[SP-F6] <<Calming the Soul>> Knocking on the Sky (Complete!)

[Aetharan 0]

After the fifth or sixth time that an NPC had told him he needed to chill out, Aetharan decided that just maybe he should look into those rumors of a waterfall on the sixth floor that, by all accounts, made the perfect place to sit down and work on one's own mental health.  You're a bucket of crazy, Aeth, and you know it.  Maybe it's time to try to do something about that.  Yeah.  That necessitated another trip into that uncomfortable jungle area, but it seemed to be a trip down a safe path and into a well-protected area.  He wasn't going to have to deal with any monsters other than himself, and as much of a monster as he suspected that he was, at least that was one beast that he knew wasn't trying to kill him!

The trip itself, from arrival in Amazon to reaching the waterfall, was uneventful.  That much was beneficial.  A quiet walk was always a good thing.  Before he knew it, he was standing on the edge of that pool of water, looking out over the Waterfall of the Sage.  "Well, then...  that rock looks like it was just designed for standing or kneeling on for some classic meditation-under-the-waterfall trope indulgence.  I wonder if it's as calming as people say."

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(Out of Combat recovery.  HP improves to 7/23.)

Rolling to check whether Battle Healing procs.  It doesn't.

(ID# 29505 results: Battle: 7 Craft: 6 Loot: 10 MOB: 9)

Edited August 30, 2015 by Aetharan

[Aetharan 0]

How had Flynn put it in the second Tron?  The man had been knocking on the sky, and listening to the sound.  That was how the movie had chosen to depict meditation, and for a hippie trapped in a digital world, it seemed to work.  The man had certainly been mellow.  Grinning, Aeth decided that the only way to find out whether this was going to work was to try it.  That's why he was here, wasn't it?  He waded across the pool to that rock and climbed onto it, glad for the hand-holds that it provided without managing to be jagged.

Once in position under the water, he assumed a lotus position.  It was amazing how much easier that was to do in this world, after all those years in the real one being unable to hold it for more than five minutes at a time without his knees screaming in agony.  Eyes drifted closed, and he focused on steadying his breathing.  Now would come another bit of fun from popular culture that he'd found actually did work for him-- he began to clear his mind by focusing on the image of a single flame, as if disembodied from a candle, and feeding his decidedly difficult-to-corral thoughts into it.

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(Out of Combat recovery.  HP improves to 8/23.)

On second thought, there's no real point in checking Battle Healing anyway.  This thread's quest is one of writing, not combat.  By the time it's done, normal recovery should cap Aeth's HP.

[Aetharan 0]

He could do this.  It wasn't as if he was trying to learn to Channel or something stupid like that, after all.  Just collect his thoughts.  Try to bring order to the chaos that was his own mind.  That wasn't such a difficult proposition, was it?  There were keys to success in this kind of thing, and ultimately, they had a tendency to creep (if in corrupted forms) into fantasy literature even when authors weren't the type of person one might expect to meditate.  The flame and the void were useful tools, as a mental construct.  On the flip side of that was the body-- Inhale through the nose, for the duration of seven heartbeats.  Exhale through the mouth, using the same count.  As the mind calmed and the heart slowed, the breath would follow suite.  Seven in, seven out, and feed all but the numbers into the fire.  Embrace the void that remains.  Seven in, and seven out.

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(Out of Combat recovery.  HP improves to 9/23.)

[Aetharan 0]

He wasn't sure how long it took, but eventually the breathing trick started to run by itself automatically.  When he'd tried this in the real world from time to time, though never under a waterfall, it had usually taken him about a half an hour to get to the point where his breath was this steady without him having to concentrate on it.  Now that it was, though, he could begin to let his mind drift-- if only very, very cautiously.  The key at this point was to start picking and choosing which random thoughts he fed into that imaginary flame, and which he instead picked up to inspect more closely.

He needed to keep his focus.  Inspiration?  Yes, inspiration.  There, in one corner of his mind, a track he'd not listened to in years, yet in this calm, one that he could recall perfectly.  The music would help, and the spoken words...  they were fitting.

"For my own part, I have never I have never had a thought which I could not set down in words with even more distinctness than that with which I conceived it. There is, however, a class of fancies of exquisite delicacy which are not thoughts, and to which as yet I have found it absolutely impossible to adapt to language. These fancies arise in the soul, alas how rarely. Only at epochs of most intense tranquility, when the bodily and mental health are in perfection. And at those weird points of time, where the confines of the waking world blend with the world of dreams. And so I captured this fancy, where all that we see, or seem, is but a dream within a dream."

