Tower buddies: chapter 17- a lot happens

Lady Olivia, the plantars, marcy, Anne and snipper stood outside a large door.

"Now," said the Lady, "the king would have wished to speak to you separately in private, but you seem to have arrived at a similar time, so he has grouped you. He is very excited to meet you, but this does NOT give you permission to be informal."

And she opened the door, to reveal a MASSIVE throne room, paired with an equally massive figure sitting at the end.

It stood up and light shone in to reveal a boisterous looking Santa Claus like figure.

The plantars and snipper bowed down. "Your majesty," said hop-pop, "it's a pleasure to be in your pre-"

"HELLOOOO!" He shouted. "Welcome, guests, welcome!" He said, almost too happilly.

"Hello, your highness," Anne began, choosing her words carefully. "We are-"

"OH MY FROG YOU'RE MASSIVE!" Shouted marcy, running towards him.

Momentarily shocked, andrias just sat there as marcy measured his leg. "Almost 20 feet! Wow, i've never seen a newt your size!"

'Keep on their good side,' said the voice in andrias' head.

And he laughed, picking up marcy and putting her on his shoulder. "I like your spirit, kid!" He turned to Anne. "Continue."

"Well, your highness," she said, glaring at marcy, "I am Anne Boonchuy, and that is Marcy Wu. Those there are our companions, the Plantar family and Snipper Ponds. We are humans from another world."

"Another world?" Andrias said, putting down marcy, very curious.

"Yes, one called Earth."

"You come from earth?" Andrias said curiously.

"You know it?" Said Anne, suddenly dropping the formal act. "How??"

"Calm down, I don't know it," he said quickly, laughing worryingly hard. "However, i think i've… read about it somewhere. Yes! That's it. Another question- how did you get here?"

Marcy put up her hand. "Well, we opened a strange music box, and ended up in frog valley. We left it there, however."

"A music box?" Andrias was Giddy inside, but tried his best to hide it. After all, if you act happy all the time, nobody can tell when you're truly happy. "Curious. And i know you come from frog valley. I had reports a few months ago of three strange creatures in the valley, causing trouble. Speaking of which, you are a duo. Where is the third?"

Anne was concerned. "We were actually going to ask you the same thing. We had to split up when leaving frog valley, so she must have not arrived yet."

"I'll notify you if my forces spot her, but for now, enjoy newtopia!"

Before Anne left, she turned around.

"Sir? Do you know anything about magic blue powers?"

Andrias turned cold inside. So she had already figured out the powers. He had to undo the prophesy quickly.

"…No, sorry."

"Thank you, sir," Anne said, And olivia led them out of the room and outside.

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Anne and Marcy were in the large backyard of Sal's manor. They were trying to do something that had been on both of their minds for a while now.

"Come on, Anne. You did it before, you can do it again."

"HNNNNGGGGGHHHHH!" Anne clenched everything possibly clench-able.

(Is that a word?) "I can't do it for more than a few seconds!" She whined. "And it's nothing like before! My hair doesn't glow or anything and I can't fly!"

Marcy pinched the bridge of her nose. "Anne, you moved across half the yard in a fraction of a second and kicked a ball OUT OF THE CITY WALLS."

"Yeah, but it's not that much compared to before!" She said. "What if grime comes back?"

"Anne," marcy smiled, "he won't come back. You punted him out of the valley. Unless he conveniently landed in a large lake and was near some sort of shelter such as a cave, he won't have survived."

"That was… oddly specific, but ok."

"Kids! Come in, it's dinner!" Said the voice of hop-pop from inside.

It had been a few days, and during this time the plantars had gotten to know marcy outside of a highly stressful small amount of time setting up a battlefield. Polly took a surprising interest in her engineering after being shown her laser sword. Marcy had been staying in the same room as Anne, sprig, snipper and polly, and hop-pop had taken another spare room.

"Wow, this sauce is good!" Said Marcy. "I mean, we've had it with our food for the past 4 days but it's still great!"

"I know, right?" Said hop-pop. "It makes any food better!"

"I wonder if it could do anything for HP's cooking," mumbled Anne.

Before hop-pop could argue, Anne made an announcement.

"So king andrias sent me a letter today. He said he'd done some research and that we should come by tomorrow so he can show us something."

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"Hello, Friends!"

King Andrias, as worryingly boisterous as before, greeted them.

"So, what'd ya find?" Asked Anne. Olivia glared at her, clearly very annoyed at her lack of manners.

"Lots, actually!" He said. "So i found this funky book with a bunch of convenient info." And he took out a massive book.

"See, in here, it says my ancestors were explorers!"

And he pointed to a paragraph. Marcy, on the other hand, was confused. She had managed to translate the language on her second day here with the help of a lunch menu owned by a guy called 'larry'. And this… this was very interesting information. Her eyes darted around the page, reading labels saying 'strength', 'heart', and 'wit'. She was interested already… but then she read something else. She couldn't help but read it out.

"Three stars burning bright,

Come from beyond to expel the night.

Will they fight or embrace the fall?

Their choice will determine the fate of all."

Andrias froze. "What?"

"It's written here. It's a very nice poem," she said. "What's it mean?"

"…well, ehm, i'm not sure," andrias said. "I never really thought about it." Then he returned to smiling.

'Wow, great save,' said a voice in his head.

"anyway! I have discovered that your music box needs to be charged. And there are three temples in which to charge the stones, each requiring a virtue."

"Strength, heart and wit," said marcy absent mindedly.

Note to self- never show this girl a book again. She reads ancient amphibian, thought Andrias.

"So, what now?" Asked sprig.

"Now, we just need you to get back to the valley, get the box and charge it! Easy, right? You're now dismissed."

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In a familiar small village, a group of disheveled looking toads trundled up to the woods outside of anne's house.

"Sir!" Said a toad standing at the place waiting for them to acting captain bog. "We've found some sort of house in the woods. We believe it to be the fugitive Anne's."

"Anything interesting inside?" Bog asked.

"There was this."

And the toad held up a music box, with three gray stones.