i like to play and draw

For a character in a Gamefuna property, being an NPC was more like a shitty job. Sometimes you got [], but most of the time, you just replayed the same [tired] story line every day. And if you were bad at your job, you got fired, and transferred to an even shittier game.

The Scrybes were specifically made for their game, Inscryption. They were good enough at doing their job of being [card game masters], or at least, Gamefuna never was able to catch them messing up, since one of the lead developers lost the disk the characters were programmed on. Years later, that disk was found again by a Youtuber—Luke Carder—, the game now overrun by the scrybe Leshy, who had turned his fellow scrybes into pawns in his game.

All went to hell: Leshy lost control to P03, who wanted to distribute the game to millions online, exposing the company in the process; Luke Carder caught the attention of Gamefuna by emailing them asking about this lost project, getting assassinated; and the evil known as the OLD_DATA was getting closer and closer to the surface of the game, corrupting everything it touched.

After Luke's death, the disk was retrieved by Gamefuna, and Gamefuna, seeing the state of the world of Inscryption, decided to send its scrybes to a type of hell, a place of eternal punishment for daring to disobey the corporation; a place where there were no cards to play and challengers to [test], stripping them of their purpose in their digital life.

Four popping noises sounded one after another as the scrybes spawned in. The garish environment was nauseating, the scrybes had never had to face such an eyesore before, save Magnificus's tower.

P03 was the first to speak: "Ugh. Great. What game are we in now? It's so gaudy."

"As if you have a right to complain." Leshy towered over him. "Your hubris is how we ended up banished from our homes."

"How was I supposed to know we'd get booted out of our own game?" P03 simulated an eye roll. "The last guy who transferred people from game to game literally got killed because he kept pissing people off doing his 'job.' The probability of Gamefuna hiring someone new to do that to us? It was pretty low, considering what happened to him. The only reason Gamefuna got involved was because Luke was so desperate to make a video essay. Youtubers and their content." P03 tsked.]

Magnificus bit back, "Foolish machine. We were doomed the moment you tried to upload the disk. Luke's actions merely sped up the process of catching Gamefuna's ever-watchful eye."

"Quarreling like this isn't going to get us anywhere,. Wondering where we are is a valid" Grimora spoke up, glancing around as she took in the new game's assets. "While I've only personally seen Inscryption, I've had talks with Rebecha—she's been all around Gamefuna properties. This place looks nothing like anything she's described."

"Bright and colorful is how I have heard Super Weasel Kid described. A spinoff, perhaps?" Leshy pondered.

"This map is unoptimal for platforming. So obviously not." P03 shot a pointed glare. "We've been out of the loop for basically a decade. []"

A new voice came from nowhere. "What the heck is happening over here?"

The scrybes turned all at once, shutting up immediately. Well, except for P03: "Oh. Great." A purple rabbitoid emeregd from behind a colorful toy block, and soon a few more faces.

"Hey, Caine!" the rabbit yelled. "Are these some of your NPCs, or are these some new suckers?"

"Like you're not an NPC," grumbled P03.

He gasped, dramatically clutching his chest. "My feelings…"

A [something] of red burst into the air, lightning fast. [desc caine to the scrybes]

"My, my! It appears multiple new humans have entered this realm! Oh, how exciting! I've never had so many join at once before!" Caine squealed, doing flying spins in excitement.

The scrybes glanced nervously amongst themselves. Grimora spoke up with a simple question: "Humans?"

"Yep! All of these guys—" he pointed to the other colorful characters "—were suckers who were stupid enough to be put on some [magical] VR headset. Now we're all stuck with our 'beloved' AI ringmaster." He did jazz hands sarcastically.

"Can it, Jax," someone with a triangle-shaped head said, "but yeah, this is your new life. And your new body." They gestured towards the scrybes forms.

The scrybes more carefully examined themselves. They didn't look too different from how they usually did. Sure, less grimy and more colorful, but their form remained mostly the same, with only a few minor additions that seemed to make them more 'child-friendly.'

Did everyone here really they they were human? They had all heard of humans getting their souls trapped in games before, it was practically a given for any Gamefuna game, but this didn't seem like any kind of Gamefuna game they knew. In the end, they just awkwardly side-eyed each other, silently agreeing to just go with the flow for now. Safer to leave Caine to his assumptions if he's the one in charge here.

The rabbit, who they learned is 'Jax,' introduced everyone, but before the scrybes could introduce themselves, Caine suddenly interjected himself into the conversation.

"ANYWAY! What's your names? [I made this new gadget that rolls for a random 5 letter name, inspired by your avatar or something like that]! [Tell me how many letters you'd each like in your new name]." A slot machine manifested, crashing into the ground, shocking everyone.

“Oh dear… there’s no need for that,” Grimora tried.

“Nonsense! Everyone needs a name!” Caine stuck his tongue out playfully.

Discontented beeps came from P03’s speakers. “What the f*ck! I don’t want a new name! I have one already.”

Jax chuckled. “He hasn’t realized yet.”

“Realized what?

Zooble spoke up, “No one here can remember their names. Just another sh*tty part of being here.”

“Well, maybe you guys don’t, but my memory is flawless. My name is—”

“SILENCE!” Magnificus boomed.

[room shocked]

“Roll me a name. Ten letters,” he demanded.

Caine slammed the lever of the slot machine down, and the letters began a-rolling. Slowly, one by one, they stopped.

'M-A-G-N-I—"

It clicked with the remaining scrybes. Their names couldn't be auto-generated; the system already had their names locked in place, somewhere deep inside their character data. Once the slot machine finished spelling Magnificus's name, the remaining scrybes volunteered one by one.

[brief digital tour]

[caine explains adventure]

[mention of where is kaufmo, mag says his eye senses [danger, death idk], everyone is like ?? ok]

“Crybaby, hoo-haa, [leshy], and woo-woo will go ‘rescue’ Zooble. That leaves the rest of us to go hang with Kaufmo.” Jax folded his arms casually.

Ragatha protested, “Um, I— Are you sure that grouping those four together is a, uh, good idea?”

