westwhere | the channeling

the channeling

THE CHANNELING

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WEALTH WHISPERS

Assignment: the Merchant fears that Matthias, alleged father of the undead Brotherhood, might be the ‘merchant’ who was due to receive dark water-infused grains by sea from the Hand. Chasing information, the Merchant routes party members towards the docks-side underworld district of Tibras, in the outskirts of Ephes. The Hand keeps grain warehouses nearby.

In Tibras, short and decayed houses are like parasitic growths toppling each other, plaster peels falling into rivulets of bloodshed. Tension thrives. Petrified, natives overwhelmingly number beggars, pleasure workers, crude bounty hunters and thieves, who look to cut throats or purse strings. Occasional bodies drift by the docks.

■ Just outside of Tibras is the abode of the merchants’ syndicate — a ring of warehouses, private clubs and houses of currency. Merchants here are protected via steep fees and travel freely. Inside the syndicate house, doorways are barred by inextinguishable living fire — which you can cross unharmed, if you rearrange the runes marked N, W, S, E on a nearby wall in a cardinal-point formation. You can also pretend to be a servant, a merchant or quality inspector to get to the Hand warehouses. Ask a clue.

Alternatively, the Merchant forewarns that a notable guest will join the syndicate for three nights: Captain Maximilian Hawk of the Dawn’s Reach Trade Company, which deals in magical artefacts. Hold him at knifepoint, seduce him, do your worst for knowledge!

■ By the entrance to Tibras is the shop of Apollonius, noted collector of supernatural artefacts and information broker. Crafty and sly, he will cooperate, in exchange for a pair of ‘eyes’ from the ghost Tykhe, who haunts the nearby anonymous burial grounds. Come midnight, Tykhe’s spirit — whose sight was gouged — appears and picks out and bewitches a pair of marbles, buttons or stones to act as her ‘eyes.’ With them in hand, she searches the graveyard for her dead sister, Cassandra. You can steal the orbs, or she’ll give them freely, if you escort her from tomb to tomb to reunite with the mute ghost of Cassandra. Return to Apollonius.

■ Deeper within Tibras is a gambling nest of sailors who were cursed by a scorned sea witch to assume the appearance of sea creatures. Led by the giant octopus Crassus, they charge protection fees from commercial merchant ships and even intimidate pirates, gleaning information from sailors and recovering drowned bodies. This illustrious group adores games of chance — as long as you can cover your losses.

You can decide or RNG how many tries it takes for your character to win — submit a finished thread to get a question! The higher the stakes, the better the information.

— a scantly informed junior goldfish throws dice. Lose, and you must share a highly embarrassing secret.

— a moderately informed catfish, offering Baccarat. Lose, and he steals your good luck for 24 hours.

— a composed, well-informed whale plays roulette. Lose, and you must share one of your most precious memories.

— a highly-knowledgeable shark, Aurelius Longus, plays a mean hand of poker. Lose, and he asks blood or a pledge to save his life one day.

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THE FLOORS

Senate leader Caius Justus exits his seclusion, ending weeks of prayer to convey the message of Ephes’ divine patron, the Chained God of chaos. And he says in a public speech:

Friends, Ephesians, countrymen…

”Friends, Ephesians, countrymen, lend me your ears. I come to speak for the Chained Father, not to praise him. The victory men reap lives after them; but cowardice is often buried with their bones. So let it be with Ephes. The noble Senate tells you, the Chained Father wishes only Ephes’ destruction. If it were so, it is a grievous fault, and grievously has the Father answered for it. Here, under leave of Messalina and the Senate – for Messalina is an honourable speaker; so they are all, all honourable speakers – come I to speak of the Chained Father’s wishes. He was my maker, faithful and just to us: but Messalina says, turn away from him. And Messalina is an honourable speaker. He has brought many territories under the heel of Ephes. In his name did the Hand rise: did this in the Chained Father seem unworthy? When now you weep asking empire, the Chained Father answers: tells you to be made of sterner stuff. Yet Messalina says the Father is unworthy. And Messalina is an honourable speaker. You all did see that I withdrew to his temple, where he spoke to me: Ephes, seize your path alone — was that unworthy? Yet Messalina says to turn away from him. And sure, Messalina is an honourable speak. I speak not to disprove what Messalina spoke, but here I am to speak what I do know: you are all children of Chaos, not without cause. What cause withholds you, then, to use the Hand yourselves? O, ambition! You have fled to brutish citadels. And men have lost their courage. Bear with me: my heart is in the temple, there with the Chained God, and I must pause and beg the Senate to vote against Messalina, til it comes back to me. ”

