vision

[calescent]

Kiri's up early the next morning, restless with various low-level simmering concerns, and wanders out of her room.

Comments

[calendarofcrime]

"There are few among us who couldn't," Sarelle says dryly. (She has previously observed - and subsequently proved - that while her advantage of memory is not quite as automatic as Ekador's, it is equally powerful when she chooses to exercise it.)

[liakoura]

"I dunno how Patience or Loel would do it," comments Aleko. "Also me, I cannot cheat at cards."

[free_flowing]

"I know tons of ways to cheat at cards, are you kidding? I can probably even think of one that takes magic," says Loel.

[liakoura]

"Okay, well, maybe you can teach me the kinds that don't and I can compete on a level playing field? Game full of cheating."

[salt_of_the]

"That actually sounds kind of fun, but I wonder if it'd balance, me and you and Loel cheating by not-magic and Kiri only knowing half the other players' hands plus how we're cheating while Ekador knows everything and - what is it you're doing, Sarelle?"

[calendarofcrime]

"I have an excellent memory and an abnormal capacity to pay attention to things."

[pyrophyte]

"And I have a perfect memory, at least visually," volunteers Ekador. "I can avoid reading all the cards by magic if I don't want to read all the cards, but I can't avoid remembering the ones I've seen."

[salt_of_the]

"Huh. I think there are games where counting cards doesn't help? Or at least not very much?"

[pyrophyte]

"Apparently so," he says. "I've been taught several."

[salt_of_the]

"Cool. Hey, does your magic work on - leaves? Like, they grow out of trees but they aren't wood. I don't think they'd last long but if it really mattered you could probably write card names on them and have them last long enough for one or two games."

[pyrophyte]

"Hmm. But leaves have distinctive shapes," he says. "Much more so than paper rectangles. I'm not sure I could avoid learning which were which."

[free_flowing]

"Not to mention," says Loel, "can you imagine trying to shuffle that?"

[calescent]

"Sarelle could probably shuffle it, but getting it into a tidy dealable stack would be another thing entirely."

[liakoura]

"Maybe instead of playing with cards we should invent a game that uses blessing coins. None of you works on metal, right?"

[free_flowing]

"Not me!" says Loel.

[pyrophyte]

Ekador shakes his head.

[calendarofcrime]

"I can tell different metals apart by smell but I do not think that is the sort of thing you meant."

[liakoura]

"Yeah, they'd all be copper or whatever. Does this house have a chapel?"

[salt_of_the]

"I don't know for sure that I don't work on metal, but I probably don't. I mean I could tell where ore is but that might be more because it'd have earth around it."

[free_flowing]

"Yeah, this house has a chapel. So do we go there or do we bring the coins here? Here seems comfier."

[calescent]

"We don't even have a game invented yet."

[free_flowing]

"Yeah, but we're going to, aren't we? And I don't know about you guys, but I'll find it easier to think up games with the coins actually in front of me."

[liakoura]

"All right, who wants to haul the other end of the bin of blessings?" asks Aleko, getting up.

[free_flowing]

"I'll do it," says Loel.

[liakoura]

Off they go, then!

When they are a fair distance from the room:

"Patience so recognized you."