Introductory Lessons
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Disappointingly enough, making use of Xwyhr’s information presented far more delays than acquiring it had. Jhez was quite unapproachable for most of the dusk, and the approach of his exam wasn’t leaving the regular party crew very open to any meetings.
Axln was actually surprised at just how much testing was synchronized. Every major course was actually scheduled to have an exam at the same time, the next one actually being the next dawn. Such was why the whole place actually felt rather deserted, possibly. In that light, her sister was crazy.. skipping out on scheduled last-minute studies for her class. She did have other classes to attend though, so she was already gone. Apparently, Jhez’s class had become a study class to provide him with enough opportunity to make sure such a test would be ready. Between that and his otherwise unavoidable course load, it was late dusk before Jhez would finally be free to step away from his work. The young professor still had things rather rough, making Axln feel slightly guilty for having eaten so much of the guy’s time. However, as opportunity brought merit to relief, it was actually Jhez who came to Axln in search of respite from a hard day’s work. Apparently, it was her presence that made bearing such tension all the more easier. Given such an opportunity, Axln brought Jhez up to speed with the plans she had fostered since they last met. Jhez had inclined an offer to help out if he was so capable, and Axln had seen a lot of positive results in accepting offers of help from others.
“This is a really bad idea.” “Wait, what?” “Oh, oh, oh, not the whole inspiration into music thing, exploring passions is great, any teacher would love to see that come to pass. Yes, I really don’t mind helping Lyun with exploring her potential there. What is concerning is how this same idea has echoed throughout history. There are a great number of times where someone held an ambitious opportunity to bring great change to society.. and had at least once held a concert for that purpose in some way. Every.. single.. time.. it had yielded misfortune. The terran mythos expresses it as the concert curse.” “Okay, yeah, I’ve studied plenty of the logical spectrum here.. so I know rightfully that even here would consider curses like that just some supernatural paranoia.” “Technically, everything about the veil’s influence is considered illogical, not explainable by matters of elements, instrumentation, the gift.. nothing. Your ability to world hop, that’s not explainable either.” “That’s.. technically true.. and on both sides. Still, you make it sound like we’re just fated to fail because we’re making music.” “Uh, I’m not sure I understand you. What do you mean by.. fated?” “You know, destiny and all of that stuff.” “Actually.. no. I mean, it sounds like it could very well be a real word, you didn’t even use a proper terran accent either. But, no, I know of no such word.” Jhez looked outright baffled, a consideration that in turn confounded Axln. Of all the times to suddenly have a linguistic barrier, this was outright random. However, even after numerous attempts to even explain what the word might actually mean, Jhez’s confusion was not dismissed. Instead, it seemed like the very concept of fate and destiny were unfamiliar foreign ideas. Bad luck was just a matter of probability shifting poorly, but no outcome could simply occur because it was supposed to, things only happened because the requirements for a given outcome had randomly come together to settle upon any one given result.
Axln didn’t even know what to think of this. Sure, from a logical perspective, not even considering aspects like fate in an outcome was totally correct. However, this was almost the extreme opposite of the beliefs behind fate, as if there was nothing that could control outcomes beyond the absolution of random chance. It stemmed upon the idea that people weren’t even in control over their own lives. In that respect, this absolute inversion was still.. not actually logical either. Fate wasn’t something so omnipotent as to be the only thing that ever made things happen, but taking control over one’s own fate was the greatest influence in altering what might happen to oneself. Jhez meanwhile showed this concept being proven and founded in actual reality, that probability was the greatest influence over any event, and that an outcome could hardly be predictable. To Axln, this hurt her head more than anything. Repeating a controlled experiment enough times would have it both succeed and fail at least once, even if nothing actually changed. This world didn’t apply matters of science.. but still had a strong foundation in a sense of logic. This one thing however seemed absolutely insane.
