My apologies for this chapter being WAAAAAAY late. The spirit of procrastination got the best of me. Anywho, review time!
space Dimentio:Yeah, the broom closet's destruction will definitely come back to bite everyone.
DISCLAIMER- I don't own Super Paper Mario or it's properties.
With little to no leads on Merlon's whereabouts and the constant barrage of traps tossed at them, Luigi and his friends wondered why such peculiar events were unfolding.
Their search eventually brought them to a set of stairs going downwards.
"Perhaps he's down here!" Said Bowser, "We don't have many options left anyway."
The heroes looked to each other, worried about where the poor man could have been. Knowing that this was the only place left to look, they ventured down into Merlon's basement.
Chapter 2-4
The Basement Face-off
"This seems to be the right way," said Blecky, "I can feel the Pure Heart's presence at a much stronger frequency from here."
"That's good." Luigi nodded.
Suddenly, an apparition appeared in the form of a cloaked man similar to Merloo, although this man wore blue instead of green, and his beard was longer and had an appearance akin to a cloud in both curliness and color; he wore the same yellow undershirt as Merloo however, which was something.
"Hello? Hello?! Are you the heroes? I hope this is projecting right." Said the figure, "This is Merlon, and if you are the heroes, I have quite a number of things to say. Point number one, you're all terrible at arriving on schedule, my ancestors and I have been waiting 1500 years for you to show up."
"Sorry." Luigi and Bowser muttered in unison.
"You should be! Point numéro deux, you've come at the worst possible time, there's a head hunter meandering about, looking for you and the rest of your party."
"What?!"
"Don't interrupt me. And for numero tres, I've hidden myself and the Pure Heart in the farthest reaches of my maze-like basement inside my personal library. I'd have waited for you at the main entrance, but gnips are more of a guard dog than a therapy dog for anxious people like myself, and I needed to stay as far away from danger as possible. Any questions?"
"Yeah, why do you have a library in your basement?" Asked Blecky.
"I'm a hermit, Blecky. You know exactly why."
Luigi raised his hand.
"Yes?"
"Why is your entire house booby trapped?"
"Business." He said bluntly, immediately cutting off the signal for his spectral form to continue the book he was reading.
"Wait. Did he just say that there was someone after us?" Blecky asked Bowser as Team Luigi stomped down the stairs.
"Yeah."
"Then why didn't Al stop them? He refused to let us, the heroes, pass by that one door. Surely he would've done the same thing for any other visitors."
He wasn't wrong, The whole scenario seemed bizarre beyond comprehension. They'd have to ask about that when they found Merlon. The maze took first priority.
The group decided the easiest way to get through was to follow the left wall of each room and hope for the best, a strategy that usually worked pretty well for Luigi especially. Going by this plan, the heroes were very quickly met with hostile forces like swoopers, shlurps and the occasional ticked-off boo, but they were at least getting somewhere.
Eventually they reached a particularly nice looking hallway with the familiar blue wallpaper, the very end of the led to a door, blocked by an all-too-familiar set of armor.
"Al!" Yelled Blecky, "How'd you get over here?"
"Fer the last time, me name ain't 'Al'." Grumbled the suit. "An' I got here with magic or somethin'. Ya know, hainted suit of armor an' all."
"Right right. Well, since you can move with magic, you think you could move out of the way?" Thoreau asked stubbornly.
"Can't, yer not allowed back 'ere."
"Says who?" Asked Luigi.
"Merlon."
"No he didn't! He told us to find him as soon as possible, you're lying!" Bowser yelled. Despite being the gentlest member of the group, Bowser couldn't tolerate even the tiniest of white lies, he realized early on that the armor had might have lied to the group when they found Gnaw, but hearing the suit after they had gotten instructions from Merlon was the icing on the cake.
The Koopa's rage caused him to shoot a fireball at the suit, causing the armor to actually move from its place and guard against the attack. The fire barely engulfed the metal, but the heat caused a noticeable change in armor's appearance, all the places where the metal was yellow-gold, which upon the start of the encounter was slightly chipped, seemed to melt off and reveal an inky black color instead.
