combinatorial explosion | Glowfic Constellation

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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

"Uh. What about it?"

"How does it work, who has it, how do you turn it off, how did it produce the result we saw earlier, how does it send people between worlds, and what other uses of it are familiar to you."

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"Um, um, I have it and you have it and other humans have it and some strangers have it? It doesn't - turn off? I don't know how the strangers did it, there were four of them and they were far away, I don't even know what radicals they all were! Master Huo usually used me for healing and Master Yu could do some things to the weather and Master Zao could do some things with light and I think Huo and Yu could do things to animals and Yu and Zao could do different weather things and all three of them plus me could make rivers change course and - and mess with buildings, and once I saw Huo and Zao kill someone by magic?"

"What is a radical?"

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"The kind of magic you have. I'm paper. I don't know what you are, I haven't seen them all, but I can rule out paper and fire and rain and morning. Oh, and insect and salt, I saw those once, and you're also not any of the kinds I saw on the strangers but I don't know which ones they were either."

"It takes combinations to do magic?"

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"Yeah."

"I see."

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"Is - that all you wanted to ask -?"

"When they killed someone with magic, how'd they do that? Was the person nearby? Human?"

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"He was maybe a couple of blocks away and just fell over dead. He was a human. I didn't get a very good look, they didn't use me for that."

"How do you know what magic can be done by a specific combination?"

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"You just sort of think about it? And trial and error, some."

"Do you have guesses from thinking about it, for this combination?"

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why is he so scary help

"I um. Things with lightning maybe? Or metal? I'm not good at this, I never directed spells, they just kept me around to use for them."

"You could describe what you're going off, what makes you think lightning or metal -"

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"- do I have to -"

He takes a step back. "Sorry. No. I'll - I'm not going to hurt you, I just want to know the rules and then I'll leave."

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"Uh, it's - this bit -" He flicks a bit of his magic. "Uh, and the bits you're holding by your ears right now. I don't know what else to explain about that."

He shivers. "All right.

They had you chained, when you arrived, was that necessary for the magic or -"

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