Solaena's [Guided] Journey (Fantasy LitRPG)

Warmth.

All-encompassing warmth.

How it was meant to be.

Ideal.

Something shifted.

The warmth receded.

Cold.

I craved warmth.

How?

I didn't know.

Something told me how.

I shifted.

Warmth.

The warmth I craved.

Not for long, however.

It slipped away once more.

Cold.

I hated cold.

I wanted warmth.

How?

Something whispered to me how.

I shifted.

Warmth.

Then cold.

I wanted warmth.

How?

I waited.

I waited until something told me how to chase the warmth.

Something told me how.

I moved, following that how.

The warmth returned.

Then it moved away again.

This time, I knew to be ready for the something to tell me how to find the warmth again.

It told me how.

I found warmth where it told me.

Again and again, whenever the cold returned, it told me how.

It never failed.

And I never failed to follow through with what it said.

Perfection.

The next time the warmth departed, I knew to trail it, this time faster than ever before.

Strangely, though, before the warmth inexorably ebbed away once again, with everything feeling perfect, I was directed to shift.

Why?

I didn't want to.

But nothing bad had ever happened from following this form of direction...

I stirred.

The warmth appeared to flow alongside me, filling me with a sense of boundless wonder as I realized there miraculously existed a way to escape the cold.

Follow the strange guidance.

Again and again.

It did not fail.

Though I did fail to follow through sometimes.

I wasn't sufficiently capable yet.

I endeavoured not to fail again, for feeling the warmth drift away and being exposed to the cold was punishment enough.

Aspect Formed: [Guided] (Origin)

At some point, something pulsed inside of me, but it was neither warm nor cold.

It... simply was.

Then the guidance suddenly got much, much more detailed and exigent, and I forgot about this strange pulse.

I only desired one thing.

Warmth.

All-encompassing warmth.

◇ ◈ ◈ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◈ ◈ ◇

Hunger.

Hunger.

Hunger.

[Guided] informed me yet more urgently of what I was required to accomplish to make this all-consuming desire go away, but there was nothing I could do.

I was simply unable to achieve what was needed.

I wasn't capable enough.

It didn't stop me from trying time and again, however.

Pull.

Hold.

Push.

Hold.

Push.

Hold.

Expel.

A piece of my hunger faded when I roughly accomplished what [Guided] told me to carry out, only for all of it to be instantly supplanted by more hunger.

Hunger that was only growing more intense.

I repeated the process, giving my everything.

A piece vanished.

Giving my everything had fallen short.

Again.

It wasn't enough.

It seemed like it would never be, no matter what I did...

Nonetheless, I believed in [Guided].

It never led me astray.

Hence, there was nothing else I could do but attempt the seemingly impossible over and over.

If there was one thing I was deeply accustomed to accomplishing, it was repeatedly carrying out instructions until I pulled them off.

So I pulled at what [Guided] pointed me toward.

I held what [Guided] informed me to hold.

I pushed what [Guided] told me to push through the strange twists of what I slowly came to cognize as my own form...

Time and time again.

Aspect Formed: [Exertion] (Tier 0)

Until a weirdly familiar pulse made itself known, but such was the intensity of the hunger driving me that I all but forgot about it as soon as it happened, returning to my desperate ventures at alleviating my hunger.

Extraordinarily, I was suddenly better at everything.

I pulled more things at once.

I held onto more.

And I handled the strenuous task of pushing hunger-lessening things through my body better.

Nevertheless, it still wasn't enough.

Would it ever be?

Maybe...

Maybe I should let go...

So much hunger...

I felt so weak...

I really wanted to finally rest...

[Guided] told me to begin the exhausting process of pulling, holding, and pushing one more time.

I...

I wearily began to pull.

I wanted to stop...

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I held as much as I was able to.

I felt so weak...

I pushed whatever I held through my body.

One last time...

[Guided] informed me it wasn't.

I pulled...

I held...

I pushed...

And oddly...

I began to understand.

Pulling, holding, pushing.

Such simplicity.

They may as well be one action.

Aspect Formed: [Cycle] (Tier 0)

A pulse of something that felt like nothing momentarily distracted me from the burning hunger that had been gnawing at my very being for so long that I couldn't remember a reality where it didn't exist.

How I longed for the all-encompassing warmth...

Compared to this existence of constantly pushing against the all-consuming hunger...

How much easier it would be to simply let go...

[Guided] reminded me to begin pulling again.

I sluggishly pulled, at this point unable to exert more than a negligible draw on the outside.

Why did I bother...?

At least I knew what [Guided] wanted me to do...

I weakly held onto my only chance of ever winning against the hunger, then, when I couldn't hold anymore, I pushed, ready to hold once again when I—

[Guided] suddenly wanted me to pull more.

