Vast Error officially started on March 22nd 2011 with a beta on the MSPA Forums, it was then almost immediately scrapped because it was bad. On March 25th 2013, it was revived on MSPFA before spending the next three years with minimal updates (while the authors dealt with the horrors of reality in a developmental hell cycle until the story was to their liking). It then suddenly restarted on December 18th 2016 and has held a regular update schedule since (thank god).
We begin on the planet Repiton on our titular date of the third dark seasons equinox, its twenty second bi-lunar perigee. Our depressed cornsyrup-blooded protagonist and soda addict, ARCJEC VOORAT, is having his wriggling day and can’t stand it because it brings back some terrible memories. A new chat system, Skorpe, has recently released. Arcjec does not want to talk to his friends on it for reasons unknown.
After refusing to do anything besides meander around his respiteblock because of his surprising lack of interests, a stray rock hits his window and he goes to investigate it. A cloaked figure stands in the woods nearby, but before Arcjec can discern who it is, the plinkster suddenly leaves, causing Arcjec to flip his shit. A person from Arcjec’s chat fodder, LAIVAN FERROO, messages him during his fit and asks him to join a game called ‘Anthropormunicipality’ with another friend, MURRIT TURKIN.
Arcjec immediately rejects the idea and asks Laivan to remember him fondly before checking outside once more because he doesn’t believe the troll could disappear the way they did realistically. He leans out too far looking for them, causing him to fall from his window into a puddle of mud and passes out.
We are then introduced to another troll. She only goes by the self-imposed nickname of TAZ. Taz is a powerful and angry jamblood with a constantly active intimidation chucklevoodoo shown through intense purple glints in her eyes and has a pet rock simply named The Rock.
She is a part of a large cult of wrestler personas known as the Mirthamaniacs who, on the surface righteously punish other trolls for societal corruption, but are really just a manner of keeping the planet's population in check while being just as corrupt as everyone else. Taz hates who she believes to be the head of that corruption: Hulk Hogan. Hogan has received flak from within the creed due to supposedly betraying the faith and selling out, though others follow him anyways due to his powerful follower chucklevoodoo. Taz admires his tenacity but plans on eventually killing him.
Taz receives a message from Murrit about a game that he has finally decoded after sweeps of research, and that he and the rest of the group have no choice but to play it. Murrit states that Taz will need to be paired with Arcjec for this game to work, and she immediately rejects the idea. Taz and Arcjec are actually pretty similar because Arcjec did this to Laivan earlier--there are a lot of parallels here and they are fundamentally important. Murrit then goes out of his way to create a group chat and informs everyone in the group (except for one person, existereOracle [EO]) about the game and the consequences for not playing it.
Taz’s lusus, a large aquatic mink, murders the lowblooded troll she was planning to battle and almost throws the corpse into the planet's oceans. Known as The Black Depths, it is a toxic nightmare that turns the creatures of the seas into cannibalistic monsters that grow extra eyes and appendages. Back in a time known as ‘The Renaissance’, a sea dweller hungry for power committed mass genocide of their own kind, ruining the oceans and only leaving 0.1% of the sea dweller population alive. This has left Taz’s lusus and many other more aquatic based lusii either stir crazy or deformed, and leads to some rather hefty destruction of property.
We momentarily return to a sleeping Arcjec, who sees a skeleton, WHITE NOISE, in his dreams. WN is the formal narrator of Vast Error and watches a television that shows him the events of the plot in the specific order and manner they are meant to be shown. WN lives in a void known as "The Static", which encompasses the space outside of the universe and acts as barrier between what remains of existence and GAIAEON, the tangible god and personification of reality itself.
White Noise wakes Arcjec up back in his respiteblock. He finds himself cleaned of mud and surrounded by the many papers across his floor, as well as a new one with a suspicious symbol on it and a message claiming that “it’s the only way”. Incidents like this have happened to Arcjec many times before.
This last scene takes place a few hours into the future, and as such we now have to catch up to speed and get all the information needed to get back to that point. This leads us to another new troll: ALBION SHUKRA.
