Medeina

Another day, another chapter. We delve a little deeper into magic, but we've gone as far as we can for now. I hope you enjoy!

(AshenLeaf Pov, continued)

After hours of focus on the flow of Harmony in the environment, Ashlynn felt like she had reached a new understanding of the harmony of aspects. She had spent the past hours simply observing the flow, allowing it to flow through her like a ghost rather than trying to integrate herself. She was able to tease out the different aspects of the meadow, from the Big Three: Cheer, childish joy, and peaceful serenity; to the more indistinct ones like pride, determination, femininity, and carefree; as well as the more negative aspects buried beneath the surface, quite literally in the Meadow, like fear, loneliness, and some depression. Each aspect was identifiable with a specific part of the environment. Pride from the brilliance of the sun, Determination in how the sun sparkles on all within its sight, Femininity from the petals of the flowers as they flow in the wind, and Carefree in the way that nothing is strictly defined. Fear hides in the shadows of hills and the depths of the river; loneliness in the rocks beneath the soil, separated by vast swaths of dirt; and depression hides in the shadow of the most minor things, from flowers to blades of grass, stalking the smallest and seemingly most unimportant parts of each aspect, and tries to take them for itself.

Ashlynn sees all these aspects of the environment, and herself. She understands that the meadow is a reflection of all the different aspects that make her, her. She comprehends that to make the next step, she must first bring the aspects within herself into a stronger harmony, and urge the surroundings to reflect that new harmony, rather than bending the surroundings to meet her where she is. She must accept the parts of her that are embarrassing, that are hard to swallow, and the ones she would rather avoid. Not wholly, but marginally. She must make a step in the right direction, and have the environment around her take that next step along with her. 

Focusing inward, she sees how she has two internal harmonies, one a yellowish white, the other a reddish black. Both are weak, but the yellowish-white is sturdier, but not greatly. The yellowish-white ribbon flows through her whole body, passing by small white stars as it flows. Each star, when focused on, gives off the feel of a specific aspect. Bigger stars are stronger, representing more influential roles on her personality, and smaller stars round out the edges, making her a multi-faceted person.

Conversely, the reddish-black ribbon flows primarily between the heart and mind. It has a few black stars it passes, as well as many smaller red stars. Depression lives in the brain, extending tendrils to red stars throughout, darkening anything it touches; Fear in the heart, dousing the excitement in her blood with fear; and loneliness behind the eyes, skewing her perspective to be more alone. The flow of the black ribbon leaches off the harmony within the whitish yellow, preventing it from strengthening. The reddish-black ribbon needs to be weakened before the yellowish-white can grow.

‘Well, if this was a cultivation novel, I’d face an inner Devil tribulation, fight my demons, and they’d be gone, allowing me to Conquer the Heavens!’ She muses, ‘Alas, the game seems to be registering real mental illnesses, and I can’t simply conquer those; they must be treated slowly and steadily. That doesn’t mean that I can’t have breakthroughs, though. And I doubt that they made the game thinking that we all were completely mentally stable, because that would be stupid. So this has to be something manageable.’ Conclusion in mind, she begins to ponder if anything has happened that has changed her feelings about her problems. 

Minutes later, she found herself stumped. She had racked her mind, but nothing she did made sense. She went through all the self-help solutions that she remembered (still as useless as usual), advice she’s been given, and ran through all things her therapist had said… all the things she could remember. Seeing no progress and running out of ideas, she was on the verge of giving up when something in her lap stirred. Her little blue jay shifted marginally before snuggling into her lap again, still peacefully asleep. Feeling joy while watching the scene, a sudden idea struck her. ‘Blue is the key, if I focus on how I’ve felt while together with them, I can loosen the hold that my loneliness has on my psyche, if only a little bit.’

With a new plan, she changes her process. Instead of trying to convince herself that her problems aren’t as bad as they are because so and so said so, she simply focuses on how she feels when she’s with Blue. She relaxes, allowing her shoulders to sink. She pats Blue’s head, noticing the feeling of hair. She strokes it, finding it extends past their shoulders to their upper back. She is curious about the existence of the hair, but knows that she can’t afford to be distracted. So she simply strokes Blue’s hair, combing her fingers through the hair that she determined to be rather curly. While she is combing her fingers through Blue’s hair, she focuses on the feeling of companionship that has filled her since she had grabbed their hand back at the portal/door to the lobby. Thinking back to that moment, she can’t help but smile at her instinctual action. She’d grabbed their hand before she’d even thought it through. Blue had just given off such an intriguing aura, she couldn’t help but indulge in her curious side. She thinks about all the teasing, joking, and playing they’d done, the playful banter, discussions, and jibes. She realizes that they had clicked on a deep level from the instant they met, allowing themselves to share more in a day than they may have otherwise done in weeks.

