He wasn't trying to be funny. He was desperate. T-Posers were broken assets with no collision data. If he could force the System to execute a "Reset Pose" command, it might snap their skeletons back into a combat stance, giving them hitboxes that Gideon could actually hit.
The lead Cultist of the Static didn't blink. He just slid forward, his arms rigid, his body clipping slightly through a wooden crate.
[Input Received: "Pose"] [Autocorrect: "Hose"]
The air in front of Kai shimmered.
"Behold!" Gideon gasped, shielding his eyes as a massive, neon-pink rubber tube materialized in Kai’s hands. "You have summoned the Serpent of Hydration!"
"It's a garden hose!" Kai yelled, wrestling with the flailing rubber nozzle. The vibrating tube felt like it was wrestling him back. "Get back!"
He aimed the spraying nozzle at the T-Posers.
WHOOSH.
A jet of high-pressure water blasted out.
Because the T-Posers had no mass, the physics engine didn't know their weight so the water didn't knock them down.
It launched them like air hockey pucks, the four cultists accelerated instantly from zero to sixty. They slid backward across the frictionless gray ground, vanishing into the fog without moving a single muscle.
"They have been cleansed!" Gideon cheered, wiping mist from his pumpkin helmet. "The serpent spits judgment!"
"Get inside!" Kai dropped the hose, which dissolved into a puddle of pink pixels. "Before they drift back!"
They scrambled through the door of the tavern, slamming it shut against the wall of purple static outside.
The interior of the tavern of Lorem Ipsum was exactly what Kai feared. It was an MVP.
The floor was a default gray grid. The tables were untextured cubes that floated an inch off the ground. The "fire" in the hearth wasn't a fire, it was just the words [FIRE_EFFECT_VFX] floating in mid-air in bright red text.
"It is... very minimalist," Viscount Pigglesworth sniffed, hopping on his one good shoe (and the one Screaming Shoe). "I despise it, It lacks soul & varnish. Why is the fire reading at me?"
"We’re safe," Kai panted, leaning against the door. "We just need to rest and..."
Ping.
A blue box appeared, blindingly bright in the dim light of the placeholder fire.
[Achievement Unlocked: Rate Limit Exceeded] [Alert: You have crossed the 20-Edit Threshold on a Free Tier Account.] [Status: User flagged as 'Spam Bot'.] [Penalty: Predictive Text Curse enabled.]
"What?" Kai blinked, staring at the text. "Predictive text? Just because I used the hose?"
[System Activating...]
"...for all your gardening needs at low, low prices!" Kai’s mouth finished the sentence on its own, his voice booming and robotic.
Kai clamped his hand over his mouth. His eyes went wide.
Gideon stared at him, tilting his head. "My Lord? You speak with the cadence of a town crier."
"No," Kai said, removing his hand slowly. "I mean, the System is trying to..."
"...contact you about your vehicle's extended warranty!" Kai shouted against his will.
"Stop it!" Kai yelled at his own mouth. "I can't even..."
"...believe it's not butter!"
"Oh no," Kai whispered, shrinking against the wall. "I'm a pop-up ad. I'm a walking pop-up ad."
"A curse of tongues," Gideon nodded solemnly. "The water serpent exacts a heavy toll. You are possessed by the spirit of commerce."
"I am not possessed!" Kai argued. "I just..."
"...saved 15% or more on car insurance!"
"Let's just sit down," Kai grumbled, keeping his jaws clamped shut.
They sat at one of the gray cube tables. It was hard, cold, and uncomfortable.
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The Tavern was populated by "Scrapped Concepts." In the corner, a Dragon sat curled up, but it was just a wireframe mesh, a skeleton of green lines with no skin. At the bar, a "sexy elf" barmaid was wiping the counter, but the artist hadn't finished her; she was just a floating head and a pair of legs.
The Bartender approached their table.
He was a human male with brown hair, medium build, blank face & dead eyes.
Kai recognized him immediately. Generic_NPC_01. The base model. The template Kai had used for every shopkeeper, guard, and peasant in the early build.
"Greetings," the Bartender droned. "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet?"
"Do you have a menu?" Pigglesworth demanded, adjusting his muddy cravat. "I am famished. And my foot is vibrating."
The Bartender slammed a stone slate onto the table. It wasn't a normal menu. It was a list of glitched items that had been misinterpreted by the code.
[MENU]
- Bone Apple Tea (A calcium-rich brew).
- Escape Goat (Fresh ... if you can catch it).
- Soup of the Day (Error 404: Soup Not Found).
"Bone Apple Tea?" Gideon read the menu with reverence. "Is it a tea brewed from the orchards of the fallen?"
"It's a typo," Kai muttered. "It's supposed to be Bon Appétit."
"I shall have the Escape Goat!" Gideon slammed his fist on the table. "I hunger for a challenge! Bring me the beast!"
"And for you?" The Bartender looked at Pigglesworth.
Pigglesworth crossed his legs.
"KILL ME!" his left shoe shrieked.
