At for the sole purpose of being obnoxious, Seiji grins. Not that Edmund can see it.

"Well, I guess I'll see it on Saturday! What do you already, like, know so far? I know how to make and use coins, obviously, and… some edge case stuff? Like, I figured out how to use straws to break the camel's back, as it were, and that you can make seven ones instead of a two, and that you can take from other people. That one was basically on accident, I don't know what I would have thought if I ran into you before finding it out."

"I've done some experiments! You can use a three for a persistently magical object as long as it's not too fancy, that's one thing. I keep my coins in a little velvet pouch that should just about hold D&D dice and actually holds about as much as a duffel bag. Also skills, I was flush enough after I broke my leg for a bit to do some testing there, I didn't used to speak Latin and now I'm fluent. Also I could ride a horse, if I had one, which I don't."

Seiji stands up to pace about the room.

"Ah, cool, I kinda suspected that. I've only made two; I haven't broken my leg or anything. I think I might steal the coin bag design, right now I'm just keeping everything in my bedroom. Does your bag let you pick what you're taking out or is that too… smart, I guess?"

Pace pace.

"Skills sound handy as hell, I'm tempted to… well, I'm not sure. I got my first three with a hammer but I was not a fan, my second came from a coworker who burned herself. What, uh, do you do? Besides take advantage of broken legs?"

That's literally a normal question to ask, under the circumstances. Go away, awkwardness.

"I bite my hand, for twos and ones, it's a nasty habit I no longer have any incentive to drop. But I haven't found anything sustainable for threes. I tried to conjure a knife, once, but it turns out it's... harder than I thought. To go that far."

Edmund is lying on his bed like a teenage girl in a bad American film, thank you very much.

"Oh, that's a good one. I like… slap and pinch myself, or bite my lips or tongue. I… yeah, knife sounds like it has the same problems as the hammer does. I wonder if capsaicin or bug venom would work, there, since it wouldn't look scary?"

He pauses pacing.

"We could maybe, like, tag-team. In case that's easier. I don't think I'd be able to take a knife to another person, though."

"Yeah, I don't know if it'd make it easier or harder... we can at least try."

Edmund chews his cheek, idly drawing from it once it's worth a double.

"What... do you want to do," he says eventually. "With all your magic."

Seiji lets out a huff of air as he flops back onto his bed.

"…I mean, I dunno! I wanna find out what magic can do, I guess? Like it seems pretty obvious that there's seven levels, but I dunno exactly what's in between 'clean your teeth' and 'bam, magic powers!' Or what's… beyond magic powers."

He's not sure that really answers Edmund's question…

"After that, I… still don't know. I'm not exactly the ambitious type."

Hopefully that isn't the wrong answer! But fuck it, he's sick of interactions where he has to guess the right answer.

"...yeah. I don't know. I'd've said I was the ambitious type, honestly? I said I wanted to be King when I grew up, in reception year. But now that I'm some kind of wizard that all seems kind of academic and this all seems really... scary... you're not my therapist, sorry, we barely know each other, I don't know."

"No, no, it's fine!"

He's maybe giggling a little.

"Were you, like… in the line of succession? Sorry, that's not relevant. And, like, I don't really care? Yeah, I'm not a therapist, but if we're the only two wizards either of us know I'd say that entitles us to talk to each other about magic."

A little more serious:

"I think I would like to find out who else is a wizard, or at least how many there are. Because, like. I found my first coin literally on the ground. I don't know if there was some kind of… filter, or if they knew when I was gonna get the mail so they teleported there and back two seconds before I opened the door, or if anyone coulda picked it up. So I guess I'm a little worried about, I dunno, that person trying to use me? And other potential hostile magic things."

"You're right, that is really concerning. Maybe... hm... a double can make something, do you think 'a picture of whoever dropped that six I found' is a something?"

"Nope. Which… makes sense, actually. I tried to use my first three to get an instruction manual and that didn't work. I guess a picture wouldn't help much if it was a complete stranger, anyway."

Seiji does a quick test.

"A two can do a picture of you specifically, apparently."

"Huh. Does it look like a school photo or a Christmas card or what?"

"Nah, it's more like a hologram? You look… basically how you did earlier, so maybe twos can't do anything you haven't seen?"

With his free hand, he holds up three fingers.

"Can a two do a picture of me right now?"

Two?

"Three. That is to say, yes."

"Cool! I kinda feel tempted to come up with names that aren't confusing like that, but, well. Numbers are easy to remember."

He kicks his legs idly.

"…One thing I do want is, y'know, to make my life better? I don't necessarily mean, like, a magic mansion in the sky, although that would be cool. But more like, shoes that are always dry and comfortable, or that bigger-on-the-inside bag. And maybe, if there isn't some wizard task force devoted to secret keeping, sharing that with my mom. Or other cool people."

Sigh. "...yeah. Getting to share... it'd be nice. It'd be nicer if I thought I'd ever be able to make a six."

(Shudder.)

"Yeah. I mean, I dunno anyone who I'd want to also make a wizard? Especially if whoever left me a six was trying for some magic pyramid scheme thing. But I bet they can do lots of other stuff. It's funny, though… I think that they maybe want to… spread? Because what I first wished for was to know what was going on."

"Huh. Mine was to understand what Uncle Digory meant by giving it to me... and I see what you mean, neither of those is quite the same thing we got. Even if they're sort of the same wish."

"Huh, yeah. So maybe the coins are… trying to be helpful? Or maybe something else is going on, I dunno."

"Yeah. It's probably encouraging, if they could've left us with a pamphlet about the wish we'd just wasted and instead they made us wishers."

"Yeah! Yeah, that thing."

He runs his hands over the coins he dumped out of his storage pillowcase.

"I wouldn't say no to a pamphlet now, but if a three won't do it I don't really want to use a four-or-up on it, considering. Since that'd be equivalent to… threefiftyish ones? If the pattern holds? So I guess our information is limited to your uncle's poem and whatever we can find from, like. Testing."

"The note's really not very helpful. Uh – you know, I can just read it aloud for now –"

Ahem.

"The work of true stars is for men wiser than I, or far more foolish. All coins are debased to me, now that I know their master; shall I wish to love the lash, and make myself as mad as she? Let this note be confessor and ward against my sins. And let he who inherits forgive me what I have done."

… Seiji is not the kind of YA protagonist who can remember cryptic shit like that after hearing it once. Can he use a two to make a copy of the note, or at least a piece of paper that says the same words?

Okay cool.

"Ha, I see what you mean. I wonder who 'she' was and why he didn't want to namedrop? That's the most… let's say concrete sounding part to me."

"Mm. I think he really wanted it to be... plausibly deniable? Maybe just poetry you don't get, who knows. Unless you just watched a magic coin disappear and you've got a whole new sensory apparatus and suddenly nothing's plausibly deniable. I have no leads on 'she', though."