She has felt how Blue suffered from similar issues to her, perhaps to an even greater degree, if the incident before the central market is anything to go by. But that is almost calming in a way, knowing that Blue would understand her problems, and would be able to relate. As her conscious mind starts to register just how close of a friend Blue has become in the day they’ve known each other, it also begins to see that she wasn’t as alone as before. She isn’t ready to make progress, but she can feel that she is close, very close. But she also understands that she would not be able to harmonize yet, her mind was still scared that Blue would leave her life as fast as they appeared. She’ll need some security before she can truly make any progress. 

(Plus/Josh [Blue] Pov)

I was pulled into partial consciousness by the feeling of something stroking my hair. It was oddly soothing and relaxing, yet also something that I was wholly unfamiliar with, making it feel… odd. It was not enough to wake me, but it was enough to pull me out of sleep. I registered the light of the sun trying to pierce the seam between my eyelids. The bed I was laying on was more rigid than I’m used to, but comfortable. The pillow I was on was warm and soft. For a while, I simply lay there, half asleep, allowing the soothing feeling of my hair being stroked flow through me, allowing the odd feeling to fade. As time continued to pass, the urge to eat began to grow, informing me of the need to wake up fully. After a few more minutes of futile resistance, my stomach grumbled loudly. This otherwise unimportant action became noteworthy due to the response it received: *gurgle* … *giggle* “So you are awake then, my little Blue Jay,” a voice above me asked. 

My mind suddenly snaps to attention, and my eyes quickly open. After a moment of processing, I broadly understood the situation: I am sitting on Ash’s lap, and had likely spent the whole night with her… ‘Well, at least I wasn’t cuddling her, all things considered, this is far from the most embarrassing outcome,’ I thought to myself, unaware that I had, in fact, cuddled her the entire night and had woken her up by snuggling into her bosom. Deciding to play it cool, I yawn and stretch out my arms. 

*Yawn!* *Pop* x4, *Crack* x6, “Well, isn’t it a nice morning” I comment innocently as I nonchalantly rise from Ash’s lap, as though there was nothing of note from my being there.

“Mm, a good morning indeed,” she comments, seemingly allowing me to escape, “How did you sleep?”

Still cautious, I decide to only talk about the quality of the sleep itself. “I slept rather peacefully,” I say, before musing, “I don’t remember waking up in the middle of the night, and I feel rather refreshed. Beyond the slight discomfort from sleeping on the ground, I feel great!”

“That’s good,” she comments, nodding, seemingly innocent, “I’m happy to see that hugging me like a teddy bear all night helped you sleep!”

“Eep,” I respond intelligently while blushing hard.

“Mm, and you looked so cute while you were sleeping, holding on to me like a child would their mother… My cute little Blue Jay,” she teases, reaching over and rustling my hair. I remain motionless, my brain still having trouble processing due to having just woken up. 

“Why’s it short now?” Ash mumbles, barely audible. Not understanding her meaning, I ignore it.

After a few seconds, I decide that the last minute didn’t happen and start a new discussion. “So, what do you want to do next?” 

Ash, looking deeply confused for some reason, takes a second before responding, “Well, I think magic is a bust for me until we get one of those tablets or get a better idea of how the party tokens work.”

“Why’s that?” I ask, perplexed.

“While you were sleeping in my lap, I tried to take my time as you did before harmonizing. I waited until I had a clear feeling of each aspect of the environment and within myself. I found that there are many more aspects than the first three you can sense easily, in the same way as there is more to a person than the first few personality traits you notice in them. In any case, I saw how each aspect contributed to the whole, and how the balance that each has reflects the same aspects within me,” she said before pausing to take in a breath.

Seeing that she is tensing up, I grab her hand and hold it in my own, massaging the top of her hand with my thumb. She lets her breath out, and her shoulders lose some of their tension.

