[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/6W7bqko.png[/img]
[h2][color=FD0000]The Koopa Troop[/color][/h2]
[b][color=FD0000]wordcount:[/color][/b] 2,964 (+4)
[b][color=FD0000]Bowser: Level 12 [/color][/b] EXP: [color=FD0000]//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////[/color] (199/120)
[b][color=SpringGreen]Bowser Jr: Level 12 [/color][/b] EXP: [color=SpringGreen]//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////[/color]///////////////////////////// (89/120) 59
[b][color=DeepSkyBlue]Kamek: Level 12 [/color][/b] EXP: [color=DeepSkyBlue]/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////[/color]/////////////////////////// (72/120) 42
[b][color=Aqua]Rika: Level 7 [/color][/b] EXP: [color=Aqua]//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////[/color] (85/70) 
[img]https://i.imgur.com/kxxtOHI.png[/img]
Level 10 Sectonia (holding 4 level up) - (61/100)
[b][color=FD0000]Location:[/color][/b] The Under - Home of Tears
[hider=warp locations]
[s]
Central hub: Smash City Alcamoth
Accessible locations:
Peach’s castle
Limsa Lominscuttle Town
Lumbridge
Twilight Town
Kosm’s Beach
[/s]
[/hider]
[/center]

A severed limb splatted to the ground in front of the troop, causing all to start like a cat presented with a cucumber before they realized who it belonged to. Well. except Rika who crouched down, picked up and called out [color=Aqua]”I think someone dropped this”[/color] with nary a thought of how weird this was behind her eyes.

The rest of them did actually get the message and once they had caught Rika up, they headed inside. They traded a brief hello with the pair, and then popped over to the counter to place some orders from the two baristas, [url=https://bitsandpiecesteam1.files.wordpress.com/2021/01/20201227121016_1.jpg?w=1440&h=580&crop=1]Maddy[/url] and [url=https://i.imgur.com/5zFqP4T.png]Clemence[/url].

The menu consisted of  fresh coffee, tinned coffee, milk, expresso, and so forth as expected, as well as  cookies, muffins, scones, and, for some reason, Pear Fusilli. Even more out of place than the pasta however, was Clemence’s side hustle of selling blank tapes and rewinds for said tapes.

Upon seeing those Jr inevitably asked [color=SpringGreen]”Hey, so, what’s the deal with the ‘tape’ things?”[/color], the young prince was not even familiar with the antiquated audio storage format.

"Oh, zese?" Clémence seemed to perk up when the young prince voiced an interest in a very particular subset of her inventory. Though she spoke with a notable French accent, Junior could parse her speech pretty well thanks the time he'd spent around the Seaplane Tender, Bella, back in the Deep Blue Seaside. "Zey are cassette tapes. Nothing strange about zem, how zey work or what zey're made of, but with a cassette player and microphone you can use zem to record any monsters you meet out in ze field, and make zeir power your own." She held up two different tapes, one an ordinary dull black, the other metallic and shiny. "Two hundred for ze normal ones, seven hundred fifty for ze chrome, which are much better at recording. If you're new and you wish to know more about cassette beasts..." After looking around, Clémence zeroed in on one customer in particular. "You should ask [i]him[/i]," she said, nodding at the Skelevangelist.

Sectonia wasn’t interested in the tapes as she figured there was a catch with them. Instead only grabbing another coffee to stay awake. Something more flavorful than what she had at the hotel, which was very, very basic and bland.

Jr, never one to turn down the possibility of acquiring new toys, was very much the opposite, and eagerly followed up on that suggestion, proceeding to go bother the indicated gentleman with little regard as to if that might be rude or not.

[color=SpringGreen]”Hey you, the lady at the counter said you knew stuff about these tape things. Lay it on me. I wanna know all the details. Like, can it be any monster? Or only specific ones? And are they any good if so? Or would this just let me turn into stuff less awesome than I already am”[/color] the little monster climbed up onto a chair opposite the man to ask.

