Well, I meant to at least have our team leave the mountain home by now, but I've gone on for long enough that I thought I might as well split it here. I hope you all enjoy.
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Deep in a koopa fortress, four koopas are clambering over a large pile of unsorted, eclectic items. They came into the room with a gutteral cry of nationalism, but along the way that cry died out as they started having to actually focus on where they were going. After a few falls down the sides of the pile the cry ends all together, but the thought is still present in all of them. Eventually, they all tumble into the connecting underground pastures at the other end of the room. Immeadiately, the cries of hundreds of animals that both shouldn't exist and should never have been domesticated fill the ears of the four koopas. In that room waits the head brute and the bookkeeper, somewhere.
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'Well then, so this is where we store all of our animals... This place looks like it has gotten really out of hand.' The underground pasture was a very long, very wide hallway with a thick layer of mud over the ground. The first detail anyone would notice about this floor is that it was full of the most clashing and unheard of colors a koopa could ever imagine. Dozens of exotic underground mosses, grasses, and funguses had already transformed this place into the biggest eye sore of the mountain home. Fuchsia, aquamarine, neon purple, blazing red. Imagine a color that you can't even imagine, now imagine it about thirty more times in juxtaposition to about every color on the known spectrum, that is the scene the four koopas were seeing in the almost knee high jungle before them.
In addition to that, a multitude of exotic underground saplings had taken root and were in the process of claiming the hallway for their own. Towering mushrooms, gnarled tangles of thorns, and a few incredibly rare living crystalline latices that dropped usable gems from their branches. Along with this invading vegetation was an entire microcosm of vermin from the caverns deep below. The droves of mostly unidentified creatures living among the plants of this jungle were probably the only things keeping this area from becoming a paradise. It wasn't a rare occurrence for a worker tending to the animals to have to be dragged out after being bit by some venomous denizen of the underground jungle.
Conversly, there was a small den of joltiks living in a small copse of mushroom trees near the entrance that had become a valuable source of silk for the fortress. A few koopas even found the glowing blue eyes staring down from the mess of webs to be cute, to the point where a few koopas had adopted their own to use them as shoulder pets. This often led to the joltik building a new nest in the koopa's hair, which was met with mixed responses.
As the four koopas stood in the entrance doorway they found themselves staring at what could possibly have been a new creature that had made its way up from the depths. In the pathway ahead of them they saw what, in the little time they had to make scientific observations, was an almost literal disembodied human hand crawling around in the grass. Not a gnarled, decaying zombie hand, but a healthy looking, fully functioning normal hand. It almost looked like that hand had made an effort to keep its fingernails manicured. This in itself was enough for them to question life itself, but then the hand found some potential prey and it got a whole lot weirder. A small beetle, resembling a golden scarab but with demon horns, was found by the hand's probing fingers. The beetle turned around and let out a hiss, only to be squished under the same fingers that found it. With its quarry dead, a large, fanged mouth opened in the center of the hand's palm.
At that point, three of the four koopas diverted their attention to other things around them, but ZM5 continued staring with a sinister grin growing on his face. It can easily be assumed that he had a link missing in one of his 'plans', and these hands offered a potential solution.
A scholar could have easily spent his life studying this ecosystem and document only a fraction of what could be found, but the group had a job to do. They looked around in an attempt to find either the head brute or the bookkeeper, but where only met with farm hands running around trying to keep everything alive and without a murderous blood lust, and a head sized floating box off to the side of the entrance area. On top of it perched what seemed to be a small lizard with three sets of dragonfly wings. The box started to vibrate, shaking off the spores that had started to settle on it as well as spooking the lizard thing on top of it, causing it to fly away.
