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wwx and lwj fall on exalted
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This invasion has not been going well.

Well. It was going well, oh... Four hours ago. Quite well. She had three times as many troops besieging Great Forks as they had defending, the defenders were either under-trained or foreign or both, their cover meant nothing to the accuracy of her archers' charm-guided arrows, she'd killed any commanders dumb enough to stand where her arrows could reach them on the first day, and she'd successfully gotten a strike squad inside the walls without anyone noticing a few hours before - thanks be to Luna on high -

And then midnight struck with a vengeance.

She'd gotten the first warning in the frantic blast of a horn and the rumble of drums - one of their rear positions was being besieged -

She'd gotten the second when an enemy fortification she was distinctly not attacking caught on fire -

The third, a rolling chill, and a low moan reverberating, the wind suddenly dying -

Luna's face began to tinge the color of blood.

And then the dead began to rise.

She's pivoted, since, stood down her active attacks against the city - sent envoys calling for an emergency cease fire - put her hidden strike force on standby -

She's contemplating how to evacuate the city she'd been trying to conquer - she's contemplating if she'll have to - if they'll let her, but the dead are pouring through cracks in the cobblestones and food is shriveling and sooner or later they'll try to flee, and the bulk of the dead are rising inside the city -

She gets into a shouting match with the gate guards, as the majority of her army sits and does nothing since the dead on her flanks are easily handled so far -

Then his position gets mostly overrun by war ghosts climbing the walls from within. Her archers shoot down whatever ghosts they can sight.

It takes an agonizing half hour, but - a conditional surrender comes, and the gate opens. Flags of truce tied to their banners, her army sweeps into the streets, her voice echoing from every stone as she orders them to protect the civilians and stop the dead from slaughtering everyone. Her personal guard forms around her as she plunges for the central temple where the city's three gods rule. Her owl scouts wing out into the city, searching for the enemy commander.

The scene quickly turns into chaos, not every disparate unit of Great Forks' defenders accepting the changed situation - obviously she's going to hold the city after this, she's not going to just back out and pretend they didn't let her in - there's at least five living armies with a notable presence, civilians mostly hiding but sometimes forced into the streets, and the dead interspersed among them.

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Wei Wuxian and Lan Zhan are only feet away from their inn when the snake monster appears. It's late, and pleasant out: damp and quiet and dark. Ideal conditions for towing your drunk friend stealthily away from mischief. The street is deserted aside from the two of them.

Until it is not; suddenly the street is deserted except for the two of them and a snake monster.

"Lan Zhan - quick, go to our room -" He shoves Lan Zhan at the inn door and then the snake-thing lunges and it's strange mirror-face is very close and - 

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Then he is not very nearby the inn at all and there is lots of noise and the fierce dead are everywhere.

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oh no why aren't they still holding hands.........

snake......(?????)

 

it's loud now why is it loud

 

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It appears to be loud on account of all the people attempting to murder (or re-murder) each other! The road here is broad, paved with round flat stones, shops with small apartments above them lining the street - a dark banner lies trampled, with a geometric insignia neither's ever seen on it -

And soldiers in a mixture of armor types and apparent loyalties fight a swarm of the fierce dead, ghosts sometimes manifesting just long enough to strike. Bodies lie everywhere - fierce corpses damaged enough they can only drag themselves along, freshly slain warriors not yet arisen...

Animals dart among the dead, too, moving more swiftly than the humans, many of them armored or bearing strange mutations - one tiger has armor made of mushrooms growing out of its skin and is leading a small unit of other animals.

Soldiers bearing the same insignia as the animals guard the shops, preventing the dead from climbing to where the living are hiding.

It's nighttime, the gibbous moon the color of blood, the stars all dark.

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Well this is fucking terrible.

He whips out his flute and starts playing, with the aim of getting as many of these chaotic things happening around him as possible to stop. Maybe the dead would like to chill the fuck out?

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The dead chill the fuck out! Though most of them keep jerking, like something is also encouraging them to super not chill.

Some soldiers keep trying to bash them to pieces; the soldiers that seem to be better organized take this as an opportunity to regroup and start dragging everyone's wounded inside the shops where they can be more safely tended to.

There's screams from elsewhere in the city, and the resentful energy around them is building rapidly.

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BAD. TERRIBLE. Get the resentful energy away from his Wei Ying it is not allowed to be here. 

