The star glowed with a warm light as it moved over to its place on the magic circle. The map once again floated out of my pocket and rose above my head. It absorbed the energy of the star, making the star fade away as the energy left it, leaving a silhouette on the ground where the star had stood. As the map floated back down to me, I noticed that the crystal star had put itself on the back of the map. Guess it saves me from lugging around these heavy stars.

"Woah." Koops said in amazement. Looking over the map, I saw a forest of black and white trees surrounding a great oak pop-up behind the city of Rogueport.

"What happened to the star?" Goombella asked searching around for the missing treasure. I help up the back of the map and she looked slightly amazed and disappointed at where it had ended up.

"Guess it really is just a key." I commented extending the map for the others to look at.

"…Is that a forest?" Peach asked.

"Boogly Woods in fact." Goombella informed.

"Why is it all black and white?" I asked.

"Nobody knows." Wonderful, "Although it is fascinating, not just in how it looks but the fact that the wildlife emulates that aesthetic too." I folded the map back up and stuffed it back in my pocket.

"That's kind of creepy." Koops commented looking a bit worried.

"Well then, let's head back to Frankly." On the way back to the surface, I could have sworn I caught something small and grey following us.

When we made our way back to Frankly, he started shuffling through old books until he smacked a book down on the table. He shuffled through before slamming the book shut and turning to us.

"I see, I see…it's crystal clear!"

"So…is the star there?" Koops asked.

"Most certainly!" Kind of got that feeling when the area appeared on the map, "Various text tells of a relic sacred to the Punies hidden inside a great tree there!"

"Punies?" Peach asked.

"Odd creatures that live in the woods and make the great tree there home."

"The great tree must be the one at the center of the woods." Goombella offered.

"Most likely. But you won't see them unless you make it through the woods."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Getting to the woods is easy enough. It's getting into the center that's difficult. Because the woods have no distinct color, getting through them is almost impossible. People have gone mad trying to get there on their own."

"So what can we do?" Peach asked.

"Yeah, there has to be a way there." I added.

"Hmmmmmmm…you might be able to get through if you got help from one of the punies. But finding them won't be easy. They don't leave the tree without a reason." Frankly reached for another book and opened it up to an illustration of a small grey creature with a puffball on its head. Hang on…

"I think I saw this thing on our way out of the sewers." I brought up.

"What was it doing?" Goombella asked.

"It seemed to be following us. I only caught a glimpse of it."

"Well, if that's true then it's probably still in the sewer." Frankly informed us.

"That or still following us." Koops brought up. We'll need to check out the sewers for a bit then.

"Guess we'll go looking for him, but first-" I reached to my pack and held it out to display how empty it was. "We might want to resupply if we're going to Boggly Woods."

"Mind if I do it." Koops asked. "I want to try haggling." Koops…haggling? I turned to Goombella.

"I'll keep an eye on him."

"Just make sure they don't rip him off." I said handing her a small sack of coins.

"Perfect!" Peach said intertwining her arm with mine suddenly. "Let's go check out the badge shop while they do that. I'm interested to see their new stock." She started pulling me out the door.

"H-Hey, stop pulling unless you want my arm to come off."

As we stepped back into the badge shop, I could see Mincy sweeping up. Once she saw us her tail started swishing wildly before she dove behind the counter and ushered us over.

"My favorite customers! How can I help today?" I rolled my eyes at her interesting, knowing she appreciated Peach's silver pieces more than anything else. "Might I interest you in some of my more useful badges?" She rolled out a set of badges…all at least triple digit prices.

"Raking us over the coals a bit?" I asked and she winked playfully.

"I only display the best. It's not my fault its expensive." I TOTALLY is.

"What have you got that's new?" Peach asked. She thought for a moment before bringing out a few small badges.

"These might be more tailored to your skill set." She pointed to one that had a picture of a sword and what looked to be a strike. "This is a counter strike badge. Gives you the chance to return a counter strike while you're defending." Interesting. She then pointed to an umbrella in a spinning motion. "This one is a fun one. It lets you send a twirling parasol at your enemies, wrapping them up in the motion and leaving them dizzy." Peach looked excitedly at it.

"We'll take them!" Peach said putting one of her platinum pieces on the counter. Mincy quickly swiped it up and handed us our badges, plus two badges that had iron shields on them.

"Now those won't stack with the last badges I gave you but they're more effective." As much as I'm sure she's ripping us off, I still have to appreciate her helpfulness. Before we made our way out, the back door of the store room opened up and a smaller boy mouse stepped into the room. He was shorter than even Peach and looked to be younger than any of us. He had white hair and ears like Mincy and wore a red baseball cap. He had a pale-yellow shirt and blue shorts with a pair of white sneakers.

