[PALACE GAME - LAN WANGJI RUN]

[laughitoff]

Everything is red. You are dying, somewhere far beyond pain, the very essence of yourself going to pieces. You’re shattering so badly you don’t know if you’ll ever find all of yourself again, if you’ll ever put yourself back together. There are teeth on you, ripping, tearing, devouring. There are teeth inside you, carving their way out, and those are worse.

This is a memory, happening at a remove. It is not yours. This is not happening now.

Everything is grey. You wake up in a prison cell, eyes wide, the ceiling flat and blank and unfamiliar above you. For a moment you simply think, no. You think, Please, wasn’t it over? Wasn’t it enough? You consider closing your eyes again and refusing to get up, until oblivion reclaims you. Even if you’re no longer dying, everything hurts.

This is a memory, happening at a remove. It is not yours. This is not happening now.

What is happening, then?

You–

–sit up.

Comments

[strikingchords]

[cool cool cool.

he's going to hang onto the ceiling upside down, bite one of his own feet or the tip of his tail for blood now and then, and start working, in that case. :B

he will:
- incorporate the remaining talismans into the pattern as much as possible
- leave the protection circle very clearly open to additions or refinements by Wei Wuxian
- use Heresy to destroy anything that's nonfunctional and unable to be restored
- also use Heresy and/or his claws to score the main circle deeply into the ceiling, hopefully creating a permanent effect. refinements can be added on top, because he doesn't want to go too crazy on overusing Heresy or adding stuff Wei Wuxian can't change by his own will, but the goal is to use rock carving to make the big basic marker of "THIS IS THE DEFINED AREA WHERE THESE OTHER THINGS CAN TAKE EFFECT" be just part of the ceiling now. (a note: he WILL probably use Heresy enough to get to the point of pain, if it works as intended in this context.)

the open-ended style of his work here is not wholly like his typical cultivation but is pretty similar to how he was trying to so-carefully leave space for Wei Wuxian when he was augmenting Wei Wuxian's wards on the gravestones in Reverie--trying to say "we can work together rather than at cross purposes" through design rather than words, however successfully or unsuccessfully that message came across.]

[laughitoff]

[He can use Heresy three times before it starts to hurt very badly. Each time he uses it the pain in his Orthodoxy-bearing claw lessens, until it's gone in that claw with the third use. So he's just switched the pain over, basically.

He's also able to successfully complete his setup, creating a barrier of extremely gay intent between the Blood Pool and the rest of the cave.]

[strikingchords]

[cool, this should do as a nice solid barrier array till Wei Wuxian gets more ideas and leisure for his own improvements. shakes his head hard (he's kind of dizzy doing this UPSIDE DOWN IN SEVERE PAIN after a while) and then opens his wings and drops to the ground at the edge of the magic circle again, meeting the huli jing's eyes (?) as he returns to human form.

he'll drop down to a kneel without breaking eye contact, presses his hand to the ground, and channels all his power of intent into using Orthodoxy to fix the cracks. he will once again push it till he's in pain in the other direction, trying to forestall further damage in the future as best as possible.

he wants more light in the cave, too, so insofar as he visualizes anything on purpose, he imagines the blue light of spiritual energy pouring into the empty spaces to solidify them, leaving behind soft illumination and a solid basis for the array.

he does not think of this with purpose, but the way the river of scales on his back runs between the banked ridges of his scars and fills them in until his skin is smooth and strange under his fingers is likely not far from his mind.]

[laughitoff]

[once again, with three uses of Orthodoxy on the cracks, the pain gradually decreases in his Heresy hand before returning all at once in the Orthodoxy hand.

The cracks fill in with blue light, like he's repairing pottery with gold. The change only runs up to the cave entrance itself, though, and the light in the cracks right up next to that is stuttering and weak.

He gets the sense he's bought more time, but this is only a temporary fix.]

[strikingchords]

[hums thoughtfully, adds a second circle with his own spiritual energy just inside the first for an extra layer of protection and bought time, and then heads to the desk. maybe Wei Wuxian left notes.

...

it's also worth asking.

what does his curse mark from the huli jing look like here?]

[laughitoff]

[The curse mark has not changed, for now.

[The desk is crowded.

Most of the room is taken up by notes and diagrams., illuminated by the lantern. At a quick glance, many of them are dense and esoteric but address theories and object applications of 'demonic cultivation' and 'resentful energy'; others are about Reverie and the Warden and dreams and monsters; and others seem to be notes about mundanities like electricity and indoor plumbing. He might find other things if he digs, but that's what's immediately obvious. Also, Wei Wuxian's handwriting is as bad as his housekeeping.

There is a teacup which appears to be filled with blood, set on top of a notebook bound uncomfortably in what looks like human skin.

There is a black metal cage which seems meant to hold some small animal. It smells foul and sour, and there’s corrosion on the bars. There is a worn leather bag inside.

There is also a bell on the table, lying near the edge.]

[strikingchords]

[...







touches the skin notebook

can he feel anything from it. is there any apparent reason why it's skin.]

[laughitoff]

[It feels like skin. He does not get a revelation about why it's skin.]

