[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]

[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]

[laughitoff]

[There's an ink painting in dreamy monochrome covering the first double-page spread in the book when he opens it, of Echidnas relaxing in their common room. Most of them seem more vaguely depicted, or just a suggestion of a figure without any identifying features, but three are painted in sharp, clear detail. Akira's miming fainting on the couch in a dramatic fashion; Jiang Yanli is seated in a nearby chair polishing an object in her hands, smiling; and Geto is standing off in the corner, but holding a baby rabbit up to his face with a suspicious expression.]

[strikingchords]

[...Lan Wangji's eyes soften a bit; he touches the baby rabbit's ear with a light finger]

[laughitoff]

[Friendship, the urge to tease and banter. Familiarity, the feeling of looking back at someone who knows some of what you're going through and knowing some of what they're going through as well. A sense of agitated responsibility? You want to fix something with this person...]

[strikingchords]

[yanks his finger back and closes the book quietly.

right. he'll shift into a dragon, fly up to the ceiling, and get a Heresy use in by carving the stone into a loop he can tie some of the twine from the protective barrier through. he wants to create a sturdy system to suspend the lantern a comfortable distance above the desk, so it can't still be reached but can't be knocked over, with its light illuminating a larger circle below.]

[laughitoff]

[He can do that! The Orthodoxy pain reduces slightly. The living area is now somewhat better illuminated.]

[strikingchords]

[he restores his hand to its status quo of Orthodoxy Hurt by putting it on the skin book and deeply wishing for it to be bound instead in something tough and protective and nice that Wei Wuxian would like that would still generally be considered to be less weird and morbid than human skin]

[laughitoff]

[White dragonscale-stamped leather seems nice and classy!]

[strikingchords]

[pauses, surprised at that particular wrinkle (does Wei Wuxian like dragonscale for some reason?), but moves on o_o

he takes a last couple of minutes to add his own helpful notes to anything in Wei Wuxian's that he thinks could use it, provide the Q&A writeup of the rules of the palace he either tested or had answered for him so far so the Shadow has a copy filed with his notes as well, and leave a water bottle nicely out of the way with the cup of blood so Wei Wuxian at least has a choice to drink something else, christ.

THEN HE IS FINALLY BACK TO THE CAGE, I GUESS. in the interest of testing things he's going to try ringing the bell and also see whether or not the cage feelings change when the lock is set to "locked" versus "unlocked."]

[laughitoff]

[The desk looks very nice and tidy now.

The cage doesn't change feelings or form when unlocked! Just a control cage.]

[strikingchords]

[AND I ASSUME THE BELL DOESN'T DO ANYTHING MORE THAN USUAL WHEN RUN EITHER? ok

well. his circle to hold in any escapees is still up, so he's going to carefully try to open the door and reach in for the pouch...]

[laughitoff]

[The bell is just feeling its feelings.

The pouch is neutral in his hand. There's something long and hard inside; not an animal.]

[strikingchords]

[that's... really fucking weird, what

tries taking it out?]

[laughitoff]

[It stings his hand fiercely on contact!

It's Chenqing, who feels alive, as all spiritual weapons are, and very fussy about who gets to use her, as all spiritual weapons are.]