Hi this is Frederic Marile! It's finally here: Paper Mario: The Legend of the Clouds: CHAPTER THREE! YAYHAY! I'm not as excited for this chapter as the last one, but I'm still anticipating it. So I hope you like it! Part one!…Now I wish I was on chapter 2 still-saying, "Part one is up!" makes me feel dumb. But I still want you guys to like it, so let's go!
Also I don't own Mario or anything, just my own characters. Remember that like your national anthem.
Now that that's over, let's get on with it!
Mario glanced at the clock in the middle of the aisle again. It was half after eight. Ferris Sands must be rather far away if it had already been an hour and a half.
He also took another look around the incredibly small room their seats were closely confined in. The seats were laid out with four rows of three each on each side-twenty-four seats total. The party sat with Mario, Goomessa, and Koopetto in one row, and Snow in the row across from them. There were five other passengers in the room besides Mario and his partners. A Green Fuzzy was eating cereal in the seat behind Snow's; a Goomba and her mother sat fidgeting behind Mario and Goomessa; an elderly Boo dozed in the very front leftmost seat; and another Toadette reclined in the seat to the right of the door to second class. Mario noticed the Fuzzy kept glancing at Mario when he thought Mario couldn't see.
They were all dressed in white togas and turbans. On each one was a sash which read, "Ferris Sands-Where You'll Discover Beauty, Wisdom, and a Whole Lot of Sand". Mario didn't understand; was this some sort of ancient tradition, that you wore this outfit to the Sands?
He decided to get up and get supplies. They might need them if they were to travel Ferris Sands. Gillis had told them it was dangerous.
He found out painfully that his feet were asleep when they hit the carpet. After a few moments of trying to wake them up, he deemed himself able to walk. The soft, sugary voice of the flight attendant over the intercom had reminded them many times that they could find a shop right past the restrooms.
Where were the restrooms again?
After ten minutes of searching, he finally found the in-plane store. Inside was a modest shop that contained a dozen different items. Mario thought over the room in his pockets and the money he had left and bought a few Mushrooms and Fire Flowers.
The shopkeeper made the exchanges with him, and then looked over a notepad and smiled at Mario. "Guess what?" she asked, beaming. "You've saved up enough shop points that you get a special reward."
She told him to wait a second and then dashed into a backroom, returning afterwards with a wrapped present.
"Oh…" Mario looked confusedly at it. It was round and solid. "You shouldn't have."
"Oh, I didn't," the shopkeeper giggled. "I'm supposed to hand these out. They give them to me from this weird dude named Perry Johnson. He goes by P.J. though."
"Nice," Mario replied, ripping a section off the wrapping paper.
"In your car please," the shopkeeper told him, though the smile never left her face. "I just vacuumed."
"Well, okay, then," Mario agreed, leaving the store with his prize.
Back in the coach room, Mario sat back down and continued to open the present. Halfway through, he looked over the yellow shiny surface. It was a Growth Coin! When all of the paper was off, Mario held it up and admired it. He got up, stepped carefully over to Koopetto and woke him up.
Koopetto blinked himself awake. "What is it, Mario? I was having the best dream."
"Better than this?" Mario held up the coin for his partner to see.
Koopetto looked bored for a few seconds before suddenly reaching for the coin and ripping it out of Mario's hands. "Where did you find this?" he asked incredulously.
"In the shop," Mario replied. "You know what this means."
"It's…mine?" Mario nodded.
Koopetto held the coin up towards the sky the way Mario had done. There was a flash of light for a few moments, then it quickly dissipated.
"Thanks, Mario." Koopetto smiled wide.
"No problem."
Mario decided to just get back into his seat. He was going to tell Goomessa about the coin, but then he remembered she was asleep as well. Come to think of it, he was rather tired, too…
Mario suddenly felt himself shaken awake by an immediate cease in motion. The plane jerked to a stop and he almost fell out of his chair. Then again, the floor might have been more comfortable than the seat…
He looked around to see that most of the other passengers had experienced the stop just as much as he had, but some of them had fallen out of their chairs. The honey-voiced flight attendant announced over the intercom, "Good afternoon, passengers. We have arrived at our stop, Ferris Sands."
Wait, afternoon? How could it be the afternoon? Mario looked at the clock, and sure enough, it read 1:45. How had it taken seven hours? Ferris Sands must be very difficult to get to.
"We know you only have one choice in airlines to the Sands, so thank you for choosing Ferris Airlines. Please take your entire luggage with you. Do not to exit the plane until it has come to a complete stop. Please have a nice day."
Mario felt like telling her not to tell him what to do. Considering the way the flight had gone, Mario didn't believe it was possible anyway.
Stepping off the plane onto a poorly crafted runway, Mario immediately breathed in about five mouthfuls of sand and dust. And it only gets worse from here! He thought. "Cover your mouths," he managed to cough out at his partners.
So that's what the sashes meant when they said, "A Whole Lot of Sand". They weren't kidding.
"I suddenly begin to feel finding Fragments is more trouble than they are worth," Snow commented.
"And I'm claustrophobic too," Goomessa wheezed.
"Goomessa, we're in a desert," Mario reminded her. "How could you get claustrophobic in a desert?"
Goomessa shrugged. "I'm not actually getting claustrophobic right now, I just-"
The flight attendant suddenly cut her off, loud enough that they could hear her off the plane: "Thank you again for riding Ferris Airlines, one and all. The plane will be leaving in three minutes, so everybody who is leaving the plane, please do so. Please do not exit the plane if you do not wish to travel to Ferris Sands."
