Chapter 8 - Balance
Vern had some ideas on what to expect, and to say that he was surprised would be underselling it. It was absolute chaos.
The image of a burning library in his mind was thrown to the back as hundreds of different phases of reality fluttered past in the blink of an eye.
Everything was changing, represented as seemingly random things, and it was captivating. There was an order to this chaos.
Every shelf, particle, human, air, and concept took the form of one singular nature before it quickly transmuted into something utterly unique. Everything blended into an uncanny fusion of colors, textures, shapes, sounds, and incomprehensible things.
He focused hard, ready to glean as much as he could about one of these 'scenarios' in the short fraction of a second they appeared for. However, the flickering chaos actually stabilized into one vision as he focused, albeit a little abruptly.
Everything around him turned into something like glass. Each object in the room was slightly distinct from the next one in how opaque or transparent it was. The shelf right next to him looked diaphanous, sitting on a translucent floor, as contents from the ground floor peeked through it in a similar refractive fashion.
The fire itself was a crystalline wall of glittering white, prohibiting any and all light from passing as it surged with shimmering rays. The human bodies, on the other hand, seemed to be a little reflective.
Not knowing what to make of all this, he lost concentration, and the glassy world disappeared, replaced by the flickering cycle of unreal states.
Hmm. So I can inspect these 'scenarios' at will with a little focus?
He concentrated on another sight from the chaotic backdrop, and hundreds of dots populated his vision that moved in straight lines. Some went faster, while some went slower. Few completely left the plane and moved in a straight line in the third dimension.
This one did make some sense to him. It was some sort of a graphical representation of objects and their coordinates in a specific system that he didn't have the time to figure out.
He needed more. There was clearly a pattern to all this, so it was something that could be modeled. Bracing for the jarring change to his vision, he zeroed in on another one.
This time, the surroundings took on a vibrant hue. Each human body around him turned a fiery orange, while everything else emerged as saturated green. It looked more like a badly colored picture than a representation of reality.
Then, that must mean.
He was close. He had zeroed in on one of the variables, but there was more. Understanding this was the key to finding a solution to his current predicament. The pieces had almost fallen into place, but something was missing to make it all fit together.
For the following few seconds, he simply looked on at the fleeting chaos, and what struck him as odd was that some of the scenarios repeated.
The next time he saw the glassy environment, he felt a sense of incongruity. He doubled down and immersed himself in it. And as expected, something was different.
The opacity of all the crystalline objects was unlike the last time. The wall of fire which was shining earlier was gone, replaced by transparent fragments, whereas the books, which looked as clear as water in the first vision, were completely opaque now.
Could it be?
He blinked and allowed the frenzied scape of colors, textures, and vibrations to overwhelm him before he finally found himself another glassy scape, and locked it down with intense focus.
This time again, his surroundings turned to glass, but their transparencies were assigned in a completely different manner.
I see what is going on!
To confirm his hypothesis, he quickly cycled through a few more repeated variations of sights other than glass, and it was just like he had theorized.
These scenarios were all the possible combinations of 'laws' and their 'interpretations.'
This actually answered one of the questions he had asked himself when reading the Observation record of subjectivity.
The text said that observers could see the very laws in their own interpretation. How exactly did these observers choose the law they wanted to see? What did it mean when it said they would see these laws in their own interpretation?
It all became clear. In the first glassy scenario, everything was being interpreted as glass, and an object's opacity represented the intensity of the observed law at that location.
Following this logic, Vern believed that the first vision he had focused on observed the laws of heat. The glass crystals around the fire were shimmering with great intensity, whereas everything else was transparent. So, the hotter the area, the more the opacity and shine.
When the glassy scenario repeated itself, the 'interpretation' remained the same, but the law changed. That is to say, the one to change would still be the opacity of the glasses, but the criteria which determined the exact translucency would be something else.
So, fire being transparent and books being opaque could mean the law being observed had to do with something like knowledge. As in books had more coherent knowledge than fire.
He might be wrong about the small details, but that didn't matter as he had confirmed a similar pattern with other scenarios too.
So what did this mean for him?
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A chance!
The text he'd read in the book suggested that Observers, in enough quantity, could change the laws of the world itself. Then didn't that mean that a single Observer could change the laws in a smaller space all by themselves?
It was a logical conclusion, but it assumed too much about the situation. Still, something was better than nothing in this situation.
Lost in analyzing the changes, his heart lurched when even in this ever-changing canvas, something moved forward relentlessly. The shimmering tide of glasses got closer as the representation of bodies in its wake disappeared. The green space shrank, and shapes became smaller. The sounds turned discordant, and the figures grew longer. All a not-so-gentle reminder of the fire extending its gaping maw.
But it was okay. He could focus. He had to. Nothing else would help right now. He had managed not to get distracted for hours on end while comprehending the projection of Lennian Fundamentals. This was nothing. This was nothing. It was okay. It was okay.
Gritting his teeth so hard they almost felt like cracking, he continued his earlier train of thought. This canvas allowed him to peek at the fundamentals of anything.
Infinite possibilities, but this led to a dilemma. What should he choose to observe that could help him rescue Ariane right now but also not be so limiting that it would haunt him for the rest of his life?
This was probably a decision that would stick with him moving forward. So it needed some thought even in this dire situation. I need to find a balance between my current practical necessity but also my own perspective.
