At the castle, King Candy was pacing back and forth in front of his throne. Sour Samukai followed him, lazily waving a flat lollipop in lieu of a fan.
The doors to the throne opened and King Candy looked up. Nuckal and Kruncha approached hesitantly.
Skipping all pretenses at pleasantries, King Candy said urgently, "Did you find it? Please, please tell me you found it."
"Okay. 'We found it'," Nuckal repeated obediently.
King Candy frowned. "Did you actually find it or are you just saying you found it because I told you to say you found it? If you found it, you obviously lost it again because it isn't here, so that's no good, but if you didn't find it at all and are just saying you found it, you're both lying and being obedient to the word but not the idea, so I don't think that's any good either."
Nuckal blinked, completely and utterly confused.
"We didn't actually find it," Kruncha clarified helpfully.
King Candy groaned dramatically and leaned back on his throne, waving a hand. "Go... Leave me."
The donuts left in hurry, eager to get away from their moody ruler.
Now alone (except for Samukai's constant, quiet presence), the king hummed and pursed his lips in thought. After a moment, he straightened up with an idea. "Sour Sam, do you remember what the key to the code room is?"
"Samukai, and yes," Samukai grumbled. "It's written on the wall just outside of the code room."
"Oh, of course!" King Candy beamed. He turned on his heel and strode through a door behind his throne, Samukai hurrying after him.
Several downward flights of stairs and a short elevator ride later, the king and his servant arrived at a huge game controller, taller than the both of them put together.
"Read the key to me," King Candy ordered, placing his hands on the large buttons.
Samukai sighed deeply, but complied. "Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, A, B, enter."
"That's it? Sounds a bit simple, doesn't it?" King Candy remarked, squinting thoughtfully as if he could see the writing on the wall from where he was standing.
"You're the one who wrote it," Samukai snapped. "Are you doubting yourself?"
"Of course not. I'm doubting your reading abilities," the king said loftily. None the less, he carefully keyed in the code, muttering to himself, "Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, A, B, aaand enter!"
The door swung open creakily. King Candy stepped through it, warning, "Remember to keep the door open!"
"Of course I'll remember. I'm not the idiot here," Samukai muttered.
King Candy whirled around. "What was that?"
"Nothing!" Samukai called.
The king sighed and turned back to the room. He smiled reverently. "Ah, the node graph."
The room might have held a node graph, but it looked more like an electric spider web. It was made of glowing threads which connected a nearly endless number of vault-like boxes in every color imaginable. Little pulses of light blipped along the threads, racing from box to box.
"The lovely code, the sweet life blood of the game," the king whispered. He floated along, fondly patting boxes labelled with everything from places to character names, from Gobstopper Valley to Crumbelina Di Caramello.
"Where are you?" King Candy asked himself. "Let's see now, here's the stadium."
Double-clicking on the box labelled 'Stadium', the king opened it to reveal many smaller boxes inside.
King Candy carefully plucked a box with 'Jumbotron' written across it. He opened that one as well to reveal more boxes, one of which bore the words 'Winner's Cup'.
"Here we go," King Candy breathed. Gently, he double-clicked again. The box opened, even more boxes floating inside, almost all of which were interconnected with threads and labelled 'Coin'.
"One of these things is not like the others," the king sing-songed. He paged through the boxes, passing coin after coin, stopping abruptly at an oddly shaped box labelled 'Medal'. "You're it! We're going to give you a nice new home."
King Candy slid the 'Medal' box out and along the network of threads. Gliding through the air, he arrived in front of a very special box, one with the greatest number of threads connected to it. It bore the name 'King Candy.'
Smiling, he double-clicked it. It opened, nearly bursting with boxes. He squished the 'Medal' box inside.
A string of ones and zeros lifted up from the box and formed a loose circle around his neck, solidifying into the Medal of Heroes.
The king whooped happily. "Success!"
He began to float back towards the door, pushing off of various boxes. He took special pleasure in going out of his way to kick a box floating away from all the other, with no threads attached and a label reading "Zane Von Julien."
Making it out of the room, King Candy shut the door behind him. He slapped his hands together, brushing off imaginary dust, and announced, "Sour Samukai, I'm going out. You're in charge of the castle until I get back."
Samukai frowned. "Where are you going? What's happening?"
The king smiled and fingered the metal around his neck. "I've got some very important business to take care of."