Writer’s notes: all images used in this writing are nothing more than very crude recreations of what actually transpired that night. The thought of actually taking screenshots when this happened never really crossed my mind...

It was Friday night when I stumbled upon a disc laying in front of my lawn. Written on it in bold red letters is a writing that says "Knights.EXE". At the time, I scoffed and thought that this was just a bad prank trying to copy the popularity and mediocreness of Sonic.EXE, but then I brought it inside anyway for documentation.

I know I shouldn't run a random executable file due to the risk of malware and whatnot, but thankfully I had a spare, ♥♥♥♥♥♥, disposable laptop where I can actually try running this thing for ♥♥♥♥♥ and giggles.

And so I did.

Since I already took out the big HDD of this laptop, I extracted a copy of the one executable file within the CD into the C: drive.

With everything set, I opened the file.

To my surprise, the game started somehow, despite the fact that this laptop wasn’t even connected to the wifi at my home, just in case. On the top left of the window, the application is of course titled Knights.EXE, even thought the main menu itself still says “Spiral Knights”. No automatic steam login though, but that's to be expected..

Actually, there was no “actual” login anywhere to be seen. Clicking the logon button on the main menu brought me immediately to the knight selection screen.

I was amazed that there was anything in this at all.

It's the usual three knights selection screen, but there's only two knights available though.

Knight on the left box, the first box, is a knight named Boxart. True to its name, the knight does resemble the yellow-armored, blue-eyed, feminine-looking knight in the box art of the game. For further reference, a blue-colored, medium-sized knight, equipped with a Regal Spiral Tailed Helmet and a Regal Spiral Culet.

No rank, no guild, and only a few minutes of playtime.

The middle box, the second box, is vacant.

The third box, the right box, contains another knight. The cyan-colored knight wears a Dusky Spiral Tailed Helm, and a Dusky Spiral Brigandine.

Also pretty noticeably shorter.

Rank: Knight Elite, no guild, and a total of 7 days of playtime, or 168 hours.

Hovering the mouse over Boxart works just fine. You hover your mouse over a knight and they'll brandish their weapon of choice. In Boxart's case, it's still the Proto set.

Something alarming happened however, when I tried to hover my mouse over the third knight, which was named...Knights-Exe.

I initially rolled my eyes at this poor attempt at horror, trying to imitate an already poorly-written horror based on Sega’s other game. The fact that the game still managed to put name format limitation (such as not being able to put dots or write capital letters right next to each other to write a proper .EXE) on this supposedly haunted knight doesn’t help its case.

But...

...I couldn't help but worry a little when I hovered the mouse over Knights-Exe and...it did nothing at first.

After a few seconds of delay, the strange knight finally went to the usual fighting pose, only to hold...nothing.

No swords, no shields, no other weapons really. The pose seems to be an idle animation for bombers, but I couldn't be too sure because I rarely play with bombs.

And then it blinked.

At least, it was supposed to blink, since our knights tends to do that actually, but Knights-Exe never opened its eyes.

At that point, fight or flight response suggested firmly that I should flee, but ultimately, my curiosity won in the end.

I tried playing as Knights-Exe, but the game refuses to proceed for some reason, so I picked Boxart to play as.

I expected myself to start somewhere in the crash site, which is the tutorial level, but for some reason, I spawned in Haven, right in front of the Auction house.

Strange as it was, everything looked normal though. There was no other player at all in the game, but this was expected since this copy in particular came from a CD that I just found on the ground. Who knows what version this copy even is.

I walked around for a bit, and everything seems to work just fine. The auction can be opened (even if it's empty of items), the NPCs are all there. Even Kozma, the Spiral Quartermaster, is there with her borderline outrageous prices (and unlike the auction house, actually has items for sale).

I'm pretty much softlocked though. Boxart is in Haven, but she hasn't actually finished the early tutorial levels yet, and she couldn't pick them either since it's all greyed out.

The game was obviously bugged.

