26 January 2024

What would Malenia do in the world of Genshin Impact? Other than wreck everything, I mean.

Malenia said nothing for several minutes. “This world is too cheerful.”

“Eh. Sure, Teyvat certainly has a different feel to it than the Lands Between, but… its got its own shadows. Come, follow me.”

I led the goddess incumbent up Starsnatch cliff toward Dragonspine. I’m pretty sure I kept our arrival secret from the bastards on Celestia; from what I’ve seen, they wouldn’t take too kindly to our arrival.

The monsters die swiftly. The only surprise comes when the ruin guard near the Temple of a Thousand Winds caught sight of Malenia during a waterfowl, and even that wasn’t too much trouble. I don’t think anyone knows what to make of her; she is colored like a pyro character, but if there’s one element she’s not connected to, it’s fire. …Isn’t she basically a dendro character?

“Why is the lightning on this gods-forsaken world purple, of all things?” Malenia grumbled.

I blink. “I…actually don’t know. Let me check.” A quick, out-of-universe google study later, and… “Huh. In real life, natural lightning tends to look more purple. Maybe in the Lands Between, it looked yellow because of its association with grace and the Golden Order?”

Malenia nodded, musing on that as she impaled the hilichurl archer who’d prompted the question. SHe looked across the river, at the snowy foothills of Dragonspine. She took a deep breath in and commented, “Smells like home.”

“What, snow and the ever-present sense of danger?”

Malenia gave me a noncommittal grunt and jumped across the river. I sighed, then whistled for Torrent so I could follow behind. No sense in freezing to death before I even make it to the Nail.

19 April 2023

I was dead tired, and needed something random. So I went back to the White room.

Heads up, by the way. I might be shifting my layout and/or schedule in the near future for this, to better align with my goals for it. A way to make the stories more complete/accessible to anyone who’d come for them, and adding on more of my writing process for those more interested in that. My only concern is that’s going to be a time commitment, and I don’t really have an excess of that (not that I’ve met anyone who does). There’ll be a more official update post once I’ve actually got it figured out/working.

Alright, now where was I? Ah, yes. Locked door in the Ebony room. Well, what do I have to work with? There's a couch in each room; all there cushions, as well. And in the White room, at least, there was a loudspeaker; is there one here in the Ebony room, too? It seems like it would be harder to spot…

Ah, yep, there it is. Gut feeling says the solution is going to do with those, somehow, which is awkward. They’re just high enough to be effectively out of reach, and I don’t have step stools here. Oh well. No matter.

Just in case, I look under each of the couches and pull all the cushions off, to make sure the key didn’t fall (or get stuffed) between them.

I briefly consider cutting open the cushions, but I don’t have a knife, so that’d be difficult. All I’ve got are my keys, and, well, I don’t think it’s worth the effort. Instead, I head to the White room and drag the barren couch so the armrest is directly under the speaker.

I get a mental image of someone else landing here and seeing all this sprawled out like I have it. The couch cushions strewn about, the couch shifted out of place. For some reason, to me, it’s a funny image.

8 April 2023

This was surprisingly fun to write. I was dead tired that evening; I’d just gotten back from a family Easter lunch thing, and it was already pretty late by the time I could sit down and write. So I just wrote whatever came to mind. I’d just finished Brandon Sanderson’s A Frugal Wizard’s Guide to Surviving Medieval England earlier that week, so the concept of white room exercises was stuck in my head. And it wound up coming out more literally than expected.

I don’t know if I’ll ever visit again. It’s a little strange to be creating the puzzle as you solve it, if that makes sense. But it’s kinda fun, too, so it’s possible.

I’m in a room; everything is bright white. Not that there’s much there. Walls, a sofa…I do eventually spot a door off to the right.

Do I still remember who I am? Yes. Just another avatar for the author, poking around the strange corners of my mind. No matter. It’s not amnesia, at least.

As soon as I acknowledge that, a voice blares from the loudspeaker hidden near the ceiling. “That’s not what it means to do a white room writing exercise, Cloud.” While it is easy enough to understand the words, the voice is not one I recognize; the speakerphone reverb does a good job masking it.

I just smile up and say, “And? What of it?” Rather than wait for a response I head through the door–not locked, fortunately–into another room.

I half-expected to find dreary office cubicles, wit my actions narrated by the voice from the Stanley Parable, but that’s not what I see. Instead, I walk into a room that is all a glossy ebony color. It’s almost a mirror to the first, with a sofa and little else, though there is an additional door opposite the one I’m standing in.

Even from over here, I can tell that door won’t open as simply as this one, if it even opens at all. There’s a puzzle of some kind to these two rooms, bare as they are, and I’ll have to figure it out if I want to proceed.

Perhaps another day, however. I am quite exhausted. Does the black couch have a pull-out bed?