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[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.

Comments

[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."

[we_bring_hell]

"Indeed," she says. "But at the moment, it has been a few days. If I were in your place--"

"--if I were in your place, I would be feral," she admits. "If I having made up my mind to return and face Gideon, I found myself trapped here."

"But in my privileged position as an observer, I would recommend waiting a little longer before turning to emergency measures."

[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?

[we_bring_hell]

"If you think you do not have friends who would pass through that door for you," she says, "you have let fear rob you of your senses."

[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."

[we_bring_hell]

"If too much more time passes," she assures him, "we will find Ingress and investigate."

"You can send one of your paper dolls."

[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.

[we_bring_hell]

Can't have a negative reaction if your bones are ripped out.

"Moraine Sedai has weaves of invisibility and disguise," she adds. "I know you are not friends, but I am not ashamed to ask her."

Thus are the benefits of allies.

[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.

[we_bring_hell]

She inclines her head in acquiescence. "Of such things are allowances made. And now you have a plan, and a plan is a comforting thing, I have always believed."

"You are not alone. Neither is Lan Wangji."

As someone who has always been alone, she knows the value.

[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."

[we_bring_hell]

"I was inspired by your paper dolls, in fact," she says.

"My goal is to create a construct I can leave here but control even after I leave. I thought to equip it to copy written messages."

[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."

[we_bring_hell]

"Certainly, if you wish. My constructs are merely puppets, not inhabited in the way yours are; I certainly cannot see without ocular tissue."

"The first goal is that it must be able to collect thanergy from it's environment to function, to minimize what I must pass through. Fortunately, this environment is rich in it."

[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?"

[we_bring_hell]

"To cause it to echo my movements. Commanding it is a simple enough matter, but I wish for something more integral; for it to move in resonance with me when activated, without deliberate command. Spooky action at a distance."

[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.

[we_bring_hell]

"My hope is that I can establish the... echo such that I need only bridge the gap for a moment, to activate it. But that remains to be seen."

"I had thought to scribe the theorem into the surface of the bone, on both ends, to establish an unbreakable link."

Yes, she's talking about the bones inside her arm as well as the arm on the table.

[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.

[we_bring_hell]

"Indeed," she says. "It is a minor enough working compared to some I have done."

[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."

[we_bring_hell]

"I have been studying as well the magic of portals," she says. "But I cannot rely on it to do more than send an immaterial signal, I think."

[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."

[we_bring_hell]

"Ideal for my purpose," she says dryly. And then thoughtfully: "I suppose we never tried thanergy as an activating energy."

[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.