[pfsb] investigations and explorations

[blue_ajah]

Two days after Moiraine brought Wei Wuxian's talismans back to Twin Peaks, after she has taken the time necessary to review all of her notes as well as the histories she has been collecting, she calls Dale Cooper, who is still in Olympia, now, rather than Seattle.

All things considered, the conversation could have gone much, much worse.

She is well aware that they are going to have a much longer discussion after he returns in a few weeks, but he had agreed not to ask her to wait. She, in turn, had agreed, as before, not to go to Glastonbury Grove alone, or at night. She also agrees not to approach the pool closer than necessary to place the talismans, or to test it with her own weaving - not at present, anyway.

Hawk had been her next call.

A few days later, after he has had time to consider and to consult with the Bookhouse Boys, Hawk knocks on her apartment door and agrees to her request.

* * * * * * *
When Moiraine returns to Milliways, she leaves a sealed note with Bar, addressed to Wei Wuxian.

Master Wei--

I made the trial of your talismans according to your instructions. When I activated the one at the northernmost point, glowing red energy swept inward from the circle in a wave focused on the pool at its center.

The pool absorbed it all. It vanished into the depths without a ripple, and without a trace.

Nothing else has happened. Yet.

--Moiraine Sedai

That task completed, she settles at her preferred table with tea and begins sketching something in a notebook.

Comments

[we_bring_hell]

Harrow rises early by habit, but by her own clock; she is used to a scheduled governed by the clock and not by a sun. It is hard to discuss the relative nature of time between three distinct chrono-asynchronous locations, but from Harrow's perspective it is still early enough for the lines of her makeup to still be knife-sharp.

She is exploring some of the options the Bar has made available to her--still within her ebon color pallet and her requirements of modesty, but for instance black denim and a black turtleneck meet her needs without being the standard Drearburh habit. She is not wearing gloves, which is outlandish license. The leather of her journal feels strange on her hands, accustomed as she is to wearing them.

"Greetings, Moiraine Sedai," she says calmly, accepting a cup of tea that she makes an effort to remember to drink.

[blue_ajah]

"Lady Ninth," she says. "Light illumine. How are matters with you?"

She makes no move to hide the sketches and writing in the notebook in front of her. In addition to circles and notation that may be familiar, there is an additional circular drawing not unlike a clock face. It is marked with twelve equally-distanced dots, and has a black coin-sized ring at its center.

[we_bring_hell]

"Matters are... in hand," she says. "I have continued to review my notes on the Lyctoral process. I have also put in train a device to communicate with this location from beyond my door. Neither have come to anything worth speaking of yet, but I am not dissatisfied with my progress."

Her black eyes flick over Moiraine's notebook. "What has occupied you, if I may ask?"

[blue_ajah]

She inclines her head in acknowledgement and assent, both.

"I am pleased for your sake, then," she says. "I myself have been somewhat occupied with continued attempts to translate common weaves to the new notation, after the model we have developed, and with initial investigations into ... certain phenomena, in the world where I reside."

[we_bring_hell]

She raises a white eyebrow. "Phenomena?"

Not just phenomena. Dot dot dot certain phenomena. Color her intrigued.

[acrookedpath]

Because he forgot to take the potion Ingress gave him, Wei Wuxian awoke with a vicious hangover, still in the too-snug clothes Madam Bar gave him, and would have reintroduced the entirety of last night to the floor if he hadn't fumbled the vial's contents into his mouth in time.

Once his head was clear and his stomach settled, he realized Lan Zhan still wasn't there.

Taking a shower and changing back into his robes did banish the last of the fog from his mind, but it did nothing to make Lan Zhan appear -- and by then, it was late enough in the day that he doubted he would see him at all until the evening. So much for his attempt at courage. So much for... a lot of things.

(How much worse has he made it already? Did Lan Zhan think he abandoned him? Did he decide he would be better off in Cold Pond Cave when he arrived at the inn and Wei Wuxian wasn't there?)

All of which is to say that he is already in a foul mood when he comes downstairs, hair still damp from the shower, and finds Moiraine's note waiting for him. Wei Wuxian takes a long, long breath, rests his forehead against his palm, and closes his eyes until he is sure he won't do anything rash.

Then he gets up, walks to her table, and unceremoniously drops the note on top of her sketch.

"Is every word written in here true?" he asks.

(She is oath-bound to speak the truth. Not, necessarily, write it.)

[blue_ajah]

"Yes," she murmurs. "It seems the best term for it, at present."

Her fingers rest lightly on the edge of the clock-like drawing.

"Tell me, Lady Ninth, are there places in your world that are known to be altered, somehow, from the normal state of things?"

