audio | un: yiling patriarch

[weifinder]

Hey, every one of us glorious abductees! A question, to those listening right now, brought to you by myself and Master Archeval due to the considerations of a friend, but: what would you make of being informed that, and here I'm quoting, "The man you trust was six years not among us?"

( A dramatic pause, for digestion purposes. )

All said and done, with that message slipped to me, I can say with certainty there's a handful I fully trust here, and there's none I trust entirely from here, no offense. However, there is one we've been forced to trust, ah? In hearing these words, what are your thoughts?

Comments

[weifinder]

( these... these puns... they are terrible? is that just translation slaying him? )

I'm fortunate to have found a familiar face in the aftermath of our own freeing, months back. Beyond that, trust comes in many forms, and different levels.

[royal_venant]

I think I'm missing a part or all of that story.

[weifinder]

My new friend, I'm happy to regale you with the full tale if you happen to be in the vicinity of the farmhouse?

[royal_venant]

I am.

Who told you that first thing?

[weifinder]

Our prior host when we stayed within the citadel.

I'll be there soon myself--the farmhouse, not the citadel--for any involved conversations.

[royal_venant]

Right. Where in the farmhouse are we meeting?

[weifinder]

The growing house, it's nice and warm in there!

( ... also known as a greenhouse perhaps )

[royal_venant]

[ Oh ya, Regulus needs some clarification. ]

Where the garden is?

[ Or is there literally a house that grows - look, it'd make sense back home. ]

[weifinder]

Yes, in at the garden! With the... turnips... and the potatoes!

[royal_venant]

Alright. I'll meet you there.

slides to action:

[weifinder]

( Lo, so it comes to pass that in the garden with the windows and the humidity from the heat runes powered by their own donated and loaned energy, stands a man: long haired, dressed in dark robes (black and black on black), the only present colour in the red ribbon keeping his hair half pulled back. )

Ah, you're my friend from the quartz?

( he holds up a small piece of it on its own ribbon, tucking it into his robe not long after. )

Re: slides to action:

[royal_venant]

[ Regulus respects the choice in color schemes as he has a similar vibe - black on black on black - with his vaguely late victorian sartorial look.

But he is stopped short by Wei Wuxian's open friendliness. Regulus trusts mistrust, and mistrust unestablished trust. It was a paradox, but like many things about Regulus, he is complicated and contradictory.

He refrains from approaching closer, for now. ]

Yes... I believe so. You were going to explain to me what the rest of the group has experienced.

[weifinder]

( He notes the distance, doesn't comment on it. Just a smile, and the easiness of how he holds himself, his version of presenting something without threat. It's too easy, far too easy, to shift that if he needs.

He sees little reason. Not right now. )

Since arrival of the first group successfully freed? That'd include myself and a handful of the rest of us, two handfuls? ( A pause, and pursed lips: ) Some have gone missing since, but we were summoned over some period of time, maybe a week? Then kept in the old jail or on the plateau west of the citadel, beyond the abandoned salt mines. We were unchained or unlocked from behind jail doors to make our way to the citadel—we'd been living there for well over a month, before the slave ship came to port.

( A roughish timeline for events, still linear at this point. )

Mah, we handled the ship, which had even more of those like us... taken from other worlds, that is. There'd been some kind of mirror onboard that delved into their memories, shuttered use of their gifts, whatever they had. It enthralled a group of mermaids who tracked them from warmer waters, dying in the process of their obsession coming up here.

( Death, death, more death, and the mermaids in their alien cries that he'd sung to, commanded, to lift the anchor, send the ship free to be pushed back out of the harbour. )

Ah, probably what, about two weeks after is when we moved up to this place, on Haltham's word. Funny guy, that Haltham. The rest of you trickling in are coming in whole different ways, and if nothing else, it points to Unhalad and any like him not stopping in their summonings. If the numbers now are a sign of low success or otherwise, who knows? I don't, at this time.

( .............. that's what the rest of the group very, very broadly has experienced. More or less. He quirks up his eyebrow, offering a uneven grin. )

Now, specific questions?

[royal_venant]

[ It helps that Wei Wuxian doesn't try to extend the friendliness further and helps keep the distance. Regulus could come around, with time, but that's it, that's what he needs: time.

He does have questions.]

What happened to the others that have gone missing? [ That sounded ominous given the state of undead around these parts. ]

[weifinder]

We haven't found traces of them. Nothing lingering spiritually or otherwise, and no... changes in the forces of Anurr or Unhalad to indicate that... something there found them.

( So far. )

[royal_venant]

You can track people... spiritually? [ That puts Regulus a bit more on edge. ]

[weifinder]

No, I can sense and understand what spiritual remnants are around an area, which has to do with the hows and whys of something dying.

[royal_venant]

[ That is even more unsettling, given how Regulus has already died. Once. It just didn't seem to stick. ]

How... does that work?

[weifinder]

Through years of training in spiritual cultivation, for the most part! I'm not alone in that—there's a handful of cultivators here, who're all sensitive to one extent or another. It's not anything as active as you might think. For most, the energy in an area has to be pretty heavy to sense it!

( Wei Wuxian is not one of those people, he's pretty aware of all resentful energies, but also the regular spiritual ones. He just also doesn't have some personal radar: only someone rating as possessed or dead would radiate the right kind to be read by him. )

[royal_venant]

Uh-huh.

And what would you do if you... sensed someone dead around you?

[weifinder]

Are you talking about one of the currently bodied dead like Unhalad's or Anurr's, or something else?

[royal_venant]

[ He's definitely asking about something else. You know, for a friend. ]

Let's start with the currently bodied dead like Unhalad's or Anurr's?

[ Also, that was a unique way of distinguishing between ghosts and reanimated corpses. ]

[weifinder]

Figure out where they are and what they're doing. If it's not related to us, leave them to their business.

[royal_venant]

[ Time to ask 'for a friend.' ]

Alright... What about... say, someone who died-died. But then is brought back to life. Not like the undead corpses out there, but actually alive, again?

[weifinder]

Won't register, not really. Even if it did, what offense could I find in a miracle like that?

( He was supposed to be one like that, though he wasn't. Xiao Xingchen is certainly one like that. )