1 – Vivisari

Vivi opened her eyes to the Burial Room of the Ashen Hierophant.

Having run the final boss fight of Seven Cataclysms at least a thousand times, she instantly recognized the scenery surrounding her. She groggily pushed herself up against the armrest of the massive obsidian throne, blinking around at the yawning spires enclosing the arena. Lava bubbled a dozen feet away, heat licking at her face, the sensation strangely vivid.

“What?” she mumbled, head foggy. “Where…how…?”

Hazily, she looked down at herself. She was dressed in a hooded black robe covering her from neck to ankles, a thick, luxurious garment gilded with swirling purple designs. It was a familiar piece of gear. As the best-in-slot robes for mages, she wore them around constantly. But they’d never felt so real. Uncomprehending, she tugged at the fabric, and it shifted across her skin.

The natural conclusion was that she’d fallen asleep still logged into the massively popular VRMMO The Seven Cataclysms. But there was one problem with that. Technology was improving fast, but even the most advanced games couldn’t imitate real life. Not to this degree.

The sound of bubbling lava, the sweltering heat, the feel of this robe brushing against her skin—those subtleties couldn’t be imitated.

“What in the world?”

Unsteadily rising to her feet, Vivi swept her gaze around the Ashen Hierophant’s arena, her brain working into overdrive.

“[Status],” she said.

A screen appeared in front of her.

***

Vivisari Vexaria

<Usurper of the Ashen Throne>

(Vanguard)

Level 2109 Demon [Archmage]

STR: 162,196

AGI: 102,342

CON: 1,188,232

MAG: 24,923,239

WIS: 7,693,326

***

For a long while, she stared at the status screen, numbly trying to comprehend what had happened.

“Might have gone crazy, I suppose,” she said. Her voice sounded weird to her own ears—like it wasn’t her own.

Because it wasn’t her own.

She looked down at her pale white hands. The creases were in the wrong spots. That might seem like something a person wouldn’t notice easily, but she did so instantly. She traced one of the lines, then closed that hand into a fist. She shivered. Her hand quested up to touch her cheeks next, and she marveled at how realistic the sensation was.

She was definitely here, in the flesh. There was no denying that. And it was no dream; she would have woken from shock alone.

On top of that, she wasn’t even in her own body, but that of her character, Vivisari Vexaria.

As for the name…look. She’d made the character when she was fifteen. Sure, she could have changed it, but she’d grown attached to the slightly edgy imaginations of her younger self. And honestly, she’d only sort of outgrown that love for flair. Enough so that she recognized, fine, it was dramatic, but she secretly kept liking it anyway.

“But how?” Vivi asked, head spinning.

Yesterday had been a repeat of her not-very-admirable lifestyle: grind all day, go to bed with bags under her eyes. Nothing explained her transmigration. Certainly she hadn’t thrown herself in front of a bus to save a clueless child, then after being splattered across the road, been granted an audience with a sympathetic goddess with an offer to reincarnate into a world of her choice.

She giggled at the idea, the noise tinted with panic more than amusement, and she cut herself off and took a calming breath.

Well, anyway.

She needed to focus on reality. No amount of pinching herself was helping. It was only reminding her how real the tactile feedback was.

It made no sense whatsoever, but she was here, in the Burial Room of the Ashen Hierophant.

Almost because of how strange it was, she focused on the practical. On what she could actually do, as a way to distract herself.

“[Inventory],” she commanded.

She scanned the grid-like display, flipping through pages to confirm. The scant few items—a set of potions and some miscellaneous consumables—jogged her memory as to what she’d been doing when she had last logged off.

Seven Cataclysms was a skill-based game, with almost all attacks being dodgeable or counterable, so technically, it was possible to clear even late-game raids solo. Even the final raid. And she’d done just that: cleared The Burial Room of the Ashen Hierophant on mythical difficulty. She had earned the unique title Usurper of the Ashen Throne for it.

Point being: in Seven Cataclysms, unsecured items and gold were dropped on death, so she’d been doing those challenge runs with a set of minimal supplies. She had barely anything.

Her best gear was equipped at least, since that wasn’t dropped on death.

“[Guild],” she voiced next.

Unlike when she’d tried to open her inventory, the voice command didn’t yield a status screen. Brow furrowing, she tried again.

“[Guild]. [Guild Status]. [Guild Management].”

None worked.

Hm.

So, the game functions weren’t one-to-one. Whatever had happened, she couldn’t rely on this world to act identically to the game she knew.

“[Skills]?”

A screen cram-packed with abilities appeared. Nothing looked out of place, but it would take a while to confirm.

“[Quests].”

No response.

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“[Map].”

Nothing.

“[Crafting].”

That was interesting. But she would deal with that later.

“[Friends].”

Once more, no result.

“[Settings].”

To be fair, she hadn’t expected that one to work.

“[Log Out]. [Quit]. [Force Quit]. [Request Moderator]. [Report]?”

Nor any of those.

She rattled off a few more commands to little avail. It seemed there were a few screens she could use, but most of the meta-functionality of the game had been removed.

She mulled over what to do.

There was one immediate factor that would determine her next steps.

Could she die?

Rather, could she respawn? There were no resurrection spells in Seven Cataclysms. When a player died, they were reborn in the nearest temple, all unsecured items and gold dropping on their death point.