“So things are supposed to randomly go wrong because progress and music don’t mix. I’m sorry, but that’s a bunch of crap.” Axln felt this was the worst kink in the whole deal, having her idea torn apart because of this frivolous mumbo jumbo. Everything was so perfect too. 「If there are any worries about random circumstances, remember that such a prospect lies definitively in the realm of chaos. If you need help with reforging elements of chaos, remember that such is not beyond your abilities. If you need to spin this tale of misfortune into an unexpected turn of opportunity, that is then easy to prepare for.」Axln broke into an almost deranged laughter, broken logic broken by broken logic. Of course, if things here really did work so erratically.. that might actually make things work even easier. Fate might not exist here, but she herself had the power to yield the same results. Even Lyun had that same shared potential, something they should both look into during their performance.
However, considering that, she realized that she might be on the edge of another powerful divergence in the timeline. Mheridz’s timeline would have held a version of them both without such an ability. As a result, Axln might have faced this same scenario and had given up.. or she had chosen to defy the odds and make something happen anyway. Considering her feelings of that moment, she was certain she wasn’t going to just let such dark probability make a mess of things. Rationally though, she had plenty of concerns and worries upon such, that something might indeed go wrong. Bad luck could come in a number of different forms, more than just failure. Probability was at least something she could understand logically, and even in that timeline she would have worked hard in contingency plans for a number of unexpected surprises. This time however, the plan was to outright directly interfere with luck itself. At minimum, such a swirl of chaotic involvement would render her odds as neutral as she would have originally expected them to be. At best, this was inverted into a really good luck charm and she was going to land an unnaturally positive outcome from things where they should have actually gone bad. In all consideration, this was rightfully cheating.
That did leave a lot to consider going forwards. According to Jhez, she was about to invite misfortune upon herself, in a fairly significant way. If that was going to change.. then that was going to make a lot more of their future unpredictable.. even for Mheridz. However, that might only affect the timeline on this side, Velvet’s predictions would remain much more reliable as that side would remain untouched by such broken logic. Axln would need to be certain to discover what had changed, so that she could make the most of the difference. Of course, she would be discussing all of this with Lyun later too, the two of them would have to both work on this one. However, the one indisputable thing was that there was no reason to worry about moving forward with her original plan.
“I still think we should stick to the plan, there is nothing that would work even half as well. Even if things go a bit wrong, things would certainly go a lot worse with a weaker plan. I will keep your worries in mind though, doing what I can to address such a concern.” “Well, if you are so resolved, then I’ll just have to trust in your resolution. Half the time though, someone seems to just die.. someone close to one of the performers. I really hope that’s not going to be the case, this time.” “I will give you.. a fifty percent fatality rate is really disturbing, but you have to think of what happens if we actually fail this at all. A lot more than one person could die, might even be the same person dying.. plus extra. These odds are miserable, but it’s still the best outcome.” Axln wasn’t even considering the idea that, running away and pretending nothing was wrong, that might actually save all of the lives involved. Technically though, that wasn’t true. According to both daughters, their future will be ravaged by chaos, which itself would kill countless people. In fact, she’d also discovered that Rosa herself perished in that timeline. Discovering the secrets kept within the confines of Ruixsi history was the only way to ensure a path that could save anyone.
Soon after that, Axln found herself left to her own devices while Jhez worked with Lyun to get a foot into the musical side of the academy. Jhez didn’t even need to hear Lyun perform, simply trusting Axln’s confident assessment. Such confidence wasn’t even misplaced, Axln got word over her cell that Lyun’s audition went off perfectly. It wasn’t the only message she received while waiting. It appears that there were student’s ambitiously working towards the conclusion of their next test, there was going to be a late dawn party and Xwyhr had ensured that her sister had received an honorary invitation. There, she would be introduced to a couple of other prominent.. mixers. She wondered if mixers had specific mixer-names, that way she could introduce herself as Mixer DJ.. in contrast to being DJ Mixer. Hell, maybe that would just be a thing for her. It was so miserably fitting that it couldn’t be anything but indisputably accurate.
