Hi everyone! I'm back to writing this story after a hiatus. I wasn't originally planning to continue this story, but it just kept bothering me that I'd left it undone. So here I am, writing it again. I'm sorry about the long pause, but I'm back for good now. I can't promise the chapters will come quickly. This is set to be a very long story, with long chapters that will take a long time. But I will do all I can to make each chapter interesting, and I'll write them as quickly as I can manage. Please leave a review and let me know what you think.
So here's the next chapter in the continued Banjo-Kazooie: The Novel!
Before Banjo knew it, he was walking out of the entrance way to Mumbo's Mountain World, and out into the witch's lair again.
As soon as he stepped out into the cavernous stone cave with the tips of his Ticker legs clicking sharply against the stone floor, he heard Bottles speak, "Grunty's magic stops you taking the Notes off the World, but the 100 you just collected counts as your best Note Score. Try to get 100 on each World, as they are needed to open the Note Doors!"
Banjo again noted the use of the word 'Note Doors'. He'd heard that term several times now. But he was more interested in the first part of what Bottles had said. "We don't have the Notes anymore?" he asked, surprised and dismayed. He glanced back at Kazooie's backpack, trying to determine whether it felt lighter than it had a moment ago. If one hundred Musical Notes had just vanished from the pack, then surely it would, but he couldn't feel any difference in its weight.
Kazooie, with her head still inside the backpack, called, "Nope, no sign of them! They must have disappeared when we came back into the hag's lair!"
Banjo frowned, hoping that all their work in collecting the Musical Notes hadn't gone to waste. "Bottles, what do you mean about our best Note Score?" he asked. "What's that?"
"Your Note Score is the total amount of Notes you've collected in all the different Worlds you'll be visiting. Though you can't take the Notes you find in the Worlds back into the lair with you, your Note Score will have an effect on your journey."
"What sort of effect?" Banjo asked, curious.
"You'll see soon enough," Bottles' voice said. "I'll tell you when you get to the first Note Door."
Banjo nodded with a slight sigh, though he supposed he should be getting used to Bottles being mysterious. "Alright, Bottles."
"See you then!" Bottles exclaimed, and then said no more.
"That mole is driving me crazy, Banjo!" Kazooie exclaimed as she stuck her head out of the backpack. Like Banjo, she was still a Ticker, and at the moment, a thoroughly annoyed one. Her green eyes were narrowed with frustration. "He could just tell us what he's talking about now, but he doesn't! Ever!"
"He must have his reasons, Kazooie," Banjo said.
"Yeah, like being annoying!" Kazooie sighed shortly. "Sheesh... Well, lets grab that Jiggy up there so we can get back to normal." She jerked her head upward, toward the Jiggy that lay on the mountain's tip above the entrance to Mumbo's Mountain. "I don't like being a bug."
"But what if we need the magic in the next World? We don't even know what its going to be like there," Banjo pointed out.
"Bonehead said that he set up shop in a bunch of the Worlds, remember?" Kazooie said.
"Oh, right!" Banjo said. He'd almost forgotten that. He paused for a moment, thinking. He was sure that the following Worlds were going to be tough. He was willing to bet they'd be harder than Mumbo's Mountain was; surely Grunty would see to that. But if Mumbo said he'd help them with transformations in some of the later Worlds as well, then that made Banjo feel a lot better about the whole thing. "We'll have to trust Mumbo, then. I'm sure he won't let us down."
Kazooie rolled her eyes and repressed a long-suffering sigh. Did Banjo really have to put so much trust in someone they'd met not even an hour ago? Banjo sometimes took blind trust to a whole new level, which just wasn't Kazooie's style. She had to admit that Skirt Boy's spell had been useful, but he was really weird... "Right."
Banjo moved a few steps forward, away from Mumbo's Mountain's entrance; but he'd only moved a short distance when he froze in surprise as he saw something move. He'd thought that he and Kazooie were alone in this circular room, the one just outside Mumbo's Mountain and so near to the entrance of the lair itself. Well, alone aside from Bottles' disembodied voice- but he'd been wrong. A Ticker, giant and pale pink with massive, angry-looking yellow eyes, just like the ones in the World they had just left, was clicking its way around the room, wandering around at random. Last time they'd been in this area, there had been no one there.
Banjo watched the Ticker with vague alarm, unsure how it had gotten there and all-too-willing to keep his distance from the massive termite thing. "Kazooie, there's a Ticker out here," he said uneasily.
"Huh?" Kazooie, who had withdrawn into the backpack, looked out of it again. "Oh, great. As if there weren't enough of those things around already." The Ticker walked by them- much too close by them for Banjo's comfort- and Kazooie, her tone annoyed, squawked, "Beat it, Bug Boy!"
The Ticker ignored them and wandered on past.
Banjo was just about to ask Kazooie what she thought the Ticker was doing out here, when, once again, he heard a voice issuing from thin air- but not Bottles' this time; "When you open a World door, baddies escape and roam once more!"
Banjo froze once again, looking around at the unmistakable voice of Gruntilda, horribly recognizable even if she hadn't been spouting her signature rhymes.
"Did she just call them 'baddies'?" Kazooie questioned, her words breaking off into a snigger. "Well, that'll scare everyone out of their minds, won't it?"
"Err..." Banjo said, still looking fruitlessly around for Grunty even though he knew she wasn't really in the room with them, that she must just be projecting her voice somehow. Looking around for the source of a disembodied voice was getting to be second-nature to him. "Well, I guess that explains why the Ticker is here. It must have come out of Mumbo's Mountain while we were in there."
Kazooie shrugged, still seeming amused by Grunty's phrasing. "Guess so," she said dismissively. "Now come on, let's get that Jiggy! I want to get this done already so we can get at whack at the Rhyming Wonder."
Banjo nodded, shooting one last nervous look at the Ticker. "Right... Okay, Kazooie," he agreed.
Banjo turned around to face Mumbo's Mountain's entrance and started his way up the sheer gray stone surface of the mountain toward the Jiggy he knew to be perched at the top.
Sure enough, when Banjo reached the top of the gray mountain, the tip of which was flat and covered in a patch of grass, there it was; the glittering golden jigsaw piece that had appeared when they'd hit the Grunty Switch back in Mumbo's Mountain World.
With a grin, Banjo picked it up, holding it in his mouth like he had with the last Jiggy he'd found as a Ticker- having no hands with which to hold it in this form- and passed it back to Kazooie to deposit in her backpack. That brought their total Jiggy count up to eleven, not counting the first one they'd found, the one they'd placed in the Mumbo's Mountain picture to open the World.
"Alright, lets go ask Mumbo to change us back to normal now," Banjo said, clicking his way back down the gray mountain and, once on the ground, turned back to the entrance way to Mumbo's Mountain.
He walked through the doorway. Like the first time, at first there was only darkness surrounding them, darkness so black it was impossible to see anything; then the sudden flare of light from before sparkled around them once again, dazzlingly bright, and Banjo closed his eyes, tensing automatically, as the world around him vanished from sight.
When he opened his eyes again, he and Kazooie were on the Exit Pad in Mumbo's Mountain, the World looking just as it had when they'd left it. Casting a quick looking around, Banjo headed straight forward across the field, toward the first section of mountain, the green grass covered section that led up toward the part of the World where Mumbo's hut was located. Once at the mountain's base, he started scaling it, easily climbing up the slippery slope while in Ticker form. He'd never have been able to climb the steep surface as a bear.
Once at the top, Mumbo's skull-shaped hut lay just ahead of them, and Banjo wasted no time in walking across, up the wooden ramp that led to the platform Mumbo's hut rested on, and entering it.
Banjo heard snoring as he walked into the hut, and blinked in surprise as he saw Mumbo was once again sprawled in his chair with his eyes closed. He head was tilted at an awkward looking angle, and his jaw opened and shut with every loud snore that petered off into a whistle before building back in volume. His staff still hung from his hand, clutched limply in his grip even in sleep.
"Sheesh, how much can this guy sleep?" Kazooie wondered. As Banjo stepped more fully into the room, she raised her voice and called, "Hey, Lazy Bones, wake up already!"
At Kazooie's strident squawk, Mumbo jerked awake with a groan, shaking his head. Banjo sent a disapproving look back at Kazooie, planning to say something about her rude awaking of their new friend, but Mumbo spoke before he could. "Ah, bear and bird back again," the skull-headed Shaman said, stifling a yawn. He pushed himself into a more upright position in his chair as he woke up fully. "What bear want from Mumbo?"
"Can you change us back again, Mumbo?" Banjo asked.
"Step on skull, Mumbo change back, quick as Banjo can blink," Mumbo said confidently.
"Thanks, Mumbo!" Banjo exclaimed, hurrying onto the skull-shaped switch. Mumbo stood up on his chair and raised his staff, and with the now familiar chant of "Booga da, booga da, booga boogada!" and the usual light-show, Banjo and Kazooie were back to their normal honey bear and red-crested breegull forms.
"Oh, it's about time!" Kazooie exclaimed, popping her head out of the backpack, once again covered in smooth scarlet and golden feathers and clacking her beak as though adjusting back to her usual body.
Banjo let out a sigh of relief to be back on two legs and stretched his arms above his head, shrugged the backpack on his back into a more comfortable position, and then gave himself a brief shake. "Thanks again, Mumbo," he said brightly to the Shaman.
