After the first three days of this New Life I began establishing a routine.
4:00 AM - Rise. I practice "Void Meridian Reversal Training," which means that I channel raw void aether through my body's meridian network, bypassing my shattered core. I do thirty reps per session. The result afterward is that my hands finally burn for about two hours afterward. As of now, I am at 14-circulation of the Hidden Quest's 100-circulation target.
6:00 AM - Physical Conditioning. Cedric's body was designed for combat like a sports car is made for racing (every muscle fiber design is engineered for maximizing Catachresis). The only thing that doesn't allow him to utilize the Aether to fuel the engine is the lack of Aether present in the tank, i.e. the gas tank is empty. Therefore, I have been running through the estate's interior corridors (due to the fact I can not risk being seen outside where the servants can relay my actions to the Duke), executing push-ups, and pull-ups (using my bedroom's door frame) and practicing sword forms until my muscle memory is developed enough to allow me to execute them without having to think about what I'm doing.
8:00 AM - Study. The Valdrake library has three floors of knowledge and uses a system of classification that I suspect was developed in order to frustrate any casual users of the library. I focused on studying three areas: Historical texts related to Void Sovereignty; Procedures involved with taking the entrance examination to the Academy from previous years; and all documents related to the name "Sera Valdrake".
I was able to locate documents from both of the first two areas. However, I found no references to "Sera Valdrake". I could not find any reference to her in any family records archive, correspondence archive or genealogy archive contained within the Valdrake library.
What this means is, either my search is completely wrong; my search is partially wrong, and/or the references to "Sera Valdrake" have been removed.
12:00 PM - Lunch. I ate lunch alone in the dining room, which is the same way it feels like being in a mausoleum, except without the gravity well of the Duke's presence nearby.I ate without thinking about it. I was concentrating on my thoughts about the food between each bite, rather than appreciating how good it was.
Every Day — I have a new Aether reading. I have found a way to get the same benefit from putting myself in the meditation room in the basement of the estate, which is a chamber specifically geared towards training and meditation by creating an area of concentrated leyline energy that appears as a visible mist. I went through a session of sitting there, meditating, and as far as I can tell, I do not need to be flowing Aether through me at this time. Rather, I am simply allowing it to flow into me while my broken core remains stable.
The estate contains an extraordinary amount of Void Aether in the form of Void Energy at levels not represented in the game. I am absorbed to some degree into all parts of my physical environment including the walls, floors, ceilings, water and the foods that I consume. The effects of generations of Valdrake training resulted in all of the land surrounding the estate becoming a Void Domain. There are now minor amounts of Void Aether entering my body naturally through the walls and all other types of things in the estate. It has kept my broken core from becoming any further damaged.
I just had a realisation that the area could be experiencing an effect that requires Aether-sensitive visitors to notice it from a distance. They may feel the presence of the Void as soon as they enter.
The Valdrake estate is the location where my story begins.
Day Four. Time is 11:47 AM. I received a notification from the game's "Villain's Ledger" that I had not thought would be coming.
* * *
[SCENARIO NOTIFICATION]
Event: Visit from Valeria Embercrown
Heroine #5 — Arrival at Valdrake Estate within 1 hour. All Paths include this event. Canonical Response for Cedric is Hostile and Indifferent. Maintain Canonical Response is Recommended
Deviation Risk = Low (Minor NPC Interaction)-Limited Narrative Weight-
The game reminds the player that the visit from your fiancée is not a social visit; rather, this is a factor of Political Obligation (And not a good time). Do Not enjoy it.
"Very little interaction with this character. Limited Narrative Weight."
I read that line twice. It caused a very cold sense to set into my gut.
In the game, Valeria Embercrown made a very brief appearance (in terms of time) before the Academy (at the beginning of the game). There is a scene where we exchange two lines of hostile "dialogue" between the two of us. I said something condescending towards Valeria. She responded with a cutting remark. That scene is there to show the player that their engagement is political theatre (and that they hate one another), and can only be interpreted as such. The total time spent on that scene (of screen time) is probably about fifteen seconds.
Fifteen seconds… That was how long the game gave me in relation to the woman I was "engaged" to.
But three days ago, the game gave no time whatsoever to a dead girl named Sera.