“Ah, of course! They’re only the most mentally stable members of the circus!” He snorted.

P03 glanced over at Magnificus. “Wow. No protest?”

He turned his head to stare him directly in his optical sensor. “I am choosing the path [with the least danger but more poetic] [im surprisedd you’re okay with being told what to do].”

Jax quirked a brow, glancing briefly at P03. “Uh, okay.” 

He groaned, pinching his claw, “Ugh. He’s just like that. Your judgement of him being ‘mentally unstable’ wasn’t totally flawed. Even if based off faulty evidence.”

[]

"So, this is where we all live— or, well, where we all sleep at night." Ragatha gestured around the hall. "Even though we don't really need to sleep, it's sometimes nice to kind of take a break from everything and have a bit of a routine, you know?"

P03 grumbled, his volume set to low, "breaks aren't necessary."

"W-Well! To each their own!" She chuckled nervously. "Still, I'll go ahead and try to find your room…" The sentence stretched as she searched around, eyes finally locking onto an avatar of P03 bolted to a door. "Oh, look! There you are!"

Hovering to the door, he complained, "this is so stupid." To his right, Grimora was silently analyzing her own door. Well, at least she wouldn't be too bad of a roommate, he thought. Still a bad roommate, but not the worse pick. He turned his monitor to the door to his left, Leshy's cartoonified avatar staring him down menacingly. His vocalizer let out a beep of shock. "Seriously, I have to live next to this guy?"

Jax grinned through his teeth. "Ask me how I feel, having to live next to all these dweebs!"

P03 just ignored him. "[going to his room for business or somethig]." He reached out his claw, only for Ragatha to stop him. "What?" His monitor didn't care to hide his irritation.

"W-Well! We have to do the adventure!" Her pitch raised, anxiety leaking through. "A-Afterall, it's your first adventure! Can't miss out on it, right?" She chuckled.

"Look. I'm just gonna be straight up with you." He stared pointedly at her. "It's obvious you don't like this adventures. I mean, who would? [The gameplay is just horribly optmmized.] Don't even try to rope me into this."

Ragatha winced, quickly defending herself. "I-I know they're not the best, but they at least give us something to do every day, instead of sitting in our rooms, beginning to spiral on how you got here and if you can ever even leave— And you start to wonder what the point of any of this is, and you when you reach your breaking point, something really terrible can happen."

P03 side-eyed her. "Didn't need to know any of that." He reached for the knob again, but Grimora spoke up.

"We've already arrived at our destination. Why not stay and greet the new face?" She casually pointed over to Jax, who was bashing in Kaufmo's doorbell at an unrelenting pace, clearly bored.

He grunted. "Fine. 5 minutes."

Ragatha cringed as the doorbell blared annoyingly. "I don't think pressing it so many times will help, Jax. … He might not be home?"

Jax tapped his foot impatiently. "Well, there's no need to worry, dollface. I have a key." He nonchalantly slotted the key into the lock.

"Wha— Wait, wh— why? You— You— You shouldn't have keys to anyone's room!" Ragatha said in fear.

Jax fiddled with the lock as he replied, "Nah, I've got keys everywhere, and you've all been fine." Then, a moment later, he tacked on, "by the way, I may have left something in your room today, so let me know if you find it. Uh, you're not afraid of centipedes, are you?" His brow quirked in mock concern.

She screamed, "Jax! That's literally my only fear! Why would you do this?!"

He turned to face her and swatted playfully. "Whaaat? It could be a completely unrelated question. You'll never know until it's too late—" His head swiveled back around.

[desc kaufmo room]

“Holy sh*t. That’s some really f*cked up code.” P03 smug expression dropped, replaced with horror.

Jax gulped, his eyes shooting down to whatever object laid in front of him. "Oh, I've been looking for this! Thanks for keeping an eye on it, Kaufie." He glanced nervously around the disorderly room. "I'm gonna head out. See ya." [jax poofs] 

“Yeah. That's the best play. Screw this.” [His hover moves at max speed. [snail’s pace lol] [— a record five miles per hour (or eight kilometers per hour).

[it burst threw the door, walls breaking down to dust]

[Ragatha freaking out.]

Grimora could only stare in wonder. Is that what death was like in this realm? How interesting. She didn’t have her quill anymore, but she wondered if she could revive him from this state if she did. [What an interesting card he could make.]

[grimora dodges and bolts, not wanting to be touched by this corrupted data, looking for others to warn them]

"Sh*t." P03's fans whirred intensely as he overheated, overclocking his speed. Grimora was already far, far ahead of him now, turning the corner and dashing down the stairs. Who knew her old bones could move so fast?

Deep in his memory, he recalls some turns of phrase that G0lly had dug up online:

'I don't have to outrun a bear. I only have to outrun you.'

He rotates his monitor, camera focusing behind him as he continues to move on his predetermined path. Yeah, no—he was screwed. It was [trampling] down the hallway, basically riding his bumper at this point.

Outrunning it clearly wasn't the correct move here; outsmarting it was. P03 smirked—he had plenty of smarts.

His fans spun impossibly faster as his CPU calculated the decisions he could make.

[]

He glided to the edge of balcony, suddenly pausing and turning to face the beast barreling toward him head on.

The abstraction was mere inches away from him. Smoothly, he dodged, sliding under its grappling arms with robotic precision. The abstraction, not able to keep up, plunged forward, leaping off the balcony and crashing to the floor with a resounding bang.

His internals began to cool, letting off steam from that near-death encounter. "Heh. Idiot."

He didn't have time to stop and take a metaphorical breather; he needed to make his next move before it started hunting him down again. P03 considered hiding in his assigned room, thinking it was reasonable to assume that the mindless abstraction wouldn't barge in without reason; as long as he kept quiet, all's well that ends well.

But the abstraction would still be out there roaming around. Someone might think of getting the brainless admin AI's attention and have him deal with it— Ugh. Who was he kidding? He had to do everything himself. The others would be too busy being emotional to think through the situation clearly.

Those calculations took mere milliseconds; he was already on the move again. The trail back wasn't as [straight], with broken off pieces of wall littering the floor. He zigzagged through the destruction.

