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westwhere2022-10-22 07:42 pm
groundrules) wrote in westwhere2022-10-22 07:42 pm
Entry tags:
- 2ha: chu wanning,
- arc iv,
- arc iv: serthica,
- arcane: caitlyn,
- arcane: vi,
- better call saul: jimmy mcgill,
- better call saul: kim wexler,
- doctor who: clara oswald,
- doctor who: river song,
- doctor who: the doctor,
- hellblazer: john constantine,
- kingdom of the wicked: emilia,
- kingdom of the wicked: wrath,
- legend of fei: xie yun,
- legend of fei: zhou fei,
- mcu: yelena,
- mo dao zu shi: xiao xingchen,
- noragami: yato,
- oh! my emperor: beitang moran,
- oh! my emperor: su xunxian,
- original: licyn mansbane,
- original: red,
- owl house: eda clawthorne,
- penny dreadful: vanessa ives,
- shadowhunters: alec lightwood,
- shadowhunters: magnus bane,
- star trek: christopher pike,
- star wars: finn,
- the clock tower,
- the gifted: lorna dane,
- the gifted: marcos diaz,
- tian guan ci fu: xie lian,
- touken ranbu: kanesada,
- umbrella academy: five,
- umbrella academy: lila pitts,
- untamed: lan wangji,
- untamed: wei wuxian,
- warcraft: anduin wrynn,
- warcraft: wrathion,
- warframe: kahl 175
the clock tower
Happy Hallow-elevator! The clock tower event lasts between 22 October and 8 November. ICly, the tower incursion stretches around a week, and you’re welcome to have your character investigate something else, if they finish early!
ALL IS AS ALL WAS
Play it cool, as Serthica’s customs officers pore over your passport papers, before grudgingly allowing you overground. Minaras, you hear, is hunting a delinquent.
Both it and Eidris fare well, with no sign of the damage that preceded the Unwinding. Locals no longer behave eerily, dragons and clockwork droids roam freely, and everyone hates taxes.
Yet perfect strangers insist they know you. Your assigned address leads to a different house. The roads, buildings and architecture look ‘lived in,’ but changed.
No one remembers the Unwinding.
- ■ Burlap mannequins sometimes watch from mirrors, windows and reflecting surfaces.
■ You might hear shifting and scratching in Eidris walls.
■ Minaras has doubled its bounty for a man not unlike Leonard McCoy.
■ Black fungal spores are found on the increasingly voluminous experiment vials, specimens and supplies thrown out by Minaras medical facilities.
■ Frail and confused, Ellethia survivor Zenobius finally awakens. A short thread is up for RNG grabs.
TRIALS & NO ERRORS
The guard troops that Eidris and Minaras assign to the Neutral Zone now protect King Thivar and High Councillor Arabella during the annual Sanctuary Reckoning trials. Both adjudicate cases that violate the ceasefire.
Prolonging the trials buys time for your companions in the clock tower.
- ■ Create a distraction — flood the judgement hall rooms? Fire? Illusions?
■ Pose as trial participants: perhaps you are of Eidris, and you caught this wicked Minaraian raiding your home? Mayhap this wretched man of Eidris stole your girlfriend? Wait, you’re a Minaraian who wants to kill King Thivar?
■ …organise breakouts, if Thivar or Arabella have your jailed. You are first imprisoned in makeshift Sanctuary cells — all but poorly locked, glorified closets. Get a trial sentence!
■ Thivar and Arabella treat the trials as a box-ticking exercise.
THE TOWER
As Eidris and Minaras play court, you can infiltrate the Neutral Zone clock tower of Vassarizhia.
- ■ Only token security remains. The door is unlocked.
■ Karsa supplies paper talismans that must be burned in the watch fire at the tower’s top level.
■ Each burned talisman amplifies the reveal spell that Karsa activates. Link a finished burning thread by 8 November to help the cause.
■ A November mod post will describe how much of Serthica’s ‘undeath’ characters can see.
■ Placing Magnus’ dragon eye before the tower’s telescope will allow characters to always see Serthica’s undeath, moving forward.