Returning to public life, Caius Justus advises the Senate to refuse Messalina’s proposal, but defers to a vote. Citing recent civil unrest, he imposes citadel-wide 10 p.m. curfews, bans congregations of more than eight people in the streets and sends the Hand to confiscate any visible weapons and to quiet or pre-empt unrest. Hand members — forced to present in large numbers — appear erratic, prone to violent outbursts and to taking out their anger on civilians. Hand leader Narula is excessively smug.

Newscasters are careful with their words, speeches decrying Messalina abound, and senators are‘escorted’ by Hand delegations, also for their protection. Caius Justus announces he will run again for Senate leadership — to begrudged murmurs among Senators, given his previous pledge to retire.

Assignment: lure Senators toward the position that the party supports. After Caius Justus’ return:

■ 51 Senators back Caius Justus to refuse Messalina’s proposal.

■ Maximus Faustus convinces 53 Senators to accept Messalina’s proposal

■ Caelius Silvanus persuades 47 Senators to vote to postpone a decision on Messalina’s proposal for another season.

Following the party’s previous interventions, Senators are open to considering Messalina’s cause. Many are skittish, fearing their careers or lives will end with disobeying Caius Justus. Optionally, party members previously assigned a political role might receive threats from Caius Justus’ supporters.

■ Persuade, bribe, threaten or blackmail a minor Senator to switch votes. Perhaps you can offer coin or rally supporters in the marketplace for their next election, or heal their donkey or get rid of that pesky boy mooning after their daughter. Or maybe prove their corruption streak, or place a polite knife at their throats. Hold the whole Senate floor hostage, if you want, of blockade Senators from entering the Senate on voting day!

■ Ask for a RNGed Senator if you want or submit threads of swaying votes. A final tally will be taken on 19 November

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INCENSE

Priests of the Chained God whisper that the god shows signs of awakening to trigger an apocalypse. Chained and warded twelve times to prevent the end of the world, the Chained God allegedly rests in the Halls of the Sleeper, in the underground belly of his main temple in Ephes. Above ground, the temple is silent, rife with milling priests, hummed prayers and cloying hallucinogenic incense that encourages lethargy. Access is unrestricted, but monitored.

To progress downstairs, you may need to convince guards that you are one of the groups of ferociously devout pilgrim worshippers, or a priest. Below, you feel overcome by creeping, paralysing dread.

■ You are haunted by sinister, saccharine voices murmuring intrusive thoughts only you hear, diminishing your worth and paranoically asking if your companion means you harm. You are more irritable and prone to violence.

■ The halls increasingly resemble narrow subterranean corridors with limited and overheated air reserves. You reach locked stone gates, covered in loose chains and crudely carved with the inscription, the Sleeper awakes. Instructions state the Chained God demands sacrifice and proof of chaos.

■ To enter the Sleeper’s Hall, instructions say, you must commit an act of betrayal, by: drawing your companion’s blood and smearing it over the inscription (lean into the corruption!), which prevents them from entering the halls with you; or chaining them to the door with the gate shackles, condemning them to watch as you enter; or pushing your companion away, verbally eviscerating or attacking them until they flee. With player approval, your character could get a sense of what theirs is emotionally or physically vulnerable to, then exploit it. Acts of betrayal cannot be faked.

■ The Sleeper’s Hall is narrow, nearly spherical and lit by thin rivers of flowing magma that cross cracked floors. Amid swelter, you hear the periodic gulps and quakes of stone trembling around you. The supernaturally sensitive feel the presence of great, if constrained power.

■ The black water previously associated with the undead also gushes from rifts in the ground. It has a cold, sinister aura.