The tavern went silent. The wireframe dragon stopped glitching. The floating barmaid head turned to look.
"He will have the Tea," Kai said quickly. "And please, for the love of..."
"...God, smash that like button and subscribe!"
The Bartender nodded and glided away, his feet not moving.
Kai put his head on the table. This was his life now. He was 14,200 gold in debt, trapped in a developer's trash can, and he couldn't stop shouting marketing slogans.
A moment later, the food arrived.
The Bone Apple Tea was served in an ivory flask shaped like a skull. It steamed with a scent that was distinctly chalky.
The Escape Goat was a small, roasted goat on a silver platter. As soon as the Bartender set it down, the goat’s eyes opened. It bleated, kicked the lid off, and sprinted off the table, crashing through the closed window.
"A worthy adversary!" Gideon cheered, standing up to chase it. "Come back, breakfast! We must duel!"
"Sit down, Gideon," Kai sighed. "Let it go."
Kai watched the bartender wipe the counter with a nervous, jerky rhythm he knew by heart. He froze, recognizing the exact animation he had coded late one night sometime ago.
"I wrote him," Kai said suddenly, looking at the Bartender.
Gideon paused. "You... crafted his soul?"
"Generic_NPC_01," Kai whispered. "I wrote a backstory for him. Five years ago. He was supposed to be a retired soldier. He had a wife named Elara. They had a farm on the coast. He loved fishing."
Kai looked at the blank-faced man wiping the counter.
"We deleted it," Kai said, his voice thick with guilt. "To save memory. We needed 5KB of space for a loot box animation, so I erased his wife. I erased his farm. Now he's just... this."
Gideon stared at Kai with a mix of horror and awe.
"You unmade her?" Gideon whispered. "You simply... blotted her from the Book of Life? To save 'Memory'?"
"I didn't think he was real, Gideon! It was just text! It was just lines of code!"
"And what are we, if not lines in a Great Scroll?" Gideon stared into his gray ale, his pumpkin helmet tilting downward. "If a god can erase a wife to save space... then perhaps we are all just waiting for the ink to run dry."
The mood at the table plummeted. Even Pigglesworth looked somber. He looked at the coat rack by the door, where a coat was floating in mid-air because the rack hadn't loaded in yet.
"Even the furniture is unreliable," Pigglesworth whispered.
Creak.
The tavern door opened.
The wind from the void outside blew in, carrying the sound of static.
A man walked in.
He wasn't glitching. He wasn't a wireframe. He wasn't missing textures.
He was wearing a blue polo shirt, khaki pants, and a lanyard. He held a clipboard in one hand and a ballpoint pen in the other. He didn't have a sword or a staff. He had a headset.
Above his head, floating in crisp, high-definition text, was a nameplate:
[DAVE] [Quality Assurance - Junior Grade]
He stood in the doorway, adjusting his glasses. He looked at the wireframe dragon. He looked at the floating barmaid head.
He looked at the table where a knight with a pumpkin, a noble with a screaming shoe, and an unidentified NPC was sitting.
Dave clicked his pen.
"Ticket #405," Dave sighed, his voice echoing with the boredom of a man who just wanted to go home. "Found the memory leak. It's in the Tavern."
Kai stood up. His heart hammered against his ribs. It was Dave. Real Dave. From the office.
"Dave!" Kai yelled, waving his hands. "It's me! Kai! I sit next to you!"
Dave looked at him. He raised an eyebrow. "Bot detected. Audio output corrupted."
"No!" Kai stepped forward. "I'm not a bot! I work at..."
"...TARGET! EXPECT MORE PAY LESS!" Kai’s mouth roared.
Dave scribbled on his clipboard. "Ad-ware. Nasty stuff. Probably a crypto-miner."
"Dave, listen!" Kai pleaded. "I spilled the…."
"...TEA SIS! DRAAAAMA!"
"Right," Dave said, tapping his clipboard. "I'm flagging this entire sector for immediate deletion. Please remain stationary while I purge your code."
Dave raised his hand. A yellow glowing line like police tape began to materialize around the table.
[SYSTEM ALERT: QUARANTINE INITIATED.]
Gideon stood up, kicking his chair back. He drew his rusted sword, pointing it at Dave’s chest.
"Stand back, Wizard of Clipboards!" Gideon bellowed. "I know not this 'Tea of Drama,' but I shall defend my liege! You shall not touch the Devil..oper!"
"Wait!" Pigglesworth hopped up. "He has a pen! He can write! Sir! I wish to file a formal complaint about the footwear in this dungeon!"
Dave looked at them with dead, tired eyes.
"Great," Dave muttered. "The malware has spawned NPCs. I'm going to need a bigger Ban Hammer."
Psychological ? Dreamlike ? Metaphysical ? Slow-Burn Narrative
?? Status: Ongoing | ?? Format: Serialized Web Novel
A story about dreams, identity, and the thin line between revelation and madness.
What begins as an ordinary sleep slowly unfolds into something so much more surreal, bizzare, and amazing in all sense of the word. Let's follow Jung's journey, into the dream world.