"A bigger hammer?" Gideon repeated, gripping his rusted sword. "Bring forth your mallet, wizard! I shall parry it with the fury of a thousand discounts!"

  Dave didn't bring forth a mallet. He didn't even look up from his clipboard. He just tapped his pen against the air.

  "Target is aggressive," Dave mumbled, scrolling through a menu only he could see. "Collision... off. Damage... zero. Let's start there."

  Gideon roared. He charged across the gray grid floor, his boots thudding against the fake ground. He swung his jagged sword in a lethal arc, aiming right for Dave’s neck.

  SWISH.

  The blade passed straight through Dave’s neck.

  It didn’t cut him. It didn’t even slow down. It just clipped through his body like he was a ghost.

  [System Message: Damage = 0 (God Mode Active)]

  Dave sighed. He adjusted his glasses, which were currently floating an inch off his face because the character model hadn't loaded right.

  "Please stop hitting the avatar," Dave said, sounding incredibly bored. "It triggers the rumble pack in my controller. It tickles."

  Dave paused. "I regret saying that out loud."

  "Sorcery!" Gideon stumbled back. "He is a phantom! A spirit! My steel cannot touch his soul!"

  "You're lagging the server with all these attacks," Dave muttered. He tapped his clipboard again. "Let's lower your threat level. Weapon nerf incoming."

  Click.

  Gideon’s sword didn't vanish. It flickered.

  For a split second, the rusted metal turned into a wireframe mesh. Then, it reloaded.

  It was no longer jagged steel. It was bright pink. It was round. And it was soft.

  Gideon stared at the weapon in his hand for a moment, he didn’t speak. He gave it a shake. The blade wiggled like a wet noodle.

  Squeak.

  "My blade..." Gideon whispered, horrified. "It has... it has gone soft. It has lost its conviction!"

  "It's a foam ," Dave explained, checking a box on his form. "Zero damage. Modelled after child safety toys. Now you can swing it all you want without any damage."

  "You monster!" Viscount Pigglesworth shouted. The noble hopped forward on his one shoe. "You have gelded his weapon! I demand to speak to your superior! I wish to file a grievance!"

  Dave looked down at Pigglesworth. A flicker of a smile crossed his dead eyes.

  "Finally," Dave said. "A NPC who wants to follow protocol."

  He reached into his pocket which was just a flat picture on his leg and pulled out a scroll.

  "If you want to complain," Dave said, "you need to read the terms. All of them. Catch."

  He dropped the scroll.

  It hit the floor with a heavy thud. Then it unrolled.

  And unrolled.

  And unrolled.

  It wasn't just paper. It was a tsunami of white. Like a firehose, the paper shot across the room, bouncing off the walls, coiling up like snakes, piling higher and higher.

  Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

  "Section One!" Dave recited over the roar of crinkling paper. "By existing in this zone, you waive all rights to having a body!"

  "It is heavy!" Pigglesworth’s muffled voice came from under the pile. "The words! They are too small! The font is oppressive!"

  The room began to fill. The paper was rising like water.

  "Now," Dave turned his dead eyes toward Kai. He clicked his pen. "For the malware."

  Kai backed up until he hit the wall. "Dave, wait! I'm not a virus! I'm..."

  "...A REVOLUTION IN SAVINGS!" Kai's mouth screamed.

  "Yeah, yeah. Save it for the appeal form." Dave pointed his pen like a wand. "Deleting source file..."

  Kai flinched, waiting to be erased.

  Beep.

  A red error box popped up in the air.

  [ERROR 403: ACCESS DENIED] [Reason: File is currently in use.]

  Dave stared at the box. He tapped his pen against it.

  "Seriously?" Dave groaned. "I need a Senior Dev to delete a spam bot? I hate this company. Nothing works."

  He glared at Kai. "Fine. If I can't delete you, I'll just put you in timeout until my boss gets back from lunch."

  Dave made a pinching motion in the air.

  RUMBLE.

  Around the edges of the tavern, the air began to harden. Blocks of black, unbreakable stone began to appear, sealing the exits.

  "I'm locking the zone," Dave said, turning his back to walk toward the door before it sealed. "The EULA scroll object made as a joke by the devs will keep you pinned down until I get the Admin Key. Enjoy the reading material."

  The stone bedrock slammed shut. The door was gone. The windows were gone.

  They were trapped in a stone box. And the box was rapidly filling with infinite paper.

  "We are doomed!" Gideon yelled, hacking at the paper with his pink foam sword. It made a pathetic fusssss! noise. "The scroll consumes us!"

  The pressure was building. Kai felt the paper crushing him against the back wall. The game engine was starting to groan. The world began to stutter.

  [System Warning: Room Full.] [Error: Too much paper.]

  Kai’s eyes went wide. He looked at the mountain of paper pressing into his chest.

  "Dave messed up," Kai wheezed. "The EULA object spawned too much stuff!"

  "What are you saying , I don’t understand?" Gideon gasped, holding Pigglesworth above his head to save him from the paper tide.

  "Physics!" Kai shouted. "Two things can't be in the same spot! If the room is 100% full of paper, the game has to put us somewhere else!"

  "Where?!" Pigglesworth shrieked. "There is no elsewhere!"

  "The void!" Kai yelled. "We have to force it! Squeeze!"

  Kai grabbed Gideon and Pigglesworth. He didn't push them away from the wall, he pulled them into it.

  "Hug the wall!" Kai screamed. "Let the paper crush us!"

  "This is a terrible plan!" Pigglesworth cried.

  The mountain of EULA scroll surged forward. It slammed into them with the weight of a thousand layers.

  Kai felt his ribs creak. He felt the cold stone against his back. He felt the paper pressing into his face.

  There was zero space left.

  [Position: INVALID]

  [Attempting Solution...]

  [Attempting Solution...]

  [Attempting Solution...]

  [Solution: ???]

  The System panicked.

  [Position: INVALID] [Solution: Eject.]

  The wall didn't break. They did.

  POP.

  It felt like being sucked through a straw.

  With a sound like a wet suction cup letting go, Kai, Gideon, and Pigglesworth were squeezed through the solid stone.

  One second, they were being crushed by terms and conditions. The next, they were falling.

  The gray floor vanished above them. The tavern shrank into a tiny cube in the distance.

  They were free falling through the blue void. The empty, infinite skybox that exists underneath every video game map.

  "We have escaped the mighty scroll!" Gideon cheered, flailing his limbs as they fell into the nothingness. "We fly like the eagle!"

  "We're falling under the world!" Kai screamed, clutching his stomach as gravity took hold.

  Above them, through the see-through floor of the world, Kai could see Dave standing in the tavern, wading through the sea of paper he had created, looking confused.

  Dave walked over to the wall where they had been. He poked it. He looked down.

  "Great," Dave’s voice echoed from far away. "Physics ejection. Now they're out of bounds. I really hate collision detection."

  Kai spun in the air, looking down. They weren't falling into nothing.

  Far below them, floating in the endless blue void, was a white platform. And on that platform sat a single, massive object.

  It was a giant, low-quality head of a persian cat.

  "What," Pigglesworth screamed, his cravat flapping in the wind, "is that glorious feline?"

  "It's the Dev Room," Kai whispered, bracing for impact. "We're falling into the Dev Room.