The throne room of Oros didn't have walls. It was a vast, open plateau of polished white stone that seemed to float above a sea of swirling mercury clouds. The wind here didn't howl; it hummed with the sound of a billion nano-machines working in unison.
At the center of it all sat the Silver King.
He didn't move like a living thing. His body was a constant, fluid motion of liquid mercury. One moment, his hand was a five-fingered limb; the next, it smoothed over into a sharp, reflective blade. He had no face, only a mirror-surface that forced me to look at my own terrified reflection as I stood before him.
"You speak of 'Games' and 'Timers'," the King's voice resonated not from a throat, but from the very floor beneath my boots. "You are children playing with matches in a house made of dry silk."
I stood my ground, though my knees felt like they were made of jelly. Behind me, Vax was practically vibrating with terror, his four eyes darting between the hundred silver sentinels that surrounded us. Bjorn was the only one who didn't seem bothered; he was currently sniffing a nearby silver pillar to see if it was edible. (It wasn't).
"We're not children," I said, my voice cracking slightly. "We're the owners of that ship. And we need to get back to Aethryx."
The King's form rippled. A low, metallic sound—a laugh—vibrated through the plaza. "Owners? You are scavengers who found a diamond in the trash. That ship is an Archon-Class Star-Drifter. Its core is powered by the life-force of a dying sun. If I let you leave with it, the Archons will trace its signature to my world and bring fire to my skies."
The Silver King stood up. His liquid body elongated until he stood twelve feet tall, looming over us like a tidal wave of mercury.
"However," he continued, his tone turning cold and clinical. "My world is already on fire.
A different kind of fire."
He waved a hand, and the floor between us transformed. A holographic map of the planet appeared, but it was covered in ugly, black splotches that looked like rot on a piece of fruit.
"The Static Parasite," Vax whispered, his eyes widening. "It's a digital cancer."
"Correct, Xandarian," the King said. "It has infected the Temple of the Unspoken, the heart of my planet's cooling system. My droids are made of pure data; the moment they step into the temple, the parasite rewrites their souls. They turn on me. They become 'Glitches'."
The King leaned down, his mirror-face inches from mine. I could see the grease on my forehead reflected in his perfect silver skin.
"But you... you are flesh. You are 'Null.' Your biology is a chaotic mess of protein and blood. The parasite cannot hack a heart that beats with emotion. It cannot rewrite a mind that dreams."
"You want us to go in," I realized. "You want us to do what your army can't."
"I am giving you a choice, Fuen of the Pit," the King said. "Retrieve the Oros Core from the center of the temple. Bring it back to me so I may purge the infection.
"And what do we get?" Kuro asked, stepping forward and flicking his tail. "We don't work for free, shiny-man. We have a ship to maintain."
"If you succeed," the King said, his body settling back into a humanoid shape, "I will not only let you keep the ship, but I will grant you the Silver-Class Integration. I will coat your hull in liquid-stealth metal. I will upgrade your weapons with Oros-Tech. You will leave this world not as thieves, but as a force the Archons will fear."
The King's light-apertures dimmed. "If you fail... or if you attempt to fly away... I will collapse the gravity-anchor. Your ship will be crushed into a ball the size of a walnut before you even reach the atmosphere."
We were led away to a staging area at the edge of the desert. The silence among the team was heavy. The "fun" of the ship was gone. The reality of the universe had caught up to us.
Vax was frantically checking his scanner, his fingers shaking. "Fuen, this is suicide. The 'Static Parasite' isn't just a virus. It's a sentient corruption. If it can't hack our bodies, it will try to hack our senses. We won't know what's real and what's a glitch."
"We don't have a choice, Vax," I said, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Look at the timer."
[ TIME REMAINING: 20 DAYS, 4 HOURS ]
"We need that Silver-Class upgrade," I continued. "If we go back to Aethryx as we are, we're just 'Gritties' in a fancy car. With Oros-Tech... we can actually win."
Bjorn walked over, his massive weight making the silver tiles groan. He had spent the last hour packing his "Emotional Support Ham" into his armor, looking incredibly focused.
"Small Bear," Bjorn said, looking at me. "The Shiny King is scared. I smell it on him. He smells like cold metal and old fear. If a King is scared, the monster must be big."
"It is big, Bjorn," I said, checking my kinetic-baton. "But we have a glow-bear and a tactical cat. I like our odds."
We stepped onto the silver sand just as the twin suns of Oros began to dip below the horizon. The heat was shimmering, distorting the air into a hazy, violet mist.
As we walked away from the city, the silence hit us. There was no wind. No sound of machines. Just the rhythmic crunch-crunch-crunch of our boots on the silver glass.
"Wait," Vax whispered, stopping dead. "Do you hear that?"
"I don't hear anything," I said.
"Exactly," Vax said, his four eyes spinning.
"My scanner is showing a sound-wave... but it's silent. It's a Null-Frequency."
Out of the silver dunes, a figure appeared. It wasn't a monster. It was a girl, her white dress fluttering in a wind that didn't exist.
She was stumbling, her hand reaching out toward us.
"Help..." she whispered. The word didn't travel through the air; it appeared as a line of text in my HUD.
As she got closer, I saw her legs. They weren't made of skin and bone anymore.
They were a mess of flickering, green pixels.
"Luna!" Kuro hissed, recognizing her.
But before we could reach her, the sand beneath her feet exploded. A massive, black hand—made of pure television static—reached out of the ground and dragged her down.
"THE FLOOR!" Vax screamed.
The silver sand turned into a liquid whirlpool of code. We didn't fall into a cave; we fell into a glitch.