With nothing else to do, I went to the arcade. Not through the usual bar on the right though, since that's also greyed out, but by walking to the physical arcade place north of Haven.

Then I remembered that I have to talk to Feron first in order to use arcade at all! Silly me!

There, I picked the Ruby Phantom Gate, and got going already. Out of habit, I played on Elite difficulty.

Unfortunately, Boxart ended up in Candlestick Keep. With such low HP I doubted Boxart could even be able make it halfway through the map, but perhaps she can if I clutch this...

I made Boxart walk out of the safety of the elevator.

I expected Kats and maybe some zombies, but...nothing.

None of those giant dark kats either.

The Keep was empty, the only thing that accompanies Boxart is the background music and the gentle blue candle lights of this place.

As Boxart finally approached the elevator that would take her to the next depth, I was surprised when I found about more than a dozen gremlins, some tenderfoots, some ironclaws, and even a few darkfangs.

Before I could question what the ♥♥♥♥ are they doing all the way up here, they attacked Boxart immediately.

Before Boxart could launch a counterattack, I noticed that most of the gremlins are already on the brink of death, with only a few of them having more than a sliver of health left in them.

No time to question it, Boxart was quick to dispatch them at a safe distance with her proto pistol.
With all the gremlins dead, one of the first thing I noticed was that their body didn't disappear into a purple cloud of smoke like usual.

Second thing I noticed was a few of them tried to crawl away even after they were defeated (with no special animation, they looked like they were sliding across the floor very slowly), but they all eventually succumbs to their invisible injuries.

If I was a sensible person, I would have exited the game and ran an antivirus scan immediately after this, but hey, life's boring.

Steeling my resolve, Boxart and I looked at the question mark on the elevator down. Since I couldn't open the usual arcade tab, I wouldn't even know what could await me there. But as the loading screen comes up...
Treasure Trove
God Frowns upon the Greedy

It was the best and most off-putting Treasure Trove I have ever seen.

No green box in sight, it's all red.

Big gold coins, each with the value of 50 crowns all over the place.

Plenty of flawed orbs of alchemy.

and even a couple gear drops, which are extremely rare.

I was already suspicious of this circumstances long ago, but if whatever's haunting me wants to give me all these loots, well don't mind if I do…!

After plundering everything within this Treasure Trove, I went ahead and have Boxart walk into the next elevator.

That's when I saw it.

I probably should have expected this, but Boxart and I was frozen in apprehension when Knights-Exe ascended in the elevator.

That thing still has its eyes closed, or perhaps it never actually had any to begin with?

Either way, as soon as we regained our composure, Boxart ran. She ran while the thing walked calmly towards where Boxart is. Its head locked into Boxart's exact direction at all time.
...
...
...
I stopped Boxart in the middle of the Treasure Trove, silently contemplating if I should have Boxart try going back to the first elevator that got us to this depth in the first place, or if we should try to slip pass Knights-Exe and exit the level professionally.

I had already tried to exit the game, log out, or even have Boxart simply return to Haven through the usual menu, but to our dismay, the buttons were all greyed out. I tried the x on the bottom right on any windows but that did nothing. I tried using the task manager to end the Knights-Exe application, but the button to “end task” similarly didn’t work.

I almost immediately ruled out going to the first elevator as an option, since that sounded like a stupid idea in hindsight. Slip pass it is then.

We returned to the end of the level, surprisingly unimpeded. Knights-Exe probably lost interest and left as soon as we ran, or maybe, just maybe, it was all just a hallucination. A small part of me hoped for the latter, but a larger part of me hoped it’s not. Personally, actually seeing the supernatural is more preferable than have it be a mere vivid hallucination, which implies some worrying mental illness of some sort on my part.

Enough of that, time to uncover this mystery alongside Boxart, which I believe would have disagreed with my excitement and eagerness if she’s even capable of such thing.

