[LOCATION: THE DESK] [CURRENT STATUS: READ-ONLY]

  The world was gray. Kai stood frozen, a statue of flesh and pixel. He couldn't blink. He couldn't breathe. He could only watch. The Great Polish of white nothingness was creeping closer. It was devouring the desk. The stapler was gone. The coffee mug was gone.

  In front of him, Clippy paced back and forth, its metal feet clanking on the desk. "Please remain stationary," the robot buzzed, adjusting a paperclip on its torso. "I am currently defragmenting the area. Your deletion will be painless, provided you do not struggle."

  Kai’s mind was racing. Read-Only Mode. It stopped physical interaction. It stopped combat. But the HUD in the corner of his eye was still spinning. The gold coin icon pulsed. The Shop, Kai realized. The Developers locked the physics, but they never locked the Store. You don’t stop people from spending money, at least according to the corporate honchos.

  Then, he remembered. He remembered the bridge. He remembered Grom screaming "I AM TOO BIG TO FAIL!" while spamming loot boxes into the abyss. He remembered the number floating above his own head back then: -10,000,000 GOLD. I had a thought back then, Kai realized. I wondered what would happen if we ran out of bits to store the debt.

  He couldn't speak. But he could type. He focused his mind on the [PARTY CHAT] interface.

  [Kai]: Grom. Can you read this?

  [Grom]: (No response. Grom is frozen in a breakdancing pose).

  [Kai]: GROM. I am giving you "Officer Permissions" to my Wallet.

  [Kai]: WE ARE FINISHING THE STIMULUS PACKAGE.

  Grom’s eyes, frozen wide open, darted slightly to the left.

  [Grom]:HOW ARE YOU SPEAKING TO ME, WHAT IS THIS SHINY THING, LOOKS LIKE A SHOP

  [Grom]: THE DEBT FROM THE BRIDGE IS STILL THERE. -10,000,000 GOLD.

  [Kai]: Good. That means we have a head start.

  [Kai]: Grom, listen to me. The game’s economy module is legacy code from 1999. It uses a 32-bit signed integer.

  [Grom]: I DO NOT SPEAK NERD. I SPEAK VIOLENCE.

  [Kai]: It means the lowest number this reality can understand is -2,147,483,648. If we go lower, the math breaks. The debt flips to profit.

  [Kai]: Last time, we stopped too early. I need you to push us the rest of the way. Open the Store. Buy everything.

  A glint appeared in the Orc’s frozen eye.

  [Grom]: YOU WANT ME TO BE "TOO BIG TO FAIL" AGAIN?

  [Kai]: I want you to crash the economy, Grom. Do it.

  Clippy stopped pacing. It looked at Grom, then at Kai. "Warning," the robot noted. "Network activity detected. Why is the Orc accessing the Premium Store?"

  Above Kai’s frozen head, the dormant red number flared back to life, picking up exactly where it left off chapters ago. GOLD: -10,000,000

  Then, a holographic window popped up. [TRANSACTION APPROVED: GROM_THE_ORC] [ITEM: DIAMOND HORSE ARMOR (x500)] [COST: 500,000 GOLD]

  The red number changed. GOLD: -10,500,000

  "Oh," Clippy laughed, a metallic rattle. "You are buying cosmetics? In your final moments? That is... ill-illogical." The robot’s voice hitched. A tiny stutter. It didn't like the variables changing.

  [Kai]: Faster, Grom! That’s pocket change! We need massive losses! [Grom]: PURCHASING "LOOT BOX BUNDLE (x50,000)". GAMBLING IS A HIGH-YIELD DEBT GENERATOR.

  [TRANSACTION APPROVED] [COST: 250,000,000 GOLD]

  The red number above Kai’s head spiked. GOLD: -260,500,000

  Kai watched the number grow. Even though he knew the plan, a deep, primal part of his soul screamed at seeing his debt which was already in the toilet flush itself completely. This better work, Kai thought. Or I’m going to be paying this off for the next twelve reincarnations.

  Clippy twitched. Its googly eyes spun in opposite directions. "Significant data packet detected! You are cluttering the transaction log! Stop! I am trying to... to... o-o-optimize you!"

  [Kai]: He’s lagging! Go for the kill! Buy the most expensive thing in the game!

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  [Grom]: I AM BUYING THE "ENTERPRISE TIER GUILD HALL"! WITH THE VOLCANO ADD-ON!

  [TRANSACTION APPROVED] [ITEM: CASTLE OF THE INFINITE SKY (DELUXE EDITION)] [COST: 1,800,000,000 GOLD]

  The debt counter over Kai spun so fast it blurred. It looked like a slot machine from hell. GOLD: -2,060,500,000

  Clippy grabbed its own head. Sparks flew from its wire elbows. "System resource usage spiking! Why are you buying imaginary castles?! The user cannot sustain this deficit! It is... un-un-sustainable!"

  [Kai]: We’re almost there. We need to hit -2.14 Billion exactly.

  [Kai]: Grom, buy the "Shiny Pet Rock."

  [Grom]: IT IS A WASTE OF RESOURCES!

  [Kai]: DO IT! PUT IT ON MY Account!

  GOLD: -2,147,483,640

  Clippy fell to one knee. Smoke poured from its ears. "Buffer... overflow... imminent. Calculation... error..."

  Kai watched the number hovering over his own forehead. They were on the edge of the mathematical abyss. One more purchase would push his debt past what the computer could comprehend.

  [Kai]: This is it, Grom. The kill shot.

  [Kai]: Buy one single "Health Potion."

  [Grom]: A TACTICAL BEVERAGE. APPROVED.

  Grom mentally clicked [BUY]. The cost was 50 Gold. The math hit the limit. -2,147,483,648. And then it tried to go to -2,147,483,690.