"HINT! Welcome to the royal pastures, home of our fortress's livestock, war animals, and living oddities. I have been informed that you four are here to procure animals for your expedition. The bookkeeper and head brute are down the hall in the fourth pen on the left with the trolls. Please, enjoy your stay." 'What a polite hint block' thought Mottled Petrel 'I'm glad he was here to help direct us because I have no idea where anything is down here.' The four started making their way through the thicket to the pen they were directed to, but were stopped by a frantic whisper from the hint block. "HINT! Please guys, you gotta get me out of this place. I can't hear myself think, I've become a resting post for everything with wings in this place, and every couple of days something tries to nest inside my speakers. Please, take me with you, I can tell jokes, I can direct foot traffic, I can direct people to where they need to go in the fort. Please, anywhere but here.[/size]"
They all looked at each other, "Anyone got any objections?" Mottled Petrel said, wanting to start off his leadership with a group consensus. Derpy Dev lit up at the suggestion "I'd love to have someone to practice my jokes with!". ZM5 had another weird grin, and Scourge didn't offer any objections. "All right, we'll work out something for you to do when we get there. Derpy Dev, take him with us." Derpy Dev eagerly plucks the hint block out of the air. It looks like he momentarily has no idea what he's holding or how the hint block was defying gravity the way it was, but after batting him around in the air a little Derpy Dev's perpetually excited smile returned. A low, happy buzzing sound can be heard from the hint block held under Derpy Dev's third left arm.
With that, they finally started making their way to the troll pen. As they went they passed a number of other animal pens, each with an attempt made to personalize them for the intended inhabitants inside. Each started out as a stone fence around a uniform sized area on one side of the hallway. From there, a passerby could tell how dangerous the animals inside were by the amount of additional fortification added to the pen. The simple minded and/or harmless animals were only contained by a chest high stone fence enclosed by a simple gate. Anything that could fly had at least a copper wire mesh connecting from the fence to the ceiling. From there, the pens got a lot more creative. The pen before the troll pen was one such example. A solid stone room surrounded by a deep water moat only crossable by a draw bridge that had its own dedicated guard to make sure that no random peasant accidentally lowered it.
Across the moat was a mastercraft solid steel door menacing with spikes of obsidian, for added flair and to ensure that nothing, inside or out, tried to bash the door down. At the top of the door was a small clear glass window, just big enough to see through. On the other side of the door faint dinosaur shrieks can be heard, as well as some explosions. Under those sounds, a guttural cry of fear belonging to an unknown koopa can be heard. The severity of this cry led Mottled Petrel to stop and ask the guard what was going on. "Laser Ceratosauruses. Probably the most blood thirsty and most powerful beasts we've got locked up here. We've tamed them, so they won't out right attack us, but if a breeze blows the wrong way, and they don't like it, they'll tear apart anything they see. They can also shoot these fucking crazy lasers whenever the hell they feel like it. It's a miracle this cell of two foot thick stone is enough to hold 'em. Unfortunately, before we figured out how unpredictable they were we installed some nest boxes in there, now we can't get them out. They're breeding like crazy in there and there ain't a thing we can do about it. So now, every once in a while we send in someone who's either deserving of punishment or who's just useless, to try to take 'em out of there. That ruckus you hear in there is our latest 'volunteer', some crazy koopa we found in the sewers talking to some dead rat. Stingpie was his name, self proclaimed intellectual or something. If he makes it out with a nest box or two we'll let him off scott free and let him try to find a new life in this new fort we're having some other guys found soon. I was told that those guys would be coming through here soon. And if he comes back out before he can get a nest box we'll keep sending him back in until he gets one. And if he doesn't make it, well, it saves us the time and effort of trying to put him through rehabilitation. I personally don't think he's got it in him, but maybe-"
Before the guard could finish that thought the sound of something being slammed violently against the other side of the door could be heard. As that something was picked up and slammed against the door again a cry of "OPEN THE DOOR! I GOT ONE!", a similar noise can be heard as Stingpie was most likely thrown across the room and into the left wall. "Well I'll be... guess I should probably let him out. These fuckers can't swim, but you should probably duck so you aren't hit by any stray lasers." Three of the four koopas dive for cover as the gaurd moves to grab the lever, but Scourge stayed standing and thought about where he should best hide. Before he could come to a decision the guard had already pulled the door lever.
It started to open slowly, but before it could open enough to see what was going on inside Stingpie was thrown against it again. This time, he flew all the way out of the room and into the moat. In his arms was a stone nest box that contained the remains of what might have once been laser ceratosaurus eggs, and around his ankle was the mouth of a laser ceratosaurus hatchling, still thrashing in an attempt to kill the invader. Behind the door was a large pack of angry, fully grown laser ceratosauruses, firing lasers out into the hallway in a final attempt to stop the theft of the nest box. Most of those lasers accomplished nothing more than spooking the animals in the other pens, but one of those lasers hit the pondering Scourge a glancing blow to the shell. It was enough to send him tumbling backwards.