Albion is a cloverblood who is the twelfth and final in a line of extraterrestrial prophets spanning multiple existences known as Star Children. These Star Children all possessed powerful gifts and insight relating to truths that wove others together through optimism and exuberance. Albion does not have a gift because she is meant to merge with her lusus, the souls of all other Star Children who live inside a mindscape known as ‘The Cell’, and obtain all prior gifts to become a separate being known as ‘The Pure Oneself’ that will salvage her planet and species. Albion goes to great lengths to make sure she can do this by keeping her body chemistry in check. This allows her to use spiritual powers through her mood ring.
Albion goes to The Cell in hopes of merging with her lusus after speaking to Taz (her moirail and part-time auspitice) about the situation at length-- a situation Taz thinks is wrong and fake. Albion’s Star Guardian appears and tells her there has been some divine intervention. She was not actually meant to salvage the planet, but rather she and the planet are meant to disappear. She does not take the news well, and is ejected from The Cell as her body chemistry falls out of balance. She then looks outside using her teletablet and sees a meteor falling from the sky.
We are then met with (guess) another troll. This one’s name is DISMAS MERSIV, a clayblood who self-consciously covers his quickly healed scars and is absolutely hellbent on eradicating a species known as Skulltitans. Skulltitans used to run rampant on the planet before they were forced to retreat during The Renaissance. They dug into the planet's core and were dormant until more recently coming back stronger than ever to breed and battle. They now need to eat radiation to survive. A Skulltitan youngling chose Dismas to feed it, a rare occurrence on the planet. Dismas will be killed if he doesn’t adhere to the needs of his lusus.
Dismas is quickly heckled by Murrit, who is his long time kismesis he once worked for after losing his soul to him in a virtual card game. Murrit tells Dismas he has to come outside so he can film him fighting his lusus one last time, Dismas refuses because he just locked him away from his respiteblock, but heads out anyways while Murrit further details his role in getting the game going.
Murrit made a deal with White Noise at a young age to rebuild and decode the hieroglyphics in a nearby temple by his hive, and in exchange for that and telling his group of friends when he finished, he would see his true self with the awakening of his dreamself on a moon known as Derse.
Upon his awakening, Murrit was taken in by a gang of con artists and card sharks known as the Dead Shufflers. The leader known as the Scathing Sharper took Murrit in under his wing, though Murrit claims that his real name is actually Jack.
Dismas makes it outside and Murrit himself is not there but rather a drone he made out of old television parts known as a Boobdrone (Based Occulatory Operating Buddy Drone). Despite hearing Murrit’s story about the deal, Dismas doesn’t think the game is real and just an excuse to do something stupid. Murrit proves him otherwise by showing him the same nearby falling meteor that Albion saw.
Dismas is in disbelief before Murrit reveals that he actually already let Dismas’s lusus out despite his wishes and that he better get ready to fight. Dismas’s lusus comes and tries to kill him with an atomic blast for locking him out of his respiteblock. Dismas is forced to flee and fend for himself as the Boobdrone goes on autopilot and his lusus hunts him down. He finds a small cave within the canyon he resides in by a waterfall, and takes refuge while holding the chest facts-spouting Boobdrone to keep it from alerting his lusus.
We then meet Murrit (a byzantine-shaded violetblood and one of the supposedly two remaining sea dwellers around) properly. We see a glimpse into his past and are shown that during his time with a group of con men and card sharks known as the Dead Shufflers that he was much different than he is today.
We... then take a moment to go over how trolls on Repiton mate and reproduce since the topic was brought up. We also go a little bit into how ancestry works on the planet and what role the troll’s ancestors had to play in the context of the story. (It is way too in depth to recap, so you’re just going to have to read up on that yourself.)
Murrit is preparing to go to his hentai dungeon, which is an interest he feigns enjoyment in with gusto to make fun of a certain other friend's ideals. Dragged to his computer by a couple of messages, we see that he watches all of his friends through various monitors made of old televisions in his respiteblock and that he has a major interest in Renaissance technology and esoteric media. Murrit is very enigmatic and hard to read properly.
Laivan messages Murrit to see if he’s alright after he left their game of ‘Anthropormunicipality’ stagnant due to writing the memo and his business with Dismas. Laivan is also supposed to see White Noise tonight, having made a deal similar to the one Murrit made. He plans goes to sleep to deliver Arcjec a newspaper on the moon known as Prospit real quick, hoping that White Noise will speak to him if he does so.
