we_bring_hell | (no subject)

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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.

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She hesitates, but speaks on. "This is a secret of the Ninth. You must guard it."

"The trick to growing bone--the fundamental of it, at least--is that bone is a natural reservoir of thanergy. A necromancer working with thanergy can't heal, can't move it, can't store it; only convert it. You can power a cell by flipping its thalergy into thanergy, but it's like setting yourself on fire to keep warm."

"But if it's bone--as long as I have a single living osteoblast, I can wick away the thanergy into the new bone. The cell is dying all the time, but growing too, and it never tips all the way over because the overflow just soaks into the bones."

"You can set yourself on fire as long as there's always more fuel and the fire never reaches your skin."

Edited 2020-10-14 01:07 (UTC)

This is a secret of the Ninth, she says, and immediately Wei Wuxian sets down his pen. To guard it as closely as she wishes, he will not leave a written record.

As she describes the method for growing bone, though, a crease forms and deepens between his eyebrows. Not for the first time, he is struck by her brilliance, how her necromancy operates on a level far above Wei Wuxian's own. He has the same sense one would get when sprinting breathlessly after someone so much faster: he will catch up, eventually, but the faltering in between lights a tiny spark of frustration.

"So," he says slowly, trying to parse what she's said. "The new bone you are able to grow acts as a reservoir, nearly. But only because it is constantly changing as it grows. I may be able to hold onto the thanergy if I can do something similar?"

She nods. "Perhaps. You already have the ability to store resentful energy. If you could transform the thanergy and draw it away as quickly as you take it in, perhaps you could stockpile it as you do now, and the thanergy would never truly touch you?"

"For me, necromancy is about converting energy back and forth between two volatile states, to be used immediately. Exposure to that energy seems to harm you. But resentful energy is a third, stable form you can store and use safely."

"The question is, can you do your own conversion, without harming yourself. You *are* a spirit, after all."

"Yes," he says, as his mouth twists slightly again. "That has always been the bump in the road as I try to learn what will work and what will not. I do not know how to account for it when I still feel as alive as I did before, and so much of my work is the same -- but I am undeniably different."

He scratches the side of his nose.

"I have also never had the opportunity to convert energy that way. It is not as... mutable, where I am from. Once it is formed, I do not think it can be changed. So I will need to work on that as well."

"It may not be mutable," she says. "Or it may be that you do not have anyone able to convert it. The Emperor was the first of us all, and your world is either Pre-Resurrection or a different world altogether."

"But I did not just mean that you are dead. Fundamental to my education in necromancy has always been that these principles are already in action in our biology. I am already a spirit controlling a skeleton. Recognizing that, adding another skeleton is not impossible."

"You are a spirit. You have always been a spirit. If spirits are capable of turning thanergy into poltergeist energy, you should be as well. At least in theory."

Edited 2020-10-14 14:49 (UTC)

That stops his thoughts as suddenly as a gate slamming down before him.

"Huh," he says at last, gazing into the middle distance as a grin slowly spreads across his face.

In the language of memes, Harrow, you have just clobbered Wei Wuxian with a true galaxy-brain moment.

"Do you know how spirits create it? Or--you know methods to quiet spirits. Could you stir one up?"

She taps her temple with a thumb. "And could it be done without overwhelming you with the violent emotions associated with resentful energy. Again--if you could move it away as fast as you created it?"

Edited 2020-10-14 15:01 (UTC)

"Yes, that is the main principle behind my cultivation." He's near to beaming. "Stirring up resentful spirits and directing their energy through music. So -- yes, perhaps. I have wondered if it might be possible to use my own resentments as energy, if I am among the dead now, but if it does not truly matter if you are alive or dead..."

He grabs the pen and resumes his notes in a whirl of motion.

"Yes. I could start there, and if it goes well I could see about drawing from a larger thanergetic source like the Window, transforming and moving it away from me as quickly as you described. This might work. I think it might work!"

Harrow smiles--genuinely--with the joy of pushing back the frontiers of questionably applied necromancy and to see Wei Wuxian so excited. She wouldn't mention Lan Wangji with a blade at her throat.

"I am pleased for you. May we meet again with victories to share. My friend," she says, incredibly awkwardly but sincerely.

Her words catch him and drag him back to himself; realizing he's on the verge of toppling into hours of rambling and theorizing, he laughs a little, self-deprecating.

"Yes." He forces himself to flip the portfolio closed. "I have stolen enough of your table and your time for now. Thank you, my friend. I wish you luck on your progress, and a pleasant rest of the day."

And with his customary bow, he takes his leave.

(Not too far. If it were any other night, he would retreat upstairs to continue his work, where Lan Zhan would probably find him three teapots and two wine bottles deep as he paced around the room. But until Lan Zhan is here --

Until he's here, a couch near the fireplace will suffice.)

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