Chapter 66: New Wartwood

So, like I said last time, Marcy's gonna be staying with us in Wartwood for the rest of the Temple Quest. We've got her set up in the Fwagon (I offered the option of bunking with me in the basement, but she declined… she is very much a morning person, and I am very much not). I was kind of surprised, normally she's all about questing, but she said that we need these slice-of-life breaks between the big plot-heavy lore dumps, or the audience will get burned out. I'm not sure what she meant by that, but she was definitely right about needing a break. I'm gonna really enjoy sleeping in for a change…

Well, forget that! Marcy barged in as soon as the sun rose, all excited over her first day in Wartwood. I guess sleeping in was too much to ask.

I decided to give her a quick tour around Wartwood, and naturally she had about a million questions about everything. Which was about a million too many for Wartwood. Almost no one would give her the time of day. Classic Wartwood paranoia about outsiders. You know the drill already. I've written enough about it. It took me months (and a broken arm) to win the town over. But Marcy was convinced she could speedrun the whole process. Sure, she had experience (her speedrun of Ballad of Zorda: Heavenward Halbard held the record for a whole week before someone found a glitch that let you skip two-thirds of the game), but Wartwood is a hard nut to crack.

Still, she tried. We spent all day fixing little things around town, and… I won't lie, we did get noticed a little, and an angry mob wasn't actively falling us around (a win is a win). But we also got the bad kind of noticed. The mayor kind of noticed. I thought he was getting better, but it was obvious he was concocting some kind of scheme. The kind where he uses Marcy's engineering knowhow to turn Wartwood into some kind of touristy eyesore, totally killing this whole folksy vibe it's got going. At least I think I managed to convince Marcy not to go along with it. I mean it's not like it would help win the town over. You can't bribe your way into acceptance here.

Well, so much for that, right?

When I woke up this morning, the whole town was in a commotion, and it didn't take long to find out why. The entire town square had been made over into some kind of bizarre hybrid of Beverly Hills and Bibsyland's Town Square, USA, with these huge marble facades on all the buildings, fancy flower-and-topiary arrangements, and this monstrosity.

[Sketch of the Mayor Toadstool bust)

I can still see it when I close my eyes.

There was even one of those creepy walk-around mascots. I used to be so scared of those things. My first time at Bibsyland I nearly peed myself when this gigantic Malcolm Mallard waddled over.

I don't know why I wrote that.

Anyway, the town seemed willing to give it a chance, especially since Toadstool declared everything free for the next fifteen minutes. I think I even caught Mrs. Croaker trying to hit on the new super-buff founder statue. I love that woman but it may be time for glasses.

Well, when things are going this well, you just know something's going to go wrong. And it did in a spectacular fashion when the entire town square started to sink. See… Wartwood was actually built on top of a swamp. The builders somehow knew how to both make it light enough so the whole town doesn't sink into the mire, yet heavy enough so it doesn't blow away in the next flaming locust tornado.

So add heavy marble and statues to this delicately balanced situation and you get one huge, wet sinkhole. You would think Marcy would have known this would happen; after all, she's the one who explained the whole situation to me in the first place! I guess she was blinded by Toadstool's flattery and the prospect that this was going to be that one big gesture that won Wartwood over.

Well, I know from experience that when you almost destroy the whole town, you better do your best to save it. Marcy was clearly on the same page; she summoned Joe Sparrow (in the most anime way she possibly could), and we jumped aboard and began ripping all those heavy structures out of the ground (the people were fine; they are frogs, after all), and hauling them elsewhere. With all that weight off, Wartwood floated back to the top of the swamp. I'm not sure it's supposed to work that way, but I can't argue with my own eyes.

The crisis had passed, and it was time to face the music. Toadstool actually tried to take some of the responsibility for the fiasco (hey, I'm as shocked as you are), but Marcy owned up to the brunt of it. Mrs. Croaker assured her that yes, everyone was pretty mad at her, but thanks to her immediately trying to right her wrong, they were also willing to give her a chance to earn their trust.

And so began the long rebuilding process… is what I would have said if Marcy hadn't rebuilt the whole town within hours after the incident! It was like something out of that CavernCraft video game she's into (but then what game isn't she into?). Did she go to same building class as Chuck?

All I can say is if Wartwood can't appreciate how smart and [scribbled] amazingly talented she is, they don't deserve her.

A.N.:

Jose: Thanks

Gloyd: She was kinda tied up in her own issues writing this chapter, so she didn't touch on every detail. And the influence is pretty obvious (the Calamity Stones basically represent Wisdom, Power and Courage)

MarMarFaAnne: Picked up on that, huh? Anne's more of a fan of the movies than the books. Maybe? Depends on if I think of anything…

Next: Friend or Frobo?