The friend whose ideals he makes fun of, grandioseSaturation [GS], also messages him to ask if his belongings will make it through the game, as Murrit mentioned that their hives would be destroyed during the entry process. Murrit basically tells him to fuck off and that he sucks at golf.
Murrit heads to the dungeon and Laivan goes to sleep. Laivan frets about a currently shielded and dormant crucible of potential known as Skaia, the center amidst all the currently empty planets within The Medium, the encompassing hub where the game takes place. Prospit and Derse, normally warring moons with different ideals on the game, are currently under a peace treaty to find a way to break open Skaia’s shield.
Laivan delivers a newspaper to the still sleeping dreamself of Arcjec, which glitches out after he makes contact with it. White Noise finally brings Laivan to him, saying that he had to wait for the right time, and they discuss the logistics of their deal.
In exchange for his dreamself awakening, he had to bear a burden when a specific time came, that time being tonight. WN explains that he made this deal with Laivan because the game they are going to play will fail, and that following through on this deal will enact a failsafe so that they may try again. WN gives Laivan an item known as The Green Sun, which is contained in a pendant around WN’s neck. The Green Sun was a gift from his creator, KHEPARIA, the all-mother of existence and Gaiaeon’s equal.
The Green Sun is WN’s heart and soul and the source of his power. WN is reaching the end of his lifespan and The Green Sun must be returned to Kheparia in order for her to have enough power to make the failsafe work. Laivan takes The Green Sun from The Static after a choking fit as WN muses about how perfect the number twelve is to an unknown audience. Laivan was choking while asleep because his lusus, a dog named Mutt, decided to lie on top of him during his nap in the dog bed.
We meet Laivan (a aegeanblood) properly and learn that his lungs were shrunk while he was being created during his artificial birthing process and caused him to have horrible breathing disorder. He is interested in taxidermy, knot tying and hunting. The latter of these ended up gimping his matesprit, pliableDecadence [PD], but also set up their relationship in the first place.
[PD] and Laivan discuss concern about the game a bit more and wish each other a happy two sweep anniversary, as tonight is also the night they met and became a couple. 3/22 is a night that always has a million things happening at once, even in the past. [PD] also says to watch out for Weird Al, who is currently wreaking some sort of havoc and building an army. Laivan replies that if he wanted them by now he would already have them. He leaves in search for glue in his work room. Albion messages him out of desperation about her current situation, but he doesn’t see it until it’s too late.
Albion is at a loss of what to do with herself after hearing that her only purpose in life is gone. Her matesprit, sanguineAllegory [SA] tries to message her; Albion has not spoken to her at all despite how important tonight was for her. Albion cries, unable to bring herself to get [SA] involved in her personal conflicts, and is then linked back into The Cell through unknown means.
Albion is enraged for the first time in sweeps and demands an explanation for what her lusus was referring to back before she was evicted. Her Star Guardian explains that there was a twelfth Star Child before her that they made a promise with. That original twelfth Star Child was Albion’s ancestor, who has taken control of her mind and body temporarily in order to contact her and a still hidden Dismas. She goes on about his purpose, what it means to live and die, and warns him to not listen to White Noise or [EO].
Dismas is rightfully confused and agitated, but Albion’s ancestor has already parted with him to try and instill hope within Albion. Her possessed body floats with spirit energy as her ancestor enters The Cell and begins to show her visions of the past, present and future events she knows. The Cell then suddenly begins to melt and dissipate beneath them.
Dismas decides after that conversation that the coast is clear only to find his lusus has hidden in plain sight, deceiving him easily. They are now forced into strife, head to head. Dismas makes an attempt to fight him off, only to get smacked down the nearby waterfall and get directly hit by another atomic blast. His bandana falls off and his current fate is left unknown.
Murrit makes it down into his hentai dungeon after getting injured while going through a large hall filled with randomized traps that he uses for sport. His "hentai dungeon" is actually just the temple which he recently desecrated after his work rebuilding it was finished.
He’s come down here because now that his work is done, and it is finally time for the game to be released onto the trolls. He speaks to Laivan, who is now in his work room on a second laptop. They discuss prior events and decide that after Murrit makes sure the game is properly distributed, they would go back to Anthropormuncipality for a bit before they have to usher themselves and their respective client players in.
A giant flower within the temple opens after an immensely long waiting period that supposed is only meant to expire when the world is bound to end. Twelve beams of light shoot out, embedding themselves within all the trolls' main computers.