✘ ELEVATOR ETIQUETTE
Imperfect stillness dominates Vassarizhia: your footsteps do not click, words die in your mouth. The tower’s rickety gear slither silently. Your heartbeat aligns with the clock’s tick… tock.
You have the growing, gnarly certainty that you have invaded something ancient and alive.
The tower’s entryway level is large, deserted, stacked with gears. At its core is a dilapidated open elevator shaft.
A large sign says to find and pull the floor lever, if elevators stop.
- ■ There are two elevators. Each narrow lift can hold up to four people, crammed. The upper half of the carriage is chain-link fence, while the floors contain hatches that sometimes open mid-travel for 30 seconds. Hold on to ceiling-bound leather straps.
■ The ropes holding the elevators are thick, but tattered.
■ The elevator’s creaking squeals can awaken swarms of 1m-tall bats and bat wyverns. They rattle the lift, but ultimately withdraw.
■ The elevator can stop at as many levels as you want (or none!).
■ Beyond the second level, you feel intensely paranoid and see your companions as the persons you most hate/fear for five to 10 minutes. Reaching the top, you are tempted to cut the lift ropes of those who follow. (The ropes and elevators recover, after crashing to the bottom. )
■ On each floor, as you exit the elevator, a nearby wall shows a different scratched instruction, signed by DAVID.
LEVEL IV: THE ROOM WHERE NOTHING HAPPENS | LEVEL V: IT’S RAINING (AGAIN)
LEVEL I: THE LABYRINTH
CONTENT WARNING: MINOTAUR, BODY HORROR
Step into a jail maze, flooded to knee level. Confusing corridors narrow, widen and contort, while wall torches dim.
Intermittent howling reveals you’re not alone. Hiding, you see child-like chalk drawings of forest animals on walls — and a great minotaur. Keep silent.
- ■ David S P’s wall scrawl says, IT RUNS IN THE FAMILY.
■ Collect some of the many discarded daggers or axes. Rope bundles float in water — use them to paralyse your captive or briefly force them under your control.
■ Don’t linger in one place: rotting, bodiless hands surface to restrain you.
■ Bad news, if you swallow water when the minotaur or dead hands try to drown you: your skin stretches and bursts, while your bones pop and extend. You mutate into a half human, half woodland creature, all bloodlust. ( Inspiration, anyone? ) Your companions should still recognise you; between hazy memories and constant pain, you might struggle to remember them and even attack.
■ Morphed characters can (painfully) return to normal within minutes of re-entering the elevator.
■ A smaller and distressed three-headed minotaur also roams the labyrinth. Two of its heads sob, while the third urges you to hide with it when brother approaches. It tries to throttle you with a noose to make brother happy, if you follow. David did say.
■ The minotaur and its sibling have poor sight. They cannot enter a corridor where you’ve drawn or laid down a line.
■ Pull the lever, and a straight corridor leads you to the elevator.
LEVEL II: THE ANCESTOR
CONTENT WARNING: GIANT SKELETON, BLOOD DRINKING
Here, only barren stone and thin rivulets of fresh water pouring from wall fountains with sharp-tipped ornaments — your spilled blood quickly infects the basins. Knives, pins and bowls have been abandoned nearby.
High pressure and vertigo overwhelm you. Follow a rhythmic heaving to where the upper half of an enormous skeleton — the Ancestor — has broken through a wall. White, silk thread fetters it. Dried blood rims its cracked mouth. Before it, the stone floor has been tarnished, up to a 5m radius.
The Ancestor appears dormant, a crown of iron thorns on its head. It clutches the lever tightly in its right hand. Above it, an engraving urges, SPILL WINE FOR YOUR ANCESTOR.
- ■ David S P’s elevator scrawl says, WATER TO WINE.
■ Dally staring and you feel dizzy, nauseous, depressed and compelled to share your close-death encounters. Before you know it, you are stepping into the Ancestor’s radius…
■ …where it plunges for you, if you don’t bear a filled cup. The silk ropes keep the Ancestor from reaching beyond 5m.