At the mention of tapes, the other undead at the table Junior joined raised a collective eyebrow, and the Skelevangelist near-instantly went into panic mode. "Wuh...he-hey, hold your horses just a, just a hot second there, little guy." Leaning on the table in an exaggerated casual manner, he turned toward Skelly and the others. "He's, uh, heheh, obviously just a little confused. Mistaking me for someone else, I bet!" He floated up from his chair and patted Junior on the head, subtly tugging on his arm with the other hand. "Give me a second, will you, fellas? I'll get him sorted out, be back in a minute!" Then, in a barely-audible whisper, he hissed in Junior's ear. [i]"Can't tell you here. Follow me?"[/i]

He led the way to a more secluded nook of the Terminal, then wiped the back of a bony hand across his skull. "Uh, sorry about that, kid. Look, I'll tell you whatever you want to know, as long as you don't go blabbing to anyone I know about cassette tapes or turning into monsters, okay? Deal?

[color=SpringGreen]”Uhhh, deal? But you might wanna tell the lady selling them that as well then?”[/color] Jr replied, very confused, but happy enough to roll with it. If it was meant to be a secret, then he assumed it had to be good. As was Kamek, who was observing this whole thing via a wisps he had sent to keep an eye on the boy when he started to wander off.

The Skelevangelist shifted uncomfortably. "Well, the tapes aren't very popular, so most people don't ask, and she doesn't tell. In a city that's ninety-nine percent monster, tapes that let you turn into one don't have much use. Except...well." Suddenly the Skelevangelist's body dissolved into what looked like TV static, fluctuating and reforming into the shape of a man. He looked to be in his early twenties, unkept and unshaven, rail-thin and gaunt. He held a cassette player, and as Junior watched he lowered his headphones down to hang around his neck. "I'm not really a Skelevangelist," he admitted, his eyes melancholic. "I just wanted to fit in, you know? I'm not the only person 'blending in', either. Humans d-don't...have a great reputation around here. Monsters don't tr-trust us. If my monster friends found out I was some loser human and not a cool skeleton, they wouldn't want anything to do with me! So please, k-k-keep it to yourself! It's my social life on the line!"

He tugged at his beard uncomfortably. "A-anyway, you wanted to know about the tapes? Well, they can record lots of different m-monsters. If you've got a player, put the tape in, point the microphone at 'em, a-and press this." He indicated a button on his player with a circle. "It's up to chance, but if a friend of yours beats on 'em it'll go up, and if you get hit it'll go down. When transformed, you can't do anything you did before, but you can use everything the monster c-can, and it's HP gets stacked on top of yours. The tape'll...uh, well, break if it takes too much damage, and you'll turn back, but you can re-re-re-wind the tapes to fix 'em up." He showed Junior the tape in his possession, emblazoned with a drawing of a skeleton's head. Then he slipped it back into the player and closed it, his finger hovering over the play button. "Uh...I guess it wouldn't hurt to mention, there's...one other thing the player can do, b-but most people can't use it. If two people have players and their hearts act as one, they might be able to fuse their monster forms together. A fusion's got the stats and p-p-powers of both combined, so they're crazy strong, but you gotta stock up power first." He carefully put his headphones back on. "Uh, b-but I don't know anyone who can, so don't get your hopes up. T-that's everything I know..." He pressed play on his device, and in a shimmer of static he turned back into a Skelevangelist. Instantly he seemed more confident, animated, and personable, with no trace of his stutter. "So keep it on the down low, will ya kid?"

[color=SpringGreen]”Yeah, yeah, sure, don’t worry about it”[/color] Jr replied, still not really getting the whole not wanting to be seen as human thing. Kamek meanwhile wondered if those who slither in the dark’s double lives had had any influence on the ‘humans being seen as mistrustful’ thing the man had talked about.

The boy left him after that, (or rather he left, then went back and said [color=SpringGreen]”and, uh, thanks”[/color] after some rather blatant prompting from Kamek) giving the tapes thing a mull over as he and headed back to rejoin the others. 

After the rest of the party had placed their orders, they had returned and took a seat with the two ladies, the king shrinking himself down to fit properly, while Rika had been busy drinking in all the neat sights to cause much of a ruckus. 

Then getting to talk about her and Jr’s little adventure distracted her more than enough to prevent any shenanigans.

