I decided this fic will be split into three acts just like the show itself, and this chapter is the beginning of Act Two. I retroactively added Act One markers to chapters 1 and 7.

Some of the dialogue in this chapter was taken directly from the series.

Once again breaking my record for longest chapter. In fairness this is two stories combined into one chapter.

Act Two

"Okay, so I close my eyes and count to 100, and you two have to find the best hiding spot," said Anne. "If I can find both of you in thirty minutes, then I win. If I don't, then you two win."

"I don't know why we never thought of this 'hide-and-seek before," said Sprig. "It seems so simple."

"Yeah! I'm gonna win!" said Polly.

"Uh, we're on a team. Remember?" Sprig asked his sister.

"Yeah, but Anne will find you," said Polly smugly. "She won't catch my new legs."

"I think you misunderstood how this game works—"

"ANYWAY!" said Anne. "Let's start!" She put her hands over her eyes. "1, 2, 3, 4…"

Sprig and Polly sprinted away from the Plantar farm as fast as possible, each having a Wartwood hiding spot in mind. They each thought their spots were pretty good, Anne was undoubtedly a Wartwoodian, but she had only lived here for a few months so there were obscure places she wasn't very familiar with.

"...98, 99, 100! Ready or not, here I come!" Anne ran toward the center of Wartwood, figuring that would be a good place to scope out locations. "Hmm… If I was a frog, I'd hide behind a building. But which one?"

Stumpy's? Nope.

Grub & Go? Nada.

City Hall? Not there either— wait, something's going on. She spotted Mayor Toadstool and Toadie counting a lot of coppers.

"I told you this was a good idea, Toadie," said the mayor. "I'm richer than ever!"

"Don't you think people will find out, sir?" asked Toadie. "They'll notice the town improvement construction you promised isn't happening."

Toadstool scoffed. "They never question where their money goes. Why would they start now?"

Anne loudly gasped. "You're doing illegal stuff!"

Toadstool turned and paled. He had to salvage this somehow. "No, this is just some lost money we found… we wanted to make sure it was the right amount before we do anything with it… help me out here, Toadie."

"Uhhhhhh…" Toadie wasn't at all prepared for this. "Yeah… what the mayor said…"

Anne gave them a disbelieving look.

"Alright, it's stolen, but this is the only way to make money in this poor town!" Toadstool had to make Anne understand. She was a beacon of light brightening Wartwood's dreary atmosphere, so she could instantly and irreparably turn the townsfolk against him if word got out about this. "How about I give you a share of the loot? 25— no, 30 percent! That's a good deal, right?"

"I'm gonna tell everyone!" Anne ran away back toward the town's center.

"No, wait!"

…

"And that's how Anne Boonchuy discovered my scheme to embezzle 4000 coppers from the town populace."

Grime nodded as he sharpened his sword. "And you won't be attempting that again, right?" He lifted the sword and pointed it toward the mayor.

Toadstool gulped. "No, sir." He flashed a nervous smile.

"Good." Grime sported a grin of his own. Sasha had taught him how to smile less threateningly, but the lessons didn't always stick. "I am wondering how you know the stuff at the beginning. It's not like you were present for that."

"Anne got rather preoccupied and forgot about that game of hers. Eventually those Plantar kids rushed out and gloated that they won." Toadstool shrugged. "I suppose I don't know everything for sure, but I gleaned enough from the ensuing chaos to figure stuff out."

"That makes sense," said Grime.

Grime and Sasha stayed in Wartwood these past two weeks while preparations to go to Newtopia were being made. In general, it was Hop Pop and Grime who were preparing. The kids went on their own Wartwood adventures.

Sprig, Polly, Anne, Sasha, Ivy, and Maddie all sat in the Plantar living room. Maddie was showing everyone else some of her spells. The Plantars hadn't hung out with Maddie that much before, but that quickly changed once Anne found out the blue frog practices magic. Maddie's really creepy at first glance, but deep down she's a good kid.

"With this magic-enhanced slingshot, you'll never miss again," said the blue frog.

Sprig held his slingshot with awe. "Wow…" Granted, never missing a shot would get boring after a while, but that's what his other slingshots are for.

"I still can't believe magic spells are real!" said Anne excitedly.

"Are they really less believable than a world of talking frogs?" asked Maddie.

"Yes," said Sasha bluntly.

There was an awkward silence for a moment. Eventually Polly was the one who ended it. "I wanna see the magic slingshot!" she said.

