And it meant that she was supposed to have her first conflict with Odette. At the wand shop, Odette selects the five-energy wand, which as its name suggests allows easy use of all five of the non-secret energies. Fire, Wind, Water, Wood, and Heart. It didn't do Shadow, because that was only used by the Demon Lord's minions or unlockable via special events. What was supposed to happen was that Madelyn immediately big footed in and took the wand for herself, forcing Odette to re-select and take a wand that would only use one of the energies well. Odette didn't get access to the five-energy wand until she... killed Madelyn and opened up the second part of the game.
She allowed Suzette to lead her off to what turned out to be a bath, dressing up in her school uniform, and then a breakfast of marmalade on cake. She was grateful that her father the Duke of L'Pieuvre was sufficiently distant as to not ask Madelyn any questions that she might not know the answer to. Because while she'd played through the game several times and pursued different romance options for Odette, she didn't know very much about the world and knew even less about Madelyn's own life before starting school.
///
Travel to the wand shop was done via carriage. At least, it was for the daughter of a duke. Probably for a lot of other students, because most of them were nobles and there was quite a bit of carriage traffic on the road. Madelyn noticed that the streets managed to be pretty clean, as befitted the background of an otome game. It didn't merit thought when it was a video game, but now that it was a reality with actual flesh and blood horses walking around, the lack of horse poop piles probably had an in-world explanation. She'd have to ponder that later, because at the moment she was going to her first meeting with the woman who would eventually kill her in the game's main plot.
The main plot. Odette chooses her own magical specialty because she's gifted and can bond bond with any wand. Then she has to excel in school and cultivate a love interest and a best friend. Odette slays Madelyn, uncovers the threat of the Demon Lord, and the second half of the game is her team fighting monstrous minions of the Demon Lord and going on dates. There were five main love interests and five main candidates for best friend, each of whom had one of the five magical energies. You could go at the game from a romantic perspective of personal preference or you could try to make a more efficient dungeon exploration party. Once Odette had a declared boyfriend and best friend midway through the first half of the game, they'd accompany her through all the fighting parts. Much to Nicole's disappointment, the five women who were best friend candidates weren't romanceable even on later play-throughs where the secret extra romance options and yuri endings could be unlocked.
The basic boyfriends were fairly standard for the genre: First Prince, Second Prince, Northern Duke, Admiral's Son, and High Priestess' Son. They specialized in Fire, Wood, Wind, Water, and Heart respectively. Nicole hadn't cared much about them, but as Madelyn she began the story engaged to the First Prince. Ugh, that definitely meant she needed to act like she cared about him. His name was... Risharde? It was something like that. Like Richard, but misspelled because he was a character from a fantasy kingdom. But then, maybe she didn't? As far as she could recall, there weren't any endings where the prince actually married Madelyn. Even the ones where Odette died without killing her, Madelyn got killed by demon cultists. And in the endings where Odette didn't marry the prince, he still ended up with another woman. Madelyn was thinking perhaps she should just avoid the boyfriends altogether.
The
best
friends were more of a draw. Maribelle the bookworm, Anastasia the gardener, Olivia the seamstress, Hilda the foreign knight, and Claudia the birder. All beautiful, and the dates that Odette went on with them seemed at least as romantic as the ones she went on with the men. It was a shame that no matter which one you pursued a relationship with would friend-zone the main character even at maximum affection. At maximum affection, a character would agree to any proposition from Odette, but the game simply didn't give you the option to ask the friend characters to become lovers. The secret yuri endings were with the Katarina the Second Prince's girly-girl fiancée, or Louise the tomboyish woman from the equestrian club. The game wouldn't even let you romance Odile, Odette's secret evil sister. It was so unfair! The game designers probably couldn't even imagine a lesbian relationship without one of the women wearing pants and the other a dress.