■ Search the room for clues — and leave urgently, before corruption consumes you.

■ Towards the middle of the room is a large, nebulously shaped creature, fully fettered and covered in magical wards, chains and blood-painted runes. Anyone in the Chained God’s presence may feel overcome by emotional or physical agony, claustrophobia and bloodlust — but the divinity only speaks with the RNG winner.

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NOTES:

■ Some players have asked about potentially ~~stabbing~~ ousting Caius Justus and Narula in a coup — everyone can plot and participate in that, and a plotting post will go up on 16 November.

■ NPC inbox, if you need anyone!

■ QUESTIONS

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

It's not a stupid question! ( But she's just going to do what she wants, in that case. )

( The boy talks about the water, and America looks at it, curiously. )

Can we destroy his things, though, so the water won't be sidetracked? ( America asks that as she gets up and gets a stick, gladly. She shows it to the boy. )

( her scowl and that glare goes unnoticed. sorta. sure, they'd parted ways in a less than ideal manner, with him not apologizing about what he'd said to her and her walking away and him not following after, but he figures nami glaring at him today is just standard orange-haired girl behavior. she's pretty feisty. like telling him off about the safe, scolding him about that leak on the ship, that argument they had after being captured by buggy, that other big fight about his duel to the death with mihawk -- it's a whole list. )

Mm. Happy. ( it's a good thing he's not getting anything stronger than a cocktail because he's already had a lot of drinks handed to him all day. zoro might just be a little buzzed. when she heads off to the gambling tables, this time, he follows along, sort of dutifully, a hand resting on his trusty sword as he moves to stand beside her. )

Game of chance. You feeling lucky or something? ( whale guy seems to have a thing for collecting information about people. he's not sure he likes that. )

Oh.

( The jerk, the shiver, and his dark eyes staring down at Lan Zhan, kneeling, restraining. He laughs then, and it's low, then rolling, rising into a thunderous sound swallowed by the creaking of the door he's now attached to, swinging.

His eyes close, and he laughs, chin tucked in. Oh. )

I'll remember, Lan Zhan.

( Eyes slitting open, dewy from the laughter, or the heat, or anything else. The smile then more teeth than good humour, let alone good will, but the questing he does with what energies he pulls prod and poke and thwart at the compulsion, riding stronger: the weight of this place, the weight of mountains, that keeps him as bound as...

Ah. )

Just as it should, for whoever bound it there. Happy hunting.

( And he lifts his head, lets it thunk back against chains and rotting wood, the scent of copper swirling strong, the words blocked by his torso greedy as they consume the gift he'd unwittingly given, as his husband kneels, as his husband wills into something else.

No trust, he supposes. The door hinges, and beyond, the chamber awaits what he cannot properly see. )

[ Nami takes her time getting to the roulette table, pulling her glasses out and settling them on her nose as they approach, her voice quiet when she speaks, trying to ensure only Zoro hears her. ]

I've watched for long enough. Eight, five, twenty-three, and twelve are what's hit the most at that table. You play one, I play another one, and we double our odds of getting it right so we can leave. [ Her gaze settles briefly on the bottle in Zoro's hand before she looks back at him, frowning over the rim of her glasses at him. ] I need a real drink.

[ It should make her feel better about the mess they're in - considering that whatever's tethered at the end of this sweltering corridor might not be an actual god, but it doesn't. Everything about this place is too terrible for any silver lining to peek through enough for it to matter. ]

I hope not– [ She lifts her head like she might be able to pull away from the voices of her sister and Arlong as they continue to remind her of how lost she is, and how she's a fool for thinking she could get anybody to the Grand Line when she doesn't even know where it is anymore.

