Hey guys, I'm back. Sorry for the two-week delay. I kinda lost interest in the story for a while.
I got a lot reviews so let's get them over with.
Opal: Yes, "Al" is O'Chunks. I'm surprised nobody recognized that was a Fullmetal Alchemist reference though, I thought it was very clever.
Space Dimentio: It's hard for me to reply to all of your great reviews, so I'll start off with a Thank You. I will admit, it took me a while to apply Mimi's assasination attempt because of how uneventful Yold Town was, so I made it interesting. As for Merloo, you BET that he's gonna be in the side quest. Things like Tempo digging holes and Blecky's cat are based off things from this story's ask blog, the hole digging in particular is based on Tempo following the example of Cards Against Humanity and digging a Holiday Hole.
DISCLAIMER- I don't own Super Paper Mario.
Deeper and deeper did the Heroes search for Merlon, having yet to find a single sign of his occupancy.
"Wherever could he be?" Asked Blecky. "Perhaps he is this way, I can sense the Pure Heart somewhere ahead!"
With a sudden sense of dread, they proceeded through the dimly lit corridors.
Chapter 2-3
Breakout
The lack of Merlon's presence was become more and more of an issue the deeper Luigi and co delved into the mansion. They had searched every nook and cranny in search for him. Every door proved empty, every call proved without response, and every prayer proved unanswered. The group eventually decided that it would be in their own best interest to take a break after possibly hours of zero progress.
"Where is he?" Asked Blecky, resting underneath Luigi's hat. "I might not know Merlon very well, but I know enough to confirm that the guy would normally be very willing to approach us."
"Speaking of people we haven't seen, that thief from two chapters ago said he sent a team into this place right?" Added Laddie.
Luigi and Bowser nodded their heads in confirmation. The sound of a switch being flipped echoed across the hall as a trapdoor opened underneath the heroes, dropping them into an inescapable abyss.
Bowser was the first to land, being an organism of much greater mass, followed by Luigi, who landed on the koopa's stomach, and then by Blecky, who was too panicked in his fall to flap his wings. The other pixls fluttered down after them, having nothing except for a 'herd-of-sheep' mentality to follow their beloved shepherds.
The hexagon-shaped room was more akin to a prison than anything else, and the room they landed was like a jail cell. There were two other cells with prisoners in them as well; one cell had a group of shady characters dressed in dark colors, obviously the gang of the thief outside, while other held a group of characters that were Egyptian in their style of dress, garbed in yellow and purple sphinx hats and matching skirt-like clothes around their waists.
"Those shirtless guys are called Ackpows." Noted Blecky, "They're clearly not from here, but I don't think they came to steal anything."
"That's correct small, flying rodent." Said one of the ackpows, "We are loyal customers to Merlon's trap-based wares. We come here often to buy traps to protect our recently deceased kings."
"And queens!" Added another ackpow.
"Yes, and queens." Corrected the first one.
"You're telling me Merlon SELLS all these traps?!" Asked Luigi, noticeably ticked off.
"Well, duh bro. You think people across the universe just make their own traps?"
Luigi grumbled to himself in annoyance as he paced the cell for any sort of exit.
"If you guys are consumers, why are you in a cell?" Bowser asked the ackpows.
"We're not sure. We were waiting upstairs at our usual meeting place to discuss our most recent investment, when those sock wearing buffoons busted in, we all got got dropped into here."
"Well, whatever the reason, we'll get you all out of here. Right Luigi?" Luigi wasn't there however, he had found a hidden hole within the Next akin to a sewer system. The plumber called his friend down, with Laddie's help of course, and the team followed the cramped tunnels to a large chest that seemed to emit a sort of echoing song from within.
Assuming a key inside at best and a trap at worst, Bowser insisted on opening the chest in Luigi's stead after what happened when they met Thoreau. A calm voice hummed from within the box as a beady-eyed, rectangular pixl of blue and purple hovered out. The pixl had a semi-circlular wing on either top corner and a tail underneath it's body with a gold ring trailing behind.
"Salutations and good morn, amore.~" The pixl sang, "How long I've waited, forlorn, amore.~ For the worlds we must not mourn, amore.~"
"Hello Fleep." Said Laddie, "Might I ask why you're singing?"
"For the hero was told to wait, amore.~ A task that I do hate, amore~. So that I don't berate, amore~. A song sung to echolocate, amore~."
"Does that mean you'll stop?"
"Yes."
"Thank you."
