Mallow II: The Three Golden Trials
A pillar of light opens up in the sky above a peaceful meadow pathway with limited flowers and trees. The sky is bright and sunny, and only a minimal number of clouds litter the area as Mallow and Geno land on the ground. The grass is blown aside momentarily by their descent, but returns to a natural position as the starry light disappears in an instant. Folding his arms into his blue vest, the wooden doll says to his friend "Here we are in Petalburg Meadows, just east of Petalburg itself."
Mallow blinks his eyes twice and looks around, examining the nature around him and surprising himself with how pleasant the area looked. He hadn't been to a place like this since he visited Bandit's Way with Mario all those years ago. This was also a reminder of just how dark and dreary the places he had visited in recent years really were. This fresh meadow air was sniffed in with a single alluring whiff from Mallow hidden nostrils, and the Nimbusian Prince says to Geno "Heh, this feels nice. Mario once told me about his trip in Rogueport, and this was one of the places he went to."
Turning to face Geno, Mallow proceeds to ask "So hey, why did we come here? I don't see anything resembling a citadel nearby."
The cloud prince's words are met by a turnaround from the wooden doll and a brandish of his left arm towards the area behind Mallow, followed by him saying "Look behind you Mallow."
Complying with the request of his friend, Mallow turns around and sees a rather broken down stone fortress lying up the way, with only a thin dirt path and a few wayside stone debris leading up to the area. Scratching the top of his head with his right hand, the cloud prince says in confusion "Not very golden looking, is it?"
"It is a front." Geno is quick to reply with, and after taking a couple steps forward upon folding his left arm inward he proceeds to say "This is the Shhwonk Fortress, an old fort built on top of the Golden Citadel that was also used to house the Sun and Moon stones that unlocked the way to Hooktail's Castle, which the citizens of old Rogueport used as a means of ruling over the land before the Shadow Queen buried the land. As you can assume, there were a lot of conspiracies involved in the past."
"Yeah, but can we just avoid talking about stuff like that? Seriously, I've had more than enough of conspiracies after the whole Cackletta affair." Mallow is quick to note his concerns to his friend with a nervous chuckle at the end of his sentence.
"Fair enough, I'd rather we not discuss such things after dealing with the brilliant and frightening machinations of Cackletta either." Geno says, his choice of words seeming rather strange when combined with his nonchalant behavior.
"So how do we enter the citadel if its buried under this fortress?" Mallow asks, tilting his body to enter Geno's line of sight as the doll folds his arms tightly in front of his chest and begins to walk on forward.
"Don't worry about it too much, I know how to enter the Golden Citadel from this building. Just follow my lead." Geno heads up the path with Mallow beside him, the cloud prince smiling at the fascination and intrigue coming from the wooden doll in regards to the mystery of just how the two of them will enter the temple, and this only furthered his happiness towards this adventure.
As the two entered the oddly named Shhwork Fortress, they saw a checkered floor with dirty plates and grass growing between the cracks, the rundown light brown brick walls covered in moss that reached up towards the ceiling, which itself had a few cracks that allowed pure sunlight to flourish into the building. At the very end of the room is an immobile grey Thwomp on top of a strange looking pedestal that was placed in front of a green pipe leading to the underground of the fortress.
Geno walks up to the Thwomp and says with authority "Hey, are you alive there?"
The Thwomp instantly creaks open its stony eyelids upon hearing noise coming from outside its body, and immediately looks down upon the wooden doll and says in a gravely tone of voice "Huh? Who are you supposed to be?"
Looking up at Mallow, the Thwomp says in delayed confusion "And who's the cream puff you brought along with ya?"
Though the cloud prince was a bit insulted by having his appearance get compared to a delicacy, he also got a slight laugh out of it. Geno, as the laughter of his friend happens behind him, answers the Thwomp with a kindly "I am Geno, a herald of the Star Spirits. Behind me is my friend Mallow, the prince of Nimbus Land."
The Thwomp immediately takes notice of the title Geno addressed himself by, and with widening eyes after a couple smacks of his rocky lips the stationary living rock says to the wooden doll "Huh?! What is a herald of the Star Spirits doing all the way down here? If you're looking for the Moon and Sun stones, some red-garbed plumber and a hat-wearing Goomba already got them."
"No, we aren't looking for those relics. We wish to enter the Golden Citadel." Geno gets straight to the point with the Thwomp, who raises his eyebrows in suspicion for just a moment before widening them once more and saying in an apologetic tone of voice "Oh! I see, you want to enter that place! Ok, don't know why you'd want to go there in this day and age, but while I personally have no objections to you entering I'm not the one you need to speak to in order to get permission."
Putting on a more serious face, the Thwomp says to Geno "So, toss out the password and I'll let you speak to the Golden Thwomp."
With eyelids closing almost instantly, the wooden doll says to the Thwomp in a rather foreign accent "Timent Reginae."
The Thwomp widens in eyes in shock, and has to take pause for a moment due to how unexpected the wooden doll's answer was before he stutters out "Y-Yes…That's correct. Well, I am a stone of my word. Give me just a second…"
Suddenly the ground below the Thwomp splits apart from all sides and he sinks into the underground, carried by a lift of magical energy that brings him closer to the darkness below. As he descends, Mallow looks at Geno from behind and asks him "Hey, what did you just say to the Thwomp? I don't recognize the language."
