Paper Mario - Folded Chaos

| Chapter 5 - Talking Trees |

                                 
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                After following what seemingly was a path a bit more whilst chatting about how Mario's brother had been in the castle when it was lifted and how they needed to search for him when they got to town, Mario and Olivia came to a open area. The only thing around was a large tree stump in the middle that had a dim light shining on it and 3 small trees that really didn't seem to fit with the rest of the forest. A thick layer of fog also seemed to have descended on the little area despite there being no heavy fog in any other part of the forest they'd been in. Seeing nothing of interest to them, Mario motioned for Olivia to follow him. Olivia looked around a bit more before running to catch up to him.
              They walked down a little path on the right side of the area and — "Wait..." Olivia spoke up "Weren't we just here? — Mario looked around. Yes, this definitely looked like the area they were just in, but it couldn't be as they had just left that area. Mario walked down the right path once again, motioning Olivia to follow him again. Olivia was quick to follow him this time, pretty spooked by the whole situation.
             After walking down the right path again, they glanced around. They were in the exact same spot as before. "Mario, w-what's going on?" Olivia whispered to him, clinging to his arm. Mario shrugged and scratched his head. Olivia once again spoke up, "S-sometimes, when things get tough, I-I like to take a break to clear my head..." Mario nodded at this proposed suggestion and walked towards the stump in the middle, Olivia still attached to his arm. Both sat down on the stump and started trying to think of a solution to their current predicament. Both were quickly taken out of there thoughts, however, when a booming voice spoke up. "HEY! WHO'S THERE?" Mario and Olivia quickly searched around for the source of the voice. But they saw none, until — "You can't sit on Ol' Grandsappy's head, mister!" The duo turned to see that one of the out of place trees now had eyes. Then another sprouted eyes and started speaking, "Yeah mister! He's the elder of these woods, so you better show some respect!" And then the final one spoke, "He's still the man, honey, even if he's been logged by those nasty little toads in that campground over there!" Then the large stump in the middle also gained a set of eyes and coughed a bit before he started speaking. "Yes yes, thank you my lovely sap darlings. Bless your bark."
Mario just stood still, not really knowing how to react and Olivia hid behind him, scared of the  suddenly sentient trees. Then the stump continued, "You! What are you doing here? I don't have the energy to yell at you, lest learn you a lesson!" The old stump coughed and hacked as he finished his rant. Then, not giving the duo time to respond, the three trees spoke up again, almost talking over each other, "Grandsappy hasn't been the same since he got logged by people such as yourself!","Yeah he hasn't been himself lately!", "And Grandsappy rules over these woods and you can't leave without his permission, so you better get comfortable because you're going to be be here FOREVER!" Then the three crossed their branches as if they were crossing their arms, showing that they were done bashing the duo.
Finally Olivia came out from her hiding spot behind Mario and spoke quietly to Mario, slightly stuttering her words. "F-forever...? That's a-a long time..." Mario nodded. Then she gathered her courage and spoke directly to the old stump. "I-I'm sorry that happened to you, Mr. Grandsappy. But I can assure you we aren't like the folks who did this to you. I-if there's anyway we can assist you, we would gladly do it." She glanced back at Mario, who gave her an approving nod.
             "Hm?" The stump raised one its bark eyebrows. "Well, if what you say is true, then you may be of some help to me. Find a way to get my energy back and I may just let you leave this place." Then one of the three trees then elaborated. "We need you two to find something know as a 'Soul Seed'. We'll open up the path for you. Once you find it, bring it back and feed it to Grandsappy, ok?" The duo nodded and the three trees turned and started chatting among themselves.
            "I guess we should get searching, Mario." Olivia suggested. Mario nodded and off they went down the right path. This time they ended up on a different path rather than being stuck in a loop. Walking further down the path, they realized that this path led to the spring they had seen earlier on the cliff. Getting closer, they observed the shiny water in more detail. "Wow, this is amazing" Olivia stared at the sparkling water, eyes full of wonder. "It feels so much calmer when you're just standing near it, wouldn't you agree?" Mario mumble a quick 'yeah', still not really in the mood to talk, especially after all that has happened in such a short time. Olivia noticed that he wasn't in a chatty mood, so she continued the conversation herself. "But back to the matter at hand. We need to find that special seed if we want to get out of here. So I guess we should start by looking around this spring, right Mario?" He nodded and the duo started their hunt for the seed.
Walking by some of the trees who had now sprouted eyes as well and were now chatting out loud with each other, Mario heard something rustling in the bushes. He quickly halted Olivia and motioned behind him. Olivia obliged, hiding behind him. Pulling out his hammer, he braced for an ambush. After a few more moments of rustling, it suddenly stop. Mario took this chance to smash the bush to pieces. After smashing the bush, out popped the source of the rustling: two folded soldiers. More specifically, two Goomba folded soldier. Mario reacted quickly, smashing them into tiny pieces of confetti with his hammer. While he pulled out his confetti bag to collect the folded soldiers remains, Olivia spoke up, "How are there already folded soldiers this deep into the woods? I don't like this one bit."
              After looking around the area a bit more and almost slipping into the spring a few times and not finding anything, they decided to backtrack to where the cliff that looked over the cliff was. On their way back, they noticed a shiny pod hanging from one of the trees. Out of the bottoms of the pod, there was a dangling vine. "Oh, I've seen you've noticed that..." The tree spoke. "Everyone always says I'm trying to be a show off with it, but I don't even know where it came from! And now there's rumors going around that there's a seed inside that may help Grandsappy! Oh, this is all so overwhelming!"
              "A seed?" Olivia inquired, "Mario, it might be the Soul Seed!" "Oh, do you need the seed in this?" The tree questioned. "Well, feel free to take it. It'd make my life way easier." Upon getting permission to take it, Mario yanked on the vine attached. Snap! The vine broke. Mario threw the broken vine piece to the ground, no really knowing what to do next. Looking up into the tree's branches, he noticed something shiny. Upon seeing this, he went up to the tree trunk and pulled out his hammer. Olivia stared at him, confused. He then whacked the tree as hard as he could with his hammer. "Ow!" The tree yelped. Out fell a shiny triangle than fell to the ground and developed into a magic circle.
"What was that for?" The tree whined. Mario ignored it's cries and stepped on the magic circle, quickly activating it. Olivia glared daggers at him. Mario it shrugged off and proceeded to smash the pod that supposedly contained the seed they were searching for. Out fell what appeared to be a seed, but with all the moisture sucked out. Mario picked it up and started to hastily walk away, ignoring the tree yelling after him. Olivia quickly followed. Catching up to Mario, Olivia questioned his actions. "Why did you hit that tree? It had done nothing to us..." Mario glanced at her and then quickly turned back to the path, now with a face full of guilt. Olivia quickly noticed his guilty expression. She hated seeing her new friend upset, so she quickly changed the subject. "So uh, what did you find in the pod thingy? Was it the Soul Seed?" Mario pulled the seed out of his pocket and handed it to her. She examined it closely and quickly noticed how dry it was. "Well this is definitely a seed, but we can't give this to Mr.Grandsappy, Mario. It's so dry!" Mario nodded as Olivia returned the seed. "What can we do..." Olivia mumbled to herself. Suddenly, she had a 'aha!' moment. "Ok, I know this may sound crazy Mario, but what if we put this seed in the spring?" Mario looked at her. To him that sounded like a pretty reasonable idea. All they needed to do was water the dry seed and give it to Grandsappy and they'd be out of here. So Mario gave her a nod and quiet 'yeah'. That was enough conformation for Olivia and she quickly dashed ahead, forcing Mario to quickly run after her.

