[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/6W7bqko.png[/img]
[h2][color=FD0000]The Koopa Troop[/color][/h2]
[b][color=FD0000]wordcount:[/color][/b] 2,378  (+3) 
[b][color=FD0000]Bowser: Level 12 [/color][/b] EXP: [color=FD0000]//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////[/color] (261/120)
[b][color=SpringGreen]Bowser Jr: Level 12 [/color][/b] EXP: [color=SpringGreen]////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////[/color] (146/120)
[b][color=DeepSkyBlue]Kamek: Level 12 [/color][/b] EXP: [color=DeepSkyBlue]//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////[/color] (138/120)
[b][color=Aqua]Rika: Level 8 [/color][/b] EXP: [color=Aqua]///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////[/color]///////// (72/80)
[b][color=FD0000]Location:[/color][/b] The Under - Termite Kingdom Ruins
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[s]
Central hub: Smash City Alcamoth
Accessible locations:
Peach’s castle
Limsa Lominscuttle Town
Lumbridge
Twilight Town
Kosm’s Beach
[/s]
[/hider]
[/center]

[color=DeepSkyBlue]”In hindsight, I suppose the place with the trees growing out of it would have root caverns beneath it”[/color] Kamek mused as the troop looked up at the foliage bursting from the abandoned arboretum. They’d come here after receiving Therion’s message, but, unbeknownst to them, had ended up coming at the place from a different angle, and thus an entirely different entrance, than the thief and his friend had taken.

Nevertheless, they picked their way through the top layer with relative ease and lack of any notable encounters, until they came across a curious sight. Streaks, or paths, of slime coated the ground in one area, all of which converged upon a singular path down towards the lusher garden below.

They found out this latter fact because Rika had immediately stepped on, or rather above, the still wet slime, the presence of even that thin layer of fluid letting her sail rather than walk, which she much preferred. To follow her, the royals were able to simply walk alongside this trail for a while, but when they found the way down, well, it was entirely coated in the slime

[color=SpringGreen]”Are we really going down that way”[/color] Jr complained

[color=DeepSkyBlue]”It would be best to not make the others wait too long, but I suppose we could take a look for another one?”[/color] Kamek said, looking to Bowser to get a final say on that matter.

Before he could give it, however, Rika, who had already been sailing ahead to check out the tunnel, piped up [color=Aqua]”I think I hear fighting going on down there? There’s magic pew pews and shouting and stuff going on I think”[/color] which settled the matter.

[color=FD0000]”We’re going to get down there and back up whoever’s gotten themselves into a mess. Koopa troop, charge!”[/color] he commanded, before stomping forwards onto the slime and down into the tunnel. Jr groaned and then followed his papa on foot while Kamek floated slime free above.

The tunnel dipped and bent, and then took a steep decline which had some rather unfortunate consequences, namely both royals losing their grip on the ground and instead starting to slide down the slime.

[color=FD0000]”Wowowowow!”[/color] Bowser panicked while his arms pinwheeled to maintain his balance, while jr entirely altered his opinion on the slime trailed path, sliding swiftly past his papa with a cry of [color=SpringGreen]”Woohoo!”[/color] as he effortlessly kept his balance while shooting down the rest of the tunnel. 

The prince burst out into the lush lower level with Rika at his side (the ship girl having matched his pace, one he caught up with her) a little while later, which sent them both careening into a miniature warzone.

One side, that of the garden, had formed a defensive perimeter centered around a relatively normal looking tree [url=https://i.imgur.com/2rYBqMl.png]tree[/url], sans for the fact that green energy periodically emanate from the tree to settle upon the hulking form of an [url=https://i.imgur.com/MgMy2h2.png]Awoken Hollow[/url], both revitalizing it, and seemingly causing it to grow even stronger after each revitalization as more vines sprouted from its shell.

The tree was also host to six of sword armed [url=https://i.imgur.com/UxvsFHX.jpg]harpies[/url] who swooped down out of its branches to attack, before retreating back to it if harmed inorder to be healed by their roost. The remaining bulk of the garden’s forces meanwhile consisted of a number of what seemed to be the fleshless shells of termites, the capitol’s former residents, reanimated by a mass of vines and moss, and a few harpy skeletons animated in the same way (the living ones did not seem to mind this at all), all of which shambled forwards in zombie like fashion towards their foes. 

Such slow speed might have made the termite and harpy manikins easily outmaneuvered by most foes, but as it turned out they were matched for speed by the ones they were facing. The decimators of gardens. The leavers of the slime trail. A horde of snails.

