"Hi there! I'm Hopediah Plantar and I'm here to see Sal."

The frog at the front desk looked at Hop Pop unimpressed. "Do you have an appointment?"

Hop Pop's smile instantly dropped. "What?"

"Sal's a very busy man." The desk worker went back to the paperwork she was filling out before Hop Pop appeared, no longer making eye contact with him. "He won't see you unless you've scheduled an appointment ahead of time. So you can either make an appointment or leave."

Hop Pop frowned. "Look, Sal's an old friend of mine from Wartwood. He helped me with something recently and I need to thank him. Can't you let me go there just for a minute?"

"No."

"Oh." Hop Pop bowed his head in sadness.

The clerk's expression softened a bit. She put a piece of paper and an ink quill on the table. "Well, if you write a message down I can probably have it relayed to Sal."

Hop Pop smiled again. "Thank you, ma'am." He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to the clerk before taking the offered pen and paper.

The clerk examined the slip Hop Pop gave her. "What the hell is this!?"

"It's just a little token of my appreciation," said Hop Pop.

"I wasn't even going to ask for money!" said the clerk.

"Oh. Well that's a relief." Hop Pop took the IOU back as he started writing his thank you message. "I didn't want to be in debt again. That would be a big problem for all of us."

Sprig banged on the city door a few times. "Hey! Let us out!"

A few seconds passed before Ted made himself visible. "Do you have a note from King Andrias?"

"No," said Anne. "But we don't need one. Let us outside!"

Ted shook his head. "Haha, nice try. But I've been told by the king that Young Master Marcy and her friends are not to leave Newtopia without his explicit permission."

"We're not leaving Newtopia!" Sprig protested. "We're just gonna look at the sand right outside for a bit then come back."

"As long as you go beyond these gates, that counts as leaving the city."

"He kinda has a point, Sprig," said Anne quietly to her froggy brother. "We could do this another time."

Sprig shook his head. "There's no better time than the present." He started yelling at Ted again. "I've got a girlfriend back home in Wartwood!"

Ted was confused. "I don't really see what that has to do with—"

"And she loves shells! You know which shell she wants the most? A red sunshell!" Sprig held up a book. "According to 101 Useless Things to Do in Newtopia, useless thing #77 is searching for red sunshells from the Newtopian coast. Now that my girlfriend wants the shell, it's not a useless thing anymore! So let me out there!"

Ted gulped at Sprig's intensity. "Yes. Right away, sir. Please don't take too long." The doors opened soon after.

"I'm surprised that worked," said Anne.

"I'm not," said Sprig.

They walked outside and approached the small sandy hills peeking out of the shallow water.

"Alright, there should be red sunshells somewhere under the sand," said Sprig.

"Ooh! There's one right there!" said Anne, noticing something peeking out of the sand. She picked it up but her smile disappeared once she looked at it. "Oh wait. This is a worthless pink sunshell."

"Bummer," said Sprig as Anne tossed the pink shell aside. "I guess we should just start digging."

Anne pulled two shovels out of her bag and gave one to Sprig. The two of them dug through the sand and found plenty of sunshellls in a myriad of colors, but no red ones. It seemed that Newtopians had already dug all the good shells up, leaving tourists with the scraps. Anne and Sprig dug for nearly an hour but they had no success.

"I thought this would be easy," said Sprig. "Newtopia's the place where everything happens and everyone has a great time. But I guess Sprig Plantar can't get a cool gift for his girlfriend. Frog damn it!" He angrily kicked the ground… and immediately regretted it because he hit something hard. "Ow!"

"Sprig! Are you okay!?" shouted Anne.

"Yeah, it's nothing bad," said Sprig. "I must've missed a shell." He sifted through the sand and saw it. There it was: a red sunshell just like the drawings in the book. "It's perfect! Now Ivy and I can have matching shells!"

"But you don't have a red sunshell," Anne pointed out.

"But I do have that blue moonshell I tried to give her for her birthday," said Sprig. "Well, they're not matching but they work together: sun and moon."

"Good point," said Anne. Her eyes widened in happiness. "Romance is so cute."

Sprig blushed. "Yeah. One day it'll be you getting gifts for a significant other."

Anne blushed a little too. "I guess so."

"So this is the journal where I write down cool stuff about Amphibia!" said Marcy. "It's mostly stuff about Newtopia or things I read about in books from the library, but these past few days I've gotten so much new info about the wider world!"

