Highs and Lows

"Did you enjoy yourself, Father?"

"Yeah, actually," John beamed, smiling brightly. "It was nice to get to see a side of the Abyss that wasn't all about killing and fighting - well, not the kind that doesn't involve dice, anyway."

"I am glad. Are we going back to the Order's manor straight away?"

"Yeah, I'm all done for the day. I just didn't want to be out here alone in case something happened. After Bella somehow got all the way to Springfield unnoticed, I'm not eager to give
anyone even more chances to surprise us."

John activated Barrier Walker as soon as they were outside of the Abyssal Market's own Barrier, and the two of them quickly took to the skies.

"The day is nearing its end; is there anything you want to do once we return to our world?" Sophia asked, loud enough to be heard over the quiet winds carrying John.

"No, you can go to bed whenever you want, or find something else to do if you prefer. I'm going to fiddle with a few new gadgets I picked up tonight thanks to Layla, and tomorrow is Lerianna's day, so hopefully things should be fairly quiet for a while.

"...I probably should have waited until we got home to say that..."

In spite of John's tempting of fate, they made it back to his new world without issue or ambush. Even his own domain was surprisingly quiet – by the time they returned, the Nekos were down for a nap, old and young alike, and most of the others had settled into their rooms for the evening.

John was surprised to see that among the few still out and about was Lerianna. Seeing her up and moving wasn’t much of a surprise in itself. John had grown somewhat used to the bunnygirl rising and sleeping at strange hours, often going off in the middle of the night to do sprints or train. Since advancing Gamer’s Body to the point he didn’t have to sleep, he’d caught a lot of quirks of his creations like that. But this was the first time he’d ever found her sitting in the lobby area of their little living quarters calmly reading a book.

It was also the first time John could remember her looking so excited to see him arrive.

“John! Hey, listen, about tomorrow. Could you swing by my room in the morning?” Lerianna asked, voice a little quieter than normal despite the lack of audience.

“Oh, sure. You already know what you want to do? If you want, we could start now, I can always mess around with these-”

“No, no, that’s fine. I need some sleep anyway… With this thing on, I don’t have as much, uh, energy as I normally do,” Lerianna said, a slight grimace coming across her face. “Just come by early, before everyone else is up and around, alright? It won’t take long.”

“Oh, uh, alright?” John said, not quite sure how to respond. Lerianna seemed totally unperturbed by his confusion, giving John a quick thumbs up before she trotted toward the stairs, one finger still wedged between the pages of her book.

“Father, if you do not object, I will get myself some rest as well. If her day is to be cut short, I would not mind training some more tomorrow, if you have the time to conjure some foes for me to face,” Sophia added, still not moving from his side.

“Yeah, go ahead. Maybe I’ll end up training too, if she doesn’t want much of a day to herself,” John said, just as he heard the door to Lerianna’s room swinging shut upstairs.

He wasn’t quite sure whether to be intrigued or disappointed; Lerianna never really was much for spending time with him, but he’d assumed she would still have something she wanted to do that would take a bit of effort on his part. Since she wanted him to swing by, maybe she did?

”Maybe she just wants to have me go get a bunch of books for her?” John pondered as Sophia departed for her bedroom, leaving him alone in the common area. ”It can’t be about Tricia or her device; she’s already been in talks with Tricia through the drones without me, so she’s not afraid of making contact on her own. Maybe she just wants me to go get her research material, or to build her a proper study. Maybe an exercise room? She never asked for one before, though, and she always talked about how much time she spent at the gym to keep herself in check before she wound up here...”

John’s thoughts continued oscillating between intrigued and slightly rejected as he made his way back to his own bedroom. Tonight his quarters were empty, and though he wasn’t sure if it would remain that way all night, for once he was grateful for the solitude.

”Not really sure how hard it will be to set these things up myself. And if they work right, well… I’ve never really shown these girls my nerdy side before.” John chuckled to himself, pulling one of the Mana Power Converters from his inventory.

