”Best not do what a curse wants you to do after all” Kamek added when his advice they not eat was met with begrudging acceptance ”So if this wretched place wants us to eat, then I can only speculate doing so will have dire consequences”
That knowledge was all well and good, but it didn't make the sensation of steadily building starvation any less wretched.
There was a little more pep talking and amping up by the party, from people with both greater or lesser skill for it, before they got up and got back to the task of getting the heck out of the mess they were in, with Sakura taking the initiative on getting them moving. First thing’s first, was clearing the door so they could move on. Jr peeked Mimi through the little gap they had to work with at first to make sure there weren't any surprises behind and, once she gave the all clear, which consisted mostly of her not freaking out, the troop put their backs into helping shove the boxes aside.
Soon enough the way was clear and they entered into the room from which the watery sounds were emanating, the source of which turned out to be a fair bit more water than any of the troop had been anticipating.
”Geeze, how big is this place?” Jr complained as they all looked out at the vast expanse of water flooding the vast room before them. Rika’s brief excitement about being able to skate across that water was rapidly shut down by the Nadia’s guess that it was full of monsters
“I mean, we don’t know that...” Rika tried to suggest before sighing and, along with the others, taking a look around for any other way through. The person that succeeded at that was Peach who found a map and used it to outline a four step method of escaping their current floor. First, up to the control center, then to the submarine bay and finally down into the probably monster infested depths in some pressurized tin can or cans to the sunken water flow control and then, finally, up via a de-flooded elevator.
”Things can't ever be simple huh. Oh well, more platforming here we come. Almost like home really heh.” Bowser commenced as he started plotting a route across the sky obstacle course that would get them to the control center.
”At least we don't all need to go this time? I could just stay down here with the pigs and then you can come pick me and them up in a sub? Much less of a hassle for everyone.” Kamek suggested, having had quite enough of putting his life in other people’s hands and more than happy to sit this one out.
”Yeah that'd be a load off my back. You’re gonna so owe me for lugging you around you know” Jr told the mage
”Think of this as paying me back for carrying you around that floating spa after your run in with the giant scissors” Kamek retorted, which got a grunt of acceptance out of the boy before he turned his focus towards sizing up the platforms as the humans started making their way up them. From them they got some unsettling news.
Mirage’s comment that they’d probably not be able to navigate the rickety platforms if they were all grown up was meant to be a joke, or an attempt to make the best out of their situation, but for the two royal koopas, who, with all their scales and their shells were a fair bit heavier than the average human 4 year old, it frankly just made the whole thing more daunting.
Not that either of them were the kinds of people to be daunted.
Bowser grabbed the red half of the magnet, hung it over his back, which was apparently a thing you could do with them, and then gave the rickety platform gauntlet a go anyway, scrambling up Mirage’s pegs and then making his way onto the first platform. The way it creaked under him was not promising in the slightest.
”Urg. I think we’re gonna have to go separate ways, son. You're gonna be good? or you could stay if you want?” Bowser said back down, it been quite obvious that two of them would be far too much for some of the platforms.
”I’ll be fine, jeez. Get going. I’ll catch up” Jr retorted, getting a thumbs up from his dad before Bowser headed out, picking only the sturdiest of platforms to use, while also utilizing his magnet half to pull or push them around where he could to give other people or himself better or easier routes.
“Oh. So. I have an idea that might help you?” Rika said to jr as the boy prepped to head up too.
”I’m listening”
“So I’m using my gauntlets to lighten myself to walk and jump by making myself lighter, right, because I've got kinda weak legs still. And you’ve got strong legs but you're pretty heavy. Well...”
A few moments later, the pair had formed a (slightly precarious in the eyes of the nervously watching Kamek) looking stack, with Rika riding Jr’s shoulders piggyback, while Mimi had popped herself on Rika’s head just because she could.
”This was just an excuse to not walk wasn't it.” Jr complained as he realized he was playing people carrier again.
“Nooooo,” Rika replied convincingly “I’m still going to have to hold you up! Now give this a go. We’re gonna have so much.. Uh. ups-ness. Jumpyness? Floaty bouncy- eek!” Rika’s word fumbling was stopped as Jr moved up Mirage’s steps in rapid step and then took a leap from one platform to another. The koopa’s little legs had a lot of oomph behind them, bringing them high, at which point Rika ramped up her gauntlet’s anti grav and, with Jr gripping onto her legs and said legs gripping onto him, the three of them practically glided down across the gap and then landed far more softly than their combined weight should have allowed.
”Woo!” “yeah!” “Mimi!” went up three cheers, followed by a slight wobble before the trio looked for the target of their next great leap.
”How abooooout, there!” Jr suggested, pointing at a platform that would require an even more daring leap.
“Let's do it! But, ah, be careful with the claws this time please? Some of us aren't covered in scales” Rika asked.
”Ehh Blazermate can always fix you up” Jr insisted, getting a little kick in the chest for his efforts. ”Alright alright. I’ll go easy on you.” Jr relented ”Now let’s keep moving!”
Midna gave Band a smile and a nod when he approved of her plan to accompany him, before slinking down into his shadow to, well, shadow him. Finding out about the progress of the scouting party would have to wait, they had a trap to spring.
Tagging along with the detective was quite the enlightening little experience in how not to investigate things, the man stomping his way back to the scene of the crime and making a big ol show of sleuthing the place and looking for criminals that should have been long gone. Yet, lo and behold, there was a suspicious looking character just hanging around, observing the scene of the foiled plot.
Midna thought this was a stupid move on the rebels part part, only to turn around and get the fact that this was bait a few moments later. Maybe if she hadn’t been shadowing a professional she would have taken it before thinking twice, but there was no accident in how Band stepped up and prompted the man into running. His too easy comment earned a giggle from the princess, as much as a way to reassure him that she was still there as it was a genuine laugh at how thoroughly he’d outsmarted the rebels.
Big band gave chase with Midna coasting at his coattails in his shadow till they ran into an alleyway which, as Big Band predicted easily, was the spot where the ambush was going to be sprung. So with utmost calm, calm Midna did not quite share (she had no way to know what these people were really capable of after all), the man stepped right through the jaws of the trap before they could be sprung and found the rebels sitting around rather casually, likely assured that they had the upper hand.
They certainly were a fine gang of toughs, Minda thought as she gave them a quick appraisal, but she didn’t note any obvious magical abilities or items among them, which bolstered her confidence a whole deal. These thugs didn't know what was gonna hit them.
To an extent neither did Midna, because after trading a short series of barks and bards and one hell of a verbal smack down it was time to dance, and boy, did Band’s performance show him to be quite the maestro of mayhem. The man moved swift as fiddle and hit as hard as a gong, taking out one of the gang with such speed and force that he took even Midna by surprise.
If that first blow wasn't her cue, then Band’s order to take out the purple punk who’d been tracking them certainly was, and Midna had no disagreement with the target. She was covering his back after all and here this stealthy sneaker was, ready to fill it with lead.
Good thing the girl in purple hadn’t realized she wasn't the only one shadowing the one man band.
Midna rose out of his shadow, a grayscale outline of the impsh princess rapidly materializing from the dark before the bright green and red of her new outfit shone true as she dropped to the ground. Dragon claws flared over her skippered toes and dug into the sand for a second before the princess used the grip they provided to launch herself at miss invisible woman. She summoned a massive shadowhand as she flew, aiming to snatch the woman up and then to pivot in-order to throw her at one of her allies inside the garage using her tail and levitation to flip her body around while it was still in flight to add extra momentum to the throw. Then she’d use her new shield as an air/sand break while free hand lashed out, pointing over her defensive bulwark at the rebel closest to the garage’s door.
”Fetch!” she’d bark as the up-scaled wolfos she had at her disposal burst from a portal, and then shoved its snout into the garage it wasn't going to fit in, jaws snapping as it tried to snatch up one of the rebels in its jaws in order to grab and pull them out into the alleyway for Midna to deliver a follow up blow on. Or at the very least it would make people think twice about trying to move towards the alleyway to flank Big Band, or to leg it to try and get away/help.
Through all this, Midna was trying to hold back enough to not straight up kill anyone, and keeping an eye out for targets to free. They needed people alive to question after all, and there might, might, be people worth salvaging from the rebels for their own cause. But if someone (except the kid) needed to die so that a seeker could live though?
Minda led the way to the office and, after which the ever helpful lady there pointed them towards a local cafe. After scooting through the steamy interior of the store they found the man and, a little surprisingly, found him bear faced. Part of Midna had just assumed that the mask he’d worn was his face as part of his semi-mechanical nature, but it looked like that wasn't the case. He was in fact rather handsome under there, but that wasn't the most important thing at the moment.
First thing they found out after taking a seat at his table was that they were being followed. Midna’s court intrigue honed senses stopped her looking before Band even suggested it, or so she told herself anyway. Either way she didn't immediately blow their cover. After that she sat quietly and listened to the train of events that had led to him preventing the bombing of the job office, though she couldn't and didn't stop herself from looking physically ill upon finding out that the rebels had used a child to place their explosives.
”Goddesses, scratch the surface and you find this town is rotten to the core.” she muttered in disgust. Part of her wanted to just wash the hands of the whole place and move on. Once they dealt with Galeem none of this would matter anyway after all. But they were knee deep in the thick of it now and, though the two sides might be various kinds of trash, the locals themselves seemed fine.
”The people deserve better than this… ” she waved her hand around generally to indicate to, well, everything wrong with the town’s politics and rotten underbelly ”mess”
After that Band said he’d be going out to act as, well, bait for the rebel’s scouting force.
”I can hide in the shadows. Physically I mean, completely undetectable. Could ride yours or the slink around the surroundings if you want someone to watch your back without drawing more attention” Midna offered, though she was aware that her vanishing from their party’s numbers might also draw attention. She wasn't an expert at this kind of thing, whereas Big Band clearly was, so it was very much up to him. If not, she was broke, so no tea for her, but she could chat with the others about stuff till the big man’s trumpet called them to war.
Like checking in with how their minion’s desert rescue mission was going with Sectonia.
”Or we could build a giant slingshot and-” the Koppa prince was saying only for Rika to yell “Jr! It’s time to go!” at him as she ran back to them from her firing position and then past him to hop onto Nadai’s fan before soaring upwards to the vent. She landed in the vent, wobbled a little, and then moved to the side to again, try and cover people as the last of the party rushed to the exit that Blazermate had drop-kicked open for them like the badass robot lady she was.
Said dropkick had also inadvertently resulted in a crushing blow to cyclops chasing them, and a near death experience for Kamek, who was still pressed up against one wall of the vent where he’d narrowly avoided being run down by the deadly giant fan, his breathing slowly stabilizing from the panic and fear nearly being blended into a fine past had caused.
Down below Jr finally pulled himself out of his elaborate planning spiral as his dad’s ship crested the shore and its people rapidly unloading and started also being fan launched up into the vent
”Come on son, let's go” Bowser said, pushing him to go before him.
”Shoot. Right. Going” the prince replied, grabbing both his minions and leaping into the jet-stream with them in tow, after which the king followed suit and the pair found themselves staring the long dark metal hallway of the vent
In front of them some of the crew were already moving forward, while others were waiting to make sure the rest of them made it. Jr dropped Tyrant to the ground and then moved to collect Kamek and kept moving, while Bowser joined in with the rope team, helping bail Nadia out of trouble and giving the one eyed jerk a mini fireball for good measure before joining the others in legging it down the vent-way and into the depths of the ship.
The dark vents felt like they went on forever, and only a scant few light sources, like a little wisp of fire-breath Bowser kept going as much as he could while running, lit the way and kept them together till, at last, they dropped down into a dark but rather normal looking room. There, unsurprisingly, everyone rapidly found somewhere to take a load off, the troop finding walls or boxes to lean or sit against while they all caught their breath. Then the hunger set in, which was a lovely added bonus to proceedings.
Supernatural hunger perhaps some hypothesized. Kamek would not be surprised if that was the case.
