[Ugh, my head is killing me! I guess I probably should have slept more during the past couple days. I probably should have done a lot of things like going to college and working on my English literature project or even just doing the dishes and laundry. I’ve really got to stop playing Noble Actions so much and get serious about my life. What time is it anyway?] {Huh, who’s there?}

As I cracked my eyelids my headache got intensely worse. Bright sunlight was all I could see for a moment as I groaned. Even before I could see I knew that something was very wrong!

As the room came slowly into focus my anxiety only grew more intense. [This isn’t my room; It isn’t even in my apartment! Where am I? Is this a hospital room? Did Hideaki take me to the hospital? I do vaguely remember him scaring me yesterday when he got off work and then I think I fainted.] {I do think I fainted, but who is Hideaki? Why do I know who that is? What’s going on?}

[No, this doesn’t look like any hospital room I’ve ever heard of. It looks more like a five-star hotel room or something.] The room around me was rather opulent. The first thing I noticed was the pale-purple, lacy, canopied bed I was in. That was followed by the mural of angels When I turned my head to the left, I caught sight of even more outlandish details. There were a series of huge arch-topped windows on the wall letting in painful amounts of bright sunlight. Between each window was an elaborate stand with some piece of sculpted art sitting on top of it and there was another in the far corner of the room. When I turned my head to the right, I saw a huge antique looking vanity sandwiched between a wardrobe and dresser of similar make and all inlaid with gold filagree.

The moment I took in the furniture I had the strangest thoughts. [Wow, that’s a really fancy furniture set! I wonder how much something like that cost?] {What’s so strange about that furniture or anything else in this room for that matter?}

I sat bolt upright and began looking around for the person who spoke to me. The moment that I sat up several things happened at once. I got a better look at the room as a whole and found that I was indeed in a European style bedroom, perhaps from the 18th or 19th century. The whole room was very barouche. Near the far wall, a chambermaid jumped to her feet and started running my way. She wasn’t wearing the black and white of a cosplay maid but was in a light green and lavender outfit that seemed more for utility and actual use. She began wailing about me finally being awake but it took a second for her words to register and in that time one more thing happened. My blanket fell down the front of my chest causing me to look down.

My shock was total. I was looking down the inside of a loose lavender shift at a pair of moderately small but serviceable breasts. The problem was they were attached to my own chest! Then the meaning of the chambermaid’s words sunk in. “Oh, Thank the gods. Milady, I’m so glad you’re finally awake! I’ll go let the lady know right away unless you need something? Oh, where are my manners? I brought milady a pitcher of water and glass. I left them on the nightstand.” She was calling me milady.

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It was at that point that I did something I probably should have waited on until I had a better handle on the situation. I looked past my boobs at my crotch. It was gone, my manhood was gone! [I’m a girl!] {Well, of course you’re a girl. I mean I’m a girl. Wait, who are you? I keep hearing you thinking all of these strange thoughts. And the way I keep moving without meaning to, are you making me move?}

As I watched the maid hurry out of the room, I began, what would be, the first of many internal debates. [I keep making you move your body? This is my body, isn’t it? I can feel everything and see everything. If I have all of my senses and can move then isn’t this my body?]

As if to answer my question, my body suddenly started sliding across the bed and stood up without my trying to do so. I was totally lost in a sense of wonder at the novelty of my body moving without me and missed any clue about what was about to happen. Suddenly my hands went to my shoulders and slid the straps of the shift to the side and let it drop and my feet stepped lightly over the pile of discarded fabric. I then began involuntarily walking to the wardrobe. {See, this is my body! I can see and hear and such just as well and I know that this is my body.}

As my hijacked body made to pass the vanity, I tried exerting control and stopped in front of the vanity and just stared in shock at what I was seeing. There, in the huge mirror over the knee level vanity, stood the naked body of a young girl I almost recognized. She almost looked just like the girl from that one opening scene of Noble Actions. The only difference in their appearance was the color of the hair and eyes. [Is that? Am I in the body of baroness D’arville?]

Suddenly my hand shot to my hair and then my face. {Is that my hair? My eyes are wrong. What’s going on? You! The one who keeps controlling my body and sounds like a man, what did you do to me?}

[I don’t know what you mean. Are you… Am I… Hmm, are we Baroness Darville?]

{Are we? Does that mean that you are somehow inside of me? Is that how you keep controlling my actions? Does that mean that you’re some kind of demon who is possessing me to make me do evil things and hurt people? Don’t tell me, you were that imp from…}

Suddenly I had a flashback of the acting count Braumsheil dead in his chair with an imp in his lap. The vision was very gory, and in a lot more detail than the game I remembered. It was also from a first-person perspective. I instantly found my heart pounding and was having a hard time breathing. I then collapsed to my knees and I was feeling a severe tightness in my chest. [Hey! Calm down! Don’t think about that, you’ll actually die of a heart attack this time! I don’t know how I got here but the last thing I want is for somebody else to kill me by having a heart attack in my body. Okay, our body.]

“He… Vincent is… Oh gods, please tell me it’s not true. He can’t be dead, he just can’t!” I then broke down and began to sob uncontrollably. Well, I say that but the truth is I didn’t try to stop her. I had figured out roughly what had happened. I was just reminded of what a heart attack felt like. I say reminded because I had already experienced one… and I died.

Now I was faced with the unlikely situation of being reincarnated as an alternate personality in the body of the NPC who was supposed to die in the opening cutscene of the game Noble Actions. That meant that I was now in that game and would have to try to solve the case before everybody died around me. As an added bonus or hinderance one, my alter ego was awake and in control at the same time as me. This was going to be really tough.