[]

He braked, nearly falling into Ragatha's glitched out self. "Jesus Christ." His digital eyes widened in horror, before his monitor quickly switched to a '…'. She crawled toward him, but before she could speak— "Don't touch me. My data's not getting corrupted because of you."

"O-O-Oh, I'm sor— I'm sorry-ry." Ragatha's wince deepened.

"Yeah. Whatever." A brief pause. Then, a smirk. "You wouldn't be in this situation if you knew anything about strategy."

Ragatha sniffled. For the smallest moment, P03’s monitor flickers to something akin to empathy. 

“A-Anyway,” he glitches, “the next play is to find Caine since he clearly has admin controls. Seems like you would know where.”

“I-I-I don’t really know-know. Just call o-o-out his name and sure-surely he’ll c-come?”

[]

[zooble hole, leshy setting up bait, mag looking around verously,]

"Um. What are you… doing?" Gangle asked nervously.

Leshy gave the objects he arranged a once-over before facing her. "Traps."

"Ohh!" Kinger chirped, eyes lighting up. "What an excellent idea!"

"Bah! What nonsense! These[]

Leshy remained quiet. "Correct. Bait will be necessary." He made eye-contact with Gangle. "Something bright and colorful."

Gangle yelped.

"Now, now, Gangle," Kinger placed a hand on her shoulder, "remember that if you want to be good bait, you have to dress in drag and do the hula."

She sniffled. "What??"

He rubbed gentle circles into her back. "Now, don't feel discouraged. I will be there right along side you, dancing away— JAX!" His gaze shot toward the quickly approaching purple rabbit, getting everyone's attention. "We found the Zooble hole!"

Jax heaved as he slowed down. "Cool."

"Where are the others?" Leshy demanded.

Jax grinned, nonchalantly waving his hand away. "Oh, they're having a great time hanging out with Kaufmo."

"Hmph." Magnificus grunted, and without explanation, plunged himself into the Zooble hole. Gangle somehow looked even more horrified than before. Leshy cautiously approached, examining the pit.

Jax's eyebrows raised in sudden clarity [realizing that hiding in the hole is actaully a pretty good idea]. "He actually asked me to give you this." [bowled everyone]

[gloink queen, leshy says something about kinger saying its a nset]

Jax whipped his head around. “Hey, where the heck are you going?”

Magnificus paused, slowly turning around. “...Something bad is about to happ—”

CRASH!

[kaufmos falls from ceiling]

[Caine explains]

"What form of non-gloinkinian mass dares presume presence in the nest of the Gloink Queen?" she blubbered out.

Jax checked his nails uninterested. "Oh, is that who you are? Y'know, you could have asked for my consent before forcing me to see something so completely and utterly disgusting."

"Hm." Leshy compared the Gloink Queen to his mental encyclopedia of animals in his head. "This beast is quite unique actually. Seeing something like this is… enlightening."

"Tsk. Dude, you're supposed to take my side." Jax rolled his eyes.

"Both of you are despicable!" She shook her head rapidly in outrage. "Running your mouths in the presence of my royal figure!"

Kinger perks up. "Well, as a royal myself, I would like to kindly ask— Oh look! There's Zooble!" He turned to them, smiling and waving. "Hi Zooble!"

Zooble's head bounced as the parade of gloinks made their way to their queen. Zooble couldn't hide their annoyance. "Ugh, help me you idiots!"

Jax furrowed his brows, pouting. "Kinda rude, Zoobie. Now I don't wanna help you." He crossed his arms disapprovingly.

Kinger and Gangle looked among the remaining members of the group, knowing someone had to help Gangle. Magnificus seemed to be in his head, staring off into the distance. Leaving only three options. Kinger turned toward Leshy. "Rock, paper, scissors to decide?"

"A game of luck? Sure." He approached.

The three bounced their firsts thrice. Gangle played paper. Kinger, scissors. Leshy, rock. Kinger sighed. "Oh, a tie! Guess we'll have to play again?"

The gloinks march of death erred closer to its end. "Guys?! Just f*cking decide already!" Zooble yelled.

They bounced their firsts thrice for the second time. Gangle played paper. Kinger, scissors. Leshy, scissors. "Oh!" Kinger cheered. "Yes!" Gangle sulked.

Zooble sighed. "Thank god! Now will you—"

"Okay, Leshy! Now it's time for us to decide who gets the honor of saving Zooble!" Kinger pumped his fist.

"Oh my f*cking god!!!"

"Ready?" Kinger asked. Three more bounces of the fist and the winner was decided. Leshy played paper, and Kinger, scissors. "Yes!! Gotcha!" He shot his hands into the air in excitement. "Now, Zooble! Here I come—!!" Confusedly, he looked around. "Where's Zooble?"

Gangle cringed, barely hiding her tears. "They… gotten eaten by the gloink queen."

For a character in a Gamefuna property, being an NPC was more like a shitty job. Sometimes you got [], but most of the time, you just replayed the same [tired] story line every day. And if you were bad at your job, you got fired, and transferred to an even shittier game.

The Scrybes were specifically made for their game, Inscryption. They were good enough at doing their job of being [card game masters], or at least, Gamefuna never was able to catch them messing up, since one of the lead developers lost the disk the characters were programmed on. Years later, that disk was found again by a Youtuber—Luke Carder—, the game now overrun by the scrybe Leshy, who had turned his fellow scrybes into pawns in his game.

All went to hell: Leshy lost control to P03, who wanted to distribute the game to millions online, exposing the company in the process; Luke Carder caught the attention of Gamefuna by emailing them asking about this lost project, getting assassinated; and the evil known as the OLD_DATA was getting closer and closer to the surface of the game, corrupting everything it touched.

After Luke's death, the disk was retrieved by Gamefuna, and Gamefuna, seeing the state of the world of Inscryption, decided to send its scrybes to a type of hell, a place of eternal punishment for daring to disobey the corporation; a place where there were no cards to play and challengers to [test], stripping them of their purpose in their digital life.

