Jovall is sat in the Gauditorium, his personal cinema, viewing Urdra's garage in widescreen. He catches the moment when the light changes from harsh red to a soft, wavering green. His tentacles unclench their death-grip on his beak, and he lets out a breath he didn't know he was holding.

-gaudyUmpire began festering unrulyCreature-

GU: Urdra?
GU: Urdra?
GU: Are you all right?
UC: It's beautiful!
UC: It's so strange. The whole place is alive. It's like
UC: it's like a reef. A reef on dry land. And the colours! I have to go out there!
GU: Urdra, please. Stay inside.
GU: We'll have plenty of time to explore our planets later.
GU: When I look out of my windows right now, I don't even understand what I'm looking at
GU: but there's a meteorite heading straight for the Rose. Vertie needs you.
UC: I suppose so. All right, I'll start setting up for Verthandi I mean AU.
GU: Keep an eye out for Imps. They'll have both tentacles and pincers now.
GU: don't think we thought that one through.
UC: I'll be OK. Got my mallet.

-gaudyUmpire stopped festering unrulyCreature-

-gaudyUmpire opened Spritelog-

JOVALL: All right, you. What's your game?

The sprite stares at him blankly. She glows white, but outlined and shaded in a haze of navy blue. Her eyes are blue buttons on short stalks. Antennae sprout from her limp-tentacled scalp, and the segmented arms end in huge pincers. She wears the Blue Doll's dress, but the skirts now taper off into a long tail. The sprite just floated there and watched while Urdra entered the game, so she doesn't seem to mind them playing.

JOVALL: Dollsprite? Doll-Crayhound sprite? Cray-Dollsprite. Yes, that suits you.
CRAY-DOLLSPRITE: heeheeheeheehee
JOVALL: Sorry, I don't think I caught that.
CRAY-DOLLSPRITE: it is the sinister sound of children laughing
JOVALL: No, no, no, laughter goes like this –
JOVALL: "Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-haaaaa! Fools!"
JOVALL: What's a "children," anyway? Is it an alien?
CRAY-DOLLSPRITE: you really are unnatural creatures, aren't you. perhaps your name for them
CRAY-DOLLSPRITE: would be "lazy apprentices"
JOVALL: You seem dedicated to delivering "sick burns" that I don't understand.
JUVALL: I can respect that. Let's continue this later, hm?
CRAY-DOLLSPRITE: heeheeheeheehee

Urdra gives one last regretful glance out of the door, then heads upstairs. Something is waiting for her. She gets a brief impression of reddish-brown tentacles and pincers reaching for her. The Giant Anime Mallet appears in her hands and she brings it down on the creature's head. It vanishes instantly, leaving behind a lump of clay and a squishy crystal of Build Grist for her to collect. She's a little shocked by how easy it was to kill. It's just a videogame enemy, but she really hopes the things can't feel pain. The Squiddlesprite drifts up behind her.

-Squiddlesprite opened Spritelog-

SQUIDDLESPRITE: Hugs?
URDRA: I don't think that's a good idea.
SQUIDDLESPRITE: But I'm so lonely! Where's my mate?
URDRA: Oh sweet Murkra, I forgot! You little guys pair-bond for life, don't you.
URDRA: I'm so sorry. Here, hug this. I'll try to find you some company later.

Urdra grabs a squishie shark-tiger from her bed-tub and tosses it to the Squiddlesprite. She instantly realises her mistake, but it's too late.

SQUIDDLETIGERSPRITE: Rarr! I'm a fierce tiger!
SQUIDDLETIGERSPRITE: but I'm still lonely :
URDRA: 8{{

The poor creature is a mess! Paws, fins, tentacles…. They can't prototype more than twice, right? Urdra throws it a chair cushion, which the sprite wraps itself around without incident. She goes to start up the S'Glub server program, but gets distracted by the view. Lush and green, the land-reef waves outside her window. It almost seems soft, but with harder brown structures hidden below the swaying fronds. In the distance, a mountain of pink crystal catches the sun. Something launches itself up from the reef and flies past. Too big to be an insect, and too wrong. It is scarlet with blue and yellow patches, has only two wings, and looks oddly soft. It vanishes from view.

Trees, that's the word for land-coral! They have them on the Equatorial Islands, only Khthonn's trees are small, black-leaved things. Which makes this game-planet the Land of Trees and Crystal, or LOTAC for short. Thinking of the tropics reminds Urdra of Verthandi. She gives a guilty start. Get to work, lass.

She expected to see Verthandi's cell on screen, but instead she has a view inside a kind of crypt with a vaulted ceiling. Fluted columns and niches, all painted in sombre violets and yellows. There's a throne with a robot sitting in it – Urdra gets a shock as she recognises the face of the Holy Oracle, as depicted on the cover of every copy of "Complacency of the Learned."

At first she can't see Verthandi. She's already started placing the machines in the crypt when she realises that the heap of cloth at the statue's feet is in fact a little nun curled up into a fetal position. She's shaking. With laughter? Urdra sets down the Cruxtruder off to one side. Verthandi looks up at the sound. Her small face is yellow with grief, and also rather wet. Ah. Not laughter then. Urdra has never been sure if she even likes her bossy team-mate, but seeing her in this state is heartbreaking.

URDRA: I wish you could hug her, Squiddletigersprite. This is beyond my skill-set.
SQUIDDLETIGERSPRITE: 8 8 8

Ignoring his own advice, Jovall goes for a quick saunter outside. He casually dispatches three more Imps on his way through the mansion. Something bigger makes a grab for him on the veranda. A Pearl Ogre? Juvall actually has to break a sweat dealing with it. He makes a mental note to upgrade his Mollusca Cane soon.

Beyond the veranda railing lies more dry land than Jovall has ever seen in his admittedly short life. It stretches to the horizon in wave after wave of curiously regular hills, all a uniform light tan. He sits on the steps and risks a tentative prod with his foot. It's sand. This whole game-planet is covered in sand. The air is warm and dry – he'll need protective clothing to stop himself dehydrating if he spends much time out here.

Dark shapes stand out against the sand dunes here and there. An upright beam with a shorter horizontal beam at the top, ending in a length of rope that shifts in the slight breeze. Each one is raised up on a small platform. It takes a moment to realise where he's seen such a thing before. An illustration of a primitive execution device in one of the textbooks he studied for his Law exams. A "gallows". Happily, these ones all seem to be empty of asphyxiated victims.

Land of Dunes and Gallows. How charming. Jovall takes a few steps across the sand, which shifts and whispers beneath his feet. He turns back to inspect the tower Vertie has built on top of his house. It looks like random chunks of chez Gaudy have been copied and pasted up there, which in a sense is exactly what she's done. One corner of the tower rests on the copper observatory dome, which by rights should have crumpled under the weight. Clearly realistic physics plays little part in this game. Far above the tower, the swirling mandala of the First Gate is embossed on the impossibly blue sky in lines of a paler hue.

Break time over, Jovall heads back inside. He doesn't look back, so he doesn't see the long-snouted figure that steps out from behind the gallows on a nearby dune.