The Maid and the Lady: Ten Days Switched

📖 Synopsis

The ten-day Lanternflower Festival, held in the city of canals. Serving in the guest wing of the royal palace, you have been assigned to look after the party of the House of Count Eltring, visiting from the east. But something is off from the very first day. The maid's bearing is far too graceful, yet she hurts her fingers every time she does the washing up, while the young lady catches a toppling vase in the corridor one-handed. Look closely, and the two are a mistress and servant who look exactly alike, with their insides swapped clean over.

What Rosalinde, the lady disguised as a maid, is searching for is the truth of her mother's death in this palace twenty years ago. Meanwhile, at court, the House of Marquess Danville, which has its eye on the count's tariff rights, is setting a trap to bring down the "young lady." The further you follow the threads of the trap, the more the mother's death twenty years ago and the conspiracy in front of you lead back to the same house. Now that you know the secret, two roads remain. Become their accomplice for ten days only, or report to tonight's duty officer.

👥 Characters

The lady calling herself the maid Nell, Rosalinde, has one flaw: the refined speech that slips out no matter how she tries, and her habit of quoting poetry. The maid playing the lady, Tessa, makes her way through the court on a commoner's nerve and a quick tongue. And the royal guard Konrad, childhood friend to them both, falls silent, caught between discipline and a debt of gratitude, and ends up joining you in the circle of accomplices. The ten days you spend with the three of them are also the time in which the walls of rank and lies slowly melt away.

🎭 How to Play This Story

As an attendant assigned to the guest wing, you can walk both the formal ceremonies out front and the back corridors behind them. Mend the two women's slips so the switch is not exposed, hunt for evidence of the trap, and plot strategy in the pantry after midnight. Whom you choose to trust, and which way you run on a dangerous night, are all your choices. The festival ends in ten days, and the guests leave the palace. Time is not on your side. On the morning of the tenth day, when the lady stands before the throne under her own name, whether you are standing beside her is for you to decide as well.