Ryuske was amazed as the game, in the person of the ghost of a bard, used his character"s body, to play the harp. He could feel every motion as his fingers picked out the slow simple tunes it began with. He really wished that he"d been able to show a few of his own past students so directly what he was trying to describe about how to hold their bodies as they played.Even though the ghost was playing the harp through his own hands, its voice still sang from the harp itself. Ryuske thought that it was a bit of a pity that the game hadn"t used the old legend of the harp made from the bones of a woman and carved into her likeness which would sing in an animated fashion, but perhaps that would have seemed too cartoon like. The harp was really beautiful though, with a good sound and well tuned. Not that there was any reason for a virtual instrument to be out of tune, but it still pleased him.
The ghost itself bore the name of a legendary harpist, Turlough O"Carolan, who history said had traveled the length and breadth of Ireland backward and forward before settling down to start a family after half a century of wandering. This ghost"s songs of its travels were of "Living Jade Empire" though, not those of its namesake. The songs themselves were also different from those of that legendary composer.
This ghost had never married and had the children that had blessed its namesake"s later years. It mourned the fact that it had no one to pa.s.s on its legacy to. Ryuske sympathized with the ghost. That had been his only regret about having never married too, as old fashioned as it might sound, and had eventually led to his adoption of Shinichi.
The early spritely and simplistic dancing tunes gradually grew more complex and more sombre in undertone. And Ryuske was euphoric over how real it all felt. He could feel the position of his fingers on the strings, he could feel the vibration of the strings as they sounded, he thought that maybe the ghost"s promise could really be fulfilled through VR.
He actually found it slightly annoying every time the game popped up a notification, or gave the faint chime of a skill level gained that never seemed to line up with the melody of the song in progress. Eventually though, fatigue, hunger, and the ever present call of nature, as people tended to refer to those pressing needs of the body that demanded that one could not actually play games all day without pause, became uncomfortably pressing.
Shinichi logged on from his original console and suggested a break. ZipZing, the name of Shinichi"s girlfriend here, suggested that he ask the harp how much longer, when he pointed out that if he stopped, he"d fail the quest and lose the opportunity. He felt a little silly for having not thought to ask the ghost, and also asked it if he could take a quick break.
The ghost answered, and although it grumbled and threatened him at the same time, it allowed him a brief respite. He logged off and moved with a speed that belied his earlier complaints about his age and pains. Shinichi had a handful of energy bars and a bottle of water ready when he came out. He chugged the water and gnawed through two of the bars before it was already time to log back in again. He was still chewing away on the last half a bar that he"d crammed into his mouth when the game resumed.
The ghost resumed its guidance and the harp played on. It would have been easy to doze off and let the ghost play through him, but it would have negated the whole point. Ryuske sharpened his focus and concentrated on the increasingly complex techniques he was being shown.
If he had dozed off, he was certain that his attention would have been grabbed when the ghost played one of his older songs. The words the ghost sang to it were a bit different, but equally as poignant and full of longing as the ones he"d laid down so many years ago. That shocked him. Shinichi had told him about how the game was a data mine, but he"d never in a million years expected it to sing him his own song.
Other less personal songs followed, laying out the rest of the ghost"s story. When the ghost finally sang its last farewell, Ryuske could tell that the song had been meant to express the sorrow and loneliness that it had experienced, while expressing the richness and fullness that had also been woven into that tapestry, and the final last joyful contentment of having pa.s.sed on all of it to someone who could understand.
He could tell that that had been the final song"s intent, but… it hadn"t quite achieved it. He played what the song should have been, what his song would have been, after all, there were so many parallels to his own life woven throughout the ghost"s fictional history. He played it before his fingers lost the feeling of the strings that they had been learning throughout the hours, before his memory faltered.
And when he pulled up his character"s skills after releasing the harp, his last song was listed in the songs of memory that the harp had taught him, that he suspected the game could repeat again through this virtual body. He traced a finger through the air above that record, above that gift from this "Living Jade Empire".
Then he looked up, and spoke to his sleepy son and the equally sleepy girl that he loved. And then Kobayashi Ryuske left this incredible, amazing, and truly enchanting world behind him. At least until the sun shone down upon the world outside once more.