October Test Drive Meme!

[reddosmod]

OCTOBER 2022 TDM

Another month, another test drive meme! Our test drive memes are open to anyone interested - regardless of whether or not you join our game!

All Test Drive Memes are game canon. Players can choose to keep their TDM threads canon or not. TDM threads can be used for AC and can be used as your writing sample for your application.

Our TDMs serve as a way to build into the actual lore and worldbuilding of Deer Country and we strongly encourage everyone to enjoy and participate! Current players are always welcome to pull prompts from the TDM to reference on the Network or bring into logs as well as tag out to new characters top-leveling on the TDM itself.

Characters will always be able to actively die during TDMs as this is an extremely dangerous world. You can still have this be game canon! Check out how character death in Deer Country works here.

If you have any questions about the TDM, please ask down below!

IMAGE DESCRIPTORS IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE
Prompt One
[Image One: A snowy, rocky beach in winter. ]
[Image Two: Bowls of mushroom soup and bread. ]

Prompt Two
[Image One: Dali painting of the moon as a city]
[Image Two: Twisted, warped cityscape]

Prompt Three
[Image One: Monster choking a sleeping person to death]
[Image Two: Death hovering over a sleeping person]

BONUS PROMPT
[Image One: Liminal Space image of a nondescript room with strange ledges]
[Image Two: Cenobite woman with borg-like attachments to her face]

[NAVIGATION]

TDM Questions • Reserves • Taken • Applications • Full Navigation

[Jump to Comments]

STANDARD ARRIVAL

WHEN: First Week of NOvember
WHERE: The Farther Shores/The Boardwalk, Koz's Orphanage
CONTENT WARNINGS: N/A

---

You're one of the lucky ones. Your journey is smooth sailing and you wind up exactly where you're supposed to: on the Farther Shores. You grow out of your squid body without a hitch, either with the help of another Sleeper or one of the Wakers, and you get to discover this new world. All new Sleepers might take some time to find their bearings. It might be tricky to remember how to use your body parts the way you're supposed to. You might stumble around the beach or forget how to talk - but don't worry! It'll come back to you sooner or later.

Hopefully, you've found something to wear, either in your Welcoming Bag or otherwise, and can start familiarizing yourself with your surroundings. Maybe you help some other squids out on the beach. Waking up sucks! You feel for the little guys. And hey, maybe you're hoping one of those squids is a good friend...Stranger things have happened.

SEASONAL DETAILS ON THE BOARDWALK
This is not the greatest month to wash up on the Farther Shores. It's November and you'll pretty much immediately hate it! The waters are frigid but not quite frozen yet, but that won't make your arrival any less uncomfortable. Thankfully the Boardwalk seems well-stocked with heavy blankets and furs to give to newly awakened Sleepers. Barrels of hot chocolate and hot alcoholic cider are readily available to warm people up. There are several stalls selling hearty soups willed with mushrooms, potatoes, beans, and other filling components.

Fresh baked bread and pastries are sold on wax paper. Enjoy a steaming cinnamon roll or croissant or just your standard bread and butter. Many bakers have set up temporary stoves and seem to invite teaching Sleepers how to cook and prepare bread and pastries. Maybe knead some dough, learn some tricks of the trade. If you help out ab baker, they might even thank you with a sack of flour or other ingredients for bread!

Like last year, as the Moon shifts to Bone, whispers and hushed talk begins anew among the Trenchies about The Tower. There are whispers that something feels wrong. "You know Trench is his body, right?" one might say. "But look at what's been happening. Is everything alright?" There is nervousness, agitation. Trenchies can't seem to put a finger on it. One of the old fishermen mutters under his or her breath if overheard in this time. "Long time since we tried to leave the Tower's shield. Hope didn't bring anything back from out there. World's a strange place."

None of them seem to have anything specific to add. They just seem nervous for some reason.

[JUMP TO TOP] • [JUMP TO COMMENTS]

IMAGE OF THE SELF

WHEN: Halloween through all November
WHERE: All of Trench
CONTENT WARNINGS: Distorted Reality, horrifying cityscape images, mounting paranoia, displacement

---

"They say that Trench is the body of the Tower." It is a saying so often repeated during the Bone Moon season that it becomes more of a mantra. Whether or not it is actually true remains a hotly contested debate between Arcane Scholars and Disciples, one of the few times that neither side fully agrees even with themselves. Yet, if it is true, what happens if the person whose body serves as a city begins to have an identity crisis of sorts? That certainly seems to be the case this month.

