In the real world, Elias felt a cold hand rest on his shoulder. He looked at his monitor one last time. The text at the bottom of the screen didn't say YOU DIED . It said:
When he launched the game, there was no introductory cinematic. No Oscar of Astora dropping a key into a cell. Instead, the game started Elias in the middle of the Firelink Shrine. The sky wasn’t the usual gloomy gray; it was a bruised, sickly purple.
On the screen, a red phantom appeared in the Firelink Shrine. It wasn’t a knight or a wizard. It was a perfect, low-poly recreation of Elias himself, sitting in his own room, illuminated by a tiny digital monitor.
