Getting an early start on the day we packed up early and shipped out eager to get through to the next castle before the other group had time to re-group and take out more of Bowser's castle holders…that doesn't sound like the right way to say that…whatever. I scoped out the next section of land to pass through and saw another bottomless hole meaning that we had to pass through the sewers.
"No way, uh uh, not happening." Alice said defiantly.
"We have to; it's the only way through." I retorted trying to convince her.
"I'm wearing a skirt! There is no way I'm wadding through waist deep water without something that will keep me from flooding the lower end of my body." …ew.
"This is why you should have worn sport shorts…wait are you only wearing-"
"Finish that sentence and it will be the last word you say!"
"Great last word to say." Glitch added in chuckling.
"This isn't funny Glitch!" Alice yelled; she was starting to get pissed, how should we do this?
"Hang on…let me think." I sat down to try to remember some of the spells I read in the spell book from Hyrule. It was full of useful spells that had a lot of uses but I was only able to skim through parts of it and remember only a few motions… there was a fire spell, sleep spell, bubble spell…maybe that would work? I stood up and did the motion that I remembered trying to get it right; when I finished a poof of smoke erupted from my fingers.
"What did you-" When the smoke cleared Alice was passed out on the floor…wrong spell.
Deciding on who should carry Alice with a fair and civil game of rock-paper-scissors I grabbed Alice lifting her on my back and we moved down the pipe into the sewers being consumed by the darkness and the feeling of sewer 'water' filling our boots. Creating a makeshift torch out of a stick and some left over rags we had a decent source of light to use and looked out at the spread of area in front of us. With this light I could get a good look at the goombas in the sewer; they were a weird murky blue color…reminded me of the gloombas from paper Mario except for their feet which were just a darker blue of their body. We quickly moved around any of the enemies we came across making sure not to get their attention and jumped across to platforms a quietly as we could; it was hard to jump and move with Alice on my back but we were able to make it to the end of the sewer without arousing anything except the piranha plants which seemed on edge since we took out the big one.
"Is she awake yet?" Glitch asked as we climbed up the pipe out of the sewer; I looked at Alice on my back to see she was sleeping peacefully with a smile on her face; she gave a small cute giggle.
"Still passed out." We entered the sunlight moving toward the flag pole in the distance; we jumped down and I placed Alice down helping Glitch raise his flag on the pole, "Why do you put these flags up?"
"Being a hero means having your mark to leave on the world and this is mine!" I had to admit that it was a good symbol, it was a red G with a yellow, green and blue circle surrounding it with two axes slung behind the G both intricately sewn with the tiniest detail being shown. Finishing up we jumped down and dusted ourselves off with a feeling of accomplishment. I took this time to look over the next sub-section and saw what looked like a spread of giant fungus flat mushrooms and girder platforms, "Hey Soren!" I looked back and Glitch was standing next to Alice waving for me to come over, "How long do you think she'll be out for?" I approached them and looked at Alice intently to check for signs of movements or disruption. She didn't even twitch and just kept smiling as she slept; she wasn't waking up for a good few hours; damn it, I should have studied that book more!
"We've got about…six to seven hours or more of her being knocked out, I can keep carrying her but that means you're going to have to fight any fights solo till either I can put her down or she wakes up." I saw a spark of joy light up in Glitches eyes as I said that, it was like it was Christmas in his head.
"Leave it to me! I can take on anything that tries to attack us!" He did a few poses excited to prove himself and grow stronger, seems like he really wanted to do this; it was kind of funny to see him so excited about this. We jumped from mushroom to mushroom avoiding para-koopas and koopa-troopas making sure to grab any stray mushrooms that weren't platform sized and stuffing them into my belt.
"Hey Glitch?" I asked as we moved through the area.
"What's up?"
"Why do you use an ax for a weapon?"
"What's with the weird question?"
"Just curious? Seemed like conversation worthy."
"Right now?"
"What other time than travel time?"
"One wrong step and we die!" We looked ahead of us to see a para-troopa race at us full force forcing us to duck under it as they flew past us, "See!"
"Fair enough." We jumped as fast as we could across the mushroom patch making sure to keep focus to avoid any unnecessary collisions with flying turtles the size of bowling balls. Landing on the solid brick ground we moved to the flagpole taking care of our usual business with it; I checked on Alice again but there didn't seem to be any indication that she would wake up.
"You put her to sleep with a spell; can't you wake her up with one?"
"Spells are magical; you can't just have one spell that cancels another one out. It wouldn't make any sense."
"Please, they pulled that crap all the time in Harry Potter!" Sometimes I hate when these guys use reason to trump me…mostly because I can't retort but still.
"Even so, I don't know the correct spell to use or the motion so we're stuck with an unconscious Alice until she wakes up." We both gave a sigh.
"So rock-paper-scissors?"
"Yeah."…damn it, how do I suck at this game!
We entered the castle feeling the familiar air of hostility that accompanied the stone walls as I pushed Alice up so she didn't slide down my back; holding Alice felt foreign, if she were awake she would be beating me to a pink pulp and then into dust…please don't wake up. Like the last few castles it was devoid of any enemies except for one piranha plant that seemed to be focused on shooting us from a distance rather than engaging us up close meaning we could move around it to the bridge. Before we approached the bridge I took a long whiff of the air…I was relieved to find the smell of death absent from the air; we jumped up to see a giant red spiny on the bridge looking out at us.