At random times, it just happens. You're walking from one place to another with your friend. You just stepped out of a lantern network teleportation circle. You open a door. Suddenly, everything is just wrong. It feels like you are in a surrealist's nightmare. Walls appear to be bleeding concrete in all directions. Stairwells twist impossibly, as if M. C. Escher himself were the architect. The pathway to where you intended to go warps and transforms itself into a perilous, twisted monstrosity that you have to navigate. Worse? The way you got here is just gone behind you, leaving you only the path forward.

Navigating this isn't impossible, but you will definitely need help. It might be that one has to stand on another's shoulders to get over an obstacle and then help them up. Maybe someone very small has to crawl into an opening to reach the door handle so the way through can be found. It varies, and the effect lasts only as long as it takes to get where you're going, but while you're here the reality continues to shift and some of these twistings could easily crush you! Don't tarry too long!

NOTE: The physical danger here is from environmental hazards. Feel free to choose any you like, but they will all return to normal when your character reaches their intended destination. Trenchies know nothing about this, though if one asks one of the former wastes, they will ward themselves as if against evil. They know something, but they dare not speak and will whisper hurriedly that the sleeper had best not talk too openly about this. "Best not to draw attention right now."

[JUMP TO TOP] • [JUMP TO COMMENTS]

A GOOD NIGHT'S SLEEP

WHEN: Last Week of October through the first week of November
WHERE: At Home, in your bed
CONTENT WARNINGS: Severe Insomnia, Sleep Deprivation, Deprivation induced hallucinations and mood swings

---

Something is clawing at your mind from the moment that the first signs of the cold coming. You can't put your finger on it, but even as you see the people of Trench preparing for the next month's arrival of sleepers, you can see they feel it too. Something claws at the mind and for a few people in Trench, this becomes a very literal problem. The thoughts are so overwhelming that you can't manage to find a good night's sleep. This problem is especially prominent for new Sleepers, who seem prone to arriving with terrible bouts of unexplainable insomnia.

That sounds simple enough to deal with, right? Perhaps some sort of sleep aid, or working oneself to exhaustion, and you can power through it, right? No. Nothing seems to work at first. Searches for a monster are futile. Warding and incense seem utterly ineffective, and no matter how hard you try, night after night you cannot sleep. You are terrified of falling asleep. If you fall asleep, you may never wake up! Even characters who do not fear a mortal death feel themselves compelled by this, and the longer that they do not sleep the more corruption risks them at its door. A night or two missed is one thing, but eventually irascibility sets in. Hallucinations may eventually start to crop up. The body needs REM sleep. It needs dreams, yet the horror that threatens the person will not allow them to sleep, for fear that it will come for them while they sleep. What 'it' is, they do not know.

There is only one solution. For those who already spend time with others? This is a simple thing, but they must still agree to do it. You can solve this curse only if you do not sleep alone. Another must stay awake for the vigil through the whole night. Simple enough given their insomnia, but they will be assailed by their own horrific lack of slumber. Only, after you have had a good night's sleep, be sure to care for the other who was so kind to you. Why? Because anyone so unkind as to not help their erstwhile companion sleep after they have finally gotten rest will find out that those fears were not unfounded and the next time they sleep, they really do not wake up!

Death, in this rare case, comes in the form of a heart attack. Its source is unknown, and all that the sleeper will remember is the worst nightmare of their life as they lay in bed, dying in soundless screams. So, be sure to take care of each other, sleepers!

[JUMP TO TOP] • [JUMP TO COMMENTS]

THE VEINS OF THE TOWER

WHEN: November 1st (And only November 1st)
WHERE: Beginning anywhere, ending in A Nightmarish Place
CONTENT WARNINGS: Liminal Space, Disorientation, Hints of horrible monsters, Possible Death, Insane Zealotry, Mutilated Bodies

---

Rumors have lingered since the first encounters two months ago of a 'space between spaces' that people could accidentally fall into that this occurrence has not been entirely limited to the month it first happened in. Every once in a while, on unusual days, it has happened since that time. There appears to be little rhyme or reason to it, but it has happened again. Maybe you took an accidental step backwards. Or maybe you were crazy enough to have identified some spot you disappeared before and you were actually experimenting with the effect every day to see when it happened. You know, to chronicle the dates it happen, to keep a record, to understand it better, all of those sorts of things that cause some sleepers to poke things that are Better Left Alone because that's what some sleepers do with their free time, and then they touch the spot with something and suddenly they and everything around them are sucked in. How you got there is not important. You're here now, wherever here is.