The main mass of the slimy invaders consisted of [url=https://i.imgur.com/y6q7vOZ.png]blamish
 snails[/url] which crept along the ground, their shells as tall as men, their maws full of surprisingly sharp teeth. Where they and the manikin met, the snails attempted to simply devour the vines animating the undead, while the manikin in turn tore into them with claws of bone or chitin, or attempted to lash the snails with whip like strikes from their vines that seemed to inflict fatigue at the touch.

These ground borne foes where no threat to the harpies, but what was where the [url=https://i.imgur.com/zSJDrdV.png]milk snails[/url] whom while the where where only about half the size of their blamish kin, where able to unleash bolts of blue magical energy from their stain glass patterned shells. It was they who kept the harpies from simply harassing the snail army to death, as each attempted swoop would be met with an AA barrage of magic blasts. 

Finally, at the center of the mass, pushing forwards towards the tree and its awoken hollow guardian, and showing no fear for the way it was smashing aside foe after foe, was a single member of a third kind of snail, one smaller than all the rest, that rocked on its [url=https://i.imgur.com/IMpzFqY.gif]shell[/url] rather than its slimy body. 

Like the groves forces Rika or Jr noticed that final third kind of snail, for they were much too busy careening into the rear ranks of the slimy army. Literally careening in Jr’s case, as, having no real way to slow down, it was all he could do to spin himself around and slam spiky backed shell into one of the blamish snails, punching holes its armor in the process and eliciting a bubbling cry of pain from his impromptu crashmat, and drawing the ire of the other snails in the process.

His victim attempted to bite him with a mouth containing just enough hard parts that it might actually hurt, and got punched in the face for its efforts. 

[color=SpringGreen]”ew, gross, you got your slime on my fist”[/color] jr complained as he pulled said fist back after leaving the snail’s head a ruined pulp, before pushing away from its disintegrating body, and finding himself surrounded by its angry kin.

[color=SpringGreen]”What, are you supposed to be scary? Maybe if I was a cabbage”[/color] Jr taunted, before twirling his paintbrush and then giving a warcry of [color=SpringGreen]”Lets see how you like the taste of your own goopy medicine!”[/color] before slashing with the brush, leaving a streak of burning slime that started to roast a pair of his foes.

As they burned, the prince leapt up onto their backs, clawed feet finding footing on their large shells despite the slime coating them, after which he started leaping from snail to snail, stabbing down with his paintbrush to deliver ironically slimy death to snails after snail.

Rika meanwhile had avoided smashing into the snails, but by virtue of association also became a target, causing several milk snails to pivot around to attempt to blast her with their magical bolts. They achieved little in trying to do this.

Rika’s gaze slowed the snail’s shots, while she continued to take advantage of the slimy snail trail to sail to and fro, thus avoiding the shots with ease while returning fire with her grizzco blaster and lancing any snails that got close with her spear. As she did this, the harpies took advantage of the distraction, swooping down and swiping at the odd snail with their claw held blades, shrinking cries of triumph and thanks as the unintentional intervention from the pair of youngsters seemed to have turned the course of the battle in their favor.

Then the snail traveling on its shell rather than foot got close to the Awoken Hollow. Fooled by its unassuming stature, the construct of vines and purple armor made the mistake of striking at one of the larger blamish snails instead of this small strange one. 

It was a fatal mistake.

The snail opened its maw wide. Wider. And then engulfed the entire hollow within, devouring it in a single bite.

The harpies' cries gradually died out as they all came to realize what had occurred, and then ramped right back up into ones of panic as the snail that had devoured the tree’s greatest defender now moved slowly towards it. Vines rose up around the snail at the tree’s command, attempting to esnare it, and manikin shuffled forwards to try and fill the breach, yet in response the other snails crawled forwards with the devourer, consuming vines and letting what might well be their leader keep moving towards the prize.

The harpies tried to swoop in to defend as well, but bolts shot up, swatting one from the sky, and warding the rest away. 

The snails swarmed the fallen harpy as she tried to struggle up, and none, not even the young troop members, could get close to help either her or the tree. 

Then Bowser came careening out of the same snail slime slick tunnel his kids had shot out of only a little bit ago. He’d gotten stuck in a wall at one point, slowing him down, but now caught up, once again sailing fourth uncontrollably and as a result, where his son had smashed into and been slowed by one snail, the king stopped for no one and nothing.

