Path of the Deathless

331 (II)

Haunted [II]

Adam was aware of the basic idea behind meditation, but he assumed the orc wanted him to do something specific. “What do I have to do? Just focus? Is the goal to achieve a Skill Evolution in meditation?”

“To start, let go. Let go of all your worries—of all your thoughts. Unclasp your hands. Relax your muscles. Let your body turn loose, and unclench your jaw. But keep your mouth closed. No more questions, no more words. Just hear my voice and do as I say.”

An innate part of Adam's nature wanted him to argue, but against his worst judgment, he kept quiet and tried to heed the Culturist's instructions. But doing nothing was harder than he expected. Relaxation didn't come easily to Adam. Even as a child, he was possessed by a singular focus for whatever he was trying to do. His concentration was immense. His determination, according to his tutors, was a thing to be proud of. And his mind never stopped working.

But that was a detriment now. His mind couldn't stop working. He couldn't stop thinking. He couldn't stop worrying. About himself, about this new skill, about Uva. Would she be alright after what the Usurper-Narrator did to her? He worried about Shiv. Was he still at the Summer Court? Did he need Adam? Was Shiv dead? Did Evanescia capture him as well?

And what about his family? What about his Gate?

He'd left his Gate unprotected again. This was supposed to be a quick adventure. Now he was an absentee Gate Lord once more, and this time there was a Quest for the Gate as well. He would fail that if he stayed here too long. He needed to escape, and soon. He didn't have time. He didn't have time. He didn’t—

A loud rustling passed through Adam's consciousness. It was followed by a hushed whisper. “I know what it's like. To be caged by your own thoughts. To be constantly thinking, never stopping, never knowing the silence of dullness or stupidity. Being too aware is its own burden, as much as it is a blessing. Your Skill is simply that, only exaggerated to a point beyond description.”

“Then what should I do?” Adam shot back. “I can't just stop. If you really understand, you know that. I can't just let go. My mind doesn't turn off at a whim, even if I wanted it to. I'm trying as hard as I can.”

“And that's the problem,” the Culturist replied smoothly. “You're trying as hard as you can, but effort isn't always the answer. Sometimes, it is the venom.”

The Paragon didn't understand. It didn't make sense. Effort was how everything was done. Without effort, there would be no skill honed, no advancement made, no levels gained. He would not be here if he didn't give all of himself all the time.

The Culturist heard these stray thoughts, and he reached out to Adam. Their minds brushed against each other, and, for a moment, Adam gained insight into what it was like being the Culturist.

He felt old.

There were so many memories, orders of magnitude more than his own, and none of them lost or even dimmed.

All the flavors of life were muted and dulled. He had been to more worlds than Adam could name, had been born and had died so many times Adam would have lost count millennia ago. He'd experienced so much more than most could ever imagine, millions of grand victories, and again as many humiliating failures. Opponents of great renown, men, women, automata, and all manner of beings far more powerful, old, and cunning than Adam, had been laid dead at his feet. He'd imbibed the taste of losses that would have seen Pathbearers of legend take their own lives rather than continue to live with the knowledge of their inadequacy if it hadn't killed them, only to wake up once again, birthed from the womb of a corpse and sent off to try again by his maker.

All that had deadened his response to existence. The Culturist, a Legend nearly peerless on Adam’s World, was a vessel weathered and hollowed by misery and nightmarish brutality. So often, he barely felt like his own person, merely an extension of a stronger, hateful will that lingered in the backdrop of his consciousness.

Adam tasted the existential terror within the Culturist. It was constant, and it got stronger with every day he lived, like water spilling into an already vast sea drop by drop. He had come so close so many times, or so he thought, only to succumb again. The relapses were among the worst of his many memories.

Yet, there was something at the bottom of the sea. A warmth. A hope. Adam felt himself there. The presence of the Paragon was proof that it was not hopeless, that the Itch could be dispelled. It was the undeniable truth that there was a path ahead.

But even with this knowledge, the Culturist didn't want to believe, or rather, it was like he was reluctant to give himself over to hope. He had been wounded far too many times before. He'd thought himself on the precipice of a final breakthrough, becoming his own Pathbearer in the aftermath, but he had always fallen.

Adam's Path Evolution was unprecedented, but the Culturist had lived through many unprecedented events. Standing as one of the greatest of his kind to ever live, the pattern of his life, the grand totality of his history, was, paradoxically, defeat.

It always won. It always came back, stronger and greater than ever before, its claws digging ever deeper, as if mocking how he'd thought them having pierced as deep as they could before.

“I know,” the Culturist said. “I know what it is like to have something that you can never let go of, something that you cannot release. I know the constant feeling of pressure, terror, and anxiousness. I know. Do you see?”

Adam swallowed heavily. What he saw was harrowing. He didn't want to feel this any longer. “I didn't realize… Why are you showing me this?”

Though his eyes remained closed, he felt a faint smile appear on the orc’s face. “So you can see how I defy him.”

