Chapter 15
Blablanadon swallowed the Sharpea. He nodded in the deliciousness of the alive and newborn Sharpea.
He quizzes the prince, "You know why alive beings are more delicious? Because you could taste its blood. It is much sweeter than water. Unlike you Beanish people who speared them, cooked them, dried them off their blood, gouged their insides out and throw them into waste or composting maybe. Doing something to an alive thing is much tastier, even if you want to kill them. But doing something to a dead thing is empty and plain nothing."
"How about an example?" Prince Peasley asked and rolled his eyes.
Blablanadon gives one, "Burying people alive is… fun. Burying corpses, however, not fun. You are practically Beanish. You can be buried dead to be resurrected, which is boring since you just go back and back. And to be dead is to be erased alive by burning your bodies to ashes, getting eaten alive wholly, getting fried by lightning bolts and drowning in the ocean; these are things killers would enjoy, because their victims were alive before they die, and when their victims die, they lose the fun and find fun someone else."
The prince nodded, though he looked like he did not care at all. He said to Blablanadon, "I appreciate your opinion, but this isn't about you being a really, really good mommy."
Blablanadon blushed in embarrassment again, but the prince proceeded to ask him, "But I wanted to know if you found somebody. Anybody who could awaken the Beanstar."
Blablanadon bowed his head to think before lifting his head up to answer, "I have searched far and wide ever since you talked about it. There's no shadow I could see in Chucklehuck Woods from above. There's no living being who rose from the sands of Teehee Valley, besides the Toads. I've been to Oho Ocean and Gwarhar Lagoon and met the inhabitants, but none of them looked so good."
"There has to be someone," Prince Peasley expressed his hope impatiently, "have your eyes failed to see through the kingdom's clouds above?"
"But they didn't," Blablanadon told the prince, "my eye caught a unique individual inside Joke's End, the cold shrine at the northeastern corner of Bean-bean Kingdom. I didn't check because being a cold-blooded creature like me could not stand the iciness of Joke's End."
Prince Peasley think about it and expresses his suspicion, "I don't know, Joke's End has been a restricted area because of the primitive Beanish banished to that place. How would this unique individual inhabit there?"
Blablanadon gives out his popular opinion, "Life is full of mysteries."
"Thank you," the prince praises the yellow pterosaur for his cooperation.
Blablanadon continues to tend to his nest to check on his captured Sharpea eggs. Prince Peasley's cape blows in the air when he starts walking back to the Hammerheads' workshop. Inside the workshop, the Hammerheads are bashing their heads against the pair of wings, which were taken off from Prince Peasley's board, on the anvil. The wings start to shine and sparkle as its white color becomes silver.
The Hammerheads raised themselves and installed the silver wings on each side of the bean-shaped board.
The prince finally returns and flaunts his golden hair and smiles. He asks the Hammerheads, "Has my winged board upgraded as requested?"
Sledg'r sweats out nervously in fear of the prince's disappointment. Nevertheless, the red-clothed forging master answered, "Yes, my prince! As you weigh on foot on one horizontal side, it will rotate."
"Diagonal position is now possible," O'Mallet also added.
"Very well," Prince Peasley replied, "then I shall test the winged board for a spin."
The prince takes his winged board from the anvil. He takes it outside along with his own person. The Hammerheads follow the prince outside as the prince places the board on the floor of the bridge.
Prince Peasley places both his feet on the board. He makes a jump to elevate it into the air. And then, he slowly and carefully slides his left foot on the front to cause the winged board to fly forward. He smiles in approval so far. Afterwards, he slides his right foot to the right side of the board, causing it to fly turn right. His red cape and golden hair blow in the air majestically, as the Hoohooligans from the village watch in grace from down below.
Prince Peasley's right foot stays on the right side of the winged board, thus making the board always rotating to the right. Those who are noticing from below watch the prince fly on his winged board in circles. The prince puts his feet back to the center before squatting down to lower the board on the bridge.
Sledg'r asks the prince, "How is the performance now?"
O'Mallet explained how they did to make the board, "The board and wings are made out of Hoo-hoo Blocks. The wings are modified and engineered by a graduate of Woohoo Hooniversity to make the board fly."
Prince Peasley smiles and voices out his reaction to the performance of his winged board, "The performance of the winged board has impressed my standards. This would be the best creation you two have ever done."
Sledg'r thanked the prince, "Thank you so much."
"It is truly consisted as our best work," O'Mallet added.
"You nitwit!" Sledg'r once again corrects his brother's grammar mistake, "It's considered as our best work! Considered!"
O'Mallet's face turns frustrated and angry red as he bashes his own head against his brother's head, causing them to be knocked into their home and workshop.
Prince Peasley shrugs and rides his board again as he flies up to the air with it. And then, he weighs his foot to turn east before heading straight forward.
He thought to himself, "I must head east from here to reach Joke's End. It would mean treason, but it is made by my royal family tree, so the law can be altered by my will. Queen mother would not object, will she?"
The prince confidently placed and weighed his foot on the north of the board to fly forward. On the way, he looks down to overlook Stardust Fields. He looks to his upper left to see a boat drifting in the sea towards Stardust Fields.
"Toads again, huh?" the prince assumed but does not care if the mushroom-like outsiders enter the territory of the Beanish.