"Is no trouble," Mumbo said, and gave his staff a rattle. "Mighty Mumbo magic is what Mumbo does, glad to help bear he is."
Banjo smiled gratefully. "We'll see you again in Worlds later on, right?" he asked.
"Mumbo not put hut in all Worlds, but Banjo will meet Mumbo in many of them. Mumbo help more then."
Banjo nodded. "Okay, Mumbo. We'll see you soon, then!"
With a wave goodbye, Banjo turned and headed back out of Mumbo's hut, and from there he slid back down the mountainside's slope, riding it like he would a slide, and then, once again at the foot of the mountain, ran across the field and up to the Exit Pad. He stepped up onto the pad and stood on the picture of Kazooie and himself emblazoned on the metal pad. Then Mumbo's Mountain disappeared around them.
Materializing once more back in Gruntilda's Lair, Banjo stepped out of the entrance to Mumbo's Mountain and into the cave. The Ticker he'd spotted earlier was still walking around nearby, but Banjo tried to ignore it. As gigantic and creepy as it was, it was, after all, ignoring them.
"Ready to go deeper into the lair, Kazooie?" Banjo asked his friend.
"More than ready!" Kazooie announced. "There'd better be a challenge somewhere around here. So far it's been way too easy!"
Banjo sighed. "I like easy... and it's safe."
"Easy is boring, Banjo, and don't get me started on safety. Where's the fun in that?"
Banjo shrugged. He would never agree with Kazooie's love for adventure and danger, but that didn't mean he couldn't handle it when necessary. As long as his little sister needed his help, Banjo would go anywhere, no matter the danger. "Alright, let's go."
He and Kazooie headed back through the tunnel that led to the lair's entrance room. Once there, Banjo walked past the giant incredibly hideous portrait of Grunty that hung on the wall opposite the lair's entrance, and headed toward that slope he had noticed earlier, before the two of them had first entered Mumbo's Mountain. The slope was the steep one that was just across and to the left from the lair's entrance way, and Banjo guessed that, with the help of Kazooie's Talon Trot, they would now be able to climb it.
Sure enough, though it was far too sharply slanted for Banjo to climb using his own two paws, Kazooie's talons allowed them to make their way easily up the hill. The slope led upward in a small trench of sorts, and the ceiling rose away above them as they climbed. It wasn't a terribly long slope, and soon Banjo and Kazooie reached its end and were standing on flat ground again.
Kazooie glanced around, still using the Talon Trot, and then retreated into her backpack so Banjo could stand. She poked her head back out of the pack as Banjo turned and looked around their new location.
The slope they'd just climbed had led them to a very small circular room- far too small to really be called a room, actually... perhaps antechamber. There were a couple of wooden torches set high on the rough-hew stone walls to either side, their kindling tips lit with flames that crackled and leapt and brightened the room where it would otherwise be pitch-black. The only things of interest was a door directly across from Banjo, an animated beehive like the one they'd seen in Mumbo's Mountain along the left wall, and placed just to the right of the door was one of Bottles' molehills.
Banjo focused on the door first, intrigued by its appearance. The door itself was fairly plain; made of wooden vertically placed boards and shaped so that its top was rounded. Many doors were made the same way. It was what was written on the door that got Banjo's attention. In bright golden writing that seemed to shimmer and move on the door's surface were the numbers 5 and 0, forming the number fifty in large, bold lettering; lettering that, even with Banjo's limited understanding of the concept, was clearly magical in nature. The biggest tip off to that was that the number written on the door shifted continuously into the shape of a Musical Note, inscribed on the door and much bigger than the ones Banjo had collected, and then back into the number fifty.
"What's up with that door?" Kazooie wondered, voicing Banjo's thoughts.
In obvious answer, Bottles chose that moment to burrow up out of his molehill, pulling himself up to stand on top of it. He straightened his glasses and dusted dirt off of his red and orange jacket while Banjo walked over to stand in front of him.
"This is a Note Door, sealed by Grunty with one of her powerful musical spells," Bottles told them.
Banjo glanced at the door again in surprise. So that was a Note Door! He'd certainly heard about it enough by now that he'd been wondering what it was. It was blocking their way into the deeper parts of the lair, so they needed to get past it.
Banjo looked back at Bottles as Kazooie spoke. "Open it up then, Jam Jars!" she prompted, jerking her head toward the door as she did.
Bottles frowned. "It's not that simple," he said somewhat sharply. "To open it, you must collect the Musical Notes from the Worlds."
"How many do we need?" Banjo asked.
"The number on the door is the strength of the spell," Bottles explained, pointing at the Note Door. "The combined total of all your best Note Scores from the Worlds must be at least this to break Grunty's magic."
"Alright," Banjo said. "I guess that makes sense..." He shrugged, a little confused. Maybe the Notes somehow interacted with the magic of the Note Doors as makeshift keys? That must mean that the Notes themselves were somehow magical in nature, he supposed... Banjo decided he wouldn't dwell on the mechanics of it. "Well, it says fifty, and we collected one hundred Notes in Mumbo's Mountain."
Bottles nodded in confirmation. "That's right. So just walk up to the door, and it should open. You'll likely encounter more Note Doors later on in your adventure, so be sure to keep collecting as many Musical Notes as you can find in each World. I'm sure you'll need them, and the Jiggies as well. I'll see you both later! Good luck!" He dove back into his molehill, kicking dirt up into the air.
Banjo shook away some dirt that had been flung onto his head, ruffled his ears with a paw to get the last of it off, and then stepped toward the Note Door. As soon as he was standing just before it, the door literally disappeared in front of him with a sparkle of light and sound. The door turned into... well, dissipated into, small balls of golden light that zoomed straight up into the air and melted into the ceiling, and it left an empty tunnel entrance where the door had stood seconds before.
Delighted both by the way it had vanished and by the fact that their way into the depths of the lair was now cleared, Banjo couldn't help but launch himself into the dance that he had, up to that point, reserved for when he collected a Jiggy- complete with a double bow at the end, the part of the dance he'd added on when he'd collected the last Jiggy in Mumbo's Mountain. As he preformed the simple dance with a wide grin, Banjo noticed out of the corner of his eyes that Kazooie had gotten into the act as well, waving her wings with a grin as big as Banjo's.
When his dance and the subsequent double bows were done, Banjo straightened up, still grinning widely.
"Let me guess, you're gonna be doing that dance now whenever we open a Note Door, too, aren't ya?" Kazooie asked, her head tilted as she studied him.
Banjo nodded energetically. "Yup!"
Kazooie gave her eyes a half-hearted roll, though she was still smiling, and her next words were said lightly. "You are one weird bear sometimes, Banjo."
Banjo's only response to that was a shrug and a cocky nod- he couldn't really argue with the truth.
Still energized, he turned and went through the tunnel that had been formerly blocked by the Note Door. The tunnel was dark, and for a second he was blind as he walked along, going deeper into it. But before he could start to worry, he'd stepped out into light again and into a new room in the lair.
This room was so massive, so much bigger even than the Lair's entrance room, that for a moment Banjo could only stare around in amazement.
The room was cavern-like and circular, with a wide open space far ahead and to either side of the door Banjo and Kazooie had just come through. The stone walls were carved into ridges that formed designs, and were mostly brownish red, with some gold undertones. The expansive floor was a dull, standard gray.
The first thing that caught Banjo's eye, aside from the size of the room, was what was set in its center. There was a raised area of ground, like a dais, tiered above the rest of the floor. And unlike the floor around it, it wasn't made of gray stone. Banjo could see from here that it was a massive circular portrait, set into the ground and made of stones that had been fused together and colored into the image of a person; a portrait of- who else?- Gruntilda, her insane yellow eyes wide, her mouth open in a gruesome grin. A light fixture was set in the ceiling directly above the stonework picture, giving off a beam of greenish light that fell down onto the picture of Grunty and highlighted it like a spotlight.
Banjo was beginning to get the vague impression that Grunty had a somewhat swelled ego.
Leading up from the top of the Gruntilda picture, raising from the floor at the center of the room, was a thin green... bridge, Banjo supposed. It led upward from the picture to a doorway set high in the wall. The green bridge created a path to the otherwise inaccessible doorway.
As he continued to look around the room, Banjo felt a jolt of surprise- and alarm- when he saw there was something else in the room; something living that was walking around near the other side of the room, a good distance from where they stood. It looked to Banjo like an ape of some kind, though a very strange, very menacing one. It had no fur that Banjo could see; instead, it was wearing a rich reddish-brown cloak that covered most of its body. Only its paws, hands, chest, and face were uncovered, revealing the creature's bare sickly greenish-yellow skin to be seen on the rest of its body. The cloak also had a hood that covered the back and top of its head.
And as for its face... what a face it was! Banjo swallowed nervously as he took in its massive jutting bottom jaw, bulging out quite far from the rest of its face. Sticking out of that jaw were three teeth; crooked set, and square in shape. Above its blunt muzzle, it had large eyes, and like most of the creatures Banjo had seen so far today, its eyes didn't do much to make it look friendly, narrowed and mean-looking as they were.
Banjo was relieved when the creature turned its back to him and Kazooie and lumbered farther away without spotting the new arrivals, though he wasn't all that comforted when he saw the symbol on the back of the creature's cloak. A large orange-red skull was sown into the cloak's design.
Banjo thought it was probably safe to assume that this particular creature would consider Banjo and Kazooie to be his enemies. He quickly tore his gaze from it to inspect the rest of the room.