[strikingchords]

Ridiculous.

[he's going to push the notebook a little away and ignore it in disdain for now, then loop the bell around his wrist and turn his attention to the cage. is there a way to open it from the outside?]

[laughitoff]

[There's gratitude and wanting in the bell, but also heartache, fear, the sense of something important being lost forever.

The cage has a small door with a simple lock, and the lock is currently undone. It looks like it can be opened from the outside quite easily.]

[strikingchords]

[okay, so here's the situation as Lan Wangji sees it:

- there is a small bell that he knows, from Ritsuka in the conversation that made him conclude that he guesses he'll die for her now, is meant for calming animals.
- there's a cage that looks like it's meant for a small animal here. the cage is shitty.
- whatever is in the cage appears to be both badly taken care of and hiding from the world after being stuffed into a shitty leather bag. it is presumably not calm.
- the bell is not on the animal.
- Wei Wuxian is frankly bad at small animals and has probably been a dipshit about this one.

all of these facts together may explain why instead of doing anything else here, Lan Wangji frowns at the cage for sixty seconds

carefully draws an array immediately around the cage that will keep anything from fleeing into the rest of the cave or knocking the rest of the desk stuff over, temporarily, and

reaches for the cage with his right hand and uses Heresy to destroy first it, then the pouch, in quick succession.

his goal: to touch whatever small animal is inside with his right hand, use emotion share to go CALM DOWN YOU'RE SAFE at it, and hopefully grab it, all before it really has time to react to the fact that the cage and pouch have been vaporized from this earth.

LET'S FUCKING GOOOOO]

[laughitoff]

[The cage, in the moment before he destroys it, feels like control, like taking your willpower and bearing it down on...something.

Does he pause, or is he moving too fast too furious to keep himself from destroying the cage and pouch?]

[strikingchords]

[NO

SHIT

JERKS BACK FAST ENOUGH TO NEARLY UNBALANCE THE CHAIR AND THEN HAS TO JUST, PAUSE

this is why you tested things Lan Wangji

vaporizing Wei Wuxian's control is what we don't want to do

please hold on he needs a minute]

[laughitoff]

[oh no]

[strikingchords]

[GLARES AT THE CAGE IN TOTAL OUTRAGE BECAUSE HE DEEPLY DOESN'T LIKE THE SYMBOLISM HERE STILL. FUCK THIS THOROUGHLY he is furious at this desktop. the mood after downloading too many things in a browsing session.

is there a key or a place a key could be hidden anywhere obvious]

[laughitoff]

[The lock is like this! It requires no key.]

[strikingchords]

[skdflsj fkgskfjsfjdkfjrjjrrrrr ggrrrrrrrrr. RUMBLES IN DEEP DISSATISFACTION AT EVERYTHING, considers and discards the urge to turn into a dragon and put himself into a sulky pile, and calms down by carefully touching everything else on the desk to see if anything ELSE has RANDOM FEELINGS DX DX DX]

[laughitoff]

[The notes feel like desperation, a sense of not having enough time.

The lantern feels like warmth and guidance, and gives a momentary vision of Jiang Yanli.

The teacup feels like nothing much. Does he poke the blood in it?]

[strikingchords]

[sure does!]

[laughitoff]

[Violence, the urge to bite and hurt.]

[strikingchords]

[...

well, that calms his own moment of having a tiny internal baby tantrum pretty effectively, yeah. breathes out and sets it to the side, then spends some time carefully sorting through and organizing the notes while he thinks. he does check for any notes that are pertinent to All This Shit In Here, though.]

[laughitoff]

[The demonic cultivation notes are enough that, to a layperson doing a quick read, it's quickly pretty clear that Wei Wuxian's an expert and also that it's some generally dark bad shit that has to do with channeling the grudges of the dead as energy. Since Lan Wangji is not a layperson he is likelier to recognize what the fuck it's talking about when it goes deeper into theory and application: personal projects like the Compass of Evil, Summoning Flags, etc. and that one Reverie-specific project on how to try to extend the Empathy technique onto living things and concepts other than ghosts.

The Reverie notes talk about something called the cognitive world that Akira and Minato know, calls the monsters in the inner prison and beyond the fence Shadows, talks about the Velvet Room being somewhere where Shadows are made stronger, and has a note of Warden = rogue attendant of Velvet Room? Further down in the heap he finds a page that only has a drawing of the Warden with FATHER underneath it in angry, slashing handwriting.

The electricity and indoor plumbing notes are just the notes of a guy trying to understand the principles and figure out how to build them in a world without modern technology. He seems to be having trouble. Logistics are hard.]

[strikingchords]

[...

it's stupid and selfish but he can't help but keep an eye out to see if there's anything in the cultivation stuff about working with Lan Wangji specifically, or if he's written out of plans unless he inserts himself...]

[laughitoff]

[Lan Wangji's name and what he's doing in the Reverie stuff is in there!]

[strikingchords]

[oh :X



finishes putting them in extremely neat piles, organized by topic area and how long it's been since he's worked on each project to Lan Wangji's knowledge, and finally pulls the notebook over to look at]