A/N: Just a quick note - I'm not planning on posting a chapter tomorrow night, this weekend is proving to be unexpectedly busy and I don't think I'll have the next chapter ready to go by then. The next chapter will definitely be up Sunday night. But until then, enjoy this one! :)


Tuesday, May 22, 1990

After making it through that mansion, yesterday morning I made it to a wide gorge across the north portion of Donut Plains. At the bottom of it was a churning river, rushing and tumbling over itself from the ocean into the lake at the center of the plains. Spanning the gorge was a long, narrow rope bridge, its planks weathered, greyed, and streaked with salt swaying up from below. And a substantial wind billowed through the canyon, making the bridge rock from side to side. My feet slipped a few times on the bridge's slick planks, and once I almost fell over the low, soggy rope railing, but thankfully I managed to regain my balance and keep going.

Thankfully, I managed to cross it safely. On the far side the path led into the edges of the forest. Thunder and lightning continued to clash in the sky, but at least there was no rain to further dampen my mood. Waiting for me a short distance into the forest was another level, this one featuring many rotating platforms that I had to ride between other, stationary ones. Koopas were the most common enemies there, but there was another new one that slightly unnerved me.

They were small, black blobs of…something that moved in set paths, often the same ones that the platforms I was riding took. At first I thought they were fuzzy, but as I got closer to them, I could see that they were actually more slimy. They pulsated as they moved, and small droplets of slime flew off them with each throb and sometimes splattered on the platforms, covering them with a thin, sticky black film that made jumping off the platforms much harder than it would've been otherwise. And in the fronts of the creatures were pairs of beady, unblinking red eyes and a perpetually open mouth lined with small, needle-like fangs.

Thankfully, I made it through the level without coming into contact with any of them, because I really didn't want to know what that would have felt like.

After that, the path led me back out of the woods and onto the plains to the west of the second castle. Waiting for me there was another level with a bunch of Koopas and Goombas, and a new variety of Hammer Bro. that swooped around on a flying platform, raining hammers from above.

Despite the ominous weather, the relative normalcy of these two levels slightly lowered my levels of unease. Maybe, I thought, there wasn't anything seriously wrong with this place after all. Maybe all the strange events had just been Bowser's doing after all, trying to freak me out and make me turn back.

But Iggy…. Would Bowser really go so far as killing one of his own kids to try to sell this lie he was feeding me? Granted, I only had one other adventure to draw on here, but it had seemed like he actually cared about them. He didn't voice the same attitude of disposability about them that I'd heard him express many times for a lot of his other minions.

This morning I set out for the castle. It wasn't far from the south side of Vanilla Dome, which I expected was the next place I'd be heading after making it through the castle.

The first section of the castle was much darker than Iggy's castle had been. While the first castle had something of an open feel to it, with columns and lofty arches in the background and candles near the ceiling lighting the way. But this one was different. The walls were made of darker grey stone, with large wire grates in them that admitted a faint orange glow into the halls, leaving much of the spaces choked in shadows. The first enemies I came across in this area were miniature Thwomps that hopped back and forth in large arcs. After that was an escalator that led through an area with a bunch of spiked balls attached to pendulums that swing in full circles. I managed to avoid each of these obstacles, but had a few near misses. Their surfaces were rough and stained, covered in patches of what I really hoped was rust, but in the dim light, could just has easily have been long-dried blood.

The next section was similarly lit and featured a handful of full-size Thwomps, as well as a small pit of lava and a Dry Bones. I'd somehow managed to forget that those things even existed, so I almost had a heart attack when I reached the top of the stairs and saw that skeletal Koopa, its bones yellowed and its eyes glowing with pinpricks of red light, shambling towards me, its bones crackling with every movement.

Past the Dry Bones was another door, which led to a significantly different area.

The ceiling and floor were made of stone, but there were no walls here. Instead, opening to either side of the hallway I found myself in was a yawning black expanse. I leaned over the side of the path and looked around as much as I dared without feeling I was in danger of falling off. Strangely, the path ahead of me was lit well enough that I could see it, but as soon as I looked beyond the path, my visibility was practically nonexistent. I couldn't see anything below or above the path, but given that no light was coming in from above, I figured the castle roof was up there somewhere. Meanwhile, looking straight out into the void, after my eyes had adjusted to the darkness for a few seconds, I could discern – just barely – another stone wall in the distance, with large, arched windows carved into it. The walls must have been from other portions of the castle, because I could make out more flickering orange lights, like the ones coming through the grates earlier in the level, behind the windows.

And then, just as I was about to look back to the path ahead of me, something moved in one of the windows. I did a double take as the shadowy form slid away from the window.

Someone was out there in the darkness, watching me. I froze, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. My eyes darted to the other windows in the wall, looking for any other signs of motion, but everything was still. The figure didn't reappear.

Whatever it was, it didn't want me to know it was there.

After taking a second to calm my nerves as much as possible, I continued through the level. The next section consisted of lots of moving stone platforms shifting back and forth between the walls in front of and behind me, but there were still no walls to my left of right throughout the entire section. Somehow I managed to make it through in one go, despite several close calls where I almost got sandwiched between two blocks of stone because I got distracted staring into the darkness surrounding me.

Looking for that thing to return. It was still out there, I knew. Somewhere.

And even though it could've technically been any minion of Bowser's, that immediate feeling of my blood freezing when I saw it told me otherwise.

It was something else, and part of me didn't want to know what it was.

And at the very end of the section, I noticed one final thing that I wasn't expecting.

Right before the pair of big red doors that presumably led to the boss fight like in Iggy's castle were two outlines of green blocks, like the yellow dashed outlines I'd seen in previous levels. I hadn't seen a single solid, green "!" block since pressing that green button. And come to think of it, I hadn't seen any yellow "!" blocks either after that first level, just the dashed outlines. I just hadn't noticed it then because there were still numerous "?" blocks throughout the levels, and those looked similar to the yellow "!" blocks.

So was this what pressing those switches did? It got rid of all the blocks of that color in any levels I entered and replaced them with the empty, outlined spaces?

Well, now I knew not to press any more of those buttons I might come across. At least I hoped that was a choice I'd be able to make, given that there didn't seem to be any way I could've avoided pressing the green switch. Hopefully if I came across any future ones, they'd be optional like the yellow one on Yoshi's Island.

And on that note, I jumped on another Dry Bones and opened the pair of huge red doors at the end of the platform.