[color=Aqua]”Mmm, hmm. There’s this place called the crumbling caverns that’s made entirely of cheese!”[/color] Rika replied to the question, before going on an extended ramble about their experiences [color=Aqua]”and there were these rat and mouse people who mined it, and we got a job to run some of it back, and got attacked by more rat people and some like, living cheese or something while doing that. They had jetpack knights armed with forks, it was silly. Anyway we killed some of them and they killed some guy who was with us. Then they ran off and we delivered the cheese but got paid basically nothing and learned that jobs are bad and you should just kill tings and crush spirits or steal to get money”[/color] 

[color=DeepSkyBlue]”Ah, no, maybe you should not have learned that specific lesson from that Rika … or rather young mistress”[/color] Kamek replied, realizing that he now functionally had two royal scoins he needed to help raise right.

[color=Aqua]”Young mistress? Oh, like how you call jr young master... Why do you do that anyway?”[/color] Riak asked, entirely skipping over the advisor’s attempt to adjust her learning,  to which Kamek explained that, as daughter of a king, she was now royalty

[color=Aqua]”Soooo, does that make me a princess?”[/color] Rika asked, and then replying [color=Aqua]”neat”[/color] once she got confirmation of that being the case. After all [color=Aqua]”I mean I already have one in me anyway, but I didn’t know if that counted or not? Guess it doesn’t matter either way now”[/color] 

While the matter of his lineage was clarified Bowser was pouring over the map and had gotten himself confused, pointing at the tall blurred out right section and saying [color=FD0000]”Hey, shouldn't that bit to the side be filled in? We went down it right? Kamek check our map”[/color]

[color=DeepSkyBlue]”Sire I … yes here”[/color] the mage unfurled his own (miniaturized) map, which matched Nadia’s entirely, as instructed, before correcting his king’s confusion 

[color=DeepSkyBlue]”I believe this up here”[/color] he tapped the ash lake [color=DeepSkyBlue]”Was where we came down. Most of our journey seems to have been pipe, at least compared to those who went through the ah, ‘womb’ structure”[/color] 

[color=FD0000]”Oh. Right. I was just checking you know that”[/color] he insisted.

[color=92278f]”Hm… Which area had that ‘clock’ you were talking about? Perhaps if its easy to get to, I could inspect that first. That pig boy did mention something about stealing lifelight, perhaps that clock is related?”[/color] Sectonia mused as she looked over the map. Really this was a guise to her agenda to see if she could make a regent out of the previous king here, but learning about the consul’s powers or potential about them could be useful.

[color=DeepSkyBlue]”Oh? Ah yes, the clock. That would be here”[/color] Kamek pointed at the ash lake [color=DeepSkyBlue]”and can be accessed via a warp pipe found in the water under Gallo tower’s bridge. Should take you all the way back up”[/color]

 [color=DeepSkyBlue]”As for what the clock is, and what life light is, well, it appears that the red glow in the galeeming’s eyes suffuses their body, and keeps them alive somehow. Or maybe more accurately a lack of it kills them”[/color] Kamek explained what he remembered  [color=DeepSkyBlue]”either way, the clock fills with lifelight whether when things die nearby, or when lifelight is put into it willingly, which is what Asgore does. Then people like those in the city take lifelight out to live.”[/color]

[color=Aqua]”Which I guess makes them sound like a good thing, but didn’t Asgore also think it would be good if they were destroyed?”[/color] Rika asked, having not quite gotten that part

[color=DeepSkyBlue]”I. Yes. I suppose”[/color]

[color=FD0000]”I got real big and punched it and it still didn’t break, so they are straight up indestructible”[/color] Bowser added with a matter of fact rather than egotistical tone, despite egotistical being exactly what the statement was.

[color=92278f]”Magic must often defeat magic. Nothing is indestructible.”[/color] Sectonia said flatly.

[color=DeepSkyBlue]”Right. Well. One flaw I do know about the clocks is that the Conuls can take flame out of them, to either heal or … hmmm. You know, I do not recall, are they Galeeming or not?”[/color] he asked, which got some shrugs from the others in the troop. 

[color=92278f]”Considering upon his death he leaked red motes of energy instead of a spirit, perhaps this clock is meant to keep the consuls alive and all powerful, instead of what this ‘Asgore’ thinks it does? I wouldn’t know without seeing it though.”[/color] Sectonia said.