Only this time its different. You're not in the spot you were last time, and in the distance you can hear shuffling of feet. Dread enters your heart, as you know that you do not have the means to fight whatever it is. You have an overwhelming urge to run, to flee at top speed. You and whoever is "lucky" enough to be with you must run as fast as you can, around corners, a roaring, inhuman scream echoing through the hallways, slamming into walls. You can't quite see it, not unless you want a swift, awful death at least. But around a corner there is salvation, an elevator shaft and the door is open. Frantic scrambling, running and jabbing buttons will cause the doors to close, just as something black like a giant hand grabs the far wall. You hear the rush, the scream. The elevator shudders three times as something pounds on it, but you're safe. Or, are you?

Instead of the usual moldy hallways, you see what looks like a hospital hallway. Anyone who lived through the nightmare may have awful flashbacks, but nothing is chasing you this time. The impossibly stretching hallway seems ceaselessly unchanging, each door locked, at least until you happen to notice a grate on one of the overhead air conditioners open wide. If you are curious enough to crawl up and into it, you're treated to a long scramble through the passageway, right up until you hear voices, menacing ones in the distance. Crawl quietly!

A grate emanating ugly, light is up ahead. As you and your companion work your way over, you're hopefully not heard. Through the grate, you see something awful. Two mutilated and disfigured figures speak while a third, calm and ordered looking woman listens. She seems to have mutilated her throat such that she should not be able to speak, and the other two appear have performed torturous experiments on their own flesh, their twisted visages that of the 'Zealots' that the Sleepers sometimes whisper about in fear. "It is almost time for the harvest. We made the quotas last cycle but only barely. The need is greater. Sacrifices must be made," one hisses. The other nods vigorously. "Yes. The situation is decaying. We have to move to stop this before it gets out of hand."

Before they can say more, however, the third woman looks up, directly at the grate. She smiles once, and a voice echoes from her throat as what appears to be a mouth inside of it moves, her own lips unmoving. "Continue this discussion later. It seems the problem has worsened. We will need to step up security in the meantime." She reaches out a hand and wrenches. The air shimmers around them and suddenly the duct you are traveling in collapses and breaks beneath you. Instead of falling into the farm, however, you find yourself falling through darkness for what seems an eternity, until you collapse hard to the pavement, in front of the entrance to the Gate, your breath coming back to you slowly, shakily.

NOTES: Death is possible should a sleeper assault the first creature. It is a being of impossible angles and blackness, is itself unkillable and will rend its victims to oblivion through brute force. Fighting the Zealots is not possible through this prompt. The grate cannot be opened in time to exit into the Sleeper Farm and engage them. However, the astute will be certain that there was for a moment an actual entry through and into the Sleeper Farm, somehow. Those familiar with these locations will recognize them as being Floor 1, the Stalls

[JUMP TO TOP]

CODING

Comments

[poorlittlesange]

Please--let me get my bearings, [he says, and if he's a little shorter than usual in his response than he would have been in The Good Old Days, well, those days were never particularly good anyway, and the new days include melting mirrors, da-ge's little brother, and too many staircases. Jin Guangyao carefully leverages himself back up to his feet, and if nothing else in the universe remains constant, at least his still being shorter than Huaisang hasn't changed.

Which makes it easier to do what he has always done in a crisis: compartmentalize. He packs away the tumult of feelings into a tidy little box and squirrels it away in a blackened, shadowy corner of his heart to be sorted through later, and turns his attention to examining their surroundings. It gives him a headache, but--]

Does Huaisang remember where he was in Trench before arriving here? [He chances another look at Huaisang's face, and it is easier, now, to not look away, because it is always easier when he has a job to do.] Were you going anywhere in particular in the city? Do you recall any landmarks? [Knowing Huaisang, him recalling anything outside of a fancy tea shop might be a stretch, but even that could be helpful.]