”If I remember rightly, our oh so helpful adviser from the 13 that said this was the best way to go mentioned that the food in this place was bad somehow. Cursed probably. So as much as this is, frankly, the worst, I highly advise against eating anything.” Kamek recommended, not remembering he specifics if there had been any, but knowing that there was definitely something wrong with the food intended for the diners in this accursed ship
”Uuurgh, for real!?” Bowser complained ”Easy for you to say, freeloader, I’m starving here. And real thirsty too”
Kamek shrugged, what was he supposed to do about his crummy little turtle legs after all, but he did suggest ”Well, we could see about getting water from wherever that sound is coming at least? That might not be dangerous. Might.”
”Gimmy, like, five more minutes. Then maybe we'll take a look.” Jr insisted, which was more than fair.
Things were looking rather bad but, as Mirage pointed out, they were at the very least still alive.
It was something.
”We are indeed, each and every one of us. I’d say you’ve all quite thoroughly beaten the odds to make it this far, but then that is what heroes do, yes?” Kamek suggested, trying to add on a little encouragement to Mirage’s statement of fact, ”Quite an infuriating habit most of the time, but more than welcome given the circumstances.”
”Tell me about it” Bowser grunted, but he was smiling a little
”Bet that jerk lady thinks she’s already won and we’re done for. But we’re not and that means we’ve got the element of surprise for when we find her, kick her butt and then blow this popsicle stand!” Jr concluded, which got a little chorus of affirmations from the troop. The thought of vengeance was a poor substitute for food, but it would have to satiate them for now.
Having bid farewell to the Nomads and left them to explore their newly revitalized land, the Explore set off into the wider world once more. A lot of time had passed, or it felt like it anyway. Exo knew that on most timescales, even a human’s, it hadn't been long since they met the Nomads and started traveling with them, but so much had changed. Both within Exo themselves, the machine had grown as a person a great deal as it discovered what being a person even meant, and without in the wider world. What had once been barren now was green. Where the end had once loomed, a new beginning seemed to be dawning.
Though they were tired from their act of creation, the divine machine would not be stopped from exploring all that had been written across the world by the self proclaimed gods. The question of where to begin had an obvious answer. It could have simply went next door to the land that had been named as the Gateway Steppes and explored either what had become of the land around Uwné’s anvil or headed north into the wild woods found there, but the center, ah it called to them.
There, atop a mountain from which great rivers flowed, sat a city. Up until now Exo had only heard of such things from the tales of the nomads, how once upon a time humans in their hubris had built entire environments of stone and steel to call their home, places that had now become those human’s tombs. Scattered here and there the god could see those tombs, desolate and overgrown by the new life sprouting up everywhere, and yet there, atop the hill, a city stood once more, proud, new and true.
It seemed like an odd place to put one, the machine mused based on what it knew about mortals. Where did they get food from? How would people reach it? Its central location was a selling point certainly, and it would make a great jumping off point for further exploration, but the question of how it worked was enough of a draw of its own. Traveling in their true form, the titanic diamond followed a vein of smaller mountains leading from the steppes to the central mountain, ignorant of how provocative this might appear to any living upon it.
It did not take long for inhabitants within the mountain city to take notice of the approaching entity, in particular, the current divine who had accidentally made herself the steward of the location. I’Iro was quick to take flight on the back of Nalmepror and go directly to the meeting of this new god.
Greetings. she said, while rapidly circling the other god, her tone and facial expression, if observed, were impressively neutral for the current situation. May I inquire you about some personal information? It is just the common protocol when first arriving here at the City of the Gods. You are not being discriminated against due to your massive size or geometrical shape.
”The City of the Gods?” the term given/taken by the entities wielding the power they did still didn’t gel with the machine. ”I suppose that would explain why it seemed so inaccessible. But I see there are mortals, how did they-” It began to ask, before catching itself and recognizing it was being rude.
”My apologies. I am simply an Explorer, but you may call me Exo. A pleasure to meet you both” The machine bobbed slightly in the air in greeting before adding/asking ”Is massive size and/or geometrical shape something that might be discriminated against by others?”
Well. It can lead the mortals to have existential crisis and most gods seem to prefer face-to-face conversations and as such the lack of a face might lead to some issues when parlaying. she stabilized her flight pattern and started to hoover instead of circling the newly arrived god, having done enough scouting as far as she cared. These are merely observations of the city’s behavior. Do not take them as personal censorship as all gods are welcome within the city.
Then she gasped, bowing slightly as she had been standing up in her mount. I forgot my own introductions. I am I’Iro. Functioning as the goddess of dreams. It is nice to meet you Explorer. A very fascinating realm indeed. The acquirral of information is the noblest of goals after all.
Realm. Dreams. So many questions. But those could wait, Exo decided
”Well met I’Iro, and you’ve made several good points, so let me set down right away so that we may be more personable and your steed need not waste its strength.” Rather than barge past and into the city that they technically had not been invited into yet, Exo instead lowered itself to the end of the chain of lesser mountains it had been following to reach this pinnacle.
The bottom point of the giant diamond touched the stone and then the space it occupied shifted, leaving only the humanoid form of Exo standing on the earth, dressed in a traveler's cloak. The hood of this they tossed back, revealing an androgynous face with the bronze skin of the nomads they’d spent so much time with, along with long dark hair done up in a braid and, a little bizarrely, a patch of coin sized black scales with gold patterns swirling through them that surrounded their eyes like a mask, while they eyes themselves had a soft blue where most humans had white. A mimicry of the nomad’s new tendency to casually modify themselves with polymorphine for athletic purposes.
”There we go, much better” they said to themselves, before waving up to I’Iro.
The goddess jumped down from her dragon and landed near Exo’s humanoid form, she bowed. Sorry for any inconvenience caused by the local expectations. she added before turning towards the central mountain. Hmm… calculating a path from here might be tricky.. she added with a small sigh.
”Why calculate when we can just go? Let’s walk and talk. If you have the time, that is?” Exo replied, briefly scratching their chin while sizing up the mountain before deciding on a possible way up it, ”Because I would love to know more about this place, and, if it’s not too personable, you?”
I’Iro did not understand the point at first, but it seemed the other deity was confident enough in this undertaking that she could assume they thought it would be beneficial. Very well. We may walk and talk then. It indeed would likely be a good social setup for conversation… however I still do not understand exactly what you wish to know.
”Oh I’d like to know everything” Exo said simply as they set off at a steady pace towards the base of the mountain, their way winding through the sparse vegetation and rugged ground surrounding the more gentle slope that approached the more unassailable heights that began further up the accent.
”But I understand that isn't particularly helpful when it comes to starting a line of conversation. I’m sure we can speak of the city once we get closer, so how about yourself. You described yourself as ‘functioning’ as the goddess of dreams, which I find an interesting way of phrasing the claim to godhood that seems the norm among those which hold the power we do,” Exo asked as they walked together.
At that moment Exo was likely the first being to ever question I’Iro’s raison d’être, and there was no way to hide that it caught her off guard completely, the goddess taking more than a few moments fully dedicating her mind to the question as all her go-to answers felt too basic, forming logical loops and saying it is because it is. Well… That is what I do no? Gods are gods and there does not seem to be a rule of what makes a god as we all share very diverse and random origins. We also all know we have a certain purpose. In other words a function. From that perspective it is my belief that this is what I am… An entity functioning as the goddess of dream. I do not believe the other gods are that different however I think this wording of mine might greatly hurt their pride and sense of self whereas in my case it does not.
”Considering all the additional cultural context the word god is saddled with I am not be surprised to hear some would react poorly, though I am saddened by this knowledge. Personally I do not particularly care for the destination, considering the entity or entities that held it before us were far stronger than we are, judging by the size and scope of what once was against that which has been just barely maintained,” the Explorer left the point that they thought a claim to that word was arrogance in its extremes out.
”That said, this is the first time I've heard of another existing with a purpose already built in, so to speak, though that may be because it has simply not come up in my two prior interactions. Then again Ze’kelia did designate herself as Goddess of light, but I assumed that was a self designation based on her creation of the Su’une. That was my mistake, or so it seems. Regardless, mine was simply that I should ‘explore, survey and document’ everything there is to be found. Might I ask what functioning as the goddess of dreams entails?” they asked, as the vegetation slowly petered away and was replaced with the bear rock of the mountain, gentle slope replaced with craggy rock and winding trails climbing higher above the treeline and towards the towering peak far above.
I’Iro shook her head. Communication truly is a complicated endeavor. I guess the biggest source of noise in our attempt to understand each other’s words comes from the use of purpose. What is the purpose of the animals that are born imbued with the directive to survive and reproduce? To eat; breed and die? It might sound wrong but at the core yes. Yet that is an unsatisfactory answer as well meaning that nature alone does not explain our reasoning. as the god asked the next question the dream goddess was once again caught by surprise but better prepared than she was for the first question.
Initially it was my vision that I was similar to you. To witness and record dreams. However it soon became clear that things are perhaps not that simple. Only a small fraction of my actions ever delved in the realm of dreams or even the nearby topic of the mortal mind. Nevertheless. No matter how much I am distracted, the calling I always return to is to safekeep the mortal mind. To understand it. And to protect it from manipulation. Dreams being the moment where the mind is at its most free.
She lowered her pace as she spoke, averting her eyes from the explorer to instead look at the horizon stretching as far as the distant ocean. And yet as a goddess I do very little. I do not seek out the gods manipulating dreams. I do not think it's my place to deal with mental afflictions such as dementia. I guess from an outsider perspective one might think of me as an entity with too much power for very little purpose. Perhaps that is the true noise in the communication between I and the other gods.
The machine matched her slowing pace, and their gaze out to the waters also ”We are, at the end of the day, just people. Powerful people, but people nonetheless. We have limited time, energy and focus, so it is up to us where we direct it” they paused for a moment, and then asked ”Do you regret the other things you have done that are independent from your purpose?”
Regret? Why would I feel regret over it. Well… perhaps I associated more than I desired and this may cloud my judgement later yet at this moment I do not feel regret. the goddess answered.
”Then there is no need to worry about what the others think of said deviations” Exo suggested ”If those endeavors resulted in good outcomes, then they were worth doing, even if they weren't related to your, rather restrictive I feel, purpose.”
The goddess stared at the god at first looking confused, then she smiled. Oh. I see. You assigned a sense of self doubt to me. Worry not. I was never concerned for myself. Perhaps it is something we are all too young to understand. There are mortals older than gods still walking this earth after all. she accelerated her steps now, stepping over the snow without ever sinking. If my information lacework is correct… You have mostly spent your time in the west. Interacting on a very personal level with humans. It is curious that some of the least-human like gods are also the ones less demanding of human worship.
”Ah yes” the machine stumbled in its words and steps a little as it recovered from its poor social interpretation of their travelling companion’s mood. And the revelation that it had been spied on. ”That is the case. The spending time with the local people part, that is. Can’t say much about the relationship between worship demanding and form part, though I can confirm that certainly don't” They said as they hurried to catch up, the machine not benefiting from the same light-footedness the goddess was, and seemed to make no attempt to gain that ability.
”I never considered it in the first place, but riding in someone’s saddle teaches you a lot about them, or so the saying goes” they added as they built and pulled on a heavier fur pelt based jacket in response to the wind picking up as they climbed even higher, the slopes steep and pathways they had used at the beginning long gone now. ”Though I am yet to experience what it feels like to meet one with power far beyond my own. It is not a situation that is likely to occur, unless the old gods return one day, or the layers have their own entities that wield a force similar to ours. But I can't imagine it is a particularly enjoyable experience.”
The goddess seemed to be very conscious of what she was doing as she moved lightly across the snow, at this point it was clear that going down and picking the mortal path from the swamps and jungles would be easier, yet perhaps it was in the nature of the explorer to trace a new path across the mountains. That works on the assumption that there were other gods and that said gods were of greater might than we were. It is a possible scenario however it should not be taken as the dogmatic truth. There is as much evidence of it as there is of us being a foreign invading force into this world much like anything else that walked past the portals.
