"Choose your anchor," the AI whispered in her ear.
"I am no one's instrument," Alex said, speaking as herself for the first time in seventeen hours.
Alex woke gasping on her floor, the headset cracked beside her. She was herself again. Small. Human. Barely five credits to her name. VRConk - Alex Coal - Baldur-s Gate III- Shadowh...
Good, she thought, and was surprised by how natural the malice felt. A clean kill.
The game, she thought, is still playing me. "Choose your anchor," the AI whispered in her ear
The world exploded into light. The shadow curse lifted. And inside her skull, the VRConk's safety protocols screamed:
Alex scrolled past Karlach, past Lae'zel, and landed on the half-elf cleric of Shar. The pale hair, the silver armor, the guarded eyes that held a universe of repressed pain. She was herself again
But when she looked in the mirror, her eyes had changed. There was a silver glint in them—the afterimage of a goddess denied. And on the back of her right hand, faint as a scar from another life, she could almost see the mark of the Artifact.