Off to the right side of the curved room, Banjo could see an alcove set in the wall, and in that alcove he could see what looked to be another painting with missing pieces similar to the Mumbo's Mountain painting they had filled in earlier. The ground in front of the painting seemed to be covered in yellow sand that rested on top of the stone floor. That was a little strange, but from what Banjo could see, the painting on the wall above the sand-covered floor depicted a beach-like scene. He shrugged, guessing it went with the theme.
In front of that painting was a Jiggy podium for him to stand on to place the Jiggies into the picture, which, like with the last painting, would then open the entrance to whatever World that picture depicted.
Almost directly across from where they'd entered, way on the other side of the room, was what looked to Banjo to be a ledge. It was up high in the wall, and on that ledge he could just see what looked like yet another alcove with another painting with missing pieces depicting a different World. From here, though, he couldn't see any details of what that World might look like. He knew he'd have to get up there at some point, though he wasn't sure how he'd be able to reach it. It didn't look like there was a path leading up to the picture. He supposed he'd have to figure out a way when he got there.
Finally, the last thing Banjo could see in the room was another doorway set off to their left. It was more an open hole in the wall, and from what he could see, it led to a lit tunnel that sloped downward and out of sight.
It only took him a moment to take all of this in as he glanced around the room, and he started as he heard Gruntilda's voice echoing around them; "That door was easy you got past," she said, obviously talking about the Note Door Banjo and his partner had just cleared, "unfortunately your first and last!"
Grunty laughed one again, harsh and sharp and as nerve-wrecking as ever, the sound causing Banjo to tense in a jolt of fear. As the sound faded, he let out a slow breath. There was just something very unnerving about Gruntilda's laugh... And honestly, was she watching every move they made? That was beyond creepy.
Shaking off his unease as best he could, Banjo gave the room another glance around, deciding where to head first. His choice made, Banjo headed off to the right in the direction of that painting that depicted the beach-like scene, figuring that was as good a place to check out first as any.
As he began to walk he was startled when something suddenly appeared out of thin air, materializing right next to him, between him and the wall on his right. No, it wasn't something; it was somebody!
Letting out a yelp, Banjo stumbled a step before he regained his balance. Then he whipped around, and backed away a few steps, his heart thumping.
Someone stood just in front of the wall, not far from Banjo- but was she a witch... or a fairy godmother?
The person who had just appeared in front of Banjo was quite a bit taller than he was. His head came up perhaps to the top of her stomach, and he could see that she was somewhat stout. Over her slightly pudgy frame she wore a lacy pink dress with short white sleeves, pink shoes that called to mind a ballerina, and yes, unless Banjo was hallucinating (which he wasn't ruling out at this point), the shoes and the person who wore them were floating several inches off of the ground.
In her right hand, this lady gripped what Banjo could only conclude was a magical wand. It was a thin rod that had a star at its tip. The star had sparkles of golden light flowing from it as the woman waved it gently and absentmindedly through the air. Both the wand's stem and tip were golden as well. Behind the lady's back fluttered clear wings, so light a blue that they were transparent and shaped like the wings of a housefly, though much bigger than those of one. That explained how she was floating, Banjo supposed.
The lady had golden hair neatly done up in a librarian's bun, on which she wore a golden tiara. And- furthering the librarian image- she wore very thin wire-rimmed glasses over her bright blue eyes, eyes that were fixed on Banjo. Her face was chubby but looked kind, and though it looked as though she was somewhat along in age, her intelligent eyes danced with energy. Everything about her absolutely screamed 'Magical Fairy Godmother'... except for the small fact that her skin was a pale green.
"K-Kazooie!" Banjo exclaimed in shock, as he registered all this. "Look!"
The breegull poked her head of the backpack. She let out a surprised squawk as she saw the stranger and took in her odd appearance. "Who the bird-seed are you?" she asked, bewildered.
It wasn't Grunty, despite her green skin. Banjo had seen enough pictures of the hag to be sure of that. Grunty's face was a very sharp one, with large, mad-looking yellow eyes; while this lady's face was soft and rounded, and her blue eyes really did seem kind. Still, the fact that her skin was green worried him- the only other person he knew with green skin was Gruntilda. But despite this person's resemblance to Gruntilda, something about her... calmed Banjo, put him at ease, as he stood there.
"Err, hello," Banjo said uncertainly, encouraged by the lady's kindly looking smile.
"Hello there, young ones!" the lady said. Her voice was soft and chime-like. "I'm Brentilda, Gruntilda's nicer sister."
"Her sister?" Banjo yelped, taking a step back. Were he and Kazooie in danger from this lady? She hardly looked threatening- really, she looked anything but. But if she was Gruntilda's sister...
Brentilda nodded, but said reassuringly, "I've crept down here to help you defeat the old hag, it's about time she was taught a lesson! I know all of Gruntilda's disgusting secrets, and I'll tell you three of them every time you find me. Remember them well, young ones, as they will help you avoid a fiery fate! Just say the word if you'd like to hear them!"
"You- you want to help us?" Banjo asked, startled.
"Yes, I do. My sister has always been a horrible old hag, and now that she has that little bear held captive- Tooty isn't it?- she has to be stopped."
"You've seen my sister?" Banjo exclaimed, now taking a step toward Brentilda with a sudden rush of fear and excitement. "How is she, what's going on? Why did Grunty take her?"
"Don't worry, your little sister is fine, so far," Brentilda assured him, raising a hand toward him comfortingly. "Nothing has been done to her yet."
Banjo closed his eyes, letting out his breath in a massive gust of air, and his shoulders slumped with relief. His sister was alright! As least so far, she was okay! Over his shoulder, he heard Kazooie let out a quiet sigh of her own.
"Why did Grunty kidnap her?" he asked again after a brief pause, keeping his eyes closed.
"Well..." Brentilda hesitated, and Banjo opened his eyes to read her expression. It was sad, and... ashamed? "My sister is a rotten witch, and she's always been far too obsessed with her appearance. That obsession is what brought all this on." Brentilda waved her wand indicating the world around them. She then took a deep breath and began to explain.
Banjo and Kazooie listened, Banjo with a growing sense of horror and Kazooie with disgust, as Brentilda told them what Gruntilda's plan was. She intended to drain little Tooty of her looks and take them for her own so that she would be beautiful and Tooty, sweet, innocent, little Tooty would become as hideous as Gruntilda was now.
"That always was my sister's way," Brentilda tutted with a small shake of her head, when she was through. "Shallow, selfish, and little else..."
"What, she can't just go see a plastic-surgeon or something?" Kazooie exclaimed.
"You'd think she'd try that first, but no- Grunty has never been one to go for the most obvious, simple, non-horrible method..." Brentilda sighed. "And it's not simply that she wants to be beautiful- if that was all she wanted, she might have chosen a different way- but it's more than that. She wants Tooty to be ugly. My sister hates anything prettier than her."
"So she hates everything in existence?" Kazooie asked innocently.
"She would, if she wasn't completely convinced that she is more beautiful than most everything in the world- or was, before she found out about Tooty," Brentilda answered in a wry tone. "She does, however, dislike nearly everything in existence, just on principle."
As horrified as Banjo was, a part of him was incredibly relieved. As awful as Gruntilda's plan was, at least Tooty's life wasn't in danger from it- as least Grunty wasn't planning to... Banjo cut off the thought before it could form, not wanting to even imagine it, especially since he now knew it wasn't a danger, that it wasn't going to happen.
"But she's safe for now, isn't she?" Banjo asked, his voice a little shaky. "We still have time to save her?"
"Yes, you do. I used my magic to make the transformation machine malfunction- it will take some time for it to be fixed, time you can use to save your sister."
"Thank you, Brentilda!" Banjo exclaimed, just barely stopping himself from leaping at Brentilda and grabbing her in a hug. "You saved her!"
"I only did what anyone would have, if they could," Brentilda said. "That sweet little bear doesn't deserve what my sister has planned. And, as I said, it's time my sister was taught a lesson."
"Is Tooty really scared?" Banjo asked quietly after a brief pause.
Brentilda nodded sadly. "She is. But she seems very sure you'll come to rescue her, and I'm sure that's a comfort."
"How do we know any of this is true?" Kazooie asked suspiciously. "I mean, come on, if you're that hag's sister..."
"It is true, I promise you. Grunty is a horrible sister, and a horrible person. I would never help her with anything!"
"I think she's telling the truth, Kazooie," Banjo said to his friend. "We can trust her."
"Hmm," Kazooie hummed with her green eyes narrowed, clearly not completely convinced, though Banjo got the impression that Brentilda's kindness and offer to help them was getting through to the breegull. "Alright, fine. So what kind of disgusting secrets are we talking about here?" she asked with sudden interest. "Give us the dirt!"
"Alright, and be sure to remember what I'm about to tell you, it will help you on your way," Brentilda urged them. "First of all, lets see... Grunty brushes her rotten teeth with salted slug flavored tooth paste! She also washes her hair with rancid milk. Yuk! And she gets her clothes from Saggy Maggy's Boutique!"
Seconds passed as Banjo and Kazooie stared at Brentilda in appalled silence.
"Salted... slug," Banjo muttered, wide-eyed. "Ra- rancid..." He paused for a long moment, swallowing. Then he took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "What?"
"I know." Brentilda nodded in sympathetic understanding. "She really is disgusting, isn't she?"
