Chapter 5: Thief's Adventure.
Duster returned home later that night. He had been watching Lucas and Boney while Flint had run off. Thankfully, Flint had returned home, he looked devastated, but at least he was home to console with Lucas.
He opened the door to his house to the east of Tazamily and made his way to his bed before the footsteps of his father alerted him.
"Duster!" Wess said.
"Yes dad?" Duster asked.
"I speak to you not as my son, but as my pupil. The time has come!"
Duster felt his eyes widen. "Has...has it really?" he asked.
"No, this is not something we have been looking forward to." Wess said. "I had hoped the time WOULDN'T come, if at all possible. But you and I have been constantly preparing for this day, in the event it did come. So it appears you finally have a chance to try out what I've taught you."
"Do we know who we're up against?" Duster asked.
Wess shook his head. "The enemy's form is still unknown. But we must now change the way we live. Are you prepared?"
"Yes."
"Alright, your mission is to sneak into Osohe Castle. There, you will find a certain Important Item and bring it back here."
"What is the important item?"
Wess laughed. "Haha, there is no need for me to tell you. If a thief can't determine the value of what he steals, he's a disgrace to the profession. Still, would you like to know a bit about it?"
"Obviously." Duster said. "I wouldn't want to steal the wrong thing."
"Well...it's a VERY important looking item...it's all...shiny. Yeah...that should be enough." Duster felt himself facepalm.
"You already have The Seven Mystical Thief Tools...do you not?"
"Yes, I do, well...five of them at least." Duster said calmly. "You taught me how to use them all. The Hypno Pendulum for hypnosis, the Siren Beetle to startle, Smoke Bomb to hinder sight, Tickle Stick for defense dropping, and Scary Masks for attack dropping...don't really know how it works like that...but still."
"Great, hidden inside the castle is a treasure with the power to change the fate of the world!" Wess said. "Back when the king of Osohe still lived in the castle...I hid that treasure to a place where no one would ever lay eyes upon it. I felt it would be too much trouble for the king of Osohe to handle"
"Could you tell me where? It'll make my job a lot easier, since you already know…"
"Of course not you moron!" Wess scolded. "You never know when the enemy is lurking in the shadows! Under normal circumstances, this would be my job. However, I am confident that I've hammered every technique into that small brain of yours. Now, get going my boy."
"Wait...what about the other Thief Tools?"
"Oh, well, I've hidden one out in the back of the house outside."
"But why?" Duster asked. "Why would you do that?"
"That's what I'D like to know!" Wess said.
Duster shrugged it off and made his way outside, quickly, he scurried behind the house and found the box stashed in a pile of tall grass. Upon opening it, he found a stash of Thunder Bombs. He quickly took a few from the box and placed it in his pouches. Then, he made his way into the town.
Tazamily had been quiet, all day, and all night. Hinawa's death had left everyone in an uneasy tension, especially since Flint went absolutely insane.
Duster thought about that as he made his way north. If he was thankful for one thing, it was the fact that Flint hadn't died out...in the mountains. If he had, Lucas would've probably been messed up for the rest of his life. Surely he and his father could've taken Lucas in, but...considering that he often felt like Wess didn't treat him very well. That could've spelt disaster.
Duster bumped into someone, knocking him back to reality. He looked down at a short, tan, man was rather chubby, he wore a dark brown vest that covered a large pearly white shirt. He also had a heavy mustache that went dual sided with beady little black eyes that gave him an evil stare. He also wore a brown turban with a gold emblem of a...pig?...Weird.
He was also traveling with a small brown monkey with a sky blue collar. Though, the monkey looked rather upset...maybe even terrified...almost like it was being held there against its will.
"Oh...pardon me…" the man said. "I'm sorry about that...I wasn't paying attention."
"The fault is mine." Duster mumbled. "I wasn't paying attention either."
The man shrugged. "The name's Fassad, this is Salsa." he said, pointing at the monkey. And, pardon my rudeness, but we're in a terrible hurry. Come along now Salsa." Fassad then walked off, leaving Salsa to look at Duster, the monkey looked like it was trying to convey something to him, through repeated hoo's and ha's. Eventually, with a look of disappointment, it hung its head and walked away.