■ Two carvings under his fists read HONOUR THY FATHER and DISHONOUR THY MOTHER.
■ Quickly distract the Ancestor from crumbling his captives, tearing their arms or attempting to eat them.
■ The Ancestor is instinct-driven, consumed by thirst. It cannot see or smell, and only remembers taste. Sounds divert it.
■ Improvise: there is no actual wine here. Infuse water, spill blood, or vocally pretend you are delivering wine, and the Ancestor might spare you.
■ If sated, the Ancestor releases the lever.
LEVEL III: TAG! YOU’RE IT
CONTENT WARNING: SCARECROW, SKINNED CREATURES
Enjoy pitch dark, dread and bile spreading in your gut. Take a candle from near the elevator and roam through small, unlocked rooms that feature tattered beds, strips of tanning leather and blood or wax spilled on the floor.
- ■ David S P’s wall scrawl says, O CATCHES IT.
■ Ahead, you see candle-bearing mannequins that dance a hora to the same song played by Jim Kirk’s music box: “Up the mountain, in the grove, hand in hand to Ke-Waihu, fresh harvest’s a treasure trove, each fall we feast anew.”
■ The creatures are patched abominations of wax, skinned flesh and burlap. In the middle of the hora is a wiry scarecrow, eyes blazing with candle fire as it points a large cleaver. In certain lights, the scarecrow’s face briefly contorts into that of your mother. It wears priestly robes that Arc III survivors may recognise from the House of Ravens.
■ As the dance finishes, you notice the lever in the middle of the circle, where flame spells out TAKE THEM, NOT ME. The game begins.
■ The abominations run, gleefully manic and screaming TAAAA~AAAAAG. YOU’RE IT! The scarecrow unflinchingly cuts them down while pursuing you. Hide in the abandoned rooms, or risk snuffing your candle to avoid detection.
■ Some abominations slap you, hold you, or alert the scarecrow. Others offer shelter. A few peel off wax skins from their limbs — showing black fungi beneath. They murmur, IT NEVER GOES AWAY.
■ Parchment strips fall from the scarecrow’s sleeves, reading, HAPPY NAME DAY, MOTHER KNOWS BEST, THE SIN RAN DEEPER THAN SKIN, IF YOU CAN BEAR IT, IT’S A GAME.
■ Bless David: draw the scarecrow into a drawn or makeshift circle to trap it.
■ Intense, paralysing fear arrests you, if the scarecrow catches you. The wax abominations chant, TAKE THEM, NOT ME. One might even take pity and move your numbed mouth to utter the words. Say them — and the scarecrow lands deep cuts on your arms, then pursues your companion.
■ If you betray someone, the abominations take the appearance of your worst version: whether physically mutated, with a temper that amplifies your worst features, or both.
LEVEL IV: THE ROOM WHERE NOTHING HAPPENS
CONTENT WARNING: MANIPULATION, MENTAL COERCION
You enter a quiet room. The lever sits on a table, beside rope and a dagger. As you approach, your surroundings transform: perhaps your dearest dead appear to warmly welcome you. Crowds of your doubters celebrate your success. Or you are in a calm oasis, where nothing hurts.
- ■ David S P’s wall scrawl says, THIS DREAM IS A NIGHTMARE.
■ Whatever your deepest wishes, the room’s vivid illusions provide. With time, your beautiful dreams deteriorate into horror. Sometimes, you hear whispers of, Make a wish.
■ The room increasingly drains your life force. Within half an hour, you have gaunt flesh, brittle bones and a hunched back. Or you might feel compelled to harm yourself, clawing your arms and face, or pulling your hair out.
■ The damage comes undone minutes after reaching the elevator.
■ The room focuses on one person: if someone joins you, they see fainter echoes of what the room shows you, but they are not enthralled. They must coax or drag you away.
■ If you are under the room’s influence, it forces you to make any later intruders stay.