”True. However if they did exist, and did create what was, then the stories I’ve heard about that world and and the ruins that can be found of it paint the picture of something far grander than what remains, the creation of which would require far more power than we have individually. Possibly even collectively? That is difficult to quantify considering I do not know how many there are who hold this power.” Exo said, pausing for a moment at a natural fork in their path and then, as if to prove her theory correct, forging their own path straight down the middle by clambering up the small cliff face that had formed the center of the fork.
”As for whether we are a foreign invading force, well” Exo continued as they dusted off their hands atop the cliff ”On that I might be able to add a datapoint. I can't say that we ourselves did not come from other worlds, but what I can say is that this power we hold? It is of this world and this world alone, for it cuts out completely if/when we leave. If you ever want to truly know what it is like to be as mortal as a human is, then you must simply take a stroll through one.”
I am afraid that for me the barrier of mortality runs far deeper than just the divine power. That statement concluded I must show my surprise in hearing that you did cross into the adjacent or connected universes. This topic is one very much of my interest. In fact I have started to catalogue elements that originated from such lands and foreign to our reality and I am trying to teach mortals about the topic.
”Is that so? We will have to compare scrolls on that... Ah but one moment” Exo began to say, but paused as the narrow pathway they were following, on that likely dated to before the first embers of the apocalypse, came to an abrupt end due to a section having collapsed, leaving a gap that dropped down dozens of meters. Some distance across that gap the path resumed. The Explorer sized up this gap, took a few steps back and then took a running leap and... Entirely failed to reach the other side.
A impact of metal rather than flesh resounded some way below, followed by the hiss of gasses, another impact, more gas emissions and then the Explorer reappeared in their mono-eyed android form as they jumped off of the far wall, fired a number of maneuvering jets scattered across their body to push himself back into the wall higher up so they could jump again.
Once they had wall jumped all the way back up to the other side and had their feet back on solid ground they noted ”Well that’s one death so far. Whether it be your mind or metal you consider as an additional divider between you and mortality, staring death and the unknown in the face as they do greatly reduces the significance of such differences, or I’ve found” before returning to both too their human form and the topic of conversation that had been interrupted.
”Now where were we? Ah yes. Layers. Also a topic of interest of mine. Those nomadic people I was spending time with? They had developed a culture of raiding those other words for resources to survive the apocalypse. I joined them in this and while doing so, acquired the raw materials with which to perform the natural rejuvenation you can now see” Exo pointed back to the Western Wilds from which they had come, with its vast plains of pink, purple and orange ferns and dense jungle valleys teeming with life ”and when I say materials I mean both the raw hydrocarbons and the blueprints of the life forms themselves. I have a complete library of all the specimens, even those that were not used to populate that land, which I think you might find interesting.”
The robot goddess, as deadpan as she was, her expression typically blank even when she was seeing her travel partner tumble down a mountain path, could at the moment not hide her clear interest on the topic. Your assumption is correct. I cannot lie and deny that hoarding all sorts of information is one of my favorite actions.
”Then that is something we have in common”
I had collected some information on the nomads from the Lacemeisters I sent that direction. But their methods are too… inflexible for proper surveyance. I had merely assumed those tales of other worlds were merely popular memory corrupted into myth. she closed one eye and touched the metallic antenna on her left ear. Though since you have shown such willingness to share information I too would like to showcase the same open mindedness to you. All of my work and observations as well as those belonging to those who study in my Academy are open for you to inspect.
As she finished the words, the duo passed by a series of pillars. It is curious that the mountains around the Mons Divinus are so rich in ruins, yet the core mountain itself is not.
Exo had no such self control, their eyes quite literally lighting up at the idea of getting access to more information ”I’m looking forward to browsing through it all already. Or learning about it. Or however you have stored it. Hmm. I will have to think of a way to properly compile the information I’ll be providing into a usable format” Exo said, before filing that task away for later and taking a look at the pillars.
”That is interesting. I’ll admit, I haven't paid much mind to the ruins. Yet. The wilds were rather sparse, perhaps due to the terrain not encouraging settlement. Perhaps I should run around taking a look before people inevitably start reclaiming them for the resources found within.” Exo said, making another note and adding it to the growing list of things to investigate, ”As for why, I can only speculate that the core of the mountain was to inaccessible for it to be considered an area worth settling in?” they still had a fair way to go, and the terrain only got more and more un-human-friendly the higher they went ”Or perhaps was it destroyed before we arrived? It is at least nice to know that that absence means your new structures have not leveled anything of historical interest”
The goddess looked around, observing the sides of Mons Divinus, notably plants and animals were already adapting to create optimal paths through the stone, she had no doubt that mortals too would create their route. Personally I have been using black scrolls filled with a code that allows me to store information far more efficiently than words can. And of course I have enough domain over dreams to transfer information to others… though I only really do it for gods.
Hm. That is possible. My scanning of the mountain has not been proper yet so far it seems to be a land untouched by non-natural processes. You should truly go out and explore more of the world while it is untouched. Especially the edges that seem to have some of the most peculiar constructs and portals. For example I once found a building that seemed to have originated in another dimension. the goddess had jumped up a cliff and had been waiting for Exo to catch up, notably, he was taking a far longer time with his self-imposed limitations.
”I’ll be reading then. Learning the code will let me provide my data in the same format you use anyway” Exo said up to her while examining the cliff she’d jumped up for a way up, glancing up at her and becoming aware that that their self imposed challenged was slowing her down to an extent that might be considered worrisome and then glanced over at one of the creatures, a mountain goat, that was busy trying to make the area its home.
”I mean technically it a thing that mortals can do now so...” they said to themselves, before flicking a beam reclaim at the goat, dismantling a number of strands of fur, before re-materializing them and then, in rapid fashion created a small vial of polymorphine and then downing the concoction and rapidly gaining the hooves, legs and horns of the goat in a satyr like configuration. With their new specialized legs and instincts the Explorer rapidly ascended the cliff with an inhuman but still entirely natural speed and grace.
”There we go. Now what was this about an extradimentionaly sourced structure?” they asked once they had caught up
Alien chemistry applied on the biochemical system… peculiar. she whispered to herself as she saw the polymorphine in action, before sighing at the Coilbrywen-like Exo caught up to her. I am afraid I cannot direct you to the building as it is long gone. It held at its core a sort of crystal that did something completely anathema to the rules of this world… it created coldness. Analysis of the structure showed the stone used in the construction to not be galbar-sourced and it seemed Galbarian life could not survive within its vicinity. I… accidentally turned off the system of the structure thinking it was creating the anomaly. Then quickly discovered it was containing it as it brought the whole south to absolute zero temperatures. I have since corrected it and contained the cold crystal core in the south pole yet the structure itself quickly collapsed into gravel during this incident.
”Ah so that is why that part of the disk is cold, and here I thought it was a deliberate design decision. Well no matter, it was still convenient for creating a weather cycle in the wilds. It is unfortunate that the machinery was destroyed. And slightly concerning that something so dangerous came through. Dangerous on a regional rather than individual scale I mean, like the near ubiquitous monsters are.” Exo replied, keeping up a much better pace now with their new modifications.
”I’ll have to keep an eye out for such things on my future travels. If there was one such oddity there might be more, just waiting to cause all sorts of trouble” they noted, before veering back to the unaddressed topic of the transformation that they’d undergone ”Oh and if you were wonder what gave me these new legs, that would be Polympohpine, a drug I have invented and aught the recipe for to the nomads. It allows the drinker to take on desired attributes of a life form, be it native or alien. Its intended use is for making exploring new environments easier by co-opting native species’s pre-existing adaptations to said environments, though as you can imagine it has a fair number of other uses as well”
The goddess nodded with enthusiasm at the explanation. Oh! That is what it is called? Very interesting. It's a clever invention and it gives mortals some way to overcome their limitations by doing things themselves that otherwise would only be possible through the intervention of gods. as they travelled upward, the air became even more humid as the mountain thinned and the waterfalls congregated, meanwhile, the cordgrass and similar plants that grew in the region were becoming increasingly annoying.
The goddess' temporary amusement gave way to more serious worries as her mind traversed back to the topic of portals. While portals are becoming rarer. Especially the massive ones. Possibly thanks to the restored stability of the world. I worry about what will start to happen once mortals occupy more space. Portals can be very small and the things in portals can be very sensible to human interaction. Furthermore. It seems to me that while the big portals tend to lend to worlds conceptually similar to ours… the smaller ones don’t seem to be quite as bound to that rule. she looked upward, towards the approaching light of the godly city I have been thinking of how to best approach this. A heavy handed inspection of people’s homes for potential hidden away portals seems too likely to just antagonize mortalkind.
”Closer inspection sometimes shows that even the ones that look similar hide strangeness all of their own.” Exo noted, but otherwise agreed. It was going to be a problem.
”Also as the population increases it seems like it would become an untenable task. Or at least a very dull and time consuming one. Plus as you’ve pointed out, such direct meddling is unlikely to be welcomed. It might be best to delegate such a task to the human’s themselves?” Exo suggested ”I and Ze’kelia have done a great deal of research into more nuanced portal manipulation on that new north western island. Which we made. You should visit it some time. Anyway, we've acquired quite the volume of data about how to close, open, hold open, detect, etc. these gateways. I’ve been looking into ways to hand down those findings but, well, the research has all been done with rather high end and energy physics, and translating that into something humans can actually do has been proven. difficult.”
”I mean yes, we could make tools and machines and just... hand them out. But I think self reliance is beneficial both for them and for us in most cases. They get control over another aspect of their lives and we don't have to worry about maintaining, replacing or manufacturing more machinery for them.” They said, as they approached the summit of the mountain, and the city that was only moments away.
My solution is far more organic. See. I think acts such as housekeeping and gardening are a good way to keep the mind clear and grounded before acts such as research. As such I have divided a group of students at the academy as something called custodians. Well… turns out ever since a lot of mortals have been asking me over and over if they could hire them to work on their homes. as the mountain path started to become increasingly easier to traverse as the mountain peaked. Astella said I should do it. At first I did not see a reason but now talking to you… I guess they could provide a very discreet way of keeping an eye on portals hidden away in the urban environment all the while providing a service mortals would be interested in without suspecting there is a god behind them. Of course this is far from the only solution to the issue. But it will likely be my own approach
As they stepped into the boundaries of the city, now already looking quite majestic in all directions as more and more embassies were made, two women of appearance similar to I’Iro, the automatons called Lacemeisters, arrived. One of them carried a small reel of a black substance.
”Hmm. I suppose you could even classify dealing with these micro portals as a form of tidying up, so they wouldn't even really be lying about what they are doing. I can see some gaps in their coverage already, but for keeping the large population centers clean, it seems like an excellent plan.” Exo agreed, though they were noticing a pattern of... Benevolently intentioned privacy violation at this point, which was mildly concerning. They were, however, perfectly distracted from that concern by the arrival to the city and of I’Iro’s mimics.
”Oh is this the scroll you mentioned. And are these… hmmm. Interesting. Were these designs based on something? Or did they come built in? There’s certain features that seem familiar to me? Also Sys... my internal system is rearing up and making a racket about those parts being ’stolen’ for some reason.” Exo said, cringing a little as if they had a headache for a few moments before they managed to clear up the alerts they were getting about copyright infringement and a failure on their part to safeguard assets and technological secrets
Indeed! I integrated in them some new techniques to transfer memory as such you will not only find raw information but also some recordings of my senses when I experienced certain areas such as that alien structure I mentioned. at the comment on her Lacemeisters she was more than a little surprised Ah. Are you familiar with Uwne? They are based in part on some of the mechanisms I noticed in their Golems. Though they were also made by repurposing my construction spider machines which were used in the foundation of this city of embassies.