[fanfavors]

[To think, Jin Guangyao needs to stop and get his bearings, the nerve!! No— that's too harshly nonsensical, even for Huaisang, who continues to stand there and fret at the corner of the stair he's chosen to cling to. If he gets a splinter, it's his own fault - but that's for Future Huaisang to worry about.

For now, lips pursed and gaze sliding off to the side, while he recalls his very important business—]

I didn't see anything, I don't think... Ah! [ah!!!!! enthusiasm!!!] The shopkeeper who sold me a string of beads mentioned a good place to drink!

[So. It's not a fancy tea shop. Baubles are different. Huaisang moves like he's about to take to pacing, but - well, maybe not so much after the floor almost ate san-ge. He does a much sillier sort of rock back and forth on the balls of his feet, trying to recall landmarks.]

...A malevolent water god?

[The Red has a several-story carving of an octopus on the front, you see.]

[poorlittlesange]

The Red, [he confirms, nodding,] yes, that does make sense.

[insofar as it makes sense to Jin Guangyao that any shopkeeper in any universe would take one look at Nie Huaisang and immediately direct him to the most expensive entertainment venue in the city. And this does give Jin Guangyao an idea of where in Trench this staircase hellscape might have manifested itself, as of course Huaisang would have found his way to Cellar Door as soon as possible.

The cogs and gears are ticking and whirring away in his mind now, and he leans past Huaisang to see if he can make sense of their surroundings at all. There is truthfully very little that is familiar, but through the mirrors he thinks he can glimpse the familiar silhouettes of buildings, distorted though they may be. It is fortunate for them both that he has a good memory.]

In that case, if Huaisang had been following the thoroughfare in this direction, then maybe...

[a few careful steps taken away from Huaisang now, mindful of two staircases that seem to spring forth from the same space in opposite directions, and then looks up, up--and points.]

There.

['there' turns out to be a mirror at the top of a spiral staircase at least eight hundred meters away from them. But it is a very large mirror, and the unsettling shape of the Red's signature octopus can clearly be seen in its distorted reflection. Now they just have to, you know. Get to it. Past all the hostile architecture.]

[fanfavors]

[Guilty as charged, it's not like Nie Huaisang would ever settle. It's death to settle for things in life, Jin Guangyao, obviously, which is all the reason Huaisang needs to absolutely pour time and money into the nicest venue the city has to offer, in his first week in town. It's a shame no one told him about The Red sooner, all things considered.

So: he loiters a step and a half behind, taking a look around himself, but if Guangyao wants to do it, far be it from Huaisang to object, ahem...]

There...? [fucking. really.] I-If san-ge is sure, then...

[Then fine, god, anything to get out of here. Huaisang affects a look of determination, squaring his delicate little shoulders and moving straight in the direction of that distant mirror with its menacing, looming octopus, and the staircase responds by rumbling under his feet and breaking itself in two, the rest of the steps rising too high and too far to simply hop across. Huaisang pinwheels his arms for a moment, nearly overbalancing into a ravine into the void? who can say— but he manages to stay upright.

Okay.

...He turns back to Guangyao.]

I didn't-! Really, it just happened-!!

lol roll a reflex and willpower save

[poorlittlesange]

Huaisang--!

[He doesn't even think about his reaction, really, it just bursts out of him like the most natural response to this particular crisis: Jin Guangyao seizes hold of Huaisang by his shoulder and pinwheeling arm and pulls him back against his chest before the ground gives way again. Because that is exactly what happens next as the steps that had been behind them crack, groan, and then collapse into nothingness. They're stranded on the skeletal remains of the staircase with barely enough room to occupy the same step.

Wide-eyed, terrified, and miraculously managing to keep his shit together despite both of those things, Jin Guangyao tries to gauge the distance between where they're wobbling together on the last remaining step, and the steps that have risen away from them opposite the newly formed gorge.]

I think, [hesitant, unsure, but they're out of options, aren't they,] I can fly us across on Hensheng.

[His golden core is like a cozy bonfire in winter when compared to the blazing sun that burned within Nie Mingjue, but surely even he and his weaker cultivation cross that distance with a passenger in tow. Besides, he doesn't see many other options. like does Huaisang even have a sabre anymore]

immortalizing the actual real roll of 6 here

[fanfavors]

[Sabers are for people who wanted this job, so of course he doesn't have a saber with him. It would take up space he needs for clipping on his new beads.

