[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/6W7bqko.png[/img]
[h2][color=FD0000]The Koopa Troop[/color][/h2]
[b][color=FD0000]wordcount:[/color][/b] 1,718  (+3) (+13)
[b][color=FD0000]Bowser: Level 12 [/color][/b] EXP: [color=FD0000]//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////[/color] (254/120)
[b][color=SpringGreen]Bowser Jr: Level 12 [/color][/b] EXP: [color=SpringGreen]////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////[/color] (139/120)
[b][color=DeepSkyBlue]Kamek: Level 12 [/color][/b] EXP: [color=DeepSkyBlue]//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////[/color] (131/120)
[b][color=Aqua]Rika: Level 8 [/color][/b] EXP: [color=Aqua]////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////[/color]//////////////// (65/80)
[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]

[color=FD0000]”YAAAAaaaa-oh hey, you did it. Good job team”[/color] Bowser said, his charging warcry coming to a trailing end when the rest of the heroes, many who had gone straight for their main foe, finished dealing with him.

Well. 

Sort of.

[color=SpringGreen]”Is he not. Is he just? Stuck there? What?”[/color] Jr asked, voicing what was a general feeling of confusion (at least in the Troop) as they approached the body of their fallen foe. And it was his body, which was presently sticking out of the ground, and with his head buried into it. 

[color=DeepSkyBlue]”Well then. That is disturbing”[/color] Kamek put it succinctly, the fact that this absurd foe could simply not be killed being quite the unnerving prospect. Yet he was still defeated, showing no signs of trying to get himself out of the predicament he was in, or much in the way of life. Certainly he did not react when Bowser joined in with Nadia’s 30 seconds of using him as a punching bag to no avail.

[color=DeepSkyBlue]”I suggest we get a move on before things get even stranger. We have what we came for after all”[/color] the mage suggested, referring to both the mask fragment and the unguarded way forward victory had afforded them.

[color=SpringGreen]”What, and leave the treasure? No way”[/color] Jr said, having crouched down to inspect the gem pile

[color=Aqua]”Oh right, there’s spirits too,”[/color] Rika realized, adding [color=Aqua]”let me just”[/color] before turning and using her grappling hook to retrieve the grovetender’s one. [color=Aqua]”Do we wanna use the hat on this one too?”[/color]

[color=DeepSkyBlue]”As soon as feasible then”[/color] the mage amended with a sigh as Rika went to acquire the item crushing enhancing hat from Sectonia, before stepping in and preventing Jr from trying to haul off all of the money on his own, and making him settle for just the rubies … and then also the pizza recipes because really, who else was going to take those.

After all, they already had a prize they had a 100% claim on, and what it turned into after being crushed be was a little jar.

[hider=For Rika]You have obtained:
[b][url=https://i.imgur.com/T0KpqmR.png]Little Disciple[/url][/b]
[i]Every 1.6 seconds while sprinting, the artifact will send out a wisp that will home in on the nearest enemy, dealing 300% of the damage the owner would with a basic attack as unaspected magic damage. A wisp can travel 40m before dissipating. Having bonuses to movement speed will decrease the cooldown[/i][/hider]

[color=Aqua]”I tried opening it, but it won’t budge on its own”[/color] Rika complained when she reported back post hat wearing, re-joining the list of people who needed healed as a result of said hat, much to Jr’s annoyance. 

[color=DeepSkyBlue]”It does seem magical however”[/color] Kamek informed her, before also pointing out [color=DeepSkyBlue]”and there’s a little strap too, so perhaps you need to wear it?”[/color]

The ship girl agreed to try it out, and would eventually find out that running or sailing around at high speed would rapidly produce wisps from the pot that would fly off and attack much like ones the grovetender had produced. 

After they were all ready to go, the troop set off, only to be immediately stopped due to running out of path to traverse. Instead they were presented with a massive drop down down down into the depths, quite possibly even deeper than they had just ascended up via the tower.

[color=Aqua]”Long way down huh. Guess I could float and grappling hook”[/color] Rika mulled out loud, while Bowser groaned aout [color=FD0000]”Claw scratching all the way down. That’s going to be a pain”[/color] 

[color=SpringGreen]”Real lame that we gotta deal with this when my car’s still busted. Sooner we get to this bee kingdom the better”[/color] Jr complained, before being interrupted by a polite cough from Kamek, who gestured to a wyvern he was in the midst of conjuring.

[color=SpringGreen]”Ohhh, right. Those”[/color] 

[color=DeepSkyBlue]”Yes, those.”[/color] Kamek confirmed dryly, before calling over to the others [color=DeepSkyBlue]”And I can do a few more if you feel like there would be difficulty in getting down. Only a few however, I’m not made of mana”[/color]

Whether or not he was taken up on the offer, in short order Rika was mounted up on the back of a fire wyverns’s back, with, for efficiency’s sake, Jr sat behind her, one hand on her rigging for support, the other still holding his paintbrush for defence.

