we_bring_hell | (no subject)

Entry tags:

(no subject)

The Bar has not relented in her attempts to get Harrow to eat something with slightly more calories than air. After many false starts, she seems to have struck gold with potatoes, a vegetable Harrow has never had before.

Mashed was a success; soup went well, too. But chips--ahhh, chips. Hot, salty, taste like almost nothing at all. Harrow may never eat anything else again. After several false starts in the dipping sauce area she has made peace with a light sprinkling of vinegar. The only problem is they make her gloves and her papers greasy.

Therefore, find Harrowhark Nonagesimus at a table with her journal and a skeletal hand, drawing spirals and... God help us... eating chips with a fork. It could be worse. The hand could be feeding them to her.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Harrow never laughs and smiles infrequently; but the gleam in her eye is a good as a grin. "It works."

"Is it tied to you forever? Or can I take control?"

After years of translating Lan Zhan's minuscule expressions, he knows a not-really-a-grin when he sees it. He beams back at her, wiggling the arm from side to side as if waving.

"I have never tried to hand control of a talisman to someone else," he says. "I wouldn't know where to start. But it is always worth trying, if you have any ideas!"

"Transferring control of a construct is possible, but I'm unpracticed... not many other necromancers on the Ninth."

But she had to hand over control of the planet's corps of skeletal servants when she left. "I can definitely control it as a puppet--I'm just not sure how to take on the talisman. Hold on... this may get weird."

She has always been a mind controlling a set of bones. She does the alchemy that comes as second nature, and expands that set, tugging the arm against Wei Wuxian's control. It's like... arm-wrestling, almost.

His first instinct is to clamp down on his own control of the construct, as if it were a fierce corpse on the verge of breaking ranks. No; it is safe, he tells himself sternly. It is only Harrow, and it is only a single bony arm.

As effortful as activating the talisman, he lets his grip on the arm slip, fraction by fraction. The glowing characters along its surface flicker and dim like lanterns in a breeze.

She can feel his control, indirect and different than the usual strings she would cut in a hostile takeover, whether of a necromancer or the natural owner of the limb. She tries to creep into the space he's leaving, squinting in concentration. Blood sweat begins to collect on her brow.

The characters flicker... brighten... flare too bright, and the smell of charring bone rises again from the construct. But Harrow has been practicing the regenerating bone theorem to the point of delirium, and the characteristic silvery sheen begins to spread.

At the same time she ratchets back her thanergy control until the glow dims. She can feel the unfamiliar magic trying to tap into her motor cortex, and now it is her turn to relax slowly and surrender to something that feels downright off.

For a moment the arm wobbles, caught between her puppeteering and the reflection magic, but when she stills the control theorem it moves as easily as her own arm.

"The hard part is resisting the urge to control it," she says. "Letting it simply mirror. Perhaps if--" She focuses on her own arm as an assemblage of bone, and focuses her control there instead, puppeting herself as she has done in moments of great strain. "Aha!"

Her hand, and the skeletal one, clench in triumph.

Wei Wuxian lets out a whoop of glee. "It worked!" he crows. "Well done, Harrow. That is incredible!"

A thousand new avenues open up in his mind, theorizing how to pass control of a talisman from one cultivator to another, the possibilities such a mechanism could open -- it would probably not work as neatly as with Harrow, considering she can control the bones without a talisman, but still. Still. Oh, he will have to test this with Lan Zhan when he returns.

(When. One way or another, he will find Lan Zhan.)

"If it can draw its own power," she says, mind racing ahead, "then I need only actively achieving one touch, to initiate the connection. This is fantastic. I should still etch the characters--" she says, touching her arm. "You will have to help me design it."

"God of the Nine Houses; a hybrid of three magics! We are the greatest necromancers of our generation, Wei Wuxian!"

Dessa raises her eyebrows, impressed. Such manners!

"Now that is a way to be greeted. Well met, Heir of the Ninth House," she says, nodding in deference to Harrow. "You would indeed seem to be in the right place, and I welcome you."

Ingress steps forward. "Marylebone, I was wondering whether we might have your permission to enter the crypt and, perhaps, the catacombs. We'll leave everything as we found it."

"Do not stray past the first level, of course," the Marylebone warns. "Please enjoy what my fiefdom has to offer. However Clement and I can't go with you as we have, ahem, pressing business to attend to."

Clement's ears go pink, and Ingress hides her snicker. She knows all about this kind of pressing business. Once she grew up, she realized that Tom and Door often had these kind of "appointments" on a semi-regular basis.

