I woke up in a room full of dead bodies.
I would’ve been absolutely terrified, but the situation was just too bizarre, too out of this world for me to feel anything but confusion.
I've seen corpses before, and I know for a fact that if left unattended, they would degrade, bloat, and would smell like absolute filth from hell. However the air instead smelled like clay, and the bodies were in pristine condition.
No visible wounds, bruises or any signs of struggle. It's as if everyone suddenly decided to die of a heart attack. Or perhaps it's a deadly gas weapon by terrorists. That one's a possibility too.
Although none of that explains how I got here. Was I kidnapped? The last thing I remember was going to sleep. If I was kidnapped, what was their purpose? Human trafficking? Harvesting our organs? The way they just carelessly stored our bodies in a room however implies they don't care much about the state of our organs.
No matter the circumstances, the first priority is getting out of here. I was lucky that the people who put me in here did not recognize that I was still alive, and I do not plan on getting out just by luck again.
Plan of action decided, I started to walk over the soft bodies towards the set of stairs that lead to the only door in the room. As I stumbled my way to apparent freedom, I can’t help but notice a couple more peculiarities.
One, all of the bodies are naked. Two, now that I take a closer look at them, every single one of the bodies is identical. From the white hair, pale skin and red eyes, even the size of their bits down there are all identical. I would think that they were dolls, if not for number three. My.. skin is as pale as theirs. Now I used to have relatively light skin, but nowhere near this unhealthy looking snow white complexion. A sinking feeling in my gut came about from this discovery.
After a seemingly long walk towards the metal door, I ever so slightly turned the doorknob, and opened the door as slowly as possible, careful to not make any noise in case the kidnappers were nearby. A loud click from it betrayed me however, and I figured that the door was locked from the outside. Whoever locked us in there probably did not expect one of the bodies to pull a zombie trick and walk again.
Well, time to get some answers.
Peeking, I tried to see if anyone was right outside the door. What greeted me was another large room, filled with assortments of books, random trinkets, cabinets, large glass tubes, and other things you would find in a stereotypical laboratory.
Unlike the room where I came from, this one was well lit from the natural lighting that comes from the windows. The sight of the windows gives me great relief, seeing as there is immediately one possible way I can leave.
Tiptoeing to not give my position away, I made my way to the windows, to see if that’s an avenue of escape. Though from the dust in the room, I’d say it’s been quite a while since somebody was in here, making my discrete efforts seemingly unneeded.
What I saw beyond the windows was not anything I could have ever expected, which is becoming a theme for the day as I’ve come to learn. It was a vast expanse of mountainous rock and soil. Filled with some foliage, and most importantly, a sea of red scales.
At first, my mind did not process what I was looking at, until I saw a couple of them moving- no, flying. A pair of wings, a long tail, a gigantic body covered with red overlapping scales, and a horned lizard head. It was an absolutely terrifying sight, but beautiful to watch.
I just stood there for a seemingly long time just staring and disbelieving what was in front of me. Dragons, as far as the eye can see, littering the mountain range I was in. The air smelled fresh and cool, but with a tinge of ash and smoke, probably from the fire breathing monsters outside. After a while, I closed the window when a couple of them got a bit too close for my liking.
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Doing that allowed me to face my reflection off of the glass however. Or rather, the face of the body I was currently in. Blood red eyes, snow white hair and extremely pale skin. The exact same as the bodies in the previous room.
My legs collapsing in the revelation of this fact, I just sat there and thought of the ridiculousness of the situation. I kind of expected this when I was walking over the bodies, seeing as I had a differently colored skin from before, but I had hoped that it was the trick of the light due to the darkness of the room I was in. Now however, there was no denying it.
On a mountain range filled with dragons from all directions, sat a building a couple of hundred feet above the ground. I was in the middle of it, stuck in a body not of my own.
I’ve been isekai’d, and I do not like my chances of escaping this.
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After a minor breakdown which involved a bit of crying, some punched furniture and staring at the ceiling for some untold amount of time, I decided I need a new plan of action. First, what do I need? Second, what do I have readily available to me?
Clothes, I decided, were my priority. I was as naked as the bodies in the other room, and not walking in my birthday suit in an unfamiliar and potentially hostile environment would make me feel a whole lot more protected, even if it’s just mostly psychological. Clothes make the man after all, and I know for a fact that an effective way to demoralize an opponent is to have them naked, it makes them feel powerless.
There were no clothes in the room I was in unfortunately, but there were curtains. I’d keep them in mind as a last resort in case I don’t find any in the other rooms.
Still trying to keep as quiet as possible, I slowly explored the other rooms in the building. There were many things I deduced from my explorations, including the fact that it is a very huge building. I would go as far as calling it a castle, if the Victorian architecture was anything to go by.
There were also a lot of rooms, 45 by my count, and all so very devoid of people. By my educated guess from the gathering dust in the rooms, perhaps it's been a couple of months since anybody has set foot in the house.
The rooms included a large hall that leads to what seems to be the double door entrance to the building. I didn’t open it yet though, since I did not fancy risking a dragon right on my face.
There were other rooms that you will normally find in a functioning household. A bathroom, a kitchen, and an oddly familiar rooftop terrace that I quickly left for fear of encountering the flying lizards. All were upscaled to a size fitting for a mansion.
I did find some clothes in the bedrooms fortunately. One of the wardrobes contained clothes fit for a little girl, around thirteen years of age or so. There were a few personal belongings that did not seem touched for a long time that hinted that someone was staying there a long time ago. Like some small jewelry, combs and a few books.
It was the same scenario in the two other rooms. One contains a number of similar white uniforms I think? Perhaps for a maid? The other room has clothes for a male which fortunately fits perfectly for my size. Suspiciously perfect for my size in fact, like it was specifically made for this body. Which.. wouldn't be too surprising, considering that they have dozens if not hundreds of similar bodies in the basement.
Which begs the question, what were they trying to do with all those bodies? How does me being here, in one of those bodies relate to all of this? And finally, did they succeed in whatever it was they were trying to achieve?
If the clothes were any indication, then I would hazard a guess that yes, they succeeded. If they were trying to reanimate one of the bodies, then some clothes for it would be required.
This is all just speculation of course, and I'm pretty sure all of that would require magic. Which brings us to the elephant in the room.
Magic! If waking up in another world and the dragons outside weren't proof enough of magic, then the magical refrigerator in the kitchen allowed me to get up close and personal with it.
It was less a refrigerator, but more an entire cold room. I noticed that there were no signs of electricity throughout the whole castle. No wirings or modern appliances of any kind.
How this cold room managed to keep the leftover meat inside frozen for how many months this castle went unattended was a mystery.
The glowing, arcane looking circle engraved on the floor gives me an obvious clue though.
If that isn't a magical circle, I would eat my pale ass.
I think that even the water running through the pipes is also generated by magic seeing as the knob that controls the water has a very obvious magical circle on it.
In fact, now that I'm aware of it, the entire house is covered in these magical circles. From the chandelier lighting the hall, the doors of some rooms, the cabinets, and even the toilet.
Being as giddy as I am discovering magic for the first time, I went ahead and touched these circles. For the most part, they did nothing except for the ones that I can interact with physically like the knob for the tap water. The others are either not working or require a different way of interacting with.
Of course, this could also just be some advanced technology I am unaware of, but I dearly hope that it is magic.
Because thus far, the only possible way I'm seeing surviving through this is with magic. And if it is, then I'm sure as hell am going to abuse the hell out of it.