[color=DeepSkyBlue]”Well, whatever the case, the clocks require conflict to keep the people alive, but breaking them would free people from that need. Perhaps from galeem’s influence?”[/color] he theorized, but he really did not know for sure (it was a rather academic question anyway, as breaking the clocks was currently out of the question) so he simply shrugged and left it there.


As they were mulling over the implications of the map, and considering where to go, the orders they had made on their way in arrived.

Decaf coffees for the two older koopas, warm milk for the young ones (which professed to calcium enriched for extra healthy bones on the menu) along with a small pile of cookies and muffins which Kamek, who had worried it might spoil their appetite for dinner, had been outvoted 3 to one on getting. So he’d gotten himself some pasta. Sectonia had gotten a fancy late.

That paused any real potential for strategizing, leaving plenty of time for others to catch up.

Once they did, and got their own orders if they wanted them, and Jr got back to nab his drink before it got cold and talk a bit about how neat the whole monster transformation and fusion thing sounded, the strategizing could begin.

[color=DeepSkyBlue]”So, as the young mistress, Rika, has mentioned, she and the young master have had little trip over here”[/color] Kamek indicated to a section of the map to the right [color=DeepSkyBlue]”and found it not particularly dangerous, comparably”[/color]

[color=Aqua]”Yup, we went pretty far and only got attacked one whole time!”[/color] Rika agreed , before outlining what kind of progress could be made [color=Aqua]”There was some kind of factory further on I think, but we didn’t get much of a good look. Also this town fairly close to that which would make an ok staging or rallying point for before we go hit that place”[/color] 

[color=DeepSkyBlue]”Which leads into my suggestion that we head out tomorrow rather than try and squeeze an expedition into the unknown into the evening. A proper night’s rest will do us much better than the cat naps we’ve most likely had. Plus it lets us stock up on and offload equipment at a more leisurely pace”[/color] Kamek popped his still not quite empty cup down to suggest [color=DeepSkyBlue]”We hardly want to be hauling P’s treasures with us when we set out, I shouldn’t think”[/color]

[color=92278f]”Indeed. Some beauty rest for everyone would be best. As for what areas to go to, it really doesn’t matter in the end. It seems we will need to go get more mask fragments from all over the Under. ”[/color] Sectonia said. [color=92278f]”Speaking of all that loot. How should we go about dealing with that… Hm… There is quite a lot of it to move.”[/color]

[color=DeepSkyBlue]”Best we sell it off before we leave.The sooner the better, so we can put those funds to work. Perhaps after this little meeting is over, you would be able to give us a touch of your time to aid in that endeavor?”[/color] the royal advisor asked the queen.

[color=92278f]”The faster it gets done, the faster we can all get some proper sleep.”[/color] Sectonia said. [color=92278f]”I still need to go see this ‘Asgore’ to see if he can take the reagent position here for me as well. The citizens here would love their former king to return if he was ousted by that… pig.”[/color] Sectonia then thought about how to go about that, and had the thought of one of the buildings she had passed prior. [color=92278f]”There is that pawn shop, and the auction house not that far away as well that could expedite this perhaps.”[/color] She also thought a bit before saying. [color=92278f]”And if this isn’t that valuable, as none of it seemed to be magical, just giving it back could pay dividends more than gold should we come back perhaps. hm…”[/color]

[color=DeepSkyBlue]”I do not believe he will be interested. He has charged himself with refilling the clock all on his own, which is not something he can do at the same time as ruling a city,”[/color] Kamek explained, skipping over the self esteem issues the former king had, before pivoting back to the loot issue and pointing out that [color=DeepSkyBlue]”Well, a fair amount of it is art and such things, which I would think would sell quite well at an auction house, would it not?”[/color] 

[color=92278f]”Perhaps. Art is a weird one to sell. It could be valuable or not at all. I suppose we will have to see. The toys however I don’t think will sell well at all, best to return those.”[/color] Sectonia said, giving her opinion on that.

[color=Aqua]”Awww, but I just got to play with those game console things for the first time”[/color] Rika bemoaned, and Jr too was a little miffed, but both were easily placated by promises of going shopping for their own toys, and so there was no further dissent on the part of the troop when it came to giving the children back their things.

Having said their parts, the turtles, bee and ship leaned back in their chairs and opened the floor to the other’s points of view on what they should be doing.