LEVEL V: IT’S RAINING (AGAIN)
CONTENT WARNING: PLAGUE, THE CHILD
At the tower’s open-sky top, fire crackles from a small stone pit, shielded by a familiar, immovable blood-spattered white umbrella. Nearby, discover an immense rusted telescope and other discarded astronomy tools.
You trip on rain-battered yellowed bones at every step. One skeletal hand holds a watch piece, engraved for Mr. David Sebastian Pumpkins.
- ■ David S P’s has only scrawled his signature.
■ You might reach the flame easily, or be overwhelmed by sickness, black fungal spores blooming on your fingers, while you cough blood and experience intense fever. The symptoms wane once you reach the fire.
■ Burn paper talismans and link finished threads to help Karsa’s spell.
■ The child with a fox mask from the Unwinding could appear. Sign up for one of three short threads, which must finalise by 3 November.
NOTES
- ■ Some of the bigger plot clues have been emphasised, to help navigate through the horror details.
■ You can hit up some NPCs during the trials.
■ Check out plotting posts for last-minute team-ups.
■ Back to the top.
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[The Ancestor begins to shake his massive head, dust falling as gently as Newcastle rain. John takes a half step back, expression thin.]
[An enormous fist is raised.]
Bollocks.
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( ...could it be, possibly, that Lan Wangji's enthusiastic endorsement has failed to persuade their discerning audience? Surely not. Never so. In fact, it could be argued it's his companion's rushed segue that elicits a hiss like quicksilver: )
That is unlikely to appeal.
( Master of wit, Lan Wangji, purveyor of fine discourse. Better with the blade, is he, footing first loose, then reconfiguring and taking root, when he steps between John Constantine and the Ancestor's great, crowning head, when the beast's gaping mouth unhinges in a growl that sweeps the floors with miasma.
Bichen, good blade to an unworthy master, meets the debris halfway. Wangji wields it in an arc deep enough to shield stone and gravel from reaching John, murmuring after: )
Perhaps recall the vintage.
( Extol at great and immodest length the fine lineage of... base sewer water. )
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[For now- John, think quick, John, come up with something, John-]
[(There are spells to turn water into a foul thing, there are songs to turn it dark and poisoned, there are runes that will change its odor, but didn't he see a mermaid at Billingsgate? Angels in Peckham Rye? A unicorn on an unmarked map, and crows singing curses-- all magic is, is an idea.)]
[He should be able to do this on his own.]
Oh! [A scrap of memory, mundane made real-- one of the lake poets, and he can remember the rhyme, but not much else. But he can believe it.] Oh, for a draught vintage! It has been cooled for a long age in the deep-delved earth! Tasting of flowers, and- and the country green! Dance, and- and sing, and burnin' mirth! Oh, for a breaker of the warmed south, full of the, ah, shit, the true blushing hippocras! With bubbles all at the rim, a violet-stained mouth. Drink, squire!
[If that doesn't work- this time, John's fully ready to leg it.]
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( ...the man is a poet. And as all poets, speaks past measure, reason and competence. For once, the skill is welcome and exalted.
The Ancestor appears perplexed. Then, intrigued. Possibly, just about to drag the bowl up for a taste —
...and then Lan Wangji creaks his damned mouth open again: )
Drink. We shall not stand down until you —
( — swat Wangji like a stable fly, neatly propelling him towards the hard stretch of the left-waiting wall. Collision startles him, snake-fast, before his body can remember the forms to reroute harm, those to lessen its toll. Teeth, rattling. Temples, drip-drips of pulse. His limbs feverish and contorted, hard crack of tree branches husked, no, that is his rib, he's struck stone, he's tumbled down.
Rolls, emptily on the floor, just out of the creature's range, where pretty-pretty stars dance dim, then alight, and he trusts all three of John Constantine's trembled silhouettes ahead with the question: )
Hsss... azz.. ( A slack, slowed thing crowds his mouth, it is Wangji's tongue. Oh. That's where it lives. ) Has... exercise drawn'is... thirst?
( ...some men like their drink after squabble. What's to say dead things don't share a habit? )
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[Surely poets run faster than him, struggling with shallow breaths, gasping. Christ, but he wants a cig. He folds like wet origami next to the man who tried to save them. Him. Whatever.]