Having only started the base process over their dusk, it left the two of them with very little to accomplish overnight otherwise. However, they both knew this was about to occupy their time for a while going forward, so they both decided to invest the opportunity to simply get some of their normal basic responsibilities done, stuff which would lighten the load once their performance preparations actually began. Come dawn, they continued with much of the same inspiration towards responsibilities, for much the same reason. However, at around mid dawn, Lyun was called off to her lessons, the teacher in question having little to do while students simply spent the time completing their test. Insanely enough, there were almost twenty moments invested into this exam. Notably too, that was also when classes that dawn would conclude, which was still otherwise early. Lyun would have all of that extra time for her own special learning experience, right up to when her teacher decided to call an end to that dawn.
Otherwise, the afterparty began another twenty after the exam concluded, though the doors opened ten moments before then for those handling setup. Xwyhr had said that such was when she would be expected, getting an early opportunity to speak with the mixer during setup, about setup. It left her a bit of extra time to invest in the continuation of her responsibilities, but even that was eventually spent. Her next responsibility would be.. to party. It was strange, mixing obligation with entertainment, but even that was still acceptable. What was new was the idea of attending a student party. As Kori, she had never been one for parties.. ever. Not even to celebrate Fiona’s award, they had such a celebration in a much quieter ambience. The awkwardness of being a conduit at a party was one thing, but she didn’t believe it remained her only problem. Even as a human.. she doubted she was all too interested in parties. After all, supposedly she was originally far more outdoorsy, which wouldn’t have been very receptive to such cramped spaces. Eventually, she became a bit too serious and individual, which may have provided her with more reasons to not party than Kori had ever endured growing up. This was possibly why she felt physically tense simply walking into the still empty establishment, her body liking this even less than she did. However, she was neither here as a conduit, nor was she here for senseless games, she had a job to do as a human.
Even with just the setup crew, the place was already too loud to think, let alone talk. Supposedly, Xwyhr was letting her know that the first mixer had only just arrived, the one who will be handling music today then.. the same reason why everything was already so loud. He had a wind instrument in place that was already looping a single melody, with an amplifier that would have been more than loud in a hall ten times the size. Catching on quickly, it appeared her demonstration would be without any verbal support.. she would have no chance in hearing anyway. In that light, she made use of her power gear as a sound dampener, hopefully salvaging her hearing in the process. Admittingly though, she knew better than to block such things out completely. Learning about music would be a lot more difficult if she couldn’t hear what was being played.
The mixer pulled out several other control instruments, stuff clearly designed to manipulate audio in a number of ways. Watching the mixer work, she determined at least what everything did, even if she had no idea what anything was called. Manipulating audio qualities, transitioning songs, all of that was quickly starting to make sense to someone as keen with configuring systems as she was. What was a bit more challenging was the creative thinking behind what to use when. She could read the name of every song, but she didn’t know any of them until the songs started playing. She could tell there was an art in both transition and in audio adjustments to each distinct quality of songs, not even constant across an entire song. Then she learned that this introduction was only the basics, as more instruments were introduced. These things were interesting, instruments designed to make actual adjustments to the melody itself, applying distinct measures and beats where none were originally.. created while the song was itself played, or at least shortly before. Tristine had talked about this idea before, it was musical synth.. or this side’s version of the same. Again, the controls were easy, she was certain she could do any of the same things the mixer did.. but she had no idea when she would need to.
Her mixer instructor was good, interpreting her visual queues with excellent accuracy. At one point, the mixer drew attention to the end of a song. Making clear instructions gradually, visibly leaving Axln aware of what had occurred, the mixer prepared a song transition, administered melody synth, and configured audio quality, all to a complex arrangement using very definitive settings. Axln could tell the quality wasn’t as good, but that might not be the point here. Then, the mixer let the previous song resume.. waited for the song to near its conclusion.. and then let Axln take over from there. Oh, so.. she was to demonstrate at least how good she was at repeating all of the previous settings. That wouldn’t even be hard, she still remembered everything.. even if by nothing more than simple memorization. Her settings were perfect, the exact same results occurred through the repeat of the lesser quality song. Clearly though, the mixer wasn’t absolutely impressed. Axln had managed to complete all of the same process.. but she wasn’t able to actually improve the results. It only dawned on her after the fact that she realized that such might have been expected of her. However, things did not end there. A second round of practice began.. and this one was a flurry of actions. Certainly, it was an intensity which was designed to be intimidating.. but Axln had been exposed to worse. She knew how to work with nanites, things that ran in timeframes this side would only struggle to express. She was very used to watching things happen rapidly.