Taz is immediately affected by this and majorly pissed off, as her computer is not allowing her to do anything besides have the game open and use Skorpe. Murrit tells her that he warned her in advance, and that she better figure it out. Murrit and Laivan then begin their game of Anthropormuncipality and are generally great friends.
Taz’s screen shows Arcjec still passed out amongst all his papers. She attempts to wake him to no avail. Once he does get up not long after, she immediately assaults him with the game cursor and forces him to talk to her after two sweeps of no communication on Arcjec’s end.
Taz informs Arcjec of their current circumstances and makes him read Murrit’s memo. Arcjec doesn’t believe what’s happening is real, so Taz shows him what will happen if he doesn’t cooperate, dragging him to his window and showing that the nearby meteor is heading straight for him.
The meteor is also noticed by the figure who threw a rock at his window earlier on her walk back home. She pulls her hood back and is revealed to be none other than a worrisome [EO], who is also Arcjec’s client player. She dashes off in the direction she came from, hoping to get to Arcjec before the meteor does.
With his life at stake, Arcjec has no choice but to relent and work together with Taz. They read through an expansive game tutorial, noting features such as the server/client information, leveling, crafting, a party system, health and an inventory. It reaffirms their fears in regards to the meteor closing in; they have to get Arcjec into The Medium where the game is being held and fast.
After toying with a function known as The Etchelizer, Arcjec realizes that his dreams and the crumpled-up notes he wrote while asleep might correlate with the symbols and numerical codes the Etchelizer needs to function. Gaiaeon momentarily interrupts White Noise watching Taz and Arcjec’s progress.
Arcjec and Taz insert their standard Etchilizer codes. Giving Taz five pillars, five pieces to a portal, and a strange box that she can’t use just yet. She can’t deploy any of the pieces indoors due to a lack of space, so she has to move outside. Arcjec has to join her in order to activate the pillars and the portal. The former, unknown to him, directs the meteor towards Skaia instead of destroying his hive.
Arcjec collects his scythe and a scrapbook before messaging Taz one last time about their past, claiming that she was the one who ruined him and that they are very similar. Taz disagrees and fights over these accusations, but they reach a common ground in deciding that after this game is over that they will never speak to each other again. Arcjec says goodbye and calls Taz by her real name, Tazsia, before leaving.
Arcjec goes outside and Taz deploys the pillars, accidentally destroying his roof in his process. Arcjec quickly activates all the pillars using Murrit’s numerical key as a guide before running back into his hive to enter in his personal codes to finish the Etchelizer process. The portal to The Medium opens and Taz deploys the now useable box. Arcjec, however, attempts defiance, which Taz refuses to abide by. She forces Arcjec to open the box, releasing a sentient gust of wind that lifts Arcjec up and carries him outside in front of the portal and destroying the side of his hive in the process.
Taz then pushes a now dazed Arcjec into the portal, and though he attempts to climb back out, but he is sucked in regardless. This brings him into the game and completes his entry. We are then brought back into The Static with White Noise for the first intermission.
WN goes into detail about a few things that we are unclear about. That he is Repiton’s ‘Eternal Guardian’ and that there were supposed to be many more guardians similar to him who fell through due to Kheparia’s circumstances. The purpose of the game is to revitalize Kheparia, who was promptly murdered by Gaiaeon, who craves a perfect reality. Kheparia is now forced into the one single life-bearing planet she was able to create.
Every time the planet dies or a game session fails, the universe restarts and a new species is born on the planet, ready for another try. The trolls are the next in line, and also the last, with WN being so close to death. The manner that players are chosen in this game is that they are the embodiment of twelve aspects forming existence as a whole.
The game was created as a measure for Kheparia’s escape from her universal cycle and has been slowly changed and modified to the best version it can be, an incentive to each species who always play the game just before their world is close to collapse.
WN collects the data from dead worlds and failed sessions in order to construct these improved games. WN then shows us ‘The Inciphisphere’ while explaining exactly how he is able to create and utilize all of these tools he has at his disposal. He uses such Eternal Guardian and life-creating powers to craft the games NPC’s, four of which will be important later in the story.
WN then explains his belief that he and the audience have a connection of some sort. and that after this point that the story will be a little more disjointed, but that we will also be seeing him more frequently on top of that. However, the next intermission won’t be one with him in it directly.