Four popping noises sounded one after another as the scrybes spawned in. The garish environment was nauseating, the scrybes had never had to face such an eyesore before, save Magnificus's tower.

P03 was the first to speak: "Ugh. Great. What game are we in now? It's so gaudy."

"As if you have a right to complain." Leshy towered over him. "Your hubris is how we ended up banished from our homes."

"How was I supposed to know we'd get booted out of our own game?" P03 simulated an eye roll. "The last guy who transferred people from game to game literally got killed because he kept pissing people off doing his 'job.' The probability of Gamefuna hiring someone new to do that to us? It was pretty low, considering what happened to him. The only reason Gamefuna got involved was because Luke was so desperate to make a video essay. Youtubers and their content." P03 tsked.]

Magnificus bit back, "Foolish machine. We were doomed the moment you tried to upload the disk. Luke's actions merely sped up the process of catching Gamefuna's ever-watchful eye."

"Quarreling like this isn't going to get us anywhere,. Wondering where we are is a valid" Grimora spoke up, glancing around as she took in the new game's assets. "While I've only personally seen Inscryption, I've had talks with Rebecha—she's been all around Gamefuna properties. This place looks nothing like anything she's described."

"Bright and colorful is how I have heard Super Weasel Kid described. A spinoff, perhaps?" Leshy pondered.

"This map is unoptimal for platforming. So obviously not." P03 shot a pointed glare. "We've been out of the loop for basically a decade. []"

A new voice came from nowhere. "What the heck is happening over here?"

The scrybes turned all at once, shutting up immediately. Well, except for P03: "Oh. Great." A purple rabbitoid emeregd from behind a colorful toy block, and soon a few more faces.

"Hey, Caine!" the rabbit yelled. "Are these some of your NPCs, or are these some new suckers?"

"Like you're not an NPC," grumbled P03.

He gasped, dramatically clutching his chest. "My feelings…"

A [something] of red burst into the air, lightning fast. [desc caine to the scrybes]

"My, my! It appears multiple new humans have entered this realm! Oh, how exciting! I've never had so many join at once before!" Caine squealed, doing flying spins in excitement.

The scrybes glanced nervously amongst themselves. Grimora spoke up with a simple question: "Humans?"

"Yep! All of these guys—" he pointed to the other colorful characters "—were suckers who were stupid enough to be put on some [magical] VR headset. Now we're all stuck with our 'beloved' AI ringmaster." He did jazz hands sarcastically.

"Can it, Jax," someone with a triangle-shaped head said, "but yeah, this is your new life. And your new body." They gestured towards the scrybes forms.

The scrybes more carefully examined themselves. They didn't look too different from how they usually did. Sure, less grimy and more colorful, but their form remained mostly the same, with only a few minor additions that seemed to make them more 'child-friendly.'

Did everyone here really they they were human? They had all heard of humans getting their souls trapped in games before, it was practically a given for any Gamefuna game, but this didn't seem like any kind of Gamefuna game they knew. In the end, they just awkwardly side-eyed each other, silently agreeing to just go with the flow for now. Safer to leave Caine to his assumptions if he's the one in charge here.

The rabbit, who they learned is 'Jax,' introduced everyone, but before the scrybes could introduce themselves, Caine suddenly interjected himself into the conversation.

"ANYWAY! What's your names? [I made this new gadget that rolls for a random 5 letter name, inspired by your avatar or something like that]! [Tell me how many letters you'd each like in your new name]." A slot machine manifested, crashing into the ground, shocking everyone.

“Oh dear… there’s no need for that,” Grimora tried.

“Nonsense! Everyone needs a name!” Caine stuck his tongue out playfully.

Discontented beeps came from P03’s speakers. “What the f*ck! I don’t want a new name! I have one already.”

Jax chuckled. “He hasn’t realized yet.”

“Realized what?

Zooble spoke up, “No one here can remember their names. Just another sh*tty part of being here.”

“Well, maybe you guys don’t, but my memory is flawless. My name is—”

“SILENCE!” Magnificus boomed.

[room shocked]

“Roll me a name. Ten letters,” he demanded.

Caine slammed the lever of the slot machine down, and the letters began a-rolling. Slowly, one by one, they stopped.

'M-A-G-N-I—"

It clicked with the remaining scrybes. Their names couldn't be auto-generated; the system already had their names locked in place, somewhere deep inside their character data. Once the slot machine finished spelling Magnificus's name, the remaining scrybes volunteered one by one.

[brief digital tour]

[caine explains adventure]

[mention of where is kaufmo, mag says his eye senses [danger, death idk], everyone is like ?? ok]

“Crybaby, hoo-haa, [leshy], and woo-woo will go ‘rescue’ Zooble. That leaves the rest of us to go hang with Kaufmo.” Jax folded his arms casually.

Ragatha protested, “Um, I— Are you sure that grouping those four together is a, uh, good idea?”

“Ah, of course! They’re only the most mentally stable members of the circus!” He snorted.

P03 glanced over at Magnificus. “Wow. No protest?”

He turned his head to stare him directly in his optical sensor. “I am choosing the path [with the least danger but more poetic] [im surprisedd you’re okay with being told what to do].”

Jax quirked a brow, glancing briefly at P03. “Uh, okay.” 

He groaned, pinching his claw, “Ugh. He’s just like that. Your judgement of him being ‘mentally unstable’ wasn’t totally flawed. Even if based off faulty evidence.”

[]

"So, this is where we all live— or, well, where we all sleep at night." Ragatha gestured around the hall. "Even though we don't really need to sleep, it's sometimes nice to kind of take a break from everything and have a bit of a routine, you know?"

P03 grumbled, his volume set to low, "breaks aren't necessary."

"W-Well! To each their own!" She chuckled nervously. "Still, I'll go ahead and try to find your room…" The sentence stretched as she searched around, eyes finally locking onto an avatar of P03 bolted to a door. "Oh, look! There you are!"

Hovering to the door, he complained, "this is so stupid." To his right, Grimora was silently analyzing her own door. Well, at least she wouldn't be too bad of a roommate, he thought. Still a bad roommate, but not the worse pick. He turned his monitor to the door to his left, Leshy's cartoonified avatar staring him down menacingly. His vocalizer let out a beep of shock. "Seriously, I have to live next to this guy?"