"Black?!" Yelled Blecky in surprise, "But the Pure Heart here is yellow, the only black heart is-"
"The Chaos Heart?" The suit finished, it removed its helmet to reveal a man's face with brown, bushy eyebrows and a thin beard of similar color. "I'll admit, you lot've got some nerve te not heed me words of leavin', now I've got no choice but te bring ye to the Mistress with force."
"You were working with Mistress Tempo this entire time?!" Luigi asked in shock.
"Come on, are y'all really that gullible? O'Chunks be me name. I'm the Mistress' most loyal swordsman and warrior, an' if ye think yer gonna be leaving this world with a Pure Heart, ye best be mistaken."
"Guys, I think we're going to have to flee." Called out Luigi. "These hallways are too small for us to properly fight a fully armored man."
"I agree." Said Bowser, "LADDIE!"
"On it!" Laddie cried out, switching the team over into the Next to avoid the warrior and slip into the door behind him. They continued to follow their initial plan of sticking with the left side of the wall while they ran; they needed to find someplace large enough to fight O'Chunks, but every hallway proved too narrow for the job, and the number of enemies that were ambushing the Heroes was getting more and more overwhelming. While the foes were small enough to fight with ease, doing so put the Heroes at risk of their pursuer capturing them, forcing them to narrowly dodge the enemies in favor of distancing themselves from O'Chunks.
Further and further they delved, a crack in the wall proved useful when it revealed a hidden passageway to another area upon being destroyed by Boomer, and the Heroes slipped through to a deeper part of the basement. The group took a quick breather to analyze the room they had landed in, which contained a familiar puzzle involving shlurps. In front of them were three passages and three shlurps with each passage containing a pressure plate.
Although irritated at the repetition of the same puzzle for the 500th time, Luigi was glad that the puzzle was there, as it signified, through adventurer logic, that Merlon was close by. The first corridor had the plate blocked by a row of bars, which were passable through the Next. The second corridor had similar bars that existed in the Next as well, but lifted out of the ground when a timed button was pressed; Bowser used Thoreau to toss Boomer into the button and promptly push the shlurp onto the next plate. The last corridor had a glass wall blocking the way, but had a spacial rift that Fleep could use over the plate, a red "X" sat towards the heroes' side, where a shlurp was pushed onto; Fleeps powers warped the shlurp to the other side of the glass onto the button, dropping a key into the main part of the room.
"Hey guys!" Yelled Blecky, landing on the floor, "Check it out!" He touch the floor for a previously invisible hatch to become visible; the recently received key fit perfectly into the lock on the hatch which brought Team Luigi to the furthest part of the basement through a set of stairs. Luigi jumped beneath another 'save block' before going down, feeling another ominous wind blow against him. The stairs led to a wide open room with shelves of books covering every part of the wall.
"Well", started Bowser, "we found the library, but where's Merlon?"
"I told ye before lads, he ain't 'ere." Bellowed an incredibly Scottish voice. The warrior himself barged into the room, "Believe meh when I say I searched everywhere fer the old coot, I couldn't find a single trace of 'im. He probably skedaddled after I showed up."
"If you're so certain Merlon's not here, why'd you try to stop us?" Asked Luigi.
"I meself can't find the Pure Heart, but you lot can, so I had te make sure ye couldn't search the furthest reaches of the house." O'Chunks replied. "Lady Luck must be on me side today after all though, because I've locked the door behind meh, trapping you lads with me. Now ye got no choice but to either surrender or fight!"
"I'd rather DIE than surrender, you bear-faced, brain-dead brute!" Thoreau yelled, who curled up like a fist.
"I don't exactly agree with Thoreau's terms of dying," said Luigi, "but I am on equal terms of refusing to surrender."
"You'll have to fight us before you can take us!" Yelled Bowser in agreement, his teeth bared for attack.
"In the name of me Mistress, I will defeat yeh!" the swordsman declared as he placed his helmet back onto his head and drew his sword out; he charged at the Heroes with all his might with a hearty battle cry reminiscent to that of a barbarian.
The Heroes narrowly dodged, but were unprepared for the warrior to pull out his sword for a spin attack; Luigi was knocked to the other side of the room while Bowser was pushed back. The enemy attacked them with the flat end of the blade, an action that inflicted less damage, but was understandable since he was trying to capture them, not kill them.
