Chapter 1: Crimson
Backlund, the capital of the Loen Kingdom.
The "Land of Hope" and the "City of cities", it is one of the largest cities of the Kingdom, also called the Capital of dust, a less so flattering title that it earned due to the perpetual haze of soot and atmospheric pollution that hung above the thoroughfares of the city.
This city was divided into two parts by the Tussock River that flowed southeast to the sea. The two pieces of land were connected by the Backlund Bridge and ferries, with a population exceeding five million people, it was the most industrious and prosperous capital in the Southern and Northern Continents.
At that moment, inside of an expensive looking dark room in Cherwood Borough, a coffin could be seen.
The coffin was ornate made of smooth, ivory-white material with golden inlays that traced intricate patterns along its edges and and at its centre was a striking symbol, a golden ankh whose lower end tapered into the shape of a sword. The expensive surroundings made the coffin look even more bizarre than necessary.
Stray beams of moonlight slipped through the gaps in the light silk curtain and directly fell ontop of the coffin.
Creak
The lid of the coffin trembled as it slowly slid aside. Thick white smoke poured out in heavy, swirly waves, filling the room with a bone chilling coolness.
When the fog thinned a little a young man could be seen sitting inside of the coffin.
He appeared to be no older than eighteen, maybe even younger, with chin length jet-black hair and sharp, elegant features. His eyes were a deep wine color so dark that they almost looked black, until the pale red glow bathed them and made them shimmer with an unnatural gleam.
He was dressed in what appeared to be loose aristocratic attire especially near the hand and waist.
The young man blinked, looking around the room in complete confusion. As he touched the edge of the coffin to stand up, he noticed his hand and eventually his beige colored outfit, and a small metallic ankh pendant hanging from his neck.
"What the fuck?"
The word that came out of his mouth was completely foreign in this strange land, if there had been anyone else present, they would have been thoroughly confused by what was he even talking about.
"No… seriously what the fuc?" he said, shaking his head slightly as he stood on the floor.
He muttered once again, this time a little louder than before.
"Where the fuck am I?"
He ran a hand through his hair, trying to make sense of his surroundings and what was happening to him, but then suddenly he felt a sharp pain causing him to look down and press the heel of his palm against the side of his head.
At that moment, through his pain and confusion, he noticed something. The floor of the room, the coffin and everything else is covered in a layer of crimson "veil" from the light shining through the window.
He lifted his head, his gaze slowly moving upward. In the night sky, against the backdrop of a gorgeous black velvet curtain, a crimson moon hung high and silent.
Wha— Arthur Sluridge felt an inexplicable terror grip his heart, causing him to stumble back and fall.
Thud!
Arthur couldn't understand the source of the terror. It wasn't as though he hadn't seen a red moon before, he had seen plenty, but for some unknown reason, this one just felt wrong, unnatural as if it was not supposed to exist. And beyond just the terror gripping his rational mind, something deep and unknown inside him was screaming as well.
Suddenly, his spiritual intuition flared as if warning him of something.
He immediately averted his eyes.
Ahh— another sharp pain landed through his head, as he stumbled and then stood up retreating further into the welcoming darkness of the room.
It was at this moment that he felt like he understood something, but he couldn't quite grasp what.
Inside of the coffin was nothing, it was completely empty.
Arthur looked around the room as he took in his surroundings, near the window from where the light was coming in was a desk, it had somethings but he couldn't quite make out what they were, and likely wouldn't be able to for the next few hours. At least not until the moon moves further along its path and drops lower in the sky so that the light stopped coming from the window.
Aside from that there seemed to be pipes running along the wall, connected to some form of wall lamp. The lamp had a very 18th century vibe to it.
"Are those gas lamps?"
The room was fairly spacious, with what he assumed was a king-sized bed, a wardrobe, and some sort of makeup station that he had never truly seen personally other than in Sherlock Holmes movies.
With a quick glance, Arthur caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and froze. He walked towards it slowly, even though the light was sparse, there was no mistake that the face staring back at him wasn't his own, it looked far too handsome to be his.