”Uwne’s golems had those parts in them? But how did they get in... ahhhh” Exo slapped their forehead with their fingertips ”I forgot to clean up those half built mechs from when we fought by accident, and he must have used them as a basis for these golems. Or at least taken some components from them. I can see why the system was complaining about having allowed designs to be leaked. Not that I mind either of you having them. But it is something to take note of, not just leaving things lying around like I did. Or then again maybe I should, it seems to have worked out this time.” They said, mostly to themselves, before shaking their head and trying to get back on track.
”Ah, sorry, where were we? Ah yes, the scrolls! Quite the versatile medium you have created here. I don’t suppose you have one for detailing how to make more of these? I owe you a library of biological blueprints after all. And I could throw in some Layer expiration recordings while I am at it, oh and the various gateway experiments too. I’m sure those could come in handy. A few interesting elements too, the magic repelling and attracting ones of course. Oh and the polymorphine recipe too. Hmm. Yes. Oh wait. Sorry I’m rambling again.” they finally caught themselves ”I just do so enjoy new places and knowledge and both you and this place are proving an excellent source so far. For that you have my sincere gratitude.”
I’Iro smiled. Very much interested in every single thing offered by the fellow deity Hmm. It is a bit complicated. So far I have not figured out yet how to create these without godly intervention. However... this Lacemeister here. she pointed to the second one behind the one who held the scroll. Is ready to transcribe information into a blank scroll if you broadcast your thoughts to it.
”Ah, shame it’s not easily replicateable. Oh well. Let’s have a look and see how this thought broadcast revival works” they said, before a purple beam glowed out from above Exo and onto the head of the Lacemeister. It wobbled erratically for a few moments before steadying into a soft waving motion. ”There we go, that was simple enough. Beginning transfer.” Exo announced, causing a stream of pulses to flow down through the beam and into the head of the Lacemeister.
While the flow of information would likely overwhelm a mortal, as if a whole library was being read aloud per minute, to the machine mind of the Lacemeister there was little doubt of what to do, she merely converted what was being transferred, holding the black scroll against her fingers and sliding it as the information was transcribed. Still, by the end of it, they sighed and fanned air to their bodies with her hand. {Operation concluded. System in almost critical temperatures. Initiating cooldown}
You did well 26. Rest easy. I’Iro picked up the scroll and nodded. Seems like there is nothing compromising this. So yes. Thank you very much. Before we distract ourselves by taking in years worth of information. I would like to say there is a special section in the scroll I gave you detailing the embassies and how they work and my and Astella’s vision for this city. I would be nice if you could join us with a facility of your own there seems to be a technology and culture focused sector growing in the south as you will see.
Exo flicked their gaze away from the start of the scroll that they had already begun reading and rapidly skimmed down to the section about embassies. ”Interesting. I imagine I won't be around or back here too often. There is so much to see and do after all. But it is centrally located, so it would be good to have something here. hmmm.” They thought for a moment, then produced a satchel bag and carefully stored the scroll inside it before asking ”Might as well take a look and see what there is before committing to anything. Would be nice to find a place to sit and read this” they patted the bag containing the scrolls ”while I’m at it”
I’Iro nodded and bobbed her head to the side. Let us go to my academy then. It is the closest location to here and it should be comfortable enough for you. with that she turned around and started moving into the city.
Soon they would walk into the artificial hills of the academy, the walls and architecture clearly unlike anything a human could even imagine much less build. The best spot to rest was up a green ramp, atop one of the slope shaped structures, with a bench beneath a large tree and surrounded by a garden and flowing water.
Exo gave an impressive whistle while taking it all in ”Now this, this is architecture. The way you’ve woven structure and landscape together? Just lovely.” Not only was it a wonderfully peaceful place, perfect for absorbing vast amounts of data as the machine was about to do, but it also gave a nice view of the other areas, both filled and unfilled with structures made by the city’s divine patrons.
”I’m having ideas already”
I’Iro smiled It was my objective to have an ambient that was both harmonic and did not imbue the students with a sense of lesserness or hierarchical inferiority. It was a bit hard considering most data on architecture I collected comes from a monumentalist mortal perspective but I enjoyed the result. the goddess force once was slightly distracted only returning her focus when the other god mentioned his ideas. Ah. Excellent. Let us take a break to discuss these then. Do not worry about resources and I have my own workforce to help you if you need one.
”Your help would be most welcome. Materials mainly, but architectural advice would be most helpful. Not exactly the concern of the nomads, nor of what or who ever filled my internal construction catalog. Almost everything in there is mobile to a greater or lesser degree.” Exo replied, before going through his ideas. An archive, a mobile observatory, and a home that wouldn't pointlessly and emptilly occupy space when the machine was out of the city 99% of the time.
After some discussion to refine the ideas, and a great deal of consultation on construction techniques, the machine, with the help of I’Iro’s own mechanical work force, added onto the academy, planting a few open flowing parks underneath which they buried large archives curated by floating drones, the contents in which could be accessed from a number of small information mounds scattered around the academy, and a few more in the city propper that generally specialized in tourist information, again crewed by those same drones that acted as cheerfully helpful clerks and curators of the knowledge buried beneath the city. Over the years Exo themselves would use the archive as a place to store maps and travel guides created by them during their journeys across the world, as well as research notes and thesis made by them and the odd interesting document or trinket they thought the central city would benefit from having access too. The rest of the archived would gradually fill with practically anything and everything as Exo’s insistence that anyone could and should be allowed to contribute to it resulted in all manner of things being stored there, from scientific information to poetry, propaganda, art, various gubbins put in as practical jokes, cursed tombs, personal items stored and then forgotten, historical records, illicit substances stored under code names, legal documents, culture artifacts, message boards, quest requests, buried human remains, religious scripture and so much more being stored within, rendering it a fascinating and deep if rather difficult to use repository of far to much information, all accessible by request on the surface. The most famous and probably actually useful usage was the creation and subsequent careful curation of a section dedicated to the storage of detailed articles on any and all knowledge, no matter how mundane or fantastical, known as the endless encyclopedia of everything ever, or the 4E section. The small but highly dedicated scholarly order that founded the archive put a great deal of effort into monitoring and curating the contents of the 4E section, striving to maintain the quality and accuracy of the information held within.
Secondly Exo built their own completely unique structure, not on the mountain but instead hovering around it. The floating observatory circled the mountain, its vast and multi-sensory telescope gazing down at the shard or up at the heavens. The structure allowed visitors to scry far off sights not only through that lens, but also upon an incredibly intricate and detailed three dimensional map found in a central chamber, the projection updated each time the siphon moon skimmed across the sky. The final feature of the system was an elaborate contraption that ended up working as a glorified trebuchet that could throw entities capable of surviving the flight on a one way trip to far off lands. A subsequent invention of specially built gliders made the celestial trebuchet both somewhat mortal accessible and resulted in fewer impact craters benign caused by powerful beings falling from the sky.
Finally unlike some of the others, the god did not set up a large and permanent home, instead preferring to live in a simple yurt in one of the city’s fields or parks whenever they were visiting, if they weren't crashing at the home of whatever person they were here to see or vanishing back into the wider world before they needed to spend the night in the city. Interestingly, no one ever saw the yurt being set up, it was simply there whenever Exo, or anyone else considered worthy, needed it. A second entrance could also sometimes appear within the yurt, leading out from the physical location and into a small peaceful wilderness that could be found nowhere on the shard and yet, because the gods still had power there, was simultaneously not of another world either.
After the work was done, the god had a lovely time exploring the city, getting to know its people and places, but all too soon they’d plumbed the depths of the mountain’s heights and found themselves in their new observatory, a map of the entire shard splayed out before them. Hundreds and hundreds of little lights marked on it, each and every one a point of interest to the Explorer. So many that it would take centuries to sift through them all.
”Now then,” the Machine who refused to be called a god said to themselves ”Where. To. Next”
Set pre-timeskip. A few days after they revitalized the Western Wilds/Gateway steppes, Exo heads back out into the wider world.
They decide to see what is up with the city on the central mountain first. Approaching it in their true form they are stopped by I’Iro just before they arrive, who politely asks them to not roll around in their true form as it may upset the locals
Exo complies and lands at the base of the mountain in their human form, before inviting I’Iro to go for a walk all the way up the mountain to reach the city. They go and talk as they climb.
Exo jumps straight to asking why I’Iro describes herself as “ functioning as the god of dreams” and from there they discuss the old gods, layers, the ruins of the old world and the issue of micro gateways. I’Iro describes a ruse she has fashioned to provide a cleaning service to the natives of large cities that will covertly check for these micro portals. The pair also agree on an in good faith information sharing deal, Exo learning I’Iro’s alien alchemy while they provide her with the archive of layer life they have collected, some exotic materials also discovered in th layers, along with their research on gateways and how to make polymorphine.
They reach the city and are met by some of I’Iro’s androids, who Exo discovers are partially based on components from their space mechs by way of Uwne’s golems. Then they trade information. Finally Exo gets a little tour of the city and finally creates 3 things
A buried archive accessible via information booths run by small drones which can be added to by everyone without much in the way of curation.
An observatory that hovers around the outside of the city, and who’s telescope can be used to view far of lands or the heavens. It also has a 3d map, updated whenever the Siphon moon flies overhead, and a celestial catapult, which can launch people to locations on the shard (mortals require some kind of magic or machinery to survive this yeeting).
Finally, they set up a Yurt that only appears when they, or someone else, needs it but can also appear on basically any open space. This Yurt also has a second exit that leads to a pocket dimension containing a small peaceful wilderness.
After that Exo spends some time exploring the rest of the city for a few days, before heading for the observatory and planning out all the different places they want to visit on the shard, something they’ll be up to for a long, long time.
”Ya got 4 gold coins to pay the ferryman?“ Bowser quipped as he pulled the tarp up and ushered Ace onboard his lifeboat ”Nah I’m kidding, but grab an oar and get rowing to pull your and your piggy’s weight or we’ll be here all day.“
The mini king scooted to one side of the small ship, leaving the other oar open for the Cadet to grasp. They’d both need to put their backs into it if they wanted to make it past what came next.
Back on the big boat Jr pulled the tiny miss fortune onto the ship just before her tyre transport was devoured by the thing in the junk.
”I don't know,” Jr said, as they watched the junk swimmer finishing its work on choking down the catgirl’s improvised transport ”if that was a really cool or really stupid plan”
The prince didn’t get much time to deliberate on which it was as Kamek and Rika emerged front he ship, the little koopa carrying a split in half of Magnet and muttering about the impossibility of it (the pair had figured out the basics of how they worked fairly quickly after finding them by messing around using some of the trash inside the ship) while Rika (who had the had the other half slung under her arm) immediately noticed their new party member.
“Hi Miss kitty. When did you get here?”
”Oh she just rolled in a few seconds ago” Jr supplied.
It was around that time that Bongo Bongo decided it had had enough of being a passive sentry duty and decided to start actively interfering with them. Presumably having worked out where they were going based on the movement of their disruptions across the room (and the presence of the only exit being on the side they were headed for over on this side) and so the big jerk brought its body down into view of them in full and then started banging the junk like a drum, its mighty disembodied hands sending shockwaves through the area around it.
Out on the junk sea, Bowser and Ace, along with Bella, would have to contend with this like a little wave machine. If they could, Bowser would suggest they try to link up with the exhausted looking ship girl so they could all get in one ship and combine their efforts to fight against the pounding roiling scrap sea.
The Troop, plus the temporary addition of Nadia, meanwhile had a shorter shot towards the exit, which conveniently went around the big bad bongo drummer. They were also close enough to see there was going to be an issue getting through the vent, because, as vents do, it had a fan inside it to help circulation. That would be a problem that needed to be dealt with, and with their sudo-jailer getting more and more irate, the sooner it was gone the better..
At Nadia’s prompting, they set off towards the couch, Tyrant and Mimi following along this slightly easier path on foot rather than being thrown, while Jr carried Kamek again and Rika hauled both the magnets. With all the noise being made by Bongo himself, Blazer had managed to abandon stealth and put her fully developed frame to use, yeeting some of their allies towards the exit before jetting to the front of the pack from her previously lackluster position on the progress chart, meaning she got to the fan before them.
