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The sky glitched.
Not metaphorically. Literally. Chunks of cloud vanished and reloaded in sepia tones. Then upside down. Then twice at once.
Rose looked up from her grimoire and frowned. “That’s new.”
“Uh,” Davesprite muttered, hovering nearby with his arms crossed, “was the sky supposed to get a 3PM Instagram filter or did Skaia just try to commit aesthetic suicide?”
A soft pop echoed overhead. Then another. Then the unmistakable rrrip of duct tape being torn off the universe.
“WHEEEEEEEEE!”
Something fell.
Something colorful, fast, and very loud.
There was a splat. A thwack. A cosmic bonk as the thing; the person, hit the ground squarely atop their kernel sprite. The sprite screamed. Then shuddered. Then, without warning, fused itself with the newcomer’s leaking ink in an explosion of sparkles and cartoonish agony.
When the light cleared, the sprite had become a floating blob of dripping paint with googly eyes, a rubber hose for a tail, and a kazoo jammed into its neck. It rotated slowly, emitted a high-pitched honk, and declared in a squelchy voice:
“Sploink.”
Davesprite stared. “What the actual hell is that.”
“That,” Rose said calmly, “is either a corrupted sprite or divine intervention via sidewalk chalk.”
The new arrival sprang to his feet as if nothing unusual had happened. Scarf fluttering, brush in hand, he beamed at the two of them like a performer awaiting applause.
“Wow!” he chirped. “You guys have terrible sprite security. I was in the air for like, what, five seconds? Boom! New best friend.”
“Sploink,” added the sprite, burping up a single balloon animal that immediately exploded into glitter.
“Who are you?” Rose asked. “And more importantly, can you leave?”
“Ink!” the stranger replied cheerfully, twirling his brush like a baton. “I travel around fixing ugly timelines and messing with local physics. Sometimes both! Oh! I brought a brush.”
He dipped the tip into a small vial at his hip, then slashed the air with a bright, dramatic arc. The stroke hung shimmering in space before falling to the ground like wet paint. Wherever it landed, the terrain began to mutate: grass turned purple, rocks became fondant-smooth and glossy, and a nearby tree folded itself into a dodecahedron, screamed, and exploded into bees.
“Okay,” said Davesprite flatly. “So we’re just letting that happen now.”
“I think we’ve passed the point of letting anything happen,” Rose murmured. “It’s more of a hostage situation. With sparkles.”
Ink tilted his head as he surveyed the mess. “Bit chaotic. But charming. You know, if you let the land breathe more, it might stop bleeding.”
The newly born Sploink-sprite hiccupped and spawned a single rubber chicken, which hovered in the air like it had opinions.
Davesprite squinted. “Is that a loot drop or a threat?”
“Yes,” said Ink, without hesitation.
He bowed dramatically.
Rose sighed, a long, world-weary exhale. “You realize that by touching the kernel sprite, you’ve embedded yourself in the game’s progression tree? Which means you’re now a recognized player entity. Whether we like it or not.”
“Oh no!” Ink gasped, clasping his face in exaggerated horror. “Anyway-”
He slashed a glowing circle into the air, stepped through it like a magician exiting the stage, and vanished.
The portal sealed shut with a comical plop.
There was a long, defeated silence.
Then the Sploink-sprite exploded into a cloud of balloon animals and a single potato.
Davesprite blinked. “Cool. Cool cool cool. So that happened.”