I am developing a theory about Throne of Ruin. The game is not wrong, but it is limited. The game only shows the plot-relevant surface of things (the action, dialogue, event-driven content that makes up the story), but ignores the deeper (private) emotions and griefs of the characters, and the continuing lives of the characters that were not seen on the screen. For example, Cedric Valdrake is perceived as a "flat" villain throughout the game, but this may be due to the fact that the only things the game shows me about him are his actions (but does not show me anything about Cedric Valdrake as a person). What if the same can be said about all of the characters in the game? What if the heroes are more than heroic, and the villains are more than villainous, and the "minor NPCs" are people, but players will never see their full interior life?What if Valeria Embercrown was more than just fifteen seconds worth of hostile dialogue?
Soon enough, I'd find out.
Changing clothes was easy. I still had the same aesthetic — black coat, silver buttons, Valdrake crest — but just a tad less formal cut. The Duke was not present. He had left at dawn for "business in the capital," according to one of the many servants. The term 'business' could mean anything from a senate meeting to quietly having someone erased from existence. Since he was absent, that left me to reception.
Cedric's betrothal to Valeria was not personal; it was a political arrangement between their houses. House Embercrown had fallen from prominence; they had once been one of the most powerful houses, out of all seven. Now they were down due to scandal, debt and a Duke whose ambition exceeded his resources. By marrying Cedric, Embercrown received the Valdrake name's protection; at the same time, Valdrake had access to Embercrown's Infernal Legacy bloodline for the potential heirs of the future; in addition, Valdrake acquired a political ally in the western territories.
In short, Valeria was being bartered for Cedric.
The game never framed it as such. Rather, it framed the two haughty nobles who despised each other forced to be in close quarters together; it made for interesting entertainment and dramatic conflict.
I personally found no entertainment in it whatsoever.
For now, I sat in the estate's grand reception room — a room that appeared to have been designed by someone who considered making a guest feel small to be the architectural ideal. The ceiling height was forty feet; the floor was jet-black polished marble. The floor was so shiny that when you looked down, you could see the Void-sigil chandeliers shining brightly above you — an image of dark stars.Two armchairs face each other, across from one another, across a small table, with the one facing the door being the host's chair; the other chair, the guest's chair; and is higher than the guest's by one step (that is, the guest is lower than the host at that point). The two chairs should be at the same height as all of the chairs in the room.
The only change is that I have now placed both chairs at the same height.
Is it a small change? A meaningless change? Perhaps. But to be completely honest with you, there is one reason that you should make this change: because you are not Cedric Valdrake, and you can't be expected to understand the importance of this change.
At exactly noon the door opened.
She was striding into the room as if it were her home. In fact, I would say that she strutted into the room with enough conviction and confidence that the room itself was afraid to confront her ownership of the space. The way she walked was slow and measured; she had perfect posture, her face was the epitome of concentration, and in her eyes she was saying one thing. I am here to be with you, and I am lucky that I decided to come here with you.
For the most part, the game had gotten her appearance correct.
Midnight-blue hair (it's black in the low lighting of the reception room) with shafts of deep blue where light strikes the hair in the chandelier above fell loosely down her back in long waves that appeared to be tossed away by a great many but to achieve that toss away look likely took a very long time to create. Her eyes are a bright scarlet colour that stand out in contrast to her skin and everything else in the room. I watched her do a quick visual of the room before she focused her force of focus on me like an arrow being shot with a bow. Her skin was as white as porcelain and appeared to be without blemish, again making me think either of genetic engineering or that she used extensive skincare products.The woman stood tall at around five feet seven or eight. Her fitted dark crimson dress fit her figure perfectly, and perfectly fit her. Not only was the color of her dress complimentary to her, but it also served as a visual reminder each time someone saw her that she was (in the name of clinical definition) one of the most beautiful women alive. The way that she looked was like something that had come from a committee's imagination with no budget limitations and with only the single sentence of "beautiful and dangerous".
The introduction of the character portraits that were created for this period of gameplay did not capture the following three events:
The first of which was the way that she moved her eyes. Instead of just simply scanning the room, looking for objects to pick up while dancing, or trying to find an exit, this woman was actually cataloging the entire room before taking her third step out of the room. She would have evaluated how far she was away from the nearest exit and where all of the furniture was located in relation to her position. She also would have noted what object could be thrown at an attacker (namely the silver candlestick). This was not the behavior of a young lady from an affluent family; this was an example of someone who had learned how to recognize threats to her safety through practical experience.