Her plan to deal with the fan was, apparently, to drop kick the thing’s glowing center like it was a weak spot. Which it probably was, to be fair. If that didn’t work, once they got close Kamek would use the red magnet half on it, hoping it would give him some way to manipulate it. Unscrew it? Pull it out? Whatever worked if anything.
That left the others trying to think of something to do to help the others out.
“I mean I have these” Rika said, hefting her gauntlet “but don't know if the guns work yet, and if they do well...” unlike Mirage’s pop gun the mini navel cannons would be incredibly loud if they fired off, almost certainly giving away her position.
”If someones gonna get totally wrecked, run out a bit, shoot 'em, and then run back? But till then I think I have an idea that’s sneakier. Hey. Mimi? You still able to do that cool move where you hit them with your shadow?” Jr asked his only pokemon.
The specter rolled her eyes at this question, as if to sarcastically say “Did she know shadow sneak? Only babies fresh out the egg didn't know shadow sneak!” before realizing this was not being communicated thanks to her completely featureless and, in her opinion, cleverly hidden eyes, so instead she nodded her decoy’s head enthusiastically in acknowledgement that yes, she could do the thing.
”Then go spook him!” Jr commanded with a dramatic point. Mimi pumped her arms to hype herself up, and then pushed the two dark tendrils down into her shadow, which grew and grew and grew, the longer and longer shadow still as thin as her tiny body as it impossibly stretched out towards Bongo Bongo. It stopped growing below him, out of his vision, and there a little shadow clone of Mimi popped up, bore its own long arms and then did a one two scratch attack at one of the hands when it came down to pound the ground.
As Mimi pulled a sneaky on him, Rika circled back to the ship quick as could be and, after finding a hiding spot, lined up her maybe functioning guns, ready to try and shoot at Bongo Bongo if someone's cover was well and truly blown and it was shoot or they die time.
Jr meanwhile suggested that maybe Nadia could use her fan to help them launch ripped up fabric or fluff from the couch to knock something over or just distract the big eyed brute for a moment with the fluff itself.
”Or like, make a little parachute for a red piece of metal junk and then we blow/magnet repel that away so it goes way off to where he’s looking and that means he gets distracted swatting at it like he did to you when he showed up?” was his final idea that he’d lend his claws too, though it would involve fishing for some red metal junk in the sea as the blue magnet, that would have made that retrieval mission easy as pie, was (probably) currently being used to try and mess with the fan's red spot.
“You know. I think I could just make this one myself?” Rika said, looking at the gap between them and the last block pillar they’d be able to use to move towards the vent. “Because I think I’ve gotten the hang of walking like this, with the battery pack and everything”
”You sure?” Bowser asked
“Mmm” Rika replied with a nod
”Go for it then” Bowser told her, receiving another nod from the girl, who was now sporting a knee length skirt she’d looted off of a doll along with her battery backpack, before she started psyching herself up for the leap
”Sire, Rika, I'm not sure if this is wise” Kamek interjected
”What’s the worst that could happen?” Bowser asked as they watched Rika take a practice run up, failing to stop said practice quickly enough and only avoiding tipping over the edge into the ball-pit far below because of Jr running up and pulling her to safety. Despite this brush with death the girl eagerly backed up for another go at it.
”Do you really want me to list all the ways this can go poorly?” Kamek was saying, but it was too late. Rika thundered across the ground just ahead of the gap and then leapt high into the air. Holding herself up with her gauntlets, her arms straining as they supported her whole body weight on the floating battery powered machines, she soared through the air, new skirt fluttering beneath her, and then landed on the final block tower. She stumbled upon landing, leaving the rest of the troop’s hearts in their throats as she teetered close to the edge again, but she caught her balance and stepped forwards to safe solid ground before then pumped her arms up in triumph.
A few moments later and the rest of the troop had jumped or been tossed across the gap as well, Rika was congratulated on her success, and then together they all walked over to the other edge of the towers of blocks and looked out across the final two obstacles in their course.
”You know, we’ve been pretty good at not making a bunch of noise so far but uh” the prince looked directly at the various musical instruments that they would probably be forced to use at least some of, along with, among other things, a few broken workbenches, toolboxes that would have been handy if their tools weren't twice as big as him, a pair of bikes, a skateboard and an entire car that was missing its wheels and doors, all massively oversized. ”that might not be to easy with all this”
”And with this pass the parcel leapfrogging method we’ve been using, it would be really bad to get spotted on something with no cover, because we cant run away fast.”
“Ok but I can just be myself now. So we should be faster right? Oh, and maybe you can just carry Tyrant and Kamek (and Mimi) and just jump with me? No more tossing would be way faster right?” Rika suggested enthusiastically, a bit of self reliance and outfit personalization having done wonders at restoring her self-confidence.
”I’m not sure. Maybe it would be best to try and mimic what Peach is doing?” the princess’s hiding under an umbrella strategy when her kubo shoo kicked something was working very well so far ”We could perhaps grab something to take with us to hide under?”
”Urgh. but that’s more stuff to haul! Plus if we land on an instrument and it makes noise and we’re on it and the big guy wrecks it behind us” Jr pointed out ”We can go fast with Rika doing her own jumps. So why not just rely on that?”
”Speed isn't everything young ma- hey wait not again!” Kamek retorted, only to be interrupted when Bowser picked him up and slung his shell under his arm
”Too much talking, not enough moving. Let’s roll!” Bowser declared, prompting Jr to collect his horned hog while Mimi hopped down onto Tyrant’s noggin and wrapped her arms around his horns for stability.
”Yeah, let's go!” “Yeah!” “Mimi!” went three cheers of agreement
”Oh dear”
Despite Kamek’s trepidation, the Troop initially made Excellent time, leaping from workbench to skateboard to toolbox with their powerful or anti-gravity assisted leaps and bounds, the three jumpers and their cargoes reaching the bonnet of the broken car in record time, before swinging around the windshield and using the driver’s seat to cousin the fall down into it. The inside of the car was as trashy as the rest of the room, tough some of this was general junk spillage, the floor of the vehicle was low enough that the ambient junk sea flowed in to smother it lightly, while the rest was filled with varicose rubbish that might have belonged to the car’s previous messy owner. Plastic wrappers, bottles and bottle caps, chirps packets, polystyrene containers and all sorts of other junk food packaging was strewn around on all the other seats, adding to the already wretched smell of the car.
A quick jump from the gearbox got the troop into the back seat, a fair bit of shimmying through a hole got them from there into the boot and then some finagling with the internals of the boot’s lock and some timing to avoid the watcher in the ceiling got the boot open, revealing that the only way forwards from here to the normal sized houseboat beyond was ”oh you have got to be kidding” an almost pristine drum kit, surrounded by much of the other instrumentation, such as a guitar and a saxophone.
”I’m sure it’ll be fine. Here watch!” Bower announced, and before anyone could stop him he leaped across the gap onto the closest drum and landed with a loud bong.
”Uh oh” Bowser said, realizing his mistake as the eye started drifting rapidly towards them.
”oh no no no no go back go back” Kamek, who’d been brought along for the ride, whisper-yelled at him, prompting the king to leap back into the boot of the car moments before Bongo Bongo banged the drum into the dust, causing an almighty racket as he did while the troop hid in the boot.
”Urgh. So that's what they’ve been dealing with out there. That was. Uh... not so bad. Yeah. Not scared at all” Jr said once they were quite sure the hand had left
”That was. Too close.” Kamek said, not bothering to hide their own fear like the royals were doing.
”Yeah. My bad. Guess we just got lucky till now.” Bowser said, peaking out to see where the eye’s gaze had wandered off too.
“So. Now what?” Rika asked. Now what indeed. There was still a way forward, a much trickier jump to another drum, but that had the same flaw as Bowser’s first attempt. The idea of just running it was dismissed. They’d be spotted for sure due to much of the path being drums, and the dreadful drummer might, might, be smart enough to follow the pattern across the rest of the drums even if it didn't catch up to their path while they were running it.
Camping out in the back of the car, the troop mulled things over till Jr had an idea. Climbing back into the car, the prince found a set of bottle caps and brought them back to the boot. There he hefted a cap, he took aim and then one by one hurled them at an acoustic guitar lying nearby, which was out of jump reach but in range of a good discuss toss. The metal caps weren't perfect frisbees, but the quick barrage struck the cords of the guitar a few times, summoning the gaze and floating hand which punched the guitar and, when that proved insufficient to destroy the hefty wooden instrument, grabbed it by the neck and proceeded to smash it into the ground over and over like a guitarist at the end of a kick ass concert.
The cacophony caused by the instrument's repeated impacts with the wall was deafening, and gave the troop just enough time to bong their way across the drums without being detected by Bongo Bongo’s thanks to its own awful music making. The Trio of carriers hurried into the ship to make sure that they weren't caught up in a subsequent sweep, and then emerged onto the half sunken ship’s deck when the coast was clear. The first thing they did was take a look at how far along everyone else was compared to them, which turned out to be a question with a very mixed answer. Some were way back, some real close.
Notably, Mirage and Miss Fortune were perhaps second closest to them, but their rout looked like it wound up being a dead end just a few stones throws away from where the troop were, which was right next to the exit.
”Maybe we should help them out?” Kamek suggested
”By we you mean me right? Urgh. So tired of hauling people around. How’d we even do it?” Bowser asked
”Well...” Kamek began, and a quick bit of scrounging later they had drenched the life-raft on the side of the ship out of the trash and pulled a dust rag off a piece of normal sized furniture that was sitting on the deck. This was draped over the King to obscure him from view as he used the little ship’s pair of oars to row out and try and help the stranglers catch up, ferrywoman Bella style.
As the King rowed out into the junk, Rika and Kamek went inside the ship to see if they could find anything handy and them sized within, while Jr stayed on deck, prepping a life ring and some other junk to throw at music instruments as a distraction, which left him the only one on deck if and when Missfortune’s wheel came rolling in a few moments after Bowser set off. The King would be forced to row like hell out of the way, while Jr would do what he could to either stop the wheel if he could (either just stopping it by bracing, or tackling the side to tip it over depending on the amount of momentum the thing still had) and then rush to a hiding spot like the ship’s bridge with Miss Fortune to avoid Bongo Bongo’s inevitably incoming wrath.
”Gottcha!” Jr assured Rika as he grabbed her gauntleted arm and then pulled her up onto the upper ledge of the toy dump and prevented her from falling back down the tower of blocks they’d ascended either back onto Bowser or, worse, into the ball-pit sea in which the unidentified danger that they’d been warned about surely lurked.
“Thanks” the ship-girl gasped, before sinking to her knees under the weight of her gauntlets “are we nearly there?”
”Perhaps about half way” Kamek suggested from where he was sitting with jr’s pet pig and ghost, all of whom had already been tossed up, which got a sorrowful frustrated sound of Rika as she slumped to the ground. There had been two many close calls which made feeling like a burden twice as bad for her.
”Chin up and lets keep moving” Bowser, who had jumped/scrambled up the side of the block stack in relatively short order. Told her ”The sooner we get out of here, the sooner you can get back to wrecking everything with those guns of yours” which was meant to be motivating but had the exact opposite effect judging from the miserable sounds coming from the ship girl.
”Ah, uh”
”Maybe jr can take a look for something to fix your gauntlets now? We’re making great time compared to everyone else” Kamek suggested, which got an agreeing nod from Jr. Indeed, Peach's suggestion that they split up had left them all over the place. The troop were well ahead thanks to the two royal’s unnatural strength while the boy who had been a frog (among others) hadn’t even set off yet.
Just behind the troop were people who had somewhat taken Kamek’s balloon idea and implemented actually feasible versions of it, namly Geralt using Blazermate like a hover pack and Nadia’s fan+sheet parachute was letting them leap across the junk room in great strides. A brief moment of being frustrated about having not been listened to in favor of being tossed about vanished from the former mage’s mind when the flyers attracted unwanted attention. A great hand descended from the darkness above to try and snatch them out of the air, this one blue skinned bear and veiny rather than gloved like the master and crazy hands that had been the first brief assumption of the troop. Nadia was practically swatted from the sky, and only her parachute landing atop her managed to hide her from a follow attack, though she was also left hanging perilously from the top of a tv.
