More like talismans and energy flows, but you get the right idea. [He'll just have a seat on the couch.] Hizamaru told me you were working on something. That true?
[...also will he share the bottle...please be kind onegai.]
[He'll perch on the arm of the couch like the gargoyle he is! But fortunately he is kind and after taking a swig, he'll pass it over to Junpei. Doesn't seem like he's at all hesitant to talk in relative privacy about the shenanigans he's been getting up to, in any case...]
Mmhm! A few somethings. I'm not sure what we're working with here - how strong of a spirit, how malicious the energy is, whether or not it can be purified... I've made a few protective charms that I'd like to test out, a few attraction flags, things like that.
[Actually he's popping back up off the sofa arm again to grab his... sex for dummies manual...... And once he's settled back on his perch, he passes it over to Junpei. Inside, some wildass runes have definitely been scrawled over some of the pages!]
Ideally, I'd like to get a look at whatever is causing all of this trouble myself.
[Okay well first he'll take the bottle, barely giving a thought to what it is before taking a swig himself as he's attentively listening. This is exactly what he's curious about and he holds the bottle when when Wei Wuxian grabs the dummy manual.
They can do a trade, it's fine. Here, take your bottle back. It's rune time.]
Zero and I were thinking the same thing, but this is way more elaborate than the plan we were working off of. [Which he does not mention. He's scanning these runes intently.] I don't know much about this kind of stuff, but it has to be pretty strong. I've been hearing a bunch of accounts from everyone about what happened the other day. Anybody talk to you about the missions?
[Junpei, a dumb bitch who doesn't know WWX had his own mission because I'm p sure we didn't icly know oh well.]
[It's something Strong, whatever it is, because Wei Wuxian does not fuck with anything less than like 20%. He'll take another swig as soon as he has the bottle back, and then nestle it between two cushions for easy access for the both of them.]
She did mention looking into trying to bait it with blood earlier? Haha, not that I'd suggest that without the proper protection, or at least some attempt at having a barrier. Blood summons can attract some nasty things. [YALL!!
Anyway the runes and scribbles have a few Chinese-adjacent characters thrown in here and there, roughly resembling this. Some have been crossed out, one page is blacked out entirely, and a few pages seem to be missing.]
Missions... Ah! You mean for the prizes? I haven't heard too many details about what others got up to, but we ran into some sort of something when we went looking for our prize. Was it the same for you?
I sort of guessed. [A good man. He makes a face because Zero what the fuck have you been telling people...also it's sort of true but ANYWAY. He's still trying to see if he even recognizes these, but alas. Yeah, yeah, blood summons bad, protection good, but he looks up when the talk shifts to the missions.]
I didn't even realize you were part of it. But yeah, it was the same for us. Where'd you go? What happened?
[He does his best!! But he'll nod, yes, yes, he was part of it and he got off so damn easy because the RNG ghosts loved him.]
We went to the pantry! And got locked in. It was a simple game, at least - just pick one out of three boxes. If we guessed right, we got snacks. If we guessed wrong, we had to reveal this or that about our love lives. [WAVES A HAND as if to say "y'know, typical affair for this place".] We had to guess right three times to win.
[What if he just throws the book at him because THIS IS BULLSHIT. He, like, doesn't but he looks severely unhappy.]
Ours was mostly exhausting and weird and something I'd rather not talk about ever again. [Hm.] What'd you get for winning? Don't tell me it was just the snacks.
[He's asking all of this for a reason and it's all related to spooks, it's fine.]
[Honestly that'd be fair since Wei Wuxian absolutely does not deserve the kind of good luck he pulled off back there. The cosmic forces that be must punish him.]
That bad, huh? [HE'S CURIOUS... but at least he doesn't press. In any case, he seems to be contemplating something for a second, but eventually he'll hold up two fingers.]
Dimitri ended up with another dagger that had a piece of paper wrapped around it, but neither of us can read what's written on it. Did you get anything like that?
Two daggers then. We got three pieces of chalk and the same kind of paper, yeah. Pretty sure every team got one.
