Seiji is also in the mood for pizza! Technically, the Domino's is closer to his mom's house, but he likes the Pie better. He only has to take the one bus, anyway, and if he calls ahead right before he leaves then the food will be ready as he arrives.

While he walks down 1300 East, he idly thinks about conjuration. Twos can repair and bolster his existing clothing, and he's pretty sure that a three can make stuff that's magically good, but he hasn't thought of something that he strongly wants to spend one of his pair of threes on. He's aware that this is video game item hoarding logic, but threes are still kind of scary to make. He can't spend them as carelessly as the smaller coins.

He's still thinking about this by the time he walks in and gets his food. Oh, he should have made himself one of those insulatey pizza bags before leaving, like what delivery drivers have. Maybe he can do that after he's out of the shop…

He is sufficiently distracted that he doesn't realize that he's about to walk into the two guys approaching the shop until one of them trips into him.

"Whoa!"

Edmund has enough experience in retail-park taekwondo that he can break his own falls pretty well. Unfortunately this does not work as well when one becomes entangled with another human. He goes down hard, gets his palms studded with grit, and takes a knee to the groin in the process.

"aaaaaaa," he wheezes, drawing the pain across his mind reflexively as the tears fill his eyes. (Nice, some part of him notes, fresh threes. That part of him clearly does not have access to his pain receptors.)

aw shit—

Seiji also takes a tumble, but his magic pain sense tells him that the other guy is considerably worse off.

"Sorry!" he says, as he…

…fails to convert the stranger's pain into new coins????

"Uh, sorry," he repeats, much more confusedly. He still got a two and a one from himself, just incidentally. But what the fuck.

He's going to try and disentangle himself now haha thanks.

Pulling coins out of your pain doesn't actually make it hurt less. But it makes that icy sensation in his head calm down a bit.

And then it gives him that faintly jarring sensation of trying to pull from empty, even though he wasn't pulling, and - the stranger just did something, that pain's dull and flat just like his own...

"I'm sorry, good lord, I just bowled into you," he says automatically, performing his own disentangling procedures as his mind races. "Is your pizza alright? I'd hate to have further casualties of my clumsiness."

"Alright there, Ed? That looked nasty." Peter helps his brother to his feet, obviously.

"Yes! Yes, everything's fine, barely scratched –"

Peter grazes the scrapes along Edmund's palm and he hisses audibly.

"– well, apart from that one which is entirely surface-level and irrelevant."

The one he made ensures that his pizza is all right before he opens the box to "check"!

"Yup, it's fine."

He facepalms, laughing sheepishly.

"And, uh, I'm fine too."

He should really start wearing a backpack everywhere, from which he could plausibly retrieve a first aid kit or something so that he could cover up using his two to mostly-fix the road rash. Although maybe with this guy that particular trick wouldn't work and might be actively suspicious, considering.

Seiji can't really straight-up ask if "Ed" also has magic pain coin powers, though. Maybe he can… hint?

"I mean, I might have. One or two scratches myself, but really it's fine. I didn't land on anything, uh. Point…y?"

Oh god that was so awkward. Fuck.

"–yeah, good thing. You shouldn't keep anything too pointy in your pockets, they could hurt you or fall out and hurt somebody else. Any way I can make up the fall? I still feel bad, even if the pizza's alright. Maybe get you a Starbucks-y pastry of some kind."

Okay, apparently they can in fact do this, weird looks be damned.

"I mean, I'm pretty sure I got you worse," he says, "but I wouldn't say no! Uh, if you're free on Saturday we could meet up at the one on fourth and fourth at… some time? I'm not picky."

He waves his hand to demonstrate the non-pickiness. The one not propping his pizza laundry hamper-style against his hip, anyway.

"Yeah, good idea – how's 2:30, here, I'll give you my number..."

A suitable occasion is arranged.

Hooray for the exchange of numbers!

"Okay, well, uh. See you then?"

He needs to Be Somewhere Else now. Such as on his way home, where he can eat his pizza! That sounds pretty great.

"Edmund, have you developed game?"

Abrupt coughing fit. "What?!"

"You got that boy's number. After crucifying yourself on his kneecap."

"It's – I'm not trying to shag him! I don't even know him, we exchanged a single-digit number of words! I just."

His actual reason for wanting to know more about the boy cannot be shared and, searching for backup reasons, none exist.

"...I'm going to need friends, in this brave new world," he decides eventually. "And random acts of Providence are as good a method as any."

He doesn't actually wait for Saturday, obviously. He gets home, shuts himself in his bedroom and dials the number he received.

An actual call? Well, he supposes texts can be read by other people.

"Uh, hi?"

"Hi! This is Edmund, we spoke earlier, we both have magical powers?"

Oh, cool.

"And I'm Seiji! Yeah, what. What is up with that. I mean, I just found what I thought was a weird rock, literally on the ground. You?"

"My great-uncle left it to me, not in his will but, ah, more of a pressing-it-into-my-hand YA fantasy situation. I've had the powers for a few months, now. Um, and they're the same ones, right? Your coins run off pain too, not... ennui or Weltanschauung or something?" Weltanschauung doesn't actually fit in the category of "emotions" but if pressed he could probably figure out a way to make it work. Probably Seiji will not in fact demand that he defend his word choice like a rabid thesis advisor.

"Yeah, pain. I… don't know what that third one is…"

Forced laugh.

"Did he, like… have something he wanted you to do with the powers? An epic quest or whatever?"

"Weltanschauung's, like, groupthink, I know the word for the sole purpose of being obnoxious. And, ah, no, not that I can tell. The coin was wrapped in a note but the note doesn't actually say much – I can show you Saturday. It's kind of disguised as a poem, almost, or a bit of Scripture."

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."

"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.

It goes through! He has a lovely little box with slidey drawers.

Yay! The bigger-on-the-inside-ness will probably be weirder in something solid than in a bag, but Seiji's good at the vital skill of Not Thinking About It. He sorts his coins into it all tidy-like.

His brain is getting a little worn out actually running experiments. He should probably report his findings about the tattoo test to Edmund, but he's gone and gotten himself worried about the possibility of someone reading over his shoulder.

how much do you care about getting your phone blown up

is what he ends up sending.