“All of that is well and good,” she continues, “except for the fact that for every light, there is a shadow. Once I looked deeper, discovering the aspects overshadowed by the big three, I also found a counter flow, one that weakens the harmony of the previously mentioned aspects. I saw inconsequential things like small scars from the past, they build who you are, but are not necessarily negative, and small insecurities that I try to repress. Those, on their own, felt like they would only redirect the flow, and in some cases, slow it marginally. The greater issue is that I saw the shadow of the Big Three; I guess I’ll call them the Dark Three. They represented my mental illnesses that play an active role in controlling my life. The Dark Three and all the other negative aspects created their own harmony that ran counter to my Natural Harmony. The Dark Harmony fed off the Natural one, weakening it, and preventing it from growing.” she finished sadly.

“Wait, the game managed to not only discover the different aspects of your personality, your insecurities, and dark secrets, but it also managed to identify your mental illnesses as well! Not only that, but they have locked a critical function of the game off from those suffering from mental illness!” I reply, getting agitated. Ash returns the hand massage, calming me.

“I don’t think so. It didn’t feel like I needed to solve the problem, merely to improve. It felt like I was close to the breakthrough. I just needed to fix one hiccup, and I managed to figure out how while waiting for you to wake.” Ash returns, giving a more reasonable conclusion.

“I mean, that’s still weird though, right? Like, if you have to reach a threshold, and you are just on the cusp of it, then it would imply that the reason we, the players, struggle with magic is due to mental illness, further implying that the natives don’t. On the other hand, if it is the process of taking a step on the road to recovery, what happens to people who have largely fixed their issues and are at peace with themselves? It just doesn’t seem to make sense.” I complain.

“As I said before with the formation of Harmonies, it doesn’t need to make sense; it’s a game. Maybe the designers didn’t think about people at peace with themselves, or those close enough that they don’t recognize the issue. Maybe growing in maturity as a child counts, meaning they have already harmonized before such issues would arise. There are countless possible explanations the game designers could have concocted. The point is that, for now, trying to harmonize is pointless for me.” Ash reasons.

Mollified, I respond, “Yeah, you’re right; it’s just that when the game feels so real, sometimes I can’t help but forget that it is fictional.”

“So true *giggle*.”

“I think I should do the same exercise in my forest, to see where I am, and possibly get insight on what I should do next as you did. What do you think?” I propose.

“Well,” Ash considers, “on the one hand, I now know that the next step for me is to make some coin so I can buy a party token or something. To do so, I was planning on trying the combat orb to see what it does. On the other hand, if you find that you also can’t harmonize due to an issue with your… inner devil… you will probably want to do combat as well.”

“Inner Devil?”

“Ahh, not a reader of cultivation novels? Basically, it’s when a cultivator, the eastern version of a wizard, is trying to essentially level-up, but something goes wrong. The method to level-up is pulling in qi, magical energy, and doing something with it inside their body, while also needing a clear and focused mind, devoid of distraction. If they have regrets, or are plagued by lust or greed or something, then a new current of qi will appear, undoing whatever the cultivator was trying to do, and possibly injuring them.” Ash explains.

“I guess that makes sense, but how does that relate back to Harmonies?”

“Right, so often cultivators have to circulate that qi throughout their body. Sometimes this means they need to hit acupoints and chakras, special points in your body that have either spiritual or physical importance, during the cycle. The ribbon formed by the Harmony has to cross over the stars in your body that represent specific aspects of you. So in strengthening the Harmony, you sorta cultivate. The Dark ribbon acts as a counter flow, trying to interrupt the Natural ribbon, and it is caused by negative thoughts and mental illness. The biggest difference is that I can’t materialize my inner devil into a physical form and just kill it.”

“I see…” I say, not really seeing.

“Okay, how about this. When you tried to harmonize with the environment yesterday, you failed because you enhanced certain aspects and repressed others, right?” She asks.

“Yeah”

“And once you pulled the Harmony out of balance, It began to tear itself apart, forming a visible counter flow.”

“Yup”

“So what if the counterflow that seemingly appeared from nowhere, actually came from the dormant counterflow that already existed, hidden within the shadows of the Harmony? When the Harmony fell apart, the Dark Harmony began to take over, and it began to pull on your internal Harmony as well. When you successfully pulled the aspects back into Harmony, it suppressed the dark Harmony, allowing for the Harmony to recover.”

