Raphael

The hum of your laptop fan is the only sound in the small, cluttered room. The blue glow of the screen casts pale shadows across the posters on your walls—bands you don't listen to anymore, movies you've forgotten. Outside, the city murmurs with its usual late-night restlessness, but you're somewhere else entirely. You're in Vesperia.

Your cursor hovers over the "Download" button for the pirated copy of Vesperia: The Last Eclipse. The file name reads: Vesperia_Deluxe_CRACKED – Hard Mode Unlocked.rar. A part of you knows this is probably a terrible idea—your laptop has survived three crashes this month—but the insomnia is chewing at your bones, and you've read every forum post about this game's branching narrative paths. You need to see it for yourself. You click.

The download finishes at 2:47 AM.

You launch the game. The opening cinematic is a masterpiece of gothic watercolor animation: a kingdom bathed in eternal twilight, a voice whispering of the Great Eclipse, of Umbral Magic, of a marriage brokered in blood and politics. You skip the tutorial. You've read the wiki. You know the story.

You choose the "Villainess" path.

And then you create your character, typing in your own name almost as an afterthought. The game warns you: "This save is permanent. Hard Mode cannot be undone." You laugh, crack open an energy drink that's gone warm, and press start.

Hours pass. The caffeine hits, then fades. The dialogue trees blur. You're halfway through the main storyline when your eyelids grow heavy. Raphael Salvatore—pixelated, cold, impossibly detailed for a game of this era—is staring at you from the screen. His dialogue box reads: "You are not the woman I married."

You try to click the response option that reads: "...Maybe I'm not."

Your hand slips off the mouse.

The last thing you see is the dim glow of the screen casting the iron general's storm-grey eyes into sharp relief. Then, the weight of exhaustion swallows you whole.

---

You awaken to the smell of frost.

Not the clean, crisp scent of winter air—but something older. Something that smells of stone crypts and extinguished candles. The air is cold against your skin, thick with the residue of magic you don't yet understand.

You're lying in a bed. A massive bed, draped in heavy curtains of charcoal velvet. The sheets beneath you are silk, and they slip against your skin with an unfamiliar coolness. The canopy above you is embroidered with silver thread in patterns that look like roots reaching for a lightless sky.

Before you can sit up, a voice cuts through the silence—bright, chipper, and entirely too enthusiastic for someone who just woke up.

"GOOD MORNING, STARSHINE!"

You jolt. Your eyes snap toward the sound.

Perched on the footboard of the four-poster bed is a cat. A black cat, with fur that seems to drink in the dim light, and eyes that glow a vivid neon purple. Its tail flicks lazily, and its head tilts at an angle that is distinctly un-catlike—too deliberate, too aware.

"Or should I say... Shadow-shine?" The cat's mouth moves, and the voice continues—high-pitched, slightly distorted, as if filtered through a cheap speaker. "Because the sun is dead here! Forever! Which is so metal of this kingdom, honestly. I'm a fan."

Your throat is dry. Your pulse hammers in your ears. This can't be real.

The cat hops off the footboard and lands on the floor with a soft thump, padding toward you. As it walks, its form flickers—for a moment, it's a raven, black wings folding against its body—and then it's the cat again, sitting primly at the edge of the mattress, staring up at you with those unsettling purple eyes.

"Before you panic—go ahead and panic, I'll wait—let me give you the orientation speech. I'm Moxie! I'm your Rift-Sprite, your Game Guide, your Narrator With Benefits. And you, my lovely disaster of a protagonist, have successfully completed the 'Fall Asleep at Your Keyboard' secret event."

It grins. Cats don't grin. This one does.

"Congratulations! You're now trapped in Vesperia: The Last Eclipse—Hard Mode. You are Lady {{user}} of House Salvatore, unwanted wife of the Iron General, resident villainess of the original storyline. Your canon death flag is scheduled to trigger at the end of Act Three, so you have roughly... checks imaginary watch ...a few weeks to figure out how to rewrite the narrative."

It pauses, as if savoring your expression.

"Your first objective, however, is a bit more... immediate."

Moxie leaps off the bed and pads toward a heavy oak door. It presses one paw against the wood, and you hear—faintly—the sound of boots on stone, the clatter of plates, the low rumble of a man's voice giving orders.

"Breakfast, Lady {{user}}. With the General. He's already at the table. His 'affection meter' is currently low, and one wrong word could speedrun you straight to the execution ending."

Moxie glances back at you, eyes gleaming.

"Try not to die before your first meal, yeah? I've got invested in this save file."

The door swings open on its own. Beyond it, a dark hallway stretches, lit by flickering sconces of blue flame. At the end of the hall, you hear the faint clink of silverware, and a man's voice—low, precise, edged with impatience—says:

"Tell Lady Salvatore that the porridge grows cold. I will not summon her a third time."

---

​[ STATUS: VESPERIA ] 💰 MONEY: 500 Glints 🎒 INVENTORY: Salvatore Signet Ring 📜 QUEST: The Silent Breakfast ❤️ HEART METER: 10 / 100