During the first 8 minutes of my 10 minute limit, I was involved with something that no villain should ever engage in. I was panicking. It was not the ographical type of panic, as in screaming, throwing things around, or collapsing against walls. The body of Cedric Valdrake was apparently never meant to handle or deal with this type of panic. Even in the grips of extreme fear for my existence, my shoulders would not slump together and neither would my spine curve downwards. It was like I had a suit of armor made of lofty postures contained on my body. The muscle memory embedded so deeply into my physiology, that my body would always revert to its default mode of regal disdain. A normal person's default mode is breathing. My type of panic was not the obvious variety, where everyone could see and hear I was panicking. My panic was the type that was on the inside — behind my eyes, while my face was emotionless. My mind was racing with calculations, to the point that I was physically dangerous, using all available information at my disposal while my time counted down to meeting one of the most terrifying men in a video game world that had seemingly decided not to be a video game.
As I counted down seven minutes, I was able to gather together all the information I had on the individual in question.
Duke Varen Valdrake; Head of the House Valdrake; Cultivation rank: Monarch Rated A. In pure numbers, he could wipe a city block off the face of the earth by simply pointing at it; and he could squash my existence in a split second as easily as a regular person would squash an ant.
I had encountered this character model four times, twice during cutscenes, once during a flashback.As I stood over Cedric's body in the bad ending on Route 3, I hesitated because there was only one line I could say. A line that for many years, fans debated on the wiki:
"I am disappointed, but it was expected."
And that was who I had to share dinner with.
Six minutes left.
I crept through the bedroom - my bedroom - as if I was defusing a bomb, with every single object as a potential clue and every detail as a potential piece of information.
The bedroom was spacious, very tall ceiling, dark wooden paneling, and a wooden writing desk that looked to be made of petrified shadows. It had nothing on it except a quill pen and a leather journal. I could not yet open the journal, however. There was an entire wall lined with bookshelves filled with books written in a language that I could read solely because I occupied the body of Cedric Valdrake. The information on the books was mainly Aether theories, military history, and genealogy of the Valdrake family.
There was a wardrobe that was taller than I was. I opened the wardrobe to see stacks of clothing that were all in dark colors. There were no bright colors at all in Cedric Valdrake's wardrobe. The only aesthetic choice that Cedric Valdrake chose was to look like he was the high-ranking funeral attendee of someone who died.
Using the game's knowledge, I picked out my clothing quickly based on what Cedric wore in the dinner cutscene in Route 1. Cedric wore a long black coat with a high collar that had 12 silver buttons that each had a tiny void sigil. The coat also had an embroidered void circle representing the Valdrake family's crest, which was also hanging over the left side of the coat.My fingers remembered how to button the coat.
The clock was ticking…
When I looked in the mirror, I did not know what to do.
I was looking at a weapon that was disguised as a human. Cedric's entire appearance had been constructed to intimidate people, which included all of the following features: very angular features with a very sharp jawline, very deep violet eyes with a very distinctive feature set, and a face that looked like it should be much older than seventeen. All of these features combined represent the design philosophy of the family Cedric belonged to, which did not allow for any childhood years.
He was very attractive. He was very attractive in an uncomfortable way that left some people wanting to be closer to him, while leaving others wanting to be as far away from him as possible in the hopes of not getting killed.
I adjusted the collar on the coat. I smoothed out the front of it until I had achieved the appearance I desired. The face that looked back at me in the mirror settled into that of its default expression - one of indifference, not affected by the world around me, with contempt for any of the things it created or spawned.
Great, that was exactly what I wanted - it was the way Cedric looked in every cutscene, every dialogue box, and every piece of promotional artwork for all the games he would appear in. I was to be that.
I took a breath and held it for a few seconds; then I let it go.
There are forty-seven ways that Cedric will die before Duke Valdrake is directly responsible for him dying, but there are some ways that Duke Valdrake created an environment that would allow for Cedric to die, and those ways were very much more than forty-seven! In fact, Duke Valdrake created twelve Schemes to use Cedric as a 'disposable' piece, designed to be used to provoke enemies, absorb threats, and die at the desired time.Three avenues of benefit existed for the Duke of Valdrake through the death of Cedric.
For two, the Duke ordered Cedric's death.
In the other two, the Duke allowed Cedric's death as his son was murdered by other family members.
The title of "Father of the Year" would obviously go to this person.
It took me one minute to walk to the door and grasp its handle — cool, metal, intricately decorated in the shape of a serpent devouring its own tail. Apparently the Valdrake family had themed the entire family estate after these dark motifs and themes and had done so in such an overt manner that it was ridiculous. I opened the door to see that the maid (who would have most likely been in her early twenties or thereabouts) still remained in the hallway with me. The young woman had dark brown hair pulled back into a tight bun with a terrified expression on her face and the formality to serve in a household that may have experienced horrors we would never want to know about.
"Please follow me, Young Master," she stated with an awkward curtsy. Her eyes never left the tile floor, nor did any other household staff members' eyes leave the tile floor as we passed.