"Yeah! Let's do it!" said Ivy.

"We need a target to test it," said Anne. "I know!" She walked to the fireplace and pointed at a suspiciously familiar painting over the mantle. "Hit this old frog right in the face, but aim at the floor!"

Sasha shook her hair. "That's not exciting enough. If we're gonna test this, then we're really gonna test it. Aim it toward the couch."

"Yeah! And do it with your eyes closed!" exclaimed Polly.

"So it's a challenge you want, eh?" said Sprig. "Alright." He hopped up onto the living room table and faced the couch. "Here goes."

He put a rock in the slingshot and shot it roughly in front of him. It sailed toward the couch but abruptly changed course and went flying toward the painting. It hit the old frog man's face, causing part of the painting to depress slightly. The mantle collapsed and with a low rumble, the stone chimney opened up revealing a path beyond.

"Did I miss?" asked Sprig, whose eyes were still closed. "'Cause it sounds like I missed so bad I tore down a wall."

"You didn't miss but you broke the house!" said Polly.

Sprig frowned. "Dang it!"

"The house isn't broken, Sprig," said Anne. "You just opened up a secret tunnel".

Sprig breathed a sigh of relief. "That's good. I really thought I— wait, what!?"

The six kids ran toward the tunnel entrance and peered within. They saw a descending stone staircase covered with cobwebs and roots.

"Wow…" said Sasha. "We have to go down there!"

Ivy nodded. "There could be treasure!"

"Or dead bodies!" said Polly. "Let's do it!"

"Wait!" said Sprig. "Maybe Hop Pop never mentioned this secret tunnel for a good reason!"

"Be real, Sprig," said Polly. "If Hop Pop knew about it then he would've accidentally mentioned it plenty of times.

Sprig frowned, but knew his sister was right. Anne grabbed a firefly lantern and the six of them walked down the stairs. Things seemed fine, but the entrance sealed shut when they got halfway down.

"Uh, did we just get locked in here?" asked Sprig.

"Yep," said Anne.

Suddenly the two of them ran back to the top of the stairs and pounded on the door, demanding to be let out.

"Hey, it's not that bad," said Sasha. "There's gotta be a way out on the other side."

"Yeah, I'm confident we can figure out how to get out of here on our own," said Maddie.

"Are you two really gonna back down from a new adventure?" asked Ivy.

Anne and Sprig looked at each other for a second before sprinting down the stairs. Everyone else followed them, since Anne was the one holding the lantern. The kids walked for a minute or so and then they entered an abandoned science lab. There were lots of papers strewn around and shelves with jars containing vegetables with disturbing faces suspended in liquid.

"All this was under your house?" asked Sasha. She put her hand on the shelf but immediately pulled it back. "Eww, everything's dusty.

"It's dusty, but more importantly, it's freaky," said Polly.

Sprig rifled through the papers. "Cool," said Sprig. "Now I know why this was hidden. Who wouldn't want to steal this stuff?"

Sasha looked into one of the jars and gagged. "Everyone. This stuff is gross."

Maddie agreed. "Magic's better than science. It's less messy."

"Anyway," said Sprig. "It says here this place belonged to Great Uncle Skip Plantar. Apparently he was a brilliant scientist."

"I thought everyone in your family were just farmers," said Ivy.

"I guess not," said Sprig. "I wanna know more, like what does this do?" He pulled down a lever and a gated cell opened up. Out walked a giant white pumpkin monster with four vine-like legs, constantly drooling a greenish liquid. It screeched and lunged toward everyone.

Sasha. slashing at the beast with her sword, and Maddie followed with a few small explosion spells. The pumpkin got dazed and blindly thrashed around.

"I don't think we have to fight it," said Sprig. "There may be another way." He slowly approached the creature.

"Sprig! That pumpkin will squash you!" shouted Polly.

Sprig didn't react at all to what Polly said. Instead, he carefully gave the pumpkin a hug. "There, there, you beautiful disgusting thing." The creature calmed down and leaned into the hug, getting some of its drool on Sprig. "That's right, Mama Sprig is here. You horrible, horrible, sweet boy." Everyone else looked at him with wide eyes. "Forgive me," he whispered right before he kicked the pumpkin back into its cell and lowered the bars. It tried to escape but couldn't.

"Wow, Sprig. I didn't know you had that in you," said Maddie.

Sprig sighed. "Love is the cruelest weapon."

Anne had a thoughtful expression on her face. "I wonder how long that thing's been alive down here?"