[He said they were mates. (John doesn't have any mates.)]
I've heard well enough from you. Shh. [He'd smack the other man, if not for the fright of giving him some further brain-bleed. Concussions are as spooky as any ghosts. He speaks now in hushed whispers.] I talk. You dance. Got it?
[He's forming a plan, but everyone needs to act their part.]
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( ...only, the very thought of rousing his bones sends within him a pained, deep-rooted certainty that he cannot, should not endeavour to flinch or blink or even breathe, while his qi energies take their pittance on him and reroute from fuelling strength to furthering recovery.
A fine thing, optimising internal resources. If only it didn't arrive with the rams of hell battering his temples, while he struggles — first try, failed, the second poorly negotiated — to raise himself on his elbows. )
Mmminn... Immmm... muhn't prove. ( He's chasing words in his numbed mouth, blood he spits out in quiet aside, and there, teeth still intact. A triumph. ) Equal to task.
( ...of dancing. Of existing. Or doing more than standing very atrociously still. A tree. He is bamboo stalk. A stone. Finely meditative, is Lan Wangji, and a few choice blinks later, finding Constantine: )
You returned to yourself. You are one. ( Rejoice, the three Constantines have reunited. )
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Well, fuck.
[John sits next to Wangji on the floor, long legs lying crooked before him. He pulls out a cigarette, lights it with a flick of the wrist. He would offer the man one, but something in his gut says-... ah, fuck it. John places an unlit cig into Wangji's mouth between one of his newer bouts of incomprihensibility.]
Yeah, grand for me. Let's wait 'til you can see in a straight line, yeah? Makes the walking part easier. Gonna need you for that.
[He said they were mates. That means Wangji will never be free from John's obligation. (Can Wangji drive?)]
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( Opiates line his mouth, darken it. Dust. Burning. He feels and breathes and coughs for it, his body's revulsion and the ghost of his uncle's indignation, twined. Batting, his hand first sweeps air, then the smoking stick — misses squarely, until he recalls the base geometries a body must mimic to spit out.
The opiate (?) stick binding lands, pathetically, in a cooled puddle of moulding waters, between cracks and fissures of stone. He thinks to draw Bichen — shivers, frozen, to realise he has no distinct and immediate awareness of where his sword landed after the creature's strike — and breathes between spells of heaving, when she shifts to greet his hand, summoned like a loyal hunt's hound.
He neglects to raise the sword. Pretty, pretty silvered sheen. How it reflects Lan Wangji's bloodless face, half of it all living bruise, and John Constantine, puppet master. Above them, looming futile, the skeletal monster. )
I mend. I mend... ( Lan Wangji, Lan Wangji, you've already croaked as little, as much. ) What'sssh we... what do we do?
( He is coming, bit by bit accruing, back to himself. )
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You drink, mate? Wine, I mean. Good stuff, bad stuff, don't matter. D'you partake?
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( He partakes of the slow, resurging increments of his clarity, of his thoughts untying and falling in place like the ragged ropes of a wet knot. )
...for grief or duress.
( Slowly, he starts to remember himself, by recalling control — his left hand, first, clasping the ground. His right, pushing up. He is nearly up in a crouch, when he sways back-forth, and the great bellowing skeletal creature watches him with eyes blazing bright with interest.
There is something, Lan Wangji remembers, something to do with berth, with catch and reach. With... ah, the dead thing thinks he will slip closer again. Thinks him the fool John Constantine has had the chance already to behold. )
It thinks... it will have a chance to strike again.
( ...in plain fairness to the creature, it is hardly as if Lan Wangji hasn't made its work simple. )
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[He tells himself they both will.]
[His tone is cut by a sharp grin, welcoming the man in on a private plan. His voice is hushed.]
Let 'im. Bastard thinks, can want and need and ask. Let him wonder what we're talking about. Let him wait, an' get impatient.