Entering the elevator, I would have exhaled in relief when I saw the exit button not greyed out, but the fact that the button to proceed was greyed out instead only made me worry.
...
...
...
Boxart ended up inside the entrance to the arcade rather than spawning at the main entrance of Haven, at first not noticing anything strange, but slowly noticed just how quiet the place was. No sign of Feron, no sign of any wandering NPC knights, not even King Krogmo’s Devilites doing whatever it is that they do.

Alarmed, I had Boxart run a whole lap around the entire room, finding not a single soul.

With no progress to be found here, I had Boxart look at the exit apprehensively, which glowed in an eerie orange light that I failed to notice the first time.

As I started to move Boxart towards the exit, that’s when the gameplay starts to get weird once again.

As if stunned, Boxart did not run towards the exit, instead she walked very slowly, sweat visibly coming out of her. It seems that Boxart is seeing something that I have yet to see, something petrifying from her point of view.

When we exited towards Haven, at first I thought we ended up in the Firestorm Citadel.
Unfortunately, it was not.

Haven burns.

Boxart had her proto weapons out already, not that it’d help her that much in this hellscape. Fire hazards were everywhere. Burnt bodies of NPC knights, Strangers, and even some gremlins were strewn all over the place. Based from the sweat once again coming out of Boxart, it would seem she was horrified, to say the least.

Unfortunately for Boxart, I wasn’t, so I practically forced Boxart to explore the area. We were quickly stopped when we saw Knights-Exe casually standing in front of the Auction House, as if it was browsing the place.

It was a precarious situation, and I’m not sure just how capable this entity is at spotting us, but with no other choice, I tried to sneak Boxart pass through by repeatedly tapping the S key.

Boxart didn’t go far as Knights-Exe turned itself towards Boxart as soon as I blinked. At this point, I tried to make Boxart run for it again, but this time, she was completely petrified. I desperately pressed the WASD key in all directions as Knights-Exe once again walked straight towards Boxart. I never stopped when Knights-Exe grabbed Boxart by one of the tail of her helmet. I never stopped when Knights-Exe slowly dragged Boxart towards the fountain that was miraculously untouched by the flame that burns the heaven. I never stopped when Knights-Exe proceeded to drown Boxart by fully dipping her head into the fountain.

The gruesome sight nearly made me not notice just how smooth their movement animation were when Knight-Exe dragged the yellow armored recruit into the fountain. Even now, Boxart continued to struggle for her life with an uncannily smooth animation.

I only stopped when her health finally reached zero, but I kinda wished that was the end of it for Boxart, because unfortunately the Emergency Revive decided to kick in at that moment, and thus Boxart’s torture was renewed once again.

This time, I didn’t even bother struggling with the WASD key. I could only watch.

I could only watch as Knights-Exe dropped the lifeless body of Boxart into the fountain, and looked directly towards me with that faceless face. Despite its lack of face, I can tell that the thing was sneering.

And then the game closed on its own, and...I thought that was the end of it.

That was not the end of it. Multiple windows started to pop up on its own, each one asking me to disable windows firewall. I thought to myself, “Is this thing (Knights-Exe) stupid? I already disconnected the internet connection before I started playing.”

Just in case, I hovered my mouse over the taskbar to make sure that the internet was not connected, and I never ran so fast just to turn of the wifi router. In hindsight, I could have just disconnected it from my laptop, or turn off the laptop’s internet adapter, but I was panicking and took the most drastic option to make sure my laptop (now compromised) stay isolated.

Who knows, mayhaps it was the most correct decision after all?

I can only hope that I wasn’t too late.

Thankfully it was already late at night, so me turning off the wifi might not annoy my folks and my neighbors. If they are affected by this, then it’s completely their fault for not sleeping at this hour.
From that point on, I had many options to get away from any further immediate problems; I could do things in the most brutish manner and smash my laptop to pieces, I could dismantle it calmly and bury the hard drive deep underground, I could even just unplug the battery and charging cable and sell it.

I did none of those things, simply because I felt like I had an obligation to settle things with this...entity...properly.