With another pull of the lever the door was closed again and the shrieks of the laser ceratosauruses were cut off back to a dull roar. Stingpie plopped the nest box down next to the guard, and then pulled himself out of the moat along with the hatchling still biting his ankle. The guard sighed, and then reached down to the hatchling and snapped its neck in one swift action. "Looks like it's my lucky day, I've been wanting me a new pair of scale boots. As for you Stingpie, I think I'll treat your good work to a -laser ceratosaurus meat roast-. What do you say?" Stingpie lay panting on the bank of the moat, bleeding from multiple bites and scratches along his arms and legs. "Aww, come on. You don't have anything missing, you'll be fine." Stingpie started flexing his fingers and toes, likely to confirm that they were all still there. Then he looked down to see the damage, he grimaced and let his head fall back onto the ground. "I'll... *pant* *pant*... have some roast... but first, please let me see Doctor K. ... *pant*".
Footsteps can be heard coming from the pasture's entrance, a very serious looking koopa with a small set of spectacles balanced on his beak was walking towards the group. In his hand dangled a thick briefcase with a red symbol on the side. As he got closer, the four koopas could see that it was a koopa wrestling two snakes whose lower bodies were wrapped around a pole with wings, the standard symbol for medikoopa. "Ah, here's the doctor I asked to be on stand by." He grins and looks down at Stingpie, who is still writhing in pain on the ground. "Ah, you'll be fine, Urlance Woolsbane is a great doctor. Just don't expect any consoling, or even any conversation from him. If he starts talking about watches just don't engage, it'll be over quicker."
Urlance knealed down next to Stingpie and put his ear to his shell and started tapping at different parts of it. "Hmm... *tap* *tap* *tap*... ah, I see. Well you're ticking fine, the center, third, and fourth wheel are undamaged. Maybe they could do with some extra lubrication, but you can do without it for a little while. The escape wheel isn't dented or shattered from the impact, and the escape wheel bridge over it is unmoved. All your important inner cogs are alright so there's no threat of your seconds hand slowing down or stopping. The crown and dial..." he knocked on Stingpie's head a few times "... are sound. What I'm more concerned about is your minute and hour hands..." he takes each of his arms and legs individually and starts bending them to test that the joints and connecting bones are fine. As this is happening Mottled Petrel can't help but wonder 'I'm no medikoopa, but I haven't the faintest clue what this guy is saying. Why is he treating this guy like he's a watch? I'd think that this would be a little demeaning for Stingpie, if he wasn't actually being helped'.
Urlance, confirming that nothing was broken or bent, continued with his diagnosis "The minute and hour hands aren't broken, but they've had too much of their protective paint scraped off and they're leaking lubricant. Let me just apply a new layer." He pulls a needle and thread from out of his briefcase and begins suturing the many, many wounds covering Stingpie. "This is going to take too long" says Mottled Petrel as he finally steps out from behind the tree he was using as a hiding spot "We've still got a job to do, let's get to the troll pen and meet up with the bookkeeper. You've done good today Stingpie, we'll see you at Modded Hell once you've had time to heal." The four koopas, after having wasted enough time, went on their way again. However, it seemed that that last line from Mottled Petrel had made it through Stingpie's painful haze. "wait... Modded Hell?... YOU GUARDS SAID IF I DID THIS YOU WOULDN'T SEND ME THERE! LET ME GO! LET ME-" Urlance pinches Stingpie where his neck meets his left shoulder and Stingpie immediately collapses, unconscious. "Tsk, tsk. I can't mend a watch if the alarm is going off in my hands, now can I?". The guard was still watching the spectacle, and was thoroughly creeped out by the action "You're fucking weird man. You aren't operating on me if I ever need it."
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I'm hoping I can advance the plot a little more with the next update, but it'll all meet together soon.
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Topic: The Resurgence of Modded Hell (Back, Still Broken, Now With Giant Butterflies) (Read 301287 times)