The loading screen for Level 2 sat at 99%. It had been sitting there for twenty minutes.
"It is stuck," Li Wusheng observed, tapping the invisible barrier of the loading void. "The progress bar is frozen. This is a soft-lock."
"Maybe we have to blow on the cartridge?" Aldren Vance suggested. He was still a low-poly blocky vampire, and his cape was currently clipping through his own legs.
"There is no cartridge," Elara Vance sighed. She sat on the floor of the white void, sharpening her rusty sword (which she had looted back from the arena chest). "We're stuck in the buffer."
Kaelen Thorne paced back and forth, his massive platinum armor clanking. "I hate waiting. My buffs are wearing off."
Ignis (now an 8-Bit Dragon) was flying in circles, leaving a trail of pixelated fire. "I am bored. I want to shoot things. Tutorial Tom promised me guns."
Suddenly, the loading bar flashed red.
[ERROR: CONTENT INCOMPLETE][CANNOT ADVANCE TO LEVEL 2][MISSING: COLLECTIBLES]