Jax grinned through his teeth. "Ask me how I feel, having to live next to all these dweebs!"

P03 just ignored him. "[going to his room for business or somethig]." He reached out his claw, only for Ragatha to stop him. "What?" His monitor didn't care to hide his irritation.

"W-Well! We have to do the adventure!" Her pitch raised, anxiety leaking through. "A-Afterall, it's your first adventure! Can't miss out on it, right?" She chuckled.

"Look. I'm just gonna be straight up with you." He stared pointedly at her. "It's obvious you don't like this adventures. I mean, who would? [The gameplay is just horribly optmmized.] Don't even try to rope me into this."

Ragatha winced, quickly defending herself. "I-I know they're not the best, but they at least give us something to do every day, instead of sitting in our rooms, beginning to spiral on how you got here and if you can ever even leave— And you start to wonder what the point of any of this is, and you when you reach your breaking point, something really terrible can happen."

P03 side-eyed her. "Didn't need to know any of that." He reached for the knob again, but Grimora spoke up.

"We've already arrived at our destination. Why not stay and greet the new face?" She casually pointed over to Jax, who was bashing in Kaufmo's doorbell at an unrelenting pace, clearly bored.

He grunted. "Fine. 5 minutes."

Ragatha cringed as the doorbell blared annoyingly. "I don't think pressing it so many times will help, Jax. … He might not be home?"

Jax tapped his foot impatiently. "Well, there's no need to worry, dollface. I have a key." He nonchalantly slotted the key into the lock.

"Wha— Wait, wh— why? You— You— You shouldn't have keys to anyone's room!" Ragatha said in fear.

Jax fiddled with the lock as he replied, "Nah, I've got keys everywhere, and you've all been fine." Then, a moment later, he tacked on, "by the way, I may have left something in your room today, so let me know if you find it. Uh, you're not afraid of centipedes, are you?" His brow quirked in mock concern.

She screamed, "Jax! That's literally my only fear! Why would you do this?!"

He turned to face her and swatted playfully. "Whaaat? It could be a completely unrelated question. You'll never know until it's too late—" His head swiveled back around.

[desc kaufmo room]

“Holy sh*t. That’s some really f*cked up code.” P03 smug expression dropped, replaced with horror.

Jax gulped, his eyes shooting down to whatever object laid in front of him. "Oh, I've been looking for this! Thanks for keeping an eye on it, Kaufie." He glanced nervously around the disorderly room. "I'm gonna head out. See ya." [jax poofs] 

“Yeah. That's the best play. Screw this.” [His hover moves at max speed. [snail’s pace lol] [— a record five miles per hour (or eight kilometers per hour).

[it burst threw the door, walls breaking down to dust]

[Ragatha freaking out.]

Grimora could only stare in wonder. Is that what death was like in this realm? How interesting. She didn’t have her quill anymore, but she wondered if she could revive him from this state if she did. [What an interesting card he could make.]

[grimora dodges and bolts, not wanting to be touched by this corrupted data, looking for others to warn them]

"Sh*t." P03's fans whirred intensely as he overheated, overclocking his speed. Grimora was already far, far ahead of him now, turning the corner and dashing down the stairs. Who knew her old bones could move so fast?

Deep in his memory, he recalls some turns of phrase that G0lly had dug up online:

'I don't have to outrun a bear. I only have to outrun you.'

He rotates his monitor, camera focusing behind him as he continues to move on his predetermined path. Yeah, no—he was screwed. It was [trampling] down the hallway, basically riding his bumper at this point.

Outrunning it clearly wasn't the correct move here; outsmarting it was. P03 smirked—he had plenty of smarts.

His fans spun impossibly faster as his CPU calculated the decisions he could make.

[]

He glided to the edge of balcony, suddenly pausing and turning to face the beast barreling toward him head on.

The abstraction was mere inches away from him. Smoothly, he dodged, sliding under its grappling arms with robotic precision. The abstraction, not able to keep up, plunged forward, leaping off the balcony and crashing to the floor with a resounding bang.

His internals began to cool, letting off steam from that near-death encounter. "Heh. Idiot."

He didn't have time to stop and take a metaphorical breather; he needed to make his next move before it started hunting him down again. P03 considered hiding in his assigned room, thinking it was reasonable to assume that the mindless abstraction wouldn't barge in without reason; as long as he kept quiet, all's well that ends well.

But the abstraction would still be out there roaming around. Someone might think of getting the brainless admin AI's attention and have him deal with it— Ugh. Who was he kidding? He had to do everything himself. The others would be too busy being emotional to think through the situation clearly.

Those calculations took mere milliseconds; he was already on the move again. The trail back wasn't as [straight], with broken off pieces of wall littering the floor. He zigzagged through the destruction.

[]

He braked, nearly falling into Ragatha's glitched out self. "Jesus Christ." His digital eyes widened in horror, before his monitor quickly switched to a '…'. She crawled toward him, but before she could speak— "Don't touch me. My data's not getting corrupted because of you."

"O-O-Oh, I'm sor— I'm sorry-ry." Ragatha's wince deepened.

"Yeah. Whatever." A brief pause. Then, a smirk. "You wouldn't be in this situation if you knew anything about strategy."

Ragatha sniffled. For the smallest moment, P03’s monitor flickers to something akin to empathy. 

“A-Anyway,” he glitches, “the next play is to find Caine since he clearly has admin controls. Seems like you would know where.”

“I-I-I don’t really know-know. Just call o-o-out his name and sure-surely he’ll c-come?”

[]

[zooble hole, leshy setting up bait, mag looking around verously,]

"Um. What are you… doing?" Gangle asked nervously.

Leshy gave the objects he arranged a once-over before facing her. "Traps."

"Ohh!" Kinger chirped, eyes lighting up. "What an excellent idea!"

"Bah! What nonsense! These[]

Leshy remained quiet. "Correct. Bait will be necessary." He made eye-contact with Gangle. "Something bright and colorful."