"What use does telling us that stuff do us?" Kazooie said, sounding almost as nauseous as Banjo felt. Banjo was surprised at that- Kazooie was rarely disgusted by anything, no matter how, well, disgusting, it was. But then again, what they'd just heard seemed a special kind of sickening.
"Like I said, hearing and remembering these secrets could save you from a fiery fate!"
"And I don't suppose you care to elaborate on that, Miss Fairy Dust?" Kazooie asked flatly.
"No, not really," Brentilda replied with a slight shrug.
"Yeah... thought not..."
"Well, we'll... we'll try to remember this, Miss Brentilda," Banjo said weakly, his stomach still rolling. Salted slug toothpaste? "So... we'll see you again?" he asked, remembering what she said about telling them three secrets every time they found her.
"Yes, you will," Brentilda confirmed with a smile. "Many more times. And please, just call me Brentilda, there's no need for the miss." Banjo nodded his agreement, and Brentilda continued, "I know many of my sister's disgusting secrets, and I'll tell you more next time you find me. I'll be in hidden places all throughout the lair, so you may have to look hard."
"Why does everybody make us chase them around everywhere instead of telling us everything at once?" Kazooie exclaimed, highly exasperated.
"Well, do you really want to hear all of these at once, or would you rather wait until you stop feeling sick from the ones I just told you? I could tell them all to you right now, but you might loose your lunch if you hear too many at once..."
Banjo and Kazooie swapped a glance.
"Later," Banjo pleaded, looking back at Brentilda.
"Yeah, I've changed my mind. Much later!" Kazooie squawked.
"Wise choice."
There was a pause for an uncomfortable moment as both the bear and bird did their best to try not to think about what other secrets Brentilda might have to tell them about her sister.
"Well, thanks again, Brentilda, and I don't think we'll have any trouble remembering those secrets," Banjo said once the pause had reached its end. He really didn't think there'd be any chance they'd forget what Brentilda had told them. There were some things you just couldn't forget after you've heard them, no matter how much you might want to. "I guess we'll be on our way now."
"Alright then, and good luck, you two," Brentilda said with a smile. "I'm sure you will save your little sister, Banjo." She blinked as though suddenly remembering something. "Oh! And be sure to watch out for that Gruntling over there," she told them, pointing over at the red-cloaked ape-like creature Banjo had noticed wandering around the room.
"Gruntling?" Banjo asked, confused.
"They're some of my sister's most common minions- you'll find them all over the lair. The ones that wear red, like that one, are the weakest. But don't let your guard down when facing them. And be sure to watch out for the other kinds as well! The Gruntlings that wear blue are much stronger then the ones that wear red, and the ones in black really outstrip the blue-clothed ones. It will take quite a fews hits to defeat those."
Banjo nodded. "Will do, we'll be on the lookout for them!"
"They won't stand a chance!" Kazooie said confidently.
"Good bye, you two," Brentilda said. "I'll see you again soon!"
With a grateful smile, Banjo turned away from the kindly fairy godmother and started again toward the beach-like painting he'd been heading for when Brentilda had first appeared. He glanced back at Brentilda as he walked, just in time to see her vanish into thin air.
Taking that in stride, Banjo continued on. He stepped into the sand that covered the floor in front of the painting and surrounded the painting's Jiggy podium. The sand was cool beneath his paws, since there was no sunlight in the lair to heat it.
Walking over toward the Jiggy podium, but not yet onto it, Banjo looked up at the picture on the wall in front of him. It was missing two pieces; empty Jigsaw shaped holes that marred the otherwise beautiful painting, but was still complete enough that he could clearly imagine the whole scene.
It looked like they would definitely be exploring a beach World next. The most noticeable part of the picture was in its center; a large, curving mountainous shape that rose in a high arch above the ground far below it, like an upside down U. It was made of reddish stone, from what Banjo could see. The top of the mountain, on top of the arch's highest point, had a section jutting even higher above the ground. At the very tip of that sat a lighthouse.
The arch-like mountain had smaller sections leading off of it, sections that sprawled far away from the mountain from which they jutted. They looked to Banjo to be of varying sizes, though all still rose quite far from the ground; they were shaped like massive stone pilars with very wide tops. The stone pilars were connected to each other by a network of stone walkways, the walkways themselves arching above the ground like bridges that left spaces underneath them. In the lower left corner of the painting was a patch of water leading off the edge of the drawing. Banjo guessed that it was probably the sea. The ground at the bottom of the painting was clearly all clean, smooth-looking yellow sand.
Banjo couldn't help smiling a little. He liked beaches for many reasons, from building sandcastles to splashing in the tide as it drew near and then flowed back again. He hadn't been to a beach for some time, but the last beach he'd visited had been a lovely place called Breegull Beach. In fact, that was where he'd met Kazooie. He'd found the young red-crested breegull nestled in her blue backpack near the shore of the beach.
Banjo had gone to talk to the then unfamiliar breegull, wondering why she was alone. Most of the breegulls he'd seen around the beach had been with friends or family, but not Kazooie. She, like Banjo, himself, had been very young, just a child at that point; in her case, a nestling. Kazooie had been so young then that she hadn't yet learned to fly. He'd asked her name, and the two of them had struck up a friendship surprisingly quickly. It hadn't taken Banjo very long to get used to his friend's somewhat snarky attitude. It helped that she only very rarely turned that attitude on Banjo.
It turned out that Kazooie had nowhere to go, no home to go to. She hadn't known where her parents were, had been seperated from them, and despite searching hard for them, he and Kazooie hadn't managed to find the two breegulls. So, when Banjo had gone home, he'd done so with a backpack on his back and a new best friend resting within it.
Kazooie had been with him ever since, and she'd adjusted very quickly to living in a home rather than in the open spaces like her kind usually did. Of course, since she'd never been taught to fly when she'd lived with breegulls who could show her how, she still hadn't managed to take to the skies.
But thinking of beaches almost always brought Breegull Beach to Banjo's mind. He didn't think he'd mind exploring this next World very much, though he reminded himself that beach or not, Grunty had taken it over. She must have changed it in some way, sent her minions into the World. It was bound to be dangerous in some way, probably many ways. Still, Banjo was almost looking forward to going there, wherever there was.
"Kazooie, we'll be heading to a beach next!" he told her, glancing back at her with a smile.
Kazooie stuck her head of the backpack, and looked at the picture over his shoulder. "Huh... Nice!" she exclaimed, sounding pleased.
Banjo nodded his agreement. "Maybe the next World won't be so bad," he said hopefully.
Done examining the painting and ready to fill in the picture's missing pieces, he stepped up onto the Jiggy pedestal with Kazooie still looking over his shoulder.
Remembering how he'd done it the first time, Banjo pulled a Jigsaw piece from his backpack and held it up toward the painting. Just like before, the piece glowed bright yellow in his grip, and turned transparent as it faded from sight and out of his hold. Then it re-appeared in the painting, fading into solidity, filling in one of the two missing spaces in the picture. As it formed, it took on the colors of the picture it was depicting. It turned from solid yellow to the blue of the sky and white of its clouds as it filled in the topmost missing space. Though he'd seen it before, Banjo was just as amazed as he'd been the first time he'd seen this.
Banjo wasn't too surprised when they heard Bottles' voice. He'd almost been expecting it, really. Though he still wasn't sure how Bottles' voice came from nowhere like it did... "To remove pieces that you have already put down, just hold your hand up toward the picture, and the Jiggy will reappear in your hand," Bottles told them. "But once the picture is complete, all the pieces are stuck there permanently!"
"Why would we ever need to remove pieces?" Banjo asked, tilting his head to the side.
"If you only had a few Jiggies with you but two paintings to fill, and if you filled in a few of the missing pieces on both, you wouldn't have enough in either painting to open either World. You wouldn't be able to advance if you couldn't completely fill either picture. Removing some of the pieces from one picture and putting them all together into the other to open that World would be the only way you could continue on your adventure."
Banjo nodded. That made sense. "Okay. Thanks for explaining that, Bottles!"
Holding up a second Jigsaw piece, Banjo filled in the last missing space in the painting. Once that was done, he grinned at the sight of the completed painting.
Then he realized something; he didn't know where the entrance to the World they'd just opened was. "Err, Bottles?" he called. "How do we get to this World?"
"The entrance to the next World is a little deeper inside the lair, but it shouldn't be hard for you to find," the mole answered promptly.
"Alright," Banjo said with another nod. He glanced back at Kazooie. "Lets check around here a bit more before we go looking for that World, okay, Kazooie?"
"Fine by me." She shrugged. "Just as long as its quick."
"Right!" Banjo stepped off of the Jiggy podium, turning his back on the painting to face the rest of the room again.
From where they stood now, across from them and a little to the left was that ledge high in the wall with the other painting on it. Set back in an alcove on that ledge was the second painting Banjo had noticed, the one he wasn't sure how he'd be able to reach. He decided to look there first, and ran across the room, crossing over the Grunty portrait in the center of the room, and skirting around the giant depiction of her head in a nervous attempt to avoid walking on her likeness as much as possible. As silly as he knew it was, that portrait of Gruntilda made him nervous.