Sasha grimaced. "I don't wanna think about it. Let's get out of here before something else gets loose"

Just then, the six kids fell through the floor. (It seems the pumpkin creature damaged the already shaky foundations.) They landed in an armory with dozens of weapons hanging on the walls.

"This is heaven…" said Polly with a dreamy look in her eyes. She grabbed a flail from the wall. "This is mine now."

"Looks like your family also had a warrior," said Ivy, looking at the portrait of Polliana Plantar.

Polly groaned. "Why does Hop Pop only know the boring things about our family!?"

"Eh, it's not his fault he loves farming the most," said Maddie.

"Whoa, this lady was awesome," said Sasha, skimming through Pollianna's diary. "She fought in the Bog Water Wars and the Western Toad Invasion! Dad says those were some of the toughest battles in history.

Anne cheered. "Woo! We Plantars are the coolest!"

"Wow! We sure are learning a lot!" said Sprig. "I'd sure love to learn more. Like what does this do?" He pulled down another lever hanging from the ceiling, which activated a big death trap blocking the exit.

"You need to stop pulling levers, Sprig," said Maddie with a glare.

Sprig crossed his arms in protest. "Levers are for pulling!"

"The book says this was Polliana's training simulator," said Sasha.

"She didn't need to train this much!" shouted Anne. "How do we get out of here!?"

Sasha frowned. She didn't like showing distress but she was definitely worried. "The off switch is on the other side. If we're slow we could make it.

Ivy hummed. "How about that attack move we tried out last week, Polly?"

Polly gasped. "Yeah! Let's do it!" Ivy picked up Polly into her arms. The 6-year old frog might not be a polliwog anymore, but she's still rather lightweight.

Everyone else looked nervous. "Is this safe?" asked Sprig.

"Probably not," said Polly. "Now toss me!"

Before anyone could stop her, Ivy chucked Polly toward the shut-off switch. Polly flailed her flail around her as she zoomed past, destroying the obstacles in the process. She landed on the floor next to the switch and flipped it, deactivating the simulator. "Woo! Let's do it again!"

"No thanks," said Anne as the others walked out the exit door

The group next wound up in a sandy room filled with games, puzzles, and various memorabilia.

"Oh wow… can you believe it? Another mysterious hidden chamber…" said Polly dryly, still miffed that she had to leave the weapon room.

"Hey, this stuff is cool! There's games everywhere!" said Anne with wide excited eyes. "This must've been someone's collection."

Sprig, Polly, Ivy looked through a stack of board games while Anne, Maddie, and Sasha looked through the books lying on the ground.

"I never knew most of this stuff even existed," said Ivy.

"It says here Emma the newt collected these games from all over the world," said Maddie.

"She was an adopted Plantar, just like me!" said Anne happily.

The group browsed through the games a little more and even tried playing a few. Eventually, Sprig noticed Anne and Sasha had sad looks on their faces. "What's wrong?" he asked.

"Marcy would love all this… " said both humans.

The frogs quickly wrapped Anne and Sasha into a group hug. By now they knew Marcy was safe in Newtopia, but they still missed her dearly.

"We should figure out how to get out of here," said Sasha. She pointed to the exit door, which had a wall of square tiles, and movable colorful ones in front of it. "I think the door's got a puzzle on it."

"Maybe I can smash it," said Polly. "Hi-yaaaah!" She whacked the door with her flail a few times but it didn't budge. "Well that didn't work."

Everyone else simply looked at the door in confusion. They stared at it for several minutes but just couldn't make heads or tails of it.

"Marcy would've figured it out right away…" grumbled Sasha.

"Yeah…" said Anne. She hummed for a few more seconds before her eyes suddenly lit up. "I know! This is like Slacker Stackers!"

"What?" said Polly. Judging from the other frogs' facial expressions, they had the same feeling of misunderstanding.

"It's some old game on Anne's dad's computer," said Sasha, "but I don't really know what she's doing…" She froze when she saw that the Thai girl was already moving the pieces into neat rows by the bottom.

"I'm gonna need help reaching the ones near the top!" said Anne. Everyone else looked at each other and nodded. They collectively grabbed Anne and hoisted her up so she could drag the higher pieces toward the bottom. Pretty soon, the puzzle was complete. "I did it!" Or was it…?

There was another rumbling noise and suddenly a spiked ceiling began descending and new squares quickly lowered on the puzzle door.

