Chapter 53: The Plantars Check In
After dropping HP's new suit of armor off at the Fwagon (Oh, did I not mention the armor in the last entry? Well, basically, HP and Polly were going to join us on our puzzle scavenger hunt adventure, but then he found out that the restaurant had a rewards program, and decided he was going earn the best thing in the catalog, which was a suit of armor, which you needed to eat a thousand bugburgers to get. And it sounds impossible, but he actually tried to do it. Polly told me that it was the most horrifying thing she'd ever seen, and she's been literally eaten five times. That I know of. Eventually they decided to just give him the armor so they wouldn't have to deal with the bad press of an old frog dying on their property just to earn it. It turns out it was just made of recycled silverware and really wasn't that good as actual armor, but really, what do you expect from a restaurant giveaway?), we went straight to Castle Leviathan.
Like the rest of Newtopia, the castle looks like it grew out of the ground. It seems impossibly old, like, thousands of years old. And something I haven't seen a lot of in Amphibia: wide halls and high ceilings. After spending a lot of time in places built for much shorter people, it was a nice change of pace.
It wasn't long before I found out why the place was built so big. And that was the moment we'd reached the throne room and met Andrias Leviathan I, King of Amphibia.
How do I describe him? Well, for starters, I'd go with HUGE.
[crude drawing of King Andrias [labeled "THE KING" with a tiny stick figure of Anne drawn to scale, labeled "AND I"]
See? This is not an exaggeration, this is about where I came up to. And to top it off, he has this deep booming voice (and the acoustics in that throne room don't exactly make it any less so), which all adds up to a huge intimidation factor. So it was a big surprise to find out he is one of the friendliest, most laid-back guys I've ever met. I think I'd even classify him as "jolly". Heck, that big white Santa Claus beard only adds to the whole aesthetic.
So I guess Marcy briefed him on the whole deal, because the first thing he asked for was the music box. Of course, we didn't exactly have it as it was still with Hop Pop's contacts, but I did have a picture of it on my phone. That's when the king noticed something that I'm surprised I never had in all the time I had the box…. The color of the three stones embedded in it. Or, my specifically, the lack of.
Looking back, I distinctly remember back when I, um, acquired – okay fine, shoplifted – the box, that there were three gems set in it, in three different colors. I wanna say… pink, green and… purple? Sasha particularly seemed interested in those, since they looked pretty valuable. But looking at the photo on my phone, the stones were definitely looking a little more early cinema, if you catch my drift. So… did this mean something? Did the stones only have power when they were in color, and was that why the box didn't work anymore? And if so… were we now permanently stuck here?
It was going to take a lot of research to find out exactly what was going on, and research is not something I'm built for… especially since most of the research material is in Ancient Newtopian. I can barely read a Thai children's book, and that's supposed to be my culture's language. Howcan I handle ancient scholarly tomes in a language nobody's spoken for thousands of years? Who would have the genius to be able to do something like that?
Would you believe… Marcy?
Yeah, I knew she was smart, but this is like, over-the-top smart! I had no idea she was on this sort of level. But then… I've kinda been surprising myself since I came here too. I've been doing things I never would've dreamed myself capable of. So, why not her?
So, with Marcy handling research, we've got a few days on our hands to kill. So what does King Andrias do? He puts us up at the fanciest hotel in Newtopia! Not only that, but he gave us a royal credit card attached to an unlimited expense account! Is this guy awesome or what? …wait, can I call him a "guy" is it bad to call a king "guy"? Um… I mean… all glory to his royal majesty! There, that works.
Well, after fighting a horde of ants, galiv-ant-ing (sorry) all over town, nearly getting eaten by an alligator, and meeting royalty, the fam is flat-out-exhausted. Sprig wants to go exploring, but all I care about is taking a very long shower and an even longer nap. Exploring can wait.
After probably the best night of sleep I've had in… maybe ever, we decided to spend the day juts checking out all the stuff the hotel had to offer, which, really, was a whole day in itself! And why not, it's all on the King's deci-copper anyway!
After fueling up at the breakfast buffet, we hit the shops. Newts are pretty close to me in height, so for once I actually found some outfits that fit me (after I sew up the tail hole, anyway). After that, I got my hair done (dunno why I bother, it always seems to go right back to its bushy state without me even noticing), grabbed a late lunch at one of the hotel's four restaurants (axolotl cuisine is surprisingly close to Italian, though they don't really have a pasta analogue), and capped it off with a ride on the hotel's indoor Ferris wheel.
Now, I had some questions; for one, I know that a Ferris wheel is called a Ferris wheel because it's named after the guy who invented it… now, I can't prove this, but I'm pretty sure that that guy was a human. So, was this Ferris wheel somehow invented here, independently, by a newt who, by sheer coincidence, was also named Ferris?
Well, I asked around, and it turns out the Ferris wheel is a very recent addition to the hotel. Like, very, very recent. Like two months ago recent. And it was designed by… well, guess.
That's right, in between designing a bridge and revamping the city's sewer system, Marcy was hired by the Hemisphere hotel to design a new attraction, and she came up with a Ferris wheel. Isn't she a little young to be doing all this? (Yes. Yes she is.)
Jeez, thinking of all she's accomplished since getting here makes me wonder if I've been wasting my time, bumming around on a farm and playing bugball and getting into trouble and learning easily-digestible lessons.
I guess Marcy wouldn't want me thinking like that. She always did like seeing her friends happy. And it's not like I was going to discover, like, cold fusion or something. Not in the middle of podunk with my dumb Anne brain.
So yeah, might as well enjoy myself. The view from the Ferris wheel certainly was spectacular. Easily worth the two-hour wait.
It's only a shame Sprig's been so out of it all day. You'd think he stayed up all night or something…
Marcy designing the Ferris wheel is a headcanon of mine. I know that the reason they call it a "Ferris Wheel" in the show is so that we, the audience, will instantly recognize it, but in-universe they had to get the name from somewhere, and having Marcy be the one who designed it makes more sense to me than there coincidentally being two engineers in two different worlds, both named Ferris, both designing giant wheel rides.
MarMarFaAnne: I love that headcanon for Marcy; she and Luz would've probably gotten along great… heck, if she'd had a friend like that to start with, who knows if the series would have even happened? Doris's backstory is actually a reference to Tree Trunks from Adventure Time.
DisneyTVAFan: Yes, I've seen the pages, and I plan to work some details into Find a Way.
Jose: Thanks as always
Ashley: I don't know, Ashley, I just… don't… know.
SomeBodyFan: Well, by now, hopefully we've all seen "Thanks to Them" (and gotten very sad). As fr Big City Greens, seems like DTV showrunners love horror movie parodies. Amphibia did Midsommar, BCG's already done A Quiet Place, and now it looks like they're doing The Hills Have Eyes.
Next: Lost in Newtopia