The metal of the gate looks dull in the low light, and impossibly old. The grip she's maintained on Luffy's hand tightens again as she comes to a halt a safe distance away from it, her blood running cold as she looks it over. 'You're up against things you can't even understand, you'll die before you make that map.' ]

What now? [ Get closer and try to make out the inscriptions on the gate, obviously, but, Nami doesn't want that to be the answer. ]

No. ( he's only ever paid his respects to the dead, which is what he decides to do now as he briefly kneels in front of a headstone to light one of the candles. the moment he does that, the spirit appears beside him before continuing to move ahead of them, stopping where the flicker of light disappears. )

Should we maybe light the rest up as we go? ( no inscription on these stones. no way of figuring out who's been buried in this area, but they might be able to see around them better. right now it's pitch dark. lighting the candles would at least give them an idea of where they've already searched. no need to keep walking around in circles and end up getting lost. )

( Never met an ocean until this world, but by now, been on its oceans enough to have met a few sharks.

... And more of the non-literal ones, but he's seen worse, and so a shark-faced being is... tolerable. As are, more sadly to speak on his temperament, the potential costs.

The man-shark, shark-man, widens that not-quite-grin, and simply starts to deal them in. An answer to Jacob's query, not bothering with words. People only come here for certain stakes. The ones who sit at his table are asking for high costs, and oh, he loves winning.

Wei Wuxian doesn't look at his cards until after Longus does, and the round continues on, his luck utterly abysmal from the start. He gives a wry smile even as he slides three cards back, selecting three new ones with a soft sort of sigh.

A better hand than before, yes, but this is just the first round. And they're not even betting the way the other tables do, no. )

( Licyn quirks up a brow, then laughs, his grin easy and the humour unfettered. )

What, you manage rounds back to back using your assets or your creativity? Pillow talk is for the afterglow, or are you one of the hard sleepers? I bet you're a hard sleeper.

( He continues to watch his, their, target out of the corner of an eye. )

( Licyn's smile is knife sharp, then equally easy and smooth as butter. He's not a tall man, so they're of a similar eye level. Has the young man grown? Licyn muses it's likely. Youths of his physical age do have that habit when decently fed.

Poorly fed, they tend to stunt more. Perhaps. )

I avoid politics like politicians avoid publicly staining themselves in feces, like any smart person should.

( That said, he unceremoniously hooks a finger around Five's drink and brings it closer to sip before letting go. Please, let him searing well find his own source of that soon. )

Besides, the garden tending I prefer requires fewer people, and fewer clothes.

( eighty five, twenty and what? he gets distracted by nami's demand for another drink and he lets out a slight shake of his head, the sharp angles of his face looking all the more prominent under the glare of the lights as he sucks in a deep breath. ) Last I checked, I'm not your manservant. ( he sets the bottle on the edge of the table and is about to tell her to take it or leave it when the drink gets switched out by a random lady passing by, who puts her hands on both of their shoulders and wishes them luck, leaving behind three shots of whiskey.

before they can get into another petty argument about who gets the third shot, the table gets set and they're being asked if they understand the rules of the game. lose and the whale's going to want a precious memory of theirs. )

Oh, we'll win. ( confident. because hey, the money queen said she's been watching the game, right? )

( She's spent the bulk of her time dealing with the aftermath of every skirmish; a healer, because that much is recognised here, and she has been titled as Doctor until she insisted on being called Wisdom, and refused anything else. When the dead had been buried after the arena fell, when the streets are close to riots, when at last Karsa and the Merchant have something to do, she finds herself down in this district for different than usual reasons.

What she does not know is the timing of them being at different parts of this hall; does not know Elayne, doesn't know so much of what lies even six months, eight months, more into the future. Simply carries on down the hall when the guard at the door is turning, squinting, and puffing himself up to intercept Elayne. )

Keep moving, little golden mouse, there's no place for nosing about here.

( And he smiles, not at all kind, the sort of smile that believes in the violence he's bred and his right to it, and Nynaeve grits her teeth, keeps her steps quiet as if she hunted through the woods a world and months and months away, and makes to drive her fist into the back of the guard's head.

He turns, more luck than not, and she instead catches him in the side of his jaw, hard enough to send him falling toward the wall with a startled curse, and she follows after him. There's no time, and he needs to be out — dead might even be smarter, but death is not what she prefers to reach for first, not when they can be in and out and avoid this part of the citadel altogether after. That violence is her first reach here is too much a cost of dealing with the elements of this world, and this place in specific, but who hesitates before what needs doing?