He sits back down in front of the television to watch more of the action unfold and introduce us to the most important character in Vast Error.
And then we began Act 2.
We begin on the planet Repiton on our titular date of the third dark seasons equinox, its twenty second bi-lunar perigee. Our depressed cornsyrup-blooded protagonist and soda addict, ARCJEC VOORAT, is having his wriggling day and can’t stand it because it brings back some terrible memories. A new chat system, Skorpe, has recently released. Arcjec does not want to talk to his friends on it for reasons unknown.
After refusing to do anything besides meander around his respiteblock because of his surprising lack of interests, a stray rock hits his window and he goes to investigate it. A cloaked figure stands in the woods nearby, but before Arcjec can discern who it is, the plinkster suddenly leaves, causing Arcjec to flip his shit. A person from Arcjec’s chat fodder, LAIVAN FERROO, messages him during his fit and asks him to join a game called ‘Anthropormunicipality’ with another friend, MURRIT TURKIN.
Arcjec immediately rejects the idea and asks Laivan to remember him fondly before checking outside once more because he doesn’t believe the troll could disappear the way they did realistically. He leans out too far looking for them, causing him to fall from his window into a puddle of mud and passes out.
We are then introduced to another troll. She only goes by the self-imposed nickname of TAZ. Taz is a powerful and angry jamblood with a constantly active intimidation chucklevoodoo shown through intense purple glints in her eyes and has a pet rock simply named The Rock.
She is a part of a large cult of wrestler personas known as the Mirthamaniacs who, on the surface righteously punish other trolls for societal corruption, but are really just a manner of keeping the planet's population in check while being just as corrupt as everyone else. Taz hates who she believes to be the head of that corruption: Hulk Hogan. Hogan has received flak from within the creed due to supposedly betraying the faith and selling out, though others follow him anyways due to his powerful follower chucklevoodoo. Taz admires his tenacity but plans on eventually killing him.
Taz receives a message from Murrit about a game that he has finally decoded after sweeps of research, and that he and the rest of the group have no choice but to play it. Murrit states that Taz will need to be paired with Arcjec for this game to work, and she immediately rejects the idea. Taz and Arcjec are actually pretty similar because Arcjec did this to Laivan earlier--there are a lot of parallels here and they are fundamentally important. Murrit then goes out of his way to create a group chat and informs everyone in the group (except for one person, existereOracle [EO]) about the game and the consequences for not playing it.
Taz’s lusus, a large aquatic mink, murders the lowblooded troll she was planning to battle and almost throws the corpse into the planet's oceans. Known as The Black Depths, it is a toxic nightmare that turns the creatures of the seas into cannibalistic monsters that grow extra eyes and appendages. Back in a time known as ‘The Renaissance’, a sea dweller hungry for power committed mass genocide of their own kind, ruining the oceans and only leaving 0.1% of the sea dweller population alive. This has left Taz’s lusus and many other more aquatic based lusii either stir crazy or deformed, and leads to some rather hefty destruction of property.
We momentarily return to a sleeping Arcjec, who sees a skeleton, WHITE NOISE, in his dreams. WN is the formal narrator of Vast Error and watches a television that shows him the events of the plot in the specific order and manner they are meant to be shown. WN lives in a void known as "The Static", which encompasses the space outside of the universe and acts as barrier between what remains of existence and GAIAEON, the tangible god and personification of reality itself.
White Noise wakes Arcjec up back in his respiteblock. He finds himself cleaned of mud and surrounded by the many papers across his floor, as well as a new one with a suspicious symbol on it and a message claiming that “it’s the only way”. Incidents like this have happened to Arcjec many times before.
This last scene takes place a few hours into the future, and as such we now have to catch up to speed and get all the information needed to get back to that point. This leads us to another new troll: ALBION SHUKRA.
Albion is a cloverblood who is the twelfth and final in a line of extraterrestrial prophets spanning multiple existences known as Star Children. These Star Children all possessed powerful gifts and insight relating to truths that wove others together through optimism and exuberance. Albion does not have a gift because she is meant to merge with her lusus, the souls of all other Star Children who live inside a mindscape known as ‘The Cell’, and obtain all prior gifts to become a separate being known as ‘The Pure Oneself’ that will salvage her planet and species. Albion goes to great lengths to make sure she can do this by keeping her body chemistry in check. This allows her to use spiritual powers through her mood ring.