[... ] We were locked in the lounge. We had to play a game with the paintings. But Prompto's camera picked up some weird activity. Beck's group has some shit going on, too. That's why I came to you specifically.
How strong does a spirit have to be to take a physical form? Any idea?
Well, he had one from the start. We only got one - unless someone else was lucky enough to get a dagger too?
[But haha he saw Hizamaru's chalk earlier so now he knows his poor stolen/adopted younger brother was involve in whatever tomfoolery went on in the lounge! Rip in rest, lounge crew.
PICKING UP THAT BOTTLE AGAIN and going in for another swig before answering...]
Fairly strong, but the "strength" can come in a lot of different forms. Like... if someone died with a lot of resentment or strong hidden feelings, they might be able to retain more of their spiritual consciousness if they return as a fierce corpse. Some spirits have the tenacity to appear in a full physical form, so it's almost like interacting with a living person. Almost all spirits can exert at least a little control over the physical world, though. At least enough to touch the strings of a zither.
Maybe they heard me complaining about wishing I arrived with something better than a flute for self-defense.
[He says this jokingly, but considering how favored he was by the ghosts in the box game, WHO KNOWS, maybe it's true...
Also no promises.]
Hmmm... Well, it's not impossible by any means. There are plenty of cases where a spirit has taken on someone or something else's appearance for whatever reason. [Waving a hand!] It's much rarer for them to have the energy to do that and manifest physically at the same time, though. It's easier to pick one or the other - changing the appearance, touching things in the living world.
At least somebody's listening. [Curse you, RNG gods.]
The group who were sent to the breakroom had to play a game, too. Not the same kind you did, it was a card game. But two of them that I talked to confirmed they had a fourth player. Some...shadow thing, but they both recognized it as someone different. After they were knocked out, the thing was gone the next time they woke up.
[Just chuckling a little at that. Maybe that someone will also listen if he asks nicely for the missing people to be returned!!]
Ah... That sounds more like the use of an illusion than a spirit's ability. Maybe a mix of the two? There are arts in my world that can do things like that - trick the eye into seeing something that isn't there. Then again, there are spirits that can do the same. [A sloping shrug; he hits the bottle again.]
--We didn't have anything like that in our game, but there was definitely something there with us. It touched my hand and paralyzed me for a little while.
[What he doesn't say is that he didn't bother mentioning this to anyone because his stupid self sacrificing ass was 100% going to try tackling a house full of demons alone. Whoops!!]
I'm telling you now, aren't I? Anyway, it was. Cold and clammy - it didn't move like a hand, either. More like... a snake, maybe? [IT "SLITHERED", WHATEVER IT WAS. He got felt up by a tentacle sex ghost probably.] It happened the first time I touched one of the boxes and the paralysis lasted for just a second or two. Nothing happened after that to me, but something touched Dimitri later when he didn't play along with the rules.
[This is how WWX died in week uno. But he narrows his eyes because sure, he's being told now, but whatever.]
...that sounds kind of similar to what happened to Beck. She said that something touched her when we broke into that room, and she couldn't move for a few seconds after that. And it just happened for no reason?
I figured it happened because I touched the box. Every other time we picked one, we just said our choice and they would raise on their own... So maybe I broke a rule in a way, too? Just one that they didn't warn us about. But if it was similar to what Beck described, then maybe that wasn't the case.
[Maybe it was just a shitghost going around touching people and marking them with curses for no damn reason!!]
[Why couldn't we kill the ghosts instead of people? That sounds more productive.]
Something grabbed Beck when we started playing with the switchboard and playing cassettes in the recording studio. But at the same time, the video we were watching started flipping out and we saw the faceless versions of ourselves for the first time.
Prompto's camera revealed similar figures when I looked at his photos from the other day. People have wondered if the items themselves are possessed, and I don't know how to really answer that with something that isn't "yeah, obviously."
Haha, yeah, she told me about that. [And he proceeded to accidentally scare the shit out of her with BLOOD MAGIC, rip.] Seems like it's probably the same sort of trick that got us both, at least... Same with the photos, too. And they probably are! It's best to purify them if you can.
[That's what he did!!