In any case, being saber-less is probably better for the current situation, that is to say, being clutched desperately to Guangyao's chest while he pinwheels his arms again, until one hand makes contact with Guangyao's shoulder and clings to it just as desperately. This moment— could be better, for a lot of reasons. The staccato hammer of his heart and opening of the void all around them distract Huaisang immeasurably from anything else for a moment, such that he's only half-heard Guangyao's suggestion and takes an extra second to process it.

Ah.

...Well, now isn't the time for any thoughts more complex than 'get out' and 'don't fucking fall,' so. He makes a face at the sheer depth of drop all around them and shifts only minutely, so that Guangyao can ready himself, and his foot slips. All at once Huaisang is dangling half into nothingness, making a noise at a pitch only dogs can hear and tilting far too dangerously mere moments after being rescued from this same thing a first time.

When he lets go of Guangyao, it isn't on purpose. Panic and adrenaline and utter lack of instincts for this kind of thing wipe clean his mind of any other kind of thought, and then he finds himself in freefall.]

San-ge—!! [He manages to call out in that first second, before the side of his face connects with the corner of the stair, which is going to leave a mark, but it wakes him up enough to clutch an arm around the stair— and now he's hanging there, probably kicking his legs too much.]

[poorlittlesange]

[They're both fortunate that Huaisang doesn't knock himself unconscious when his head connects with the corner of the stairs. His golden core can mend the injury and remove any traces of a scar, with time, but if he'd lost consciousness, Jin Guangyao would now be in a desperate race against physics to reach Huaisang's plummeting body before it reached whatever might be at the bottom of the void. If there is a bottom to the void.

Instead, Jin Guangyao only ("only") has to create something from nothing in the few seconds that remain before what little something remaining beneath them, already riddled with chips and cracks, collapses into nothingness.]

I've got you! I have you, A-Sang, hold onto me--

[And he does. Jin Guangyao channels a bolt of his limited spiritual power into his qinggong and drops into a one-legged crouch on the remaining step, his other leg held out parallel to the 'ground.' He seizes hold of Huaisang's arm and shoulders with one hand, grip iron-clad--he's always been stronger than he looks, and he would rather leave bruises that will heal than handle Huaisang with kid gloves and have him slip from his fingers--because he will need his other hand free to pull off this particular hat trick. From his belt, Hensheng leaps into his free hand, the narrow blade no longer flexible but straight and unyielding as a single piece of tempered steel.

The stair under the ball of his other foot gives a low, ominous groan, and begins to crumble away, they are out of time--]

Hold onto me--

[He plants his foot, still extended beside him, onto the flat of Hensheng's blade, tightens his hold on Huaisang's shoulder, and with another burst of power from his core, springs them both off of the step and onto his sword, not even a full second before the last stair dissolves like the last sand disappearing through an hour glass.]

Stand up--put your foot on the blade, Huaisang!

[That will only help with his balance, but anything is better than nothing, because Jin Guangyao is immediately overburdened by the drag and draw on his weak core from his spiritual weapon as Hensheng struggles to sustain their flight. Ahead of them, the mirror at the top of the staircase rises up like a mountain summit, and even without an additional passenger, this ascent would be a test to Jin Guangyao's abilities. With the added weight of another cultivator beside him, his core feels like someone is trying to work a meat hook through it through his abdomen.

His face has grown pale. There's a bit of blood leaking from his nose. Jin Guangyao narrows his focus through the pain and sends them both soaring upwards towards the top of the stairs.]

[fanfavors]

[Down here, dangling above the void, Huaisang catches Jin Guangyao's conjuring trick in frantic glances and bursts of desperate scrambling. He does as he's told, he's not so terrified that he's lost the ability to move, but terrified enough that his own grip is... messy, compared to the steel trap of Guangyao's hand. One moment Huaisang has merely a handful of sleeve, then upper arm, then sleeve again—

For what it's worth, he isn't trying to make this rescue difficult, it's just. There's a void down there, and it's scrambled him somewhat. He's yanked up in the air and told to be conscious of what his feet are doing, okay, like he remembers how his legs work that quickly-!!]

