"Lu..."

"...Mia"

"LUMIA PLEASE WAKE UP! WE'RE GOING TO BE LATE FOR BREAKFAST"

"HWAH?!"

I'm violently shaken by a lady in a maid outfit. When did I hire a maid? Despite my confusion, the maid dresses me in such an efficient manner that I can only gawk at the artistry of it. Also isn't this a dress? While I was naked I didn't see any male parts either.

"Come along, Lumia. His highness is likely waiting for you."

Wait. . . Lumia? As in the princess from that game I played a lot, Shadow Kingdom? If I'm the princess, calling me by name would be a massive breach of etiquette and could get you killed. To say that name with such ease, this maid must be the 'Caretaker'. 

The 'Caretaker' is the player's best friend in Shadow Kingdom. They're an immortal being with lots of power behind the scenes and fiercely loyal to the royal family. Their job is to protect and raise the heirs to the throne. As such the goal of the game is to raise Lumia so that they can deal with a war in the future. Of course even getting to the war itself is difficult with the many many bad endings, but the 'Caretaker' is your get out of jail free card. Of course they have their limits, but they've bailed me out of a ton of difficult circumstances.

For the time being I'll go with the flow and eat breakfast. My brain is already moving at light speed. There's a lot of things to prevent and a lot of things I need to do to do so.

-----

At the table there are many fancy foods. The fanciest thing at the table however, is the king. He welcomes me with a smile on his face.

"Come and sit my daughter! We have a lot to discuss."

I recognize this dialogue from the game. It seems I'm at the very start of Shadow Kingdom. A little earlier would've been nice, but this is doable. The king continues,

"Starting the day after your fourteenth birthday, so two days from now, you'll start your training with the 'Caretaker' in earnest."

Yeah this definitely is the start of the game. I finish chewing then look at the maid who brought me here.

"Hear that 'Caretaker', I'll be under your care from now on."

The maid blinks a few times and then their smile becomes unnaturally long. There were hints in the game but seeing it in reality is unsettling.

"It has been many a generation since I've last been found out, pupaling. Such an event is usually a good omen."

The 'Caretaker' looks over towards the king.

"It seems you've made for good breeding stock."

The king shudders. The 'Caretaker' returns to their disguised state. After a few moments the king recollects himself. In that brief window of time, I realize me, the king, and the 'Caretaker' are the only ones in the room. The king coughs and continues,

"To tell the truth, if you were a bit older when your mother died, you'd already have my job. So as the law of Luwisha demands I'll be passing on the title of ruler on to you after your birthday."

Luwisha, the country I'm the princess of is a matriarchal society. Succession for the seats of power go to the females before the men. Since I've reached "of age" by this worlds standards I'm basically all but forced to take on the role of ruler, lest the nobles rebell. Of course they don't particularly care whether or not the new leader is woefully unprepared, that makes things all the better! We have to have a woman on the throne after all! It would be breaking tradition if we didn't, we totally don't want to take advantage of the vulnerable leader for political gain. In reality they just want the king who is hard to sway off the throne. He was competent enough but mostly just kept the status quo and there is a faction who isn't exactly fond of that. Well I suppose there wouldn't really be a game if the king didn't give up his spot to the princess. 

The king continues on,

"I may have my doubts regarding what the 'Caretaker's' lessons involve, but I do know that it is tradition for the royal family and that it's what your late mother would've wanted. So please take the lessons seriously."

"You don't have to worry, Orien. Your daughter is under good care."

----

Some time has passed and we've finished eating. I'm currently being escorted back to my room by the 'Caretaker'. Considering its just the two of us, I think its a good time to hash out some details.

"I have something to discuss regarding my lessons 'Caretaker'."

"Oh?"

"I have no intention of becoming a noire like the late queen."

She stops in her tracks and turns around to look me in the eye.

"You'd deny your birthright?"

"That power is bad juju. I have no intention of becoming some monster's food."

"What are you talking about? The noire would make you strong enough to fight monsters, not make you susceptible to them."

"You ate the queen did you not?"

"..."

"You're a dusk stalker correct?"

The noire is the magic system in this world. Its a mysterious power that requires you to attune yourself to a rare artifact to use. Only one person can attune to an artifact at a time and the only way to undo attunement is death. Of course the more artifacts you attune to the stronger you become. After a certain amount of strength is gained you reach a state called 'Dusk' where your abilities evolve. Of course most don't know this state exists because those who achieve dusk quickly die off, the reason for their demise, the dusk stalkers, are even more unknown.

 There's only two instances where dusk stalkers were referenced in game, a bad ending where you raise an army of noire to fend off the main antagonist and a very difficult optional event that only rewards you with a slightly altered version of another ending. Their mystery has sparked many theories online and the 'Caretaker' being a dusk stalker is a common one. Of course now that the game is reality, that has become abundantly apparent.

"It has been a very long time since I've been referred to as a dusk stalker. The Kingdom that called my kind that died out long ago. I presume you know that land is now referred to as the Lingering Shadow?"

"I do."

The dusk stalker's eyes blacken. Their mouth sprouts sharp mandibles and a proboscis. Their size grows until they start to dwarf me. They lift me up off the ground with their claws.

"I wonder how you came across that knowledge. My kind has covered its tracks quite well. There very well could be some surviving records, but the person to access them one would have to be quite the advanced noire-."

"Because they encrypted their knowledge using powerful magics."

Their grip tightens after I interrupt them.

"You're clearly not Lumia, so who the hell are you?"

Their grip hurts, but I need to press on.

"Are you sure you want to kill me? While I may not be Lumia, this most certainly is her body. If you break this body the Luwisha royal lineage would come to an end."