How? I couldn't hold more than—

I could.

I hadn't even realized.

Would it even matter, though...?

I apathetically pulled at more, all while holding and pushing what was already coursing through my body.

Then [Guided] instructed me to pull even more...

More...

More...

Before I realized it, I was pulling, holding, pushing, and expelling more than I had ever handled before, and as if to vindicate my relentless efforts, the fragments of hunger I eroded away weren't instantly replaced by more.

I was... winning.

Energy I was not aware I still possessed surged through my being, and [Guided] adapted to leverage my newfound exuberance by gradually increasing the quantity of what I was... "[Cycle]ing" through my body.

And as the hunger was driven further and further back, I was [Guided] to further increase my [Cycle] until...

Until I unknowingly fulfilled my desire to go back to a world without the overwhelming hunger I had unwittingly become accustomed to.

Never again.

Never.

◇ ◈ ◈ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◈ ◈ ◇

I felt ready.

Ready for what?

I had no idea.

I simply felt ready.

Horrifically, shortly after I developed this unfamiliar sense of being ready, my world, which had until then been peaceful, began trembling, interrupting my [Cycle] and sending [Guided] into a frenzy of confusing directions.

No.

Not confusing.

[Guided] was simply telling me to carry out too much at once.

I needed to shift one way, turn another, adapt my [Cycle], do new things I hadn't ever known I was capable of, and all of that while my world was churning and roiling.

Still, I believed in [Guided], and thus I fulfilled everything it told me to to the best of my ability.

The fact that it never ceased adapting to the changing circumstances greatly assisted me in slowly carrying out the vast majority of those formerly incomprehensible actions, and I had the strange thought that [Guided] hadn't been that meticulous before...

Then the pain hit.

Sudden.

Acute.

Generalized.

And [Guided] had nothing to remedy it.

Strangely, the fact that [Guided] had no new elements to introduce to this distressing situation comforted me.

It meant it was unavoidable.

It meant I could only endure.

Therefore, I endured.

And as expected, the severe pain passed...

Only to be replaced by a plethora of new sensations, each more fascinating than the last, though they were all shortly supplanted by the most oppressive cold I had ever endured.

[Guided] immediately came to the rescue, telling me to curl up beyond what I believed my own body to be capable of, all while slowly guiding me in resolving the strange, uncontrollable things happening all over my body.

By the time I calmed down, I realized I had emptied a lot of the fluids that had been inside me.

I took a first soft breath, [Guided] teaching me to carefully balance my new, frenzied impulse to breathe against the need not to let too much heat escape me.

"Sorry... sorry..."

Then I heard a sound so clearly for the first time that I didn't even realize it was a sound in the same way that the vibrating thrummings I had heard before were until it vanished, leaving me to experience my changed world fully for the first time.

Cold.

Silent.

Dry...?

As I remained curled up, protecting myself against the invading cold, [Guided] seemingly as contemplative as I was while still advising me to remain still and repeat the novel action of breathing steadily, I slowly collected myself, and before I realized it, I got started with what I knew how to do the most.

I pulled.

At what?

Anything, everything.

It became obvious from this first pull that my new world was vastly different from what I had previously known.

Because I could pull as much as I wanted, but all I could ever grasp was a sliver of what I once pulled.

At one point, [Guided] joined my efforts and helped me hone the way I pulled at much thinner and sparser elements while cycling what I held onto.

When I grew colder and colder without anything improving, however, that's when [Guided] started getting back to its usual self by giving me a task I could hardly even begin to comprehend.

Warmth.

I had to pull at warmth itself.

My own warmth.

To prevent the cold from getting to me.

How?

I didn't have an inkling of where to begin, and yet that was exactly what [Guided] wished for me to accomplish.

I tried to pull at my own warmth.

It failed.

Evidently.

I pulled again.

That wasn't it.

I pulled stronger.

I pulled wider.

I pulled...

Everything was unsuccessful.

I felt colder.

[Guided] abruptly changed its tune and told me to hold.

It was similarly ineffective.

Then it told me to do something seemingly completely unrelated by focusing more on the pushing part of my [Cycle].

It... worked.

Somewhat.

But it still wasn't enough.

And to make matters worse, my previous [Cycle], formed with the thinner and sparser elements, hadn't felt sufficient to enduringly steer clear of hunger, and focusing more on the pushing rather than the holding only exacerbated this issue...

[Guided] directed me to [Cycle] more, to pull more, to pull from further away, to hold onto more, to hold better, to push more, to...

I couldn't do it.

Yet.

It wouldn't stop me from believing in the unchanging fact that [Guided] had always led me to a perfect outcome despite the hardships encountered on the way.

So I began to [Cycle].

"What do we have here?"

Until I suddenly felt myself being lifted upwards.

