Sam didn’t know why, but against his better judgement he decided that he wanted to explore that glowing light without telling his party members. He knew that leaving his post while everyone else was asleep was technically a bad idea, but he didn’t sense any danger around the camp and if he was back before any of them woke up everything should be fine.

The light led Sam to a cave. It was a strange cave, since, in addition to emitting a glow from the inside, it shifted in all sorts of weird ways. It looked like it was a glitch in the system. One look at the [map] from inside his [journal] all but confirmed it. On it, the cave was indicated by a cascade of shifting ones and zeroes. Must be a glitch.

Glitches in games, especially in betas, are quite common. In fact, they are the reason closed and open betas are even done in the first place. The developers entice potential players with some form of reward (like early access to the game) and you have willing game testers for free, basically. Sometimes, players even have to pre-order the game to gain access to these betas, which means that they essentially pay to play a game that isn’t even finished, doing what used to be a job for free. They end up paying for game testing, instead of getting paid.

While examining the cave, Sam was trying to assess how risky stepping into a glitch could be. For one, he had no clue what awaited him once he stepped in. What’s the worst that could happen? Well, many things came to mind, like his code getting all jumbled up, or him ending up getting stuck inside of it without a way out. On the other hand, what if it offered a way to contact the people outside or, even better, some way to figure out what in the world was going on here? The desperate hope for answers won and in a fleeting moment of quick judgement he simply entered the glitch.

The moment he stepped inside the glitched-out cave, he was pulled into a vortex of light. It felt like his body was chewed up, wrung in every direction, and spit out at the other end of it, where nothing but darkness awaited him. Darkness, but also damp air, gravelly ground and wet rock all around him.

[Trap triggered.]

The ground underneath his feet started shaking.

While Sam was trying to regain his composure after what felt like being wrung out like a wet towel. He could hear a shrill sound getting louder and closer. The shaking of the ground intensified the louder the voice got.

“Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!” It was a continuous and shrill scream coming from… Right above him!

Sam leapt forward and barely made it far enough to evade the boulder that came crashing through the ceiling of the cave. It was a [Yelling Boulder.]

[Evade successful.]

[Yelling Boulder] misses [Stomping Ground.]

Sam could catch a quick glance of the boulder before he took off running. Did it really have a friggin’ MOUTH!?

“Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!” it screamed and came rolling towards, no, straight AFTER Sam.

[Yelling Boulder] uses [Rolling Roar.]

The roar made the ceiling shake and rocks came falling down crashing all around him. Lucky for him, he was fast enough to run in front of the shockwave. Putting some points into [agility] has always paid off, so far.

No time to think, let alone get distracted. All he could do was run and pray that there wasn’t just a dead end waiting at the other end of wherever he was.

[Trap triggered.]

A [Yawning Chasm] appeared not far in front of him.

No time to gauge the distance, he had to make a leap of faith, and hope that the upgrades he made to his agility stat were enough to help him make it.

Hop, skip, jump, and…

SUCCESS!

[Yawning Chasm] uses [Catching Yawn.]

He made it over. Then he heard a loud yawn, and a gust of air pulled him towards the chasm. He started running against the air pulling him in, but all that resulted in was him running in place, like on a treadmill.

You resist [Catching Yawn.]

The Yelling Boulder was getting closer and Sam was stuck in place no matter how hard he ran. The same couldn’t be said for the [yelling boulder], though. He “yeeeeeeeeee-ted’ his way down the chasm, into the eternal darkness of its gorge, which seemed to satisfy the chasm. It happilly chewed on the boulder and left Sam alone.

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“You made it past the [yelling boulder] and the [yawning chasm], huh? Finally, someone has stumbled in here and survived, thank goodness!”

Sam looked around but couldn’t discern where the voice was coming from. He equiped his [dual butterknives] just to be safe.

“Who are you? What do you want?” He asked.

“Don’t worry. I’m not looking to harm you. Not that I could, by myself, anyways,” the voice answered.

“What do you mean?” Sam asked

“Well, find me and you’ll understand. It’s not like you can go anywhere without finding me first. That's how this cave was programmed," the voice said.

‘Programmed?’ He knew this was a game!

“Ok, then, tell me where you are.”

“I can’t.”

“What do you mean, you can’t?”

“I mean that I can’t. It’s super dark here and I’m not able to move. But I think you’re close. I can feel the ground vibrating every time you take a step. Ok, now you’re moving towards me. Yes… getting warmer, warmer… OUCH! Watch your step!”