"Halt!" It yelled at us and started to approach us slowly with a skeptical look on its small face. This creature had button eyes and a small mouth which seemed out of place on its above average body, "You are in the land of the mushroom kingdom which is currently being overthrown by our ruler Bowser. If you are a member of the mushroom kingdom I must take you into custody and if you are a new traveler to these lands I must ask you either leave or join our army." …this was the most civil person I have EVER come across and it makes me so happy to come across someone from Bowser's side ready to talk. I noticed Glitch start to pull out his ax and stopped him before the spiny noticed anything.
"Look, we are travelers who have passed through four castles to bring you a message. Someone is killing your generals." The spiny gave me a skeptical look and laughed.
"Our generals are too tough for someone to take out; whatever you are trying to do it will not work on me." He wasn't convinced, not surprising but I still needed some kind of proof.
"How would I have gotten this far if they weren't gone and even if I joined your side then wouldn't you have heard about it from someone?" I saw his face go into deep contemplation and then shock.
"Did you take them out!?" He was accusing me?
"If I had then why would I tell you?" He gave a sigh.
"Look, I don't know if you're right or not but this news should go to Bowser if you are, I will send a scout to find out if you are right and in the meantime I will let you pass to take this news to Bowser, if this is true then the Mushroom kingdom is more violent than we believed."
"No it wasn't them!" Glitch cut in, "Two other travelers are doing this!" That's right!
"Hang on, can you answer a few questions for me mr.?"
"Call me spike." The spiny replied. This was my chance to get answers on what the others were doing before we got here; I just have to ask the right questions.
"How long has this invasion been going on?"
"The main attack started about four days ago and we made it to the main castle only yesterday, we've been working on convincing the princess to sign a treaty to hand over her land since then." …
"Have there been any casualties taken from the Mushroom Kingdom?"
"We have not killed any citizens intentionally, we want a peaceful end to this without the need for violence and so we have only imprisoned them in order to avoid unnecessary complication." Bowser seems to be more the diplomat then the tyrant, it would make sense; nobody follows a tyrant into a battle with the spirit I've seen these troops have.
"What started this whole thing?"
"From what I heard it seems like the goombas approached us complaining about how they were being treated in the Mushroom kingdom. They wanted our help in creating a better world for them and so we decided to mount an attack for their rights." That's why the goombas left the kingdom, to bring an army back…something big had to prompt them to retaliate like this though, I wasn't going to find out from Spike though, I would need to talk to a goomba to get that story. Now the big question.
"How long has the traveler in your army been here?"
"The traveler? Oh, the big one in the giant body cloak. He's been with us for about two months and from what I heard he was the driving force in the attack, before him we never had the piranha plants or any of the bullet bill technology." He introduced piranha plants and bullet bills to this world!? Weren't they already a part of this world? I felt Glitch tap my shoulder and turned to him.
"The massive piranha plants and more mobile versions might be because of him. He just introduced something stronger than before." That made sense; they seemed much different from what I remember.
"After that he brought some allies with him on the day of the attack and acted as the first assault." So he destroyed the first castle! What could they gain from bloodshed though, Bowser doesn't want it and I doubt the Mushroom kingdom would be keen towards a war meaning that both sides are on equal ground on this matter. Whatever caused this war wasn't just a low flame, it must have been a roaring fire and I have a feeling that something outside of this world caused this problem. I just had to get a few more pieces to finish the puzzle.
"Thank you for answering my questions." I turned to Glitch, "We should head to Bowser as fast as we can." He gave me a nod and we walked past Spike onto our next destination, "Don't trust any travelers that are part of your army, avoid them at all costs." Spike gave me a nod as we left the castle.
"What now?" Glitch asked as we walked.
"Now we have to get to Bowser, we have one of his men who we were able to convince meaning we have a piece of evidence we can use against the cloaked man's plan to blame the Mushroom kingdom. With our warning he will stay alive and we can turn Bowser against the other group and avoid a full scale war."
"You don't think that they'll go after Spike?"
"The problem was that the generals let their guards down because they saw an ally, he'll keep his guard up with our warning."
"You're a sly one you know that?" He said with a cocky grin.
"All collective reasoning Glitch." I retorted, "So you ready to tell me why you use an ax?"
"Fine." He rolled his eyes as he said that, "Most people would prefer speed over strength like you and sheep brain on your back." He pointed to Alice who was sound asleep on my back, "But I always found it much more interesting to fight with strength than speed because after one of my hits you won't be getting back up. Trust me."
"You underestimate me."
"We tried this before didn't we?"
"I'll fight back this time."
"Still won't help." I stopped and gave him a cocky grin.
"Try me." He returned the grin and we shook hands.
"After this adventure is over, you're on!" This was going to be interesting, I was interested to see what he could do in a one on one fight and I was going to get that chance. This even helped us establish a stronger bond which made it a win-win situation for both of us; this was working great.
"I'd like to see that fight go down." I stiffened my back feeling Alice move, "Sounds like fun." I looked on my back to see Alice had woken up and was giving us a smile, she seemed okay; then she looked at me with a wicked grin and I felt my skin crawl, "Oh and Soren, I know you were being nice and carrying me but-" She leaned in and glared at me as I felt a coldness surround me, "Get you hand off my ass before I shove my foot up yours!" In retrospect…I was lucky I got a warning.