Chapter One: The Night's Chaos
The Karkaton Inn is rather loud and noisy. I've never been one to stay in inns for too long, as most of them, including this one are much too rowdy for me to be in for too long. I'm not very sociable and prefer to sit in my room and not listen to over 10 Miis scream across a kitchen about how it's taking too long for dinner or something of the like that's unrelated to the mission at hand. I suppose it's not any Mii's fault, as they really don't know any better and want themselves to be heard, but yet, I'd just prefer to avoid the inns. The week and a half I spent staying in inns with Quick Man was so bad that I just had to leave after we got done with that Cerebus because I wasn't about to spend another night hearing some Mii in the room across from mine sing another out of tune song all night long.
After checking in and such, luckily we find all of the other friends in the Grub Hall. Chef Pancake is busily preparing a meal (which he'd better take off the stove soon, I can smell the stuff burning to ashes).
"Oh! What a surprise this is, Great Sage Koko is back!" Pancake cheers, being the first to see me, along with Zero, walk through the door. KittyMetal follows us in, scampering over to the Grub area and sitting with the Pop Star, Amy, as Junko just stands in the entryway.
"What?! He decided to return? Was it to celebrate our victory?!" Amy asks as she gets up.
"Why the heck else would be there, Amy?! I mean seriously, there's no way that the Dark Lord possibly escaped!" a Tank, Nitro declares. "So where's Quick Man? A nervous wreck because he knows he's going to be hammered with victory shouts?"
"Hey, Quick Man!" the Imp, Cookie, shouts into the restrooms across the hall. "We know you're in there! Come out and tell us about your battle! We wanna know! And why didn't you let us go?! We got no part of the fun!"
"Quick Man's not here." I decide to break the news, since KittyMeral, Junko and Zero don't seem to have the confidence to do so. "And he might never be with us again if we don't get to work..."
My statement causes the once excited Miis to go silent. Cookie sits back down at his seat, as Nitro simply stands there, his mouth open. Pancake even drops his entire pan of Sharp Stew that he was making for dinner on the floor, causing the soup to splatter all over. Said silence stands for a whole two seconds before the door opens revealing another cleric, Zoey.
"Hey, I found some Bomble Gum for anyone who wants some! Hurry and get it before someone steals it!"
But no one seems to even care about the Bomble Gum, which under normal circumstances, everyone would be on top of. I should know, as one time when Cookie found a bunch of it, everyone swarmed him hoping to get a piece.
"...Hello?" Zoey asks after a few moments.
"We obviously don't care about the Bomble Gum!" Nitro snaps. "Quick Man is gone!"
"Hey! I care about the Bomble Gum, nya!" KittyMetal protests. "But no one was getting up so I didn't think I should, nya..."
"The last thing I want is my mouth literally blowing up!" Cookie argues. "Forget that stuff!"
"But it's delicious, Cookie!" KittyMetal argues. "How can you not enjoy it? The explosion just adds to the experience!"
"Yeah, sure...and the burn marks? Are those part of the experience too?" Cookie argues.
"Quick Man's gone...What...? What happened?!" Zoey yelps as KittyMetal and Cookie proceed to debate about the Bomble Gum.
"If you guys will let me finish instead of debate about Bomble Gum," I start, which luckily silences the debate at once. "We found something important about the Dark Lord...or...maybe it's something I chose to ignore. I mean...I knew it for awhile... But anyway. The Dark Lord is, in fact a wisp known as the Dark Curse. It took over a Mii named Senka's body, and when Quick Man, Junko, Zero and KittyMetal defeated the Dark Lord, it was released. I tried to stop it, but it found its way to Quick Man and instead took over his body. Now we face an even bigger threat, known as the Darker Lord. And unless you want even more destruction than before, we need to figure out how we are going to find him.
By the time I finish speaking, I notice that KittyMetal and Zoey have fallen asleep. Zero is staring at me with wide eyes. Pancake has totally left the room. Junko is cleaning up the stew that Pancake dropped, and Amy is looking straight at me.
"I...I have no idea on what you just said!" the Pop Star declares. "But if Quick Man needs saving, let's hop to it! We'll go out tomorrow then!"