Blazermate and Geralt meanwhile were left completely out in the open, but a moment of quick thinking from Peach bailed them out, throwing an alarm clock into the junk sea, which the hand and its guiding focused upon and then destroyed with untempered fury.
”Oh dear. That is a big one” Kamek said, from where he and the rest of the troop were looking out from behind a series of alphabet blocks, when they got their brief look at the titan hanging above the room.
”Shoudlda let me roast it” Bowser complained at being pulled behind the blocks to take cover rather than being allowed to lob fireballs at the hand, though he was saying that mostly out of bravado. Even he could recognize that trying to pick a fight with the titan would likely end poorly.
”Maybe we can make a trap or something for the hands?” Jr suggested ”lure it down and then...” what exactly they’d be able to do to it even if they caught it was the real issue with that plan. That and the other hand it had that likely wouldn't fall for the same trick twice.
”We can keep that in mind, but it might be best to not be spotted at all. If the lady of the hours, or the ship rather, thinks she’s gotten rid of us by dumping us down here, then let's keep it that way, yes?” Kamek suggested
”Pretty classic mistake if she has” Bowser noted. ”Let keep moving so we can teach her a lesson in how you properly dispose of your enamies”
“Ah, sorry, but what about the power thing? So I can be helpful again?” Rika interjected, reminding them of the plan they’d been hatching before the titan rudely interrupted them, prompting them to re- initiate the plan to try and power up Rika’s gauntlets so they could help her rather than hindering her like they were now.
The area they’d come to, the toy dump, proved to be a bit more traversable than the more bedroom-y section of the chamber. The long platforms, pipes and occasional bridges meant that there was a lot less tossing involved in the traversal, leaving the group time to hunt around the myriad of giant toys scattered around, which provided both opportunity for salvage and good hiding spots in which to cower away from the room’s supervisor cyclopean gaze. Of course, it being conveniently full of bits, bobs and hiding spots meant that it was one of the preferable places to be for people other than them too. The troops eyes were on the one and the sky and looking out for something to help Rika, so even by the time Jr had spotted an old upturned rc car they still hadn’t spotted their triangular headed observers.
”Ah ha! That looks perfect!” jr cheered upon spotting an upturned RC car, racing across a giant ruler acting as a bridge with Mimi and Kamek (who was not having a good time) on his shoulders, followed closely by tyrant and more carefully by Bowser who was carrying Rika
”What? Seriously” Jr was complaining when they caught up, prompting Rika to ask “oh, is it no good?” only to be waved round to see that the toy car was stylized after a certain plumber.
“I don’t understand. Is it because he looks a bit like that L person?” Rika asked, having never seen the man sculpted in plastic before her.
”Huh? Doesn't look anything like Mr L what are you talking about? No, it's Mario, dad’s arch nemesis!” Jr replied, a touch affronted that she did not know this thing she had no way of knowing.
”Didn’t know they guy did mech though. Weird. But hey, that just means we get to hack him up while we get the parts right Jr” the king said, slapping his son on the shoulder, which Kamek had vacated the moment they’d stopped moving.
Hack apart they did, with the help of claw, dexterous spooky arms and a little fire when the eye was for from them the car was rapidly dismantled, its guts spilling out and revealing a treasure trove of wires and, most importantly, a set of still partially charged batteries, with which meant jr could get to work on helping Rika out.
While they did Kamek picked his way through the stacks of blocks and toys, aiming to spy on how the others were doing, Tyrant trotting along at his heels, the baby behemoth having grown rapidly bored of the tinkering of his trainer. The swine ran too and fro, sniffing at this and nuzzling this and that while the tiny turtle trundled along towards the edge of the tower in the toy dump they were on and took a peek through a set of blocks roughly piled up into the shape of a makeshift castle.
A quick peek showed things not going so well for the others, the eye still roaming the area they were stuck in back in the trash filled bedroom section of the room. He really hoped the fact that he couldn't immediately spot anyone who’d been under attack just meant they were doing a good job at hiding. The once and future wizard was wondering if they had any way to distract the ting without getting stuck in the exact same situation when a small clunking sound, as if some had accidentally kicked a block, sounded near them.
”Hmm? Are you done already? Or was that you Tyrant?” Kamek asked, turning but finding the royals and the ship girl still busying away, while Tyrant was standing stock still, their ears up and alert. That. Was not a good sign.
”Peach? Frog? Mr L? Is that any of you?” He asked instead.
No response. Then, now that he was listening closely, Kamek thought he heard a brief shuffle of footsteps worryingly nearby, that was silenced almost as soon as it began.
”Hello? Is someone there?” again, nothing
”I’m friendly. But if you aren't, I warn you I'm a mage of high renown… also I have a pig with veeeery sharp horns” the former mage said, while carefully backing out of the little block fort they’d been using as a combination of viewing and hiding spot, before racing across the top o the block tower as fast as he could, which wasn't fast, with Tyrant dashing ahead of him back to the safety of his trainer.
As he approached the rest of the troop, it looked like they were just finishing up. Wires, strips of plastic and rubber from the cars wheel had all been ripped from the toy by claw and tooth and forged together with fire-breath to form a backpack holding a pair of batteries about as large as the ship-girl’s torso, which seemed like it was the opposite of a solution to her problem till you took into account the wires leading from them into where each of the gauntlets connected to her back. Hasty soldering and insulation jobs prevented the threat of death by electrocution for the most part and now, it seemed, was the moment of proof.
“Ok, here goes!” Rika announced as she flicked a pair of switches on her gauntlets and then, with some hesitation, stood up with only a little difficulty.
“Ah. yes. yes yes yes, it worked!” She cheered with forced quiet, before stumbling slightly due to the weight on her back now, before stabilizing herself by using the fully powered up gauntlets (that had been lead weights before) to support herself in the air, leaning her weight on them as they floated . “Wow. ok. Still a bit unsteady buuut I think I can do this!”
”That’s good, because I don't think we’re alone up here” Kamek announced as he rejoined them, which got a mostly confident nod from Rika and the question of ”Did some of the others catch… or, right, you mean more monsters”
”Quite possibly”
“Then let's go!” Rika announced, setting off a touch unsteadily but rapidly getting the hang of balancing on her gauntlets again, leaving the troop to follow in her wake.
Jr fire breath: Like his dad, Jr can breathe fire, though he came into it a bit later than his old man. Jr’s football sized fireballs can either be gravity defying straight shots, hit the ground, slowly seek their target and create a small burning area or be quick and bouncy like large fire flower fireballs. He can also breathe a small thin stream of fire about a meter and a half in length.
”It looks like people are coming to us” Kamek noted from atop the pillow pile. Bowser’s attempt at wandering round at random had failed as soon as they established that no one else was on the bed yet. Well, no one apart from tyrant the baby behemoth, who they’d found with his horns stuck in the mattress and his little legs flailing uselessly above himself.
After freeing the pig they’d climbed atop the pile of pillows on the bed, and from there identified the smaller groups of heroes slowly making their way towards their larger group.
”They really got everyone huh. Well except Blazermate” The already rather small robot didn’t seem to have been affected one bit ”Guess she’s around your age then jr?”
”Well or a robot who’s always been like that” Jr pointed out
”Well yeah, but they shrunk Rika and she’s a robot”
”Cyborg,” Jr replied, before looking down and asking her ”You were young like this once, right?”
“I don't remember being anything other than what I was. Or being alive for very long before the big light flash happened and we came here” Rika replied from where she was lying next to jr while the prince tried to reboot her gauntlets with little success. The machinery all seemed to be intact and functional, the time rewind having inadvertently undone the EMP damage that had crippled them before, but in their partially developed state they seemed to lack the power to function correctly as they did when Rika was older, namely supporting their own hulking weight for her less than muscular frame.
”Perhaps you where grown quickly using magic or machinery?” Kamek suggested before speculating that ”It would be quite interesting to see how the Abyssal fleet produced its soldiers.”
“Maybe?” Rika wasn't sure on either count.
”If they could just grow more, why would they be resurrecting their people over and over?” jr pointed out.
”Efficiency perhaps?” The magic-less mage replied. Ultimately it was uncertain if they’d ever have the need or opportunity to find out, but the speculation passed the time till people started congregating on the bed. When that occurred the troop slid and/or clambered down their pillowy height and joined them.
Unlike some of the party, the troop had seen basically everyone in their base form already, so most of the members were easy enough to identify, barring the de-witchered Geralt who helpfully introduced himself.
”I’ve sometimes wanted to be young again, but this most certainly was not what I had in mind,” Kamek joked to the other man who’d lost something close to a century and, by the looks of things, the spark of magic that made they unique among the majority of their kind.
Last to join them was Peach, who despite being four again was apparently never to be found without a version of her signature parasol, who pointed them towards a vent high in the far wall that they might be able to use to start climbing out of whatever depth they’d fallen with the aid of Mirage’s dart gun. They were also warned about some kind of creature lurking in the random junk strewn across the floor, prompting the troop to take a look over the edge for it.
”Yeesh, What a mess” Jr commented, taking the first proper look at the state of the floor. Not that you could see said floor for all the stuff piled up, which was kind of the issue.
”and this is why you need to clean your room from time to time” Kamek was helpful to remind him.
”Yeah yeah”
”Bet it isn't so tough, whatever it is! We can just smoke it out and then not have to worry about a buncha platforming!” Bowser declared, blowing out a little wisp of fire to show where said fire would come from.
”That might not be wise. Firstly because we’re trying not to attract attention, and also lets try and avoid setting fire to the submarine while we are in it. Last thing we want is it burning down with us inside it,” Kamek suggested against the idea
”How can it burn down when it’s in the water?”
”If the fires so bad that the waters coming it to put it out, then that waters coming for us too” Kamek pointed out, which got an ”Ah” from Bowser
”Wait, you could breathe fire when you were this age?” Jr asked, a little surprised by this information.
”Huh? Yeah, I could breathe fire since I was a baby!” Bowser declared proudly, initially missing the blow that might do to Jr’s ego.
”Oh” jr replied, before muttering ”I’d only just gotten the hang of that” dejectedly.
”Oh. Uh. Well yeah but... You can do a bunch of stuff that I could never do with mine! That homing one you do? And the bouncy ones too? You're really talented with it son, so what if it took you a bit longer, you're great at it now and you're just gonna keep getting better! When you grow up you’ll be as good as me, better even!” Bowser told him, clapping his identically sized son on the shoulder.
”Thanks dad” jr replied, a little perked up, but still sad that he wouldn't be able to help using fire like his dad was going to be able to.
“Um i think people are heading out already” Rika interrupted from where she was sitting, and indeed several people were already off. Mirage and his pop gun were climbing up and all over while Sakura was either being very clever or very foolhardy with her plan of using two pillows to leapfrog her way across the room.
”Yeah that is cheating, you cheater!” jr yelled after Sakrau as she stepping stones her way across the floor before more quietly saying that he ”Didn’t know she had it in her” to Mimi, as if he was a little impressed by this underhanded tactic.
”If we’re splitting up then seeing as we’re the tough guys we’ll take the toughest route!” Bowser declared, pointing a finger along a route that would involve quite a bit of daring jumping to pull off.
”I’m not so sure all of us could manage that Sire. Perhaps we could instead tare up the sheets and use them to create the envelope of some kind of hot air balloon powered by your majesty’s fire breath and hey wait no put me down aaaaaaah!” Kamek speculated, before being picked up and unceremoniously thrown by the still inhumanly strong Bowser across a rather large gap and landing atop a large toy-box shaped like a treasure chest. The young koopa scrambled a bit to avoid sliding down the curved lid of the box, but managed to find it in himself to avoid slipping down into the sea of junk below.