Duster shrugged it off and walked up further. He passed by Butch, not really caring about whatever the man was doing, didn't sound or seem all that important anyway. Though, he did turn back to see the boy toss something that looked like a small heavy bag that made a loud clunk when it hit the bottom of the well in the center of town.
Duster shrugged and walked up north. He approached the graveyard, where he saw the large, rundown, gray castle. Wess had told him about the castle in the past, there was once a royal family that had...disappeared all of a sudden. It had been a long time ago that he was told this story. Supposedly, the royal princess had never left, he wasn't sure what her name was.
Anyhow, Osohe Castle was a run down area, it wasn't like anyone ever visited it...so he wasn't sure what the deal was. Why would his father hide this...thing here?
The Drawbridge had thankfully been lowered, thanks to the gravekeeper. That was always an issue.
Immediately, several spiders came flying down from the area. They were large purple little creatures with black stripes. Duster shrugged them off and simply stepped on each of them. He made sure he had an antidote on him, just in case one happened to bite him.
He also felt shivers come around him, he spun around and was met with a couple of ghosts, all of them were holding onto some rotting eclair or something like that...it smelled...awful.
"Uh…"
"It's been a long time since a human once wandered in here." One of the ghosts hissed. "Are you drunk? Did ya get lost on your way home?"
Duster blinked in confusion. "Uh...I came here to...retrieve an item…"
The ghosts looked at him with beady little red eyes. "Odd...perhaps you are referring to that thing she was looking for. You must be an accomplice."
"Here, take this…" one of the ghosts summoned a very long red snake from the floor. The snake looked up at Duster.
"I'll help ya if ya need it ssssson." the snake hissed. "Partsss of thiss castle have fallen apart. I'll be able to swing ya over with my humane strength."
"Do you know where this treasure is?" Duster asked.
"Sorta." one of the Ghosts said. "Only issue is...well...there's some stupid little Bettoven bitch who keeps playing realy irritating music. I think he's been guarding the treasure...but quite frankly, he just gets on our nerves. If you can take care of him, we'd gladly let you outta here with the treasure. He's up on the third floor."
Duster climbed up to the second floor of Osohe Castle, where he found himself in a predicament. A large gap was in between the floor and ceiling, too far for him to jump across.
"Great...how did this one get through the design boards?" he muttered. The Rope Snake suddenly slithered out of his back pocket.
"Hey buddy!" The snake hissed. "Thiss lookss like a job for me! Jussst hook me onto that candlestick right there. It pointed its red tail at a burnout candlestick hanging to the side.
"Um...I don't think that will work." Duster said.
"Don't worry about me!" Rope Snake responded. "I've got a strong jaw! I can hold ya as ya swing across!"
Duster shrugged, then, he gently grabbed the snake's tail and threw his arm up towards the stick. The snake hooked itself by chomping down on the middle stick.
"Erm Go on!" said Rope Snake.
Duster nodded and, holding onto the end of the tail, swung himself across the gap. Safely touching his feet to the other side, the snake detached its jaw from the middle stick and allowed him to cross.
He walked through the hallway and found himself another staircase. He walked up simply before someone, he got a glimpse of short red hair and a blue dress gown cloak of somesorts ran past him. He couldn't quite tell anything else, but he did notice something sparkling on the ground. It was a gem pendant that he picked up, if he saw the strange person again, he'd return it to...her.
He had heard rumors that this place was haunted, but...for some reason...nothing seemed to bother him. Even though all the ghosts in the castle sort of just partied all the time.
Either way, he finally got to the end of a long spiralling hallway, and pushed the door open, only to instantly regret doing such a thing.
A long, very loud, and very irritating tune played and echoed through his ears. He saw a ghost that looked like it was wearing some old timey powdered wig and a tuxedo, holding a baton and conducting this racket noise. Everything in the room was shaking and going crazy. There was even a mouse and two candlesticks flying around.
The ghost turned its head 180 degrees around and noticed him. It had cold red eyes and spoke in a very creepy manner.
"My name is Mr. Passion...I'm playing a special song…" the ghost hummed. hummed. "It's called Family Matters, 2nd Movement. Would you like to listen thoroughly?"