So the plane made other stops, apparently. That meant they'd have to stick on the plane for another few hours when they were finished here.
As the Toadette from coach stepped out of the plane with a rather excessive assortment of bags and luggage, another Koopa, wearing the same toga as the other passengers, that Mario had not seen before came rushing towards them through the sandstorm. "Hello!" he called. "And welcome to Ferris Sands!"
"Is it really a welcome?" Snow snorted.
The Koopa ignored her comment. "My name is Geoffrey. I will be your tour guide. We are going to go to Tique, in the heart of the Sands, to get tour supplies, and then we will travel to the ancient ruins. I assume you all want to go on the tour?"
All the other passengers agreed. Mario did too after a moment.
"Follow me, please," he finished as he turned around and beckoned the others to come along. Mario was confused by the suddenness with which Geoffrey had come to them, but decided to follow him anyway.
As the group started off towards what could easily be the middle of nowhere, Geoffrey began to tell them exactly what they were doing. "For those of you who have not yet been on a tour of the Sands, let me explain. Circa 200 BC, ancient peoples built two cities in the heart of Ferris Sands. Tique is a town situated close by here. The ancient people built it as a shrine for gods and worship. But then it was suddenly abandoned. Nobody knows why. And then, around twenty years ago, archaeologists dug the place up in ruins. Since then, architects have been trying to rebuild it as closely as they can to the original city. It's a history mystery, they say.
"But it's a great place. We have an inn if you need to rest or settle your bags in, and we also have a shop if you want a souvenir or items. I think we should be getting close soon enough…
"The other city was built as a sacrifice location. There's this giant sandpit there, and the ancient people believed that if they sacrificed one person every year to the sandpit, it would give them good harvest and food for the rest of the year. Crazy, I guess, but it's their culture. Now the place is also in ruins. We only let people go there on tours. We think it's too dangerous otherwise, because the sandpit is still running.
Just as he was finished talking, a small collection of rocks became visible after another few minutes. Geoffrey heaved a sigh of relief. Mario suddenly felt this trip would not go as well as they'd hoped.
"Here we are!" Geoffrey announced as the group stepped in a large archway with "Tique" written at the top in large bubble letters.
Inside the town was rather dreary. Not "Gillisville" dreary, but rather the kind of dreary that made you sleepy to look at the place.
"Now that we are here," Geoffrey said, "we are going to rest. It's two o'clock right now," Geoffrey informed them, "and we are allotted a half an hour for you all to settle in. When two-thirty comes, we will journey to the Ferris Ruins. Those of you who do not wish to settle in can do whatever they wish for a half an hour. I will wait here by the front arch. See you soon!"
Mario sighed and decided the party might go see the hotel and set themselves in, maybe lie down a bit. His partners agreed; the plane wasn't exactly the most comfortable place to sleep.
The inn, called Crypte de Fleur, was located a few blocks northeast. The innkeeper looked up at footsteps approaching. "Hello, welcome to Crypte de Fleur, how may I help you?"
"We'd like a room, please," Mario told her. "Any floor is fine."
Snow ran to the kitchen to get a glass of water while Goomessa and Koopetto plunked down in seats next to each other. When Mario finished speaking to the innkeeper, he told his partners they had room 202 and headed for the elevator.
On the second floor, Mario saw their room directly next to the elevator as they stepped out of it. Inside their room, which was actually quite neatly furnished, Mario suggested the party lie down for a few minutes. Koopetto said he'd rather stay up, just in case anyone slept too long.
"Hey, Mario, it's 2:25," Koopetto told him, shaking him gently awake. Mario blinked a few times and sat up.
Mario nodded and set to waking the other two up. When everybody was awake, the party exited the inn and made back for Geoffrey.
"Ah, not a moment too soon!" the Koopa called as he saw the party approaching. "Now we have only to wait for our Fuzzy friend. Who is he…Fluzz, that's right. That reminds me, sirs and madams," he added, turning towards the party, "may I have your names? You sped off so quickly I didn't get the chance."
The party said their names carefully, making sure not to say them in unison this time. Geoffrey wrote their names down as they did, filling out a sheet of paper with names.
As Geoffrey shrugged and remarked that it was too bad for Fluzz but they needed to proceed with the tour, the Fuzzy came hopping towards them as quickly as he could, apologizing profusely as he did. Geoffrey said it was okay, and the group followed him towards the back end of the town.
At the end was another archway that led back into the Sands. Luckily, the storm that had been going on when they entered had somewhat calmed down, so they could see a bit better this time around.
There was a path of sand carved by many feet having traveled here before. Geoffrey told them that if they just stuck to the path, they'd be fine. Mario wished he thought Geoffrey himself was quite sure of what he was saying.
The group walked for a few minutes, during which Geoffrey kept talking about the ruins. "It's actually a beautiful place, despite that it was used to kill people. Rumor has it that at the bottom of the sandpit is actually a paradise of some sort, with everything you would ever want. Others say that there is a temple at the bottom. Still others believe that a monster waits at the bottom to eat its sacrifices. It seems that this was the soundest theory for the ancient people-they probably believed that the monster gave them the good harvest and food in return for sacrifices. Some even say they've seen the monster roaming about the Sands.
"But we don't let anyone go there," he warned. "It's far too dangerous to test out theories. Besides, they're just rumors, right?"
I think I'll have to stop for today. I have to clean the house with my family all weekend, so I can't expect that'll I'll have any other parts up this weekend. Sorry, guys.
What are your thoughts on this chapter so far? Click on the magic green button please.
See ya!