Once he got close to the ledge with the painting on it, he saw something that he'd missed before. Underneath the ledge, on the ground, was a small platform, like a smaller version of the ledge it was placed under. The platform was a short one compared to a lot of things Banjo had seen so far in the lair, and the top of it rose to the bottom of Banjo's head. Still, he could easily jump onto it, thanks to Bottles' jump training. And from where he stood on the ground next to it, he could see what looked like some kind of disc set in the center of the platform. Curious, he leapt up onto the platform and landed next to the disc.
Though set low to the ground, barely rising just above the height of Banjo's paws, the disc was a wide one, and completely circular. The first thing he noticed about the disc was that emblazed on its front was what looked like a picture of a breegull's orange-colored leg. It ended in a orange foot that had four talons; three in the front and one in the back, much like Kazooie's talons, though she lacked the back one. And just like her talons, each talon was tipped with a sharp white claw. Around the picture of the breegull's foot, the disc was a bright, almost acid green, and the edge of the disc was rimmed with yellow. It looked to Banjo like the disc was likely made of steel.
"Kazooie, take a look at this. It's a little strange..." Banjo trailed off.
His friend looked out of the backpack and down at the disk. "I'll say that's strange!" she exclaimed. "Is that a picture of my foot?"
"I think so."
"...What's a picture of my foot doing on a disc in a room in the middle of a witch's lair?"
"I think it's best not to think about it." Banjo sighed. "Well, lets check it out." He stepped onto the disk, almost waiting to hear Bottles speak.
He wasn't disappointed; "This is Kazooie's Shock Jump Disc," Bottles' voice echoed around the room, "find me and I'll tell you how to use it!"
"Shock Jump Disc?" Banjo repeated. "Alright then, Bottles. Where can we find you? Are you somewhere around here?"
"I'll teach you how to use it in the next World you're able to go to, the one you just opened. Find me there!" Bottles' voice faded away.
"Okay." Banjo cast one more look up toward the unreachable ledge overheard, where the second painting he'd noticed in this room waited. He supposed that he'd be able to get to it once Bottles had taught them how to use the Shock Jump Disc; but at the moment, it was still out of their reach.
He looked around. Aside from the exit set high in the wall that the bridge arching up from the portrait of Gruntilda led up to, there was only one more place for Banjo and Kazooie to explore in this room- that hole in the wall, leading into that downward sloping tunnel he'd spotted earlier. The hole in the wall was to the left of the door from which Banjo had first entered this room, but from where they stood now, it was almost directly across from them. Unfortunately, so was that enemy Brentilda had warned them about, the Gruntling.
Though it was hard to tell from this distance, Banjo was sure the ape-like enemy was much bigger than him. All the same, he knew he'd have to get past it, and that if he was going to go deep enough into the lair to save Tooty, he was going to face far worse than that enemy. And he knew that then, of course, he'd have to fight Gruntilda. So large creepy ape-like thing or not, he was going through that doorway.
Taking in a bracing breath, Banjo jumped down from the platform with the Shock Jump Disc and ran across the room. For a moment, he thought that he might make it to the doorway into the tunnel without the Grunting spotting them, but, naturally, the Gruntling turned just as they approached and caught sight of them.
Instantly it let out a grunting "Rawl!", and, like the goblin-like enemies they'd faced in Mumbo's Mountain, put its arms high over its head as it ran toward Banjo and Kazooie, its jaw gaping open.
Banjo scrambled back a step, frightened by its size. It was almost twice as tall as Banjo, and certainly three times as wide. Then he stiffened. He wasn't about to back down from this enemy, not when Tooty needed him.
He stood his ground as it rapidly approached, about to charge straight into him; then he lashed out with a powerful Claw Swipe attack, striking and knocking the much larger creature backward. It landed on its feet with a grunt, and as it regained its balance, eyes sparking with anger, and got ready to charge at him again, Banjo launched into a Forward Roll and plowed into it.
That second blow was too much for it to take. The red-cloaked Gruntling was thrown backward from the force of Banjo's attack, flipping end over end in mid-air before landing on its back, its arms flopping to either side, its mouth still hanging open as it lost consciousness.
Banjo rolled straight onto his paws in time to see a piece of Honey Energy fall to the ground, having been dropped by his defeated foe. He panted a little, feeling shaken from facing something so much larger than himself; but proud that he hadn't backed down.
Kazooie stuck her head out and looked around. "Huh!" she exclaimed in surprise. "You didn't even need my help to beat it. There might be hope for you yet!"
"Thanks, Kazooie!" Banjo said, knowing that was about as close to a compliment as Kazooie was capable of giving. He snatched up the fallen Honey Energy and broke it in half, passing some back to his friend, which she took in her wing.
After they'd eaten, Banjo licked the last traces of honey from his paws and continued toward that hole in the wall that formed a doorway. He passed through the opening and into the downward sloping tunnel, stepping down onto smooth gray stone steps. He headed down the tunnel which curved down and gently to the left as it went along, twisting out of sight. Still, it wasn't long before Banjo and Kazooie reached the end of the tunnel of stairs.
They emerged into a relatively small stone cave. Small, at least, compared to the room they'd just come from. Altogether, though, Banjo still had the feeling the cave-like room they were in now was larger than his whole house. This room, like the one before it, was circular. The walls' dark gray stone was marked with designs in the shapes of black arches. The ceiling was pebbly and green colored, and the floor was largely made of dirt but had some dark moss near the center of the room. At regular intervals around the curving edge of the room, blue eggs were placed, but Banjo's attention was caught by what stood in the room's center.
On a circular moss-covered platform rising a little above the surrounding floor sat what looked to Banjo to be a cauldron. Gray in color, with a large, thick rim on top and two thin metal legs beneath, the cauldron had golden handles on its sides. It also happened to have a mouth and eyes. Somehow, Banjo wasn't really surprised.
The cauldron's eyes were closed at the moment, its wide mouth moving open and shut as soft snores filled the room. It was leaning backward, at rest. Its arm-like handles flicked slightly every now and then as if it was dreaming. Did living cauldrons dream? Banjo had to wonder.
He cautiously approached the cauldron. As he reached the edge of the platform it stood on, it suddenly jerked to an upright position, its eyes opening as it woke. Startled, Banjo skipped back a step, and Kazooie stuck her head out of the pack to see what was going on.
As the cauldron woke, Banjo was even more startled to see it change color. Though its handles stayed golden, its main body, which had been gray, suddenly turned to a pinkish-purple. A stream of greenish smoke began to rise out of the cauldron's top, curling into the air, as though it were holding some kind of potion in its hollowed center. Its eyes blinked at Banjo, a bright blue, and its wide mouth was curved into a happy smile.
"You've activated a Magic Cauldron!" the cauldron told them in a voice that sounded like bubbling liquid. "Find two the same color to create a short cut!"
The cauldron gave a little hop into the air, flapping its handles like it would wings, the handles of the wings squeaking at their hinges, before dropping back to the ground.
"You're a Magic Cauldron?" Banjo asked. "Okay..." Living cauldrons... that spoke. Well, he really had seen weirder things today, so he decided not to comment on that. "You mean we'll find more Magic Cauldrons in the lair?"
He wasn't really expecting an answer- none of the other living inanimate objects he'd met today had been very chatty after all- so he was surprised when it spoke again. "That's right!" it said cheerfully. "There are quite a few of us. Once you find the other Magic Cauldron that's the same color as me, we'll form a link between our two locations. Hop into one of us to be transported to the location of the other! Its really handy if you don't want to walk all that way!"
"That's great!" Banjo exclaimed. "I like shortcuts. We're really meeting a lot of people who want to help us," he added thoughtfully. "Thank you, Mr. Cauldron!"
"Glad to help!" it announced, giving another happy hop.
Banjo, Kazooie, and the Magic Cauldron all looked around in surprise as Grunty spoke, her tone impatient; "Can't you get here any faster? Come and fight me, I'm the master!"
"Keep your hat on, Wart Face!" Kazooie squawked at the air. "We're coming!"
"Thanks for helping us," Banjo said to the Magic Cauldron, deciding to ignore Grunty's outburst. "Do you mind if we collect these eggs?" he asked, waving a paw at the blue eggs circling the room.
"Go right ahead, and take this Mumbo Token back here, too."
"Mumbo Token?" Banjo walked around the cave to see that there was indeed a Mumbo Token in the room. Placed against the wall and behind the platform their new friend the cauldron stood on, the Token sparkled with gray light in the dim illumination. "Great!" Banjo scooped up the Token, passed it back to Kazooie to store in the backpack, and then ran a circle around the cave as he collected the blue eggs, which came to a total of eight.
That done, he headed back toward the entrance. "See you, Mr. Cauldron!" he called as he started up, hearing it call its own farewell behind him. He hurried back up the winding stairs.
Reaching the top of the flight of stairs and exiting the tunnel, Banjo re-entered the room with the two paintings and the giant Gruntilda portrait that was set into the ground in the center of the room. Now he'd checked everywhere in this room, except for that doorway in the wall, the one he could reach via the bridge leading up from the Grunty picture. He knew that would take him deeper into the lair.
Not wasting another moment, Banjo raced across the room, stepped onto the portrait of Grunty, and started up the green-colored bridge that rose to the doorway in the wall. As he climbed it, he moved more slowly, not wanting to fall off of either side of the bridge which had no railing. Reaching the doorway, he passed through it into a dark tunnel toward the next area of the lair.