Hello, Elayne, it is sadly not Egwene, but instead the one person who can't allow herself to embrace power even before she fully faced her own possibilities, time as much distance between them as space has been, months on end. )

[ She's about to grab that bottle too before a woman bearing shots and well-wishes approves and almost knocks Nami off her groove of righteous indignation. Thankfully, where Zoro's concerned, that's a well that never seems to run dry. The shots take the heat out of it momentarily. After downing one of them, Nami weighs her odds of getting away with snatching the third when the whale speaks up, inviting them to place their bets.

Straightening up Nami takes a deep breath, settling a chip down on the square marked eight, longing for another drink as she waits for the wheel to get spun.

Fourteen says the whale managing to sound both passive and amused at the same time before he looks at Nami expectantly. Hating this on levels - because Zoro's seen her fail, and because now she'll have to provide a memory she'd deem as precious, she screws up her mouth for a moment before speaking in a rush. ] My mom taught me how to make pinwheels out of tangerine rinds.

( These are not the night time vigils she expected to have: the dead were meant ot be dead, to stay that way, and to be woven back into the Wheel for their next iteration, and yet. What else has she learned in this world of death and distorted dreams given physical form? In this place where one cannot evade the cloying scent of the dying, the scent of decay, or of actual ghosts... and she grimaces, moving on quiet feet through a graveyard this night, thinking of the other ghosts, or what she would do if, perhaps, she had the ability. What she wouldn't do, likewise.

What she can't do, for the dead.

The sight of another person slipping between headstones, moving after the fumbling, sightless ghost, the invitation to close distance, sees her grimacing and changing direction, a rendezvous between them as Tykhe continues on, floating through tombstones, through small mausoleums, emerging from the far side with that same confused, searching air.

Low, a murmur to help keep it from carrying: )

Apollonius?

( If it's this one's reason for coming to this place at this time in pursuit of a ghost, and really, it wouldn't surprise her if it wasn't.

Of course there'd be multiple people wanting something from the dead. Isn't that the case everywhere in the darkness of this world? Isn't that what the senate argues over, day after day? Which dead, which horror, they'll believe gives them more than the next. )

( Licyn doesn't tense under the sudden weight of an arm; he's shorter enough that it almost seems protective, to the ones safeguarding the way down, and while his smile still edges toward rakish, he restrains himself to winks.

It doesn't help, specifically, but the feeling of the magic here, the way it sets his skin to crawling, the shiver down his spine, tells him it's strong, it's bad. Right and wrong have little to do with it.

Magic, however. Magic is nothing he trusts, not even after his time here. Why would he? It causes far more damage than it ever solves anything.

He shrugs out of Mo Ran's grasp with the sort of distracted firmness of a man used to carrying himself freely, expecting ambush, overly alert. )

No, but we'll hardly need one, love.

( His smile is more grimace than charm, his eyes darkening as he glances downward, as he flows into the dark. The incense burns his nose, his eyes; the fear that nips at his heels present before it grows, little by little. Paranoia is hardly new, but the slow ache of it toward Mo Ran is.

Licyn cannot trust his own feelings, not with magic involved. He hates that strong enough to guide the burgeoning anger toward it, and he stalks forward, faster and faster, as if he could outpace it. As if it could be outrun. )

I can sense where the rot sits thickest.

Licyn barely flicks a glance her way, the stiffness in his form a reaction to the incense, the burning of it in his eyes and nostrils and down his throat; the creeping sense of imbalance, anger and fear and hurt that he never trusts anymore, his own instincts pushed out of equilibrium. All he thinks he might trust, to some degree, is the sense of magic all around them, the roiling clot of it deeper down, rubbing against his skin like a cat's tongue. He hates it, is frightened by it, and that sings loud along with the voices who remind him:

You should have died when they did.

Only that's been so true, for so long, that he simply accepts it. There are few things he can hear that aren't part of what he already believes, no matter how twisted.

Your fear will be your undoing.

But it already has been. It already was.

"More fun with gags," he says, smile a beat late and crooked in a way that looks almost twitchy. They're not yet in the front of this line of begging for access, and he doesn't want to go down there, doesn't want to make it to that opening and the heaviness of magic and imbalance, yet that's exactly what they're meant to do.