"Tiny... light... oh, two buds on the back... you're a baby fairy, aren't you? No wonder you've been forsaken..."

Blurry as the world appeared to my novel sense of sight, I still knew to open my eyes, exposing them to the cold and dry world to observe this new existence that so rudely interrupted me.

It was only when she brought me closer, however, that I faintly distinguished the features that made up her face—I instinctively recognized what a face was—with the most striking being her numerous wrinkles.

I was so mesmerized by this development that I didn't struggle as she handled me, twisting and bending me in all directions with a strange mix of firmness and softness.

"I see you're taking to your abandonment pretty well... and I can exclude any unmanageable Origin Aspect from your unconcerned attitude... so what do you say about giving our refuge a try?"

She looked me in the eyes for a moment, then nodded casually.

"Alright, let's give you a try, but cause one problem or have rusted abominations show up on our doorsteps, and you're out."

I vaguely perceived a sense of acceptance from the way her sounds... sounded, as strange as those new sensations were, and for yet vaguer reasons, it made me feel relieved.

Truly relieved.

Relieved in a way comparable only to battling off hunger after a long, slow, and agonizing period of losing against it, or finding all-encompassing warmth after being exposed to the cold for too long.

[Guided] agreed with me, and thus, we let ourselves be taken.

How bizarre this new reality was...

◇ ◈ ◈ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◈ ◈ ◇

Beyond hunger.

Beyond cold.

Beyond exhaustion.

It was curiosity that slowly rose to become my most intense desire, eclipsing all else as the complexity of my new world turned out to be so far beyond anything I had ever conceived.

Sounds.

So many sounds.

So many different sounds, different kinds, from all around.

Movements.

Everywhere.

At all times.

Smells.

So varied as to feel new every time I smelled a different one.

That I had been fed a watery paste that tasted of nothing but left me feeling not-hungry and not-thirsty, while being covered by something rough that prevented warmth from escaping me, were but the initial reasons why I stopped caring about anything but understanding the new world that surrounded me.

And beyond keeping my [Cycle] going at its best and regularly gesticulating in all directions in [Exertion] efforts, [Guided] was similarly enthusiastic, helping me keep track of everything: every distinct sound, every repeating sound, every smell, every face.

Having so much to take in but only so much energy to give was something I couldn't reconcile myself to, and only [Guided] telling me to let go and sleep was capable of dissuading me from pushing against my exhaustion to continue indulging my curiosity.

Not for long, however.

I was simply too interested in everything.

I wanted to listen to everything.

I wanted to see everything.

I was so obsessed that even when asleep, I felt like I was still listening and chaotically recollecting everything I had already observed, only to forget everything when I woke up.

So intriguing.

I listened, I observed, I ate what watery paste I was fed, I maintained my [Cycle], I kept trying to move—in vain—then I fell asleep and woke up only to start anew, [Guided] to perform each a bit better than before.

Bit by bit.

Sound by sound.

Sleep after sleep.

[Cycle] after [Cycle].

[Exertion] after [Exertion]...

Reality began to make a strange sort of sense.

The sounds became more than sounds, carrying fluctuating tones and sensations.

The world took on strange hues, everything growing clearer and more defined.

Every movement I attempted grew closer and closer to being feasible despite its initial apparent impossibility.

As [Guided] had already proved to me so long ago that I couldn't apprehend why I knew it to be so...

It was only a matter of trying, repeating, over and over again.

Listening until the sounds revealed themselves to be more than sounds.

Observing until the world revealed itself to be more than what it first appeared to be.

Gesticulating uselessly until I could truly move.

Maintaining my [Cycle] until...

Aspect Formed: [Insight] (Tier 0)

A silent, invisible, intangible pulse exploded from somewhere within me, then imperceptibly vanished, leaving me to momentarily wonder if I had imagined it.

Except...

No.

Something had definitely happened.

I was certain.

And curious.

So much so, in fact, that [Guided] hastily proposed unusual courses of action to uncover the truth behind this unexplainable pulse, starting with the faint awareness it had left behind that something had definitely happened.

I focused, delving deeper and deeper into this peculiar awareness...

Nothing.

At first.

I insisted, unwilling to disregard such an unusual event, and [Guided] always had novel ways to delve deeper and deeper into this singular awareness.

Until...

[Guided] (Origin)

[Exertion] (Tier 0)

[Cycle] (Tier 0)

[Insight] (Tier 0)

I touched upon something.

Something so much bigger than me that I could only lie paralyzed for an unknown amount of time as I slowly parsed and grasped the supremely intimate and personal sensation I experienced while beholding the truest expression of my very existence.

I had no sounds, sensations, or semblance of color or texture with which to express the depth or breadth of what I delved into.

It was...

My Essence.

Me.

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