She hisses and releases me upon hearing that. Thank god that was enough to convince her because I didn't have a trump card other than that. Well if that'd happened I probably would've been able to come up with something . . . I hope.

"What is your goal? Why take over MY pupaling?"

"Well it wasn't something I really planned. Its more like an accident really. I'm not sure how it happened or how to undo the possession..."

"Curious."

Her face softens slightly after hearing that. She raises a claw and dark energy manifests on it, before shooting out at me. I flinch as the energy covers me in my entirety. However it only lasts for a second as the magic shatters. The dusk stalker recoils as a light shoots back at them. The light barely misses their head, but bounces around the room making the dusk stalker move erratically to avoid it. The light eventually fizzles out and they breathe a sigh of relief.

"The hell just happened?"

"I used the noire to try and scan you, but it seems like that'll be impossible. I've never seen the noire reject something that strongly before."

I then hear a sound effect in my head and a screen of light appears before me.

Hmm this box is a part of the ui from the game. It was very useful because you need to keep track of a lot of characters and it was very easy to forget things. However the affection is unusually low for the 'Caretaker' as in game their affection for Lumia is always maxed and impossible to drop. The name in game would be whatever you typed in at the start, so I guess Chu'phide is their actual name.

"...me"

Its only just now that I realize Chu'phide has been talking this whole time.

"Oi, can you not space out like that?"

"Ah sorry about that... What were you saying?"

"What should I call you? You're obviously not Lumia so what is your name?"

I open my mouth to speak, then pause. I can't remember my name. I. Can't. Remember. My. Name. How the hell do I end up forgetting my name? 

"I'm waiting."

"This is a little embarrassing, but I can't seem to recall my name."

She narrows her eyes and says to me,

"Then come up with one."

"Uhhh, how about Lumio?"

"Unoriginal, but good enough I suppose. Do you perhaps need a tour of the castle?"

"That would be appreciated."

"Very well come along then."

She tampers down her body back into a human form and starts walking. I follow, but then I suddenly get an idea. If I can see character profiles, then can I see my own skill levels from the game as well?

"Status"

A screen pops up if front of me, but I'm interrupted before I can get a good look at it,

"Why the hell did you randomly say status?"

"I'm testing something out."

"Oh?"

"Can you see a screen of light in front of me right now?"

"No?"

"Interesting... Well pay it no mind."

"Understood, but don't go doing stuff like that at a party or something, pupaling."

"Gotcha."

Hmm theres some stuff from the game, but also new stuff as well. First of all lets talk stuff from the game. 

Mood, morality, and composure were in the game, but they weren't shown as a stat because the game didn't have stats. They were a meter that went up and down depending on your choices. Mood and composure mainly affected the speed you could level up skills and had some minor dialogue changes as well as made certain skill checks harder or easier.  Low composure basically meant Lumia was paranoid in dialogue and made skills to protect you level up faster. High composure made Lumia an unshakable wall and improved the level up of social skills. Mood correlates with Lumia's happiness/sadness. It has similar dialogue affects like composure and also benefits skill learning, however when Lumia is sad there is mostly demerits. The exception is animals, but animal handling classes would raise the happiness meter. Finally Morality just altered the ending you got.

All the skills here were in the game and are fairly self explanatory. They're done in roman numerals and have 9 levels. It starts with lower case i and stays lower case until you hit iii. Next it becomes uppercase I and goes all the way to VI which is supposed to be max. The red i in history and beast lore in new though. My only guess is that it has something to do with me figuring out about Chu'phide's true nature.

Stats are completely new to me. I click on the 'level up available!' Text and a new screen pops up.

Hmm for the time being I decide to evenly distribute my level ups into hp and Charisma as i won't need to fight for awhile, but I'll need to talk a lot.

When I look up from the screen, I see Chu'phide looking at me.

"The hell did you just do?"

"What do you mean?"

She rushes towards me. I flinch as she grabs my head.

"You made Lumia cuter!"

"A-ah, is that so?"

"Yep! Lumia was already an adorable little bug, but you somehow made that cute little face better, So make sure to get the hell out of her body as fast as possible, Lumio."

"U-understood Ma'am!"

------

"Well that's just about the whole castle. Any questions?"

 "WHO THE HELL DESIGNED THIS PLACE?"

"Arthur Brigham. He was a prolific architect under the rule of queen Lual Luwisha III. He had a very practical mindset and valued purpose over form, so he refused to add excess adornments in favor of adding many more secret passages and other security measures in case of a siege."

"THIS PLACE SHOULD BE CONSIDERED A WAR CRIME!"

"If it makes you feel any better Arthur was later executed by queen Lual III because he knew every detail about the castle's secrets. That brings me back... she was always the paranoid type."

"THERE'S A PIT FALL TRAP WITH LIVE ALLIGATORS IN FRONT OF MY ROOM! HOW DO YOU EVEN FEED THEM?!"

"We don't. It makes them more ravenous and buying new alligators is slightly cheaper than keeping them alive."

"I'm to exhausted to deal with this, let me retire to my room."

"Understood, sir follow me and watch your head as the ceiling was designed so most would bump their head on it."

"I'm not even gonna comment on how this is a completely different path than how we arrived."

"Well of course, the path we came is designed to be one way if you go back that way you'll-"

"I don't want to know."

"Understood."

After a long agonizing path we finally made it back to my room.

Afewconcepts65

this story is heavily inspired by a game called long live the queen, I feel like it'll become kinda obvious as the story goes on. I also took some inspiration from the princess maker games. Both of these sources have some creepy aspects so check them out at your own risk.