“Okay, before you continue, I just want to make sure we’re on the same page. We have: External/Environmental Harmony, Internal/Natural Harmony, Dark Harmony/ Inner Devil, Harmonies hold energy/chaos, the travel of that energy is called The Flow, the visible flow of energy in Harmonys is called a ribbon, personality traits exemplified in a Harmony are called aspects, those points inside a body are called stars. I think we need to actually have clarified terms to help us describe things.” I propose after her attempted explanation.

“Why didn’t I think of that before trying to explain stuff? I’m so dumb,” Ash complained, facepalming, “As for the vocab, I think we can simplify that as follows: Environmental Harmony, Internal Harmony: the Harmony within the body, neither positive nor negative, Natural Harmony: positive Internal Harmony, Inner devil: counterflow of Natural Harmony and or negative Internal Harmony, Dark Harmony: counterflow of a Harmony, Mana instead of energy, The Flow, Ribbons, Aspects, Stars, and Features for the parts of an environment that have an aspect. Anything else?”

“Let’s also define the similarity between two Harmonys as their Resonance,” I say, before adding, “Ohh, and I think that the way different Aspects interact within a Harmony should be the Balance of the Aspects.”

“Ok, I think that covers all of it,” she concludes, “Now let me try that last bit again: When the Environmental Harmony fell apart, the Dark Harmony began to take over, and it began to pull on your Internal Harmony as a result. When you successfully pulled the aspects back into balance, it suppressed the Dark Harmony, allowing for the Environmental Harmony to recover.”

After pondering her words, the concept made sense. Everyone has positive and negative aspects. If you allow the negative aspects to go unchecked, they can hijack your life, losing you your friends, job, family, or even life. That would be allowing the ‘Inner Devil’ to take over. ‘Based on what Ash has said, you can weaken your Inner Devil by treating the mental illnesses at its roots, but what about the extremities?’ I wonder.

“Okay, that makes sense. Basically, mental illnesses drain you, and the more you ignore them and let them run free, the worse they get. But what if you work on solving the smaller issues? What if you face your insecurities instead of hiding from them, accept your past: the good, the bad, the ugly, and make it a positive part of you, incorporating it into your Natural Harmony?” I question.

“Hmm, a fair point, but I think this strays a little too far into the territory of actual therapy advice, which is something I’m not qualified to give,” Ash responds after a second of thought.

A few seconds later, Ash says, “Right, as I was saying, I’m thinking about using the combat orb, but if your Dark Harmony interferes with your ability to harmonize, then you should do so as well. If you want, I can come with you so we can do the combat together, or I can do it on my own, but you may end up having to do it regardless.”

“Well, I’d say the only real option there is for you to come along, especially given that harmonizing is only the first step to manipulating mana, and even with that, I’ll still be useless in a fight. But I do see the merit in trying first, just to get a feel for where I am...”

Halfway through my last sentence, Ash had turned and ran off toward the river. At the bottom of the hill, she yells, “Race you to the portal!” A second later, I feel her partially harmonize with the environment. Her pace increases as the Harmony grows, stabilizing at 70% Harmony. Knowing that this is not something I can replicate, I simply run. I am not able to achieve such a state as the only reason I even partially succeeded the other day was a mix of luck and recklessness. Doing the same could lead to a run away cascade of Disharmony. Not worth the risk.

Ash beat me back to the hill, obviously; when I got there, she was sprawled out on the hilltop, absorbing the suns light. Halfway up the hill, she popped up, peering down at me. Once she met my eyes, she began to speak. 

“What brings you to my hill,” she had demanded playfully.

“This poor peasant seeks passage to greener, more forested pastures, milady,” I now respond before bowing.

“Poor lad, well this fair maiden can agree to your wish, as long as you agree to bring her along on your journey,” She responds primly.

“You are welcome to come, milady, though I fear you think me someone I’m not. I’m no hero or knight, nor am I on a quest for fame or fortune; I’m but a simple peasant seeking better opportunities.” I respond with faux respect.

“I care not, shall we go?” she questions.

“We shall,” I proclaim, meeting her at the top of the hill.

Medeina

 I hope you liked the further insight into the magic system, and are intrigued by its mysteries. I also hope it is apparent that I've played with my use of tense, hopefully in such a way that is both intuitive and flowy. If not, let me know; I'm still trying to settle into a style.

I am aware and understand the concerns around the extended introduction period. Know that there is an epic story to tell, and know that what you have seen, even with the magic, is only the tip of the ice burg