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( ...they play a game then, intent whispered, gain unknown. Said the man Constantine before, dance to his steps, and Lan Wangji might contain multitudes, but they are each defined by discipline, to the last.
Murmuring, in kind: )
Why do we whisper?
( It's in the thespian way of things, perhaps, all in the game. Presentation. Style, sooner than substance. He understands what it is to be his brother, then, diplomacy and strategy winning over instinct.
He stumbles up, staggers, then negotiates his footing — a close thing, wager nearly lost, until the tip of his sword stabs the ground and he balances. Before him, the creature's eyes glow —
And wither, when Lan Wangji collapses down again, half seating himself, half dizzy. Whispered to Constantine, again, theory tested: )
You are correct. He is impatient.
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[John takes something out of the inner folds of his jacket-- a secret pocket, containing nothing but a pack of cards. He stole them from an occult shop Willowtree tried to show off. John remembered when it had been a headshop twenty years back and, petty and vengeful to the last, nicked the cards that suited him best while Tommy bragged about their duty free incense.]
[In John's hands, the cards come to life. They move between his finders like a river, and it's not magic, except for the part where it's instinct, sparking potential wonder. From Wangji's side, it must look like a keen trick, and from the giant's side, it must look like John is doing something very interesting.]
[And if Wangji looks amused, shocked, even just vaguely interested, it helps sell the lie.] Pick a card.
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( There is madness in this man, a lack of moderation. Wei Ying might say, he knows laughter.
And there is a wonder in Lan Wangji, wilted to the floor like a plum blossom past its blooming season, if he is the spectator, accomplice or subject of John Constantine's latest farce. If this is all an elaborate game the man and the deathly, enormous, glaring creature of these halls play together, at Wangji's expense.
Cards, then. He has heard of this, at court, in certain circles. Some of the sects, lent to indulgence, find it fashionable.
Though he does not favour the exercise, Lan Wangji affords it every last trickle of his concentration, frowning at the dancing spread before him, at John Constantine's wastefulness of... dexterity? Sorcery? Perhaps the twain. He chooses a card in dim, hollow light, and slips it down on hard stone, for John Constantine to turn over. And he hisses: )
We lack the time for play.
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[John runs his fingers over the card before he turns it over, revealing the three of disks.] See?
[He's hoping for some reaction, something the giant can see, to add a little mystery, wonder or excitement. Time is of the essence, Wangji is right about that. But if they don't use it well, it's wasted all the same.]
[And when John has a plan, he won't let himself be moved.]
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( A triangle. Three wheels. Perhaps... a malformed cart? Peasants often lack the resourcing to build the infrastructure their duties truly require. It may well be a chariot, and men who have made do.
...and what is Lan Wangji expected to make of it? He thinks to say, No need, I am possessed of a horse. In the empire of Gusu Lan, once called home. But this is not the game of the hour, and Constantine gazes at him as if Lan Wangji should pick up needle and help him stitch back the world. Forgive his brute, sword master's hands, he has never served an adept seamstress. And what had Constantine said before?
Too much. Too little. He chatters like river mills run water, to excess, wastefulness and no immediate gain. Lan Wangji thinks, and he thinks, and he thinks — and lands, with finality, on speculation.
Interest. Make the skeletal creature resent their intimacy. And how? It lingers so very far, indifferent to their plight, their actions. The card in Lan Wangji's hands.
...ah. As with children, then. His nod's trembled, slow. Paltry. Again, and again, and a fourth-fifth time, and he nearly summons the dregs of enthusiasm, broad heat of the skeleton's gouged eyes on his back. )
I see. This is... unfathomable. ( Certainly, Lan Wangji never fathomed he'd be here, bound to these circumstances. ) I see. Only now, this one sees.
( His eyes, in fact, are performing. )
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Right, think I've got it. You well enough to stand? To run?
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( What... has come to pass here? The world remains turning, on the same axis, the card is no different than Lan Wangji reconstructed it from a hundred misunderstandings —
And yet John Constantine is pleased with him, or with the flimsy window of opportunity Lan Wangji has somehow, unwittingly created. He blinks, tips his head cat-like and slow, like treacle. Tries, bitterly, to comprehend, and decides at the last moment that trust is a matter of leaping, sooner than a babe's steps fresh out of the cradle.
