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WHO: Lan Wangji, a triad of misfits, perhaps everyone ever — OPEN FOR BUSINESS payments cash upfront
WHEN: first half of July
WHERE: canyons, mountain roads, encampment
WHAT: in which stone is struck (badly), ghosts are drawn into conversation (worse), and small children cry (inevitably)
WARNINGS: blood rains, talk of harpies, Lan Wangji
NOTE: happy to put up a starter for you, if you want to join in on this dubious fun, or feel free to bring your own! Lan Wangji is... drifting... between phantoms, investigations, watches and the stone canyon.
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Does not. Bolts past Archeval like white light in summer storm, clawing at the last of the rock between him and the open pathway, nail biting in, red at corners, wrenching stone, weed, gutting out the remains. He thrusts himself in, knees yielding, balance broken and nearly knelt by the time he's spanned half his distance — a supplicant, forehead bowed and the empty line of his gaze diffuse and distorted, and the bloodied hand of the lady sweeping his mouth.
Stone, still. Statue. Cloth and linens and wards each way, calligraphy stale and smeared, greyed out. He parts his lips and takes silent anointment, each breath confession and communion, and breathe what rock and earth did, exhales.
"He..." This, face tight and crumbled. One finger trailed through dirt, as he takes the knee. This is the toll of Sizhui's absence. "He is not here." No. Again. "There are not here."
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The words are still a little breathless as Archeval follows behind at last, ducking through the gap he's made to stare around with increasingly alarmed confusion. They've certainly gotten somewhere, though. It's dark, but he raises his saber to stare around again some more -- the purple glow reveals some kind of ornate statue, detailed carvings on the walls, some sort of... tags, cloth and paper and wood, hung on cords around the room. It would be a fascinating if unsettling find under better circumstances, but local archaeology is hardly the reason they're in here right now.
"...but I felt them. This makes no sense. They're still--"
He tiredly reaches out to prod with his senses, the Force still coming easily enough for such a small thing, and -- yes, it's still there. That feeling of nearby life, diffuse and hard to pin down, but still absolutely present.
"...I'd swear I feel perfectly normal sentient life. There's... certainly something about it that's off -- harder to perceive than normal, but someone absolutely should be here--"
His gaze turns toward the dimly-lit statue, the dusty and tattered and unfamiliar-looking strings of tags. The presence of life isn't the only thing he can feel in this little room, of course -- the sense of something being held at bay here is ominously tangible.
He's wary of intruding too much in a place like this, but they can hardly just give up and wander off again with Lan Wangji's son still misplaced; so he glances down with a furrowed brow at Wangji for a moment before turning away to start examining -- very carefully, watching where he steps and where he touches -- the four walls of the area. The glow of the saber marks his passage as he moves through the dim chamber.
"...this sort of phenomena isn't exactly my field. But we certainly can't just quit now," his voice filters back through the dark to Wangji's ears.
"Any ideas...?"
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And yet, they are not. Absent, for the eye to see, both Sizhui and — the girl. Dread makes hollow home in Lan Wangji's bones, paralysing him with damp, growing stickiness. The mould of his heartache simmers. He reaches in, clumsy-handed, for another try of the quartz stone, willing his son's answer, releasing a great sigh no lesser than a world's exhalation, when Sizhui deigns to respond.
Soon, he means to scream, but rage ever absents itself, when he's shattered on his knees, Soon, one day, you will learn the misgivings of a father, you will learn to answer the heartbeat your name is called, you will live with terror of empty silence. But not yet so.
Around and about him, Archeval paces like an animal caged, storm current without outlet. The red skin of bruised stone, rusted from where copper must reveal itself in sharp percentage, gives under Lan Wangji's hand. He raises himself, one knee, then the next, and he is upright — learning. First, his words, then the pace of his blinks, then his composure.
Until, finally, "They live. Elsewhere."
Here is only the anchor under his hand — through happenstance, the hand of the lady, as if a saving grace determined to raise him. He walks the soft lines of her hand, grasps the intricacies of her likeness. Strange, but not unexpected.
"The statue is a tribute." No. He aligns With it, flow of its energies dead and wakeful and alive in his bloodstream. No. "An omen. I believe it intends us no harm."