Albion goes to The Cell in hopes of merging with her lusus after speaking to Taz (her moirail and part-time auspitice) about the situation at length-- a situation Taz thinks is wrong and fake. Albion’s Star Guardian appears and tells her there has been some divine intervention. She was not actually meant to salvage the planet, but rather she and the planet are meant to disappear. She does not take the news well, and is ejected from The Cell as her body chemistry falls out of balance. She then looks outside using her teletablet and sees a meteor falling from the sky.
We are then met with (guess) another troll. This one’s name is DISMAS MERSIV, a clayblood who self-consciously covers his quickly healed scars and is absolutely hellbent on eradicating a species known as Skulltitans. Skulltitans used to run rampant on the planet before they were forced to retreat during The Renaissance. They dug into the planet's core and were dormant until more recently coming back stronger than ever to breed and battle. They now need to eat radiation to survive. A Skulltitan youngling chose Dismas to feed it, a rare occurrence on the planet. Dismas will be killed if he doesn’t adhere to the needs of his lusus.
Dismas is quickly heckled by Murrit, who is his long time kismesis he once worked for after losing his soul to him in a virtual card game. Murrit tells Dismas he has to come outside so he can film him fighting his lusus one last time, Dismas refuses because he just locked him away from his respiteblock, but heads out anyways while Murrit further details his role in getting the game going.
Murrit made a deal with White Noise at a young age to rebuild and decode the hieroglyphics in a nearby temple by his hive, and in exchange for that and telling his group of friends when he finished, he would see his true self with the awakening of his dreamself on a moon known as Derse.
Upon his awakening, Murrit was taken in by a gang of con artists and card sharks known as the Dead Shufflers. The leader known as the Scathing Sharper took Murrit in under his wing, though Murrit claims that his real name is actually Jack.
Dismas makes it outside and Murrit himself is not there but rather a drone he made out of old television parts known as a Boobdrone (Based Occulatory Operating Buddy Drone). Despite hearing Murrit’s story about the deal, Dismas doesn’t think the game is real and just an excuse to do something stupid. Murrit proves him otherwise by showing him the same nearby falling meteor that Albion saw.
Dismas is in disbelief before Murrit reveals that he actually already let Dismas’s lusus out despite his wishes and that he better get ready to fight. Dismas’s lusus comes and tries to kill him with an atomic blast for locking him out of his respiteblock. Dismas is forced to flee and fend for himself as the Boobdrone goes on autopilot and his lusus hunts him down. He finds a small cave within the canyon he resides in by a waterfall, and takes refuge while holding the chest facts-spouting Boobdrone to keep it from alerting his lusus.
We then meet Murrit (a byzantine-shaded violetblood and one of the supposedly two remaining sea dwellers around) properly. We see a glimpse into his past and are shown that during his time with a group of con men and card sharks known as the Dead Shufflers that he was much different than he is today.
We... then take a moment to go over how trolls on Repiton mate and reproduce since the topic was brought up. We also go a little bit into how ancestry works on the planet and what role the troll’s ancestors had to play in the context of the story. (It is way too in depth to recap, so you’re just going to have to read up on that yourself.)
Murrit is preparing to go to his hentai dungeon, which is an interest he feigns enjoyment in with gusto to make fun of a certain other friend's ideals. Dragged to his computer by a couple of messages, we see that he watches all of his friends through various monitors made of old televisions in his respiteblock and that he has a major interest in Renaissance technology and esoteric media. Murrit is very enigmatic and hard to read properly.
Laivan messages Murrit to see if he’s alright after he left their game of ‘Anthropormunicipality’ stagnant due to writing the memo and his business with Dismas. Laivan is also supposed to see White Noise tonight, having made a deal similar to the one Murrit made. He plans goes to sleep to deliver Arcjec a newspaper on the moon known as Prospit real quick, hoping that White Noise will speak to him if he does so.
The friend whose ideals he makes fun of, grandioseSaturation [GS], also messages him to ask if his belongings will make it through the game, as Murrit mentioned that their hives would be destroyed during the entry process. Murrit basically tells him to fuck off and that he sucks at golf.