Marcy sat at a table outside a Newtopian restaurant alongside Anne, Olivia, and Yunan. Anne was just telling Marcy all about her frog siblings and how awesome they are.

"I'm happy to help you with it!" said Anne. "You know, when we get back to Earth maybe we can get your journal published. That would be cool!"

"But would people really buy a book written by a child?" asked Marcy. "This isn't high quality writing."

"Yes, but it's the only firsthand account of experiences in this world by a human," Olivia pointed out. "The novelty of that alone should be a big selling point."

"And the drawings are cute!" said Yunan. "People would pay to see that, right?"

Marcy thought about it for a moment and shrugged. "I guess it'll be worth a try. I still think I might have to edit it, though."

"I think it's fine the way it is," said Olivia. "The way you have it right now really captures your thought process." Olivia pointed to what Marcy just wrote. "Like this passage here."

Omigod this is so cool! Anne was taken in by a family of farmers and that's awesome because farming is SO COOL and her found family is EVEN COOLER!

This is Sprig Plantar! He's 11 years old and he's an adventurer just like me. He and Anne are super close and I can tell they've got an unbreakable bond because they always say Spranne Against the World. Isn't that AWESOME?

Apparently he has a magic slingshot that was enchanted by his friend Maddie Flour who's a witch! AAAAAH I can't believe witchcraft is real! This is incredible!

I need to get some cool goggles like the ones he has.

"I guess so," said Marcy. "Thanks, Lady Olivia."

Olivia smiled. "You're quite welcome."

"IT'S COMING! THE CHAAAAAAANGE IS HAPPENIN'!"

Everyone turned around to see an elderly blue frog with a long white beard and a crazed look in his eyes. He wore brown overalls and a tattered brown hat. He wildly waved his hands in the air as he spoke.

"Who's that?" asked Anne.

Marcy and her newt moms frowned. "Ugh, that's Puddleford McBucket, the local conspiracy nut," said Yunan. "Just ignore him."

"ANCIENT SECRETS WILL BE EXHUMED FROM THE RECESSES OF TIME AND THERE'LL BE NO ESCAPE!"

"It's kind of hard not to ignore him," said Anne. "He's pretty loud."

Olivia sighed. "He'll tire himself out eventually."

"THE ANCIENT BEAST WILL BE UNLEASHED IN A MATTER OF DAYS AND THERE'S NOWHERE TO HIDE! THOSE PIERCING ORANGE EYES WILL DESTROY US ALL!"

"Hey, there. Easy, Mr. McBucket," said a fat green frog wearing a t-shirt with a question mark on it. He put his hand on Mr. McBucket's shoulder and the old frog instantly calmed down.

"Oh. Thanks, Frog Soos," said McBucket with a troubled look on his face. "I had another one of those visions…"

"Why don't I take you home and you can tell me more about it," said Frog Soos.

After that, the two frogs peacefully walked away. Marcy, Olivia, and Yunan sat there in shock, mouths agape, having never witnessed anyone get McBucket to willingly stop one of his rants.

"You made it sound like he would be doing that for a while," said Anne. "That was like thirty seconds."

But she didn't get a response. Marcy and her newt moms kept just sitting in disbelief.

The human girls waited with Grime and Olivia by the city gates.

"So why are we here instead of visiting a museum or something?" asked Sasha.

"We're here because a supply run is coming today," said Grime. "Don't you want to know how things have been going at the tower? Don't you want Anne to receive stuff from her friends in Wartwood?"

Sasha looked over and saw Anne's eyes perk up at the mention of free stuff. "Yeah, you're right. But it's surprising we're already getting stuff. We haven't been in Newtopia that long."

Grime shrugged. "I don't know. But this proves the people of Wartwood are dedicated to supporting Anne."

They all stood there in silence for a moment before Marcy gasped and pointed at a shape in the air. "Joe Sparrow!"

Anne and Sasha looked at her confused. "Huh?"

Olivia chuckled. "Marcy affectionately named all of Newtopia's transportational birds. Joe Sparrow is the one you came here on."

"So that insufferable newt will be here, then," said Grime.

"If you mean Karina, then yes," said Olivia.

Anne and Sasha groaned while Joe Sparrow landed. Karina hopped off holding a bag in one hand and a full bag in another.