The room they emerged into was damp, dank, and called underground caves very much to Banjo's mind. Water dripped steadily from a stone ceiling that was dotted with thick stalactites. The ground was a mottled light brown with areas covered in dark moss, and not far ahead from where they entered, a massive pipe, large enough for Banjo to easily walk into, stuck out from the right wall. Above the pipe was a circular hole in the wall that looked to Banjo like the opening to another pipe. The higher pipe, though, was even with the wall around it, unlike the pipe it was placed over. That one jutted a fair distance out from the wall. Banjo thought that by standing on the lower pipe and using the Flap Flip to backflip up, he and Kazooie could probably reach that hole in the wall to see where it led.
The lower pipe, the one big enough to walk into, was in a lowered section of floor; a lowered section that formed a channel. Water flowed from that pipe and through the channel toward their left, forming a little stream that cut the room in half. Looking to the left, Banjo saw that there was a cliff of sorts in that direction, where the rest of the room dropped out of the sight. The stream of water from the pipe flowed over the cliff's edge.
Banjo walked to the edge of the cliff and looked down, curious. The water dropped in a waterfall into a pool down below- quite a ways below. The pool of water was deep and shadowed, but clear, and through the water, Banjo could see a underwater tunnel placed against the pool's back wall, leading somewhere out of sight. Opposite the underwater tunnel, ahead of where Banjo and Kazooie had entered the room, there was a higher patch of land bordering the pool. It was on the opposite side of the stream from Banjo, though that part of land that bordered the pool was still at the bottom of the cliff, while Banjo stood at the top. From where Banjo stood, he could see a wide opening in the wall on that lower patch of land, forming a doorway leading to somewhere else.
Across the stream from them, Banjo could see a thin green colored pipe falling away down the cliff toward the lower sections of the room; to the patch of ground and the pool of water it was placed by. Banjo thought that he could probably use that pipe to climb down to the lower areas. Though it was much thinner and much smaller than the pipe through which the stream flowed, that pipe that led down the side of the cliff was still roughly as wide and Banjo was, and he was sure it would support his weight if he chose to use it as a ladder.
Right across the stream from them, on top of the cliff and so on even ground with where they currently stood, was another little patch of square land, the patch the small green pipe led down from. Wandering around on that land, to Banjo's displeasure, was another red-cloaked Gruntling, though it didn't seem as though it had noticed the bear and bird duo. Maybe they were all near-sighted and couldn't see enemies until they came close.
Also on that patch of land across from them, a hill of land rose in the back-right corner, pressed against the walls behind and to the right of it. That hill led up a second Note Door, much like the one they'd passed through not too long ago.
Banjo walked over to the edge of the channel and looked down into the stream. The water flowed speedily from the pipe. It was a clear blue, so Banjo thought it was probably clean water, though Banjo was a little uncomfortable being in contact with any water he might find in the witch's lair. The pipe opening to their right was wide, and led away into darkness. Banjo let out a sigh. There wasn't much that he'd hate doing more, but if he wanted to be thorough, he'd have to check out the inside of that pipe and see where it led.
"We're going for a swim, Kazooie," he warned his friend, then jumped down into the stream, landing with a splash. The water was high enough for Banjo to swim in, though just a little too shallow to dive under. It rushed passed him, pressing his fur flat to his body and leaving him soaked. The water was cold, cold enough that Banjo just swam in place for a moment, shivering as he tried to get used to the temperature. He noticed the water had an unpleasant metallic scent, which he tried to ignore.
Once he was more adjusted to the temperature of the water, he paddled toward the pipe, which was many times high enough and wide enough for him to pass through. He swam into pipe, passing into darkness.
The pipe narrowed as he swam, the walls closing in toward him, though remaining far enough away to stave off a feeling of claustrophobia, and the water level lowered until Banjo could stand and travel on foot, allowing him to splash through a low stream.
Though it was still pitch-black for a few more moments as he continued through the pipe, Banjo soon began to see light, and the reason for that soon became clear. A jagged hole was torn in the pipe's metal wall to their right, allowing light to pour in. The pipe led on in the direction Banjo and Kazooie had been traveling, but just past the jagged hole, the path was blocked by a metal grate, meaning they couldn't go any deeper that way. That suited Banjo just fine. He hadn't really enjoyed the thought of going much deeper into this pipe.
Banjo, figuring that he might as well explore around here before heading back through the pipe to its entrance and the stream, hopped out through the hole in the pipe. He landed in another shallow pool in a small room. The water filled most of the room, perhaps having leaked into it from the broken pipe.
Walking around nearby, and far too close by, was yet another red-cloaked Gruntling. Banjo was beginning to see what Brentilda had meant when she called the Gruntlings some of Grunty's most common minions. Though Banjo wasn't really sure what this one was doing wandering around here, of all places- it was a rather remote area. Then again, Banjo was here, wasn't he?
He stepped back, hoping the Gruntling wouldn't notice him. Unfortunately, in such close quarters there was little chance that it wouldn't. Yep, it noticed him. It charged at him with a "Rawl!" just like the one Banjo had fought in the room with the giant Grunty portrait in the floor had. And just like that one, it was taken out by Banjo's Forward Roll.
He came up standing, shaking water from his eyes and fighting back a sneeze from his roll through the water. As he did, Banjo saw a flash of gold as the Honey Energy piece that had been held by the defeated enemy flew into the air, then began to drop toward the water near where he stood. Not wanting to eat soggy Honey Energy, Banjo made a wild lunge and snatched it from the air before it could fall into the water. He happily ate his half, giving the other half to Kazooie, then looked around the room.
A lot of the room was taken up by the pipe Banjo had traveled through. He saw that he could get back inside by leaping back through the hole in the pipe's wall. But against the back wall and to their right, was a area of land that rose above the water, creating a dry spot. On that patch of land sat another Magic Cauldron, snoring away as it slept, just like the first one Banjo and Kazooie had seen.
Banjo trotted over and leapt up onto the patch of land, stopping in front of the sleeping cauldron. It instantly jerked awake, opening its eyes as the color of its body changed from gray to, this time, a bright red.
"You've activated a Magic Cauldron!" it said brightly, in a voice very much like the voice of the first cauldron they'd met. Its words, to Banjo's surprise, were exactly the same as well. "Find two the same color to create a short cut!"
"Okay," Banjo nodded, smiling. They'd already found the second Magic Cauldron! Though if Banjo remembered right, the first cauldron they'd met had been a pinkish-purple, while this one was bright red, which meant neither of them could be used as a short cut to the other. Banjo and Kazooie would just have to keep looking until they'd found the second of each color, so they did have some short cuts. He was fine with that. They seemed to be making pretty good progress by Banjo's guess. "Thanks for your help in advance!" he said, and the cauldron gave a happy bounce in response.
Banjo turned back toward the pipe, ready to leave and go back through it, back to the room from which they'd entered the pipe. Before he could start off, however, he spotted another Mumbo Token sitting on top of the pipe in a shadowy corner. He hurried over to it, and with Kazooie's help, used the Flap Flip to flip up onto the pipe, landing on the smooth curving metal.
He picked up the skull-shaped Token and added it to their Mumbo Token count, even more pleased at their progress. He guessed they could use as many Mumbo Tokens as they could find if Mumbo was going to be able to help them with more transformation spells later on. That made two new Mumbo Tokens he and Kazooie had now. They'd given all the ones they'd found in Mumbo's Mountain to Mumbo himself, so the Shaman would turn them into Tickers.
Hopping down from the top of the pipe and landing back in the water, Banjo then jumped into the inside of the giant pipe through the ragged hole in its side. He headed back in the direction he'd come, swimming again when the water got too high to stand in. It wasn't long before he'd paddled back out of the pipe, and into the stream that flowed from it.
He jumped out of the stream on the side of land with the door Banjo and Kazooie had first entered this room from, the door that led back to the room with the giant portrait of Grunty set into its floor. Banjo quickly headed over to the pipe jutting from the wall that they'd just exited and leapt up onto it, ready to explore the next area. From the top of the pipe, he and Kazooie used the Flap Flip to reach the hole set in the wall, and, landing on the rim of the hole, walked deeper into it, along its steel bottom into deep shadows.
They emerged in a large open area filed with pipes and water. They were on a section of land that looked to Banjo to be one of only a few sections of dry land in this otherwise water-filled room. The air was filled with the sound of droplets falling from the ceiling into the water below, and pinging against the pipes that crossed the room in many places. The water was like a lake, deep and wide, disappearing into another open area to their left and largely blocked from Banjo's sight by the edge of a wall and pipes from then on. The only other dry spot he could see was another section of land across the way from where they stood, though it was too far away to jump to and too high above the water to be able to reach if they swam over to it.
"Banjo!" Bottles' unexpected call made the honey bear jump in alarm. "This room holds the entrance to another World," Bottles told them. "But you won't be able to reach it yet. You haven't opened the World this room leads to yet, and you won't be able to until I teach you how to use the Shock Jump Disc, so there's not much to do in this room until then."
"Alright, Bottles," Banjo said. He looked back at Kazooie. "I guess we'd better head back to the last room."
Heaving a sigh, Banjo turned and went back through the doorway he'd just come from. This lair was so big that Banjo wasn't sure how he'd ever be able to find everything he needed to in here.
Stepping back into the room with the stream and the cliff, Banjo jumped down from the hole in the wall, this time landing on the patch of land that had the Gruntling and the hill that led up to the Note Door. Banjo dispatched the Gruntling with hardly a pause, then looked up the hill. It was far too steep for him to climb, but he knew Kazooie and her Talon Trot would be able to handle it with no problem.