What more fitting way was there to describe trying to meditate in this virtual world?

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(Out of Combat recovery.  HP improves to 10/23.)

[Aetharan 0]

The recitation had helped, and although he had initially intended to embrace that mental construct of the void, it now filled with the calming music of that half-forgotten album.  The works of Poe paid tribute by Parsons.  It was soothing.  Waters may no longer be still, but the ripples were those caused by a gentle waterfall.  Fitting, considering where he was.  What he was doing.  Yes, this would do.  Music was allowed to stay, and just like that it was a non-issue.  No different than the void had been before, serving as a background while he sifted through his thoughts and looked for one to pick up.

There!  That one.  All of his turmoil had, in one way or another, focused around this thought.  Break Aincrad.  This locus wasn't the true core of the problem, but it did lay at the center of the maelstrom.  He struggled for strength with that goal in mind, the breaking of this world.  It was the reason he trained.  The reason he strove to grow stronger, in game terms, and the reason that he worked his skills as a smith.  He was forging weapons-- forging himself into a weapon-- with the singular goal of utterly destroying this world in which he'd found himself trapped.

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(Out of Combat recovery.  HP improves to 11/23.)

[Aetharan 0]

He had to continue digging.  The breaking of Aincrad was not the core, just a stepping stone in this journey.  He knew that he had to do it.  If not him, then somebody else.  There was no way that any of them were getting out of here alive unless either he or one of the others met that goal.  Aincrad must be beaten, or they were all going to be corpses.  That was only logical...  and yet logic was not the reason that he was so devoted to the cause.  So why?

Break Aincrad, as it broke Aaron.  Oh, so now he was beginning to look beneath the surface.  The man that Aetharan had been, and had killed so that he could emerge as a force in this world.  Aincrad had broken Aaron.  That man had logged into this game, expecting to kill a few hours at a time to make his life feel less empty...  and when the news had hit that he, along with everybody else, was trapped here, Aaron had been one of those who absolutely crumbled.

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(Out of Combat recovery.  HP improves to 12/23.)

Edited August 30, 2015 by Aetharan
Forgot to include the healing note.

[Aetharan 0]

That was getting closer to the core, wasn't it?  He wanted to destroy Aincrad, and not to win like everybody else probably did.  No.  Aetharan was after something more personal.  This was a blood feud.  He was trying to kill this game out of a sense of vengeance.  It wasn't just for Aaron, though.  No.  The wound to his own psyche had been one thing, but Aaron had always been...  weak.  Sensitive.  Easy to hurt.  Quick to cry.  Even the greatest emotional wound he'd ever suffered before, his divorce, hadn't been able to drive him into a blood-seeking vendetta.  So what was it?

What in the world had focused him so sharply on retribution?

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(Out of Combat recovery.  HP improves to 13/23.)

[Aetharan 0]

It was that house he'd been sheltered in during his fugue.  He wasn't the only one who'd broken, after all.  Not even on that first day.  Some had recovered.  Of that, he was vaguely aware.  Others had regained just enough faculty to walk out that door and find a cliff to leap from.  As the stress continued to build, others had cracked.  Beds once emptied by a suicide had been filled again by those newly fallen into despair.  And that was it, wasn't it?  Aetharan wasn't fighting to take revenge for Aaron.  Aaron wasn't worth the effort.

The others, though...  they needed a voice.  They needed to be avenged.  Every tear fallen, every heart wracked with despair, was an insult that this world needed to pay for.  He could serve as that voice.  An avatar of vengeance for the broken.

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(Out of Combat recovery.  HP improves to 14/23.)

[Aetharan 0]

That wasn't a healthy attitude to take, and he knew it.  That train of thought was drifting down philosophical roads traveled not by the hero of the story, but by the villain.  Oh, they were often the most tragically easy ones to relate to, but that didn't make them better people.  Aetharan was not Full Frontal.  He was not a vessel to be filled with the desires of the people.  Trying to pretend that this cause, this roaring rampage of revenge, was him?  That would lead to a very bad end.  No, he had to live for himself.  He could not let his soul be subsumed by his mission.

That meant that he had to look more deeply at something that he really didn't want to.  Aetharan had to look at Aaron.  He knew why he'd chosen the mission that he did, and he believed it to be a righteous one, but he had to dig out why he needed a mission so badly at all.

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(Out of Combat recovery.  HP improves to 15/23.)

(Aetharan gained a level.  HP improves to 17/25.)

Edited August 30, 2015 by Aetharan
Added level-up message.

