[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]

[mmmh. nuzzles the rat encouragingly.

at least one interpretation of "imagine the ideal" that suggests itself here is "try to GIVE the rat a stomach" but that SUPER isn't how cultivation interacts with the dead, even if he can tell that "Orthodoxy" isn't really the same thing,,,

he'll try giving it a little spiritual energy as they cuddle and he thinks about it, to see how it accepts that]

[laughitoff]

[It just kind of...eats it too? That reaction was a bit like a yao's or a ghost's; the way they suck down yang energy...

It gets a little bit bigger.]

[strikingchords]

[IT DOESN'T NEED TO BE BIGGER.

he'll give it a last purring headbutt for now and ferry the bite back to the plate; no point wasting it

by the way. is the fur on the blankets rat fur, perchance?]

[laughitoff]

[It's bunny fur.]

[strikingchords]

[PEEPS INVOLUNTARILY





STICKS HIS HEAD UNDER THE BED JUST IN CASE]

[laughitoff]

[It's a rock flat against the floor. There is nowhere to put his head underneath.

Searching around the living area floor does not reveal other rat parts, either.]

[strikingchords]

[it's cool that you assumed he was being productive when that was mostly him having a Moment about bunnies. noted, though.

for now he's going to return to human shape, fold the blankets and "pillow" nicely for the moment, and go looking at the blood pool for something to be heretical about.

THE BARRIER IS BACK IN PLACE but he'll go to the edge of the pool to investigate those flashes inside again. if he bites his thumb and draws one of the attraction talismans Wei Wuxian pioneered all those years ago on a rock above the waterline (bloodline?), will whatever is in there show itself?]

[laughitoff]

[A hollow fragment-face forms from them at the water's surface, right under the talisman.]

[strikingchords]

[hesitates... does this feel like more of the huli jing's doing? the Burial Mounds dead?]

[laughitoff]

[Yes.

The hollow sockets of its eyes move back and forth, round and round, taking in the pool. It scowls when it notices the barrier is restored.]

[strikingchords]

[Lan Wangji places his hand on the evil-summoning talisman and crumbles the underlying rock with Heresy, letting the gravel fall into the pool; he doesn't need it now]

Huli Jing.

[laughitoff]

cultivator.

[strikingchords]

...

This is not a place for you.

[laughitoff]

oh? but it was GIVEN to us

[strikingchords]

Outside the cavern has long been your domain.

But, however the start. Wei Ying did not survive here as a walking corpse.

He lived. The Wens lived. They were grateful until their last breath. The Burial Mound sheltered A-Yuan for days, until my arrival.

Wen Qionglin regained his senses here.

Where you swim, more than anywhere else, death is not the end of sympathy.

[laughitoff]

what IS your POINT

[strikingchords]

You do not deserve to represent the Burial Mound here.

You say Wei Ying gave himself to you. Yet, instead. He came close to death and found what it did not make impossible.

You can't keep up.

[laughitoff]

[It lunges out of the pool, a tangle of hands and jaws, and smashes against the barrier in front of Lan Wangji's face.

The barrier shakes, but holds.]

[strikingchords]

[stares it down, eyes glowing gold a little in the red-tinted dark, feral and uncompromising and so cold and still that it's a threat in and of itself...]

Your thinking is limited. Neither scope nor self-regulation.

You are old enough to do better.

[laughitoff]

WE

are

GHOSTS

[strikingchords]

Everyone dies.

What is your excuse?

[laughitoff]

WE NEED NONE

[It rams into the barrier again.]

[strikingchords]

[considers this, lifts his hand, and

uses Heresy on his curse mark.

There are many different kinds of curses! The general idea is that you manifest some kind of harmful effect on someone you can direct personal resentment against -- if you're an evil spirit of some kind, the stain of your dark energy may rub off and leave a generic curse mark on someone just from coming close to you.

{...}

Like any grudge, a curse perpetuates a bond between the victim and curse-layer. Ghosts and other evil spirits, driven by their hungers more than rational thought, are attracted to the familiar resentful energy of their grudge if it's close by, and will track their curse victims until the mark is removed. For more sophisticated curses, the link remains such that the easiest way for experts to try to help the victim is to rebound part of the curse on the caster, manifesting traces on the caster's body or spirit instead.

right now he's envisioning, with razor focus, using Heresy twice more: first to follow the path of the curse back and just SLUG THE GHOSTS IN THE METAPHORICAL FACE WITH THE DESTRUCTIVE ENERGY, like a ringing slap of rebuke or a discipline ruler. pay attention

second to try to crumble the connection of the curse between them directly, which would theoretically, if successful, rebound the curse on the curse-layer]

[laughitoff]

[This should not be possible, but he is in the heart of someone who was raised to achieve the impossible.

The first use blows the ghosts apart. It's so strong -- perhaps so unexpectedly so -- that he can tell that he has not exorcised or suppressed, but eliminated. The pool boils away. A world-splitting, blood-curdling shriek comes out of the Burial Mounds, as the pool collapses in on itself.

The shriek continues, as the curse is wrenched free of his hand and flung through the channel of connection like an arrow. It shouldn't work. It shouldn't work, when the monster is so strong, so disparate -- and yet, he feels it drive home, and wink out.

The shriek is cut off by an explosion from outside.

Backlash hits him, enough to rattle him and his core badly and make his nose and the corners of his eyes bleed -- but he can tell he has narrowly skirted a qi deviation.]

[strikingchords]

[what the fuck

HE WAS NOT ACTUALLY TRYING TO ELIMINATE ANYTHING BUT LIKE, THIS WAS ALL JUST A MISHMASH OF GHOST PIECES SO I GUESS SOMETIMES YOU PUNCH A FOX SO HARD A HOLE OPENS UP

doubles over, feeling his meridians scream with the uneven flow of his core, hand coming up to try to stifle the need to spit enough bad blood back up to start refilling the pool. he can't sense anything or react over the ringing in his ears for a moment. fuck fuck FUCK FUCK FUCK]