The device was simple, just like Layla had described it – little more than a plastic square with a set of holes for electrical prongs on one of its faces. There was a slot on the back where a mana crystal could be inserted when properly charged and fitted, but during their shopping spree, Layla had revealed to John that the inner workings could hold enough mana to power most devices for a good while on their own, mostly due to the efficiencies of mana conversion into electricity. With that in mind, John placed his finger on the back of it and did his best to mimic the feeling of casting a spell, but without any particular technique in mind.

-15 Mana!
Mana Power Converter at maximum capacity

“Damn, that is efficient,” John noted, blinking a few times in surprise at the unexpected notification. Even if the converters only held enough power to last five minutes, his current mana stores could stretch for hours with his natural regeneration. “I was just going to test these things out to see if they worked, but if I can keep it running that well on my own, they’re more efficient than I thought. Heck, if we all chip in with what we have left after training every day or two, I bet we could fit this place up with all the conveniences of a regular house...”

Smiling happily at the realization, John quickly opened his inventory and flipped to the Archived tab he’d set up to hold all the items that he always wanted to have with him, but rarely needed to retrieve. He’d thrown his electronics in there the last time he’d visited his mother, unsure when he’d get to use them since he never stuck around his house any longer than he had to.

“Alright, so since each of these needs its own power outlet, I’ll need three converters… and to hook all these cables up again… kind of wish I’d just brought my entire desk,” John grumbled lightly as he pulled each of his electronics from his inventory, finding it a bit awkward to just set them all down on the floor.

John initially made an attempt to deal with things and set the cables up properly in a way that wasn’t too awkward, with his monitor on the ground and the tower beside it, but it only took a single second of lying on the ground in front of it before he gave that idea up. He had magic now, and plenty of raw materials – there was a bit of appeal in roughing it for the sake of roughing it, but no real need to do so. Besides, with his abilities, he could make an even better desk than the one he’d left at home!

One batch of Craft and Salvage later, John had a fully formed desk in the corner of his room, an approximation of an unbranded gaming chair to sit in, and had even included several sockets in the desk to place the Mana Power Conduits. He’d had to Salvage the desk a few times to tweak it to his liking, but the loss in materials was pretty negligible, and if nothing else, adding the sockets was worth the loss. Something about having all those power cables plugged into sockets that simply dangled limply or laid on the floor as if popped right out of the wall just felt wrong...

“That should be everything. Now, does it all work like it should…?”

John had no reason to think otherwise, but he still couldn’t fully relax until the boot was well underway and the desktop kicked into view. While it was going, John fashioned himself a mousepad and finished positioning everything, then settled into the newly formed cushion of his chair. As he sank in, a feeling washed over John while he began to navigate his familiar and yet long forgotten desktop, opening all of his usual applications that would function properly without access to the internet.

It was a sense of nostalgia, and the comfort that came with it. In spite of being at a different desk, in a different house, in a different world… a feeling of almost serenity enveloped John like a warm blanket, all the more so as the opening screen of SolarForge popped up in front of him.

“Hell yes. I haven’t gotten to play this since before I got my powers…” John said, grinning softly. It felt almost silly to be playing a sci-fi game when he could be practicing literal magic, but he found himself transfixed all the same as he booted up a campaign mission and let muscle memory take him on a familiar journey.

“It’s all just been so crazy around here… I didn’t realize how much I would miss just getting to sit here and play games,” John thought, mind wandering as he cruised through the first level on autopilot, then a second, and a third. Memories of the day, how calming and relaxing it had been, kept playing in his mind. His memories of tension and anxiety leading up to the meeting with Glen all clashed with just how at ease he felt by Moira’s side, and how relaxed – almost normal – he felt when spending time with Layla away from it all.

“I wish every day could be more like this afternoon. Spending time with friends. Getting to go on a date and experience what magic can do when it isn’t trying to kill you. Learn about new technology that can turn this new world of mine into the paradise I always wanted it to be, especially for the others who are stuck here so much. Getting to just sit back and relax, play games for a little while. Why did magic turn everyone into such assholes? Why does everyone have to kill each other instead of just being able to enjoy the amazing things we can do now…?”

“Creator John, are you alright? Your eyes appear to be malfunctioning.”

“Ah, what?”

John did his best not to accidentally knock his new desk around as he turned toward the door. Aclysia was standing there with the slightest of frowns on her face, though John couldn’t read most of her expression.