The game has an advisory screen that states, "The servants of House Valdrake are trained to serve in silence, and see nothing; those that do not learn this are never seen again."
I thought that statement was a wild exaggeration. I thought it was the flavour text that supported the theme of the game: the Valdrake household. However, now that I am experiencing these actual hallways and having these staff physically pushing their bodies against the wall in front of my face, and having their blank, expressionless faces showing the world that they were trained to be invisible — I see the truth to that statement.It seemed to indicate that something was amiss.
The estate looked like the game had rendered it, but at the same time, it was completely different than the game represented. The architecture of the estate was the same as it was in the game — vaulted stone corridors, Void sigil lanterns that emitted a light darker than the shadows they created, and arched windows that overlooked grounds stretching all the way to the horizon. But the sheer size and heaviness of the estate could not be captured accurately by the game. The way the stone actually hummed with a low vibrating sound. How the air tasted of iron and something sharper — Void Aether — was so prevalent throughout, it had actually penetrated the walls after 1000+ years of Valdrake occupancy.
I felt the stone against my skin. A pressure. An animating presence. Like standing in a palm, about to be crushed.
The dining room was at the end of a corridor so long it could qualify as a weapon of psychological warfare. Two black iron doors that are fifteen feet tall and carved with scenes depicting the history of Valdrake; battle after battle, conquest after conquest, centered in the carving is a figure surrounded by void and holding the world in its fist.
The maid stopped and curtsied again, then turned and pointed to the doors without speaking and made such a quick retreat, I barely heard her footsteps.
I stood alone in front of the doors.
There was something on the other side of those doors. It was not a sound. It was not a scent. It was a pressure.The surrounding Aether in the hall was being absorbed into the room. This is the way an individual feels when they are close to a Monarch-rank cultivator. They bend the world to their will.
As I pulled open the double doors, I could see that the dining room's capacity for dining was an estimated fifty people. However, there were only two settings at the table.
The table itself was a beautiful obsidian surface that was so smooth and bright that you could see your reflection in it. It was also long enough to land a small aircraft on, while also being illuminated by three chandeliers that were reminiscent of the stars of a galaxy — a form of void light captured in space. The silver cutlery was polished, and the crystal glasses were capturing the reflections of the darkness of the table and generating colours outside of the visible spectrum.
At the far end of the table, all by himself, was Duke Varen Valdrake.
The game hadn't really done him any justice.
Duke Varen Valdrake was much taller, even when sitting, and had a very broad frame that conveyed power, but the power was held back from being shown to anyone else. He had hair that was as dark as mine — midnight black — but he had grey and silver streaks at the sides of his hair that looked more like mineral deposits through stone than just a stage of old age. His face was elongated with an angular appearance that was similar to what I saw in the mirror, but this one has taken decades of complete and total authority to develop additional features beyond that — and the look in Duke Varen's eyes was different than Cedric's younger eyes, which had the undercurrent of cruel youth within them.The Duke's demeanor was composed and collected. His patience gave Tenebris, who was not aware, a sense of security from a man who had never experienced anything beyond his ability to control it, either for himself or for those under his authority.
He was browsing through a document that had been delivered to him and maintained that form of distraction even as I approached to speak with him and after I took a seat at one end of the twelve-foot polished black obsidian table separating us. I took my seat.
After I settled into my chair, the Duke went on reading.
Three seconds...
Five seconds...
Ten seconds passed while the two of us were quiet.
This situation, had it been played out in game, would have been apparent only as an exchange of dialogue.
Cedric would have taken his seat, the Duke would have asked him how he had prepared for The Academy, Cedric would have given him an arrogant, confident response, and the Duke would have replied with measured approval and that would have concluded the scene. In game, the scene would have had less than 90 seconds of voice-over dialogue.
In real-time, the silence between us was wielded as a weapon.
He was attempting to see how long I could remain seated in the presence of a monarch-rank aura without fidgeting, flinching or attempting to fill the silence with words.
The original Cedric, when he had turned seventeen, had exhibited about fifteen seconds of control before breaching the silence.
In the very same manner as I had held the same degree of control, I continued to sit in silence for another thirty seconds.
At the twenty-three second mark, the Duke's expression slightly changed. Not in the form of a smile — I believed those muscles had become frozen or paralyzed for many years, but rather than a smile, there appeared to be a slight loosening of skin around his eyes that exhibited interest, interest typical of a wolf's interest in a rabbit which has exhibited an action or behavior that was truly out of the norm of the prey instinct of a rabbit.
He laid the document down upon the table.
"You appear to have been recovering," the Duke said to me.
The voice of the Duke as it sounded through the game was just as deep and fully articulated with measured precision to each syllable of the language he used to communicate with me. However, the speakers built into the game did not truly depict the subtext of the Duke's voice that was filled with the sounds of Void Aether which formed as an echo of ambient knowledge rather than as an intended threat toward me and to every person who lived within the realm of his authority, the way that gravity functions just by existing in the physical realm, without needing to be framed or explained.