In the research station, Urdra begins her S'Glub run with a most unsporting efficiency. It helps that Jovall has already struggled through the rather illogical opening moves before her. They have a checklist an' everything.

-gaudyUmpire began festering unrulyCreature-

GU: Install the client disc.

UC: Done.

GU: Install the server disc.

UC: Done.

UG: Next, pop the top off the Cruxtruder tube

UC: On it.

Urdra switches her Strife Specibus to "malletkind." She pulls a Giant Anime Mallet out of nowhere, winds back and swings wildly at the cap of the bulky device. She nails it on the third attempt. A glowing circle pops out, etched with a mandala of silver lines. The Kernelsprite. A counter on the base of the machine begins an Ominous Countdown: 3 minutes and 36 seconds.

GU: Zounds! That's a much shorter time limit than I got. Get a cylinder of Cruxite feedstock out of the Cruxtruder

UC: On it.

GU: What do you want for your sprite? Preferably a corpse or a model of a living creature.

UC: The bunny?

GU: No, the bunny is for later. Pick something else.

UC: Ooh, I've got just the thing!

She scampers upstairs to root in the biological samples store, which opens off the control room right next to her bedroom. Things with too many eyes, claws and teeth leer at her from gallon jars ranked on the ceiling-high shelving units, and there are freshly-scraped bones strewn all over the work bench. Ignoring her collection of predatory horrors, Urdra goes straight to the freezer section and the frozen corpse of a squiddle she'd been examining earlier. She scoops the heavy, icy thing into her arms and staggers downstairs.

GU: You have severed heads in your freezer?!

UC: No, it's just a wild squiddle. I was planning to dissect it later.

She takes aim at the Kernelsprite. One careful throw and voila! Squiddlesprite. A ghostly ball with dangling tentacles is now following Urdra as she scurries about. It looks a little abstract right now, but apparently it will be rendered less symbolically once she's in the game.

UC: It's so shiny! Yet it kind of looks grey too.

GU: No time! Get that cruxite dowel upstairs.

UC: Ugh, why did you have to put stuff on different floors?!

GU: Use the pre-punched program card to sculpt the cylinder on the Totem Lathe.

They figure out the Totem Lathe together and watch it sculpt the glowing cylinder of cruxite. The light-show in the sky makes it a little hard to concentrate. Up there an orbital railgun is spitting out tracer flares as it zeroes in on its target, and the blinding white streaks are mirrored on the ice. Something huge explodes silently in a gout of orange flame, and green lasers dance up from the horizon to burn up all the shrapnel. Urdra shakes her head and turns away.

In the seconds she was distracted the Lathe has stopped humming and the cruxite dowel has become a knobbly blue pillar. Back downstairs she goes again to put it on the Alchemiter and print out the actual game entry token. Through the open garage doors, Urdra can see a worrying red glow spreading across the ice. Meteor Time approaches fast.

UC: The Alchemiter thingy is printing… a coral? A silver coral reef?

GU: There's a starfish on top of it. I think that's what you have to get.

UC: Why does it have to be so tall?

Urdra scrambles up the branching coral. She's impressed by how lifelike it is: a gnarly, branching trollhorn coral complete with tiny silver polyps. She can feel its rough surface tearing at her jacket and scraping the protective slime off her fingertips. A strong, hot wind is now blowing into the garage, and the light from outside is blinding. She can see the starfish now, a gleaming pentagram perched just below the ceiling.

GU: See you on the other side!

Her fingers brush the silver starfish. She reaches for it.

The meteorite hits.

The research station and the rocky outcrop it is built into are vapourised instantly. All around, ice and seawater flash into a vast mushroom cloud of superheated steam towering over the sea. A wave of debris is hurled up from the seafloor. There is a hole in the ocean – a steep-sided pit walled with swirling water, leading all the way down to red-hot glowing bedrock. Then the waves rush back in. Within a hole in the ice five miles across, the water churns like a boiling saucepan. No sign of life remains.