[Save Slot: KillMeKitty]
[Meowfunction.EXE Level: ???]
[Status: [Active] | [Corrupted] | [Chat Enabled]
The world wasn't rendering right.
Trees flickered between art styles; hyper-realistic bark next to cel-shaded leaves. Clouds looped in four-second GIFs. The sun did not exist, yet the world lit up like it was daytime.
Meowfunction stood at the edge of a cliff that hadn't finished generating. Her pink hair swayed in a nonexistent breeze, flickering with pink pixel dust. Her twin tails glitched, wiggled once then her arm went through her body before she was forced into a stiff T-pose.
[New zone discovered: Glimmergrass Plains. +25 experience.]
"Sweet, new zone gave some exp! Damn place looks deprecated, whata shame. Nya~ Population: Totally Unnecessary XD."
She jumped down.
"No fall damage. Duh."
She landed on a farmhouse. The roof collapsed in a mess physics bugs and foam. A peasant inside screamed. Voice lines were triggered.
"P… please, mighty one! My daughter, she is gone! The monsters took her!"
Meowfunction stared at the NPC.
"Please, mighty one! You will help, right? Right?!"
[Quest Triggered: "A Child's Hope"]
[Recommended Level: 4]
[Experience Reward: 100 | Fun: 0]
Meowfunction blinked. Tilted her head. Her voice filter chirped sweetly.
"Nya~ skip! Seriously? The new zone got some worthless quests. Why even invite me to test this trash?"
Her hand passed through the air. A red square appeared.
"Being a beta tester is so ass, /delete"
The villager exploded into chunky pixel fragments.
[Quest Complete: Stop talking to me.]
"Now that's over with onward to the next zone!"
She wandered into a broken field. Giant bees floated overhead with idle animations that had lost their loop, they hovered in place, vibrating.
One buzzed too close.
"New combatant: Bee_Mob_Generic_005" "Immunity: Ice. Weakness: Fun."
She looked at it and smiled, pulling out her plush death-bunny sword.
"/kill @nearest."
The bee melted into static. A loot drop orb hovered mid-air and burst into firecrackers when she opened it.
"Tch. Mid-drop rates. And no new gear? Lazy devs."
She looked off in the distance.
"Finally a town!"
She passed a sign that read:
[Welcome to Happyville! Town of Smiles and Side Quests!]
"Damn this game got woke."
The buildings were halfway collapsed. NPCs stood in idle animations, clipped into walls. A child was frozen mid-cry. The sky started to static.
A bard started singing.
His lips didn't move. The song was off-key and off-language. Like the audio file was shoehorned in.
"Nope that sounds terrible."
She swiped sideways.
[Command Input: /mute_world_audio]
Silence fell.
At the center of town stood a glowing crystal. The Worldheart. The "save point." The last functioning piece of the game's system.
Meowfunction.EXE approached it with twitching hands. Her shadow lagged behind her by four seconds.
[Endgame relic detected. Warning: tampering may result in a ban for your account.]
She looked at her reflection in the crystal-like object.
Big pink eyes. Innocent expression. Pink cat ears. And behind them, static. Her left eye turned red more black static appeared, stealing half her face.
"Help me!" The voice crackled out from her, low, glitchy, masculine, and terrified.
She looked at her static red eye.
"Please. Someone. Anyone. Just, log me out-"
"Oh stop crying." She blinked.
The voice was gone.
Just sweet UI jingles and pink sparkles now.
"Nyaa~ okay! Time to test the respawn system stupid hacker."
"/kick."
She kicked the crystal. It cracked.
[WARNING: Worldheart Integrity Compromised]
[System Stability: 28%]
[New Characters Cannot Be Created]
[Story Progression: CORRUPTED]
[Beta Testing: Over]
"Oopsie~," she giggled, twirling her plush death-bunny sword.
"Guess this zone's on permadeath now, bye-bye stupid hacker."
The grass began to disintegrate in pixels. NPCs stood still. Lights dimmed.
She walked away, humming.
Behind her, reality uninstalled itself.
[Autosaving…]
[Chapter Unlocked: "The Final War Begins."]
[You are now a participant in the end times. Logout is recommended!]
Meowfunction only skipped, she did not care.
"Logout? When I could be the best?" She finally stopped and said, "As if!"
Then she continued skipping. "I'll be at the top, I'm the best PVPer in the game!"