Murrit heads to the dungeon and Laivan goes to sleep. Laivan frets about a currently shielded and dormant crucible of potential known as Skaia, the center amidst all the currently empty planets within The Medium, the encompassing hub where the game takes place. Prospit and Derse, normally warring moons with different ideals on the game, are currently under a peace treaty to find a way to break open Skaia’s shield.
Laivan delivers a newspaper to the still sleeping dreamself of Arcjec, which glitches out after he makes contact with it. White Noise finally brings Laivan to him, saying that he had to wait for the right time, and they discuss the logistics of their deal.
In exchange for his dreamself awakening, he had to bear a burden when a specific time came, that time being tonight. WN explains that he made this deal with Laivan because the game they are going to play will fail, and that following through on this deal will enact a failsafe so that they may try again. WN gives Laivan an item known as The Green Sun, which is contained in a pendant around WN’s neck. The Green Sun was a gift from his creator, KHEPARIA, the all-mother of existence and Gaiaeon’s equal.
The Green Sun is WN’s heart and soul and the source of his power. WN is reaching the end of his lifespan and The Green Sun must be returned to Kheparia in order for her to have enough power to make the failsafe work. Laivan takes The Green Sun from The Static after a choking fit as WN muses about how perfect the number twelve is to an unknown audience. Laivan was choking while asleep because his lusus, a dog named Mutt, decided to lie on top of him during his nap in the dog bed.
We meet Laivan (a aegeanblood) properly and learn that his lungs were shrunk while he was being created during his artificial birthing process and caused him to have horrible breathing disorder. He is interested in taxidermy, knot tying and hunting. The latter of these ended up gimping his matesprit, pliableDecadence [PD], but also set up their relationship in the first place.
[PD] and Laivan discuss concern about the game a bit more and wish each other a happy two sweep anniversary, as tonight is also the night they met and became a couple. 3/22 is a night that always has a million things happening at once, even in the past. [PD] also says to watch out for Weird Al, who is currently wreaking some sort of havoc and building an army. Laivan replies that if he wanted them by now he would already have them. He leaves in search for glue in his work room. Albion messages him out of desperation about her current situation, but he doesn’t see it until it’s too late.
Albion is at a loss of what to do with herself after hearing that her only purpose in life is gone. Her matesprit, sanguineAllegory [SA] tries to message her; Albion has not spoken to her at all despite how important tonight was for her. Albion cries, unable to bring herself to get [SA] involved in her personal conflicts, and is then linked back into The Cell through unknown means.
Albion is enraged for the first time in sweeps and demands an explanation for what her lusus was referring to back before she was evicted. Her Star Guardian explains that there was a twelfth Star Child before her that they made a promise with. That original twelfth Star Child was Albion’s ancestor, who has taken control of her mind and body temporarily in order to contact her and a still hidden Dismas. She goes on about his purpose, what it means to live and die, and warns him to not listen to White Noise or [EO].
Dismas is rightfully confused and agitated, but Albion’s ancestor has already parted with him to try and instill hope within Albion. Her possessed body floats with spirit energy as her ancestor enters The Cell and begins to show her visions of the past, present and future events she knows. The Cell then suddenly begins to melt and dissipate beneath them.
Dismas decides after that conversation that the coast is clear only to find his lusus has hidden in plain sight, deceiving him easily. They are now forced into strife, head to head. Dismas makes an attempt to fight him off, only to get smacked down the nearby waterfall and get directly hit by another atomic blast. His bandana falls off and his current fate is left unknown.
Murrit makes it down into his hentai dungeon after getting injured while going through a large hall filled with randomized traps that he uses for sport. His "hentai dungeon" is actually just the temple which he recently desecrated after his work rebuilding it was finished.
He’s come down here because now that his work is done, and it is finally time for the game to be released onto the trolls. He speaks to Laivan, who is now in his work room on a second laptop. They discuss prior events and decide that after Murrit makes sure the game is properly distributed, they would go back to Anthropormuncipality for a bit before they have to usher themselves and their respective client players in.
A giant flower within the temple opens after an immensely long waiting period that supposed is only meant to expire when the world is bound to end. Twelve beams of light shoot out, embedding themselves within all the trolls' main computers.
Taz is immediately affected by this and majorly pissed off, as her computer is not allowing her to do anything besides have the game open and use Skorpe. Murrit tells her that he warned her in advance, and that she better figure it out. Murrit and Laivan then begin their game of Anthropormuncipality and are generally great friends.
