Time: 1:30pm, Monday, October 15, 2001 – Northern Ice Land
Larry, Morton, Ludwig, Wendy, Alex, Reeka and Violent have arrived in the mountainous eastern region of the Ice Land sector of the arctic, near its eastern border with the northern part of Sky Land. When they saw that they arrived, the seven of them put their coats on, followed by their boots. Then Alex deactivates the glass shield, rolls up the carpet, and puts the rolled-up carpet into her shell, half of the carpet poking out of the shell. Larry proceeds to carry the mini cooler full of sandwiches and toniques.
"Alright, so legend says that when we see anything not native to Plit, then the portal's nearby," Morton explained, remembering the conversation that Arthur had with Peach, and also the history lesson back outside of Sandstorm, Desert Land.
"So… Let's explore these mountains I guess?" Reeka questioned. She get six nods in response, "Well… This isn't gonna be easy."
"Yeah so let's get going!" Violent rushed as she begins to walk northeast. The other six characters, having no better way to go, decide to follow Violent. They had to climb up several hills; no otherworldly stuff there. But then again, how do they know?
"How do we know when we see the weird compound stuff?" Wendy inquired, hoping that Ludwig will know the answer. Instead of knowing the answer, however, Ludwig shrugged.
"I really don't know Vendy. Ze ground is covered in snow, so it's hard to tell."
Ludwig stops in his steps for a second, doing a random action of kicking up a bunch of snow with his black boots as he thinks. Morton, Violent and Reeka did the same, while Alex, Larry and Wendy just paced around the area. How will they know where the portal is, if this area's covered in snow? It's not like they can wait a few days for it to melt; it's October! In the Northern Hemisphere above the Arctic Circle!
Suddenly, Wendy remembered, "Don't you guys remember? The portals, or whatever, are IN the ground! That means it's most likely in a cave around here!"
"Great!" Ludwig nodded in the affirmative. However, a sudden beeping sound goes off in his shell, "But ve HAVE to find a cave to stay in QUICK! According to ze piece of machinery contained in my shell, zere's a storm coming! A blizzard!"
The seven characters do their best to find a cave, trying to avoid inclines that are too steep while finding a cave or any other sort of natural opening. They find nothing.
The beeping sound in Ludwig's sound keeps going off, and it only repeats itself faster and faster. That means the storm's even closer than before! "Ve don't vanna be caught in ze blizzard! Zey get extreme in zis part of ze vorld!"
Meanwhile, the six other characters dash off, leaving Ludwig to think. Realizing that everyone ran off, Ludwig starts running to catch up with them.
"Nice for you guys to leave me!" Ludwig panted, barely catching up to them. Despite his complete rejection of putting snow in his mouth, Ludwig makes a mini snowball and sticks it in his mouth; he didn't notice how dehydrated he was until he ran to the others.
"Well hurry up, lardbutt," Morton rushed, "Not only do we have until Thursday, but we have until like FIVE MINUTES UNTIL WE'RE CAUGHT IN A FREAKING WHITEOUT!"
"Still," Ludwig rebutted, "… Forget it."
Finally, Larry sights a black hole on the side of a mountain, "Guys! We have a cave!"
Larry sprints for the cave, the cooler he's holding bouncing on his legs every now and then. Fearing that snow will fall from the sky, along with the wind kicking up at any second now, the six other characters dash towards the cave Larry pointed out. Once all seven of them get in the cave, they then discover one little problem…
"We need a light source," Violent muttered, "Because while this blizzard is raging, we should explore this cave."
"I can do this!" Larry exclaims as he finds several torches on the wall. Larry then grabs one and tries to blow fire on it. Nothing came out, "Aww! I can't breathe out fireballs!"
"You're too young still, I think," Morton says as he takes the torch away from Larry. Morton then tries to do the same thing. However, he also can't blow fire, "Shucks."
Ludwig laughs at the behavior and shock of his two younger brothers. There's absolutely no doubt that Wendy also can't blow fire; she's a water-loving Koopa, and those type of Koopas exposed to water too long delays the development of the flame pipe. Her being female also doesn't help the developmental process one bit either. As he holds his hand out to grab the unlit torch, Ludwig feels something in his throat expand, then immediately contracts. He opens his mouth, and a decent-sized fireball comes out of his mouth. Ludwig signals the six characters to each grab torches, and they do so. Ludwig lights up all six torches with his already-lit torch.
At this time, Ludwig looks at his surroundings; the scene is completely different outside than it was five minutes ago. Now, blowing and drifting snow is the main story outside instead of the mostly-cloudy weather the Koopas and Violent were in.