And then the environment of the Culturist’s mind shifted. It wasn't that he simply let go of all his worries, per se. They still lingered there, but he let the emotion flow through him, spread from his core to his fingertips. He never acknowledged them, never attributed thought to feelings.

“They are separate. This is the first lesson. You can feel something. You can let terror, anger, joy, and awe flow through you and accept them for what they are. Do not fight the worry. It is natural, but you don't need to give it more power either. You don't need to repress, but you also don't need to christen. Sometimes it is best to let a feeling just that—let that animal part of yourself bear your burden for you.”

The transformation of the Culturist's ego continued, and Adam found himself enraptured by what followed next. Beyond the emotions, there were memories. The Culturist didn't stop thinking. Instead, he cast himself deeper. To reach that final precipice of unconscious slumber, he sought something, a treasured instance from his past. Though most of his lived history left his spirit jaded toward the world, there was a place of light and levity, a memory of genuine softness. There was something—someone—the Culturist clung to.

Always.

She wore a long, ocean-blue dress. It flowed like silk, though when the wind brushed over it, it danced like crashing waves. On her face was no helmet, but a raven's mask, for that was what she was: an operative, a spy, an assassin for the Stolen Throne. Her hair was shoulder-length and square, almost unnaturally so. She cut it herself, and though it drew attention to her sometimes, it was a point of pride and a slight act of defiance against the whims of her masters. To be seen was to fail in part anyway, and so why not let her keep this little bit of her personality?

Adam beheld her from the Culturist's perspective. He himself had shifted himself into the form of a man. Though still formidable in size and height, he was no longer that three-meter-tall behemoth that slaked his hunger on acts of cruelty. He was simply one of them, one of his supposed prey. In the reflection of her metallic mask, Adam saw that the Culturist himself wore a mask shaped in the visage of a wolf, and the faces of countless other animals blurred by his vision, worn by people dressed in finery that twirled about in pairs. Adam realized this was a ball of some kind being hosted on a grand beach.

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“Normandy,” the Culturist’s mind whispered. “Where countless dead warriors still sing in the wind, if you listen closely enough.”

The raven held out her hand, and the Culturist took it. For the briefest of moments, he imagined ripping her arm free from the socket. He imagined how high she would scream. How sweet that betrayal would feel. How bloody he could make her remains.

And then he pushed it aside. He could resist it for now.

He could do it. For her. For this moment. This memory beyond that Itch which gnawed at him. He could resist it. He would have to hurt someone soon, return to being a monster, but he didn't need to be a monster right now.

Not right now.

Such was the Culturist’s mantra. And he recited it under his breath as she tightened her fingers around his, as they began dancing with each other while waves cascaded like collapsing silver sheets lit by twilight sun.

Regardless of what happened after, or what he was, or what she was, regardless of the Challenger, regardless of the Itch, this was a moment in forever, and so it was part of forever. It would remain forever true despite all that followed.

It didn't matter that he was an orc. It didn't matter that she was a spy, a hand of the Stolen Throne. For that moment, even if they were pretending, the happiness was genuine. They belonged to each other.

The choice was true. And that was something. And it meant everything.

And with that came a feeling of almost alien contentment that washed over the Culturist. A feeling that passed over into Adam as well.

“A second lesson: Learn when to break the rules. For certain emotions and mental states, you want to christen them. You want to find the memories that induce in you such a euphoria or state of mind that you can escape the now. For we are nothing if not collections of now, we are nothing if not milestones that make up who we understand ourselves to be. Find your now, Adam Arrow. Find a moment where you were truly rested, where you remember comfort taking over. If you can do that, then you can recede into the embrace of slumber on a whim. Start there.”

So Adam did. He mustered his memories and began going through his countless moments. He was not the Culturist, but his memory was good, and he could remember many things. As he passed through his recollections, he realized that maybe he should have started from the very earliest memories. Or perhaps the most important. Or the most poignant? Between poignance and importance—

“Sensation, not effort. This is not about strain. This is about surrender, but your surrender. A surrender you can choose. A surrender you bring upon yourself. It shouldn't feel like a struggle.”

Once more, the Culturist guided him, and Adam followed. “Surrender. Right.” He swallowed. Instead of actively thinking, he just let his mind jump between memories. It was still chaotic; there was still so much that came back to him. He didn't know why the first thing he thought of was that apartment down in Weave. There was nothing restful about that place. But Weave itself, it was rather nice, wasn't it? It was a delightful city, not quite as sprawling as the Capital, but far greater in verticality, and the grand spires were nice to fly amongst. The people were rather kind as well, at least during his brief tenure.

Before waking up there, he'd imagined the Abyssals to be monsters, each one a brutal demon that yearned for nothing but the flesh of surfacers. After talking to some of them and resolving a few of their problems, he realized they were ultimately people, just like anyone else: an uncertain bride; a groom, worried about their future; an automaton that was being oppressed by a terrible boss. A Demigoddess that liked to play music to soothe and excite her people—one that aided Adam in his time of need.

