Cuphead and Mugman in "A Recipe For Evil"

The Quest Begins

Having been tasked with gathering ingredients for the Wondertart, the three friends set out in search of the items. Their first stop was the shop to stock up on supplies for their soon to be quarrels. A bell rang as they entered the shop. No one was behind the counter at the moment. There was a piece of paper on the counter that said "Having lunch. Be back in a bit. If you need something, please place money in can and take what you paid for. I WILL KNOW IF YOU STEAL!"

"I guess that works out." Cup shrugged. He placed some coins in the can next to the note and picked up the new magic powers that they could learn.

"Is it just me or does this look like one of Porkrind's shops?" Mug pointed out as his head lazily rolled around and gazed about the familiar environment.

"Gee, you're right, Mugs." His brother looked around and agreed. It even had the same pig musk smell to it as the other shops on Inkwell. For Porkrind the pig was not always the cleanest of Inkwell's residents.

"But why would Porkrind have a shop way out here?" The young mug wondered.

"Beats me. But we got what we came here for, so let's skedaddle!"

As soon as the trio of cups exited the shop, Cuphead wasted no time in firing off the new weapons. He had swiped the three available weapons: a red shot that cracked open and then homed in on the enemy, a yellow laser-like triple shot, and a blue bubble-like shot that arced upward.

"Gee, these new weapons are pretty swell." He remarked. "What do you think, Mugs?"

"Yeah, they're pretty awesome." His brother nodded.

"Well, whenever you boys are done playing around, perhaps we could get started with collecting the ingredients?" Chalice urged them to stay focused on the goal. The trio of cups were about to exit the town area of the island when a voice caught their attention.

"Extry! Extry! Chef Saltbaker awarded best baker in all the lands!" It was the news boy – or cat in this case. Its fur was black and had a white face. A red hat sat atop its head, pushing its ears out to the side a bit. He noticed the cup brothers approaching him. "Oi! You're them cups what took out the Devil, ain't ya?"

"Wait, how do you know about all that?" Cup inquired. How could a place so far away from their home possibly know about their scrap with the Devil?

"Duh, you guys made the headline on the Inkwell Blotter for weeks! This isle's got some tough customers. But if you sent that imp packing, you got suitcases to spare!" He handed them over a newspaper to look at.

"You mean to tell me that this is still Inkwell?" Mugman said and looked over the paper. Low and behold, the name of the paper was the Inkwell Blotter. The exact same newspaper and articles that came to their home too.

"So... we're not on a mysterious island?" Cup asked, clearly disappointed that they could not seem to get away from Inkwell. The young mug could feel that his demon was disheartened to hear about this as well. For Tsundere longed to see the world outside of Inkwell. Possibly even more than the cup brothers themselves.

"Oh, it's mysterious enough." The newsboy assured them. "A lot of you mainlanders tend to forget about us out here."

"Mainlanders?" Cuphead said accusingly. As if the cat had just stereotyped them. The cat's ears drooped a little as he attempted to hide behind his wad of newspaper issues.

"I wonder why no one ever mentioned this place?" Mug tried to change the subject before his brother could get into one of his fits.

"Hey boys! Why don't we start this way?" Chalice waved them over and away from town. She had moved down a sloped path that would take them to a lower elevation. The red cup started to go, but his sibling gave the newspaper back and took a minute to observe the layout of the island. Especially noting the tall snowy mountains. He wondered if any of the ingredients could be up there too. When he came out of his survey of the land, Mugman realized he was getting left behind.