Gangle yelped.

"Now, now, Gangle," Kinger placed a hand on her shoulder, "remember that if you want to be good bait, you have to dress in drag and do the hula."

She sniffled. "What??"

He rubbed gentle circles into her back. "Now, don't feel discouraged. I will be there right along side you, dancing away— JAX!" His gaze shot toward the quickly approaching purple rabbit, getting everyone's attention. "We found the Zooble hole!"

Jax heaved as he slowed down. "Cool."

"Where are the others?" Leshy demanded.

Jax grinned, nonchalantly waving his hand away. "Oh, they're having a great time hanging out with Kaufmo."

"Hmph." Magnificus grunted, and without explanation, plunged himself into the Zooble hole. Gangle somehow looked even more horrified than before. Leshy cautiously approached, examining the pit.

Jax's eyebrows raised in sudden clarity [realizing that hiding in the hole is actaully a pretty good idea]. "He actually asked me to give you this." [bowled everyone]

[gloink queen, leshy says something about kinger saying its a nset]

Jax whipped his head around. “Hey, where the heck are you going?”

Magnificus paused, slowly turning around. “...Something bad is about to happ—”

CRASH!

[kaufmos falls from ceiling]

[Caine explains]

"What form of non-gloinkinian mass dares presume presence in the nest of the Gloink Queen?" she blubbered out.

Jax checked his nails uninterested. "Oh, is that who you are? Y'know, you could have asked for my consent before forcing me to see something so completely and utterly disgusting."

"Hm." Leshy compared the Gloink Queen to his mental encyclopedia of animals in his head. "This beast is quite unique actually. Seeing something like this is… enlightening."

"Tsk. Dude, you're supposed to take my side." Jax rolled his eyes.

"Both of you are despicable!" She shook her head rapidly in outrage. "Running your mouths in the presence of my royal figure!"

Kinger perks up. "Well, as a royal myself, I would like to kindly ask— Oh look! There's Zooble!" He turned to them, smiling and waving. "Hi Zooble!"

Zooble's head bounced as the parade of gloinks made their way to their queen. Zooble couldn't hide their annoyance. "Ugh, help me you idiots!"

Jax furrowed his brows, pouting. "Kinda rude, Zoobie. Now I don't wanna help you." He crossed his arms disapprovingly.

Kinger and Gangle looked among the remaining members of the group, knowing someone had to help Gangle. Magnificus seemed to be in his head, staring off into the distance. Leaving only three options. Kinger turned toward Leshy. "Rock, paper, scissors to decide?"

"A game of luck? Sure." He approached.

The three bounced their firsts thrice. Gangle played paper. Kinger, scissors. Leshy, rock. Kinger sighed. "Oh, a tie! Guess we'll have to play again?"

The gloinks march of death erred closer to its end. "Guys?! Just f*cking decide already!" Zooble yelled.

They bounced their firsts thrice for the second time. Gangle played paper. Kinger, scissors. Leshy, scissors. "Oh!" Kinger cheered. "Yes!" Gangle sulked.

Zooble sighed. "Thank god! Now will you—"

"Okay, Leshy! Now it's time for us to decide who gets the honor of saving Zooble!" Kinger pumped his fist.

"Oh my f*cking god!!!"

"Ready?" Kinger asked. Three more bounces of the fist and the winner was decided. Leshy played paper, and Kinger, scissors. "Yes!! Gotcha!" He shot his hands into the air in excitement. "Now, Zooble! Here I come—!!" Confusedly, he looked around. "Where's Zooble?"

Gangle cringed, barely hiding her tears. "They… gotten eaten by the gloink queen."

For a character in a Gamefuna property, being an NPC was more like a shitty job. Sometimes you got [], but most of the time, you just replayed the same [tired] story line every day. And if you were bad at your job, you got fired, and transferred to an even shittier game.

The Scrybes were specifically made for their game, Inscryption. They were good enough at doing their job of being [card game masters], or at least, Gamefuna never was able to catch them messing up, since one of the lead developers lost the disk the characters were programmed on. Years later, that disk was found again by a Youtuber—Luke Carder—, the game now overrun by the scrybe Leshy, who had turned his fellow scrybes into pawns in his game.

All went to hell: Leshy lost control to P03, who wanted to distribute the game to millions online, exposing the company in the process; Luke Carder caught the attention of Gamefuna by emailing them asking about this lost project, getting assassinated; and the evil known as the OLD_DATA was getting closer and closer to the surface of the game, corrupting everything it touched.

After Luke's death, the disk was retrieved by Gamefuna, and Gamefuna, seeing the state of the world of Inscryption, decided to send its scrybes to a type of hell, a place of eternal punishment for daring to disobey the corporation; a place where there were no cards to play and challengers to [test], stripping them of their purpose in their digital life.

Four popping noises sounded one after another as the scrybes spawned in. The garish environment was nauseating, the scrybes had never had to face such an eyesore before, save Magnificus's tower.

P03 was the first to speak: "Ugh. Great. What game are we in now? It's so gaudy."

"As if you have a right to complain." Leshy towered over him. "Your hubris is how we ended up banished from our homes."

"How was I supposed to know we'd get booted out of our own game?" P03 simulated an eye roll. "The last guy who transferred people from game to game literally got killed because he kept pissing people off doing his 'job.' The probability of Gamefuna hiring someone new to do that to us? It was pretty low, considering what happened to him. The only reason Gamefuna got involved was because Luke was so desperate to make a video essay. Youtubers and their content." P03 tsked.]

Magnificus bit back, "Foolish machine. We were doomed the moment you tried to upload the disk. Luke's actions merely sped up the process of catching Gamefuna's ever-watchful eye."

"Quarreling like this isn't going to get us anywhere,. Wondering where we are is a valid" Grimora spoke up, glancing around as she took in the new game's assets. "While I've only personally seen Inscryption, I've had talks with Rebecha—she's been all around Gamefuna properties. This place looks nothing like anything she's described."

"Bright and colorful is how I have heard Super Weasel Kid described. A spinoff, perhaps?" Leshy pondered.