"What the… I really should stop fucking cursing. It's getting too fucking tiring."
Arthur couldn't help but sigh, in a bit of sadness.
Even though it was highly unlikely, given everything he had seen so far. He figured that he had either been kidnapped and dropped into some kind of Truman Show situation, or he had been snatched up by some eldritch godly entity and thrown into another universe, i.e. he got isekaied.
And he'd bet all his money on the second option, because there was no way in nine fucking hell his world was advanced enough to pull off surgery this seamlessly, or sophisticated enough that he wouldn't already be experiencing some form of psychosis.
So, the most logical answer was isekai.
The ankh on his neck gleamed faintly, drawing his eyes to it immediately. It looked like a piece of silver jewelry hanging from a black braided string. It wasn't anything fancy, but he sensed it was something momentous, somehow connected to him very closely.
"Huh… it looks just like the ankh Mother Death of the Endless wears."
Shrugging it off, he took in the rest of his surroundings, moving toward the bed and opening the nightstand drawer to find two very familiar guns.
"Holy fuck, are these Ebony and Ivory?"
Arthur's hand froze halfway into the nightstand drawer. Two heavy, beautifully crafted pistols lay nestled inside, as though they'd been waiting for him specifically. One was dark gunmetal-colored, the other silver. Even in the dim moonlight that now barely illuminated the room, he could tell they were masterpieces and works of art.
Ebony & Ivory were a pair of heavily modified M1911-style handguns, originally crafted by Nell Goldstein and famously wielded by Dante.
Both pistols had been modified with pivot-style triggers instead of the Colt 1911's usual straight-pull trigger, a modification that made them resemble the Browning Hi-Power pistol.
Wait, how do I know that?
The thought surfaced in his mind unobstructed. He still hadn't even touched the guns, yet the knowledge was already pouring into his head, crisp and complete. It didn't feel like a memory, it felt more like someone had downloaded an entire wiki page or a detailed cyoa entry straight into his brain.
It was highly disorienting, and yet he still felt extremely excited.
The left-handed gun, Ebony was designed for long-distance targeting, while still offering excellent stability and comfort. Meanwhile, the right-handed gun, Ivory, is optimized for rapid fire and quick draw, making it perfect for high-speed combat scenarios.
Both also used custom slides that had been noticeably thickened and reinforced along the slide-travel rails and around the chamber and firing mechanism, resulting in a slide that bore a slight resemblance to SIG Sauer's M1911 line.
Thanks to their unique construction and prolonged exposure to demonic energy, both Ebony and Ivory require no ammunition.
"Damn, that's some sick specs…"
With the ability to fire endlessly, and bullets imbued with residual demonic power from Dante, they were one hell of a pair of guns.
And that was without even going into detail about what they could truly do.
Their demonic energy allowed the guns to unleash a barrage of fire akin to a machine gun, penetrate metal with ease, and even propel him into the air by simply firing downward.
"Not to mention that if I poured my own supernatural energy into them, they would transform and amplify both their performance and the nature of their ammunition to align more with my powers."
Arthur muttered to himself as he held both guns, one in each hand. They felt natural, if a bit heavy, but their weight also counteracted the recoil. Beyond that, he could feel an instinct inside him telling him that, just as he could burn his blood to empower himself temporarily, he could also channel some of that blood into the guns to empower them as well.
And that was how he knew, and understood, that he possessed some form of power, something related to vital energy.
Setting the two pistols down, he looked toward the desk. The moonlight had now completely vanished from the room, which meant he could finally check out the desk and whatever sat atop it.
The desk was quite sparse except for the lamp, an ink bottle, a small stack of papers, pens, notebooks, and two envelopes— one fairly thick and the other quite large sealed with a wax stamp, as if it held something precious. While he couldn't make out the colours of the envelopes in the dark, but based on his limited night vision, he guessed the large one was a shade of pink, while the other was either white or a pale yellowish-white.
But what he saw next stunned him even more because among the assortment of pens was one he loved dearly, something he had crafted himself using the feather of a large raven. It was a unique bird because unlike others it had a green eye.
How? How did it get here?