Wangji aggressively leans against Wei Ying and draws his sword, prepared to stab anything that comes near them. Now that he's in the ideal strategic position, he just needs to not get distracted by Wei Ying's beautiful flute playing or his beautiful hands or the shape of his lips when he blows the flute. 

 

 

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He fails to not be distracted by Wei Ying's lips.

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Alright good, those fierce corpses had better continue chilling the fuck out if they know what's good for them. 

The screaming is pretty concerning, on top of everything else. (Everything else is already so exceptionally fucking concerning.) Wei Wuxian wants to get closer and figure out who is being hurt, but he's not sure if he should bring Lan Zhan further into the chaos. He definitely can't leave Lan Zhan alone.

If he tries walking gradually towards the screaming, will Lan Zhan follow him? Will anything become abruptly more dangerous in their surroundings?

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Lan Zhan follows unsteadily, because how else will he continue observing Wei Ying's lips? He glares at anything within too close proximity to Wei Ying including animals, inanimate corpses, and Suspicious Rocks. 

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Seems to be: more fierce corpses, surrounded by a buffer of the walking dead who didn't hear him the first time (they have all now realized the value of chilling the fuck out) and a monstrosity made of many squished together corpses, sixteen feet tall, who still needs to be convinced to chill (now that the other dead are standing there twitching the nearby miscellaneous soldiers are focusing on trying to re-kill the monstrosity, while the well trained group of soldiers start evacuating some wounded civilians - and all the civilians, actually, though there's not many around here anymore).

The monstrosity does, however, seemed to have noticed the very suspicious flute music! It's now lumbering towards Wei Wuxian, trampling any fierce corpses in its path.

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BAD. Perhaps this monstrosity would be interested in getting FUCKING OBLITERATED because that is what's going to happen!

Wangji soars at the lumbering monstrosity and slices Bichen through its midsection, twirling to land on his feet on its other side.

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It falls over! Still twitching, but decidedly not A Threat.

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Yeah Thats Fucking Right

Wangji stabs it three more times to be safe. Now he should probably go on to stab anything else that moves in this vicinity for optimal Wei Ying Safety.

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nnNNNno or maybe not that!!

Wei Wuxian drops the flute from his lips and runs after him, grabbing Lan Zhan by the arm. "Aaaah, ah, Lan Zhan! Hey, Lan Zhan, it's okay! The monster's dead, see? All dead! You did a good job! You can stay put now, yeah?"

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wei ying's hand is on his arm

 

wow

This is probably worth taking a break from killing everything that moves. 

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"Okay, good! Good boy, Lan Zhan, just stay right here."

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g o o d  b o y 

wow

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...it is impossible to tell how much Lan Zhan is listening to him or how much he understands about what is going on right now - probably very little??? Lan Zhan hasn't appeared to understand Any Things since he drank his one shot of wine a few hours ago. 

Now that Wei Wuxian stopped playing the flute, have the fierce dead resumed moving?

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They seem to be being continually controlled, so the other controller is starting to reassert - they're twitching a bit -

And then a silver light like a small moon blazes over the city, from the highest spire - the curls of silver flame form a starry tiger in their negative space, stripes silver and eyes like meteors -

There's maybe someone inside the conflagration.

And a woman's voice echoes from every stone -

"Enemies of creation! The light of Luna is upon you - flee, or be destroyed utterly!"

The vast majority of the risen dead do, in fact, begin to flee, away from the spooky sky tiger.

Dark shapes flit through the sky, aiming for that same spooky sky tiger.

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...is he an enemy of creation. That sounds like the kind of thing someone would call him.

He has no idea what the light of Luna is or how spooky sky tigers come to exist. Spooky sky tiger seems very cool, though.

He will go back to playing, trying to channel the fleeing dead around him so that they don't trample anyone. He keeps his eyes on the sky tiger.

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pretty

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(The dead are still controllable by him but really really do not want to be anywhere near this person. The well organized soldiers cheer, and begin focusing almost entirely on evacuations and emergency medicine.)

Spooky sky tiger appears to be fighting someone or something! 

Or, at least, something in its general vicinity explodes.

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He flinches and his playing stutters, hands gripping the wooden flute too tightly.

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Unacceptable.

Wei Ying must be protected from explosions. Wangji picks Wei Ying up off the ground and starts walking Away from the sky tiger.

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