I am a religious and spiritual person, and thus the appearance of something clearly supernatural wasn’t all too surprising nor frightening to me, so with my faith still filled to the brim, I opened Knights.EXE again.

I must avenge Boxart.
...
...
...
First thing that greeted me was that the title on the title screen only says Knights. Second thing I noticed that the moon in the background of the title screen was completely blacked out. Third thing I noticed was that all the buttons except Logon was greyed out. With no other way to go, I pressed it.

After that, I’m back to the character selection screen.

Boxart’s box is still there, with all the names and other information regarding her, but the 3D model herself was jarringly missing, and I found out that I couldn’t actually pick her even if I tried.
Knights-Exe was there, still as faceless as ever. I don’t intend to try to select it, instead I hovered my mouse over Knights-Exe’s box to see what changed, and I nearly recoiled when this thing (Knights-Exe) held Boxart’s decapitated, petrified, waterlogged head as if it was a bomb.

At that moment, just from that overly edgy act of beheading alone, I had an inkling of an idea on just what exactly I was facing here.

It doesn’t matter though. It doesn’t matter what kind of tragic backstory that Knights-Exe had. It will pay.

I hovered my mouse away from Knights-Exe, but this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ stayed in its idle bomber animation, taunting me with the head of poor Boxart.

Trying my best to ignore its provocative gesture, I first tried to do the obvious and tried to outright delete Knights-Exe from the selection screen. When that didn’t work, I got to work with creating a new knight to stand against this evil.

I clicked the empty character box, and all seemed normal as it took me to the character creation part, which still takes place at the crash site somehow. I already had someone in mind to create for this task. A tall, purple colored knight, equipped with a Fancy Tailed Helm and a Fancy Spiral Brigandine.

I thought of using the name “Lynn-Sama” as the name of the knight, since that’s what I use on my main account. It would have worked, too, only because this game seems to run on its own localhost rather than accounting available knight names that was kept in Grey Havens’ database.
I decided against it. In case I lose and this game connects to the actual game’s server side database, the Lynn-Sama in this cursed copy might overwrite the actual Lynn-Sama and make me lose 5 months of progress.

So, I went with the next best thing: Lynn-Sama-Mkii.

Lynn-Sama-Mkii is a pretty cool guy. Eh kills aleins and doesnt afraid of anything.

At least, that’s what I like to think. If I hyped myself just enough, then maybe this freshly baked knight would be much braver at facing this horror than Boxart.

Like Boxart, Lynn also spawned in the middle of Haven, despite the character creation taking place at the crash site. The fire that previously raged all over Haven was now extinguished by a stormy rain, leaving behind a sad, somber, quiet town.

With Lynn no longer in any immediate danger, I took my time to look at the ludicrous amount of burned bodies that surrounded the mostly-untouched fountain. It seemed like they all tried to extinguish themselves, only for every single one of them to fall short behind salvation from this malignant fire. Water, literally within arms reach.

“God…” I muttered.

At that point, I didn’t really have any plan other than “defeat Knights-Exe” and “avenge Boxart”. I wasn’t sure where to start looking, since that villain has yet to show its ugly face around Lynn-Sama-Mkii. I adjusted the mic on my headset and spoke. “Hey, ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, come out here and face us.”

No response.

I had Lynn circle the fountain, hoping to agitate that ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ to come out from wherever it hid.

No response.

My next idea was to try exploring other parts of Haven, but something stopped me. I nearly didn’t notice that Lynn-Sama-Mkii was directly looking at me, her unremarkable gaze somehow pulling mine to attention.

Neither of us said anything, and I could move and rotate Lynn away just fine, but after I established that eye contact with her, whispers so quiet that it can easily be mistaken with me making all this up in my head could be heard.

It was whispers from Lynn, I’m sure of it. I’m not crazy.

She told me to have her inspect the very spot where Boxart drowned.

With no other hint, I complied. As I clicked the spot where Boxart died slowly, Lynn-Sama-Mkii (again with the uncanny custom animation) leaned towards the water and gently lifted the headless body of Boxart.