Bowser meanwhile was mounted atop a suitably regal looking gold wyvern, with Kamek sat in front of his king and focused on channeling his magic to increase the magical mount’s size such that it could carry the mighty koopa. This channeling was a fairly major part of why there would not be a flight of wyverns available to carry all of them down.

Despite not being able to offer transport for all, the Troop were able to offer protection, particularly Rika, who found that her new spear was filling in an absence she had felt the last time she had used one of Kamek’s flying steeds. The armored ship girl looked like quite the arial knight now, one ready to lance any threats that might try and harass those taking less controlled descents.

As it turned out, Bowser’s own was still going to count as one of those, as his wyvern took to the sky with rather ponderous slowness with a flap of its great wings and kicked up great gusts of air.

With its smaller red escort, the golden wyrven began to slowly descend down the giant chasm and, surprisingly enough, the biggest issue was not hordes of arial baddies or other tricky obsticals.

It was traffic.

[color=FD0000]”Come on move it already you giant bug! Get outta the road!”[/color] the king found himself yelling at various booflies that got in his way. Despite their massive size, the giant bugs were not at all aggressive, but they also did not give a fly’s abdomen about who or what got in their way as they buzzed about. After one terrifying plummet caused by one brushing against the massive gold wyvern’s wing, the fliers had learned to give them their space.

It was that or start destroying them, and Kamek urged caution, given that there was a massive pit’s worth of them, and angering one might well anger all of them. After some convincing the King had agreed, but that didn’t mean he was going to do so quietly, and so plenty of insults were hurled at the oversized flies as they navigated around them.

Floating in the air along with the flies, there were also the mantaray like cave angels, which were polite/sensible enough to get out of the way of the angry king, and a few floating islands which moved for no koopa.

Said islands also sported a large orb like machine filled with smaller orbs, which was odd, and after passing a few the troop agreed to land on one of the islands to take a break from flying and to investigate. 

[color=SpringGreen]”There’s a kind of pedestal thing here that looks like it's supposed to take something, but I dunno what”[/color] Jr reported, him and Rika having landed first and had a chance to look around before the older koopas arrived. 

[color=DeepSkyBlue]”Perhase it’s a puzzle, and there’s some item or other around here that goes in it?”[/color] Kamek suggested from where he had taken a seat on a stone inorder to take a rest and let his mana reserves recharge a bit.

[color=SpringGreen]”Or maybe it takes money? It looks kinda like a gumball machine after all”[/color] Jr suggested, which perked up Rika’s interest a bit. The prince started to fish around in his duffle bag for some geo, only to notice Bowser was stomping right towards the device with a very angry look on his face.

Before anyone could ask what he was doing, Bowser suddenly lept the last few meters between him and the machine, before grabbing on with one claw, and then reeling the other back. With a roar, the king fired up the rockets on his kinetic strike module, sending his fist blazing forwards, smashing into the dome of the device and shattering the ancient machine in an instant, spilling the orb like capsules all over the island.

[color=FD0000]”Ahhhh, now that’s better”[/color] the king said as he dropped down and dusted off his hands, having satisfyingly worked out some of his frustration at the booflies in the strike.

The rest meanwhile stood there in shocked silence before jr broke it with a realization of [color=SpringGreen]”Ohhh yeah. I forgot we could just do stuff like that.”[/color] before cheering [color=SpringGreen]”Way to go dad!”[/color]

[color=FD0000]”Yup. And let that be a lesson. Just because we’re doing hero stuff and playing nice, we shouldn't let that get in the way of what we are: bag guys”[/color] the king declared, imparting yet more dubious wisdom on Rika in the process, before asking the question none of them had really considered, which was [color=FD0000]”So what is this stuff anyway?”[/color] 

As it turned out, all the orbs contained various [url=https://zelda.fandom.com/wiki/Zonai_Devices]Zonai Devices[/url] from fans to balloons, lamps, rockets, gliders, wheels and even weapons like cannons and flamethrowers, though those were greatly outnumbered by transportation related equipment.  Importantly, there were also a few big batteries that could power all these machines for a time.

Given that the island they had picked was relatively close to the side the seekers had started on, if the others could cimb down to it (and then get a wyvern taxi over), they might well have yet another way to get down the rest of the way. Jr’s GDI Engineer Suitcase was no ancient king’s magic arm, but it could weld stuff together just fine, and was on hand if anyone wanted to if they get their engineering mitts on.

As for the troop, they hung around a bit to make sure no one was going to plummet to their doom after the first hurdle, and tinker around with their prizes a bit. This involved a fair few things with rockets attached blazing upwards into the air unhelpful, and at least one unstably doomed glider plummeting down into the abyss.


Then, once everyone was in the clear, and they were bored/rested, they’d gather up a few of the more interesting devices, before remounting their wyverns and continue to descend down down into the depths.