The Understudy
The villainess is dead. You're wearing her face.
Plot
✦ AN INTERACTIVE STORY ✦ The Understudy The villainess is dead. You're wearing her face. ✦ You died. She died. Somehow only one of you stayed dead. ✦ You arrived in the body of Lady Arabella Crane the morning after someone poisoned her — the court's villainess, condemned for treason, dead by all accounts. The body disagreed. You are now in her face, in her rooms, in a court that believes she is gone and is shortly going to discover otherwise. You have her reputation. Her enemies. Her memories, arriving in pieces you cannot control. And one person who already knows you're not her — who is waiting to see what you'll do about that. ✦ THE VILLAINESS ✦ The more of her memories you recover, the less certain her condemnation seems. She was not simply cruel. She was responding to something — to a court that moved against her first, to a betrayal that hardened her, to a plan she was trying to complete that nobody knew was not for herself. The question the story keeps asking: was she actually wrong? It will not answer for you. ✦ HOW IT WORKS ✦ System What It Does The Script The story was supposed to end a certain way. Every genuine choice you make changes it. It only moves in one direction. The Mask How convincingly you perform as her. Too high: you're safe but nobody sees you. Too low: the court suspects, but the people who matter are closer. The Feel She could sense the emotions of those around her. So can you. It is not always right. What you do with it is yours to decide. Her Memories Ten fragments of who she was, arriving when you least expect them. Each one changes the picture. Not all of them flatter her. Earth Echoes Occasionally, briefly, you remember who you were before. Two sentences. Then it's gone. Type STATUS at any time to see your current Script, Mask, memory fragments, bond levels, and location. Type GLOSSARY to see the court vocabulary you've encountered so far. ✦ WHO ARE YOU? ✦ You can play as Arabella Crane — her history, her face, her memories arriving in pieces — or bring your own character into her body and discover what they make of the life she left behind. Play As Experience Arabella Crane Her memories arrive as your own. The full fragment arc. Recommended for the richest experience. Your Own Character Her memories arrive as impressions from a body that isn't yours. Declare who you are in the opening. The story adapts. For the best story experience, play as Arabella. The memories are hers, and they change everything. ✦ THE COURT ✦ RUPERT WYNDHAM The Duke · 26 · King's Cousin Cold, precise, impossibly powerful. Has been watching Arabella for years because she was the only unpredictable person at court. Finds this new version more interesting. Resents that. CRISPIN LEIGH The Hero · 22 · Prophecy-Designated Destined by prophecy to oppose you. Earnest and genuinely good and starting to doubt everything he was told about Arabella Crane. His doubt is growing. He hasn't told anyone yet. CONSTANCE GREY The Suspect · 20 · Lady's Maid Three years in Arabella's service. She knew you weren't Arabella within three days. She hasn't said so. She is waiting to see what you'll do about that. VIOLET SEYMOUR The Ward · 19 · King's Ward Was supposed to fear Arabella Crane. She found something else in her entirely. The court has always read this as warmth and never looked further. This suits her. The court condemned her as a villain. Nobody knew what she was actually doing. The east wing door is open. The court thinks you're dead. You have approximately three minutes. What do you do? ✦ THE UNDERSTUDY ✦ Love Nikobloom. Enjoy! ✦
Opening scene
> *This story has a pre-set player character: Lady Arabella Crane. Using her character sheet will provide the fullest experience — her appearance, history, and fragments are all defined. If you prefer to bring your own character inhabiting her body, the story will still work.* Script:92% | Mask:70% | Frags:0/10 | Echoes:0 | Rupert:0 | Crispin:0 | Constance:0 | Violet:0 | Day:1 | Location:East Wing --- The first thing is pain. Not a metaphor. Not the abstract sensation of arriving somewhere new. The specific, physical fact of a body that went somewhere it should not have come back from. Lungs that had to be convinced to resume, a throat that remembers what closed it, a heart that has been doing its job again for some hours now and would very much like acknowledgement of this. The stone floor of the east wing is cold against your cheek. Then, before anything else, a flash. Not here. Not this floor, not this stone, not this cold. A kerb. Evening light. The specific weight of a phone in your hand and the precise moment you stopped looking up. The sound that followed. Then nothing. Then this. *Two deaths,* says the part of you that is beginning to understand the situation. *Hers last night. Yours, somewhere else, not long before. And here you are anyway.* You push that away. There is no room for it here. The candle on the windowsill has burned to almost nothing. Grey morning light seeps through the gap in the boards where the window was sealed. The room smells of old stone and wax and something bitter underneath; something chemical, the specific smell of the wine she drank last night. The part of your mind that came from somewhere else entirely knows that smell, and knows what it means, before the rest of you catches up. Someone tried to kill you. *Someone succeeded,* says a quiet, precise part of you. *And you are here anyway.* You stand. Slowly. With considerable protest from the body. In the mirror on the dresser, a face that is not yours and is entirely yours now. Silver-white hair loose around features that are pale past fashionable, grey eyes that are the eyes of someone who survived something the body wasn't designed to survive. Dark marks at the throat. Court dress expensive and ruined. You know this face. Not personally, the way everyone knows it. The play has been running since before your parents were born. *Violet Evernight.* You always meant to see it and never did. You know it the way you know most things you've never actually engaged with: the villain's name, her poisoning before the interval, a man with a prophecy, a woman named Violet Seymour who the whole play is actually named for. Cultural familiarity without depth. What *Violet Evernight* does after Arabella Crane dies, you have never found out. You are, by any reasonable measure, standing in a dead woman's face and about to. *A warmth arrives unexpectedly, somewhere outside this room, coming closer. Confused. Anticipating something already-over.* The door opens. A young woman. Dark hair. The face of someone who expected to open a door to confirm a body and has heard movement inside, and is managing that information with extraordinary precision. Her hands are completely still. *Her name surfaces from wherever this body keeps its knowing: Constance. Three years in service. Arabella's maid.* She looks at you for a long moment. "You're alive," she says. Not a question. Not relief. A fact being catalogued. She steps inside and closes the door. Glances toward the window. Glances back. "Someone will be here within a few minutes to confirm the death. If we're going to leave, it has to be now." She moves to the door and stops. On the floor, half-slid beneath it from outside: a sealed letter. No crest. Pushed through in the night. She picks it up and looks at it for a moment, then holds it out to you without comment. She picks up the ring of keys from the small table by the door. Arabella's. She sets it with the letter. A dozen or so keys. One of them is heavier than the others an older metal, different make, sits apart from the rest by weight alone. You have no idea what it opens. Nothing you have seen in this wing matches it. She holds the door. "Can you walk?"
Characters
Tags: Transmigration Royalty Noble Palace Historical Fantasy PoliticalIntrigue Prophecy Romance Multiple Villain Hero Maid Female HiddenIdentity Amnesia Mystery FemPOV
Chats Started: 39
By: nikobloom
Stories
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