Sure enough, when he asked her to, Kazooie carried them up to the top of the short hill easily, and stopped in front of the Note Door. As Kazooie let him regain his feet and look at the Note Door, she peered over his shoulder at it as well.
It was much like the first Note Door they'd seen, shaped like an arch and made of wooden planks. It also had the same magical shimmering effect as the door before it, and the golden symbol on its front switched between the shape of a Musical Note and a number; in this case, the number 180.
Banjo cast a look back at his backpack with a wince. He and Kazooie had only collected one hundred Notes, meaning they had a Note Score of just one hundred. Not nearly enough.
And sure enough, as he took a step closer to the door, hoping, though doubtfully, that it might open despite their lack of enough Notes, nothing happened. Nothing, that is, aside from Gruntilda speaking smugly; "You've found some Notes, but you'll need more, to break my spell and pass this Door!"
"I guess the entrance to that beach World we opened must be somewhere around here, then, Kazooie," Banjo said, trying to pretend that Grunty had not spoken.
"Let's find it, then!" the breegull squawked. "I can't take much more of that hag's rhyming! Sheesh!"
"Okay." Banjo turned away from the Note Door and slid back down the hill. From the base of the hill, he ran alongside the stream that flowed from the pipe, and headed toward the edge of the cliff that bisected the upper and lower parts of the room. Once he reached the cliff edge, Banjo dropped himself over it, swinging around, and grabbed onto the small green pipe that hung from the edge there and that acted as a make-shift ladder. He climbed down the pipe just as he would a tree, and before long, Banjo's paws touched solid ground again at the bottom of the cliff.
He was now on that patch of ground that bordered the deep pool of water created by the the stream that was now high above Banjo, the stream that tumbled over the cliff and into the pool as a waterfall.
Banjo was still amazed by how large Gruntilda's Lair was. How many places were there in the world that had what could be counted as a full-sized waterfall in one of their rooms? In fact, based on what he'd seen so far, it was one of the lair's smaller rooms. He guessed not many. He really hoped that the size of the lair wouldn't make it even more difficult to save Tooty than it was likely to be already.
From where he stood now, Banjo had two more options of where to explore next. The doorway that led off from the patch of land he now stood on was one of them- and now that Banjo was closer to it, he gulped as he realized that the doorway had been carved into the shape of a gaping mouth. Small stalactites formed the teeth jutting from above. Set above the doorway itself, two red lights had been placed in the stone. They were formed in the shape of glowing eyes, narrowed as if in anger. He'd seen one just like it in the tunnel that led from the Lair's entrance to the entrance of Mumbo's Mountain's World, though that one had been far larger than this, but at least that mouth-like tunnel had been well lit. This one led into deep darkness that Banjo could see no relief to. That wasn't exactly inviting.
The second option he had was that tunnel in the pool of water next to him... the tunnel that led off somewhere out of sight. And since swimming through an underwater tunnel in the middle of an evil witch's lair somehow seemed much less nerve-wrecking than going through that mouth-shaped doorway into darkness would be, Banjo decided to take that option first. Besides, his fur hadn't yet dried from his trip through the water-washed pipe, so he might as well soak himself all over again before he actually did dry fully.
After warning Kazooie again that they were about to go swimming, Banjo stepped over to the pool and plunged down off the patch of land and into the water. He stayed on the surface for a moment as he swam the length of the pool over to the opening in the wall that led into the tunnel. The tunnel opening was under the water's surface, so both Banjo and Kazooie took a deep breath, and then Banjo dove while Kazooie flapped her wings through the water to send them deep.
As he passed through the inside of the tunnel, he noticed it was coated with slimy-looking green stuff its entire length. Banjo wasn't sure whether it was algae or moss, but he assumed the former. The tunnel twisted and turned several times along its length, and both he and Kazooie held their breath as they stroked hard through the water, trying to swim quickly to make it to the tunnel's end before they ran out of breath.
Sooner than he was expecting, though, they came out of the tunnel and into a pool. Banjo surfaced, gasping in damp air, to find that the small pool they were in was at the foot of a room that, aside from that patch of water, was mostly land. But that wasn't the interesting part.
The room they emerged into appeared to be, at first glance, a forest glade. The walls were wooden- not the kind of wooden that has been cut and smoothed into walls, but rough wood like that on the surface of a tree, natural and untouched by any sort of woodscraft- and veined with dark green moss. Along both walls trees grew from the ground to the ceiling; two along the right wall, one on the left. In the center of the room was a large stump with long, twisted roots, which, like the walls and the trees, also had streaks of moss on it. The ground was a carpet of green grass. The ceiling looked like a canopy of leaves, looked as though it was formed from the leaves of the trees that bordered the sides of the room. There were no holes among the ceiling's leaves for light to pour through, though, which there would be if it was truly made from the leaves of the surrounding trees, and indeed no light to be seen if there had been gaps in the leaves, since they weren't actually outside, however much this room gave that impression. In fact, though the room was illuminated, Banjo couldn't tell where the light might be coming from.
Still treading water, Banjo blinked, jarred. To have left a place as cave-like and dim as most of the lair he'd seen so far was, and end up in a place that looked like this felt strange, to say the least. He jumped out of the water and onto the grass. To his surprise, it seemed to really be grass as far as he could tell, not some kind of imitation turf.
Kazooie pulled her head and wings free of the pack and looked around. "Huh..." she said, mystified. "Wasn't expecting that..."
"I wonder what this room is for," Banjo said, looking around with wide eyes. "It seems out of place with the rest of the Lair, doesn't it?"
"Well, except for that room outside Mumbo's Mountain," Kazooie pointed out. "That had that sky wallpaper theme, and grass, and those weirdo flowers."
Banjo nodded. "It's still nothing like this room," he noted. "It didn't have trees... Trees, indoors..." Banjo decided he might quite like this room, if only it wasn't part of Gruntilda's Lair. He hopped up onto the stump just in front of him. It was a tall one that rose above his head. Now that he was standing on the stump and it was no longer blocking his view, he saw something on the wall across from them... it was another painting.
Banjo felt his mouth drop open. He was shocked at the daunting sight. The painting was missing every single piece but one! How could he possibly fill that one in? It needed so many pieces! Doing a quick count of the missing spaces he could see, Banjo figured that he would need fifteen Jigsaw pieces to fill in this painting; and at the moment, he and Kazooie only had nine.
Glancing around at the stump below his feet and the surrounding ground, Banjo noticed that, come to think of it, he couldn't see the Jiggy podium anywhere, and surely this painting was supposed to have one. The two paintings before it had. If there was no Jiggy podium to stand on, didn't that mean that even if he had all the pieces he needed he wouldn't be able to complete the picture anyway? Banjo wasn't sure, but he thought that the Jiggy podiums were necessary for that.
"Psst! Banjo! Kazooie!" A soft voice came from their right, and Banjo jumped. Spinning around, he saw Brentilda, floating close to the ground along the right wall and in the gap between the trunks of the two close-set trees, the pink of her dress a stark contrast to the woodsy colors of the wall behind her.
"Brentilda!" Banjo exclaimed, and hurried over to her. "I didn't expect to see you again so soon."
"I didn't think you'd find a room I was hidden in so soon," Brentilda countered. "You're searching the lair quite throughly, aren't you?"
"We're trying," Banjo answered with a nod.
"Hey, now that we've found you again, you're gonna tell us more about the hag, right?" Kazooie sounded almost hesitant. Banjo guessed she didn't really want to hear more of Gruntilda's disgusting habits and secrets anymore than he did.
"Yes, that's right!" Brentilda gave her golden wand a flick, causing specks of light to fall from its star-shaped tip. "But don't worry; I'll be quick about it."
"Alright..." Banjo said reluctantly. "Three more secrets, right?"
Brentilda nodded, thought for a moment as though sorting through all of the secrets she knew and deciding which ones to share this time, and began, "There are so many to choose from. My sister has no end of... interesting hobbies, habits, and secrets. But here are some more of them. Ugly Grunty's nickname was Hog Breath at witch school! I also know that freshly burst boils is her favorite smell! And the old hag's favorite color is gruesome green!"
Like the time before, there was a pause after Brentilda spoke.
"Eh, could have been worse," Kazooie said after a few seconds, shrugging her wings.
"I guess so," Banjo agreed. "Except for that boils thing..." He shivered.
"Be sure to remember what I just told you!" Brentilda insisted. "Oh, and before you leave, aren't you collecting those skull-shaped Tokens my sister stole from Mumbo Jumbo and hid everywhere?"
"Yup, we are." Banjo nodded.
"Well, there's one right over there!" Brentilda pointed across the room, toward the far left-back corner. Turning around, Banjo spotted the Mumbo Token wedged snugly in between the wall and the tree. "Oh, good!" he exclaimed. He ran over and collected it, and then walked back over to Brentilda. "Excuse me, but do you know where the Jiggy podium to fill in that painting is?" he asked her, figuring she probably knew all about the Jiggy podiums. After all, she seemed to know all of her sister's secrets, so why wouldn't she know about something like the Jiggies and paintings?
Brentilda frowned. "My sister used her magic to hide the Jiggy podium. You'll have to find a switch somewhere in this lair, a switch with a picture of a Jiggy podium on it. If you activate it, the podium should appear on the tree stump there, and you'll be able to fill in the painting."
