[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

[laughitoff]

[Yes. Some of them are clipping through the walls or roof where they intersect, like a bad video game still.]

[strikingchords]

[frowns, and burns another Orthodoxy to ask the question on a piece of paper:

How best to tend to the ghosts of memories?]

[laughitoff]

[How best to tend to the ghosts of memories?
Make change as you judge best.]

[strikingchords]

[--ah



uses Orthodoxy to change the spear into a tablet with the names of the slain inscribed, if possible...?]

[laughitoff]

[He is able to do this.]

[strikingchords]

[DOES THAT ALSO HAVE NO EFFECT ON THE GHOSTS THEN

goes inside the building??????]

[laughitoff]

[The inside is indeed an ancestral hall, a medium-sized, lantern-lit hall with kneeling cushions and incense burners in front of a broad display of wooden tablets with the Wens' names inked and/or carved on them. It has the feel of a place of veneration and respect, though not quite worship.

The ghosts are still frozen.]

[strikingchords]

[hmmm well his tablet was redundant in this case, but if the spear with a flag on it is now a tablet with names on it and the building itself is now a different building, he's not really sure what else there is to change...? is there anything he's missing]

[laughitoff]

[There doesn't seem to be anything else he's missing.]

[strikingchords]

[...

tries using Heresy instead, to sand the names on the tablet away and carve in Wen Qing's and Wen Ning's instead; to let them rest with their family]

[laughitoff]

[This also happens without incident.]

[strikingchords]

[HE IS NOT SURE WHAT ELSE TO DO HERE THEN. leaves the memory here and heads for the empty lot]

[laughitoff]

[This is the one bannered area that none of the monstrous crowds are flocking to. In fact, they seem to be actively avoiding it...? The banner itself is blank, flapping from an upraised pole.

White chrysanthemums are planted around the square's borders.

There's another huge pool of blood that takes up most of the square, very similar to the one in the cave where you started out. What's this doing here?]

[strikingchords]

[great question...?

he will reach to touch the pole and banner?]

[laughitoff]

[The pole is wood. The banner is silk, once he pulls it down off its high spot on the pole. Nothing changes.]

[strikingchords]

[he can TOUCH A BLOOD, then]

[laughitoff]

[The blood's warm.

The flickering fragments crowd around his hand to investigate it, then immediately recoil, swimming away to the bottom of the pool. No thank you.]

[strikingchords]

[love you too guys

does he have to jump into the pool of blood to follow them or figure this out. touches a chrysanthemum just in case?]

[laughitoff]

[Mourning.

He can jump in the pool of blood if he wants, but it really does just seem to be a twin of the pool in the cave he came from. It's not giving him a ghost or memory.]

[strikingchords]

[...

he'll leave it and the pole, then, and pick a chrysanthemum to take back to the Wens...]

[laughitoff]

[They're still there where he left them.]

[strikingchords]

[all right.

he'll use Orthodoxy to heal the wounds on the ghosts, if he can.]

[laughitoff]

[It works; they're restored to how they were in life, though still transparent.

As the ripple of power fades, he'll note a dull gleam of metal by his boot.]

[strikingchords]

[FOR THE RECORD HE WOULD HAVE ALSO MOVED THEM SO THEY WERE ALL INSIDE AND NOT CLIPPING THROUGH WALLS ANY MORE, WITH THAT ATTEMPT.

bends to pick up the piece of metal...?]

[laughitoff]

[THAT'S PROBABLY MORE COMFORTABLE FOR THEM! HE'S DOING GOOD!

The metal is tarnished, carved. There's a little mental itch on contact: This is a piece of the Treasure.]