Yeah speaking of the remnants of that are probably still on the floor, along with a bunch of empty booze bottles, ink stains, a random cup of salt and a pile of fabric where he sleeps. Good work, Wei Wuxian.]
[It absolutely is, no roommate deserves living with this rat man.]
I can show you, if you want to see? [DOES HE WANT TO SEE THAT THOUGH. He also laughs and waves his hand.]
Oh, no, not at all - I definitely think it's some sort of thing that doesn't belong among the living. [Of course.] But I wouldn't be surprised if someone else was working alongside it, or if it had access to more abilities than the things I see most often. Your run-of-the-mill ghost may steal someone's face to give a person they're mad at a good scare, but this is too well-orchestrated to be something like that.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
u arent wrong
He'll at least wait until they're behind closed doors to hazard a guess at the topic du jour, though.]
Bodies and other various dead and death-related things, I'm assuming?
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[...also will he share the bottle...please be kind onegai.]
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Mmhm! A few somethings. I'm not sure what we're working with here - how strong of a spirit, how malicious the energy is, whether or not it can be purified... I've made a few protective charms that I'd like to test out, a few attraction flags, things like that.
[Actually he's popping back up off the sofa arm again to grab his... sex for dummies manual...... And once he's settled back on his perch, he passes it over to Junpei. Inside, some wildass runes have definitely been scrawled over some of the pages!]
Ideally, I'd like to get a look at whatever is causing all of this trouble myself.
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They can do a trade, it's fine. Here, take your bottle back. It's rune time.]
Zero and I were thinking the same thing, but this is way more elaborate than the plan we were working off of. [Which he does not mention. He's scanning these runes intently.] I don't know much about this kind of stuff, but it has to be pretty strong. I've been hearing a bunch of accounts from everyone about what happened the other day. Anybody talk to you about the missions?
[Junpei, a dumb bitch who doesn't know WWX had his own mission because I'm p sure we didn't icly know oh well.]
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She did mention looking into trying to bait it with blood earlier? Haha, not that I'd suggest that without the proper protection, or at least some attempt at having a barrier. Blood summons can attract some nasty things. [YALL!!
Anyway the runes and scribbles have a few Chinese-adjacent characters thrown in here and there, roughly resembling this. Some have been crossed out, one page is blacked out entirely, and a few pages seem to be missing.]
Missions... Ah! You mean for the prizes? I haven't heard too many details about what others got up to, but we ran into some sort of something when we went looking for our prize. Was it the same for you?
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I didn't even realize you were part of it. But yeah, it was the same for us. Where'd you go? What happened?
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We went to the pantry! And got locked in. It was a simple game, at least - just pick one out of three boxes. If we guessed right, we got snacks. If we guessed wrong, we had to reveal this or that about our love lives. [WAVES A HAND as if to say "y'know, typical affair for this place".] We had to guess right three times to win.
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Are you fucking kidding me. [REALLY?] Did you win then?
[Why didn't he get snack boxes?! All he got was slammed for being a shitty dancer and spooky ghost photos.]
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We did! I got all three guesses right. Luck decided to be on my side for once, it seems! [Thanks RNG ghosts, for bullying only Dimitri.]
Haha, I'm guessing yours wasn't so easy?
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Ours was mostly exhausting and weird and something I'd rather not talk about ever again. [Hm.] What'd you get for winning? Don't tell me it was just the snacks.
[He's asking all of this for a reason and it's all related to spooks, it's fine.]
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That bad, huh? [HE'S CURIOUS... but at least he doesn't press. In any case, he seems to be contemplating something for a second, but eventually he'll hold up two fingers.]
Dimitri ended up with another dagger that had a piece of paper wrapped around it, but neither of us can read what's written on it. Did you get anything like that?
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[... ] We were locked in the lounge. We had to play a game with the paintings. But Prompto's camera picked up some weird activity. Beck's group has some shit going on, too. That's why I came to you specifically.
How strong does a spirit have to be to take a physical form? Any idea?
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[But haha he saw Hizamaru's chalk earlier so now he knows his poor stolen/adopted younger brother was involve in whatever tomfoolery went on in the lounge! Rip in rest, lounge crew.