"We'll be fine on our own. Thank you, so much, for your kindness and welcome." Ingress drops into a curtsy, gives Clement a teasing side eye, and says with a perfectly straight and innocent face, "May your business be conducted smoothly and with great success. I shall make time to visit another time, when we our schedules match better."

Dessa gives them a final nod, and Ingress regards Harrow once again. "Shall we?"

Harrow, ever the prude, stiffens at the not-very-subtle subtext. "By all means," she says quickly.

In a low voice she asks Ingress, "What is in the lower levels?"

Necromancers, plural: it still sends a thrill through him. It is one thing to create, but to collaborate, to have a peer, and to see the proof of their joined labors in front of them --

He's laughing, elated. "Yes! If I had a drink, I would toast to us," he says. "Look at the marvel we've accomplished! And I should not have to modify the talisman too much before you place it on your own arm -- oh! The portal work! Will you still need that?"

Wei Wuxian grabs the other two talismans he'd laid aside earlier.

"I would be pleased to see it; I have been studying a different method, but I am unsure I will ever be able to reliably reproduce it."

"Right, yes, so -- "

He pushes them across the table so she can get a better look. They are far more complex than the paper doll -- and now skeletal arm -- talisman, with multiple columns of characters and sigils woven in between.

"It is not as straightforward, but to break it down to its most simple, this -- " indicating the first column of the first talisman -- "sends out a call to this." Pointing to the last column of the second talisman. "And all of this in between works to draw them toward each other as a compass points north, regardless of distance or what features may lie in between. It is meant more for quick travel, so the portal it creates cannot stay open for long. But it might serve as a basis for calling to the arm from Canaan House?"

"Something very secret or very deadly. Probably both."

She leads Harrow to the passageway where stairs will take them underground.

"The first level is massive, though, so even if we wanted to explore the other levels, I doubt we'd have time."

"No fear," she says, even as her sense probe deeper underground searching for the organized thanergy of the undead.

"For my experiments, it would be helpful if you could Open a gateway to Milliways. Even a pinhole will do -- indeed, in some ways the smaller the better. Is that possible?"

"Hm - yes I see. And indeed, putting out the call is truly all I need, if the synchronization works as I hope. But have you been able to draw such a talisman for Milliways?"

"The element it seems would be most problematic is that you must find the other symbol not just in space but in time."

"I haven't," he says with a sigh. He scratches the back of his head with the end of the pen. "If I had, I would not be so worried about Lan Zhan finding his way back here. And I think you are right -- it needs several layers of precision to land properly. Far more than simply distance, as it would back home."

He blows a loose lock of hair out of his face.

"I will think on it. I'm certain it can be done."

"Other magics can do so," she broaches. "But lack the, ah, portability and simplicity of your talismans. Perhaps we can use your methods to those portals more biddable, or learn the details necessary to target such a place."

"Perhaps."

He's still looking down at the teleportation talismans, idly tapping the pen against the rightmost one.

"Moiraine's cultivation?"

"Yes," she says calmly. "She is willing to teach me the weaves, but I still cannot originate the energy without her assistance. And she cautions me it is dangerous."

"A hybrid approach may prove fruitful."

He nods. It takes another moment before he looks up at Harrow.

"I would ask that you not share any of my necromancy with her," he says, quietly. "I am glad you have learned much from her. But I still do not trust her not to harm me."

"I can do that easily," she says. "I would not consider it mine to teach. The secrets of each House are their own."

Edited 2020-10-12 02:41 (UTC)

"I think I can manage that. How close do you need me to be to you?"

She opens and flexes her hand a few times. It's been a minute since she's opened between worlds, but she's in a groove now.

"Just let me know what you need and where."

"Nearby--eventually I must develop the theorem to do so on my own, but this will help prove the concept."

She inhales slowly and focuses on the thanergy ambient to the graveyard and in the deep, deep reservoirs of her bones, resonating with the symbols carved in the skeletal arm back at Milliways.

She folds her arms in front of her and leans back against the stony space in between shelves of dusty remains. She always likes learning new things and observing different skills and magic.

She's smiling fondly as she watches.

She has not yet etched the characters into her own bones, or even properly inscribed the arm. It's just a proof of concept. But... is she imagining that she feels an echo? A sense of being in two places at once from the shoulder down? She feels--or imagines she feels--the resistance of the unactivated magic picking up the resonance but refusing to respond.

Only one way to check.

"If you can open the portal, please?"

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Page 6 of 10