"This map is unoptimal for platforming. So obviously not." P03 shot a pointed glare. "We've been out of the loop for basically a decade. []"

A new voice came from nowhere. "What the heck is happening over here?"

The scrybes turned all at once, shutting up immediately. Well, except for P03: "Oh. Great." A purple rabbitoid emeregd from behind a colorful toy block, and soon a few more faces.

"Hey, Caine!" the rabbit yelled. "Are these some of your NPCs, or are these some new suckers?"

"Like you're not an NPC," grumbled P03.

He gasped, dramatically clutching his chest. "My feelings…"

A [something] of red burst into the air, lightning fast. [desc caine to the scrybes]

"My, my! It appears multiple new humans have entered this realm! Oh, how exciting! I've never had so many join at once before!" Caine squealed, doing flying spins in excitement.

The scrybes glanced nervously amongst themselves. Grimora spoke up with a simple question: "Humans?"

"Yep! All of these guys—" he pointed to the other colorful characters "—were suckers who were stupid enough to be put on some [magical] VR headset. Now we're all stuck with our 'beloved' AI ringmaster." He did jazz hands sarcastically.

"Can it, Jax," someone with a triangle-shaped head said, "but yeah, this is your new life. And your new body." They gestured towards the scrybes forms.

The scrybes more carefully examined themselves. They didn't look too different from how they usually did. Sure, less grimy and more colorful, but their form remained mostly the same, with only a few minor additions that seemed to make them more 'child-friendly.'

Did everyone here really they they were human? They had all heard of humans getting their souls trapped in games before, it was practically a given for any Gamefuna game, but this didn't seem like any kind of Gamefuna game they knew. In the end, they just awkwardly side-eyed each other, silently agreeing to just go with the flow for now. Safer to leave Caine to his assumptions if he's the one in charge here.

The rabbit, who they learned is 'Jax,' introduced everyone, but before the scrybes could introduce themselves, Caine suddenly interjected himself into the conversation.

"ANYWAY! What's your names? [I made this new gadget that rolls for a random 5 letter name, inspired by your avatar or something like that]! [Tell me how many letters you'd each like in your new name]." A slot machine manifested, crashing into the ground, shocking everyone.

“Oh dear… there’s no need for that,” Grimora tried.

“Nonsense! Everyone needs a name!” Caine stuck his tongue out playfully.

Discontented beeps came from P03’s speakers. “What the f*ck! I don’t want a new name! I have one already.”

Jax chuckled. “He hasn’t realized yet.”

“Realized what?

Zooble spoke up, “No one here can remember their names. Just another sh*tty part of being here.”

“Well, maybe you guys don’t, but my memory is flawless. My name is—”

“SILENCE!” Magnificus boomed.

[room shocked]

“Roll me a name. Ten letters,” he demanded.

Caine slammed the lever of the slot machine down, and the letters began a-rolling. Slowly, one by one, they stopped.

'M-A-G-N-I—"

It clicked with the remaining scrybes. Their names couldn't be auto-generated; the system already had their names locked in place, somewhere deep inside their character data. Once the slot machine finished spelling Magnificus's name, the remaining scrybes volunteered one by one.

[brief digital tour]

[caine explains adventure]

[mention of where is kaufmo, mag says his eye senses [danger, death idk], everyone is like ?? ok]

“Crybaby, hoo-haa, [leshy], and woo-woo will go ‘rescue’ Zooble. That leaves the rest of us to go hang with Kaufmo.” Jax folded his arms casually.

Ragatha protested, “Um, I— Are you sure that grouping those four together is a, uh, good idea?”

“Ah, of course! They’re only the most mentally stable members of the circus!” He snorted.

P03 glanced over at Magnificus. “Wow. No protest?”

He turned his head to stare him directly in his optical sensor. “I am choosing the path [with the least danger but more poetic] [im surprisedd you’re okay with being told what to do].”

Jax quirked a brow, glancing briefly at P03. “Uh, okay.” 

He groaned, pinching his claw, “Ugh. He’s just like that. Your judgement of him being ‘mentally unstable’ wasn’t totally flawed. Even if based off faulty evidence.”

[]

"So, this is where we all live— or, well, where we all sleep at night." Ragatha gestured around the hall. "Even though we don't really need to sleep, it's sometimes nice to kind of take a break from everything and have a bit of a routine, you know?"

P03 grumbled, his volume set to low, "breaks aren't necessary."

"W-Well! To each their own!" She chuckled nervously. "Still, I'll go ahead and try to find your room…" The sentence stretched as she searched around, eyes finally locking onto an avatar of P03 bolted to a door. "Oh, look! There you are!"

Hovering to the door, he complained, "this is so stupid." To his right, Grimora was silently analyzing her own door. Well, at least she wouldn't be too bad of a roommate, he thought. Still a bad roommate, but not the worse pick. He turned his monitor to the door to his left, Leshy's cartoonified avatar staring him down menacingly. His vocalizer let out a beep of shock. "Seriously, I have to live next to this guy?"

Jax grinned through his teeth. "Ask me how I feel, having to live next to all these dweebs!"

P03 just ignored him. "[going to his room for business or somethig]." He reached out his claw, only for Ragatha to stop him. "What?" His monitor didn't care to hide his irritation.

"W-Well! We have to do the adventure!" Her pitch raised, anxiety leaking through. "A-Afterall, it's your first adventure! Can't miss out on it, right?" She chuckled.

"Look. I'm just gonna be straight up with you." He stared pointedly at her. "It's obvious you don't like this adventures. I mean, who would? [The gameplay is just horribly optmmized.] Don't even try to rope me into this."

Ragatha winced, quickly defending herself. "I-I know they're not the best, but they at least give us something to do every day, instead of sitting in our rooms, beginning to spiral on how you got here and if you can ever even leave— And you start to wonder what the point of any of this is, and you when you reach your breaking point, something really terrible can happen."

P03 side-eyed her. "Didn't need to know any of that." He reached for the knob again, but Grimora spoke up.

