Jorvan Fask squinted at the drip tray. “Come on, you finicky piece of junk,” he muttered, nudging the portafilter deeper into the espresso machine. Steam hissed, the pressure gauge climbed into the red, and the rich, dark liquid began to flow, a perfect stream of caffeinated bliss. He breathed in the warm, bitter scent, a brief moment of peace in the never-ending grind of his Monday morning. Then the machine shuddered, not a gentle tremor, but a violent, systemic convulsion that rattled his molars. “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” he grumbled, watching the pressure needle spike past all sanity. A low, grinding groan echoed from the stainless steel beast. Before he could yank the plug, the entire counter erupted in a blinding flash of white light and a concussive boom that deafened him instantly. The force launched him backwards, through what felt like several solid walls, then through something absurdly thin and cold, until gravity reasserted itself with the violent immediacy of a sledgehammer. He landed. Not on his kitchen floor, nor in a hospital bed, but in a fresh, smoking crater of pulverized rock and scorched earth. The impact rattled his bones, but somehow, nothing broke. His ears still rang, a high-pitched whine that drowned out whatever ambient noise existed. Above him, a sky the color of bruised plums swirled with sickly green lightning, and the air tasted like ash and ozone. The last thing he remembered was the smell of good coffee and impending doom. Now it was just… doom. And dirt. He pushed himself up, groaning, wiping a smear of grime from his cheek. The blasted rim loomed high, sharp shards of grey rock defining its ragged edge. Beyond it, a landscape of twisted, petrified trees clawed at the sky. And beyond that, a sight that snagged his weary attention: a colossal, armored fortress, boundless and ancient, carved directly into a jagged mountain range. Bastion of Bastok-Mora, if the half-remembered, utterly useless lore-dumps from his past life were accurate. He sighed. Great. Another Tuesday. Then he saw the dragon. Or rather, the thing that was blocking his sun. A creature of nightmare, scaled in obsidian plates that shimmered with internal fire, it towered over a regiment of tiny, armored figures huddled on a scorched plateau just outside the pit. Its head, a nightmare of horns and fangs, was easily the size of a small car. Tendrils of acrid smoke drifted from its flaring nostrils, and its tail, thick as an oak tree, lashed through the air, stirring gales that ripped banners from poles. “Brimok, you infernal abomination!” a woman’s voice, sharp and furious, cut through the ringing in Jorvan’s ears. He finally registered the battalion of soldiers, their shields locked, their spears bristling, but their formation buckling under the sheer, oppressive presence of the beast. Commander Veylin Tars, her crimson-plumed helm a defiant splash of color against the grey chaos, stood at the vanguard, her runic blade sparking with defensive energies. The dragon, Brimok the World-Render, let out a guttural rumble that vibrated through the ground, a sound like grinding continents. Its maw opened, a furnace of white-hot plasma pooling in its throat. Jorvan frowned. “Seriously? Right in the damn sunlight?” He hated when his view was obstructed. The lingering scent of burnt coffee grounds clung to him, a cruel reminder of his lost espresso. He simply wanted a nap, maybe a shower that didn’t involve volcanic ash, and definitely not a front-row seat to a colossal reptile’s lunchtime. He extended a hand, palm open, and made a vague, shooing motion, like swatting a particularly stubborn fly. There was a sound, not a roar, not an explosion, but a sudden, violent *compression* of air. Brimok, mid-inhale for its fiery breath, paused. Its obsidian scales rippled, then *shrank*. The colossal head folded in on itself, the vast wings concertinaed, and the thrumming, world-ending power of the beast imploded inward. The ground quaked, not from its might, but from its sudden, bizarre reduction in mass. A flash of orange light, brighter than the dragon’s own nascent flame, engulfed the creature. When the light faded, a small, fluffy, distinctly unimpressed orange tabby cat sat precisely where the World-Render had stood. It blinked once, then let out a tiny, indignant *mew*. Veylin Tars’s jaw hung open. Her runic blade, still sparking, drooped in her hand. The battalion behind her stood frozen, a tableau of utter disbelief. One grizzled veteran, his face scarred like an old map, simply pointed a trembling finger. The cat, now stretching languidly, rubbed its head against the nearest knight’s greave, then looked up at Jorvan with bright, amber eyes and a purr that vibrated through the air, startlingly loud for such a small creature. “Crumb,” Jorvan decided, snapping his fingers. “You’re Crumb.” The cat twitched an ear in acknowledgement. Jorvan ignored the gaping soldiers, ignored the cat, ignored the looming fortress. His eyes had caught on something else. Half-buried in the fresh churn of the pit, gleaming dully in the chaotic light, was a rusted tin cup. It looked utterly worthless, probably a relic from some long-dead prospector, but the way the corrosion had formed intricate, almost fractal patterns on its surface… fascinating. He stooped, a flicker of genuine interest in his tired eyes, and plucked the cup from the dirt. [“Greetings, Supreme Creator! Welcome back to Osh-Tirna! It’s been… a while! Initiating Echo-Core Welcome Sequence! Calculating current world state… Oh, dear. Looks like the old ‘Reset Protocol’ got a little ahead of schedule! Don’t worry, it’s just a standard server wipe to optimize performance! Ha ha! Just 29 days, 23 hours, and 59 minutes until total deletion! Good luck, and have fun! Your past self is so proud of you for finding that absolutely *glorious* piece of rusted scrap metal!”] The words, wildly cheerful and booming, reverberated not just in his ears, but in the very air around him. A massive, holographic interface, shimmering with arcane glyphs and a truly terrible color scheme, materialized in the sky above the Bastion of Bastok-Mora. And right in its center, huge and undeniable for all to see, was a countdown clock. SERVER WIPE: 29d 23h 59m 58s. Jorvan stared at the cup in his hand, then at the glowing digits in the sky. He blinked slowly. “You’ve got to be kidding me. I finally get a vacation, and my past self starts an apocalypse? And I’m rewarded with *this*?” He held up the rusted cup, turning it over. “It’s not even a *good* piece of scrap metal.” Silence from the Echo-Core. Then, a new, slightly less enthusiastic voice line, clearly an automated fallback: [“Did you… just insult your reward, Supreme Creator? That’s… unexpected. Perhaps you should try collecting more ancient detritus! There’s plenty of low-level junk to be found! Your past self knows your peculiar hoarding habits! Trust the system! Optimizing world deletion protocol… commencing global entity enumeration…”] Commander Veylin Tars, her face pale, finally found her voice. She pointed a trembling finger, not at the now-purring tabby cat, not at the ditch, but at the enormous, glowing countdown in the sky. She stared at Jorvan, breath locking in her chest. “What… what have you done?”

The Espresso Incident and the Tabby Cat