She then proceeded to have the waterlogged body hang at her back.

Immediately after that, all the burnt bodies sprung back to life.

All hell broke loose.

Every single one of them attacked Lynn all at once, each one retaining their moveset from when they were alive. The gremlins thwackers used their wrench-axes; the menders heals; the knights fighting exactly like real Lockdown (the pvp mode of the game) players, hopping and shield-bashing all over the place; while the strangers were the most uncanny, bending and moving around in a fluid manner and higher frame rate.

Sure, Boxart’s body was no burden, but it did slip and fall a lot, and Lynn had to pick it up numerous time while fighting off these...zombies. I wasn’t even trying to pick her up, but Lynn seems to passively and carefully gravitate towards Boxart’s body, and picks her up automatically once close enough.

The only reason why the whole fight felt much easier than expected was because I wasn’t held back by any high ping that I usually play with on normal Spiral Knights. It’s one of the few things in this copy of the game that I’m genuinely gonna miss.

The sheer number of enemies did drag it for way too long though.

The thin silver lining in all of this is that the enemies still drops health sometimes. It seems that Knights-Exe has yet to take control of absolutely every aspect of the game. All the more reason to get this over with as soon as possible.
...
...
...
Eventually, all the enemies were defeated, and Lynn was only half-destroyed from the fight.

While I worry about what comes next, Lynn psychically sent me another instruction:

“Bring her body to the Hall of Heroes.”

Knights-Exe still hasn’t showed up yet, so I went right away with guiding each other towards the Hall of Heroes.

We went there unobstructed, but as soon as we entered, the zombified remains of the heroes (and any other bystanders in it) suddenly lunged towards us. I was quick to get Lynn to exit the Hall of Heroes, where the zombies within seemed incapable of following her out here.

Lynn then faced me without my input, and laughed.

I can’t help but chuckle as well.

I soon caught another instruction:

“Bring her body to the guild ha…”

I raised my eyebrows at Lynn seemingly trailing off with her instruction while her body was locked, looking 90 degrees to the left of the screen.

Once again, I couldn’t make my knight budge.

Oh no. Was Lynn petrified as well?

On the other side of the map was Knights-Exe. Her face ever unpresent. On its back was Boxart’s head, contrasting Lynn’s own gesture.

It doesn’t seem happy.

I thought it was over for Lynn, and by extension me, but against my expectation…

Lynn-Sama-Mkii charged her proto sword...and charged towards Knights-Exe with speed that can only be seen in a game of Lockdown! With the latter doing the same towards the former!
As soon as they made contact, the game crashed.

I was shocked. As a religious person, I already believed in miracles and divine interventions, but to have it happen to me?

Once again, I thought it was over, but my desktop suggested very strongly otherwise.
The desktop, the main screen of a PC, was also affected by Knights.EXE program. The wallpaper, previously an old picture that I drew myself, was replaced with a black wallpaper. All desktop shortcuts (even that of Knights.EXE’s shortcut) were gone, and in its place stood a single README.txt file.

I initially hesitated to open it, thinking that it may be a trap, but decided to be decisive about it and opened it anyway.
In it was more instructions from Lynn. This time in written form.

For my break, I went to get myself a midnight snack, take a piss, and then got myself another serving of midnight snack.

I didn’t spend too much time taking a break though. I wouldn’t want anyone to notice that I already plugged off the wifi cables for the night, so I quickly opened my laptop and prayed. This time I had to use the search bar to find both cheat engine and Knights.EXE since the only thing left on my desktop was that README.txt file.

I opened cheat engine first, then Knights.EXE, per Lynn’s instruction.

The game was still corrupted. No exit, and then there’s the distinct lack of any Spiral.
I proceeded.

I almost felt happy to see that Boxart was back in action. Almost, because I can still see Knights-Exe on the right side of the screen, too scared to show its face, I believed. Doesn’t help that Boxart’s own playtime reads “I don’t want to be here anymore!!!”