"I said 'Enter the Golden Land' in Latin. It is an Earth created language that for whatever reason was recorded by the Star Spirits alongside the information on the Golden Citadel." After Geno explains himself, Mallow folds his arms in front of his chest and thinks about those words for a bit.
"Well maybe the Star Spirits did some research on Earth after Alex came around and was able to match up what they learned with the history books on the Golden Citadel?" Mallow's theory made Geno twitch visibly, though not because of what was said specifically but rather who was mentioned within.
"You didn't want to talk about conspiracies, and yet you go and mention him?" Geno expresses his slight annoyance at Mallow's contradictory behavior, and as the Nimbusian prince unfolds his arms and looks at his friend while stuttering he tries to come up with a means of answering the doll's accusation.
"W-Well, its just that I figured…" Before he can fully get an answer out, a second Thwomp starts to rise out of the ground where the old one once was. As he emerges the tiles along the ground flip around save for the two Mallow and Geno stand on, revealing golden plates that sparkle brightly and match the golden coat surrounding this Thwomp with a rather out-of-place silver mustache that covers it mouth.
Once the Thwomp has been locked into place, it opens its eyes in a irritated manner and glares down upon the two heroes, saying in a loud, old-time master type of voice "WHAT DO YOU TWO WANT?!"
After the ringing in both heroes' ears have subsided, Mallow looks up at the Golden Thwomp and says to him "We want to enter the Golden Palace, sir" offering politeness in hopes of quelling the statue's anger.
Instead the Golden Thwomp launches a golden pebble between his lips that bounds off the young prince's head and causes him to let out a light "Ow!" before he rubs the sore spot and looks up at the statue in surprise.
"Hmph! No, what you want is to turn around. You two don't look like idiots, so I'm certain that you will listen to me when I say that you should back off and leave this area alone." The Golden Thwomp was firm and aggressive in its stance, which was made all the stronger by its piercing glare.
Mallow looks at the Golden Thwomp firmly and says to him in an honest tone "Well sorry to disappoint, but we came here to have a nice simply adventure and we aren't going to be deterred by an old statue with an immature spitting habit!"
Raising his eyebrows intensely, the Golden Thwomp says to the cloud prince "Oh, so you want to test me you young cream puff? That's fine and dandy with me, I haven't seen anyone with a ton of gumption since my creation!"
With the power of magic, the Golden Thwomp lifts itself up and slams down on the ground with enough force to create an earthquake within a two-mile circumference of the fortress. Geno and Mallow are forced to stabilize themselves until the tremor subsides, at which point a large patch of tiles is pushed up and aside by a rising, giant golden pipe.
The star herald steps back to avoid being put inside of the pipe prematurely, while behind the device the Golden Thwomp says to the two heroes "If you wish to enter the Golden Citadel, then you must pass my three trials! And I shall not be as lenient as my brother was in regards to entering his part of the fortress either!"
After he finishes speaking, the Golden Thwomp lets out a light "Hmph!" and begins to descend into the floor, nudging his head towards the pipe to indicate that the heroes should enter it to follow him. With a nod of the head towards each other, the two heroes leap up past the edge of the pipe and descend into a vast pit of darkness that has a strong enough updraft to prevent them from gaining too much momentum.
The pipe deposits the heroes from the ceiling and plops them on top of a room with literally no walls or lights, leaving them in utter darkness for but a few puzzling seconds before a flash of bright light is spread across the land and the two heroes find themselves in a super fancy neon game show set up with golden and silver textures abound that would more than likely blind the heroes were it not for them being used to such spectacles. Standing in the back of the room is the Golden Thwomp, now adorned with an emerald bow-tie and a glittering podium that is positioned just right in front of a hollow passageway.
"Alright you two! Welcome to the Super Ultimate Golden Quiz Turbo HD Remix Edition! For the right to enter the Golden Citadel, you must answer four questions correctly!" The Golden Thwomp exclaims excitedly.
"Wait, how is this any different from the other quiz besides the flashier name and brighter atmosphere?" Mallow asks sarcastically, remembering what Mario once told him about the Shhwonk Fortress quiz.
The regular stone Thwomp rises from a hole in the floor momentarily, poking his head towards the heroes and saying to them "Its not very different at all, he's just ripping off my quiz because he couldn't think of a proper first challenge."
The Golden Thwomp, relishing in the joy of the moment, coughs unnaturally and shifts his eyes around, trying to quickly save face thanks to his brother's intrusion by saying "Well uh…You see…I was created first, so I get the rights to all of your ideas! Now get back into the floor and let me test these two adventurers!"