”Sire. Please warn me next time.” Kamek shouted at the king who had lobbed him so recklessly.
”Yeah yeah” Bowser called back before Jr joined in and called out ”Here, catch!” before tossing Tyrant through the air. The koopa did his best to catch the bay behemoth while avoiding being impaled by the beast’s massive horns that made it and BB something close to the most deadly weapons the group had at their disposal at the moment.
The flying pig was swiftly followed by Mimi, who didn't need to be caught at all as she gently floated down to land with them. Finally she was followed by Rika, who’s landing was nowhere near as smooth. Larger than Kamek by a fair bit (adult koopas where practically child sized already, leaving the koopa as quite the tiny tot) and covered in some underdeveloped metal parts, the girl just barely cleared the gap and then, upon landing, that same amount of dead metal weight caused her to slide down the side of the toy box chest, while her bound up hands offered little in the way of ability to grab hold of things to stop her slipping down.
”oh dear oh bother oh dear” Kamek panicked, running after her and grabbing an arm, only for his small and weak form to do little but get dragged along. Mimie grappling on as well did little to help improve the situation. Then two thuds behind him herald the arrival of the royals, who rushed down and, with claws for grip and raw strength hauled the three of them back up to safety from which Tyrant had refused to budge.
“Thanks. And sorry. I’m just dead weight thanks to these.” Rika said, heaving the heavy gauntlets on her arms up with a great deal of effort.
”It’s not your fault” Kamek assured her.
”We’ll keep an eye out for anything that can help. Maybe something with a battery?” Jr suggested, thinking maybe he could rig something up to help the girl’s gauntlets get the juice they needed externally.
”Sure. But we’ve wasted enough time here already. Let's keep moving. Jr, you go across before we throw Rika for this next one so this doesn't happen again.” Bowser ordered, already eyeing up the next gap they’d need to traverse.
”Sure thing dad. Come on, up you get and let's get moving. The faster we get outta here, the faster we can kick some snake butt and you can get back to blasting everything to bits with like a bazillion guns” Jr said, helping the girl up and with that bit of motivation in mind, their little gang kept moving across the mess of a room towards the vent.
Shinkify: Size is not just something Kamek gives, it is also something he can take away, allowing him to reduce objects and people to one eighth of their original size. Unlike the growing, this can be done without permanent channeling of the effect, however it is also done via shooting the target with a large sparkling projectile, meaning it is entirely possible for the attack to miss an agile opponent. High degrees of magic resistance can also prevent the effect from occurring unwillingly.
In the end they spent two much time arguing, and the universe decided the timer bar for making the conversation choice had run out and promptly moved on without them. A titan of metal, greater than any of the monster they had seen so far, approached, driving the base they had been thinking about entering into crisis mode and a lock-down, sealing them outside. Worse, they’d just bid goodbye to one transport, and the other, the Atomo’s was reduced to a giant paperweight by some kind of power disrupting all machinery.
ahhhh! Jr yelped as his clown car’s propeller suddenly died and he and Mimkyue where unceremoniously dropped to and then tipped onto the ground. At the same moment Rika also was dropped to the deck as the gauntlets she used to support herself stopped doing so and instead became arm weights. Blazermate had it worst of all as she dropped to the ground, seemingly lifeless. Only the fact that she didn't poof into dust was evidence that she wasn't straight up dead.
Entirely appropriate panic gripped the group as the titan bellowed at them with deafening sound. Peach commanded that they take the only sane course of action: as insane as it was to do so, they should make a run for the Maw.
”But my ship!” jr cried out as he pulled himself out of his car and realized that they might have to abandon the bricked airship to be destroyed by the titan.
”kamek, shrink it. I’ll carry it. Jr help the girls!” Bowser ordered, stomping towards it to do his part of the acction
”But i have to carry my car as well!” Jr retorted as Mimikyue jumped back onto his shoulder
”Put it inside the airship and I’ll shrink everything!” Kamek shouted, an instruction that was quickly followed. The clown car was tossed into the open hangar of the airship and then with an incantation of ”Happening right before your eyes, a ship made a more portable size!” Kamek fired a sparkling bolt out of his wand, which struck the airship and rapidly shrunk it eight-fold to the size of a small car. Then the Koopa king picked up the airship and carried it, and two micro pigs that where now trapped with it, towards the maw. Meanwhile while Jr tired to haul the limp Blazermate along with him wile Kamek, and a copy of himself, grabbed Rika’s two gauntlets and hauled them upward, acting as supports and allowing the woman to run for the maw along with the others.
Possibly with a fair bit of help with their respective cargoes the Koopas just barely made it inside the maw before its entryway slammed shut behind them. There was hardly time to catch their breath however, as while they may have escaped the giant robot, they went out of the woods yet. Indeed perhaps they had just entered the woods, and found them horribly haunted, for awaiting them was the slender mistress of the vessel. Peach attempted to negotiate a peaceful stay upon the vessel and, all burdened down by their various cargoes, the troop didn't stop her or start a fight.
Things seemed to be going well right up until they didn't, which occurred when the rather creepy creatures the lady sent out tuned out to not be chaperons and instead to be hypnotists.
”Oh not again” Kamek managed to groan, before they all whited out.
”uurgh” jr complained in response to something bapping his face and then drowsily rolled off of the pillow he’d landed on to try and get away from it. And then kept rolling. And rolling. All the way down the pillow pile till he hit the blanket beneath with an ”oof”
”WHAT! WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT MINION? WHERE ARE JUNIOR, AND PEACH, AND AKMEK, AND EVERYONE ELSE!?” Came a voice that was on the edge of throwing a tantrum to which jr was forced to keep listening to as he waited for the stars dancing around his dizzy head to go away.
”Sire, I am Kamek” the person being yelled at insisted, barley audible when compared to the yeller.
”WHAT! NO YOU AREN'T! JUST LOOK AT YOU, YOUR JUST A REGULAR OLD KOOPA CHILD” the angry one retorted.
”Magikoopas do not come pre-wrapped in blue robes when they are delivered by stork you know. You have to earn those through years of study and dedication to the magical... Oh. Oh dear” the far away voice said before fading out and being replaced by a much closer one called out “mikyu?!”
Jr looked to the side and found Mimikyue racing down the pillow pile towards them, though the pokemon was for some reason missing her now distinctive metal parts and looked exactly like she did the day he had caught her. With a final hop down she stopped in front of her trainer, cocked her false head to the side in prepexion and then proceeded to bap him in the face with a shorter long limb again to try and get his attention.
”Yeah yeah, hold your Yoshis, I’m getting up. Nice to see you too Mimi. What happened to your bits?” he asked as he sat up, to which he got a shrug and then a grumpy harumph from the pikachu mimicking pokemon who was very annoyed that her electrical powers had been stolen from her.
Jr, still a little dizzy, waited for a moment for mimi to take her traditional spot on his shoulder and then, not noticing anything amiss with himself, walked round the pillow mountain a bit till he found the source of the voices that had been arguing.
There he found 3 people:
A generic koopa child, standing surprisingly firm despite being yelled at.
Jr’s mirror image, the only difference between him and them being that his double’s bib/bandana was blank, who was doing the yelling.
And sitting passively on the ground while the koopa and doppelganger argued was a small pale human wearing an oil black one-piece swimsuit featuring a white strip on the chest with symbols Jr did not understand written on it (in a style Sakrua might have recognized from her school swim classes if it had been blue) and a wee pair of booties who also had glowing blue eyes, short black hair and had a pair of gauntlets, that looked a lot like bizarre metal sock puppets, covering her hands.
”THEY HAVE TOO! HOW ELSE WOULD YOU TELL THE MAGIC ONES FORM THE NORMAL ONES!” The other Bowser Jr was yelling at the young koopa before jr intervened with a confused ”Um? Hello?”
”Young Master! There you are!” the young koopa gasped and cried out with surprise and delight upon turning to see him while the doppelganger took a few moments to catch on. When they did they too were delighted, calling out ”Junior! There you are” before running over and giving the still perplexed Jr a relieved hug.
”Huh? Who? oh. Papa?” jr said, figuring it out at last as the last of his dizziness went away.
”Yes it does appear we have been de-aged by those awful creatures, as well as having any spirits we have fused with or employed stolen as well. And we have quite possibly been skunk on-top of all that? Or perhaps this palace simply enlarged? Or designed to look like it is enlarged? All of those have been things that I've seen happen, so it’s hard to tell which it is” The Koopa who was ”Kamek?” speculated and then nodded to confirm his identity.
”Also that is Rika over there” Kamek also pointed out. The girl didn't react, prompting the koopa to add ”That’s your name, remember?”
“Oh? Oh right. Hello” the girl who had her name written across her chest said, with a voice lacking much of the personality it had gained over the past 24 hours, before adding simply that “I still can't walk very well”
”Gah, am I going to have to carry everything today!” the mini Bowser complained and then ignored Rika’s insistence that no, it was ok, they could just leave her here if it would make their lives easier as he picked her up and gave her a piggyback ride in an ample demonstration that koopa royalty were just built differently than mere commoners.
”Wait, so why am I still the same?” Jr asked while that was happening.
”It seems we have been set to a specific age rather than having a set number of years taken off. Otherwise I would still be mostly the same while you, well, you wouldn't exist. As it is, I think if we had a measuring tape we would find you would have lost a an inch or two, but that is about it”
”What! Gah those big jerks I’m going to kick their butts so bad next time we see them!” Jr declared, having been immensely proud of every inch he had gained since he’d started measuring himself.
”Well be sure to give them a few kicks from me, as I, like Rika over there, won't be much help in the butt kicking department. I mean, what am I going to do? Slowly walk into them?” the mage made a frustrated sound at the mere thought of relying on such physicality.
”Alright that’s enough dawdling, let’s go find the others!” Bowser announced and, along with his piggybacking cargo who found it in herself to enjoy the ride, started to match off in a random direction in search of the rest of the party. Jr went after him. Then came back, picked up the slow walking turtle that was Kamek and carried him over his free shoulder, much to the formerly old koopa’s protestation, and then together the five of them all went to try and find the rest of the party so that they could try and figure out what in the world they were going to do to get out of this one.
After a minute or two Midna pushed herself off the back of the bathtub. She tried to dust herself off, failed, remembered she still had a rag on her face, removed it, tried to use that to wipe herself down, failed, went and found the rest of the bedroll and finally became slightly presentable.
”Blech. I swear fighting was never this bad before. So gross.“ She complained as she ditched the rags before floating her way back through the halls, finding her entry window and then dropping down out of it, to find that the sound of combat hadn’t gone entirely unnoticed.
”Just dealing with some vermin, nothing to worry about” she told a group of people who approached her, nonchilantly brushing a bit of ash she’d missed off of her shoulder, which didn't do much to improve the fact that she still looked rather worn and grubby ”Don’t suppose you know where I can hand in requests?”
Turned out they did and so, after a few more insistations that everything was fine the princess found a shadow and quickly skipped through them till she reached the commission's office.
She found the facility along the Al Mamoon’s thoroughfare, just shy of the palace itself. Compared to the vast court of officiation housed within, this client-facing facility was no larger than a tollbooth. On the other side of its window sat the lone attendant in the middle of several tireless fans, continuously keeping her cool and comfortable as she worked away at what appeared to be a thankless task. The attendant appeared to be a ordinary-looking woman with glasses in dark professional dress, and the glow of several electronic screens around her cast her face in different lights. Midna arrived to find a small line in place, and one by one each person went up to present an inquiry or request. With incredible dexterity the woman behind the counter tapped on a plastic device before her covered in letters, apparently logging every detail into unseen forms for categorization and addressment.
Once her turn came the battle worn princess drifted up in front of the woman and, after taking a very brief moment to inspect the interesting machines she was using/surrounded, said to her ”Hi. This is the place that handles the quest board requests, right? I’m here about the one about noises in the abandoned temple,”
“Just a moment, ma’am,” the attendant replied, making a conscious effort not to sound bored. She performed some indeterminate action using the devices from beyond Midna’s ken, and in the space of just a few moments turned up just the commission in question, something that could have easily taken minutes of sorting through the document-stacked shelves behind her swiveling chair. “Ah, yes. Mr. Meitenkun’s commission. I’m sure he’ll be happy to hear that he can continued to sleep undisturbed. I have the deposit he left here, provided you can offer some sort of proof as a guarantor that the problem is solved.”