"Welcome to Team Luigi, Fleep!" greeted Blecky, "What do'ya do?"
"I uncover what is trapped between time and space. It's not a very useful skill unless you like uncovering spacial rifts and finding other people's inter-dimensional loot."
"Boring. At least I can punch things in the face." Said the hand pixl himself.
"What exactly is your problem BA-bro? You seemed so pleased to see everyone earlier, now you're just being mean. Bada-boom." Asked Boomer.
Thoreau ignored the bomb, looking away with a distinct lack of trust in his eyes.
"Team Luigi?" The plumber asked Blecky.
"You're the boss, aren'tcha?"
Deciding he couldn't really argue with that explanation, Luigi let further uses of 'Team Luigi' slide so he could work with the newly acquired "Fleep" to find an exit to the jail cell. Immediately, the flipping pixl sensed a spacial rift next to his wooden prison and slipped through it, causing the entire group to warp back into the main part of the original jail cell.
In spite of being discombobulated from the trip, Luigi search the parameters of the confining space for any hint of a similar rift. Upon resting, back against the cell wall, he notice a group of markings on a brick that shimmered in a thunder bolt shape, similar to the rift that brought the group back to the cell. Luigi pointed this out to Fleep who used his powers to retrieve a key from between dimensions.
The key fit into the lock of their cell perfectly, the same, however, could not be said for the locks of the other two cells, urging Team Luigi to wander the general area beyond the cells to free the other prisoners.
The structure of the room was simple, due to the room being hexagon shaped, there were exactly three cells and three hallways, a hall between each cell and a cell between each hall, while the center of the room remained empty, but had a ceiling hatch that most likely led back to the main hallway. Each of the hallways, left, right, and forward led to doors with different puzzles inside.
The heroes decided to split up between the hallways next to their cell. Luigi took the left hallway with Laddie and Boomer, leading them to a seemingly empty storage room with a crack farther back. Luigi, being use to this sight, called upon Boomer to blast apart the wall to make an opening. The crack seemed fickle to pass through normally, so Luigi called upon Laddie afterwards, a tactic that, so far, had never failed to show hidden passageways for the plumber to access, and continued to never fail when Luigi squeezed through the crack to retrieve a key inside a chest.
Bowser, meanwhile, had taken the right hallway with Thoreau, where they were faced with a pit full of spikes. On the other side of the pit was a blue button, the kind that normally vanished upon being struck, just within fire-breathing distance. The koopa launched a fireball at the button, causing it to vanish and drop a key over in its place. The ceiling was too low to jump the gap, which meant one thing.
"Hey Thoreau, would you grab the key for me? Please?" Asked Bowser.
"You asked nicely, I don't see why not." Replied Thoreau, "It won't kill me to give you a hand."
Bowser groaned at the pun, but was glad to have the key in his claws.
The final group was Blecky and Fleep, who were still getting to know each other. Their hallway brought them to a broom closet. While they had no problems with their puzzle, Blecky finding a hidden 'X' marking and Fleep retrieving a button from the rift inside said button, the pixls were left with the predicament of actual pressing the button. They were 'finder' pixls, and therefore couldn't be utilized in combat, which in turn meant they had no attacks to activate the button. When all attempts to weigh down the button failed, there lay only one possible solution: knock down everything in the broom closet and pray something lands on it.
This shenanigan continued for several minutes and could probably hold up a story of its own, especially the part when Blecky got caught in a mouse trap; to be put simply, by the time they had finally gotten something on the button, their companions had already retrieved their keys, freed the prisoners of the other two cells, and gotten "thank you"s from each individual prisoner. The pixls didn't care however, they pressed the button that opened the escape hatch, and they were thoroughly pleased with the chaotic mess they'd made in the process; besides, they were pixl, they were just going to fly over the mess anyway.
With everyone free and the exit open, the heroes climbed upwards, back into the hallway they had fallen through, showing the team of thieves the way to the main entrance as they scolded them on why stealing was wrong, and receiving a business card from the Ackpows in the process. The heroes moved forward as they had done before, noting a light switch that had been flipped so violently that it could not be changed back.
"Who could possibly want to hinder our progress so badly as to trap us in a jail cell?" Asked Blecky, "We need to find Merlon and quickly, I'm getting some bad vibes about whoever is responsible for this."
"Right." Luigi and Bowser nodded as they marched further and further in the mansion, getting ever closer to the Pure Heart in the process.
With that we are almost done with Gloom Valley. I'll try to get the chapter done by next week this time.