I finally have this chapter done and ready! So here it is! I'll see you all again in the post-chapter notes.
Chapter 2: The Trials of Shwonk Fortress
A short trip outside of town later, our heroes found themselves at the entrance to the fortress.
"So, this is where the mayor said he put the keys to the pipeline," said Finn.
"Well, what are we waiting for, then?" asked Goombella.
"I don't know," Finn replied, "I just suddenly felt the need to stop and point that out." The group just stood there for a moment, before everyone shrugged and finally headed inside.
As soon as they entered the first chamber, a gate crashed down behind them, trapping them inside. Shortly after that, some stone creatures began to attack them. The four heroes readied themselves for battle.
Goombella led off with a tactical appraisal: "It looks like we're dealing with a couple of Clefts. They've got rock-solid defense, but they're not so tough otherwise."
Finn nodded, "I think I know what to do, then." He tapped his Power Smash badge, and effortlessly cleaved through one of the Clefts. The other one charged at him, but he knocked it away with a spinning kick, following up with another Power Smash.
"That was AWESOME!" Koops cheered as a door leading further into the fort opened. Finn sheathed his sword with a dramatic flourish, and the group continued on their way.
The next room looked much like the first, only the enemies the heroes faced this time resembled metallic balls covered in spikes. "Bristles!?" Goombella shouted, "Oh, this isn't good. These guys have the same basic stats as a Cleft, but those spikes make it impossible to get close enough to strike them!"
"Not a problem," Koops declared, "In my preparation for this, I came across one important piece of advice: Always have a long-range option." The young koopa reached into his shell and produced a small red box with the word "POW" written on two of its sides. He lobbed it at the oncoming bristles, and it burst open with an earth-shaking explosion, knocking them all out. The doors then opened, and the heroes continued on to the next room, which was dominated by a giant stone carving of a face.
"What do you suppose this one's gonna be?" Finn asked.
As soon as he had finished speaking, the stone face's eyes snapped open. It looked at the group, and suddenly shouted "FINALLY! Brave adventurers have arrived to challenge me!"
Finn quickly drew his sword, but the stone face simply laughed. "Oh, no," it said, "My challenge doesn't involve combat. Mine is a test of brains, not brawn!"
Suddenly, the room transformed from its original state into something like a game show set, with Finn, Goombella, and Koops all standing behind their own podium, and the stone face now sitting in front of a microphone stand and sporting a bowtie.
Finn looked over at Goombella, who simply shrugged. "I have no idea what's going on either," she said.
"Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the Sixty-Fifth Annual Quirk Quiz!" The stone face declared.
"Wait, does that mean we're the sixty-fifth group of heroes to have attempted this?" Finn asked, "And weren't these trials established only ten years ago?"
"Shut up kid, it's an inside joke," the face answered. "Anyway, the rules are simple: I ask a question, and one of you answers the question! But beware! If your answer is incorrect, or you fail to answer within the allotted time, you will be ELIMINATED!"
The three "contestants" paled at the way it had said that.
"… By which I mean you will not be allowed to attempt answering any more questions."
They all breathed a sigh of relief.
"Successfully answer five questions before all players are eliminated, and YOU WIN! But, if you fail, you will suffer a TERRIBLE PENALTY! But it's too late to back out now, so let's get this show on the road!" The stone head spun around, and a tense, dramatic background track began to play. "QUESTION ONE: You have come to this fortress to look for something, what is it you are looking for?"
Koops pressed the buzzer on his podium. "We're looking for the keys to the pipeline transport!" he answered. A bell rang, signifying his answer was correct.
"CORRECT!" The statue shouted, "That's one for you guys, but that was an easy question! Here comes QUESTION TWO: What is the name of Petalburg's mayor?"
Koops buzzed in again, "Mayor Kroop." The correct answer bell rang again.
"WOW! A second correct answer in a row! How long will this streak continue? We'll find out with QUESTION THREE: In the Petalburg store, how much would it cost to purchase a Fire Flower and a Mr. Softener?"
Koops buzzed in yet again, "Sixteen gold coins!" Yet again, the correct answer bell rang.
"Add one more correct answer to the tally, and on to the next one!" the statue said, sounding very impressed, "You might not have heard, but there's a Crystal Star right here in Petal Meadows! But where, exactly, is it located?"
Goombella took that question. "It's in the castle." The correct answer bell rang for the fourth time.
"Goodness, you really are on a roll! Only one more correct answer is needed to claim your prize, so let's move on to the next-!"
Finn's buzzer went off. "Ah! I didn't mean to do that!" Another buzzer went off, signifying a wrong answer.
"I'm sorry, but that's the WRONG ANSWER! Sucks to be you!" the statue declared.
"OH, COME ON!" Finn shouted as the lights on his podium shut off.
"That's one contestant down, two contestants left, and four points on the board. Can they score their final point? We'll find out with our next-!"
Goombella's buzzer suddenly went off. "What?! I didn't even touch the buzzer!" she shouted. Then the wrong answer buzzer sounded, and her podium shut off. "Oh, what the ACTUAL LUMPS?!"
The statue began chuckling evilly. "I was asking easy questions at the start, but I'm done playing with you. However, I'll actually be nice and let you try to answer this last question: Panda A and Bear B go down to Apple Forest to do some apple picking. Panda A picks ten apples per minute, while Bear B picks twenty apples per minute. There are thirty apples on each apple tree. So, how many times did I just say 'Apple'?"
Koops's buzzer went off on its own. He sat there for a moment, staring at the statue, before finally answering, "Six times."
"WROOOOOOOOOOOONG! That last one doesn't count in the total, so I said 'Apple' six… Times…" the statue said, suddenly realizing Koops hadn't been tricked like it had hoped. "Dang it!" it cried as the final correct answer bell went off. In a swirl of motion, the room went back to how it originally looked. "I guess you won, here's the prize." A compartment at the base of the statue opened up to reveal two stones carved in the shape of a sun and a moon.
Goombella walked over and collected them. "These are the keys to the castle?" she asked.
"Maybe the mayor can explain how we're supposed to use them?" Finn suggested. "We should head back to Petalburg anyway, I'm like, super tired after all that."
"Sounds like a plan to me," said Koops, "You guys can crash at my place."
I really wanted to include the gold fuzzy boss fight, but since I had spent far too long on this chapter already, I decided to end with the quiz show thing. (Also steal one of my favorite questions from the quizzes in SPM.)
Sadly, however, while the next chapter hopefully won't take nearly so long to finish, the computer I had been using to write this fic on decided to die on me. Granted, it was kind of silly of me to be using that computer for writing fanfiction anyway, considering it couldn't connect to the internet, meaning I had to transfer finished chapters to a thumb drive and upload them from a different computer...
But you don't want to hear (Uh, read) about that! You want to read about Finn's adventures in the Mushroom kingdom! And next chapter's going to be fun to write because we're going into Hooktail Castle and I get to introduce Ms. Mowz! (That actually was fun to write, too bad I have to redo it from scratch now...)
On that note, how do you guys feel about shipping in this story? I've already teased a bit of Finn/Goombella, Ms. Mowz is a shameless flirt, and I don't even know yet how I'll be handling Vivian... Please tell me what you think. There is that handy little box down there for quick reviews. (It's also good for letting me know what you think of the story overall. [nudge, nudge, plz review kthxbai])