“S-sorry, I got lost in thought, I didn’t hear you open the door. Come on in, Aclysia, what can I help you with?” John asked, trying to keep his voice from wavering as he hastily pulled at his shirt and wiped his eyes. He had missed more than just her entrance, it would seem.

“I do not require assistance, Creator John, I came to ask if you have any tasks which I can perform on your behalf. Yvara has gone to bed for the evening, and I feel this… ‘boredom’ once again. I thought we might go on one of our walks together. I hope I was not interrupting anything.”

“No, no, I just… got lost in thought,” John repeated.

“Yes, you said that. I will allow you to resume your thoughts, I apologize for-”

“Actually, I could use the distraction…”

John trailed off, staring at his PC a moment longer before quickly initiating a shutdown and turning back to Aclysia. Nostalgia and the glory days of gaming were supposed to be his distraction, but it seemed he wasn’t quite ready to reconcile the world as it once was with the world he now faced daily…

“Yeah, you had a good idea. How about we go for a walk, Aclysia?” John suggested, smiling.

“That would be more than acceptable,” Aclysia replied, giving a quick nod. “May I ask you something first, Creator John?”

“Of course, always.”

“Why were your eyes doing that?”

“I was just… sad. It’s, um, it’s when you feel like you’ve lost something, or when something is broken, or sometimes just when something isn’t the way you want it to be, and you can’t do anything about it. It can feel a lot of different ways; sometimes it’s like a big heavy thing is sitting on you and weighing you down, sometimes it’s like there’s a big empty spot in your chest. Sometimes it just kind of feels that way, but when people are really sad, sometimes… they just cry.”

“But if you cannot do anything about it, then why cry?” Aclysia asked. “Should you not just try to accept it and move on?”

John chuckled a bit at how foreign the idea sounded to her. “It’s not about solving the problem, it’s about decompressing and letting yourself express how you feel. There are lots of things we don’t like every day, most of the time we do just accept them. Usually they don’t even bother us that much. But when something is really important to us and we can’t fix it, or especially if we lose it forever, sometimes it hurts a lot more. Crying is a way to release some of that tension… it can actually be cathartic sometimes. And it lets people around know that you’re hurting.”

“Why were you hurting, Creator John? Do you need assistance?”

“Ah, that’s a… bit complex,” John responded, not sure how much Aclysia would even understand if he went into detail on what had made him sad. “But… I’m fine. I don’t need help, thank you.”

“I think I may be experiencing something similar to your sadness. There is a certain hollow feeling in my chest like what you mentioned. But why would I be sad, Creator John? I have lost nothing.”

“Well, seeing someone else sad can make you sad too, if you care about them. I’m feeling better now, Aclysia. And talking to you really helped me out. Thank you, I’m glad you’re here.”

John smiled a bit wider than he needed to, then pulled Aclysia close. She didn’t resist the motion, not that she really needed to – her stone body was heavy enough that even John’s strength ended up mostly pulling him into her, rather than the other way around. John gave her firm body a tight squeeze before letting go. When he pulled away, Aclysia’s face hadn’t broken into a smile, but it had returned to its normal neutral pose.

“These emotions seem somewhat troublesome. What are the good things that you mentioned before? The ones that come after the hardships,” Aclysia said quietly.

“Well, there are plenty of good things that emotions can make you feel. I think you’re starting to feel those too, they’re just not always as strong. For example, you came to me when you were bored because you knew I could help, right?”

“Yes, but is that not an absence of a bad feeling, rather than the presence of a good one?”

“Well, yes. But you specifically wanted to see if I wanted to go on a walk,” John continued. “Why ask me to go on a walk instead of just sitting here and watching me? You know I would probably be doing something entertaining; you don’t even seem bored when I’m just hanging around.”

“That is… true…” Aclysia said, pursing her lips slightly. “We often go on walks. It seemed a logical thing to ask.”

“We also just talk, or work on projects together sometimes. But you went straight to a walk. I’ll admit, it could be habit, but try closing your eyes and thinking about going on a walk for a second. How does that make you feel?”