What? What? Where?! I don't— [Ah, and he finds purchase on the blade with his foot entirely by accident, kicking around in a panic. It's a miracle he doesn't miss for even longer, given how little experience with this kind of travel he actually has. But he's handled it as deftly as he is able, which is to say, he put his foot where directed and is clinging to Guangyao like to lose even a pinky finger of his hold on him will bring death immediately.

There's no time to relax about it, but there's nothing Huaisang can do to, ah, contribute? His core is a useless dead end; it's all he can do to hold tight and hold still as they make their urgent flight up towards the (probable) exit. He keeps his gaze fixed up there, the top of the stairs, because to look sidelong at Guangyao's determination, pale and bleeding, would stir up too much- too much something in him that he cannot possibly put forth the mental effort for right now. He can't even put a name to it; he doesn't want to put a name to it.

(It's gratitude. It's gratitude bone-deep and coiled around the certainty not that a man should save his fellow man from falling into the void for moral goodness' sake, but that Jin Guangyao will go to such lengths for Nie Huaisang, that Guangyao will always come to Huaisang's rescue because he—

Well. He always has.)

Huaisang still dares not let go to point, but he exclaims with feverish relief once they've crested enough of the staircase to their mirror destination take shape as something they might actually reach.]

Ah, it's there! How do we-? Do we go through-? San-ge, do I break it open?!

[With what, well, probably the brand new string of beads rattling at his hip, which he will only concede to coil up and chuck at this mirror if the other option seems to be breaking it open with their faces.]

[poorlittlesange]

Cover your face and shield your eyes--

[--and just in case Huaisang does not get the picture and does not obey him, Jin Guangyao plants a hand on the back of his head and pushes Huaisang's face into the relative shelter of Jin Guangyao's neck and shoulder. His voice sounds strange even to his own ears, wet and thick, and Jin Guangyao realizes abruptly it's because there's blood on his tongue and teeth. What a frightening visage he must be presenting right now. He'd be horrified by the thought of it if he wasn't already near blind from pain, and distantly he wonders whether the price he's going to pay for this later (if they survive) will, in fact, be a qi deviation.

Wouldn't that just be poetic?

But he can't stop their flight now, because he knows that if he touches down, he will collapse, and he won't be getting back up again in time to save them from what is transpiring below them: the swift dissolution of the staircase into that black void as it keeps apace with Hensheng hurtling towards the mirror. And so Jin Guangyao pours the last of what he has left to spare without outright killing himself into a burst of speed towards that mirror and, at the last second, whips them about in a 180 degree angle so that it is his back that should hit the glass and take the brunt of the impact.

Mercifully, nothing shatters upon contact. Instead, it is like they have plunged into a cold pool of water, its dark, silent waters swallowing up sound and sensation and air, and for one horrific moment Jin Guangyao is certain that he has just killed them both--

--and then they spill out the other side, dry as a bone, onto the pavement in front of the Red, sending a cluster of frightened people loitering nearby scattering in different directions because that was a very unexpected arrival, and that's a flying sword, watch where you're flying that thing!!

As soon as Jin Guangyao's ears register the familiar and less immediately threatening sounds of the city around them--and, more importantly, as soon as he determines with one glance from his bloodshot eyes that Huaisang is indeed safe--it's like a switch goes off and all systems not immediately devoted to life support are rendered utterly non-essential. He feebly curls his fingers around Hensheng's hilt, folds in on himself onto the pavement with a weak exhalation, and grows very still.]

[fanfavors]

[The moment Guangyao presses his face down into his shoulder, Huaisang's mind mercifully goes blank. Not entirely - the overwhelming screaming panic is still there - but he hasn't the luxury or the opportunity to think of anything else but clinging to Guangyao and not looking up, not even when he feels their abrupt turn and knows they're about to connect with the mirror, and he supposes if he must live the rest of his life brutally scared by glass shards, it will be better to have the evidence on his back than on his face—

And then they're out. And then they're on solid ground, and he wobbles on his own two feet again and sinks to the pavement, his legs sick and tired of cooperating, heedless of the people around them. He truly doesn't look at them at all, gaze transfixed on Guangyao the moment they stop. Guangyao bleeding from the mouth, the utter lack of spiritual strength left in his body, his eyes— it's the eyes, ultimately, that leave Huaisang stricken and frozen where he sits.

