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

Sauron's getting better, or at least didn't care for him to have access to any memories where he was this good.

I promise, I'd rather die than touch you - no - "how long were you with Master Huo?"

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"About ten years. It was Master Yu who found me, he joined her a little later."

"So that's - I'm sorry, I'm not very familiar with human ageing - since you were pretty young?"

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"I was five or six, I think."

"I see. In the parts of the world that the Enemy doesn't control, that kind of treatment of others is not permitted. We would arrest the people who did it to you if they were here and alive."

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"Um, thank you."

"If you don't care to ever do magic again, you don't need to. We can find you a tutor and you can find a job you like once you've recovered. And if I ever figure out how to make magic go away I'll tell you."

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"- I don't want to chop it off, it's, um, it's attached, just..."

"You can also keep it and never use it again, that's fine. I want mine gone because I am not accustomed to it and -" shiver.

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"You didn't have it before you died?"

"I did not."

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"That's weird."

"It really is!"

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"Is the rest of your body how you remember it?"

"I don't have a very good memory, but nothing is notably off."

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"Huh."

He can think of an explanation, but he doesn't expect this character to volunteer it. "Did my brother get the chance to answer your questions about where you are and so on while he was learning your language?"

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"Uh, I got little bits and pieces."

"He tends to forget things like that when he's learning a language. Are there things you'd like to know?"

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"- every...thing?"

" - fair enough. This is an underground city called Himring. We're at war, and the city is underground so it's harder for our enemies to attack it. My people are called the Noldor, and we have been fighting this war for four hundred years. We are like humans in some ways, but we learn languages faster, unlike humans we do not get old and die, and as far as I know none of us have magic. People who are not equipped to serve in the war work here in our cities, on food or supplies or in medicine, and you can try things and pick something you like. The war is with a thing called Melkor; he is powerful and evil, but he mostly doesn't bother with humans."

rockpaperscissors

"He's a thing?"