I look around nervously. The inanimate monsters ring me in from three sides, a single narrow path leading off toward the odd, placeholder-looking tower. After a couple more minutes, counting down the seconds until whatever is about to happen, there's another flashing indicator. I pull up the chat again.

' You should turn on stream recording, bet this will be cool.'

“Oh, alright,” I agree. It takes a minute to delve into the streaming options and set it to start recording the stream for playback later. Looks like it'll go straight up on the web too, I don't have to save it to my computer to upload later or anything. “Done,” I nod into the camera when I close out the menu. “The recording should be up on my page when I end my stream.”

Just a minute left now. I stand up again, thinking to be ready for whatever is going to happen, and soon enough, there's a weird flicker through the entire environment. All at once, the sun, perpetually overhead, is covered with thick, dark clouds, casting the entire area into deep shade. Mist fills the air and rolls over the ground. I can hardly see my own feet. The tower suddenly snaps into focus, tall and imposing with swarms of random, razor sharp spikes in glowing green and onyx black jutting every which way. Behind it, a backdrop of constantly cracking lightning in the roiling clouds.

I stand somewhat stricken, as a figure steps out of the distant tower, striding directly toward me through the small path between the ranks of surrounding monsters. My shoulders jolt up, half panicking as I look around like I'm actually going to find somewhere to hide.

Of course, the approaching figure has absolutely no reaction to me standing here. This is all pre-scripted. Whoever it is, the person has a faintly masculine build, standing at eight feet tall. Willowy thin and wearing a ragged cloak of mottled brown and gray. Despite the hood hanging loosely, it casts impossibly deep shadows that nearly hide his face. Only being as close as I am and looking up from below, can I tell there's a flat, matte mask beneath, without even holes for eyes.

He stops just a short distance away, raising a hand with just four spindly fingers, dull skin sickly gray-blue with veritable claws for fingernails, as long as the fingers themselves. A glowing purple aura forms around it as the fingers twitch and flex. At the same time, there's a deep thrum, and I spin back to see a giant magical portal forming a behind me, easily large enough to fit the fifteen foot monstrosities towering around the outskirts of the monster army. It's flat, with a misty, partially transparent look, in dark, shifting navy purple. Right on the flat side of the horseshoe shaped formation.

For just an instant, I consider trying to jump through the portal, but the logical part of my brain knows that it's just a special effect for the scene. There's no way it would be functional.

I turn back in time for him to speak. The voice that comes from underneath instantly sends me a step back, fur standing on end. It's grating and entirely inhuman, like his vocal chords are made of metal and glass. “Forces of Oblivion, go forth and conquer!” He... or it shouts. Whatever that thing is, computer program or not, it's nothing remotely human. It clenches its fist with one final flare, and there's a crash from the portal, like shattering crystal, and its center sucks inward, falling to near-black, with the purple swirling into a vortex, falling into the darkness.

“Attack!” the commander screams, one arm thrown forward with the command, and all the monsters begin their charge for the gate.

Wait, I'm standing right in front of the gate.

“Oh fuck!” I gasp out, bristled tail standing on end when they all bear down on me. Why didn't they warn me about this, I'm going to get trampled! Spinning on a heel, I dash toward my only exit as fast as my panicked legs will carry me. I fly across the short distance and dive straight into the glowing portal.

There's an explosion of light around me when I hit it, but as expected, I pass right through and come out on the other side. I land into a tumble and sprawl out on the ground. Thankfully, when the monsters behind me hit the gate, they vanish into the flashing purple glow. I watch for a few long seconds as they continue to stream through.

And then... it stops. Without warning of any kind, the monsters stop running. Stop moving entirely. A couple simply halt in midair as they leap toward the portal. The momentary scene sends a shiver down my spine, the portal still swirling, clouds and mist still rolling, but all of the creatures seemingly stopped in time.

Then they unceremoniously teleport back into their original positions, even the ones that disappeared through the portal already. The clouds, mist, extra detailed tower – even the commander and the portal itself – they all simply poof out of existence.

My eye twitches. I know I'm out of bounds and I know this isn't anything a player will ever see in normal gameplay, but it's still...

I think I'm far past the point of immersion breaking now. I've seen enough game glitches to get it, but these are normally only the kind of things you see from people running camera hacks or wall clip glitches to reach.

Once my heart stops hammering from the sudden adrenaline shot of nearly being trampled, I swing the camera up front to talk to my viewers again. “So... that was, uhh, yeah. What now...?” I'm not going to be stuck here until the support team gets around to my ticket, am I? That could take hours or days, and that's if they have a half-decent customer support department. I've played games where the companies never actually addressed support tickets at all.

