can do too. I think it should be a few months' recovery.

Nod. They'll be there. We might want to wait for spring, though, it might be a bit of a wait before you can catch someone actually casting a fire spell, and sitting in one place outdoors is pretty miserable in the middle of winter.

Is it. Okay. I expect they'll want it quite urgently but that it can wait a month.

If you expect them to be running short of wood I can help with that, set something up for them to be able to teleport to places where it is and teleport it back. My magic is pretty excellent for gathering.

You need truly ridiculous quantities of charcoal to run a forge hot enough for decent metal, but that'd be very helpful all the same I expect.

I'll offer, anyway, yeah.

And food, I expect they'd be very grateful for food.

...okay. The easiest thing to do there would be to let them teleport to the new place to gather stuff; they'll have the same problem with not knowing what's safe, but it sounds like they might be able to deal with that better than I can. I can figure out a few more safe things and bring them some, though - what kind of state do you expect them to be in, with that?

They'll probably have people test things you bring for poison.

Of course, I mean more, like, do you expect them to be underfed or malnourished or both, what do you expect them to need most, and for how many people? Presumably they can trust that if I bring some giant deer or something it's not an illusion, that'd be the easiest way to get a lot of food to them if that's what they need.

A hundred thousand people. They'll be underfed but probably not malnourished, and if there's a Sun then who knows, they might be fine somehow.

That's a lot of people. I'll do what I can, but I'm not going to be much help on that scale, I don't think.