CHAPTER 3: The Village At the Base of an Active Volcano
The Princess of Hallmark, with her ultimate wisdom, told Pan he needed a special document of approval. Many people often ran around pretending to be heroes. It had gotten so bad one year that a fake hero was allowed to go and fight the Large Lizard Lydia and was mushed into strawberry jelly. Since then heroes needed some kind of license. The Princess' loyal servant, Chiquita, made Pan fill out some papers and drew a picture of him. She put it all together and had the Princess sign it on the back. It was his official Hero License.
Chiquita took Pan aside and told him something very important.
"Pan, this card is very important. Don't lose it. I'll teach you the pen number so you can use it to go secret and special places that only the royal family and official heroes can go. It's 789-231. Just remember that Seven ate Nine and 23 is number one," Chiquita told him. He nodded and was led outside of the castle. Outside Chiquita pointed out a village at the base of a huge active volcano.
"It's a really nice place, you'll love it there. And remember... if you fail the Princess then she'll never think you're cool," with that Chiquita covered her mouth and broke a vial of toxic fumes. Pan passed out and Chiquita walked back to the castle.
When Pan woke up it was night time. The misguided puberty stricken children were already coming out of their holes underground. Pan screamed at them and ran towards the village underneath the volcano. At the entrance of the town was a extremely bored guard just as motivated and dedicated to the job as all his other fellow men. Pan glanced at him before running past him.
"Oh suuure! Just run right in! Even if it is 20:45:13 o'clock!" The guard cried out. Pan paid no attention and marched up a number of stairs to another guard standing in front of a closed gate. This guard looked down at Pan. Pan took out his Hero License and proudly showed it to him.
"Hmm... well that's official. Welcome to the village of Costcoriko. We're a small town but we hope to grow. But for some reason the land closer to the erupting volcano is hard to sell... Anyway what do you want? You want to climb the mountain? ARE YOU ABOSLUTELY CRAZY? YOU WANT TO CLIMB A DANGEROUS MOUNTAIN PATH ALONE? HOW OLD ARE YOU? ... 10! Well you can't it's night time. We're only open during the day. Come back when it's morning." And so Pan waited till morning.