' No clue...'

I sit cross-legged on the ground and think for a minute. Maybe I should go back to the old plan after all. Throw myself off a cliff to try and respawn. I scratch my cheek. I don't have any other ideas, so I guess that's it. Still, trying to solve my problems by jumping off a high place and kill myself is kind of...

Definitely not taking that train of thought any further, I push back up to my feet. Finger pointed up to the cliff, I say, “I'm going to try jumping off that, see if it does the trick.”

“That sounds pretty rash.”

“Well-” I come to a screeching halt and spin back to face the voice that suddenly appeared out of nowhere. It's so fast I actually make myself dizzy and almost fall over in the process. While I'm staggering a couple steps back with my tail flailing for balance, the new person laughs.

“You have no idea how many bug reports we just got about a broken cutscene with a pink-haired catgirl in it.”

I take a moment to process that, before flattening my ears guiltily. Oh, I totally didn't think about that. Even so, I take in the person who must be a member of the game company, who's shaking his... head?

He's clearly inhuman, some kind of floating, sci-fi fantasy looking drone. Not much more than a pair of bone-like – or possibly ceramic – curves making up the body, with extrusions along the back, flaring outward to suggest wings. A small, rounded head hovers atop, basically just a flattened ball with a visor over the surface and lights beneath to indicate eyes. It doesn't even have a mouth. Or limbs. No indication of how it floats either, but of course that doesn't matter when it's just an avatar of one of the devs.

When he speaks, the voice sounds like a perfectly normal man, emanating straight from the head of the drone thing. “So, how on Earth did you manage to get in here?” he asks.

“Well, I put in a support ticket earlier,” I start. “I was forcibly logged out during the intro cinematic and when I logged in again, I was here. Wwweelll,” I demur, “way over there.” I point in the general direction I came from. “I walked for a long time to get here.” I leave off the part where I can't actually remember logging in or what I may have done between then and waking up in that field. Let's just... hope that part isn't important...

“I see, let me just pull up your account info...” He pauses for a few moments, and I mentally shift the camera I inadvertently hid behind me, so they can get a better view. That is, until he catches the movement, his floating body jolting slightly. “Wait, are you streaming this?”

“Umm, yes?”

“Oh my god-” He cuts himself off and I swear I can hear him facepalming even though he doesn't have hands. There's a tremor, and a message appears.

You have entered an anti-streaming zone.

Along with the message, I can feel the notification ping at the back of my brain to let me know my stream has stopped. “Sorry, but we really can't have players filming areas like this. I'm sure you understand.”

“O-oh, yeah, I'm sorry. Everything's just been so, umm, you know...” I gesture vaguely, “...Since I started playing.”

He gives a small, confirming grunt while his 'eyes,' just lights beneath the visor, scan back and forth like he's reading something only he can see. Then he looks to me again, floating head tilting, like he's giving me a look. It's so obvious it comes through without him really even having a face.

“...What?”

“Mmm, just... looking through your info.” The eyes go back to scanning. “It's... Well, I'm sure you know.”

“I... know?” I ask blankly. Whatever it is, I definitely don't know.

He mutters to himself, “Hmm, so that's how it is...?” probably in regards to whatever he's reading, before his eyes focus again and he addresses me. “Let me just confirm, you definitely want to continue on with that character?”

“Yes?” I like this character, I literally put a whole day into building her.

Even without a mouth, I hear him blow out a breath. “Alright then, as long as you're sure. You're going to be one to keep an eye on. I'm definitely telling the others at the office about your stream.”

What.

“Well, I see how you wound up here, that's one hell of an edge case... We'll get that bit fixed up. Now, let me tweak a few things on your account and send you to... Lenarlil. I'll even include a little something for your troubles. Technically, you deserve it,” he snickers before it's right back to business mode. “I've closed your support ticket. Thank you for playing Planes of Oblivion.”

There's a high pitched ring of chimes. It spreads across the land and right through me. When the buzz hits, I can feel myself engulfed in blinding white light and a powerful floating sensation. I shut my eyes against it for just a moment, and when they open again, the white has been replaced with pure black void.

Doo doo doo.

The little notification jingle is followed by a series of popups. They come rapid fire one after another, each accompanied by its own sound effect.

You have earned a new Title: Cursed One You have earned a new Title: Heretic You have earned a new Title: Savior You have earned a new Title: Dissonant You have earned a new Title: Bug Spotter

The gods have granted you a unique Personal Affinity!

