Vanheight Manor, Port City of Lashterel

  A loud thud filled the air in a dark room of a seemingly abandoned mansion high up on the hillside near a port city. The building – the Manor – is a massive but wretched, crumbling, thing. There is no fancy way to put it – It is falling apart. The culprit of the loud thud is a small girl who looked to be no older than fourteen. She had fallen out of bed. Dragging her extraordinarily soft blanket with her as she took her short plunge to the hardwood floor below.

  Naturally, the girl was awake… In a manner of speaking. Her grey eyes were indeed open. Yet they did not focus on anything. They are dull. Lifeless. Her pale skin is nearly as white as the silken nightgown she wore. If one were to look at a certain angle, they’d not be blamed for mistaking her skin as being, nearly, if not almost translucent. Frankly speaking, she could easily be mistaken for a corpse. Simply laying there as she is. Moments passed. Gradually turning into minutes. When finally, the corpselike girl stirred. First the fingers of her right hand twitched. Faint, almost imperceptible, as if her body still carried the barest residue of life. Though to say it had ‘the barest residue of life’ would be a most generous descriptor indeed. Then, slowly, that same, impossibly thin hand moved to her face. As if feeling for something. Perhaps to see if she still had a face. Before it slid down to her neck. Fingers lightly curling about it. As if checking for… something, or another. Though it is impossible to say.

  Soon both hands, fingers splayed widely apart, pressed against the cold hardwood. Her arms shook. As if the act of trying to push herself to a rough approximation of a sitting position was a truly monumental attempt at physical exertion. Which, indeed, it was. The moonlight streaming into the room giving just enough light to reveal that the girl was – as one would note at first glance – unusually thin. If not borderline emaciated. It revealed something else though – She was not human. Indeed, her long brown hair, which pooled on the floor around her, was parted on both sides of her head by a pair of elongated, pointed, ears. Each nearly half as long as her forearms.

  She is an elf. One of the extremely rare few who reside in the Nemunium Empire.

  Once the girl managed to achieve her desire to sit up, the blanket she was tangled within slid off her like water down a stream. She paused. As if something occurred to her. Slowly, she looked left then right. Her empty eyes taking in her surroundings. Idly noting the barren surroundings – A vanity in the far corner of the room, a desk undoubtedly meant for work but was bare save for a single sheet of paper and a pen resting next to it, and the elegant four-poster bed from which she fell.

  She slowly looked down at her hands. Clenching and unclenching them. While doing so, a flicker of… something, danced behind her dull grey eyes. The barest hint of a spark just waiting to become a raging inferno. A moment passed before her gaze was drawn to something past her hands. Perhaps to take stock of herself. But she did not do that. Instead, she slowly took hold of a lock of her long brown hair. Examining the soft, silk like, strands of her hair. Rubbing them between her forefinger and thumb.

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  “I’m… alive? Where…?” The voice that came from her lips is weak and raspy. Barely louder than a whisper, “No…. that’s not… right.” That flicker behind her sightless grey eyes from before returned. Stronger this time. But it did not pass. It did not fade. Her eyes began to sharpen. Thin lips parting as she took a sharp intake of breath. The air invigorating her body. Within her breast, her heart began to beat faster. Harder. As life began to surge through her veins for the first time, “… Memories.” Her grey eyes widened fractionally as the whispered word slipped past her thin lips. Images, sights, sounds – all of them danced through her mind. Familiar in a strange way that could not be described to or by her. Rather… not in a way that would be considered sane by any measure of the word in this world. The door suddenly opened. Cutting off the girl before she could begin to whisper the revelation she came to.

  She looked up see a woman with short black hair and wearing a long black dress with a white apron come rushing in. “Lady Veronica!” The woman is a maid. Hired to serve as the girl’s attendant at night, “What’s wrong? Are you harmed?” She knelt next to the girl. Eyes wide in alarm. Reaching out as if to grasp her mistress or to check for any obvious sign of physical injury. Yet she does not touch. Although she appears alarmed, she hesitates to touch her mistress. And for good reason – the girl has a reputation of being quick to anger. The intensity of which often drives her to fire her staff over the smallest things.

  The girl, Lady Veronica, does not immediately speak. Nor give any sign of registering that the maid had spoken. No, she does none of those things. Because she is too preoccupied with the memories that come to mind when she sees the maid. “You’re…” When the girl does speak, it is a whisper. Meant for her own ears. Her gaze, though slightly unfocused, locked onto the maid. Seemingly stuck in the transition from staring at the maid to staring at something just passed her. She recognizes the maid. And she is unable to believe it.

  Once more, the revelation comes to Veronica mind. She cannot be interrupted this time. “Reincarnation…” She whispers, the word inaudible to all but her. The maid is a character in a game from her previous life. Something that she feels is impossible. Despite the evidence to the contrary which knelt before her. Repeating her prior questions.

  The maid has clearly pushed her fear of reprimand to the side. Because she gives up on asking Veronica is she alright. And gently helps her Lady to her feet. Then guides her back to the bed, “Don’t worry, my Lady,” She says while quickly snatching up the blanket from the floor and draping it over Veronica, “I’ll get someone to fetch the doctor right away!”

  In the early hours of the morning, as the port city of Lashterel begins to stir, the Manor on the hill comes to life as well. Roused by the frantic shouts for a doctor by the nighttime attendant for the single occupant of note who resides within its rundown walls.