"Yeah - we have to save Quick Man after everything he's done for us, after all." Zero nods.
"I'm in on it too!" Junko nods as she looks up from cleaning the stew.
"And I'm sure everyone else is in too. We can't just ignore this." Nitro says, wandering back in from who knows where.
"Well that's all fine, but what are we going to do about our dinner?" Cookie asks, seeing the broken glass from the Sharp Stew. "Pancake decided to leave so we don't have anyone to cook for us now!"
"We can do the cooking without Pancake!" Amy says. "We don't need a professional chef, we can easily make a home cooked meal ourselves!"
Without skipping a beat, Amy pulls a chair out and stands on it, grabbing various ingredients from the spice cabinet. Junko, simply following along grabs some of the leftover (from how long ago I don't even know) Goblin ham from the mini fridge and proceeds to throw it on the counter. That's right - no paper towel, no plate, just throwing it on there...that's totally okay! Note to self: If this doesn't just end in the kitchen being burnt to the ground, I'm not going to bother eating.
Deciding that I don't want to watch as the kitchen gets blown up, nor do I feel like arguing with the Miis to get them to not attempt this folly, I fumble around with a book on the table. It's about the monsters found here. I probably know all there is to know about them, but looking through it will at least distract me from the fear that this kitchen will end up in flames at any moment.
FWOOSH!
"Oh oh!" KittyMetal, who must've awakened at some point, shouts across the room, pointing at the bag of flour, which now sits on the floor, flour all over the stove and counter, a puff of white floating up in the air. 'Someone had better clean that all up! DUN DUN DUUUUUNNN!"
"Amy, you idiot!' Nitro yells, standing across from Amy, both Miis standing right in the middle of the mess, not caring that every time they move they are making footprints all over the carpet. "I warned you that that flour was right on the edge! But did you move it? NOPE! You just let it fall and now it's all over! If Pancake sees this he's going to tell the inn keeper and we're gonna be kicked out from here just like we were kicked out of that one hotel in Realm of the Fey!"
"I told you to watch it, I was trying to cut the ham!" Amy shouts, her pink cheeks puffing. "It's your fault the mess happened. And stop bringing up what happened at Realm of the Fey! That wasn't my fault!"
"That Realm of the Fey mess wasn't by you? Well I know I didn't just throw all those Iceberg Salads on the floor!" Nitro Man yells. "I don't even eat that stuff!"
"You ate it every day, we all did because that was what the chests gave us!" Amy shouts. "I bet you just were mad that we had another day of em so you decided to fwoosh, throw em all over! As if that's going to change our fortune!"
I rest my head on my hand, rolling my eyes at the ridiculous argument. Yet, I know it's not my spot to open my mouth, as it isn't my argument. However, I still find it stupid that these two Miis are bickering about some past event instead of...you know, CLEANING UP THIS MESS?
"Woah woah, come on, let's break it up!" Cookie says, stepping in between them,
"Oh don't you go trying to play mediator, you were just bickering with KittyMetal about some Bomble Gum! So go away!" Nitro booms.
"But that stuff is disgusting - and everyone argues with KittyMetal, so who cares?" Cookie retorts. "That's all beside the point! You two need to stop arguing and pick this mess up!"
"Hey! I'm right here, nya!" KittyMetal shouts from his seat. "Totally not nice!"
"And I'm not picking this mess up!" Nitro yells. "If anyone's picking it up, it's Amy!"
"You'll help me clean it, or no!" Amy yells.
"Not helping!"
"Then I'm not cleaning!"
At that moment, I begin to see smoke coming from the microwave... I look up, seeing that somebody set something in there to cook for 400 minutes...
"AMY! I KNOW THAT WAS YOU!" Nitro is furious now, pointing to the microwave, "Get up there and get that ham!"
"I can't even reach that high!" Amy argues. "You get that ham!"
Smoke continues to fill the room as the two bicker on. I notice that Zero, Junko and Zoey have long since left. KittyMetal is now staring like an amazed child at the smoke, and Cookie is just shaking his head. Pancake hasn't even come back, so I guess he's just given up on cooking a proper meal...