After all, he remembers with gruesome clarity when those same bloodshot eyes stared out at him from Nie Mingjue's face, when his beloved da-ge hardly recognized him, when he collapsed to the ground in a heap of madness and ghoulish wrongness. He knows these eyes; to see them gaze out at him again from Guangyao's face this time bends something in him; he can't move for the dead weight in his limbs, the drumming heartbeat in his ears. Time itself seems to hold its breath, as far as Huaisang is aware, even as a few of the patrons of The Red inch closer to them, to see what these two fellows and the flying sword are even doing. The thing in Huaisang's heart bends and bends, paralyzing him from doing a damned thing—

Then Guangyao slides to the ground and stills, and the thing snaps; Huaisang's limbs move again all at once, scrambling on hand and knee to the collapsed form of Guangyao and gripping futilely at his clothes with a strangled noise of horror escaping his lips, that this is happening again. He thinks not of, hm, circumstances - nothing but the way Guangyao has put himself through this for Huaisang, and no matter what sick dread lives in the pit of his stomach and hungers for comeuppance, he— he can't—

Huaisang will not watch another brother qi deviate and die, not today.

The next hour or so is a blur of frantically flagging down Trench locals to fucking help him, and maybe it's the eventual way he stops saying please and starts saying now that does it, but Huaisang gets Guangyao into a room, into a bed, and shuts the door on the beleaguered local trying to ask him another question. In the quiet he stands with his shoulders pressed back against the door, dares to think, and quickly stops doing that.

He exhales. He takes a step towards the bed where Guangyao lays, pale and sallow and still alive, and trips— Huaisang stoops to pick Guangyao's hat up off the floor and shuffles the rest of the way over.]

San-ge...?

[...Well, he can wait. He perches on the corner of the bed to do just that. He has not yet allowed himself to do any thinking, still.]

[poorlittlesange]

[Jin Guangyao doesn't dream while he's unconscious, which is probably a small mercy. There's plenty of nightmare fuel waiting in the archives of his memory as it is, but maybe his body and spirit are presently too busy devoting all available resources towards not dying, and so subjecting his unconscious mind to a greatest hits rendition of all his mistakes is not on the schedule tonight. It also means that one moment, he's collapsing to the ground outside the Red, and in the next, he's blinking his eyes around at the most ostentatious and sumptuous suite he's seen since his time in Jinlintai.

The frightening, bloodshot cast to his eyes has faded somewhat, but he's sweat-slick and pale-faced, and he feels sick from the quantity of his own blood he has swallowed. He struggles to catch his breath, but he does have the presence of mind to weakly drop a shaky hand onto Nie Huaisang's arm.]

...is Huaisang injured?

[His voice sounds hardly better than if he'd swallowed ground glass, but he has to ask, to be sure.]

[fanfavors]

[Huaisang has never sat at any sickbeds, historically. He was too young to be allowed to see his father for more than a few minutes at a time, before he died, and Mingjue didn't hold on long enough to make it to a sickbed at all, and so. Well.

He's decided it's not really for him. There's nothing to do but sit there and be quiet, don't think, sit there and glance at Jin Guangyao every so often to see if he's woken up, don't think—

The hand on his arm startles him out of his latest bout of not thinking, turning to fumble for hold of Guangyao's wrist.]

San-ge!! I'm fine! San-ge is awake, I was so— [His voice falters, breaking as he goes on:] I didn't think you were going to wake up...

[You know.

Like the last time this happened to one of his brothers. He doesn't know what to do and for once thinks it would be in poor taste to ask to be told, so he simply sits there in watery-eyed silence, fingers curled tight in Guangyao's sleeve.]

[poorlittlesange]

[Yes, he knows.

He knows very well, and it is maybe too telling that he flinches visibly and has to look away from Nie Huaisang's face, has to close his eyes when his voice breaks around the shape of his grief. Jin Guangyao cannot decide, for a moment, whether he is relieved or angry that he will probably survive this experience and live to spend another day in Trench, knowing that he will once again have to pick up the weight of this familiar, miserable burden and labour at keeping Huaisang from ever uncovering the truth.

But then he remembers that even if he does suffer a terrible death via qi deviation, the ocean will likely just spit him back out onto the shore anyway, and so he decides that he feels nothing.