And the ground; the ground was full of a strange black material. Black material is natural to Plit, of course, but it almost seems as if black steam is coming off of the mysterious material. Ludwig finally puts 2 and 2 together.
"GUYS! Zis might be ze cave! Notice zat zere vere torches on ze vall? Zat means zis cave vas used for something! Probably by Jabrael and ze shadow creatures! And look at ze ground!"
Larry, Morton, Wendy, Violent, Alex and Reeka all look at the ground. They also see strange black steam coming from the material, "This stuff isn't natural! Dirt and rocks aren't supposed to steam like that! Especially BLACK steam!" Larry gasped, "This COULD be the cave!"
"It must be!" Wendy yelped as she looks farther into the cave, seeing nothing but pitch black, "Let's explore it!"
Wendy, Morton and Reeka start walking down the cave, followed by Larry and Alex, who are both walking beside each other. Ludwig and Violent are walking behind the other five, the two of them also walking by each other.
"Are you scared yet Luddi?"
"Nah."
"You sure Luddi?" Violent giggled.
"Yeah I'm sure Vivi!" Ludwig replied.
"Vivi? That's a new one…"
"Luddi? Zat's an old vun…" Ludwig joked.
Meanwhile, with Wendy, Reeka and Morton…
"So Reeka," Wendy started, "How's life over in Pipe Land?"
"Well, Jasper's a pretty big town, but it's in the middle of nowhere. If it wasn't for the Pipe Maze, and for the University of Northern Pipe Land, we'd be more isolated than the residents of Sky Land!"
Wendy nodded her head; half of the residents of Sky Land live on the clouds north of the Arctic Circle, right above the mountainous, sparsely populated icy wastelands of northern Sky Land. But because the clouds are at the peaks of the highest Sky Land mountains peak in the warmer stratosphere, and not the cooler troposphere, the temperatures there are actually warm year-round.
Jasper is about 200 kilometers away from the Arctic Circle, tucked away in the extreme northern part of Pipe Land. In short, most people of the Mushroom Kingdom hate the Arctic Circle, and tend to stay away from it like the plague.
"But we do get a ton of tourists thanks to the Pipe Maze," Reeka stated in an optimistic tone.
"Yeah I hear that place gets great business," Wendy reported, "But that's great gal!"
"… For people from Dark Land, you're nice!" Reeka admitted, "In other Lands, they always teach to stay away from Darklanders."
"It's stuff to do with our ancestors, and eventually the Church taking over the Mushroom Kingdom. It's kind of the same history as continental Pipe Land, but unlike the residents of Continental Pipe Land, we are treated as the enemies," Wendy explained.
"Ahh. I never learned THAT part of it- hey! Is that the portal right there?!" Reeka squealed.
"I think it is! LUDWIG! VIOLENT! LARRY! ALEX! Get over here!" Morton called out, "I think we found it!"
The four characters immediately run towards Morton, Wendy and Reeka. Their mouths dropped open as they seen a black thing on a wall, with a lever on the side of it.
"ZAT'S IT! But… Vhy is it not moving?" Ludwig wondered.
The characters look all over the wall, seeing if there was anything interesting, or anything that can potentially help with the portal working.
"We don't want the portal to work. We want it destroyed," Violent informed.
"How do we break it though?" asked Wendy, "The thing Morton broke in that one room in Sandstorm was most likely a portal, as it gave Nature power after it shattered all over the ground. But it was an actual object. This is like a thing painted onto the wall!"
Just then, Reeka sees a lever to the right of the portal, which is pointed down. Curious to see what it did, Reeka pulls the lever up. As soon as she did, the portal activates, but instead of the portal spitting out shadow enemies, the portal actually SUCKS them into the same shadowy dimension that Jabrael is in.
The seven characters experience minutes of spinning before they finally plop onto the ground, with a few shadowy creatures surrounding them.
"Well well well," Beldam says as she suddenly pops up beside them, "EVERYONE! WE GOT TOURISTS!"
Several shadowy beasts, who also appear, surround the seven characters, and they close in tighter and tighter on the group.
"I'm sorry. No wait, I'm not. You seven are under arrest for trespassing. Trespassing here is a capital punishment, and violators will be executed," Beldam announced, "Alright! Army! Carry the seven off to their prison!"
'Oh great,' Reeka thought to herself in a sarcastic manner, 'I met great people that I only talked to for less than 12 hours, and I will be executed soon…'