"Alright, I've got goods and information from the valley," she said tiredly. She handed Grime the paper and Anne the bag. "Okay, that's it." She walked away and left the group to look at their stuff.

Anne looked through the bag eagerly. "Wow, so many gifts from Wartwood! There's tea from Miss Sundew, snacks from Stumpy, a couple of magic things from Maddie. Oh, there's even a little gem from Wally. Wait, huh?"

Anne held up the small emerald for everyone to see.

"Not the biggest gem I've ever seen, but it's certainly worth something," said Olivia.

"How did Wally afford this?" asked Sasha. "I thought he didn't have a job."

"Maybe he randomly found it one day," suggested Marcy.

"Or he could've put his name on someone else's gift," said Anne. "But either way, I like it."

Meanwhile, Grime read the message from Toad Tower.

Things are going well at the tower. The stuff with Bog seems to have died down.

-Percy

"That's a relief," he said. "The tower's in good hands."

"So, the king's a shady dude, right?"

Sprig looked over to where Polly was lying on her bed, casually working on a puzzle book Marcy gave her. "'Shady'? I don't get it. Do you mean he's tall enough that you can stand under him when it's hot out?"

Polly paused for a moment. "Well I guess you're right but that's not what I meant." She put the book down and turned to her brother. "'Shady' is Earth slang Sasha taught me! It means the king is suspicious and up to no good."

Sprig scoffed. "What are you talking about? He seems like a nice guy. After all, he's letting us stay in his fancy castle for free."

"Yeah, but he's definitely hiding something," Polly countered. "The day we met him he was acting really friendly then suddenly got all suspicious when he told us to leave the throne room."

Sprig crossed his arms. "Of course there's stuff he's not telling us. Why should a bunch of kids be involved with Amphibia politics?"

"It's more than that," said Polly. "I think he knows stuff about the music box. Maybe even stuff about Anne…" She didn't vocalize the thought but she was a bit scared of the potential of Andrias' secrets.

"I agree with Polly," said Grime, entering the room.

"Ha!" Polly raised her hand in the air. "That's two against one, Sprig!"

"How long were you listening?" asked Sprig.

"Long enough," said the toad captain. "I know deception when I see it, and King Andrias is definitely concealing information." Grime grabbed a stool and sat down. "I don't trust this 'special project' of his. He refused to give a real answer as to what it is."

"Maybe he just wants to maintain the surprise?" said Sprig, but even he knew his argument was weak at this point.

"Do you think Marcy's in on it?" asked Polly.

Grime shook his head. "No, I already asked her and she doesn't know what the device is for either. Apparently the king told her it would revolutionize Amphibia toward a golden age. That's vague enough to be possibly accurate while hiding his true intentions nonetheless."

"So what do we do?" asked Sprig, sounding uneasy.

"We need to be prepared for when danger comes," said Grime. "Polly, I want you to keep weapons on you at all times. Sprig, the same goes for you and your magic slingshot."

"Alrighty," said Sprig.

"I wasn't planning on going out defenseless anyway," said Polly.

"That's good," said Grime. "It's only a matter of time before something goes wrong. We have to be the ones to make things right."

"Just us?" asked Sprig. "Or do you also mean Anne and Sasha and Marcy and Hop Pop and those newts that hang around Marcy?"

Grime gave Sprig an unimpressed glare. "What do you think?"

Sprig fought back with a glare of his own. "I don't know. That's why I asked."

Oh. "I meant everyone, not just us." Grime even blushed a little. "I'll go find the others… and uh, warn them too…" And with that, he departed.

Sprig and Polly stared at each other for a moment before either spoke.

"If you told me two months ago that Captain Grime could blush in embarrassment I would've laughed in your face," said Sprig.

Polly nodded. "Definitely."

Sprig sighed. "What do you think King Andrias knows about Anne?"

"I'm not sure," said Polly. "Maybe he knows why Anne's eyes sometimes glow when she gets emotional."

"I saw the same thing happen with Sasha," said Sprig. "It's probably just a human thing."

"Maybe. I guess we'll just have to wait and see."

I tried to replicate the writing style of the Marcy's Journal pages we have, but make it sound a little younger.

Also I hope you appreciated the Gravity Falls reference. I knew I wanted to include Frog Soos in this fic somewhere and these Newtopia Adventures chapters seemed like the easiest place.