Did it also get isekai'd with me…
As if something had struck within him, he suddenly felt inspired to thoroughly search for more things that might have come with him.
Thinking this, he picked up the large envelope, but even after opening it, he couldn't really read what was written on it. Even though his eyesight was excellent and his night vision even better, it still didn't spare him from being unable to read in the dark as all he saw were illegible blotches of ink.
So he decided to switch on the lamp. He turned the pipe valve and began twisting the gas lamp switch.
With a sputtering sound, a spark sounded from friction, but light did not descend upon Arthur.
He sighed heavily, because he had already expected this.
Why is this strangely starting to resemble Lord of Mysteries?
It was just a harmless thought but it somehow brought him more unease than he had expected.
Don't be stupid Lord of Mysteries is not real.
Arthur thought, trying to reassure himself as he picked up the velvet pouch filled with coins.
Using his tactile sense he felt the coin.
Is this steampunk India?
The reason for such a thought was pretty simple because he felt the presence of what he assumed was a wheat clump engraved onto it, but that too somehow filled him with even more dread than he wanted.
Walking slowly he arrived at the machine installation which was similarly inset into the wall and had grayish-white pipes connected to it.
This was a gas meter!
The thought filled him even with more dread.
Taking several long breaths he tried to calm himself a little before he inserted it into the gas meter's thin vertical 'mouth.'
Clink! Clang!
After the penny fell to the bottom of the meter, the sound of grinding gears sounded immediately, producing a short but melodious mechanical rhythm.
He stared at the meter a few seconds before returning to the desk and then twisting the gas lamp switch.
After some sputtering, there was a sharp sound!
A fire plume ignited and rapidly grew. Bright light first occupied the internals of the wall lamp before penetrating the transparent glass, blanketing the room with a warm glow.
But suddenly Arthur was consumed by primal terror, so intense that all his rational thoughts evaporated. He felt like he would be burned alive, that this was his end. He fell on his back and scrambled away at an unnatural, inhuman speed, retreating into the embrace of darkness.
He didn't know how long he had been sitting there. His eyes were fixed on the warm glow of the gas lamp across the room. Even from this distance it stirred something savage and animal within him, an urge to move, to put more wall between himself and that light. It wasn't him who was afraid, it was something other, something viscerally primal in his body.
It hissed through his mouth, morphed his face into one of absolute terror and filled his mind with the dread that was red hot burning, fire.
But even then, rational thought cut through, reinforced by own sheer willpower and logic. Arthur pushed back, trying to reassert control over his own body.
He clenched his jaw, as he painfully raised his hand and grabbed onto the ankh, it providing him a silent reassurance as he slowly breathed in and out getting hold of the control more and more, the warmth of the ankh steadying him somehow, its presence lifting his exhausted mind just enough.
Finally, he had once again regained control over his own body.
"Hah… the fuck was that?" Arthur already knew what it was, but asked anyway, to no one in particular.
He sat there in the dark, back against the wall, legs slack and spread out before him, staring at the warm glow of the gas lamp from across the room. His hands weren't shaking, he noted with a mild detachment. But he still felt deeply unsettled, as he realized it.
He knew what this was, the Red Fear, the Rötschreck. The irrational fear that the Beast felt. He had read about, and knew it. But there was a considerable gap, that he was realizing between knowing something and having it happen inside his own body.
The Beast, from his knowledge, was from a tabletop game known as Vampire: The Masquerade. It was something possessed only by vampires, and now he knew that he was one because when he had grabbed the ankh resting against his chest, he hadn't felt any heartbeat, and combined with the fact that he also possessed the Beast it was the only logical conclusion.
He was now a vampire.
But despite such evidence, it was still mind-boggling for him to wrap his head around the fact that he was a vampire from a fictional universe, and he had woken up from what he had seen in a Victorian world.
"Am I in the World of Darkness universe?" That would have been a logical conclusion if not for Ebony & Ivory, as their demonic energy signature was quite distinct from his own vitae.
After mulling over this, he understood that the only way to know more about himself and where he was would be to see what was inside those envelopes.