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After a bit of running, the duo made it to the large glistening spring once again. Mario sat on the ground for a bit, catching his breath. Despite being quite athletic, Mario was quite tired by everything that he had been through today. Perhaps when they finally were allowed to go to the campground, they could rest a bit. After all, through the heavy forest, he could see that the sun was going to set soon and night would soon come. He sighed. Hopefully they'd be out of here by then.
"Mario!" Mario snapped out of his thoughts and glanced up at Olivia. "Are you going to put the seed in the water?" She questioned. Mario nodded and got back on his feet and stepped near the spring. He pulled the seed out of his overalls and glanced down at it before cupping it in his gloved hands and dipping it into the spring. Despite having gloves that separated his bare hands from the water, he could still somehow feel it flowing between his fingers like silk. The water itself was a mild temperature that wasn't too cool nor too hot. The smell that radiated from it was fresh, similar to a bright spring morning after a rainy night. Everything about this spring was so relaxing, so addictive.
                Its presence was so addicting that Mario probably wouldn't have gotten away from the spring if it wasn't for Olivia's slight tap of his shoulder, pulling him back to the harsh reality. "Mario, I feel like the seed should be moist enough by now. Perhaps you should remove it from the spring." Mario obliged and remove his cupped hands from the spring. There in the middle of his hands sat the seed, now plump and completely revitalize. "Hooray!" Olivia cheered "Now we can give this to—" But her celebration cheer was cut short when a low pitched cry echoed through the forest. One of the tree next to the due freak out, clueing them in on what happened. "G-Grandsappy's hurt! Oh no oh no oh no!"
Olivia turned to Mario, "Did you hear that? Mr.Grandsappy is in trouble! We need to help him! Ooh I do hope he's okay..." Mario nodded and the duo hastily made their way back to the area that housed the old stump.

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