Searing terrible plans, every Storming time.

"Have you ever worshiped a god?"

( Sure, he could have stepped into this with a different mindset. Spirits, ghosts, the dead: he's uniquely adapted to speaking with them, coaxing them, commanding. Yet he knows also the pull of it grows too strong; he knows the value of respect for the dead, and this is a case that's puzzled him the way all good mysteries do. He seeks to understand, not to simply make it expedient and simply, and thus he nods to Yelena, tapping a finger against the flute in his waistband, then letting his hand fall away. )

What are you inclined toward, facing her plight?

( He too, not a person who can resist the binds of family; he too more curious as to why Appololol or whatever his name might be wants this bounty from a dead woman, a spirit that doesn't know how to let go.

He wonders if it's more worthwhile to seek a way of amending that hold, if Tykhe would wish it. Not every ghost does, and that grows dangerous, suspecting that yet again, the behemoths of the deathless lords approach, ready to consume. He remembers what one burst of Anurr's sweeping power managed; what the Huntress had managed, in her ride through Taravast, her husband in swift pursuit.

What Matthias might evoke, what Messalina might find reasonable, given only the time to move.

So he studies a ghostly sister, in search of the eyes she doesn't have, and his eyes don't leave her transparent form, considering. )

Yeah. [ Then, as her eyes travel from the woman in front of her towards the luminescent form of the ghost still weaving past the headstones. ] Can you believe this? Ghosts? [ Maybe she can. Nami is realizing people in their group come from all sorts of places with a host of perils all their own - and she thought pirates were bad.

There's not much time for small talk, waving the other woman to follow as she gets moving again, keeping her steps quick and quiet as she works to close some of the distance between them and Tykhe. ] Have you seen her sister anywhere? [ Nami hopes they just had to find a grave and lead the ghost there, but she's wondering if she's really going to be that lucky. ]

( so much for winning. this is sort of reminding him of that drinking game they played back on the baratie, where they each tried to guess something about the other, except this time, he's getting information about her freely and all too easily. zoro pushes the remaining shot towards nami, letting her have it before he confidently puts his chip down on the square marked three. or wait, was it...

twenty three, the whale announces calmly as the wheel comes to a stop. well, fuck. too late now... zoro's keeping his gazed fixed on the damn wheel, refusing to glance over at the navigator because he knows he messed up there. unlike nami, it's gonna take him some time before he can come up with something to share here. somehow this feels like pulling teeth. he's tempted to get his blade out instead, his fingers hovering over the hilt of his sword as he feels everyone's eyes on him. )

What the hell am I supposed to say? ( is he asking for nami's help here? pretty much. )

[ The shot helps, though she doesn't look at Zoro after taking it, keeping her gaze level on the roulette table instead, wincing when he puts his money on the wrong number - an expression that gets all the more withering after his bet's wasted and now the whale's looking his way.

When Zoro turns to face her again Nami finally meets his eye, brows raised skeptically at the question. ] How the hell am I supposed to know what's precious to you? Just - say something you care about being able to remember. Swords? Or...something. [ It's not like she has a wide reservoir of those to draw on, nor is she sure that that's exactly what the whale is looking for, but he'd seemed satisfied enough with her answer, so all Zoro has to do is give him the same. ]

( zoro makes some kind of a complaining sort of noise before his eyes fall on the empty glass and he picks it up. the woman from before returns to give them both a refill and as he's staring at the drink in his hand, he starts talking in a quiet sort of voice. )

I was training in a dojo and had just lost a fight. It had been raining all day and this lady comes over and offers me some hot sake. ( the whale guy leans forward in his seat, indicating a clear interest in hearing what zoro has to say next. ) I guess you never forget your first time. ( he downs the shot and puts the glass back on the table. ) Drinking alcohol, that is. ( or is it? he arches an eyebrow at the whale who gives him a stare down, but eventually decides that it's enough to let them continue on with the next round. )

Her gaze moves to find the source of that gag joke, a little blush gracing her cheeks as the notion crosses her mind. "I'm sure I don't know what you mean by that," she says.