Taz’s screen shows Arcjec still passed out amongst all his papers. She attempts to wake him to no avail. Once he does get up not long after, she immediately assaults him with the game cursor and forces him to talk to her after two sweeps of no communication on Arcjec’s end.
Taz informs Arcjec of their current circumstances and makes him read Murrit’s memo. Arcjec doesn’t believe what’s happening is real, so Taz shows him what will happen if he doesn’t cooperate, dragging him to his window and showing that the nearby meteor is heading straight for him.
The meteor is also noticed by the figure who threw a rock at his window earlier on her walk back home. She pulls her hood back and is revealed to be none other than a worrisome [EO], who is also Arcjec’s client player. She dashes off in the direction she came from, hoping to get to Arcjec before the meteor does.
With his life at stake, Arcjec has no choice but to relent and work together with Taz. They read through an expansive game tutorial, noting features such as the server/client information, leveling, crafting, a party system, health and an inventory. It reaffirms their fears in regards to the meteor closing in; they have to get Arcjec into The Medium where the game is being held and fast.
After toying with a function known as The Etchelizer, Arcjec realizes that his dreams and the crumpled-up notes he wrote while asleep might correlate with the symbols and numerical codes the Etchelizer needs to function. Gaiaeon momentarily interrupts White Noise watching Taz and Arcjec’s progress.
Arcjec and Taz insert their standard Etchilizer codes. Giving Taz five pillars, five pieces to a portal, and a strange box that she can’t use just yet. She can’t deploy any of the pieces indoors due to a lack of space, so she has to move outside. Arcjec has to join her in order to activate the pillars and the portal. The former, unknown to him, directs the meteor towards Skaia instead of destroying his hive.
Arcjec collects his scythe and a scrapbook before messaging Taz one last time about their past, claiming that she was the one who ruined him and that they are very similar. Taz disagrees and fights over these accusations, but they reach a common ground in deciding that after this game is over that they will never speak to each other again. Arcjec says goodbye and calls Taz by her real name, Tazsia, before leaving.
Arcjec goes outside and Taz deploys the pillars, accidentally destroying his roof in his process. Arcjec quickly activates all the pillars using Murrit’s numerical key as a guide before running back into his hive to enter in his personal codes to finish the Etchelizer process. The portal to The Medium opens and Taz deploys the now useable box. Arcjec, however, attempts defiance, which Taz refuses to abide by. She forces Arcjec to open the box, releasing a sentient gust of wind that lifts Arcjec up and carries him outside in front of the portal and destroying the side of his hive in the process.
Taz then pushes a now dazed Arcjec into the portal, and though he attempts to climb back out, but he is sucked in regardless. This brings him into the game and completes his entry. We are then brought back into The Static with White Noise for the first intermission.
WN goes into detail about a few things that we are unclear about. That he is Repiton’s ‘Eternal Guardian’ and that there were supposed to be many more guardians similar to him who fell through due to Kheparia’s circumstances. The purpose of the game is to revitalize Kheparia, who was promptly murdered by Gaiaeon, who craves a perfect reality. Kheparia is now forced into the one single life-bearing planet she was able to create.
Every time the planet dies or a game session fails, the universe restarts and a new species is born on the planet, ready for another try. The trolls are the next in line, and also the last, with WN being so close to death. The manner that players are chosen in this game is that they are the embodiment of twelve aspects forming existence as a whole.
The game was created as a measure for Kheparia’s escape from her universal cycle and has been slowly changed and modified to the best version it can be, an incentive to each species who always play the game just before their world is close to collapse.
WN collects the data from dead worlds and failed sessions in order to construct these improved games. WN then shows us ‘The Inciphisphere’ while explaining exactly how he is able to create and utilize all of these tools he has at his disposal. He uses such Eternal Guardian and life-creating powers to craft the games NPC’s, four of which will be important later in the story.
WN then explains his belief that he and the audience have a connection of some sort. and that after this point that the story will be a little more disjointed, but that we will also be seeing him more frequently on top of that. However, the next intermission won’t be one with him in it directly.
He sits back down in front of the television to watch more of the action unfold and introduce us to the most important character in Vast Error.
And then we began Act 2.