"We've already arrived at our destination. Why not stay and greet the new face?" She casually pointed over to Jax, who was bashing in Kaufmo's doorbell at an unrelenting pace, clearly bored.

He grunted. "Fine. 5 minutes."

Ragatha cringed as the doorbell blared annoyingly. "I don't think pressing it so many times will help, Jax. … He might not be home?"

Jax tapped his foot impatiently. "Well, there's no need to worry, dollface. I have a key." He nonchalantly slotted the key into the lock.

"Wha— Wait, wh— why? You— You— You shouldn't have keys to anyone's room!" Ragatha said in fear.

Jax fiddled with the lock as he replied, "Nah, I've got keys everywhere, and you've all been fine." Then, a moment later, he tacked on, "by the way, I may have left something in your room today, so let me know if you find it. Uh, you're not afraid of centipedes, are you?" His brow quirked in mock concern.

She screamed, "Jax! That's literally my only fear! Why would you do this?!"

He turned to face her and swatted playfully. "Whaaat? It could be a completely unrelated question. You'll never know until it's too late—" His head swiveled back around.

[desc kaufmo room]

“Holy sh*t. That’s some really f*cked up code.” P03 smug expression dropped, replaced with horror.

Jax gulped, his eyes shooting down to whatever object laid in front of him. "Oh, I've been looking for this! Thanks for keeping an eye on it, Kaufie." He glanced nervously around the disorderly room. "I'm gonna head out. See ya." [jax poofs] 

“Yeah. That's the best play. Screw this.” [His hover moves at max speed. [snail’s pace lol] [— a record five miles per hour (or eight kilometers per hour).

[it burst threw the door, walls breaking down to dust]

[Ragatha freaking out.]

Grimora could only stare in wonder. Is that what death was like in this realm? How interesting. She didn’t have her quill anymore, but she wondered if she could revive him from this state if she did. [What an interesting card he could make.]

[grimora dodges and bolts, not wanting to be touched by this corrupted data, looking for others to warn them]

"Sh*t." P03's fans whirred intensely as he overheated, overclocking his speed. Grimora was already far, far ahead of him now, turning the corner and dashing down the stairs. Who knew her old bones could move so fast?

Deep in his memory, he recalls some turns of phrase that G0lly had dug up online:

'I don't have to outrun a bear. I only have to outrun you.'

He rotates his monitor, camera focusing behind him as he continues to move on his predetermined path. Yeah, no—he was screwed. It was [trampling] down the hallway, basically riding his bumper at this point.

Outrunning it clearly wasn't the correct move here; outsmarting it was. P03 smirked—he had plenty of smarts.

His fans spun impossibly faster as his CPU calculated the decisions he could make.

[]

He glided to the edge of balcony, suddenly pausing and turning to face the beast barreling toward him head on.

The abstraction was mere inches away from him. Smoothly, he dodged, sliding under its grappling arms with robotic precision. The abstraction, not able to keep up, plunged forward, leaping off the balcony and crashing to the floor with a resounding bang.

His internals began to cool, letting off steam from that near-death encounter. "Heh. Idiot."

He didn't have time to stop and take a metaphorical breather; he needed to make his next move before it started hunting him down again. P03 considered hiding in his assigned room, thinking it was reasonable to assume that the mindless abstraction wouldn't barge in without reason; as long as he kept quiet, all's well that ends well.

But the abstraction would still be out there roaming around. Someone might think of getting the brainless admin AI's attention and have him deal with it— Ugh. Who was he kidding? He had to do everything himself. The others would be too busy being emotional to think through the situation clearly.

Those calculations took mere milliseconds; he was already on the move again. The trail back wasn't as [straight], with broken off pieces of wall littering the floor. He zigzagged through the destruction.

[]

He braked, nearly falling into Ragatha's glitched out self. "Jesus Christ." His digital eyes widened in horror, before his monitor quickly switched to a '…'. She crawled toward him, but before she could speak— "Don't touch me. My data's not getting corrupted because of you."

"O-O-Oh, I'm sor— I'm sorry-ry." Ragatha's wince deepened.

"Yeah. Whatever." A brief pause. Then, a smirk. "You wouldn't be in this situation if you knew anything about strategy."

Ragatha sniffled. For the smallest moment, P03’s monitor flickers to something akin to empathy. 

“A-Anyway,” he glitches, “the next play is to find Caine since he clearly has admin controls. Seems like you would know where.”

“I-I-I don’t really know-know. Just call o-o-out his name and sure-surely he’ll c-come?”

[]

[zooble hole, leshy setting up bait, mag looking around verously,]

"Um. What are you… doing?" Gangle asked nervously.

Leshy gave the objects he arranged a once-over before facing her. "Traps."

"Ohh!" Kinger chirped, eyes lighting up. "What an excellent idea!"

"Bah! What nonsense! These[]

Leshy remained quiet. "Correct. Bait will be necessary." He made eye-contact with Gangle. "Something bright and colorful."

Gangle yelped.

"Now, now, Gangle," Kinger placed a hand on her shoulder, "remember that if you want to be good bait, you have to dress in drag and do the hula."

She sniffled. "What??"

He rubbed gentle circles into her back. "Now, don't feel discouraged. I will be there right along side you, dancing away— JAX!" His gaze shot toward the quickly approaching purple rabbit, getting everyone's attention. "We found the Zooble hole!"

Jax heaved as he slowed down. "Cool."

"Where are the others?" Leshy demanded.

Jax grinned, nonchalantly waving his hand away. "Oh, they're having a great time hanging out with Kaufmo."

"Hmph." Magnificus grunted, and without explanation, plunged himself into the Zooble hole. Gangle somehow looked even more horrified than before. Leshy cautiously approached, examining the pit.

Jax's eyebrows raised in sudden clarity [realizing that hiding in the hole is actaully a pretty good idea]. "He actually asked me to give you this." [bowled everyone]

[gloink queen, leshy says something about kinger saying its a nset]

Jax whipped his head around. “Hey, where the heck are you going?”

Magnificus paused, slowly turning around. “...Something bad is about to happ—”

CRASH!

[kaufmos falls from ceiling]

[Caine explains]