[Aetharan 0]

So, the question now existed:  Why was Aetharan-- no, Aaron-- striving so hard to fill his life with a purpose?  With this purpose?  Ah, but the reason for that was all too simple, wasn't it?  Until this world, he'd been what?  A waiter.  One with a bad knee, on top of that, so even that career didn't have much longer to run before he was physically incapable of keeping it going.  He was one who lived to serve, and actually took pleasure in those hours of bringing others happiness...  but he was alone.  No family to take care of.  Not even any pets depending on him to serve as their can-opener.

That was it, wasn't it?  In that other world, Aaron didn't have a purpose.  If he died in that hospital bed, he would be given a pauper's funeral.  It'd be the last verse of Eleanor Rigby.  He'd be buried along with his name.  Nobody attending to hear the sermon except for those who had dug the graves.  In that world, Aaron was a nobody.  Here...  Aetharan could make something out of himself.

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(Out of Combat recovery.  HP improves to 18/25.)

[Aetharan 0]

Yeah, that was it.  He was one of those who could honestly say that he didn't really have a life worth mentioning in that other world to go back to.  He wasn't fighting for his freedom, because here was just as good as there, for him.  Probably better, in some ways.  The thing was, there were thousands dead already, even before the first floor has been cleared.  True, that had slowed down a lot after a bit, but people were still dying by the day, and others were just flat-out giving up.  Just like he had on the first day.

"I'm not a hero.  I never was, and never will be.  What I can be, though...  I can be an avenging angel.  I can become death, here.  It may not be a healthy life, but it's a life.  I woke up the other day, after who knows how long in that fugue, and I woke up with a purpose.  Whether I came to it on my own, or I'm being helped along by some doctor...  it all boils down to a simple truth.  Here, I can help.  Here, there are thousands of little sisters to protect.  They may not be mine, but their big brothers aren't here, are they?  Somebody's gotta do their job by proxy."

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(Out of Combat recovery.  HP improves to 19/25.)

[Aetharan 0]

Alright, so he'd accepted that however this death game ended, the him in the other world wasn't one of the people he could save.  He was oddly at peace with that, and something told him that he really shouldn't be.  Oh well.  He'd given up on Aaron years ago, truth be told.  Aetharan hadn't been born here in SAO.  It was just the first time he'd truly had a body of his own to wear.  It could be worse, now that he thought on it.  This persona may be taking over where his creator had left off, but there could be peace in that.  Aaron may go out peacefully, dying in his sleep, while Aaron did his damnedest to die a hero.

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(Out of Combat recovery.  HP improves to 20/25.)

[Aetharan 0]

That, right there, was the very center of the problem.  He couldn't be a hero, not really, but he wanted to die as one.  His greatest fear, and darkest demon...  was that he was terrified of his life and death ultimately meaning nothing.  Death wasn't something to be afraid of.  Not on its own.  Dying alone wasn't even all that bad.  Dying without having made a difference...  that was the soul-breaker.  He'd crumbled because he knew, in his heart of hearts, that he wasn't getting out of Aincrad alive.  Even if he breaks it, now that he has this sense of purpose, he doesn't believe that he'll live through that breaking.  He didn't want to die without having made a difference in this world, though.

He had to go out with his ledger in the black.

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(Out of Combat recovery.  HP improves to 21/25.)

[Aetharan 0]

Aetharan's reflection in the water stared back up at him, and in his near trance-like state, he heard it speak.  It was his own voice, of course, but it wasn't Aetharan speaking, was it?  No.  It was Aaron.  "So, you've figured it out, have you?" asked the reflection.  "Now you know why I made you in the first place.  How does it make you feel, Aetharan?  What meaning does your life have, if not to serve the purpose for which I crafted you?"  That reflection, at least in his mind's eye, seemed to be glaring at him accusingly.

Taken aback, Aetharan straightened up.  "I...  I don't know what you're talking about."

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(Out of Combat recovery.  HP improves to 22/25.)

[Aetharan 0]

That other self seemed to be sitting just in front of him now, face to face in the same pose as it smirked.  As Aaron smirked.  "I've accepted what I am, but you can't.  Me?  I'm a vegetable right now.  In a hospital bed somewhere, being kept alive by machines.  At some point, they're going to give up and unplug me.  I'll go on to the Summerlands.  There, I'll have my time to cry over all the things I couldn't do.  All the debts I still owed when I died.  All the people I hurt over the years.  You?  What do you have?"