From Afar

You have earned a new Title: Plane Walker

With one last flash of light, I find myself standing in a perfectly ordinary city square, people moving to and fro without any heed for my sudden appearance. But I have something more important to do.

You have discovered a new city: Lenarlil You have entered a safe zone. You have earned a new Title: Outsider

Immediately drawing up my streaming menu while I glance over the slightly delayed, second round of notifications, I see that the stream has started up again, but the recording stopped. I turn on the recording function again, then speak into the camera so I have record of this before I lose any of the details.

“Titles: cursed one, heretic, savior, dissonant, bug spotter. Personal affinity from afar. Titles: plane walker, outsider.” Then I hit the button to stop the recording and upload it. Now I'll be able to look over it later, because I know I'm not going to be able to remember that many things, especially in that particular order (if it even matters,) to try and figure out what they all mean when I have a chance.

I jolt a little when a notification comes in, and I pull up the stream chat.

' What was that about?'

“A-ahh,” forgot for a second that they'd be watching as soon as I got out of that anti-streaming zone. “After I talked to the support guy, I got a bunch of notifications and I wanted a recording so I'd be able to remember them for later.”

' Makes sense.'

' so it looks like that worked. What're you doing now?'

I hum and look around. “I have no idea, actually,” I admit. “I finally got to the city like I should have when I first started, but I'm so...” I can't really put words to it. How off I am because I went through all of that nonsense instead of simply playing through the tutorial like I should have. “I guess I should just go farming or whatever. Start leveling up.”

' Sounds good. I've gotta go, see you later.'

“See you later, Jengin.” I smile and wave at the camera, watching his name disappear from the viewer list. I have at least one loyal viewer now, I guess. That's something, right? My eyes move briefly to Kirma. I wonder if he's still actively watching or if he just has me off in a tab to listen while he browses the web or something. I know I do that sometimes. Since he doesn't chat too often I think that could be the case. Maybe he's at work too, like I'm assuming Jengin was. Maybe his shift just ended, so now he's going home...

“Yo, are you a popular streamer or something?” someone suddenly asks from right behind me, and I practically jump out of my skin. Why do people always do that? I turn around to find an towering man in shiny red armor with fancy silver detailing across much of it. He's mostly tall, not all that thick or bulky, with spiky brown, anime-esque hair. He exudes an air of 'cool guy' so thick it's visible around him. Wait, maybe that's just his armor glowing...

There's also his skin. I mean, it looks normal. He's white, maybe a tad tanned, but the coloring makes me realize that my skin looks weird. I thought it was pale in the void of the character creator, but with another human being to compare to, I'm downright ghostly. My eyes are pink too, does that mean I'm albino here? I'm surprised that's even an option for the character creator to generate...

“Umm, no, why?” I manage to respond, despite my wandering thoughts. I shrink back a little as I do. As the tiny Mei, I can't help being a bit intimidated by the guy that's like, eight feet tall for no apparent reason.

“Talking to viewers immediately after starting?” He raises a brow like that's supposed to mean something obvious. I shake my head to show that I'm not getting it. He grins and elaborates. “Having viewers when you literally just started the game generally means the streamer already has a dedicated fanbase.”

“...Oh.” Ok yeah that is pretty obvious in hindsight. “Ahh,” I wave a hand, “I don't have anything like that. Just a little, umm...” I scratch my cheek. “It has to do with a weird bug, and support got involved. It's actually a pretty long story. I, umm...” I fumble, trying to find a way to put it. “I took a recording so I could show you I guess, but how do I send you my stream link?”

“Sounds interesting,” he mutters before speaking to me. “Open the menu...” The man takes a minute to walk me through the necessary menu options to send the link over to him so he can open up my page and see my stream recordings. I also get his name, Tusk, in the process.

Of course, looking at my recordings reminds me that I don't really want other people seeing that little clip I just recorded for myself, so I fumble my way through the options to set that one to private.

“Thanks. Just uhh, watch that video when you have the chance and you'll totally get it,” I tell him while swiping away all the overlapping menus.

“Sure, I'll do that.” He starts to wave as he turns away, “Hope we see each other around.” I return the sentiment, and he walks off.

A few more seconds looking around, and I take a deep breath. “Alright. Guess it's time to farm,” I say to myself. I start walking, following the flow of the crowd and the sun to stay moving in one direction. I know it'll inevitably lead me out of the city. In true MMO fashion, it only takes a little while after leaving the city to find the low-level starter mobs nearby. I circle the field, checking for any sort of quest-giver NPC that might want me to kill some of them for bonus experience or something, but there's nothing obvious. Guess I'll just kill a few to get a hang of things before I search around some more.