You never will, though - who would want to try showing you any bit of fun, when you're nothing but a child in their eyes?

Her inner voices sound like a mix of hers, and Bellatrix Lestrange, and voices she doesn't recognise - but it doesn't mean they're wrong.

She presses her lips together firmly, and shakes off the sliver of self-doubt that wants to burrow in, like a knife in her side. They have to wait - entrance to these temples always come with a price, most often psychological.

"I don't worship," she murmurs, contrite. "It's a bit hard to have faith when you see all the injustice in the world - especially when said injustices are committed in the name of belief."

(The gates hold such a presence that Luffy subconsciously comes to a stop as Nami does, only just aware of her hand squeezing his. He's not a big believer in things being terrifying, or objects holding some kind of aura, but the gate in front of them right now has Luffy wondering. Would anyone judge them if they just left right now? Who would know but themselves?

"You're going to get your crew killed walking into the unknown like this." For once, Luffy can almost agree with the voice in his mind. They aren't clear on what's behind the door and whilst he can withstand most hits, Nami may not be so fortunate.)

We go look. (The words are completely detached from Luffy's train of thought, full of determination as they're spoken. They should just go for it, get it over and done with. If they worried over such things then how would they do in the Grand Line? It's almost a kind of insanity that has Luffy taking a single step forwards, somewhat struggling with his own thoughts that kick and howl at the idea of going in there.)

( America can show him that later, when they're not in this much risk. America is, after all, inexperienced, he's not wrong about that, but with her ability, muted as it is, she's ready to do this much. )

( She turns at Wangji's words and nods her head. She wastes no more time to use her abnormal strength to abuse and bully the remaining runes into place. She forces them into the noticeable and distinct pattern she sees on all of the maps, puts on her own, and has seen in her studies. )

( Her eyes widen as she looks to the fire, hoping it fizzles out and they can get through. )

Edited 2023-11-06 18:16 (UTC)

( ...ah. A strange affectation of respect, somehow so tender and timid that he did not anticipate it of a young man dressed in the telltale rags of rebellion: from the studied negligence of his clothes to the green of his hair and the surety of his step. Perhaps it is Lan Wangji who should learn better than to judge on (dimmed) sight.

A first tomb lights up, and the spirit coos briefly delighted, whatever magic possesses her 'eyes' performing better for the nearby flame. She hisses after, when no name presents itself — enough so that he intercedes, urging her patient — only to understand, all at once, that she does not remember, one night to the next. That she never grasps each tomb is unmarked.

Every day, come sundown, marks a fresh opportunity. And every day, come sundown, she pursues it scantly armed, without advantage. )

Some resent attention. ( But a correction: ) A handful.

( But such a trickling minority that he accepts the proposition, stirring a strip of parchment awake between fingertips and infusing it with a drip of energy, before it bursts alight, flame whispering near his palm. He offers it out, careful not to burn the recipient. )

If we fail, her patience may deplete itself. ( And how is it he feels so at ease, speaking in earshot of her? In truth, she pays them little mind, meandering like a dust mote, from one tombstone, then, wailing, the next. ) Flee, if so.

( Well, this is a major switch for Ben. After being a ghost for seventeen years, he does feel some sympathy for the one that wanders around them, but he can't deny there's a satisfaction that fills him when Nynaeve holds out the round stone. )

( His eyes widen when the other rolls away. )

You're a life saver. ( He whispers the words, then lowers himself to carefully, but quickly, grab for the other one. )

( Ben stops and smiles as he looks at Nynaeve, again. She's pretty, he muses, but is wise enough to keep that to himself. This isn't the time, or the place. And they did just meet. )

( Ducked away, he doesn't feel comfortable with the idea of the ghost managing to find him, even if they have its eyes, he speaks again, in a whisper. )

How do you want to do this? I don't know if that thing is going to be happy, or have an easier time finding us to gut us.

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the channeling

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i | lmk if this works!

rng gave me a loss, lol

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okay but what if he just runs away at the door, is that betrayal enough

burial grounds

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not needing to depend on rng here cuz uh... oops

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that's just licyn doing what he does best

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