"What the hell?" said Maddie.

"It wasn't me this time!" shouted Sprig.

"It's the sudden death round!" said Anne as she frantically tried to complete the puzzle before everyone got crushed. Eventually the ceiling began to knock down the stacks of board games.

"Anne, no pressure, but we're gonna die!" said Sasha.

"Almost there…" Anne moved a green and purple piece to the right making room for the final teal and lavender piece. Once everything was in place the door immediately opened. "Woohoo!"

Everyone else ran through the door— they didn't even put Anne down first. Sprig's hat fell off in the process but he grabbed it just before it would've been crushed. Too bad Sprig running back resulted in the rest collapsing into a heap.

"Your family is messed up," said Sasha.

"Yeah… that was scary…" said Anne.

Sprig noticed a conspicuous lever right above them. "I think I know how to get out of her." He was about to pull it, but Maddie grabbed his arm.

"Let's see if the exit's that way first." She pointed to a hallway in front of them.

Sprig frowned but nodded. "Okay."

The group walked down the hallway and past a few side paths, but none of them were that interesting except for the one with an ornate door at the end. The door was textured like a tree and had a vine design going around the edge. There was a P (L) monogram at the center of the door and what looked like a mail slot below it. Most curious was the lack of a knob or any other obvious way of opening the door.

"Hmm… looks like a place where you'd hide treasure," said Polly.

"But how do we get to the treasure?" asked Anne.

Sasha stepped back a couple of meters and cracked her knuckles. "I've got this." She charged forward and jump-kicked the door. It shook a little but was no closer to being open. "Dang…"

"Maybe you're supposed to open from the inside," said Ivy. She stuck her arm through the slot and felt around but couldn't find anything. "Guess not."

"Maybe you just can't reach it," said Sprig, getting his magic slingshot ready. "Slingshot, open the door!" He fired a rock through the slot. Several seconds passed and the door remained closed. Sprig shrugged.

"I tried."

"There's a spell that unlocks doors," said Maddie, "but we'll have to get out of here and come back with the ingredients."

"That might work…" said Anne. "Or maybe a book is the key."

"Huh?" said Sasha.

Anne pointed at the slot. "This kind of looks like those doors at the library that you put your returned books in. Maybe shoving a book through that hole opens the door. We just need to find the right one."

Everyone else looked at each other and nodded. It wasn't the most realistic sounding idea, but considering the puzzle door they just witnessed it was certainly plausible.

"You might be right," said Ivy. "Let's get out of here then come back through with all the books we can find. And if that doesn't work then we'll do Maddie's spell."

(Thirty Minutes Later)

It turned out the labyrinth's exit was behind the grandfather clock in the living room. Anne, Sprig, and Polly gathered most of the books in the Plantar house while Ivy and Maddie left to get some Boole from their homes. Sasha just awkwardly stood in the living room for a while since she had no books to speak of.

When they were ready, they went back into the tunnels through the exit 'cause it was safer and quicker that way. When the kids got back to the mystery door, they took turns trying to find a book that'll unlock the door. Many of them didn't fit, and the ones that did didn't do anything. Except for one, of course.

"Ooh! It's probably this one!" said Anne, holding a green book with the same P (L) symbol on it. "Where was this?"

"I think it was in Hop Pop's room," said Polly. "I wasn't really paying attention— I just grabbed whatever I could find."

Anne shrugged and shoved the green book through the slot. As she did so, the entire cave shook before the door slowly lowered revealing an old abandoned bedroom. The only items of note were a cloak hanging by the wall and a red envelope on the desk.

Also, there were a lot of cobwebs and dust particles were floating all over the room. Clearly no one had been in here for a long time.

Sprig walked up to the table and opened the envelope, revealing a red piece of paper.

"What's it say?" asked Polly.

"It says… nothing!" Sprig turned around and showed them the paper. "It's blank."

"That was disappointing," said Sasha.

"Yeah," said Anne, a bit sadly.

"I don't know about you guys but I'm hungry," said Maddie. "Let's head over to my place and get some fresh baked goods."

"Yeah, that's a great idea," said Ivy as she made for the exit, the rest following her.

Sprig stayed behind for a few seconds and scrutinized the paper before he pocketed it and followed everyone else. The paper's probably nothing important, but it might be worth saving.

Julie Wells Thomas suggested I go into more detail about Anne accidentally exposing the mayor's scheme. I originally wasn't planning to show exactly what happened, but the comment inspired me to write it.