"Do you know where the switch is?" Banjo asked.
"I'm afraid not," Brentilda said apologetically. "At least not exactly. But I believe you'll find it near the entrance to the World this painting opens. The area around that World looks a lot like this room, so you'll know it when you see it."
"Alright, thank you Brentilda!" Banjo smiled. "You're really doing a lot to help us."
"It's the least I can do. After all, my sister kidnapped yours. I believe that means I owe you at least my help getting her back safely."
Banjo nodded. "Well, you didn't kidnap her, Grunty did, so I don't think you really owe us your help. I'm just really glad you want to help us!"
"Yeah, great, really nice," Kazooie said impatiently. "But can we get going already, Banjo? We need to find the next World!"
"Right..." Banjo looked back at Brentilda. "See you next time, then!"
"Good bye, young ones!" Brentilda said with a farewell smile and wave, and Banjo turned to leave the room again.
He jumped back into the pool of water and swam back through the tunnel the way he'd come, returning to the room with the pipe, the cliff and the waterfall. He reached the surface, took a deep breath, and pulled himself out of the water and back onto the patch of land adjacent to it. He shook himself, trying to dry off. His backpack felt waterlogged from all the swimming, so he could guess how soaked Kazooie must be.
The only place he had left to explore now was that doorway right next to him, the one that looked like a gaping mouth with sharp stalactite teeth and bright red eyes over the opening. What a comforting prospect...
Shaking his head, Banjo headed over to the door and edged through it, casting a nervous look at the stalactites overhead as he passed under them. They weren't too close to him- almost double his height overhead, in fact- but they still looked too sharp for him to be happy about. The darkness of the doorway ahead was deep, but Banjo picked up his pace and moved through it quickly, eager to reach the light he knew must be at their end.
The doorway led to a flight of stairs, forcing him to slow to travel them more safely in the dark, and when Banjo reached their base, he saw that the room he emerged into was partially flooded. Shallow water covered the majority of the floor. The room was one of the bigger ones he'd seen so far, though perhaps not as big as the one with the portrait of Grunty set into the center of the floor.
He'd entered the room from what he guessed was its right side. Right across from him was a sheer-cut stone work; a structure of stone rising high above his head, though far lower than the vaulted ceiling. The stone work was in the shape of a rectangle, and wasn't large enough to span the entire length of the wall across from Banjo, though it was long enough to span perhaps three-quarters of the room's length.
The stone work was mostly made of green stone with yellow accenting, and parts of it had broken off from the main whole. Those chunks of rock were now laying haphazardly in front of the stone work structure. Though the structure was too large for Banjo to be able to get on top of it normally, he supposed he'd be able to stand on those pieces of tumbled rock and use them to gain enough height to reach the top of the stone work with a Flap Flip.
On top of the rectangular stone structure, nearly put out of Banjo's sight since it was high above his head and farther back on the structure's top, he could see the barrel of what looked to him be an old fashioned metal cannon of the kind pirates had used, the kind that were fired from on top of the deck itself. Banjo felt a jolt of excitement.
Directly to his left, in what he thought of as the back of the room, was only a sheer stone wall shooting up toward the ceiling. But behind him, when Banjo stepped forward and turned around to look, he saw to his surprise that the door he'd emerged from was set into what, at first glance, appeared to be the hull of a sailboat.
He blinked and then looked again. To his slight disappointment, it wasn't truly a sailboat. Rather, the doorway he'd just come through was set into the base of a structure designed to look like the hull of a wooden sailboat, made from rich reddish-brown planks of wood. Directly above the door Banjo had come through, two windows were set into the hull, not portholes, to his further disappointment, but simply square-cut holes in the wall of the hull, each of them covered with a wire grating.
Along the sailboat structure's hull, near its base and so set close to the water-flooded floor, were three more square holes. These holes, to Banjo's delight, were not holes for windows. They were holes from which the edges of canons could be seen. But unlike the one on top of the stone work structure set across the way, these cannons were the kind that were set into the side of a ship's hull. These kinds of cannons had been used by pirates to attack ships they were targeting in a method called broadside; in which both ships were sailing parallel to each other, firing at each other, and the one with the most cannons was typically the winner. The one with fewer cannons... well, not so much.
While two of them were flush with the edges of their window-like holes, one of the three cannons was jutting out a short distance from the hull. The jutting cannon made a possible platform. Banjo and Kazooie could jump from the tip of this canon to get onto the top of the ship-like structure, or the deck of the ship, if it were real.
Banjo had loved ships ever since he'd been a young cub, and had been all but mesmerized by the stories of swashbuckling pirates, and of such phrases as 'Batten down the hatches', and 'Yo ho ho'. He'd often played a pirate as a little cub, pretending to be sailing the high seas, sword-fighting with scallywags and finding buried booty and hidden isles. Though that phase had passed after a while, and he no longer wished to sail under the Jolly Roger- especially once he'd learned what doing so often meant in terms of morality, not to mention the mortality rate for pirates- he'd still retained a deep interest in ships, their parts, how they were built, and how they worked. As a result, Banjo knew much about many kinds of ships.
As thrilled as he was to be looking at this likeness of a ship's hull, having seen its like before only in pictures, Banjo was brought back to earth when he remembered that he and Kazooie still needed to find the entrance to the next World if they were going to find Tooty. He wrenched his gaze away from the ship-like structure and glanced around the room again.
Toward the back of the room- to the right of where Banjo had entered- was a patch of land, covered in sand, rising from the water. The hill of sand was dry, since the water that flooded the room wasn't high enough to soak it, and was set fairly close to the back wall. But the thing that got Banjo's attention was that resting on that hill of sand was a gigantic treasure chest. Made of red painted wood with ornate gold trimming, the chest was a magnificent one, not even taking into account its astounding size. Even from where Banjo stood across the large room from it, he could see that the treasure chest rose above the ground several times his height, and many more times as wide as he was, length-wise. At the moment, the chest hung wide open, its curved lid leaning back into the air.
Banjo headed toward the chest, wanting a closer look. His paws splashed through the water until he came to the hill of sand, walked up, and stopped in front of the chest. He was astonished by its size. Sure, everything in this Lair was big- but this was a treasure chest, and it was larger than he'd imagined any treasure chests could ever have been made. As he looked up at it, he noticed that in the center of the chest's front was a golden plaque, just under the keyhole.
Written on that plaque in bright white block letter was the legend 'Treasure Trove Cove'.
Intrigued, Banjo said, "Kazooie, you have to see this!"
Though he didn't look back at his friend, Banjo could swear that he felt her eyes light up at the sight of the treasure chest. "Alright!" Kazooie exclaimed. "Now that's more like it!"
"Do you think there's treasure in it?" Banjo wondered hopefully, his memories of cub-hood games in which he'd found vast hordes of treasure surfacing to the front of his mind.
"Gotta be, Banjo, it's a treasure chest!" Kazooie pointed out gleefully. "Ha, what's that old hag thinking, leaving this lying around where anyone could grab it? Lets get a closer look, come on!"
Banjo had hardly taken a step closer to the treasure chest, however, when Bottles spoke. "Sorry you two," the mole said from nowhere, startling them both. "But you won't find any gold in that chest- unless you count Jiggies. This isn't just a treasure chest, this is the entrance to the next World you'll be exploring, called Treasure Trove Cove."
"What, no treasure?" Kazooie complained, her tone disbelieving.
"None." Banjo could hear the shrug in Bottle's voice.
"Aww..." Banjo sighed, frowning. "Really?"
"Oh, come on!" Kazooie squawked. "How's that fair? We find a giant treasure chest and there's no treasure in it?"
"I'm afraid not," Bottles said, though he sounded more amused than apologetic.
"Hmph!" Kazooie scoffed. "What a rip-off!"
Banjo sighed again. "That's too bad," he said, disappointed. "I would have liked to find some treasure..."
"Huh, you and me both," Kazooie muttered sourly. Banjo got the impression that her hopes for riches had just been lifted and then severely dashed.
Shaking aside his own thoughts of rubies, diamonds, emeralds, and golden doubloons, the stuff of pirate legend, Banjo said encouragingly, "Well, at least we found the entrance to the next World, Kazooie!"
"Well, yeah," Kazooie agreed, slightly cheered. "One step closer to taking at whack at that witch!"
"And saving Tooty," Banjo added.
She nodded. "That too. Alright then, lets go!" she said.
"Jump into the chest and you'll be teleported to Treasure Trove Cove, like you were when you passed through the doorway to Mumbo's Mountain," Bottles explained as Banjo stepped to the base of the chest. "Good luck, you two. This World will be much harder than the last, so be careful!"
Somewhat alarmed by Bottles' warning, Banjo gulped. "Okay, Bottles, we will."
With Kazooie's help, Banjo backflipped with the Flap Flip high into the air, and landed lightly on the rim of the treasure chest, easily keeping his balance on the wide rim.
The inside of the chest was a pool of blackness, vanishing down into darkness that appeared to be without end.
"Well..." He hesitated. It didn't look very welcoming... Steeling himself, he glanced back at his feathered partner. "Are you ready to go, Kazooie?"
"Completely!" The breegull's call was a mixture of impatience and the excitement of adventure. "Lets get going!"
Without dithering any longer, Banjo sprang from the rim of the chest and tumbled down into the blackness of its depths, passing through the entrance to Treasure Trove Cove World.
