we_bring_hell: (Graphic: Spiral)
[personal profile] we_bring_hell
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.

Date: 2020-10-08 12:28 am (UTC)
acrookedpath: (serious)
From: [personal profile] acrookedpath
He exhales the smallest laugh, without much humor. "That is my hope," he says. "I also know time may pass differently here than outside. Perhaps this is the inversion of what happened to him -- now I will wait three years, and he will only live a month."

Which is a miserable idea in its own right, but at least Lan Zhan will be unhurt.

"Or he may simply have trouble finding a door, even if he is still in Cold Pond Cave. It could be anything."

Date: 2020-10-08 02:19 am (UTC)
acrookedpath: (tools of the patriarch)
From: [personal profile] acrookedpath
He quirks another halfhearted smile, finally raising his head from his hand.

"I'm not even sure what emergency measures I could take," he confesses. "I cannot see the front door, let alone pass through it. Ingress, maybe -- Ingress is an Opener. But it's likely I'd succeed in making nothing but a ghost of myself."

And if he did, who knows if he would be able to return to the inn?

Date: 2020-10-09 12:59 am (UTC)
acrookedpath: (rueful)
From: [personal profile] acrookedpath
Wei Wuxian blinks, as startled as if he'd never considered this before, then breaks into a laugh that's far more fully-formed than the last.

"I may have," he says. "Thank you, Harrow. And forgive me -- I am still growing used to having allies and friends to call upon."

Date: 2020-10-09 02:05 am (UTC)
acrookedpath: (say hello to my little friend)
From: [personal profile] acrookedpath
He nods. "I am not sure if it would work as it did sending one to Canaan House," he says, "but it would certainly be worth trying. And far less conspicuous than sending a stranger to Cloud Recesses."

He can only imagine how Lan Qiren -- how anyone of Gusu Lan -- would react if Harrow strode from Cold Pond Cave in all her necromancer glory.

Date: 2020-10-09 02:22 am (UTC)
acrookedpath: (unimpressed)
From: [personal profile] acrookedpath
His expression tightens at that, but he tips his head, acknowledging.

"I do not wish her to go to Cloud Recesses," he says, quieter. "If her weaves can prevent you from being detected... I would like to speak to her first, but." He makes a helpless gesture with one hand. "I would consider it."

So long as he is able to ask Moiraine, bluntly, if her work will deliberately sabotage any effort to find Lan Zhan.

Date: 2020-10-09 02:35 am (UTC)
acrookedpath: (slight smile)
From: [personal profile] acrookedpath
For an instant, he fears his already-shredded composure might crack altogether. His hands tremble; he forces them to stillness, makes himself breathe deep.

"I do," he says. "And it is."

And if they are lucky, Ingress will open the door on a very startled Lan Zhan who believes he has been gone from the inn for no more than a few minutes. (If they are even luckier, Lan Zhan will return, unharmed, without the need to enact any plan at all.)

"But I have burdened you enough with my worries. For several days in a row now!" He forces a smile, and gestures to the skeletal hand. "Tell me what you are working on today."

Date: 2020-10-09 02:43 pm (UTC)
acrookedpath: (cheerful conversation)
From: [personal profile] acrookedpath
"Oh?" He brightens -- it is far easier to smile now, his cheer no longer feigned -- and peers closer at the hand. He wiggles his fingers as if waving hello to it. "What theorems have you shaped so far? I could show you the talisman structure I use for the dolls, if it would be helpful."

Date: 2020-10-09 03:13 pm (UTC)
acrookedpath: (say hello to my little friend)
From: [personal profile] acrookedpath
Wei Wuxian nods. Drawing out the portfolio she gave him, he slides the pen free and flips to the pad of paper dolls in the back. "The Observation Window, yes?" he says, jabbing upward with the pen to indicate. "I still hope I may learn how to access that energy someday. It would make my afterlife so much easier!"

He begins to scribble a line of characters down the front of one of the dolls.

"What is the next goal?"

Date: 2020-10-09 04:30 pm (UTC)
acrookedpath: (a different cultivation)
From: [personal profile] acrookedpath
"Ah! That is easy enough," he says, making a swift modification to his own talisman. "Though -- I assume when you say leave, that would involve shutting the door behind you? That makes it less easy. Hm."

He taps the pen against the paper doll in thought.

"I have never actually tested whether closing the door severs the link to my own work. I've just assumed that it will. But if there is a way to... hm. Perhaps use the principles that allow someone to open a door to the inn to begin with? That is so unreliable, though."

Case in point, potentially: Lan Zhan's absence.

Date: 2020-10-09 06:27 pm (UTC)
acrookedpath: (....go on.)
From: [personal profile] acrookedpath
Wei Wuxian, who does not really -- as the Ninth House would say -- do bones, glances up from his work with a small furrow between his eyebrows.

"Both ends?" he asks. "You mean -- "

He waves the pen toward Harrow's flesh-and-blood arm.

Date: 2020-10-09 07:29 pm (UTC)
acrookedpath: (a different cultivation)
From: [personal profile] acrookedpath
"Huh." He quirks his eyebrows, intrigued. "I would not have thought of that."

Granted, Wei Wuxian's upbringing means he winces at the idea of even trimming his hair, let alone carving theorems into his bones.

"But it seems like it might work. It could give the link enough power to surmount whatever severing a closed door might attempt."
Edited Date: 2020-10-09 08:38 pm (UTC)

Date: 2020-10-09 09:03 pm (UTC)
acrookedpath: (say hello to my little friend)
From: [personal profile] acrookedpath
Wei Wuxian hums thoughtfully again, puts the finishing flourish on the paper doll, and grabs a sheet of talisman paper from the portfolio.

"A sustained portal is not easy," he says, "but a quick one, that appears just long enough to bring you to another location -- " He pens two nearly identical columns of characters on the paper, then carefully tears along one of the sheet's perforations to separate them. "Ah, but one thing at a time, I suppose. I can share that with you in a moment."

He sets them aside before pushing the paper doll closer to Harrow.

"This is one that would mirror any of my actions. Here -- " Lightly, he indicates with the pen without leaving any extra marks on the paper. "This is how any doll begins: animation, allowing it to move. Here and here," another gesture, "these tie it to whoever activates it, giving them control over its movements. And this -- " Pointing at the very bottom. " -- is reflection, to capture anything I do and echo it in the doll. For more complex constructions like I used in Canaan house, I would change the talisman there so it would hold my sight and hearing properly, rather than simply mimic me."

Date: 2020-10-09 09:36 pm (UTC)
acrookedpath: (say hello to my little friend)
From: [personal profile] acrookedpath
"We haven't," he says, equally thoughtful. "If I was able to channel it into the talisman before, however poorly, then I think it ought to work. Though I wonder how the paper will react to prolonged exposure to undiluted thanergy."

And considering talisman paper is crafted for the specific purpose of storing and channeling spiritual -- or resentful -- energy, Wei Wuxian doubts they could simply replace it with the flimsy of Harrow's world.

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