Poor girl, she gained sapience in the worst possible way: in a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ creepypasta.

I adjusted my mic and spoke. “I don’t know if you can hear this, but don’t worry, it will all be over soon...For Knights-Exe.”

The response? I couldn’t tell by visual cues alone, but I had a feeling that Boxart seriously doubted my statement, while Knights-Exe had nothing nice to say to me.

So I continued. “Observe.”

Alt tabbing into cheat engine, I selected Knights.EXE as the process to open, inserted the value 7777, and pressed New Scan. 7 Addresses appeared, and I quickly changed all value of the address to 2. I wasn’t sure what exactly that affected, but when I got back into the game, I noticed immediately that Knights-Exe now looked...normal.

Her eyes were there, and when I hovered my mouse above her, the game showed an idle animation with no delay, and this time, Knights-Exe was holding a normal proto sword!
Despite her normal appearances however, I can tell that Knights-Exe was furious.
...
...
...
Once again Boxart spawned in the middle of Haven. The sun was shining. The birds were flying. All the NPCs were accounted for. The only thing that was irregular was that I could not access the north and west side of Haven. Not that I needed to.

Boxart was walking very slowly again, apparent that she was still afraid of this whole thing. I don’t blame her though. I was angry, not at Boxart, but at Knights-Exe. My anger increased tenfold when I noticed that Boxart only started running whenever she got too close to the fountain.

The girl was traumatized!

I adjusted my mic, hopefully for the final time that night, and started doing step 6 of the 7 step of instruction that was left by Lynn.

“Hello? Boxart? I don’t know if you can hear me, but please, you must prepare yourself for this final confrontation.”

As I said this, I tried to move Boxart to east Haven, but her movement gradually came to a crawl, until she stopped entirely just at the edge of the map, facing random directions as if panicking.

“I will not pretend to know just how horrifying it is from your perspective, but if you wish any respite, then we must settle any and all loose ends, and besides…”

The following sentence made Boxart stopped panicking, or at least stopped just to listen to what I had to say.

“...I know that look on her face. That’s the look of someone who had at least seen all those old school creepypastas and decided to take inspiration from it. Boxart…”

Boxart tilted her head in confusion. “What face?” she would ask, which I promptly ignored.

“...Knights-Exe is a restless spirit.”

Boxart looked straight at me. Her fear seemed to subside ever so slightly, but I could feel her skepticism coming into force. Suddenly, the in-game chat bar opened on its own, and Boxart started typing her thoughts, finally.

“How did you know?” Boxart asked through the in-game chat.

“Just a feeling.” I audibly replied, and I couldn’t help but smile. “Regardless, you are a knight of the spiral order, aren’t you? The least you can do is help me put this restless, angry spirit to rest.”

Boxart finally entered east Haven on her own accord.
...
...
...
After the game finished loading the next area, we were greeted with a painfully familiar sight. This part of Haven was still a wet slag as a thunderstorm soaked the charred remains of east Haven. All path that would connect to other areas had been marked red, however, signifying that those areas are all inaccessible.

“Remember, we’re not here to find out her motives for doing all of this. We’re here to put this spirit out of its misery, no questions asked.” I said as Boxart herself shot a determined gaze towards a normal-looking Knights-Exe, who was desperately trying to enter the Hall of Heroes, even resorting to banging her fist on the invisible barrier. “Speculation is for us to do at a later date.”

I had Boxart ran towards our adversary, fear now buried under a thick pile of bravery. In contrast, Knights-Exe initially didn’t notice us at first, but then looked fearful when she heard Boxart’s footstep, at first she started banging the invisible barrier faster and harder, but then took a battle stance with despair plastered all over her face once the realization that she couldn’t run away from this finally settled in.

It almost made me feel the wrong kind of pity. I say wrong because the only proper kind of pity here is to end her suffering (which I hope wasn’t something self-perceived by me).

“What did you do to me?!” asked Knights-Exe through the chat.