Prince Peasley continues on forward. He begins to see frozen water on the ocean. He looks up ahead confidently to suspect that he is near. An ice-blue shrine is seen from afar. It has no shore during the tide, but the prince sees a set of ice-blue stairs, where he lands upon arrival to Joke's End.
The prince shivers in coldness of Joke's End. He inserts his hand into the collar of his armor to rub his chest for warmth. He groans in the coldness as his exhaled breaths turn to cold mist.
Suddenly, Prince Peasley starts to hear laughs and giggles coming from above. He picks up his winged board, trapping it between his arm and his body as he starts to walk up to the staircase. From both of his sides, there are pillars made out of blue ice and shaped as sad and depressed beings as represented by their saddened faces. There are more of those pillars built from the base to the top of the staircase.
Prince Peasley suspects that the laughing cannot source from the pillars and describes out loud about the place, "Every place in this kingdom is named after laughter, but not this one. Joke's End is named much seriously. Those laughs should be restricted in this place. Surely, emotionless beings and those who cannot learn emotions, such as the brainless Beanish primitives who live here, inhabit this place."
"So serious," a female voice echoed as it starts giggling again.
In the coldness, Prince Peasley starts to shiver more than ever. He quickly climbed up the stairs. On top of the staircase, there is a door with a sad face on the arch, but the door is sealed in ice. Prince Peasley pulls his sword out and starts striking the ice to crack and shatter it. When it did, he entered the palace of Joke's End after withdrawing his sword back.
In the first lobby, on the north wall, there is a door between two burning pedestals. The prince desperately ran towards the west pedestal to get close to the fire. The heat managed to warm the cold prince to ease his adaption to the cold. He places the winged board on the floor to reach his hands towards the fire.
"I wish Beanardo trained me here during my younger blood," Prince Peasley thought to himself.
A wind blows from the entrance of the shrine. The fire from the two pedestals have dissipated. Prince Peasley starts to shiver again. He removed his cape and covered himself with it. His teeth chattered while his body slowly becomes warm under the red cape.
The entrance of Joke's End has suddenly become sealed in ice again.
Prince Peasley brings out his sword to try to break the ice again, but he suddenly hears an echo, supposedly from the same female voice that giggled earlier.
Her voice echoed inside the palace, "Help me. I'm… I'm cold…"
The prince groaned and withdrew his sword. He still covers himself with his cape. He proceeds to the next room, where he finds himself in a gap between the high-leveled floor. Prince Peasley groaned in frustration and began to climb the left wall to get to the left side, but his hand slipped due to the icy wall. He fell on his butt, which causes him to hear another giggle from the female voice he heard earlier.
"This isn't funny!" Prince Peasley shouted and grunted as he tries to climb up the icy wall on his left again but falls in every attempt. He mumbled to himself, "Stupid slippery wall."
He suddenly hears ice crackling from behind. The prince slowly turns around to see a trail of ice spikes going and climbing up the other wall to the other level. The head of the trail of ice spikes has Prince Peasley's winged board.
The female voice giggled and echoed her voice, "You should've used this, silly."
"No!" Prince Peasley exclaimed and jumped up to retrieve his winged board, but his hands hang on the slippery ledge.
The trail of ice spikes continues to bring the winged board to the next elevated floor until the ice spikes break apart, thus leaving the winged board on the second level. The prince tries to bring himself up without slipping. He finally reaches the second floor, so he must reach the next level to retrieve his winged board.
Prince Peasley groaned in frustration. He attempts to instantly get on top of the third floor by making a tremendous leap. He successfully sets foot on the next level and happily retrieves his winged board.
He starts to notice a bubbling blue pile of goo approaching the prince. The pile of goo rose up and took shape; it has a pair of antennas on top of its head, it has yellow eyes and a big mouth with two fangs in its upper and lower jaws.
Prince Peasley expresses his disgust towards the gelatinous creature, which is provoked by the prince's indirect insult towards itself and stretched its own body to bite the prince, who quickly jumped across the creature.
The prince takes his sword out for a fight, but the gelatinous creature reduced itself back to a pile of goo and split itself into four. The four piles of goo surround the prince before emerging to their true forms.
The prince proceeds to swish his sword to strike down one of the gelatinous creatures. However, the sword just swished through the creature without any harm. Its gelatinous body is unharmed, untouched and perfectly in shape.
The monsters proceed to approach Prince Peasley and opened their mouths. Inside their mouths, purple clouds begin to form. Prince Peasley could smell the unpleasant breath coming from the creatures' mouths. The monsters are about to fire as Prince Peasley remains standing in a defensive position.
Surprisingly, blue bolts have struck the gelatinous monsters one-by-one. They are suddenly encased in blocks of ice. Prince Peasley withdraws his defensive position but still holds his sword in his hand.
"The Glurps can handle your primitive strikes," the female voice spoke but not in echoes this time.
Prince Peasley faces at the other side of the levelled floor he stands on. At the other side, there is a blue girl with the same stature as Prince Peasley.
Her body is purely ice blue-colored. Her eyes sparkle like ice. She wears an ice blue long-sleeved shirt, ice blue skirt and a pair of ice blue sandals. Her mostly-styled beehive, ice blue hair has an ice blue headband with a red jewel. Finally, her hand holds a yellow staff with a blue jewel as its core.
The girl introduces herself, "I am the friend of the cousin of the descendant of the spirit who once guarded this place. My name is Jojora. And this palace is my playground."