combinatorial explosion | Glowfic Constellation

rockpaperscissors

The strangers have six casters, in their group, that Qiri can count. Qiri's group has four counting him, and they got split up awhile ago when the strangers started that earthquake. Qiri is stuck with Master Huo. Master Huo is dying, but since Qiri is chained up he can't use that to escape, or attack Master Huo. The master's magic is uninjured, and he can reach Qiri's from where he lies, and Qiri is sitting there, goosepimpled, enduring it. He wonders if Master Huo might be in enough pain to distract him, if Qiri tried to wrench his magic away, but he doesn't think so. He can squirm around a fair bit under Master Yu and Master Zao if only one of them is using him for a spell - and if he wants to earn himself a beating - but not Huo.

He doesn't get nauseous anymore, like he did when he was a kid. So there's that.

Huo's casting a healing spell, moving Qiri's magic around this way and that to set it up. Qiri assumes it's going to target Master Huo, but spells don't know who anyone is. Qiri can't distract himself, not with his spine tingling and all his magic cringing under the slide of Huo's. Instead he tries to concentrate on something less directly sensory: how's the spell targeting? How is Huo going to make sure it heals him, and not Qiri's irritated skin under where the chains sit, the injuries to his fingers from the last time he irritated Master Yu, the probably broken toe sustained in the earthquake?

He figures it out when the spell is probably almost over: it's going to target the most injured person, and Qiri is a little banged up but Master Huo's got an arrow to the gut and a slice through his thigh that's probably going to bleed him out before the abdominal wound can kill him. It's objectively pretty impressive that he can concentrate enough to make his magic force Qiri's through the motions he wants.

Then, dimly around the cloying sensation of Huo's magic over his, Qiri notices a group of the stranger mages approaching, standing close together, back to back to back, doing something -

And he and Huo are banished somewhere else.

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rockpaperscissors

"I don't want to kill people and can't explode myself!"

"- well that's horrible."

rockpaperscissors

"- how is that horrible?"

" - well, if the Enemy captured you you couldn't kill yourself."

rockpaperscissors

"...I guess not, if he could stop me from, uh, jumping off something or whatever."

"That's really bad. It's ...the worst thing, approximately."

rockpaperscissors

"Well, uh, I guess I will hope I don't get captured or am... near someone who can... explode me? If it looks like it's going to happen?"

"I guess you are surrounded by guards all the time but I assume there's a way for humans to explode themselves and you should really get it. Even if you might kill a lot of people with it. Or it's probably possible to be set up to explode in a way that wouldn't kill other people. I have the option to destroy the whole room, in case there are other people who didn't get the chance to explode themselves in time, but you wouldn't need to have that I guess."

rockpaperscissors

"I don't want to hurt anybody but I don't want to carry a firework around all the time even if it can only explode me, I'd worry it'd get set off by accident."

"I mean, it might, but imagine needing it and not having it."

rockpaperscissors

"But I don't want to accidentally explode!"

"I think it's really rare for people to accidentally explode."

rockpaperscissors

"But you do it with your things in your heads, right? I don't have that."

"I think there's some arrangement for the King's humans and I don't think it involves any accidental exploding but I guess I don't know."

rockpaperscissors

"I still dunno. And I can't go ask those humans, can I."

"I mean, you'd need a translator, but I bet we could set it up."

rockpaperscissors

"I mean that I can't go there."