Shaking his head, Aetharan growled.  "I have purpose.  I'll have had meaning, if only in this world.  At least this death game is real.  The world may not be, but the people in it, and the actions they take, are very real.  To me, and to every other player here.  You have your ledger, and I have mine.  I don't care what yours looks like, because you stopped writing in it the day our place in this world was handed over to me.  My ledger may be starting with some debts in it...  but unlike you, I can do something to pay them back."

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(Out of Combat recovery.  HP improves to 23/25.)

[Aetharan 0]

Aaron laughed in his face.  "Pay them back how?  What can you do in this world, hm?  You gonna stab a few pixels with your pointy stick and call it a win?  Pathetic.  All those monsters you've been fighting, they just re-spawn.  You're not making a difference at all.  You're just deluding yourself, punk."

Aetharan wanted to reach out and strangle that other self.  "It's called training, you prick.  You should know.  How many hundreds of hours did you waste in WoW, leveling character after character to the level cap?  I need stats and gear, and when I get there, I can start to make a difference.  Safety margins for the raid victories.  Helping clear the bosses that don't re-spawn.  You know the basics of how it all works.  The more DPS there is on our side, the faster the boss goes down.  The faster it dies, the less it can hurt the others...  and in this game, where HP 0 is death in the real world too, that kind of damage mitigation means everything."

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(Out of Combat recovery.  HP improves to 24/25.)

[Aetharan 0]

That reflection shook its head at him, murmuring in a tone that sounded on the edge of despair.  "So, you really are just going to stab at some ones and zeros and call it a day?  You don't get it--"

"No, you don't get it!" Aetharan shouted back at him.  "You're still thinking of this as just playing a game, and it's not.  It hasn't been since we all learned what happens when your HP hits nil.  There are two ways out of this death game.  We die, here and in that other world, or we beat the hundredth-floor boss and everybody who's still alive gets to go home.  The more people there are strong enough to fight on the front lines, the faster the game ends in a good way.  The more of us there are ready to take the fight to any given boss, the less likely there are to be casualties on the way to victory."

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(Out of Combat recovery.  HP improves to 25/25.)

[Aetharan 0]

Aaron looked him in the eye for a long while, before speaking again in that soft tone of his.  "So, what's your plan then?  You going to give it your all, grind by yourself until you're ready to show up at the door in front of the next boss fight?  Just announce yourself to the raid-group as their backup?"

Aetharan chuckled softly at that.  "I'd thought about it, yeah.  More likely, when I'm ready, I'll start making a few contacts.  Don't need a guild, though.  The important part is that I can only make a real difference in this world by poking holes in the floor bosses.  Nothing else that I, or anybody else does, gets us any closer to ending this game.  If I'm going to die, it's going to be there...  making a difference.  I'm not you, Aaron.  I'm not going to just go peacefully into the night.  I'm going to take enough of this world with me to make a difference."

[Aetharan 0]

The two of them just sat there for a moment, neither willing to be the first to look away.  Again, it was Aaron who finally spoke.  "In other words, you're resolved to make sure that you-- that we-- don't die without having made an imprint in this world, right?"

Aetharan nodded in response.  "Yeah.  That's pretty much the long and short of it.  Was always your biggest fear, wasn't it?  That you'd go out with a whimper, and nobody would ever even know you'd existed other than your immediate family, right?  That when it's all said and done, your life would have been for nothing?  Well, I'm not going down without a fight.  Back there, in the Starting City, I was a burden.  I was holding others back, just by doing nothing.  Now...  now I'm going to keep pushing until not only am I strong enough to stand on my own, but can help carry somebody else."

[Aetharan 0]

"Listen," said Aaron, "If that's how it's going to be...  well...  I guess I just don't want you to write me off quite yet.  I'm not as strong as you.  Never was, never could be.  That's why I dreamed you up in the first place...  but...  I may not be good enough to be out there on the front lines, in any world, but I don't want to watch you lose.  If things start looking bleak, then don't go all berserker rage, okay?  Take a few moments to calm down.  Use the flame and the void.  Think of me, and think of all those people you've promised not to let down, okay?  I always wrote you as having heroic resolve.  Well, here's your chance, okay?  You've taken on a life of your own, real quick, and I know you've got that resolve.  Don't let it waver."

"So, is that how it's going to be?  Pinning all your hopes on me, huh...  as if I didn't already have enough of a mountain on my shoulders.  Still, it's fine.  I can do it, Aaron.  For you, for myself, and for everybody who's too scared to make it to the front lines.  I'm going to take the battle to the top...  and I'll carry you with me.  Don't have a choice."