"I'm done inventorying sis." He rushed up to MIncy who rubbed his head affectionately.

"Is that your brother?" I asked and she nodded as the boy seemed to just notice we were there. He moved to hide behind his sister.

"Say hi Mic." She asked and he just waved at us. "Sorry, he's a bit shy. But he's very nice. We run this place together."

"Well he's very cute." Peach commented making the mouse boy's face flush as he seemed to bury his face deeper in his sisters' leg. She just affectionately rubbed his head as Peach smiled at the boy.

"Come on Peach. We'd better meet up with Koops and Goombella." Peach nodded before waving goodbye to Mincy and Mic. "See you later Mincy."

"See you next time cutie." It wasn't until I left the shop that I felt a ting of familiarity in her playful name for me.

As we approached the shop, Koops and Goombella stepped out. Goombella had a huge grin on her face and a sack full of items while Koops just sighed as he stepped out onto the street.

"How'd shopping go?" I asked and Goombella tossed me the full sack.

"Killed it! Those shopkeepers didn't know what hit 'em!" The bag was filled with various previsions and several bottles of water, along with recovery items. Goombella held up the sack of coins, giving it a slight shake to the point we could hear a healthy jingle of coins. "Even saved a bit of money."

"Nice!" I cheered giving her a high-five. "I'm taking you next time I have to hit up a flea market!" Koops sighed in defeat.

"They almost sold me my own shell." Peach pat and rubbed his back.

"It's okay. You'll get better."

"I almost took their shell insurance against supernatural damage."

"…You'll get less worse." Alright, they got a good haul…we should be set for our trek into the sewer.

"Well, we're fully prepped for our search through the pipeline of the city."

"…Can I get out of that." Goombella asked.

"I'd prefer not to go into the deep ends of the sewers either." Peach added.

"That's the sticky business of treasure hunting." I replied shooting down their objections making them quietly whine.

"That's cold." Koops said feeling sorry for the girls.

"It has to happen." Honestly, if they can't handle the sewers than they won't be able to handle the innards of monsters…then again, I'd rather not let any of us experience that.

It was a bit frustrating to hunt down this little creature. I could feel him follow us on the way out of the sewer but now I couldn't find any trace of the little guy.

"If it's going to follow us, it could at least show its face." I said shinning my light on any small crevice and hole I could find.

"Most stalkers don't." Peach brought up casually making all of us stop and look at her as she just looked around the area.

"…Anyway, why would a puni be in the sewer anyway…hang on…" I turned to Goombella, "Do you have a map of the sewer system?" Goombella gave a toothy grin and pulled out a map of Rogueport's underground system.

"I made sure to grab it when we found the door. I knew it would come in handy."

"Any outgoing systems that make their way towards the Boggly Woods?" Goombella scanned over the map before her eyes went wide and she smiled.

"There!" She pointed to a few small outflow pipes and one large one that came back to the main system of the town.

"Who needs plumbing all the way out there?" Koops asked and I shrugged.

"Regardless, this gives us an area to look at."

"Huh." Peach said cocking her head as she looked at the map. "Isn't that area near the big door?" Hell if I could tell. All it looked like was piping…although considering the pipes heading into Boggly Woods was next to a giant hole in the piping system she might be onto something.

"Well, let's check it out!" Goombella rolled the map back up and stuffed it into her pack. With that we made our way back to the door.

Almost a few steps off from the doorway into the door room was a pathway that had a few pipes over it. This must have been the pipe way to somewhere in Boggly Woods. As I shinned my flashlight into the pathway, I was immediately caught off guard by the puni looking at me with terrified eyes. Before I could take a step towards it, it dashed in the opposite direction, going deeper into the pathway.

"Wait!" I shouted trying to stop it…unfortunately that has never worked in the history of doing that ever. "Crap, let's follow it." I rushed forward into a full sprint to try to keep up with the puny. I could hear it shuffling and panting in front of me but it was still out of reach of my light. Damn it, this thing is too quick…maybe I can do this.

I jumped forward and slammed my palm on the ground.

"Earth Tremor!" The area gave a low rumble and I heard a small shriek as something hit the ground. Rushing forward, I found the puny flipped over on the ground. I snatched him up and held him by his head dangler as the little guy struggled. "I got him!" I turned back to the rest of my group to see everyone had fallen over onto their faces. Goombella glared at me as she got up.

"Maybe warn us next time!"

We made our way back up to the surface and met up in Frankly's house, setting the puny down on the table. As I did, I noticed that his puffball was a green color as opposed to the yellow that was in the book.

"P-P-P-P-Please don't eat me! I taste awful!"