Aclysia stood stock still for a moment, closing her eyes and embracing her origins as a statue. There was a subtle twitch to her facial features, and for just a moment, under her long dress, John thought he could see her feet twitching as if she were pantomiming along with the walk to imagine it more clearly.

“Aclysia… do you like going on walks?”

“I… think I might?” Aclysia said, still sounding very uncertain as she opened her eyes. “I do feel something, though. I’m just not sure what. It’s very faint.”

“How does it make you feel when I do this?”

John stepped over to stand beside Aclysia and reached down to take her hand in his. John had to use a bit of strength to move her stony fingers and slip his own between them, but he did his best to show nothing of the effort. He smiled, this time more genuinely, as he gently clenched his hand against hers.

“Come on, Aclysia, let’s go for a walk.”

“It makes me feel… warm. But not like when you said I was feeling anger. It’s sort of all over, and I feel strangely light. But I have not lost weight, Creator John.”

“No, I’m sure you haven’t,” John responded with a grin. “And this feeling, is it like the others? Does it bother you?”

““No, it doesn’t.”

Aclysia’s lips curved upward, the barest of smiles joining John’s own. She clasped John’s hand back, though he wasn’t sure she even did it intentionally, and she looked a little more deeply into John’s eyes. For the first time, John thought he saw something that had been missing – a glimmer of something in those green eyes that wasn’t there before.

“Good. Then let’s go take a walk, Aclysia.”

John started toward the door and Aclysia followed dutifully, though before they had even cleared the door, another question was on her lips. She continued talking within John’s mind, but he kept his voice down for the sake of the others as they made their way to the stairs and toward the front door of the house.

“Are you certain it is a good idea for me to continue developing them? I might be of more service to you if I did not have them. What if my feelings become problematic? What if I learn to like the wrong things?”

“You’re really good at the complex questions,” John murmured.

“If she learned to like things the way Vallya does...” John’s mind managed to spit out before he cut it off. “No, that’s not fair to her. Whatever is going on with Vallya is something else entirely.”

“I am sorry. I did not mean to make you sad again, Creator John.”

John reflexively checked to see if he had shed a tear without noticing, but his face remained dry.

“No, it’s not you. Just a lot of intrusive thoughts tonight, I suppose. And I thought today had gone so well…”

“What made you sad, Creator John? You never told me.”

“Like I said, it’s complicated, but… I guess the world. I had a really nice day today, and I have no idea when the next one will be.” John let out a sigh as they cleared the front door and stepped out into the night air, the faux moon overhead shimmering gently. “The other world, the one you haven’t gotten to go to yet… it isn’t as peaceful as this one. Good people have to fight to protect themselves and the ones they care about, and they get hurt. Sometimes badly. I was sad because I was remembering a time before all this, back when life seemed simple. When I didn’t have to worry about losing someone, or risking my life to protect what we have here.”

“And you were sad because things aren’t the way you want them to be,” Aclysia noted, the faintest note of pleasure in her voice as she remembered John’s words. “And because you’re not sure how to make them that way.”

“Exactly. You learn fast, Aclysia.”

They walked in silence for a time, with Aclysia’s subtle smile appearing once again at the praise. John did his best to hide the frown that tried to cross his own visage. It wasn’t the truth, not entirely. He knew exactly what needed to be done, and he realized now why having such a pleasant, carefree day had put him so on edge about it.

There had been no question or hesitation, no exceptions in what Karma had told him a little over a year ago, no room for mercy in the way the Aspect spoke. But bringing justice to the world was so vague, and she’d said so little after, that he still only knew of one path forward. What he had told Moira he would do, what he’d told himself he would do so many times. Burn it all to the ground, rebuild from the ashes. But now…

John had found friends in the Abyss before, allies and lovers, rivals and teachers. People he would protect with his life. But the Abyss itself had always been a shadow over his happiness, an endless source of pain. This was the first time he’d found something outside his world worth saving. This was the first time he’d been directly confronted by what that would mean tearing apart. Whether he intended to literally burn it all down or not, this was the first time he’d seen a side to the Abyss that made him question his resolve. He wasn’t sure if he was sad that things couldn’t be simple…