"URGH!"

Ivan groaned as he awoke. His eyes snapped open, with a dark and damp ceiling greeting him with water droplets to the face.

COUGH! COUGH!

He almost choked as he tried to take a breath, before coughing out clouds of gray dust from his lungs, almost like it had been there for years.

He inhaled and exhaled before attempting to sit upright, arching his entire back against whatever he was laying on previously. He shivered a bit, the cold and damp room causing his body to coil inwards from the temperature.

Whatever was happening, Ivan really didn't know. He for sure knew that he wasn't in his normal bedroom, nor was he supposed to be in some sort of cave when he dozed off.

"Jesus, I knew something was wrong but where the hell am I?"

The voice he let out was a bit raspy and unfamiliar, almost like it was another person talking instead of him.That was when he gripped throat in an attempt to massage it, hopefully getting rid of the rasp, but instead he found his fingers to slip right through.

"What the f-"

For the first time since he woke up, he looked down at himself and raised one of his bony white, skeletal fingers up towards the ceiling. At this point, he could feel a gagging reflex coming real quick as the individual cracks in his fingers were apparent even in the dim lighted area.

He then looked down at his body, just to find it completely covered by a dark, spiked type of armor all around. Shoulders, chest, legs, feet, everything was covered in some sort of armor that looked straight out of a video game.

He quickly clambered out of whatever he was laying down in before and hit the ground with a thud, scattering more dust around as he struggled to stand up.

This wasn't due to his bony appearance but, rather, the VERY heavy armor that he was now wearing. Stumbling a bit, he finally stood up and looked back at where he had just been "sleeping".

A very, very, luxurious coffin.

—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Undetermined amount of time ago

"Finally!"

An enthusiastic Charles Grant yelled out. His voice was quite loud, almost shaking the shelves which contained layers upon layers of various collectibles and other trinkets around him.

If anyone had entered his room, they would be questioning how anybody could even live here. A hurricane could have forced its way through his room and everything would more than likely look identical to how it was now.

He was, as many people in their twenties were, a shut in by nature. Moving out of his parents house into a small flat he spent most of his time on his computer. He would probably insist that he was doing the best he could, but everybody who knew him would never buy that lie.

The reason for his excitement was the near completion of Elder Scrolls II:Daggerfall. Charles had made a slight career out of streaming his gameplay, giving him the money necessary to survive in such a situation where neither his family nor his friends would back him up after he used all the money he had with no care to the world.

He had already finished Skyrim and Oblivion (Skipping Morrowind since he wanted to stay sane) and had moved straight into Daggerfall. It was actually so impressive that he managed to stream the Elder Scrolls series without fail for years that Bethesda representatives showed up at his door to present him with an award and check, which helped settle much of his debt and rent. Alas, it seemed the series could really only get him so far.

What he was doing now was a blind playthrough, as he quite certainly knew nothing of the older games but his chat was quite helpful in that case.

Suddenly a notification sound popped up.

"Ah, thanks FusRohDaft for five hundred bits!"

FusRohDaft: Who are you giving the Mantella to?

The question flared on the donation screen. This led to a spam of questions in the chat, curious on who he would pick. In all honesty, Charles actually didn't know who he would pick himself, he just knew it wasn't going to be the King Of Worms for obvious reasons.

Although, one in particular didn't seem too bad.

"I guess…probably the Underking. He seems the most chill so far and it doesn't look like he's vying for power or anything"

Charles wasn't really looking for a moral dilemma question or anything, he just wanted to complete this game and possibly move on to Arena, which would be the last game before he (probably) had to go back to Morrowind and deal with that.

"Well, I guess this is it."

Charles looked as he handed the Mantella to the Underkings agent, before a cut scene appeared. A coffin in some kind of tomb sat straight up before looking at the camera, screaming as it neared.

"Centuries of undead sleep are shaken off, rousing the Underking. No mortal force could stop his faithful reunion with the ghost of his heart. And he joins with it in an all consuming fiery embrace. And for just one moment he is flesh and blood and blessed death is granted to Tiber Septim's Battlemage."

Charles flipped through the book that was shown, the text written on each of the pages before the screen faded to black.

He scratched his head at this ending,

Kind of anticlimactic, but it's whatever I guess.

"Well folks, I guess that means we're done with this one! Let's ca-"

Charles didn't get to finish his sentence. His voice was cut off as he clutched his throat to try to talk again but no sound came out.