...or assistance. But then, his gaze chases the room, its litter of wards, and he thinks, before Archeval might commit the error, to pass the warning. "Do not touch wards. Often active, howver long the passing of time."
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"Ah. These items on the cords, I presume. Very well. As a rule I do try not to trifle with anything in a strange ancient ruin when I'm not entirely sure whether it's there to kill me or not." The words are a low drawl, slowly growing more properly audible, as he and the glow of that saber move in Wangji's direction again.
"...an omen," he repeats to himself softly when his feet come to a stop next to Wangji, giving the stone sculpture before them a solemn stare. He sees the life-size image of a young, beautiful woman, staring ahead with an equally heavy expression -- hands held before her, seemingly stained with something dark. That bit at least feels familiar. He's certainly borne witness to his fair share of old sacrificial altars in his time, though who can truly tell if that's what he's looking at right now--
"Whatever happened in this pass, it certainly feels as though this little room was -- very connected somehow." His voice holds a faint hush.
"Those carvings on the walls -- very specific. I noted an entire army, depicted in detail. And some of -- perhaps what they call sorcerers around here, if I had to guess. A few beings making ritual gestures, and... fire raining down on the army. Fire and flood, or some kind of wave, at least."
Archeval pauses for a second before giving a deep sigh.
"...but no doors, and no clues about where your son is. I didn't even notice that so much as the dust on the floor of this place had been disturbed." His lips purse, expression turning grim as he continues to watch the silent, solemn gaze of the stone woman, staring back all impassive to their current plight.
"Has he made any progress himself, wherever he's at right now...?"
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And yet she holds his gaze, stone unflinching, ribs unrisen, the base, immutable wealth of her inflexibility a hard constant. Behind him, Archeval prowls and meanders, dragging the heat of his sword, the quiet fire of his impatience. As if his son waits — and more fool Lan Wangji, withholding his truths, the scant, scattered gravel of revelation permitted to him. To them. Lan Wangji has drawn Archeval into this matter, like lace spooled back to hand.
"They walk down a steep path. Abyssal." And softer, "He claims he will not fall."
And there is dread in Lan Wangji that fuels the sudden, inexplicable calm of him, a sea before ice, waiting the freeze. Nothing will come of his search, but he complies, setting to search the room, each wall — scratching skin and joint and palm, examining for weight and pressure points between rock cuttings. Hunting.
"Entrance points may withhold themselves."
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They probably should have brought torches or the like, but Wangji had been too frantic to slow down for that earlier, and now they're already here; at intervals Arche makes do with tossing his saber up into the air to keep it hovering there, casting an eerie purple glow over large swathes of the room. His black-core crystal makes a poor substitute for real lighting, but as Arche makes another circuit around squinting at nooks and crannies and carefully feeling for the sorts of mechanisms that hide in such ancient structures, he's increasingly starting to feel that going back for oil and torch and lantern would be a waste of time anyway. Much as it rankles to admit defeat--
"...I'm not sure this is something you and I are going to be able to solve," he sighs out at last, disgruntledly, about the time their mutual search of each half of the room has brought them standing close together again.
"There absolutely should be beings here, by all my senses and instincts, and yet there are not. If I had a better knowledge of the supernatural properties of this place, of this world in general... perhaps. But at this point I can only think something is going on here that we don't fully understand."
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He says nothing, unto no one. Retreats, and only finally remembers — vengeance, then. Let him lead with that, as Wei Ying's powers have woven before, wrenched from nothingness into being. Let him use, as he summons his zither with the pass of a hand and whispers it alive, the first ring of his music rousing a turbulence of sound in the small confinement. He must play with caution here, where waves of strength can fracture walls, where rock holds itself too brittle.
No matter. Play he will. And with the music, force and compelling spirits to answer, the hundreds of voices that fragmented off living bodies once, to combine in one voice here, whole. Qi language, rightfully exerted.
Eye-slanted and jaw stiff, it occurs to him, after a few exchanges, to translate for Archeval's pleasure:
"My son and his companion are unharmed. Not in this room." And without sparing a glance away from the state, hands drifting over the zither string. "The spirits here. If you have questions, name them."
...after, he might wish to explain just how Lan Inquiry performs its duties.