Mushroom Kingdom Anew - Book 1

Chapter Three

"So then... this is the super dangerous cave in the Toad Town outskirts?" Xavier asked, hands on his hips as he stared into the dark abyss the cavern before him held. Saying it was pitch black would've been an understatement, since it was pretty hard to see anything. The sunlight shed a little light into the cave, but it didn't make it too far. Xavier silently hoped a Refreshroom was near. Ace nodded. "Yeah, this is it. How are we gonna navigate if we can't see? Sun's already gotten pretty low..."

"Mhm. It took a lot longer to navigate through Toad Town than expected. If you didn't get lost, we'd have been here an hour ago." Xavier says, making his way over to a tree. Ace puffed his cheeks in anger. "I got lost? You got lost, Mr. Adventurer-With-No-Sense-Of-Direction!"

"Okay, okay, maybe a little bit of it was my fault." Xavier said sarcastically, grabbing a low branch and snapping it off of the tree. He takes a few rocks from the ground and starts bashing them together close to one of the ends of the stick. Ace huffs again and makes his way over to the busy teen. "Sure, a little bit of it was your fault. What exactly are you doing here, anyway?"

"Sun's gettin' real low, so we'll need a light source when we get inside the cave, right? So with a little more bashing, I just might be able to... there!" A few sparks come from the rocks, falling onto the end of the stick and making a small flame. Xavier cups his hands at the end of the stick and starts to softly blow on it, until a full open flame was created. Ace marveled at Xavier's creation, staring at the beautiful open flame glowing brilliantly at the end of the stick. "Awesome! That'll work perfectly!"

The cave itself was huge inside, the torch and sunlight working together to reveal dripping walls and warp pipes of every color. It was actually quite beautiful as the wet walls reflected orange light, giving a rainbow-ish hue to them. The team ventured into the cavern, so far not a single enemy in sight. Things were looking up, but Xavier was worried about the karma his thoughts held.

Quickly enough, they found an item block floating in the cave. Xavier handed the torch to Ace and jumped up, doing a half flip in midair and delivering an arc kick to the base of the block. A small jingle played and a mushroom fell from the block, which Ace caught. It was dark green, and had white stars upon its surface. Ace perked up as Xavier muttered something about being crazy powerful.

"This is it! Man, that was easy! Woo-hoo!" "Ace, hush up! Toadrem said something about enemies here, and you might alert them!" Xavier hissed, causing the Yoshi to cover his mouth and mutter a quick apology. Ace handed back the torch and looked up at the cavernous walls. "We... should get out of here. I'm sensing something approaching."

"Ah, but I'm afraid you're too late~" A disgustingly sweet voice sounded. But from where? Xavier and Ace looked around to find nothing. That was until a freaky scuttling sound came from above them, meaning only one thing.

Before either could react, a large caterpillar like creature crawled down the left wall of the cavern, blocking out the entrance. Since the entrance had sunlight, and they didn't venture too far, their main source of light was gone. They only had the torch to make out the creature in front of them.

"Well, speak of the fucking devil and it shall appear. What exactly do you want?" Xavier asked, crossing his arms over his chest and holding the torch over his shoulder. The creature cackled softly, sending chills down the duo's spines. "Why, dearie, I am a Wiggler. And to put it simply, I'm all too pleased your foolish King has sent yet another meal my way~" To the left of the Wiggler, Xavier and Ace would make out an abundant amount of corpses that would only belong to Toads. The Yoshi shuddered.

"Since the hell when do Wiggler eat people...?" Xavier quietly questioned. Nonetheless, he prepared himself by getting into a battle pose along with Ace. The Yoshi spoke up. "We're getting out of here with this Refreshroom, and you can't do anything to stop us!"