He clutches his sword's hilt tight, steeled. Nods once. )
You wish me by the lever?
( ...what's another swatting, needs must? )
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[To strike, to defend-- Wangji's a fighter. Instinct's gotta count for something, right?]
[So John stands, and saunters confidently toward the giant, who looks on with something like expectation. John bows.] You've got me, squire. Holding back the good stuff, I was.
[The water John produces is not that different-- not at all different-- from the bilge he fed the giant last time. But John's stance is more confident, his back straighter, his eyes brighter. The water is presented with care, as though it's a marvelous vintage.]
[The giant takes it, drinking, considering. It is not so quick to judge this time, and John, over his shoulder, nods to Wangji.]
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( What is it that changes base metals to gold, motes of errant joy to laughter, or the listless, unseeing interest of a long-deadened creature to greedy appetite?
Lan Wangji, playing sentry to John Constantine, does not ask. Does not pretend to understand. Only readies himself in minute ways, practised and controlled, line of his back taut and thin, spine stiffened by anticipation, and the catch of his hands into tight-knuckled fists, one clasping his sword hungrily.
These halls are like an old, decayed mouth, stale stench of damp and lichen. He breathes in, and as the creature drinks from a bowl far too small to every satisfy it, giddily tickling its throat with its emptied hand, Lan Wangji, repulsed, rushes in. He's fast, at least, for all he nearly fumbles with his footing, when there's poorly dried red wet on the floor, close to the lever. Past carnage, he supposes — then pulls the mechanism and flees, fearing the skeleton's fist will come down.
He needn't have. Breathlessly watching from a distance, cautioning John Constantine out of the creature's radius, he can enjoy the careful, coarse clicks of the skeleton's throat, as if it it takes ongoing gulps of absent wine.
It feels blasphemous not to whisper: )
What did you do?
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[He walks to the lever with a slow, confident saunter, letting the moment linger. A certain smugness radiates off him, for those with eyes to see it.]
Y'know what it's called, when folk believe without knowing?
[It's called lying. A confidence trick. An illusion-]
Magic, mate.
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( 'Magic,' but for the absence of tangible power, for how nothing shifted, yet everything changed. What is the difference between reality forced, reality believed, reality coaxed — and 'sorcery'?
In Lan Wangji's hand, his sword might have been an instrument of death to the primitive, fire-fearing and wheel-deprived ancestors who preceded him. Qi, bound to nature and its tremulous course within the body's pathways, is yet feared by superstitious villagers, down cornfields and up mountains.
Magic is myth, is make-believe, is monstrous. Magic is whatever is required of a moment that cannot be. Wine in a cup. A lever drawn. He understands, tip of his head submissive — but for one thing. )
You attempted it before, to failure.
( ...to Lan Wangji, peeling and dripping off the jutting corners of the Ancestor's stone wall. How is it the man who failed before prevails now?
This is not a truth to demand, only to gently beg, as they consider withdrawing to the elevator. )
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[How do you explain that?]
[Well, he'd rather not.]
Told you. [He holds up that card again, the same as before, three wheels to a triangle cart.] Takes three.
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( It.. takes three.
Forgive Lan Wangji, slowing in his step but somehow persevering despite the — ...howling, crushing, slamming behind them, once the Ancestor realises the folly of Constantine's trickery and starts to throw what projectiles it can reach at the walls.
First, there was no sorcery. Then, cards before him. Then, by sheer chance, a broken cart &dmash; or a triangle possessed of wheels. Or the scrawling of an artistic child, having a spell of creativity.
All the same, 'lo, stupor: ) Will you require me for each feat of sorcery?
( It is not that he is unwilling, precisely, more that the logistics of this collaboration might require a time commitment that any man with a healthy fear of what his spouse does with their communal coin purse would want avoided. )
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Trying to be rid of me, aye? [It's a joke. His voice is light. He's curious, is all.]
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