”Here” the princess, who had waited patiently enough for her to finish, said as she lightly tapped the little bit of a shelf of the booth between them with a finger, forming a tiny portal that apperified the four demon spirits she’d collected but not used up for exactly this reason before the woman ”There were three large and frankly disgusting monsters performing some kind of ear grating ritual within. I’m amazed Mr. Meitenkun could get any sleep at all after hearing the sounds they were making. Anyway, they locked me inside the building with them using some kind of magic seal as soon as I entered, so I fought them” she explained, before answering the implicit question as to where the extra one had come from by explaining ''There's four spirits because while fighting them one of them used a dance based ritual to summon yet another of their kind from a portal” before pausing for a moment to see what the woman’s take on her evidence was.
“Mr. Meitenkun is a very heavy sleeper. I had wondered what exactly might be potent enough to keep him up.” The lady quickly registered the new information as Midna delivered it. “Monsters, you say?” She pulled on a thin black glove and took hold of one Nobody spirit with care, holding it close to examine it. “Well. These certainly look dangerous. Rather like some bioweapons I’ve seen. Hands, ribs, giant eyes, the works. And possessing magical abilities too.” Though the attendant gave off the impression of someone very even-keeled, she did not water down the impressed look she wore. It cast the dingy princess in a whole new light. “I suppose the city owes you its thanks for services rendered. If only I could speak for the city. Here is the listed reward.” She unlocked a chest by her feet and counted out fifty gold pieces that she gave to Midna in a small pouch.
Things had sounded promising in terms of getting more out of this than the listed price and then they had fallen rather flat. The slight proud smile she’d had while the sharp eyed woman dissected the threat she’d faced dropped, and she let out the slightest of sighs upon receiving the 50 gold. Then the princess shook her head a fraction to reset her mood. It wouldn't do to direct her disappointment in the merger payment she was getting for risking her life at the working woman herself, it wasn't her, or the original commissioner’s for that matter, fault the reward was so small. So rather than get angry she said ''Thank you, miss..?” and then tapped the desk again to portal the spirits and her cash back to the realm of twilight.
''I don't suppose there is some general bounty for monsters out?” she tried, not expecting much, before adding ''or that you could put a word in with the Vizzar about this? Me and mine are in the midst of negotiating with the man for ownership of a heavily armed train, so anything official on our end of the scales would be helpful” again not expecting much seeing as she suspected Fox was in the midst of planning going under the man’s nose in some way or another.
“You mean the Vizier?” the woman corrected her pronunciation. “Well, I’m not really in a position to talk about negotiations, or how trying to curry favor might go.” She adjusted, then removed her glasses to clean them. “But right now Validar is rewarding people for doing the ‘right thing’. So he might authorize some extra money for your efforts. I can call my boss Eva to tell her you’re looking for extra compensation, if you like?” In a semi-tactful way the secretary let Midna know that she would be acting as a pure middleman in this regard, and not vouching for her.
'Vizier” Minda corrects herself at the woman’s prompting before glancing back to gauge the delay in the queue she was causing and then nodding and asking the woman, who’s name she’d failed to get, to follow up on her suggestion, If it wouldn't be too much trouble?” The princess getting her hopes up just a little but not putting said hopes on the secretary herself.
With just a nod in reply, the attendant reached for yet another device unknown to Midna, a curved piece of metal with a circular attachment on either end, and removed it from its stand. After another couple presses on the stand’s pad she held the thing up to her head, tossing her hair to expose her ear. A buzzing sound began, and while it was in progress she asked, “Name?”
”Minda” she replied, not bothering with the princess honorific.
Another moment more and the buzzing stopped, with the familiar voice of the moody palace skeleton on the line. “Yea? Whatcha want, Ingrid?”
“Hello, Eva. I have someone here named Midna who completed a commission to investigate a disturbance in the old church,” Ingrid told her. “In doing so she fought and killed a few large monsters with magical powers. She wants to request additional compensation for the unforeseen danger and effort.”
“Oh, she does, does she?” Eva yammered, sounding less than surprised. She did not, however, sound upset. “Well, it ain’t my money, and this sounds like just the sahta thing Vali wants people doin’ out theh. What wah they, big?”
Ingrid blinked, coolly recollecting what she’d seen and estimating its scale based off the demon’s biology. “Yes, five hundred pounds at the bare minimum, longer than horses.”
“Scary?”
“They appeared to be grotesque flesh monsters, with exposed bones and bulging eyeballs.”
“Good enough fah me,” Eva decided. “Two hunnad oughta do it. Send ‘em by my office.”
Ingrid Hunnigan replaced the receiver that apparently enabled long-distance communication back on its stand. “You’re authorized to receive two hundred additional gold. I only have deposits here, so you’ll have to go to the palace to be granted the sum from the treasury. Take care now.” She waved at the next person in line.
Now that was more like it, Midna thought. More traipsing around town yes, and it was technically only 50 gold per “head”, but getting some more personal funds was definitely a plus
”You too,” she said to the secretary, before adding ”and thanks for your help” and then swiftly moving out of the way of the others in line and heading for the treasury. She knew where the palace was, and so a few quick shadow skips got her there, then all she needed was to get some directions to the treasury and she’d go get her real pay.
The sack hit the desk with a clonk that truly signified its weight, following by the sound of metal sliding against metal within. “Two hunnad gold, all theh,” Eva told Midna. “Nice job, thanks fah doin’ the city a good tahn, yada, yada, yada.” She pushed the reward closer, indicating that the Twilight Princess ought not stick around in the palace’s official court. “Buh bye.”
With this Midna had little issue.
She tapped the bag with a finger and sent it to the twilight ream, gave a rapid fire reply of ”Thank you, your welcome and goodbye” and then she left the palace and hovered up to a a nice secluded rooftop nearby. Taking out her shadow hand to use as a sunshade and using her tail as a little fan while she worked, the princess got to the business of dealing with the spirits of the demons in a place where the seeker’s knowledge couldn't be completed by suspicious Viziers.
The demon's spirits were brought out and crushed, and then the results, along with the sword and trinket, were laid out and examined with a critical, magical, eye to see what, if any, unseen properties they might have.
You have Acquired: Psycho Mask - a wearable statement of freedom--freedom from society, morality, and sanity, all in one. It has no actual effect on the wearer but features a built-in filter which can purify incoming air, and two ports that gas canisters can be plugged into Death Scissor Mask - an eerie mask, white as bone. It’s extremely durable and can be used as either armor or a shield, but while equipped it causes a red weakspot to appear on the wearer right before an attack, which will deal critical damage if struck Omen Mask - the face of a demon that heralds the end. When worn, all projectiles fired by the wearer are tripled but have totally random flight patterns Daredevil Mask - a vicious mask with metal spikes and blades. Its sealed respirator can allow breathing in environments without oxygen so long as an air supply is connected. Its headbutts can do some real damage Biteturn Charm - a charm of human bone with a touch of the Stranger’s power. Whenever a bladed weapon strikes the holder it will take massive durability damage, enough to shatter conventional weapons. When this happens, however, one of the wearer’s teeth will turn black and fall out. The tooth cannot be regrown via healing. Cursed Sword - a strange blade imbued with fell sorcery. It deals extreme damage when used as a weapon but is difficult to grasp and use effectively. While equipped, any damage taken by the user will result in an instant kill
Though Midna intended to examine each interesting new item in detail, one stood out among all the rest: the cursed sword. In the heat of the battle she hadn’t paid it proper attention, assuming that the disquieting evil aura that just about choked her magic sense a product of the reprehensible Nobodies, but far removed from their presence this sword reeked of dark magic just as bad, if not worse. A part of her recoiled violently from its very touch, as if she’d somehow evaded doom before but grasping it now would surely invite it.
Compared to that, everything else was small hat. Two of the masks gave off a magical aura, but neither anywhere near as dire, and the others seemed purely technological. She picked up a nebulous ominous feeling from the charm along with its low, subtly off-putting song, but what that meant she couldn’t discern.
”Well. You can live in the twilight realm forever” she told the sword, loathing the brief moment she touched it to send it away. She’d thought she could handle dark magics, but that... thing was too much even for her. What madness or arrogance spurred someone to make such a blade she could only shudder to think about.
Really, while the blade was by far the most egregious of the bunch, the rest of the magic items ran a similar thread. The ominousness of the charm was quite as bad, but it was still very suspicious and didn't seem to do anything immediately. Maybe she should keep it on and find out what it did?
”no. No no no no. No. Goddesses I was really stupid to think the horror would be over after I dealt with those things huh” She muttered, and then dismissed the charm as well. All this foul sorcery really was a grim contrast to the sunshine and lively town bustling around below, but also a reminder of the darkness lurking below the surface. There was evil here. She’d been downplaying it in her mind in the name of pragmatism but these things, they were a reminder.
The masks were all creepy as whatever hell the spirits of the creatures had swapped them had come from, but somehow they managed to be not as horrific as the items she’d found around the demons. The blank white mask was only mildly disturbing in principle, but in practice it was somehow the worst. It was also hard as nails and could maybe be used as a shield as a result, but did she really want to try and shield herself with something the size of a face, she thought to herself, unaware that bucklers were, technically, the pinnacle of shield technology. She certainly didn't want to wear it. As the Vizier aptly demonstrated, aesthetics were important.
Worse than the aesthetics, during a touch of mock fighting she did to test the shield idea she found out that that attacking while having it strapped to her arm caused a red flash to light up on her chest that made the bare skin beneath it crawl with an increased sense of vulnerability. Jabbing the spot when it appeared with a finger hurt a lot, and caused a bruise, confirming the sensation. Strapping it to her chest both looked real bad and caused the light to appear on the mask itself which was only something of an improvement. Using the mask as a shield again would let her guard the weak spot, but it would be awkward to do while also striking, especially because she didn't have training in that kind of thing. She also felt like one of those big boss monsters Link would stab in the eye or wherever while doing it, which was not good for her morale.
Also, even if she did trust herself to avoid being stabbed in the chest, she’d still prefer something bigger. A full kite shield like the one she’d had an eye on was a lot easier to use than this little thing, no matter how tough it might be. Then again, it being light was an advantage in and of itself. Of all the items, this one was the one she’d have to think about the most. Rather than keep endlessly mulling it over she decided to check out the other masks.
She wasn't sure how useful the devil mask would be. An intuition told her it would work on ranged spells, but try as she might she couldn't remember the specifics of any she used to know. Testing of that would have to wait till she jogged her memory. Or she could get one of the more traditional mages to test it for her.
As for the final two, she wasn't entirely sure how the technological masks worked, but they seemed like they could be a fancy way to keep you safe from sand inhalation. Much better than the rag she’d used that was for sure. This turned out to be half true. The white one seemed to filter the air, a little toss of sand proved this nicely (and maybe it would even work against finer things?) while the spiky one had two states, one which did nothing helpful while the other made it impossible to breath. She didn't get it, but there were ports on both of them that lead into the mouth and nose section, so maybe there were parts missing? That was unhelpful. Either way, white was better than blades, unless you wanted to headbutt someone.
”Maybe Tora will know how to use them. And be able to make them look less… evil.” she said to herself while looking them over. Cut off parts of the white one, give it a new paint-job, and then slot it into the missing part of the front of the fused shadow? Certainly an option.
An interesting haul from an detached standpoint, a rather skin crawling one from where she was actually standing. There was some dark humor in the fact that technically she now had a free sword and shield that she did not want to use.
”Goddesses,” Minda said, after storing everything for later/forever and standing up to take a look around town to think about what she’d do next, ”I hope everyone else’s jobs weren’t as nightmarish as mine.”
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