"It seems I will feel the warm embrace of death, I will finally be at peace."

Charles threw off his headphones in an instant, wanting no part in this creepy voice acting that sounded much too close for comfort, especially for something from nearly two decades ago.

"Yet, though Sovngarde may welcome me, the empire and blades seem to fall despite my best efforts."

The screen had completely blanked. It was just dead, the computer had actually turned off but the voice was continuing.

"But you. You are someone who has nothing else to lose, my loyal subjects that have kept the peace and order of the empire will follow their king through death no matter who it is."

Charles felt his eyelids start to droop. He felt his body start to give in to this, hypnosis or something. Whatever it was, something was affecting him.

"Many have played through this "game", yet the warp of the west has not caused something unforeseen like this since I have existed. The timeline is changing, out of both our control. A new Underking is needed."

"Okay, I don't know who the hell hacked my PC but this ain't funny. You have better things to do than fake a creepy voice from an old video game!"

He was now positively terrified and snapped out of his drowsiness and backed up towards the wall. The walls of his apartment flat were now shaking, sending dust down from above as the ceiling lights flickered on and off at seemingly random.

"You are my only choice, both your realm and mine will be destroyed. My allies will continue to support you as well, hundreds of years in the future. You must survive and save the empire and all of Tamriel from being destroyed!"

And that was all Charles remembered before being knocked out cold for god knows how long.

—---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And that's how Charles ended up staring at the exact same coffin from that cutscene, the red and golden engravings identical to the ones he had seen.

"Unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable."

Charles wasn't really sure if he was still dreaming or not. From a logical standpoint, there was no way some video game had just thrown him in the game and told him to replace a character.

He checked around himself, the tombs of the other dead had still lain untouched for centuries from the looks of it. Dust caked the surface of the tombs and coffins, none of them disturbed other than his own.

"Damned Underking, I knew you were bad news! There has to be something I can do to go back, I don't have the most interesting life but that doesn't mean I want to stay here as a literal skeleton!"

His literal bones creaked as he took each step forwards before stopping and, with great difficulty, turning backwards towards his own coffin.

He stared at the insides of it pointedly before reaching into it.

"I swear I saw something shining. Mm, no…, AHA!"

He rummaged around the interior a bit before his hand closed on a hilt, which he pulled out to reveal a long, katana like blade with a slight red tint on the end. The rest of the sword was as dark as midnight, the Ebony Blade.

"Well, at least I'm not defenseless. Wait. I was using this thing when fighting before, does this mean."

Charles quickly gripped his back and found a small bag strapped there, which he promptly dropped and opened it.

Peering into the bag, he could see a multitude of items floating around in some sort of abyss, his skeletal fingers touching one of the red potions before pulling it out.

I think I'm getting a bit too comfortable with this whole situation. God, I just need something to drink, hopefully this doesn't kill me.

He glanced at the large healing potion in his hand, tilting it from side to side which was making the scarlet liquid slosh around the interior of the glass bottle.

As a newly branded undead, he was a bit hesitant to drink a health potion that could possibly be a poison to him. However, he was willing to take a gamble since he was basically dead already, though most skeletons probably didn't think like him.

"Aight, bottoms up"

Tilting the bottle back, he took a big gulp of the red liquid.

"MMM!"

Charles was pleasantly surprised to find that the health potion tasted like fruit punch gatorade, which was really nice when you've been laying in a coffin for who knows how long. He let out a long breath before exclaiming his thoughts.

"AH! That hit the spot!"

He went to wipe his lips, only to be painfully reminded that he didn't have lips, or skin for that matter.

He sighed, though quite content with his situation now that he knew he wasn't thrown in with nothing. But, everything on him seemed familiar.

Glancing down into the bag again, he saw multiple daedric artifacts floating around, as well as spell tombs, potions, and ingredients.

All of this could only mean one thing for him.

"I think this is my in-game character…"

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks for reading this story! I was playing Skygerfall (Daggerfall in Skyrim) when this idea came to me. I got interested in the whole backstory of the Underking and learned that, though he uses undead, he would be classified as "good" and trying to maintain order as a lich in the empire, so I really just wanted to write this.

I'll explain in future chapters, but the timeline of events is about to get really messed up.

Until then.

W.O.V