"No...not really." Duster said. "I'm uh...I'm actually here to tell you that the other ghosts want you to keep it down up here."
The ghost's eyes suddenly flashed red. "NO! NO YOU SAY?!" Mr. Passion screeched. "HOW DARE YOU DISRESPECT MY ARTISTIC TALENTS!"
"I was just passing a mess-" Duster quickly got pinned to the wall by the candlesticks that Mr. Passion directed at him.
"I WILL TEACH YOU NON ARTISTIC FOOLS WHAT TRUE ENTERTAINMENT FEELS LIKE!"
Duster quickly threw the candle sticks off of him, if these ghosts were sentient, then surely.
The ghost turned his baton towards a chair, then sent it flying. Duster quickly jumped onto the moving chair and sprung off it with his hand, doing a persise movement before landing a quick strike with shoes, smacking the ghost across the face. Then, before the ghost could retaliate, Duster quickly did a leg sweep and knocked the ghost's tail end up, before grabbing it and slamming it downwards.
Mr. Passion got up and twirled his baton around, this time throwing the two candlesticks, Duster quickly rolled out of the way of one, but Mr. Passion redirected the second one to hit him over the head.
Duster got back up as Mr. Passion suddenly smashed the chair back over his head. Duster did a quick somersault to quickly maneuver behind him and quickly did a flying kick to smack backwards and forwards.
"FOOLISH MAN...HIT BY A VAN...HERE MY RHYME...IT'S TIME TO DIE!"
Mr. Passion twirled his baton around, this time, a lot of stuff around the room levitated up and charged at Duster, he quickly ducked under the candle sticks, rolled out of the way of the chair, and jumped over a couch. The only thing to hit him was the white mouse, thankfully, that did not hurt at all.
Duster quickly pulled out one of his smoke bombs and, after ducking under yet another candlestick, tossed the bomb at Mr. Passion. The bomb exploded in the ghost's face. Making it hiss in pain. It's eyes were suddenly closed as silver pale tears came streaking down it's face.
Mr. Passion, though blinded, twirled his baton and swiped in different directions, making jabs and swipes at Duster's body, he dodged each one with a quick movement, reading his foe's pattern at a rapid pace. Using his durable shoes, he performed a quick twirl before roundhouse kicking the ghost backwards. But not before Mr. Passion got in one final jab to push him backwards.
Duster grunted as he clutched onto his side, he watched as Mr. Passion started to twirl his baton, the room started to shake and levitate again. If the ghost kept this up, he was going to be dead for sure. Then, an idea came to him.
Duster reached behind and grabbed the Rope Snake and swung it at Mr. Passion's Baton, the snake hitched onto the baton as Duster yanked it backwards. Duster quickly snapped the baton in half then, performed a quick soaring axe kick to slam the ghost down. Mr. Passion let off a hiss and screech as he vanished into thin air.
Instantly, the room stopped shaking, Duster sighed to himself as he wiped the sweat off his brow. That was a close call.
He pushed open the back door to the room and found himself in a one way room. A strange wall pattern depicting some sort of weird dance. However, that wasn't important, in the center of the room, there was a shining vase like object. It looked very fragile, and very expensive. This surely had to be the treasure his father was referring to.
Carefully, he picked up the vase and turned around to leave. Though, as he made his way out, he could've sworn he heard a female voice shout "OW!"
That's all for today's chapter, I hope you all enjoyed it, I think that Duster's Part has a lot of unnecessary Dialogue and required fighting. Stuff like the conversation with the Gravekeeper and the Zombies. Considering this is a prologue, I want to save a lot of the character's skills and abilities to the actual story. I made an exception for Flint since this is the only time we see him.
Speaking of which, Mother 3 is a very colorful and beautiful game. I love the characters and story so dearly, and it makes me happy to see a fanbase for a very underappreciated Nintendo Title, after all, we have the fans of this game to thank for the English Translation...hehe.
I honestly can see that Mother 3 would prove to be very controversial game in the United States nowadays, thanks to all the alcohol, animal abuse, and uh...other stuff. I think that's why Earthbound, Mother 1, and Mother 3 would all be hit with a T rating. But I appreciate all the work that actually went into this.
Anyway, that's all for this chapter, I'll see you all next month.