Before jumping to conclusions, however, he gave himself a limit of ten seconds to ensure the 'decision' was actually in his hands. Who said that it was a choice? He wouldn't know until he tried.
He occupied his thoughts with the intricacies of the glassy scape, and then before he could do something else, his sight was filled with shimmering lights that rapidly flew around in an organic pattern.
Looking closely, the opacities and reflectance of the glass were jumping around every instant. These were all scenarios when interpreted as glass. This meant he could consciously choose the ‘interpretation.’
But he didn’t want to risk choosing the ‘law’ and an interpretation at the same time. What if he was locked out of options once he consciously picked both the law and how he wanted to interpret it?
He had no interest in looking at everything as glass for the rest of his life. On top of that, opacity, glimmer, and reflection seemed like crude and impractical methods to perceive reality anyway.
He dismissed the thought of glass, and as if on cue, the world followed his command and began cycling through the myriad scenarios again. Not wasting any more time, he recalled his study of heat in Lennian Fundamentals.
How objects transmuted from one to another once they came in contact with heat, how they evaporated at certain thresholds, and how there was a consistent logic to all of it.
The scenery changed, and there was no doubt that everything barraging his senses right now was somehow representing heat. In one of them, the entire world turned black, filled with red spheres, creating blazing fireballs from beyond the floors and walls like they didn’t even exist, giving him an illusion of floating in space surrounded by burning planets.
In another, a network of veins overlaid the original scene—the vibrant lines snaked across the shelves and pillars, casting an eerie glow across the floor. The veins interlinked with each other connecting into the shape of an entity.
Vern closed his eyes and calmed himself. His heart wanted to see more, but every second counted, and he needed to make a decision. He had gathered all the information he could in the limited time, and spending any more time would only be harmful.
However, now came the real question. What law and interpretation would work best for him and this situation?
The options were near limitless, and this subjective observation allowed him to look at the world from any possible perspective. But he realized after a few seconds of thought that it wasn't so simple.
Not all interpretations or laws were equal. A few combinations were definitely more practical and useful than the rest.
A simple mental simulation of the combinations suggested that some interpretations would have perfect synergy with one law while being a logical fallacy for another. Few interpretations could make a seemingly useless law a valid choice, whereas others would waste the potential of even the most complex laws.
It was pretty easy to come up with a useless combination. What if someone interpreted everything as black? How would you make use of any law at all if everything was just black and never changed? What information could one glean from that?
On the other end of this spectrum, what if he thought up something absurd like interpreting the laws of 'energy' as a 'canvas' that could be painted upon?
Would he be able to just paint away all mass and energy around himself as black and destroy the very matter itself? If things so absurd could exist, there was no way their current society would’ve survived for so long.
Since that was the case, there were some limitations on what one could achieve, he just didn’t know what they were yet. That actually made his decision easier.
He would just follow his usual ideology of balance, which only made sense given a choice was all about his perspective. He liked to find balance in everything within his life, so it was only natural that he tried peeking at the world from that lens. The idea was enticing and might even be the best option for him in the long and short term.
Making up his mind, he thought of this fragile concept of balance. The world in itself, as depicted by the Lennian Fundamentals, was a balance of matter with different properties. Then there was the cosmic balance of heat and cold on Prima due to its distance from the Sun.
If one looked for it, they would find some kind of balance in everything around them. The laws of society tried to balance freedom and restrictions, while the scale of resource distribution in civilization tended to tip towards the wealthier nobles.
These equilibriums may or may not be the most optimal or compassionate ones, but similar ones existed in each construct of the society. That is to say things weren't black or white—instead, they lied somewhere in the shades of gray when balanced around two ideas.
Vern kept on linking his thoughts together, and the flickering world came to a halt, settling down into a vista of monochrome gradients.
Some overlapped others, while a few just extended far beyond any walls. Some shades emerged from nowhere, whereas others abruptly disintegrated into nothingness. A couple were changing their contrast every second, while another bunch morphed onto odd shapes with jarring boundaries.
Blood rushed through his eyes, pumping so fast it almost seemed to scorch his veins. It felt as if his eyes were some steam engine that was pushed too hard.
But he didn't waver. This seemed like an crucial step, and it was too fascinating to just close his eyes.
After what seemed like a second or two, a shiver ran through him, perusing through all his thoughts, picking them apart in a rugged fashion before putting them back together.
Instead of feeling repulsed at this pervasive intrusion, the experience was more akin to rejuvenation. What is this sensation? It’s like my ideas are far more consolidated. The s–
His mind blanked, and he noticed the sensation, or absence of it. The tingling that had been coming from his leg from standing on his coat had disappeared at some point in time. He jolted out of the reverie, and his blood ran cold.
The fire from the right end of the hall was already here, burning away his outfit on the ground, just seconds away from torching Ariane's hand.
But how could this be? There should have been at least another two minutes or so before the fire reached them. How had this happened?
He had been keeping a very close eye on the fire even amongst all his bizarre experiences and deductions. Something had gone wrong with him, and he didn't even realize it.
From the other side of the hall, one of the shelves had burnt its base and toppled over, leading to a domino of burning wooden racks that overturned their neighbors, sharing their warmth with the unkindled ones.
Luckily they had walked a little outside the rows of shelves, or this would've already been over before he came to. He would've lost Ariane because he couldn't fucking keep track of the time.
He had to do something right now or—There is no or. I have to do this!