Shells and slimy bodies were smashed aside as the king unwillingly entered the fray, careening through the slimy army. He flattened several of the snails trying to eat the fallen harpy alive, giving her sisters an opening to swoop down and pull her out of danger, and then careened right past the devourer snail and smacked, rather lightly (most of his momentum having been killed by flattening snails), into the trunk of the tree.

[color=FD0000]”Urrgh”[/color] the king groaned, before looking down at his snail roadkill splattered clothes and groaning [color=FD0000]”and I just got these too!”[/color] 

“Behind you, noble turtle! The devouring abomination comes to eat us whole!”

[color=FD0000]”Huh?”[/color] the king enthroned as a voice spoke from the tree itself, before turning to look back the way he’d come.

[color=FD0000]”Devourer?”[/color] he asked, when he saw nothing worthy of that name

“There, right there, sitting on its shell, its coming!” the voice cried out in fear as the strange slowly rocking on its shell snail came closer and closer, along with several of its taller kin

[color=FD0000]”I don’t see anything except more snails”[/color] the bamused king said, still not seeing the danger. 

[color=SpringGreen]”Look out papa! Don’t let it get close!”[/color] Jr called from where he was balancing atop a sail shell, to which Rika added [color=aqua]”Shoot it shoot it shoot it!”[/color] 

Bowser looked even more bemused for a moment, before shrugging, deploying his shoulder cannons, and giving the weird snail both barrels. Shell after shell slammed into the snail, which while a terror to plants and medieval monks was no danger to modern firepower, and quickly blew it to smithereens. 

[color=FD0000]”That good?”[/color] Bowser asked, as he dusted of his hands and undeployed his cannons

“Ohhhh thank the Pantokrator” the voice sighed in relief, as the remaining snails that Bowser had not flattened while rolling were rapidly finished off by the tree’s remaining forces and the rest of the troop (including a very late arriving Kamek).

 [color=FD0000]”So am I talking to a tree or what?”[/color] the king asked as he took a step back and then turned to face it.

“I am no simple tree, I am a Hamadryad and a wise and magical guardian of this here domain” the tree, or rather dryad, spoke, before offering “for your gallant and timely assistance, i offer you my ancient wisdom. Please, ask, and I shall tell”

[color=FD0000]”Hmmm”[/color] Bowser hummed as he scratched his chin, and the harpies cries of “what are you gonna ask!?” drowned out any attempt by Kamek to get a word in, before asking  [color=FD0000]”You know where the way down is?”[/color]

[hr]

After they gathered up the various spirits, or rather had some toadies do it, they were given a harpy as a guide, who brought them to the place where the siren had been freed by the siren, and prevented them from running into any trouble along the way.

There they camped down and tried to wash off some of the snail slime while waiting for the others. Once they were all together, they ended up making a bit of a display of all the spirits they had, from the 3 kinds of snails they had just killed, the Awoken Hollow and a few manikins they had scavenged, and the hoppers and Dark Magic Lampyre they had slain earlier while sorting through them all, leaving a perfect opportunity for anyone who had any interest in any of them to make a request before the troop used them up themselves. 

If Ganodorf asked him/filled him in, Kamek would comment that the clock the king of evil had seen was most likely a flame clock, and wonder out loud about the strangeness of it being out in the open in the city’s seat of power, when they had never seen any but the one tucked away above the city of tears before.

After that, they headed down with the others and sure enough, the cave led right down to the bee kingdom as the travelers had predicted. There they saw a few bee-like bots enforcing the wasp’s orders, but interestingly, no actual wasps, even though the paper hives clearly indicated their presence. 

[color=DeepSkyBlue]”I suspect that once one of those flying things sees us, we’ll kicking the hornet's nest, or well, the wasp’s nest, and the occupiers will come buzzing”[/color] Kamek predicted, guessing that the bee-boop drones where as much security cameras as they were security. 

Bowser meanwhile agreed with his fellow inhuman royal with: [color=FD0000]”Yeah, what do we look like, sneaks and thieves? Lets’ get out there and conquer this kingdom already!”[/color]

[color=DeepSkyBlue]”Liberate”[/color] Kamek lightly reminded him

[color=FD0000]”Same difference”[/color]

[color=DeepSkyBlue]”At any rate, perhaps we could, as Primrose suggested, have it both ways? We have a, ah, daring and powerful team go out there and get the wasps' attention, while a more subtle force goes around the disturbance and takes out the queen wasp while her soldiers are distracted?”[/color] the mage suggested, expanding on the plan that was somewhat coming together.