Neither I nor Boxart answered as Boxart charged her proto sword. Without further warning, she sliced Knights-Exe, taking away about 25% of her health, which became visible even before the hit was struck. Knights-Exe retaliated with a charged slash as well, taking away 25% of Boxart’s health.

In terms of stats, they seem to be evenly matched.

Which means it all comes down to who’s the better pvp player between us.

As it turns out, even though I myself wasn’t exactly an exceptional Lockdown player, Knights-Exe was somehow even worse than I am.

But maybe that’s because I’ve been playing Lockdown this entire time with an outrageously high ping, and the fact that, in her hubris, Knights-Exe never had the chance to equip any shield.

(An exaggerated artistic depiction on how the fight went down)

I had Boxart weave, jump, shoot and slice viciously against Knights-Exe. For every hit that Boxart took, we retaliated with three of our own attacks. Our first barrage taking away Knights-Exe’s own emergency revive.

Finally, after a brief but intense battle, Knights-Exe was down, while Boxart was still standing with no emergency revive and 3 bars of health.

It’s all out of my control now. Boxart now moved on her own and pointed her shaky proto gun at the downed Knights-Exe.

“I’m scared…” said Knights-Exe, her eyes shaking as she looked at the gun pointed straight at her face.

“...So am I.” said Boxart, before she pulled the trigger.

As soon as she did, the laptop died.

I sat there and looked blankly at the blank dark screen, taking my time to process what had just happened to my laptop.

The cable was still plugged to the power socket, the battery still attached to the laptop itself, and yet nothing I did could turn on the laptop.

It was completely dead.

“Was...that the end of it?” I whispered to myself as I continued to press the power button, just in case.

I finally stopped trying when there doesn’t seem to be any progress with trying to turn on my laptop.

I sighed. “What a waste…”

Looking at the clock, the arrow pointed towards 3 o’clock. This can’t be good for my sleep schedule.

With the whole ordeal seemingly resolved by now, I thought now I could wash my feet and finally go to bed.

So I did.

That night, I dreamed that I saw Knights-Exe, standing in the middle of a bright, yet sunless ocean.

She seemed tranquil.

Eventually, her form gradually shifted to that of a woman that I don’t recognize, most likely 23 or 24 years old. The woman didn’t stay for too long though, because shortly after, she faded away, smiling all the while.

The rest of the dream was nonsense though, so let’s just ignore that part.
...
...
...
A few uneventful days have passed since then, and I haven’t gotten any strange dreams ever since. Because of my day job, I never got the chance to play Spiral Knights normally on my main and only gaming laptop. Not that I wanted to. Despite my claim of a strong faith, I felt mentally drained.

Now’s the weekend though, so no more excuse to avert myself from my irregular grinds. Vanagyatt awaits.

After taking an afternoon shower after I just got home for work, I sat down and turned on my gaming laptop, which I have deemed indisposable, unlike my previous laptop which to this day still refuses to turn on. Speaking of which, I had already dismantled that laptop into neat pieces. I could reassemble it back whenever I want, but it wouldn’t solve the fact that it wouldn’t turn on. I haven’t tried accessing its C: drive with another device either, I fear that I might actually break something if I do.

I almost forgot to mention that the CD where Knights.EXE came from was shattered to pieces as soon as I tried to eject it.

After I opened the game, I took a moment to look at the current character selection screen. On the leftmost box stood the original, one and only, Lynn-Sama. A vanguard with only 216 hours of playtime as of writing this. Accompanying her were two empty character boxes. Sometimes I think that the whole ordeal against Knights-Exe was nothing more than a strange vivid dream I had, but how else would I be able to explain the sudden death of my old disposable laptop?

So, in order to assure myself that I wasn’t imagining it all, I had an idea. I took the initiative to create a memorial of some sort. I did this by recreating Boxart and Knights-Exe in my remaining character slot the best I can.

Though I have no intention of playing as them, their purpose is to be a reminder.

A solemn reminder of those that had gained, those who were saved, and those that were lost.

[sic]