"Get that ham!
"No, you get the ham!"
"I said get the ham!"
"You get the ham!"
BEEP BEEP BEEP!
FWOOOSH!
At the sound of the smoke detectors, I see the spray of a fire extinguisher come from the doorway. Bits of the smoke clear to reveal the innkeeper, a Warrior himself, holding the fire extinguisher. I guess someone got the ham, as it now sits in a pile of ash on the floor, Amy and Nitro staring with wide eyes.
"What on earth is going on in my kitchen?!" the inn keeper booms. "If you aren't a Chef, then you have no business using my kitchen other than to eat in it! Why do I see spices and Goblin Ham all over the place but no Chef in here preparing the food!?"
"He walked out!" Nitro yells.
"Then I guess your dinner was just walked out on! No cooking unless you are a Chef, end of story!" booms the inn keeper. "Now all of you, clean my kitchen, and make it spotless! If any evidence of this mess is left behind, I'll get you up at 3AM and kick you out, as well as double your tab! If anything's damaged, that money gets added to your tab! This is absolutely ridiculous!"
"But..."
"THERE ARE NO BUTS EXCEPT FOR THE ONE ATTATCHED TO YOUR REAR!" interrupts the inn keeper, not caring what KittyMetal had to say. "By the way, my toilet is clogged by one of you Miis, so that's 100G added to the tab! Good day!"
The door slams, leaving all of us with the mess. I know that inn keeper well, and even I can't stand him. His name is Ryan. Ryan means well, he started the inn in order to help keep Miis safe from the monsters that lurk in Karkaton, as the Dark Lord keeps the area around his castle well patrolled. However, he has a terrible temper, and doesn't tolerate it when customers break his things. And no, it's not just because it's disruptive to the inn environment either - it's also disruptive to his pocketbook. As such, he's quick to add more to your tab, even for the smallest things. But this time, I think he has every right to have yelled. This was uncalled for, even by my standard.
Just then, Pancake rounds the corner. "Alright, I'm back to finish making your dinner!"
"Don't bother." I tell him. "Just get down here and help clean this mess. We're skipping dinner tonight..."
It takes hours, but we all pitch in (even though we didn't do it) to help clean the mess to Inn Keeper Ryan's standards. Since I know him, I'm sure to touch up on everything that the others might miss so that he doesn't actually kick us out. There's no more arguing from Amy and Nitro thankfully, but the two are now avoiding each other if they can. Hopefully their quarrel will silently evaporate overnight.
Once we are done, we split up and head to our beds for the night without any word spoken. I think everyone knows that things went overboard and that it's best that we all just go to bed and forget this.
I for one am exhausted. Even though I haven't done anything outside of the normal, I still feel like I've fought a million monsters. The uncalled for arguing is certainly to blame, but there's something else too. That's Quick Man. I remained quite silent through the arguing that I would have normally stopped much before it reached the level it did, because I was still thinking about what had happened...
In all honesty, I expected and planned to be the one taken by the Dark Curse. Quick Man was the one StarArc chose to save Miitopia from the Dark Lord. I was supposed to simply help him out. And I did my best to do that, saving his life, and giving him advice whenever we met. I even helped him find his friends until I felt he could handle the rest of the journey. I never once expected to be the one actually having to finish what he started. If anything, I expected to either be killed by the Dark Curse itself or be killed by Quick Man. But now...it seems that it might be the other way around.
I do not know the capability of Quick Man's magic. It is similar to mine, but still very different. I have no idea what the Dark Curse will use it to do, nor do I know if we're even capable of defeating it. Certainly, if arguments like those with Amy and Nitro keep happening, we won't even defeat a Moth Butterfly, let alone overcome the Darker Lord...
I arrive at my upstairs room and close the door (luckily, I won't have a roommate, which is good). Sleeping isn't easy with the thoughts in my head, but I know that I have to. I'd hate for us to fail if I can prevent it...
The last thing I hear before falling asleep is Nitro Man shouting that he's 'got to wizz' at the bathroom door across from my room. I guess the quarrel from before has yet to evaporate...