"Fair enough. I mean, for all I know he could have wanted to make sure that you-or-whoever didn't go chasing her down."

He scans the note again.

"Wish to love the lash… now there's an idea. Unless it's got, uh, domino effects? I guess you'd be able to tell better, since you wished yourself Latin and horse riding."

"No, those didn't do anything too odd, but... I don't think he was trying to give out ideas, there. It reads like a warning to me. Wish to love the lash, make myself as mad as she, it sounds like the same thing."

"Yeah, that's what I meant by domino effects. I wonder how much you can push it without going nuts, 'cause pain tolerance isn't not a skill… then again, maybe trying to get it with magic would be playing with fire and it'd be better to work at it the long way around? I dunno, I definitely don't want to be the kind of wizard that goes insane from doing magic wrong."

"I'm not eager to try it. Unless... I wonder if you can make an effect temporary? 'Make me a world champion at breaking my own shins, but only for thirty seconds?'"

He laughs and shudders at the same time.

"Haha! Ouch. I would not wanna be there… I mean, if you wanted me to spot you in case of insanity or something else that you might need rescue from I would. Hey, I wonder if you could do that and then just wish your shins broken? You could probably do it, uh, cleaner that way."

"Hang on a tic."

Hello one-pointer. He would like to have the absolutely horrible burn he remembers having on the web between his thumb and forefinger when he first tried to fry an egg.

OW.

Aaaaaand heal.

"I now have four three-pointers which I would not have if you hadn't given me the idea to wish on injuries. Would you like them."

"…uh, sure! What kind of injury was it?"

He sure hopes it wasn't a broken bone, because that would mean that a five is almost twice as bad as that.

"Oh, a burn. I replicated one that I'd already gone through in the past and knew I could deal with. Sorry, that was probably a deeply alarming thing to say and also do."

"Oh! Okay, yeah, that's pretty smart. I… hmm."

He puts the phone on speaker and googles tattoo pain chart, then sends the top link to Edmund's number.

"I dunno if there's a similar chart of bones, but I bet finger and toe bones hurt like a bitch, on account of being in your hands and feet. Or those… ugh, those little ones. On the inside."

He shakes his head violently.

Ed nods before remembering he's on the phone. "Yeah. Maybe I can ask –"

Susan pokes her head in. "Dinner. -ooh, you're on the phone, should I leave?"

"Fucking – knock! Knock, on the door, there's that whole surface spread out before – I'll talk to you later."

Click!

Seiji's still cackling by the time he realizes the call's over.

Okay, it's probably experiments time. He consults the tattoo chart.

He doesn't really want to get a tattoo, though. Those can be expensive, and he doesn't have a design he wants, and it would feel really weird to spend money on a tattoo that he was planning to magically vanish anyway.

Wait, hang on. Maybe he's making things excessively complicated. What if he wishes for the sensation of a tattoo needle? On his arm, to start with.

Apparently illusory pain isn't usable at all. That's annoying. He can't even tell how much pain it would be good for.

It's a shame that he doesn't have, like, friends. If he had those he could go hold their hands or something while they got tattoos.

On the bright side, it sounds like threes are going to be pretty doable going forward, so it's probably fine to make some magic coin storage. He opts for something with a squareish structure, interior compartments, and as much internal space as the three can add. Oh, and it shouldn't get inconveniently heavy, either. That may cut down on available space, but hopefully by the time that's a concern he'll have more coins to throw at the problem.