She needed to figure out a way to survive. If Madelyn fought Odette, Odette would kill her. And if Madelyn killed Odette, then the demon cultists would kill her. She needed Odette to survive and also to make sure that she didn't cross wands with the heroine at the half-way stage. Madelyn needed... to become Odette's
friend
. Perhaps she could even become the heroine's best friend, because Odette's female companion survived in every ending. She was about to be the first person Odette met from school, she could just
be nice
instead of the colossal bitch that she was in the game's script. It left open the question of what to do about Madelyn's friend/toady/co-conspirator Elena, but surely she could think of something. In the game, Elena was barely a character, just a minion of Madelyn's that pulled juvenile pranks on the main character at Madelyn's behest. She'd need to figure out how to direct the woman's efforts into... almost literally anything else.
By the time the carriage had arrived at the magic shop, Madelyn had just about convinced herself that teaming up with Odette and fighting the Demon Lord was the best way to keep herself alive. It really sounded insane when she thought about it in those terms.
///
The magic shop was completely recognizable from the game. The background was that the shop had a deal with the school and students who came in their uniforms were given a discount on their wand. This was the first encounter where Odette's player had choices, and it was the beginning of character creation, such as it was. At the end of this encounter, the player would have chosen a wand, and that would determine what spells Odette could use in the early part of the game. The shop was filled with strange magical objects, the artist just went nuts doodling in occult doodads and easter eggs. Very few items were actually selectable in the game, with most existing purely for ambiance or even as in-jokes. Clearly visible in the corner was a giant sword that was from another game, a powerful artifact that was obviously too heavy for Odette to lift and too expensive for her to afford. The only things that were selectable in the game were the wands, and even then all the advanced wands couldn't be selected until the game had been beaten multiple times. The five cheat wands intended to allow veteran gamers to roll over parts of the game that didn't interest them. The Rageflame Wand that made all the early combats a snap, the Cloudstep Wand that turned all travel and scouting into a screen wipe, the Pureheart Wand that maxed affection with a click, the Silverleaf Wand that meant all equipment could be purchased without grinding for money, and finally the Torrentcleanse Wand that obviated the need for rest or healing. They were all on the shelf, but you couldn't click on them until you'd already gotten to the ending with three different boyfriends.
Madelyn reached for a set of yellow blobs on the shelf. Their light color drew the eye, and she'd never known what they were. Now, though trapped in the game she was freed from the shackles of the programming. She could touch whatever she wanted, say whatever she wanted. The blobs were apparently Walhoun's Weatherizing Wax Wards, items that could be used to keep things from getting wet in the rain with the power of water magic. The game had abstracted such things, never getting into the gritty details of how toilets worked or how the delightfully cute school uniform shoes survived exploration and combat in demon-filled dungeons. She wondered how many of these magical wonders were actually completely normal for this world. Was she giving away that she was an imposter by marveling over the wax wards? Only Suzette seemed to be watching, and she was studiously pretending to have no opinions at all about her employer's activities.
She had lingered long enough that another person entered the shop. The new woman was also dressed in the cream and burgundy uniform of the Imperial Mage Academy, and she was gorgeous. It is often said by people who have met Hollywood actresses that they are far more
noticeably
beautiful in person than they ever are on the silver screen. That even without makeup and costumes, the minor starlets who barely rate a page on the movie database are still lovelier than anyone you're likely to meet in a year. There were sigmas and standard deviations involved, but the simple reality was that the camera simply did not do justice to how
attractive
the world's most beautiful people actually were. When it came to video games, that went double. Or perhaps more than that. Odette was
supposed
to be the most beautiful woman in this world, or at least tied with Odile, but in the art style of the game she didn't appear any hotter than Madelyn or even one of the princes. But in person, in the flesh, the effect was jaw dropping. White hair that went just past the shoulders to rest over the most scrumptious D-cup breasts that had ever appeared before Madelyn or Nicole in either life, but her face was where the action was. Madelyn wanted to kiss that face. She wanted to write poetry about that face, even though she knew that it wouldn't be good. She was willing to embarrass herself in public for Odette's face.