With a roll of his stony eyes, the regular Thwomp descends back into the floor while grumbling to himself. Once the floor has been sealed up, the Golden Thwomp regains his composure and says to the two heroes "Ignoring what my brother just said, there is actually a major difference between our quizzes. For one, I don't give you any spare questions. You have to answer all four questions. Second, failure does not mean that I will drop easily defeated enemies in front of you as an alternate means of passing. And third, I have scanned your minds as you dropped down the pipe and will be basing my questions off of deeply buried memories that you may and may not be able to remember. If you fail to complete any part of my trials, you shall be sent back to the surface and never be allowed to return. Now then, without further ado, I shall kick off the quiz with the first question."
"Number One…How did Frogfucius know what Mallow's name was?"
Mallow raises his hand almost too enthusiastically, and as the Golden Thwomp blinks his eyes as a means of replacing the nodding of his head the cloud prince answers with "My name was inscribed on my belt!"
"That is correct! Hmmm, I suppose that one was rather easy though…" The Golden Thwomp takes a moment to think up a harder question.
"Question Two…What is the name of the mother of the boy who owned the doll Geno inhabits?"
"There is no real answer to that question, she never mentioned her name to us." Geno swiftly yet quietly answers.
"Huh, that is correct. Though 'Rose Town Innkeeper' also would have worked. Hmmm, either I'm going too easy on you, or you know yourselves better than I expected." The Golden Thwomp takes yet another few moments to ponder a tougher question to give the heroes.
"Ok, this shall surely stump you. Inquiry Three…What is your name, Nimbusian-"
"Duh, its Mallow!"
"In Japanese."
That added factor leaves Mallow feeling completely stumped and embarrassed, and he quickly lowers his enthusiastically raised right hand while letting out a somber "Oh…" Thankfully the Golden Thwomp let the haste of the Nimbusian pass for the time being.
"Ummm…Darn it, this isn't something I can recall. Geno, do you think you would know the answer to this question?" Mallow passes off the question to his friend, who glares off to the left at him and says confidently "Yeah, I learned a bit of Japanese thanks to the Star Spirits' research on Earth's languages."
"Maro." Geno turns and says this single word to the Golden Thwomp, who replies with a blunt "Hmph, well that's a bit of a surprise to see you know that. Fine then, time for the final question, which relies on one of the deepest secrets I could find buried within both of your minds."
"Final Question…What is the Shadow Queen's true identity?"
Mallow is quickly taken aback by this question, and realizes right off the bat that he wouldn't know the answer to this. But the Golden Thwomp said it came from one of the minds in this room, which means that Geno knew the answer to this question, which was something that puzzled the cloud prince as he turned towards the strangely calm doll and listened as he nonchalantly replied with the stunning answer of "Cackletta."
The Golden Thwomp looked like he was about ready to spit a drink out in disbelief, but kept a flabbergasted air around him for only a few seconds before he composed himself and said in a serious tone of voice "That is correct. As amazing as it sounds in my ears, you managed to beat the first of three trials. Now, give me a few moments as I prepare your second trial."
As the Golden Thwomp closes his eyelids while keeping the flashy atmosphere going, Mallow turns to Geno and says to him "Cackletta was the Shadow Queen? How would you even know about something like that?"
"The Star Spirits revealed this information to me after Cackletta was finally killed…Apparently, they heard it from Alpha." Geno is quick to explain himself, though he doesn't look his friend in the eyes as he does so.
Mallow scoffs and says with a light blow from his mouth "Pfft, of course Alpha kept yet another secret from us. I really shouldn't be surprised by that, honestly."
After Mallow has made note of the M.S.I. Commander's secrecy, the Golden Thwomp opens his eyelids brightly and says in a thundering voice to the two heroes "The second trial consists of only one riddle! I have not made an easy one for you heroes to conquer, but you shall be given plenty of time to think this over…"
"Though coated in the elegance of the highest Avalon, there is a black heart inside tainted with blood. A fallen warrior with nothing but remorse gilded in his heart yearns for an eternity of freedom from the damnation he created out of a foolish regard for eternal life. Casting aside his body to live forever, only to endure the most unimaginable pain both emotionally and physically, the weight this being bears cannot be comprehended by either man nor deity, but the question remains…For whom is it that I am referring to?"
"…Its you, isn't it?" Mallow didn't have to spend even five seconds thinking about the riddle of the Golden Thwomp before answering it
The Golden Thwomp closes it eyelids almost immediately and lets out a quiet, somber sounding "Yes…That is correct."
Looking at the two heroes, the Golden Thwomp says to them "Every temple has to have at least one guardian, and the ancient people of Rogueport wanted one that would last forever. I, a young wizard of Koopa descent, tried to create an immortal guardian that would protect this Citadel forever, but a mishap turned the spell against me and transformed my body into that of this Thwomp you see before you. Age has not been kind to me, and I have had to watch as many innocents perished in an attempt to pierce the Golden Citadel without being able to do a thing to dissuade them. But now that you have beaten my second trial, you have no choice but to go on to the third. A grand battle awaits you both beyond this passage behind me, and I can only wish you the best of luck."
Without warning, the Golden Thwomp closes its eyelids and shuts down for the time being, the many golden and silver lights shutting off and leaving the area blank with darkness as the Thwomp slides across the ground to allow the heroes into the passage behind it. Mallow and Geno don't say a word to each other and proceed to head down the passage…
Next Time: The Lost Guardian