Only 4 Time Pieces left. Then she'll have enough to go home. It was exciting...but also a little nerve-wracking? Why was she still so hesitant about finishing this?

No. She has to finish this.

Looking between the Lava Cake and the Birdhouse, she decided to go with the Birdhouse next. She was still pretty tired from the Old Windmill climb and hot lava wasn't going to make her condition better.

As she made her way to the zip-line, she stopped. Just sitting right by the post was one of those strange purple plants in bloom. It seemed to pulse and puff out a little pollen every minute or so. It had a strange aroma to it. It was terrible, but it was tolerably mesmerizing. The scent was making Hat Kid's nose twitch and having her cough a little. She decided to leave it be for now and make a mental note to find some weed killer when she gets back to her ship.

As the zip-line took her through the metal bars of the world's biggest birdcage, she took a look around as she landed in a large pile of twigs, feathers, and straw. As expected, there are a lot of large nests and even a couple large bird-houses that were the size of actual houses.

She then looked to her left, spotting the familiar glow of a Time Piece. But what made her now nervous in getting it was there was a gigantic bird sleeping next to the cliffside of it. Hat Kid looked down at her umbrella, then back up to the large bird.

"I don't think I'm gonna be able to whack this one away…"

She's gonna have to be smart in getting that Time Piece. But first, she'll need a path to it. The zip-line to the nearest platform where the Time Piece was wasn't there. Surely there was a horn around here she could use.

No way of knowing for sure if she just stood there. She headed forward, hopping over nests and knocking any nasty birds back. What did catch her by surprise though was the eggs.

As she was crossing one of the nest, an egg popped out of the brush and started ticking and shaking, vibrating towards her. Hat Kid, hopped off the nest, going behind a hay roll. It then exploded, as its yolk went flying everywhere. Gross...and deadly. Best to avoid at all costs.

Getting around to the middle of the nests and houses, she spotted the horn sitting atop the tallest birdhouse. Hat Kid sighed looking up. "Of course it's all the way up there." She rolled up her sleeves and got hopping.

After Dodging Elvis-haired birds and exploding eggs while whacking away any mean regular birds, she finally made it to the top and blew into the horn. A short zip-line opened up to her, but it headed to the cliffside that was across from the one with the Time Piece. Which means she will have to get past the bird to get it.

She zipped over to the cliffside and climbed up. The sleeping giant bird rolled over, laying upside down. Hat Kid looked up to her Time Piece, then down to the bird. Maybe she can try to air-dash over it and reach the cliff-side.

She stepped back and took a running start. With a long leap, she reached out for the cliff-side but fell short. With a yelp, she landed atop the bird. It tweeted, stirring a little. Hat Kid froze, internally panicking. What will it do when it wakes up? She didn't want to imagine or find out.

Trying to find a way to put it back to sleep, she carefully rubbed its feathery side while humming a sort of lullaby. She was quietly happy no one was around that could hear her since she was normally very shy with her singing. She's been made fun of for it and she never liked to make it a hobby. But if she didn't want to end up being bird food or have something worse happen, it was worth a shot.

The bird cooed and slowly fell back asleep. With an exhale of relief, Hat Kid carefully tiptoed across and hopped off, climbing up the cliff-side. Once she grabbed it, it chimed and floated around. Hat Kid waved her hands frantically and pushed it down, then patted it. It only emitted tiny jingles now and remained still in her arms. The last thing Hat Kid needed was a gigantic bird waking up to attack her.

Using the Time Piece, she quietly floated back to the zip-line out of the birdcage and headed back to the village. As she left, the Badge Seller appeared, stepping out from the inside of one of the closest birdhouses. He looked to a large patch of those purple plants that started to bloom. As it pollen spread out to a few goats standing outside the cage, the three goats sneezed and twitched violently.

"It's almost time." His glitchy voice sounded concerned as he then walked to the back of the birdhouse and vanished.

Hat Kid felt a small chill go down her spine. It was as if something foreboding was going to happen. She shook her head. It was probably nothing. The only Time Piece she needed left here, as far as she could see, was the one at the Lava Cake. May as well get it done now while she still had time before getting back to her ship. Looking at the horizon, she saw the sky getting a little darker. Though, she wasn't sure if it was a storm or the sun setting.

Either way, Cooking Cat will want her back on the ship for dinner. Without wasting time, she hopped down to the zip-line leading to the Lava Cake. As she zipped towards the gigantic 5-layered cake made of lava, she got worried the zip-line would snap. It had some fire damage on it and it looked unstable. Thankfully, she was just light enough to keep it from snapping.

Once she landed, she immediately took her hat off and began fanning herself with it. It's bad enough it's big, but lava of all things? She could feel the intense heat already just standing close to it. Though, she could see why it seems like a lava cake. The pillars sticking out on its bases kinda look like unlit candles and the bases look like actual circular layers of cake. It even had a bow at the bottom of it.

Heading to a cannon close by, she hopped in and was shot inside, standing on a pillar on top of the first base. She was pretty nervous as she looked up. How the lava wasn't dripping down inside was beyond Hat Kid's knowledge. She decided to not stick around and see if it will though. She began hopping platform to platform with her sprint hat on. If she wore anything else, she may get heat stroke before reaching the second layer.

Luckily, there weren't too many enemies on her journey through. She shouldn't be surprised though. What does surprise her was there were birds that were on fire that were attacking her when she came near. Thankfully, her umbrella is fire-proof. Whacking them away didn't seem too hard.

Layer by layer, the obstacles seemed the same, but more difficult. There was one section where there was a circling mechanism that shot fire. Why it was there was beyond Hat Kid. Nonetheless, Hat Kid kept getting through and hopping into each cannon that leads to the next layer.

Once she reached the top layer, she spotted the Time Piece, sitting on a pedestal around a barred cage that had only one opening on one side. Hat Kid circled around until she reached that opening and grabbed the Time Piece. She brightly smiled, holding it close.

"Only two left." Upon saying that, her smile began to fade. She really is almost done. But now the true question was...did she want to be done?

Despite the challenges that came, she actually had some fun here and there when searching for her Time Pieces. Even the people she met weren't too bad. Sure some were jerks at times...but they were somewhat nice at some points.

Then an idea occurred to her. Just because she was planning to leave doesn't mean she didn't have to leave forever. Maybe she could visit once she found her home. ...Then again, it could be farther away than she currently assumes. What if it took years to come back?

Hat Kid hummed and looked down at her Time Piece, hearing it jingle gently and feeling it warmly glow in her hands. She should think about her future plans more after she gets all the Time Pieces. Using the Time Piece, she carefully flies out from the Lava Cake and back to the main village.

As she flew off, the last patch of those strange purple plants bloomed. Their pollen flew to another goat, who accidentally inhaled it. He sneezed and twitched. Then a growl was heard as his eyes started turning red.

Hat Kid almost stumbled when she landed. For some strange reason, the wind started blowing harder. As she held onto her hat, she looked in the direction of the wind. Her eyes widened and she let out a gasp. Stormy clouds started coming in and some sort of purple wind mixed with the pollen of those weird plants started coming in the direction of the village.

Hat Kid frantically ran to one of the nomad's houses and headed inside. She'll have to apologize to the owner for intruding later, but for now, she needed shelter from the oncoming storm.

The wind got louder until she felt the force of it hit the outside of the house. Then everything went dark purple as thunder boomed.