"Calm down, we won't eat you." I quickly replied. Peach stepped forward and began petting the puni.

"Shhhh…easy there little puny." The little puni shivered slightly before relaxing.

"Oooh…that's feels nice…wait-" The creature jumped up making Peach step back as it looked at all of us. "-I recognize you guys! At least you two." He was looking directly at me and Peach.

"Why is a puni in the sewer to begin with?" Goombella asked.

"Maybe it's a loner." Koops offered.

"Not likely." Frankly spoke up. "Punies aren't known for leaving their groups."

"Something must have happened to his friends then." I said meeting the puni at eye level. "Mind telling us little guy?" He looked at us warily.

"You…you aren't going to hurt me, right?"

"Don't worry, your safe." He stayed there for a minute before going into a panicked state.

"OUR TREE IS BEING INVADED!"

"Calm down little guy." I said before Peach pet him again making him noticeably calmer.

"R-Right…our tree was taken over by some guys looking for something in the tree. They took over the entire tree and locked everyone away. I managed to escape but I couldn't take on those guys on my own. So I came through the sewers to get help." Gross. "When I saw you two coming through the tunnels I thought you might be able to help…but I couldn't risk being caught before I could find help."

"Well you wouldn't have found help if you just waited." I said with a sigh.

"If someone has taken over the tree they must be after the crystal star too!" Goombella informed us. She probably wasn't wrong.

"Crystal star?" The puni asked now sitting in Peach's arm as she held him as she would a comfortable cat.

"It's something very rare and very valuable. We're looking for it too but taking over a tree is too much." I explained.

"Do you think it's those guys the kidnapped Alice?" Peach asked. Oh yeah, the X-Nauts seemed to be looking for the stars too so that would make sense.

"Well, we're going to need to get in there then." I said. "Um…what's your name little puni."

"Punio." Simple.

"Alright. Then if you get us through the woods to your tree then we'll agree to take care of those X-Naut jerks in your tree." Punio's eyes went wide.

"Really!? You'll drive them out of our tree!?" I nodded and the little guy jumped out of Peach's arms and started bouncing around on the table.

"Seems you have a guide now." Frankly said. "With Punio leading you it should be no trouble to get to the great tree and retrieve the crystal star." Sweet. I looked over to see Peach just looking at Punio with total rapture in her eyes.

"You doing okay there Peach?"

"This little guys is SOOOOOOOOOOOOO cute!" Of course. "The picture didn't do them justice." As she gave her full attention to Punio I could see the little guy start to blush slightly.

Punio decided to travel on Peach's shoulder, meaning she took point in our formation as we made our way towards Boggly Woods. As we did, I suddenly realized something that probably should have hit me when I got that e-mail from Alice.

"Now that I think about it, Gareth and Lily should have been here by now if not yesterday. Wonder where they ended up. I pulled out my scroll and tapped to call Gareth, being taken directly to his voicemail.

"Not here, leave a message." I hung up and switch to calling Lily, finding the same problem when I tried to call her.

"Sorry, I can't answer right now. Please leave a message and I will get back to you as soon as I can." We kept these scrolls to stay in contact but it always feels like the range is crap most of the time. If there too deep underground or too high in the clouds this thing is useless…and yet it can make inter-reality calls.

"I think I have to talk with Mary about our data plan." Stuffing the scroll back into my jeans pocket, I rushed to catch up with the others as my mind could only wonder where Gareth and Lily were. Hope they're not flying though; Gareth won't get far.

Meanwhile

Gareth was lurched over the side of the flying clown vehicle, unloading his breakfast all the while as he groaned.

"Hey! You get any puke on the ship, YOU'RE cleaning it!" Bowser yelled as I rubbed Gareth's back.

"Wooo…adventure." Gareth groaned.

"Save your strength for when we land Gareth." I said trying to comfort him. There was only so much deep breathing could do for someone with motion sickness. "Um…excuse me Bowser-"

"LORD Bowser." He quickly corrected.

"R-Right…Lord Bowser, how often do you travel by airship?" He snorted at my question.

"As if a king would go anywhere NOT in an airship!" He bellowed a long and loud laugh as I dreaded our trip with Bowser for the foreseeable future. Reaching into my bag, I shuffled around for any of my spell books or something that had spells in them I could use. There HAD to be a motion sickness spell or something. As Bowser gave a hearty laugh and Gareth upended another portion of his food over the side I could only sigh. "This is going to be a long trip for me."

"Don't worry Lily…I'll empty eventually."

"That doesn't solve the problem though."

"Kind of does." I sighed and went back to shuffling through my books.

"Not really Gareth."

"Hurlk!"

"You're cleaning that up when we land!" I gave a weary sigh as we continued our journey through the air.