The Dryad's Loyalty

Chapter 20: I care about him

After a cold shower, Hazel got into their work clothes, ready to do whatever was necessary to help out the minions.
They first headed to the kitchen, not only because they hoped to find some food, since they'd skipped dinner and were starving at the moment, but also to see if the cooks needed anyone to carry rations to the guards or the minions in the battlefield.

"May I come in?" they politely asked, peeking through the kitchen's doors and noticing all the cooks were working hard in turning the food they'd prepared for that evening's banquet into more sizable portions, putting them in little boxes and placing them onto a conveyor belt which ended into a yellow warp pipe.

"Oh! Hazel! Yes, yes you can come in!" the head chef, a fire bro, replied, catching his breath. "As you can see we're in a bit of a rush- but we've saved some of the dinner for the minions who're staying in the castle, if you're hungry you can pick something from that table over there!" he hurriedly said, pointing at a table full of trays with roast beef, ham, stew and bread.

Before Hazel could thank him, he quickly apologized "Sorry there's no more hot wings- I think the king hogged them all for himself" he mentioned and then went right back to work directing about fifty other cooks.

"It's alright-..." Hazel replied, trailing off as the head chef rushed from station to station, making sure everything was going smoothly.
The dryad quickly went up to the table, taking some bread, ham and greens and making themselves a sandwich. They calmly ate it, looking around in the kitchen to assess the situation and see if anyone needed help, until they noticed two trays on an empty table, which nobody dared to touch.

After finishing their 'dinner', they went up to the table and called a sous-chef who didn't look too busy "Excuse me, who are these trays for? Are they for the guards?"

"Oh- n-no, the guards have all been served already-" the red-shelled koopa replied a bit awkwardly. "They're uhm... for the prisoners"

The dryad widened their eyes "You mean Mario and princess Daisy?"

"Y-yes! But... nobody wants to go and bring that food to them, they're all too scared of what might happen... you gotta understand, us cooks- we're not trained for combat" he tried justifying himself, and Hazel chuckled a bit.

"It's fine, I get it... I guess I could bring it to them, where are they being held?"

"Down in the castle's depths... there's a green warp pipe near the training room that leads straight to it" he explained, handing the two trays to the dryad.

They nodded "Thank you very much- I'll make sure this food gets to them safe and sound!" they said, heading out, happy that they'd found a little task they could help with.

Once they found their way to the green pipe, they began feeling slightly nervous... they'd never been that far down into the castle, and wondered what kinds of things were hidden down there... nothing scary about Bowser himself they hoped.

They walked through the pipe, and in just a few seconds they felt the temperature change from a comfortable warmth, to a scorching heat. They thought the basement would've been way colder- but it couldn't have been further from that: the basement consisted in many dark stone platforms and bridges, suspended right above a sea of LAVA!

"Oh man... and I was worried the food was gonna get cold before I got to those two..." they sarcastically mumbled to themselves as they walked onto the bridge, looking around for anything that could've resembled a prison of some sort.

After a long walk, and a ride on a strange, and dubiously stable skull raft, Hazel finally got to a room that looked promising... especially cause it seemed to be guarded by two big dry bones.