Sam stepped on some object that made a clinking sound. It felt like a metal object. Sam picked the object up.

[You obtain "The Glitch".]

“You are… a sword?”

“I am in this world. I’ll tell you everything on the way out of here. Just keep moving ahead and the exit should't be too far off. And there are no more enemies on the way out either, so don’t worry.”

Sam started moving forward. His eyes adapted to the darkness, so he could at least partially see where the walls were. Whenever he was in doubt, he could feel his way through, just so he didn’t walk into a wall.

“So, what’s your deal? You used the term ‘programmed’. So you know that this is a game world?” Sam asked after a while.

“Of course I do. Not only do I know this is a game, I am the one who created it!”, the sword proclaimed proudly.

“You’re the creator of World of Watra?” Sam asked.

“The one and only!” he said. “Well, technically. I am his representation inside the game.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, long story short, the creator programmed himself into the game and I was the result. So, I am him, and he is me, you know.”

“I think I get it. But why did he do that?”

“I am him! It’s ‘why did YOU do that?’, comprende?”

“Sorry. Why did YOU do that?”

“A lot of reasons. The main one being: I hated what they did to my passion project. This was supposed to be my magnum opus.”

“Who did what to your game?” Sam asked.

“The suits! There’s this problematic part of game development, and that problematic part is the corporate world. Represented and governed by the suits. Let me tell you, there's nothing I hate more in the industry than these greedy bastards who take over game development companies. They barely even know what a game is, and then take everything you’ve worked on, your life’s work, and infuse them with their ‘ideas’. Their ideas revolve around cheap money-grabs tricks, like microtransactions, season passes and so on. Just because you know how to run Pizza Hut, doesn’t mean that you know what makes a good game!” the sword told Sam.

He continued: “We, that is, the co-creator and I, made a deal with the suits. One for us and one for them. When we started Earth, Parchment and Swords, we needed funding, so we made this live service game, maybe you’ve heard of it, it’s called 'Fate of Destiny'.”

“Oh, man, I used to play that nonstop! I was in the top guild!” Sam exclaimed.

“Oh, you were? Sorry about that. You must’ve sunk ungodly amounts of money into that one then. There is a good game underneath all that microtransaction crap, but we made that one so that our passion project would get funded, which was supposed to be this game.”

Sam started to feel rather foolish, now that he thought back on how much money he sunk into Fates of Destiny. He was more focused on having all the latest in-game stuff, rather than playing the game for the fun of it.

“Now," the sword continued, "the last game was so successful, that the culture within the company completely shifted. I was working on World of Watra, so I barely noticed what was going on, but long story short, we got bought up by MA, 'Monetary Arts', the worst of the worst when it comes to predatory practices in the gaming industry and the suits took the project away from me.”

“What about the other devs that worked on it with you?”

“Some left, some complied, but worst of all, certain people joined those suits. And I’ll leave it at that when it comes to that. Let's just say, people can change quite drastically when they see a carrot dangled in front of them. A golden opportunity," The sowrd said, and it got quiet for a moment.

Sam could feel the sword’s rage while it was telling him its story. He never thought about all these things that played out behind the scenes in game development. He just consumed them blindly. Being inside the game, you certainly can’t just consume blindly. It’s an eye-opening way to experience a game, that’s for sure. A whole new perspective.

“Anyway, what’s your deal? How did you find the cave? And why did it take anyone so long to enter?” the sword eventually asked.

Where to begin? Sam told the sword everything that happened to him up to that point.

“So, let me get this straight? You are LITERALLY, inside the game!?”

“Yeah. And I was kind of hoping that you could tell me more about what could be going on, and to be honest, I’m still not sure whether all of this is really happening or not.”

“And you’re really not just roleplaying here?”

“Trust me, I’m not.”

A moment of silence.

“Ok, here’s the deal,” the sword started. “One hand washes the other. We get out of this tutorial section, into the main hub, and then we try to establish contact with the outside world, and I’ll tell you more about what I plan to do within the game and why I'm here. I was going to need the helping hand of a player for my plan, and you might just turn out to be perfect for it. And there’s the exit, right over there.”

“What should I call you? I’m Sam, by the way.”

“Back in the real world, I’m Dev. Here, the programming says I'm [The Glitch].”

“I’m not that creative with names. How about we stick with Glitch?”

“Sure. Why not.”

And so it was decided.

Sam stepped through another vortex of light and was out of the cave and went back to the camp, where everyone was still asleep and none the wiser about what had transpired.