I need to take a trip back to Weave. I need to thank her personally. What she did for me against the Ascendants in the prison is beyond what I can repay.

He could practically hear her harp playing by the side of his ears, see the way her long fingers plucked at her instrument.

That memory carried him downstream. Suddenly, he was elsewhere. He was a boy on his father's lap, who pointed out things in the distance. Adam didn't remember this excursion exactly. He didn't know which mountain he was on. He didn't know where his father had taken him or for what reason. He remembered the two of them being together and Roland telling him about constellations, about landmarks, about who they were, and about all the places he might see someday. But the young Arrow only had eyes for his father. What interest held the world when the greatest hero he would ever know held him close?

Adam's chest tightened. There were things unsaid between him and his father. He had been avoiding Roland—the Starhawk as well. But he missed his father now. Adam wanted to see him again. And his mother. And Isabella. Even if she wasn't truly there. He wanted to meet some of his friends from the academy again. Gods, what would it be like introducing them to Shiv and Uva? What he would give for such a day to pass.

And then the wind washed over him again, and that carried him into another memory. This one took place on the grounds of Phoenix Academy. He lay upon the grass, staring up at the sky. Though he'd wanted to spend the afternoon studying, Isabella convinced him to take some time off to enjoy nature by her side and simply watch the clouds, laughing at the strange shapes their minds conjured. Her giggles had a habit of devolving into pig-like snorts—and while she was conscious about it, Adam thought it was absolutely adorable. It was among the many things that drew him into her, despite the animosity between their families. She was a person. It was hard to explain: so many nobles had facades and pretenses. She didn’t. She was… genuine…

Being next to her made him comfortable. And that's probably why he managed to fall asleep on the grass. That's how bliss took him—a conspiracy between her laughter, the gentle winds, the soft soil, and…

Meditation 3 > 6

***

And the Young Lord was asleep.

A tired breath escaped him as the Culturist took in his potential savior and chosen victim-disciple. A continental maelstrom of details hammered against his mind, but he pushed them back, held them at bay. Even he couldn't process that much, and Adam's Awareness was still spreading out. The Culturist needed to find a way to curtail it or contain it, but it seemed like every little thing he noticed rebounded to something else. Instead of ending there, it fed his perception and only made it grow stronger, made it grow faster.

The Culturist felt a building ache in the back of his mind. Soon, it would be a searing agony.

There was something about these three children. The System had marked them, starting with the Deathless. Now they were gaining enough power to drown worlds, so much power so fast it left aged Legends seething with envy.

But they were all still so young. And still connected to Adam's mind and soul, the Culturist realized something about himself. He was old. Truly old. He had lived a long time, and yet, among the other orcs, it didn't feel that vast at all. They'd done this countless times. Their lives were an eternal present. Just a revolving day that kept going until you died, and then it started again. That's why the loop didn't bother him so much.

But with Adam, there were so many flavors that tasted fresh to him, so many feelings that were still precious and intense. The Culturist had missed that. This naivety. Just like he missed hitting Skill Evolutions. And at that, to his disbelief, a new level greeted his Multi-Tasking Skill.

Tabula Eternia 504 > 505

Part of him suspected it was the strain brought on by carrying the burdens of Adam's new Skill Evolution, but another part of him knew it was something more, something else.

He bummed thoughtfully. “The flame is spreading. It seems that you have burned me as well, dear boy.”

But Adam didn't reply. He was blissfully unconscious, nested in the cradle of a distant memory far away from here. And with the Itch still banished, another emotion rose, one that the Culturist hadn't felt before. Not in himself.

It took him a while to guess what it was: affection. It was something he'd felt in her. He'd felt it when they jokingly talked about raising a child, perhaps growing one through their shared biomass. They'd known it was likely an absurd dream, likely never to be made true. But their minds were drawn close by those rings, and he knew her yearning had been true. At the time, he'd thought himself incapable of such a thing. But here, stripped of the Itch, stripped of that overwhelming, pulsing desire to constantly hurt and break that had been with him since he first opened his eyes to behold the wretched wasteland his people called home, there came, other than everything else, a full spectrum of humanity.

And to the Culturist's disbelief, he cared. About the boy in front of him. About the child he'd infested, if only to provoke Valor.

He breathed in deeply, letting his unfettered emotions course through him. “I will see you free of this place, Young Arrow. I promise. To spite the mistress that rules here. To defy my maker. To honor my old nemesis. For what you have given me. And because you are… a righteous Pathbearer. Someone I had yearned to be, but didn’t believe I could ever become.”

Adam promptly flopped over on his side and pressed his face into the grass. The Culturist sighed. “Sleep deep, Little God-to-be. Sleep deep and dream big.”

And so, the orc watched over a young man burdened with too much, while outside, the winds grew louder as a certain dragon of nature adjusted its path toward the frigid realm of winter.