Bowser retaliated at first with breathes of fire, which O'Chunks blocked with his blade, and then by charging back at O'Chunks, lunging at him with great force; O'Chunks was unprepared for the attack, receiving punctures in his armor as a result, but getting back at Bowser with another blunt hit from his sword. Blecky analyzed O'Chunks in the meantime, with the other pixls making sure Luigi was alright.
"O'Chunks seems to be a man skilled in both his fists, and with the blade." Said Blecky, "As long as he's got his sword to place distance between him and you, he's going to slap us aside."
"Then let's take his sword!" Commanded Luigi. Thoreau, though still annoyed by something, followed Luigi's order; when O'Chunks took another swing at Bowser, the hand pixl grabbed the weapon by the blade, pulling it out of the warrior's hand and tossing it across the room immediately afterwards. Thoreau punched a large dent into O'Chunks' helmet before returning to Luigi, who let the pixl rest in his bag.
"Oi! Ye think yer clever fer taken away me swords? These muscles ain't jus fer show!" Said O'Chunks as he balled up his fists.
Luigi dashed towards Bowser, "let's get him." Said the koopa as he lifted Luigi onto his back; the plumber held onto Bowser's shell as he charged at O'Chunks, breathing fire and ramming into him head-on. Luigi leaped off the shell to slam his hammer into the warrior's side. O'Chunks grabbed Luigi's leg, threw his at a wall, and rammed at Bowser who sternly held his ground. Luigi got back up and ran towards O'Chunks, summoning Boomer to explode next to O'Chunks.
The blast added more damage to O'Chunks' armor and pushed him aside as a result; he tried to reach the side of the room where his sword laid, but Fleep used his powers in the general area to briefly confuse the warrior. Luigi then landed one last blow on O'Chunks with his hammer, knocking the warrior to the ground.
"Yer tough…tougher than I imagined ye te be." He panted, hobbling towards his sword. The Heroes didn't try to stop him. "I guess I underestimated you lot. Next time I'll be prepared. Jus ye wait."
O'Chunks lifted his sword from the ground, carrying himself back up the stairs he came from and unlocking the door once more. As soon as his figure left their sights, Luigi and co looked to one another in exasperated relief.
"Now to find Merlon." Said Luigi, investigating the bookshelves. He'd been checking off the cliches associated with haunted houses the second he'd entered: ghosts, haunted armor, maze-like hallways, trapdoors, all that was missing was a secret doorway in the library. The books on the shelves, by observation, all had covers with shades of blue, all except for one book in the middle of a shelf, which was a yellow-gold color.
Pulling on the book, which was actually a switch, caused the shelf itself to slide open the entrance to a smaller library with different colored books, as well as a table and chair in the dead center. Sitting in the chair was none other than Merlon, indulged in a novel as if there were nothing wrong.
"Sooooo are you the one that meticulously put books with blue covers in the last room?" Bowser asked, too tired to be mad at this point. "'Cause if so, you have way too much time on your hands."
Merlon jumped, "Oh, you finally came." The shaman got out of his chair to speak with the group, "Judging by the ruckus I was hearing, I'd assume that you beat that brute upstairs?"
"Yes." Sighed Luigi. "Is there anything else that desperately needs doing?"
"Not at all! Now that we're in the clear, I can finally give you the Pure Heart." Merlon held out the sunny yellow heart, whose light melted away their injuries from the battle. "Before you go…there's one thing I should mention. As you both know by now, four heroes are required to defeat the great evil, but there is a saying passed down depicting this requirement: 'Four heroes unite, their hope burns forth light to shatter the walls of blight. This is how despair, it dies, such is what we prophesize here in the home of the wise.' I don't know why I was required to restate the obvious for you, but now that I have recited the quote for you, I can now pass this Pure Heart over to you pair, Luigi and Bowser, so you save us all from the darkness that looms above."
The Pure Heart levitated like its siblings into the air, then to the two heroes. With the proud wits of Luigi and co, they were able to best the trap-filled mansion and Mistress Tempo's enduring warrior, O'Chunks. The heroes pondered on who the remaining two heroes could have been as they left, knowing that the answers would come to them in due time.
With five more Pure Hearts waiting to be found, they marched back to Flipside through the orange-outlined door that materialized before them. The adventure was just beginning!
And that's it for Gloom Valley! I'll try to get the arc done in full next time.