PICKING UP THAT BOTTLE AGAIN and going in for another swig before answering...]
Fairly strong, but the "strength" can come in a lot of different forms. Like... if someone died with a lot of resentment or strong hidden feelings, they might be able to retain more of their spiritual consciousness if they return as a fierce corpse. Some spirits have the tenacity to appear in a full physical form, so it's almost like interacting with a living person. Almost all spirits can exert at least a little control over the physical world, though. At least enough to touch the strings of a zither.
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[PLEASE DONT ASK HIZAMARU WHAT HAPPENED EVER.]
Makes sense. The stronger the tie the stronger the connection. But what about a spirit that takes on the form of someone they've never seen before?
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[He says this jokingly, but considering how favored he was by the ghosts in the box game, WHO KNOWS, maybe it's true...
Also no promises.]
Hmmm... Well, it's not impossible by any means. There are plenty of cases where a spirit has taken on someone or something else's appearance for whatever reason. [Waving a hand!] It's much rarer for them to have the energy to do that and manifest physically at the same time, though. It's easier to pick one or the other - changing the appearance, touching things in the living world.
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The group who were sent to the breakroom had to play a game, too. Not the same kind you did, it was a card game. But two of them that I talked to confirmed they had a fourth player. Some...shadow thing, but they both recognized it as someone different. After they were knocked out, the thing was gone the next time they woke up.
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Ah... That sounds more like the use of an illusion than a spirit's ability. Maybe a mix of the two? There are arts in my world that can do things like that - trick the eye into seeing something that isn't there. Then again, there are spirits that can do the same. [A sloping shrug; he hits the bottle again.]
--We didn't have anything like that in our game, but there was definitely something there with us. It touched my hand and paralyzed me for a little while.
[CASUALLY.]
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[Yeah he'll go back to the spirits talk in a second what the fuck.]
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I'm telling you now, aren't I? Anyway, it was. Cold and clammy - it didn't move like a hand, either. More like... a snake, maybe? [IT "SLITHERED", WHATEVER IT WAS. He got felt up by a tentacle sex ghost probably.] It happened the first time I touched one of the boxes and the paralysis lasted for just a second or two. Nothing happened after that to me, but something touched Dimitri later when he didn't play along with the rules.
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...that sounds kind of similar to what happened to Beck. She said that something touched her when we broke into that room, and she couldn't move for a few seconds after that. And it just happened for no reason?
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I figured it happened because I touched the box. Every other time we picked one, we just said our choice and they would raise on their own... So maybe I broke a rule in a way, too? Just one that they didn't warn us about. But if it was similar to what Beck described, then maybe that wasn't the case.
[Maybe it was just a shitghost going around touching people and marking them with curses for no damn reason!!]
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Something grabbed Beck when we started playing with the switchboard and playing cassettes in the recording studio. But at the same time, the video we were watching started flipping out and we saw the faceless versions of ourselves for the first time.
Prompto's camera revealed similar figures when I looked at his photos from the other day. People have wondered if the items themselves are possessed, and I don't know how to really answer that with something that isn't "yeah, obviously."
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Haha, yeah, she told me about that. [And he proceeded to accidentally scare the shit out of her with BLOOD MAGIC, rip.] Seems like it's probably the same sort of trick that got us both, at least... Same with the photos, too. And they probably are! It's best to purify them if you can.
[That's what he did!!
Yeah speaking of the remnants of that are probably still on the floor, along with a bunch of empty booze bottles, ink stains, a random cup of salt and a pile of fabric where he sleeps. Good work, Wei Wuxian.]
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[...maybe it's a good thing WWX is now living by himself.] But you think it's a trick and not actually a spirit manipulating things.
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I can show you, if you want to see? [DOES HE WANT TO SEE THAT THOUGH. He also laughs and waves his hand.]
Oh, no, not at all - I definitely think it's some sort of thing that doesn't belong among the living. [Of course.] But I wouldn't be surprised if someone else was working alongside it, or if it had access to more abilities than the things I see most often. Your run-of-the-mill ghost may steal someone's face to give a person they're mad at a good scare, but this is too well-orchestrated to be something like that.
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