After she completed that practice, this time her instructor was impressed. Clearly the mixer had tried to project what was supposed to be the hardest result to simply memorize, possibly so that she would instead have to fill in the blanks with her own creation. However, once again, she had completed a perfect rendition of the exact same results demonstrated to her. That in turn might explain how her third challenge became so unexpectedly unsurmountable. For the third instance, the mixer simply indicated a choice song.. and then left her to not only pick all aspects of transition, but to actually figure out everything else she might need in a song. The song though.. was visibly the same one that had been looping originally. Even reading the title, the song simply got into her head and didn’t let her escape.. and it hadn’t even begun yet.
Despite that, her choices of options had plenty to be desired. The transition was nowhere as smooth as before, the audio even spiked at a few points in her errors, and she hardly touched synth at all. She was good at imitation and replication, but she wasn’t exactly musically gifted. Introductions were then over, setup having been brought to a conclusion, and the mixer simply took over the regular responsibilities. However, she was allowed to remain there through the entire escapade, watching all of the choice settings applied for their music. Given the opportunity, she resolved to see if she could learn what she could. There would be patterns to this process, settings applied simply to achieve the desired results. She applied effort to analyze the patterns chosen and to then attempt to predict what sort of choices would be applied before it occurred. Given the abundance of creative elements at play, it was far more challenging than the sort of analysis she typically applied herself towards.
Lyun meanwhile finally found her bed and collapsed upon it exhausted. Dawn was already over, and Axln was still missing. Lyun’s lessons had at least gone well enough, she had really appeared to impress her teacher with the absolute quality of her singing. It was fortunate that said teacher was actually familiar with teaching elves.. the bad news being that Lyun certainly couldn’t tell. Stamina had become fleeting for her, something she wasn’t allowed the time to recover. For most things, she would have probably gotten frustrated at such disregard and impatience. However, instead, she found herself having fun. She could see that this had become her opportunity to relive the experiences she would have had as Rosa, doing much of the same thing in her classes of that world. She really hoped it was at least as much fun.
Inspired by the sheer quality of her musical prowess, she had even immediately been given another opportunity to meet someone else about actual musical instruments come dusk. It was an experience she was looking forward to.
However, Axln being missing brought its own problems. If the party wasn’t over, just how late would it run? Would Axln even know? Probably not. In all accounts for such, Lyun simply decided that she would take this fine opportunity to get her own rest regardless. If Axln did show up, leaving Lyun to wake up with plenty of extra suspended time to work with, Lyun could find a nice place to practice singing without drawing any attention. Mostly, she was too tired to ponder the idea of waiting. She fell fast asleep soon after as a result, although she wasn’t alone in this for very long. Axln meanwhile had grown tired of her own exertion, especially so late into the day, and as a result she had unexpectedly fallen asleep in her spot at the party.. despite the fact that the musical intensity made that feel like that shouldn’t have even been possible. So when Lyun woke up at dusk, still finding Axln missing, she reached out to Xwyhr seeking answers. The message she got back spoke of how Axln had actually managed to fall asleep unexpectedly, and how Xwyhr had to provide a place for her sister to spend the night. The two of them had in turn rendered the entire incident into an impromptu sleepover, though Axln was even now still sleeping. Axln had at least received another invitation from a mixer to learn some more tricks of the trade, even without involving a party in the process. Xwyhr would have to actually go to class soon, so she really hoped her sister would actually wake up soon for her.
It was simply the beginning of a long journey of discovery in music, with plenty more that the two would need to learn in the process. Even with everything proving so exhausting, they would have to learn to perceiver.. so that their performances would go off flawlessly.
Luminaeris 