un: wei laozu | audio | day after the summit

[weifinder]

Passing along a few highlights of my conversation with Asgeirr, our resident scholar ghost possessing a cloak from, oh, Sa-Hareth, that may be worth noting.

The citadel has raised and lowered itself, by a mechanism he believed connected to its central clock, for ages. However, it was largely for defense in the past, and the dragons were their primary form of offense in that defending. The civilians were kept safe. At that time, there was also no blurred lines between the dead and living—you could determine who and what was dead, and who and what lived.

( a pause, and he adds: )

He suggested it might be a thrall to the territories, or a freezing of the person at moment of death. Or that it might be something affecting us, but while that's clearly true, I don't think it's that specifically targeted.

Comments

un : deft hand of little deaths (voice)

[scrapgege]

I don't think it's us. Everything else still works as far as I can tell. I've lost my powers several times before, and it's never felt like this.

[weifinder]

Here, or in your home?

[scrapgege]

Well, both, to be honest.

I still have my powers. I don't feel like anything is blocking them. It's just that it doesn't feel like there's any living soul around, no living qi in the people around, and yet they're still moving.

[weifinder]

Right, right, I'm seeing the same. As fun as Lady Hatisse's suggestion of kissing every citizen until we see a pattern for the living and the dead, if we can even find one, sounds, we're going to need something to handle this array-like effect.

[scrapgege]

I... Kissing? Why would she suggest that????

[weifinder]

( here he simply sighs and laughs, shaking his head. )

Because she's Lady Hatisse, ah? Have you spoken with her before?

[scrapgege]

I... don't think I have, no. Back in Taravast, I was busy helping the people int he iced-over part of the city, and I didn't really follow what else happened.

[weifinder]

I... hah, hahaha, ah, she's a woman of healthy appetites.

( wei wuxian was actually drinking in a cellar after surviving anurr's call, then being pulled along like a kite on string by the crying huntress and her plague, so. yes. )

un: absterge

[downswing]

Perhaps arrived with the splintering into halves.

[weifinder]

It seems likely, or at least probable. Did we already hear of a year in which that splintering occurred?

[downswing]

Recent times.

[weifinder]

Seems more probable, then. Recent times can line up with the sorts of recents driving the current bodied dead and empowered bodiless dead curses across the citadels, couldn't it.

[downswing]

It may.

Wei Ying. Not all matters need be bound.

[weifinder]

Lan Zhan...

[weifinder]

I want a bath.

[downswing]

( .................... )



Take it.

[weifinder]

I don't want a bear.

Un: yuheng | audio

[wooden_one]

I do not think we are the ones being affected. However, we should see if we can rule out that possibility.

If it really isn't affecting us... [He purses his lips.] Then we must find out how to help them.

[weifinder]

Which means helping ourselves, too, before we lose reason to wish to examine the oddities.

My ability to sense the dead runs true when I leave the citadel's influence, for what that's worth.

[wooden_one]

Is that so?

Then, whatever is happening is localized only to the city? Does your ability return as soon as you step foot out of the citadel?

[Not like, delayed or anything?]

[weifinder]

Once you reach the Mouse House on the ground, yes. It truly is just affecting the citadel itself, as far as my abilities are concerned. If the effects on the denizens of the citadel last outside of it, I don't know.

[wooden_one]

If it is so localized, what is causing it?

[Some sort of barrier? Some sort of item with a specific range?]

Perhaps there is something or someone in the citadel that is the source of this...?

[weifinder]

I'm inclined to believe a something over a someone for the duration of it, but yes, that's entirely possible.

[wooden_one]

[He frowned, as if annoyed but when he speaks it's the thoughtful voice of someone trying to work out a problem.]

...is it distance? Or is there something keeping the effect from that place? If there is a barrier that can be made to neutralize the effect perhaps we could narrow down where this thing is...?

[weifinder]

At this time, we don't know. They're the questions we should seek answers for, but I presume it's related to the place, and to something here, whatever that something is.