The second observation that was not mentioned in the game was that the young lady's hands were locked together, which would typically indicate that she is a proper lady with excellent posture. However, the left hand was tightly gripping the right wrist with such force that the knuckles were white. Her forearms were tight and tense, which would have indicated to a knowledgeable bystander that if she let go of the right wrist, she would shake.
The third observation that was not documented in the game was the young lady's wrist was bruised and could easily have been concealed by a stylish and elegant bracelet made of dark rubies; the color of the bracelet matched perfectly to the color of the dress.The way in which she walked (much faster than she should've been able to), along with the way that her bracelet had moved just slightly (maybe 1mm), helped me notice that under her bracelet was an area on her wrist where I could see the beginning of something that was clearly not jewelry. I could see that it was discolored, yellowish-green along the edges with darker coloring in the middle.
I also saw that this was an area that was healing but had not yet been healed completely.
I had identified that there was a bruise on her wrist that had been purposely hidden.
The findings of the game did not provide for this, nor had the fifteen seconds of antagonistic conversation, shown me the signs of fear, the fact that she was still a girl but presented as an adult, the manner in which a girl must walk when she enters a room. All of these things, a girl must learn how to do because they have been abused in rooms previously.
I filed all of these things in my mind, as I have stated, and noted every detail, and every implicit meaning that I picked up on.
She had a clear and composed tone to her voice, "Cedric," indicating that she was far beyond me as an individual. Her voice was pleasant in tone, carrying an air of elegance, as though she bottled her disdain and sold it as a "special perfume." She then acknowledged my existence, not very enthusiastically, but with a quick dip of her head.
When she mentioned that I "looked healthy," it was intended as the subtext of a slight insult that she was too sophisticated to insult me directly on.
In the game, Cedric would have replied, "And you arrived to waste my valuable time, so get on to the point."
I did not do that.
After a lot of deliberation, I stood from the chair where I was seated, deliberately taking my time as Cedric never hurried for anyone, and took my time to give her an evaluation look, coldly, not in a hostile manner but also not in a warm manner as I had practiced giving that look in the mirror for about ten minutes early that morning.Cedric was the type of person who would judge you based on how interesting he thought you seemed, but would hold off on deciding whether being seen as interesting was beneficial or detrimental for you, until he finished observing you.
"Valeria," I said, "sit."
I made the statement, but it was a direct command. Cedric gives orders, not requests. However, I pointed to the chair, which was now about the same height and level as my own (instead of being positioned lower). If Valeria noticed this shift from the usual power dynamic of a Valdrake, she did not voice a comment about it.
So, she sat. The motion from standing to sitting was fluid and controlled; every angle of her body was intentional. Valeria's skirt was even placed in a specific manner across her ankles while maintaining her upper body upright and keepingher chin tilted at just the right angle to show confidence but not arrogance. She had been clearly trained very well on how to sit; she had probably gone through numerous repetitions until this was now automatic.
I sat directly across from her, with approximately two feet of space between us (due to the low table). This distance enabled me to see her face very well. I was able to see the slight amounts of tension at the edges of her mouth, which were not concealed by her extremely composed facial expression.
"Greetings to you from my father as well as his hope that it would be possible to change the timeline for our engagement," Valeria spoke to me.
There was no change in Valeria's tone of voice when she said "my father." To most listeners, this statement would seem completely normal. But to me, a gamer who has developed a hypervigilance concerning audio cues, I was aware of it when she said it.
What I detected from her audio cue was an extreme reduction in emotionality associated with the words "my father." It sounded as though she had used scissors and snipped away the feelings associated with the words, leaving only the clean and formal sounds behind.
Duke Roderick Embercrown was the mid-arc adversary in the game; he was extremely ambitious; he was very calculating and would do anything necessary to restore his family. In order to accomplish this, he aligned himself with the Cult of the Abyss as well as used his daughter as a political weapon. Depending on which way the player chooses, the duke may die or be imprisoned late in the game.
There was no information indicated in the game about what Duke Roderick Embercrown did to his daughter behind closed doors.
The bruise on Valeria's wrist answered that question.