  The Universe hiccuped. The gray world flickered. The logic of the server slammed into a wall. It couldn't process a number that small. So, it did the only thing it knew how to do: it looped back to the beginning.

  PING.

  The negative sign vanished from Kai’s head. The red text turned bright, glorious Green.

  CURRENT GOLD: +2,147,483,647

  [SYSTEM ALERT] [NEW STATUS ACQUIRED: WHALE] [VIP TIER: GOD LEVEL] [PERK UNLOCKED: "THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT"]

  The gray "Read-Only" filter shattered like glass. Kai took a deep breath. He flexed his arms. The freeze was gone. The system didn't restrict Whales. Whales were the revenue stream.

  "I AM SOLVENT!" Kai shouted, staring at the number. "I AM THE 1%!"

  Clippy looked up, terrified. Its googly eyes were vibrating violently. "Error," the robot stammered, its voice dropping an octave. "User wealth exceeds admin parameters. You... you own the server."

  Kai stepped forward. He unlocked the interface for the party. Grom shook off the freeze and cracked his knuckles. "BOSS," Grom grinned, Kai looked at him and said "WE HAVE THE POWER. SHALL WE REMOVE THE BLOATWARE?"

  He pulled up the Premium Menu and projected it in front of Grom. "Do the honors, Grom."

  Grom looked at the giant metal monster. Grom growled. "You are an intrusive feature." Grom scrolled down the list of VIP options. He found the button: [REMOVE ADS / ANNOYING ASSISTANTS]. Cost: 599 Gold (PAID BY KAI).

  "WAIT!" Clippy shrieked, backing away. "I AM NOT AN AD! I AM A CORE SYSTEM UTILITY! I HAVE A SOUL! I CAN HELP YOU WRITE A LETTER!"

  "I do not wish to write a letter," Grom said, winding up his fist. He punched the hologram button. "I WISH TO UNSUBSCRIBE."

  [TRANSACTION COMPLETE] [PREMIUM FEATURE ACTIVATED: AD-BLOCKER]

  A beam of holy, golden light shot from the sky. It hit The Assistant. "NOOOOOO!" The robot screamed. "I WAS ONLY TRYING TO OPTIMIZE YOUUUUUU…."

  ZRRRP. The Assistant didn't die. It was Minimized. The 50 foot robot instantly crumpled into a tiny, 2 inch icon. Then, the icon popped out of existence.

  [THREAT REMOVED] [THANK YOU FOR YOUR PURCHASE]

  Kai scanned the system log. One name didn’t turn green, but he didn't have time to focus on that now. The silence returned to the desk. The Read-Only mode was fully lifted. Gideon, Maya and Pigglesworth collapsed to the floor, gasping for air.

  "We... we did it," Gideon wheezed. "The steel beast is gone. Now, quickly! The Altar!"

  Gideon pointed his hammer at the ground. They were standing right on top of the Left Click Button. "Jump!" Kai yelled. "Everyone together! Slam it down!"

  Grom, Gideon, Kai, Pigglesworth, and Maya leaped into the air. They landed simultaneously on the massive black plastic plate. CLICK.

  The sound echoed across the office. The switch depressed with a satisfying mechanical crunch. They all looked up at the giant Monitor in the Sky, waiting for the "Shutdown Imminent" window to vanish.

  Nothing happened. The window stayed on the screen. The progress bar kept moving. The cursor on the screen didn't move. It was frozen in place, turning into a spinning blue circle of death.

  [SYSTEM ALERT: APPLICATION NOT RESPONDING] [ERROR: CANCEL BUTTON IS GRAYED OUT]

  "It's not working!" Maya yelled, her voice cracking. She stared at the blue circle, her eyes wide. "The interface is dead! It's not listening to us!"

  "It's crashed," Kai realized, horror washing over him. "The shutdown script is locked in. The software is frozen. Clicking the mouse won't do anything anymore."

  "So we failed?" Pigglesworth whispered, his velvet suit sagging. "We saved the altar for nothing?"

  A sound cut through the despair. It was a low, humming static. Kai looked behind them. The Great Polish the white wall was getting louder. It wasn't just erasing things; it was erasing the physics of them. It sounded like a vacuum cleaner trying to suck up the ocean. The heat was rising. The smell of burning ozone filled the air.

  Kai looked down at the spot where Clippy had vanished. Lying on the mousepad, dropped as loot from the defeated system process, was a single object. It was a heavy, black square made of plastic. A keycap from a mechanical keyboard.

  Kai picked it up. It was the [Esc] key.

  "No," Kai said, gripping the key tight. "The software is frozen. We can't ask it to stop nicely anymore." He looked at the horizon, past the mouse pad, toward the Canyon of Keys the giant, mechanical keyboard that rose like a city of black monoliths. There was a gap in the top left corner. A missing tooth in the mouth of the machine.

  "We can't use the software," Kai said. "We have to use the hardware. We need a manual override."

  "The Escape Key," Maya grunted, understanding the tactical implication.

  "Exactly," Kai said. "We have to run this key to the Keyboard. We have to plug it in and slam it before the white wall eats us."

  "And then?" Maya asked, looking at the wall of static erasing the world.

  "And then," Kai said, turning toward the canyon. "We force the quit."

  [CHAPTER END] [ITEM ACQUIRED: THE ESCAPE KEY]

  Dreadspire: The Weakest Druid

  Dreadspire was a single-player game designed to break the unbreakable.

  Eryndor Leafshade, he found himself trapped in the body of a druid, the weakest playable race in Dreadspire.

  Dreadspire proves that no one was ever meant to win.

  Only the strongest may ascend

  REACH THE TOP FLOOR AND CLAIM YOUR WISH