"Is there a good way to set up an equal claim in the opposite direction? Or look up how the rejection thing is done? I didn't come here and cure your disease to swipe people's magical energy, I didn't even know it would do that."

"Gift giving is normal - taking things from people's a claim."

"We can't use it normally though, anyways. We're all owned by Overlord Imara."

"That sounds... concerningly phrased?"

"...Why?"

"...diverting your magical energy to somebody in concentrated enough form that it can be used for something would make sense? Given what little I know. Describing yourselves as being owned less so."

He makes a complicated face. "Usually it's - powerful people deciding who and where and what they want to own. And then getting more powerful."

"...eugh. Okay. Uh, unfortunately I have other priorities, I need to go tell my people that my shot in the dark worked or they'll think I'm dead. I need a place to evacuate about a billion people, and I need a planet that nobody is using for anything, can I get either of those here?"

"There's a lot of planets. Most of them are either owned by someone or constantly exploding. Imara's a dick but not all Overlords are. You could probably make a deal with one, especially if you have weird magic, and some of them are probably even set up to accept a planet of refugees."

"Constantly... exploding?"

"...Oh, lots of uncontrolled magic causes - sort of explosions."

"Is there a safety protocol for how to prevent my buzzy stuff from exploding?"

"They don't really teach us that. Lots of self control is the rumor?"

"Where will it explode if it does?"

"Usually right around you, sometimes down the chain if your self control's bad or whoever's on top dies without their magic being claimed - so, right around whoever you're claiming, and whoever they're claiming if their control's bad or they die."

"Well this sucks."

"Yeah. Whole thing does."

"I can't afford a lot of investment into fixing it right now because I need to tell my people my spell worked but once I've done that I can... come back? And try to disentangle the - thing? In addition to looking into good places to dump magic byproducts or refugees."

"Right. Back to here?"

"Unless you have a better idea."

"No."

"Okay. Then... I'll be back in a... few hours probably?"

"Okay. That works." Gives him time to regather his thoughts then talk to people.

Cor refreshes the designs on himself with the ash he brought along, nicks his elbow to redo the blood designs, and chants.

And he's gone.

He sits, and thinks, and then goes to tell the village that the weird foreign mage claims he fixed the disease and definitely did something, since ownership shifted, and people find this fairly alarming but less than dying of a terrible wasting illness (so far), especially since Esulri tells them Cor doesn't want to start a fight with their Overlord and is willing to rebalance ownership. (That is... The best easy to explain gloss he really has for 'hates the system.')

He then goes to sit where he can keep an eye both on where Cor originally came in and where he vanished from.

Cor is back four hours later, where he vanished from, this time with an overnight bag packed.