[blue_ajah]

She glances at the paper, confirming that it is the note she had left him and that none of the wording has been changed, then looks up at him.

"Yes," the Aes Sedai replies. "It is."

She appears neither surprised nor troubled at the fact that he had sought to double-check this, as it happens.

[we_bring_hell]

"Indeed," she says slowly. "It might fairly be said that I grew up in one, and have departed it for another."

"But it depends on what you mean by altered, I suppose. Haunted?"

[blue_ajah]

“Some might call it so,” Moiraine tells her. “Some might call it cursed.”

She taps the center of the drawing.

“It is a place where people have vanished, and from where the dead have returned, among other things.”

A beat of silence.

“And, of course, this is in a world where necromancy is not in any way known to the extent it is in yours.”

[we_bring_hell]

She nods. To inhabitants of foreign worlds, the whole Empire might be considered a place where the natural order has been altered.

"The dead returned. As spirits, perhaps possessing corpses? Or resurrected in truth?"

[acrookedpath]

Secretly, as with her initial descriptions of the disturbance, he'd hoped she would say no. That this would just be a further ruse he could walk away from. Besides, he promised Lan Zhan he would bring him along next he talked to Moiraine --

-- but Lan Zhan isn't here, and hasn't been here the whole night. May never have been there at all.

(May never be here again, whisper his worst thoughts before he boxes them up tight.)

His shoulders sag. Abruptly exhausted, as if the Serpentine potion had done nothing at all, he drags a hand down his face and drops into the seat across from her.

"All right," he says. "Then you were right: there has been no suppression on it. At the very least. And I do not like the sound of absorbing energy, either."

[blue_ajah]

“Both have been reported to occur,” she says. “As well as possession of the living, in some cases.”

[we_bring_hell]

"True, permanent Resurrection is the province of the Emperor alone--or Milliways. The others are things sufficiently unhappy revenants have been known to achieve."

"But they would need a source of thanergy, a powerful one. Especially on a non-thanergenic planet. I suppose the disappearances could account for that," she says doubtfully

[blue_ajah]

“It is a conundrum.”

And from the flat annoyance underlying the too-calm tone, not one she particularly enjoys.

“There are varying theories on the source of power and nature of this place, but none are yet entirely proven.”

[blue_ajah]

“Nor do I,” she says, mildly.

“I suppose I should be grateful it is not Shayol Ghul, but I do not like it any more for that.”

[we_bring_hell]

Power sources. It all comes back to power sources somehow.

"Is it the site of some great massacre? Some kind of massive surge of thanergy that could possibly fuel a self-sustaining reaction?"

[acrookedpath]

"Shayol Ghul?" he repeats, frowning.

[blue_ajah]

"It is a mountain in the world where I was born," the Aes Sedai tells him.

"There is a place within it where the Pattern thins enough that what is outside the world and time itself can affect that within the world. It was of great importance at Tarmon Gaidon, the Last Battle."

[blue_ajah]

She shakes her head.

"Not a single great massacre, to my knowledge," she says, slowly, thinking through the history of the Nez Perce that Hawk has shared with her before as she does to be certain her words are true as spoken.

"Although there has been more than one death - including vicious murder - in the nearby area over time."

[we_bring_hell]

She frowns. "That could definitely produce a stronger than normal thanergetic burst... it's the sort of thing that produces dangerous revenant spirits. Perhaps if they were able to keep capturing thanergy through the harm they do..."

"Certainly a subject worthy of study," she concludes.

[acrookedpath]

"Mm."

Not as helpful as he thought it might be. Still, it steers his thoughts, awkward and lumbering in their preoccupation with Lan Zhan, closer to where they ought to go. He marshals them in order, briefly rubbing the side of his nose.

"So it almost certainly a portal. A fixed one, which is interesting, and it allows both entrance and exit. If the energy from the talismans turned red the moment it was released, then either it is an immense source of resentful energy that eclipses any other reading -- which wouldn't surprise me -- or it is transforming anything that hits it into resentful energy. Which would also make sense, if it is consuming the energy. It could be making it more palatable."

He glances to Moiraine.

"How much death has been in the area around the disturbance?"

[blue_ajah]

She considers this for a moment.

“At once, or over time?”

[blue_ajah]

“Indeed,” she agrees.

“I have always felt it important to understand the nuances of such things, when possible. Perhaps especially so, in this case.”

[we_bring_hell]

She studies Moiraine's expression, always a hiding to nothing.

"You said it is in your adopted world--is it a mystery you have sought out? Or something..." She ponders the phrasing briefly. "...that has thrust itself upon you?"