Quest available: All Along The Watchtowers

Redeem Meng Yao. ????

Success: +8,000 XP, a perk point, ????
Failure: ???

Is he likely to succeed? Not really.

Is he still going to try? Yes.

He accepts the quest.

He is alone for a very, very, very long time. 

Meng Yao seems to be giving him time to think about it.

Also she presumably has other things she's got to do than just convince him to not be a wizard?

He investigates his cell. He doesn't expect the door to be unlocked or anything, but it would be very embarrassing if it wasn't and he never checked.

It is locked!

Other than a bed, the cell is entirely empty. There are no windows and nothing that gives a sense of how much time has passed.

... don't casinos do that thing of not having windows? He can see why Miss Meng might be going for a... casino of bad vibe here.

Does he have his phone still on him? Not that he expects to get reception, but still. Would be silly to not check.

No phone! Nothing to do but introspect. 

... yeah, that sounds about right.

He lies down and tries his level best not to introspect.

Some unknowable amount of time later, Meng Yao returns. 

"Did you know," she says companionably, "that Wizard's Body means you can't die?"

... this cannot be going anywhere good.  "That sounds about right? I did check." Which makes it sound like something drastic. "-- in a mild way."

"It's an interesting fact," Meng Yao says. "And, you know, I only have to make you genuinely want not to be a wizard anymore. As soon as you do, poof, it goes away."

... and also he'd die, which he'd ideally like to avoid? "I-i see."

"Don't worry," Meng Yao assures him, "the One is nice. Always a very nice entity. If you ever give up, you'll be healed back to normal."

"Just the once." While she is presumably still there and very capable of killing him. (Not that she would, but...)

"I'm not going to hurt you again," she says. "I swear on my magic. If you give up, you can walk out."

There's a version of him, somewhere out in the multiverse, who walks out. Who stops being a wizard and lives a much more boring if still improved life.

... and if he did that, he would be breaking the Oath that he took, even what proof that he could bring joy.

"You know I'm not going to do that."

"Well, we'll find out."

And she does.

The unstoppable force versus the immovable object: his knowledge of his human frailty and lack of willpower, versus "but I made a promise."

It's.. awful. And it's awful how it's easier if he focuses on how she's hurting herself, how she's making herself a worse person and he has to try to fix that.

It's easier too, if he remembers the only way he survives this is with Wizard's Body. Sure, she says he won't die if he gives up,  but-- the Ordeal can kill you and stopping being a wizard sure seems to be a way that could happen.

He's gaining a fascinating knowledge of anatomy. Not that many people can say they've looked at their own small intestine. 

The +1 WIZ from it feels like a sick joke.

The anatomy knowledge is probably not that applicable to other people. He's pretty sure spleens aren't meant to do that.

Gaining power through eldritch knowledge is at least... traditional? Though if he could get a deeper understanding of wizardry some other way,  that would be great.

And then, hours that feel like days later, the torment is over. 

Now, if you'll excuse him, he's going to be curled up in a corner pretending that didn't happen.

He can do that! No one will stop him.

They also won't feed him.

He can't die but he can get very, very hungry. 

Which is wildly unpleasant, but he'll live.

And he'll get out. He has to. He'll get out and eat what he wants and cuddle Wei Wuxian and and and--

(It may become a bit of a chant in his head.)

Meng Yao arrives again, an eternity later, once he's slept and healed.