He pats Huaisang's hand for lack of any other real means of comforting him. He's so weak that even keeping his eyes open takes tremendous effort.] I'm fine, [he lies, and then,] Huaisang, can you... reach my omni, in my robe pocket? I have to--[a pause to draw in more air into his lungs, was breathing always such an ordeal before?]--tell Er-ge and Shen-gongzi what has happened.

[fanfavors]

[Well, he's definitely not fine, but he's alive - which Huaisang will have to accept for now. Accept, safely neutral, not having to commit to feeling anything else about that, even as relief makes his throat stick and his eyes burn, and that sick dread in his stomach turns over restlessly.

But, also. Guangyao's what, to do what. Huaisang knows what the omni is in that he knows which object that word represents, but it does something? News!]

I— what? Okay...

[He fishes out the omni, eyeing it in mild wonder, and holds it out. Here? The thing?]

Does san-ge need water? [yes, for sure, but mostly he kind of wants to stand up and take a much-needed break from this egregiously luxurious sickroom, now that Guangyao is awake-] I'll get some?

[poorlittlesange]

[On any other day Jin Guangyao would be pleased to hold Huaisang's hand while walking him through how to use the funny little device, but right now, even holding the thing up to his face is difficult. So he just activates it as normal and holds it at such an angle that, if he wants, Huaisang can goggle at the user interface as Jin Guangyao uses it.

The offer of water reminds him promptly of just how parched he is, and how much his mouth still tastes of blood. (He doesn't want to think about how much blood he may actually have on his face.)]

Yes--water would be very welcome. [A weak smile, and,] Thank you, Huaisang.

[He squints weakly at his omni. He's never sent a group message before, but surely it can't be that much more difficult than sending one message. Right?]

USER ID: wheninlanling (JIN GUANGYAO)

There was an incident. Nie Huaisang is here. He is safe. I think I am qi deviating.

[He includes the Red's location in Cellar Door, presses 'send,' and gives himself permission to pass out again until Huaisang returns with the water.]

[fanfavors]

[Huaisang wobbles to his feet, fingers still clutching Guangyao's sleeve until the last moment when he actually moves to step away from the bed. There's a part of him sure, so sure that if he leaves this room he'll come back to find Guangyao dead and drowned from his own mouthfuls of blood. There's another part of him that wants to be as far from the aura of unwell as he can be, before the memory of Mingjue's death and the immediacy of Guangyao's state become too much to bear together.

He presses his palms against his face, so that he might go find a cup of water without crying on a couple locals out in the hall.]

Huaisang will find san-ge what he needs, hold on, hold on-!

[And then he's out in a flash, to go beg for water to drink and some to clean, plus a towel or two. He stops in the hall first to get his bearings, to control his breathing, to push down the memory of Mingjue. To convince himself Guangyao will be fine alone in that little room, while he goes to get the water.

Give him, like, ten minutes? Maybe fifteen. It doesn't take that long to find water in any circumstances, particularly not in a place like this, but he has a little episode of crying on a helpful employee that wastes some time. He needs it, and when he returns to Guangyao with a bowl and a glass and some towels (all held by a helpful employee, Huaisang doesn't carry things, psh), his crying is well in hand.

Still alive, bud? Hey?]

San-ge, can you sit up?

[poorlittlesange]

[Much to his deceased Da-ge's eternal disappointment, Jin Guangyao has not expired in the duration of time Nie Huaisang has spent fetching drinking water and other supplies. He shifts on the bed when the door opens again--he's always been a light sleeper, and that doesn't appear to have changed even with the threat of qi deviation--and cracks his eyes open. It's impossible not to smile a little at the sight of Huaisang bossing around a nervous-looking staff member... though maybe the staff member's nerves are due to Jin Guangyao's smile, since his teeth are still a bit red. Awkward.]

Yes, [he says hoarsely, even though he isn't actually sure he can sit up without help,] thank you, Huaisang, guniang, for attending to this one so quickly.

[He pushes himself upright with some difficulty, then looks past Huaisang's shoulders at the sound of approaching footsteps, someone clearly making haste towards this suite (and taking the steps two at a time, since, unlike Jin Guangyao, Lan Xichen has not discovered elevators yet).] --ah, I think that must be Er-ge.