Alexia

The sweet caress of lute and violin music flits within my mind, the notes soft and foreboding. The lows and highs of the music threaten to pull me deeper into the void I find myself in, and for a moment I want to stay within the score, wrapped up in the floating rhythms it carries me farther away.

I might have stayed there, suspended in a musical purgatory, if I hadn’t subconsciously shifted and scraped my cheek against the cold, hard ground.

My eyes open slowly, confusion roiling inside me when I don’t see the glow of my monitor in front of my eyes. Instead of the startup menu for Crimson Skies and a list of happy subscribers chatting off to the side, metal bars take up my view.

By Al’duin, what in the—?

Coming to a sitting position, my eyes scan my surroundings. Three stone walls, plus one with metal bars and a locked gate. I’ve played too many RPGs to not understand where I am.

A cell. I’m in a cell.

Halfway into rolling onto my knees, I discover a second, even crazier new change in my immediate situation. Needing to test my theory, I raise my left arm and rotate it before stretching.

The pain, the searing ache that’s crippled my body and my mental peace for so long? It’s gone.

And not just that. I feel different. Better, but not quite myself. Maybe I had just been in pain for so long, I don’t remember what it feels like to be anyone other than a chronically ill introvert.

“Well, that’s fascinating.” My words break into the ongoing stream of music still cascading through the gloom.

My ears perk, and I get the feeling that I’ve heard this soundtrack before. It’s on the tip of my tongue, my muddled mind still reeling from finding myself cured, apparently pain-free and in a cell, when another sound catches my attention.

It’s then that I notice the second cell across from mine. Crawling forward, I wrap my hands around the metal bars and blink hard, trying to see into the other cell. A dim and threatening shape moves somewhere back in the darkness.

“H-hello? Is someone else there?” The words come out no louder than a squeak. Silence.

I’m about to repeat myself when a face looms into view. Dirt, slime and fury is etched across the man’s shadowed features. He scowls at me, hate piercing through his glare as his brows dip down in wrath.

“You.” The word is clipped, haggard. The man spits across the hall, the wad of saliva landing in front of me. I recoil.

“M-me?”

“You yellow-bellied wench!” he howls from behind the bars, thrashing against them with his arms outstretched like he means to strangle me. “Calrooke, you put me here! I’ll pop your pretty head off your slimy shoulders!”

My fingers fight for purchase as I scramble backward, chest heaving. “I’m literally here the same as you! I didn’t put you there! I don’t even know you!”

Hell, maybe I did know him once. He looks vaguely familiar, in a way NPCs in a game all sort of resemble each other. Neutral and slack faced, bustling about doing their tasks or standing quietly with that oddly asynchronous little sway of their shoulders and arms as they wait for you to approach them.

If we’re in jail, maybe I, accidentally, fraudulently did something. What I don’t know. But I don’t know how I got here, so what other memories am I lacking?

My thoughts cut off as he begins cursing “Calrooke” again. I’ve heard of the name, but I can’t figure it out. It doesn’t help that the man’s muttering and mumbling is distracting me from what actually matters right now. Why am I here?

I begin to pace, letting myself get lost in the music given that it’s so much better than listening to the man. Again, the familiarity is an itch I can’t scratch. It’s like it’s from the Crimson Skies soundtrack, but it almost sounds warped. Odd.

As if it’s from the same soundtrack, but in a part of the game I haven’t reached yet. A nearby guard must be a fan of the game.

I honestly can’t blame him. I listen to the soundtrack constantly, even when I’m not streaming or playing the game itself.

“Damn you to hell, Vanya,” the man hisses and he begins clawing at his face. The terrifying mutilation to his flesh might have sickened me a lot more if my mind wasn’t stuck on his words.

Vanya Calrooke. Oh, shit.

It’s not a guard listening to Crimson Skies music. I’m in the actual game.

But how? I scramble to find an answer, but there is none, so I force myself to think of something else. Anything else.

The man begins screeching insults at Vanya again.

My fans had said I had a similar hair color to Vanya, the tutorial boss in Crimson Skies. But that’s about as far as the similarities go. But if this guy thinks I’m Vanya, then maybe someone else does too. Maybe that’s why I’m in this cell.

Lady Vanya Calrooke is one of Duke Charon Val Corvinus’s generals. Shit, shit, shit. I need to get out of here, but where is here?

There’s only one place my character has yet to go. Charon’s Dark Fortress. Players only go there when they are ready, then they are transported into the fortress in preparation for the fight.

I’m feeling anything but ready.

Desperate, I drop to my hands and knees, scuttling along the floor like a deranged crab. “Escape! There’s always a way to escape these things, the player just has to be smart enough to figure it out.”

My fingers find what I’m searching for, two small, straight rat bones. My dinner coils sourly into my stomach as I lift them up in triumph, trying very hard not to think about how I am holding the remains of a rodent.

I shove the thoughts and my roiling stomach to the side as I spring toward the lock on the gate. I really hope whatever character I’m playing has a high level in lockpicking.

Just when I am about to give up, the lock clicks and the gate swings open on rusted hinges. Immediately the bones drop from my hands so I can wipe them off on my shirt. Ew.

Without a second though, I’m through the gate and racing down the hall, hoping that I’m going the right way. Hoping I don’t run into anyone, especially not the duke.

A chuckle rises up in my throat as I ironically remember the first time the duke appeared in a cutscene while I was streaming. I had made a crass joke about how if Crimson Skies had an evil playthrough, I would so be down to party with the big bad guy.

His character design is perfection. Silver strands of hair falling over his glacial blue eyes, a chiseled jaw, with a slim yet muscular physique? And his voice? Like rolling thunder given a cocky attitude and shiny leather boots.

I would have gladly licked his boots if he asked me to.

But that was all before I found myself in his dungeon. Now I’m thinking less about how soft his hair would probably feel, and more about how his raw, unrivaled power would 100% destroy me.

It’s not long before I find myself in front of a set of stone stairs leading up to a large wooden door. A grin spreads itself across my face, even as my heart pounds in my chest. This has to be the exit right?

My joy is short lived when the soft music cuts out, morphing itself into something more sinister. Violins screech, sounding conspicuously like a banshee. The hairs on my arms rise in alarm.

A music change? Oh, shit.

Any seasoned gamer can tell you exactly what that means. Make sure your healing potions are in your pocket and your strongest weapon in your right hand, a powerful spell in your left. You’re about to encounter a boss fight.

I have none of those.

The door opens with a thunk that echoes into the dungeon, followed by the heavy taps of someone walking down the stone steps. Nausea rolls within with each footfall.

The tall figure is shrouded in shadows, not allowing me to see the face of my soon-to-be-attacker until they stand four feet in front of me. Moonlight from a window lights up his pale, flawless face, and my heart nearly stops altogether.

Duke Charon Val Corvinus grins at me from the last step, a devilishly handsome smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. The sheer amount of fan art that exists of this vampire doesn’t do him justice.

“Lady Calrooke, there you are.” His sharp but enchanting voice rumbles down the hall, bouncing off the stone walls.

No healing potions, no weapon, no spells. I do what any sane person would in this situation.

I scream.