A bit of a shorter one today, but I wanted to get out a second update this weekend to help move the story along. For story purposes I moved the perspective over to the bookkeeper, for those who are like me and can never pick out these things while reading.
---
Deep within a Koopa fortress 6 koopas stand around a pile of supplies. One koopa is almost passed out next to this pile, one koopa is poking this him with the handle of an axe from the pile.
---
The group of five koopas who would soon be sent out to Modded Hell were standing around their pile of supplies, debating what should be kept and what should be left behind. This issue didn't concern the bookkeeper, so he was entertaining himself by attempting to wake up the head brute. "Come on you drunken idiot, I need you to help me handle these peasants." the bookkeeper gave him another hard poke on the shell with the axe handle in his hand. The head brute made no effort to get up, he only rolled over and drunkenly mumbled "Quit harrassing me mom, I just want to sleep for five more minutes. I don't care if we miss the public execution, I'm tired.". It was a fruitless endeavor, but the bookkeeper had little else to do so he continued. While he did so, he looked around the room to see if anyone had come to a decision. The 8 trolls that had been asked a few minutes ago to move the supplies up to the wagon had retreated to the bar while they waited. Luckily, the debate between the other five koopas was very one sided, with Gwolfski making most of the decisions.
"To maximize the use of our embark points we should leave the wheelbarrow and stepladder here, as they are incredibly expensive and will only cost us one log to make ourselves. Most of these extra bags should also be left, because all of these seeds come in their own bags. If we ever need more bags we can always just empty the seeds into a barrel. We should leave all but one of each of the power up seeds, because they are also very expensive and will help us little in founding the fort. If we ever need more we can always buy them from a caravan later in the fort's life when we need them. This should give us approximately 800 extra embark points that we can use for extra supplies and animals. Any suggestions for what we might want to bring?" Gwolfski looks at the rest of the group, still with his guarded expression. This caused the other four to look at each other, hoping that someone had an idea of what might be useful to bring.
Mottled Petrel takes a glance back at the trolls "Uhh, how about some more meat. I'm pretty sure that trolls are strictly carnivores, so it'd be good to have some more food for them. Plus, we're going to need some meat to start building fortifications with. Other than that... I think we should just bring animals." Gwolfski made sure that no one else had any suggestions. Nothing else was put forward "Very well" he turned to the bookkeeper who was still poking the head brute "We would like to request triple the amount of meat we have here currently, and that this pile is left behind so we can use our embark points for animals." he gestured to the pile they had made with the stepladder and the other supplies they wished to leave behind. The bookkeeper turned to see what they wanted to leave behind and sighed. He sighed because he realized that there was now someone in the expedition who wasn't an idiot, meaning that he'd have a much harder time trying to get them to bring useless crap and waste their embark points. But he wasn't a broker, so how much the state actually lost on this expedition wasn't his concern. It was only his job to document it, and document it he would. He took out his ledgers and began scribbling the changes to the embark supplies, also making a note to inform the king that the state should be wary of how much embark points they give expeditions, because all it took was one koopa to realize that they were being ripped off...
He'd deal with it later, the trolls were already beginning to pick up the supplies and he only had two hours to dump all of the useless extra animals he could on these fools before he was needed in the boiler rooms to count how much coal the mountain home had left. "I have noted the changes you've made to your supplies. These changes aren't final, but for the sake of efficiency I don't want to send a runner up to the wagon every time you decide to forgo a seed or two, so please try to make as little changes as possible. In addition, you don't have a terribly long time to pick out your animals, so let's get to it.". So as to not give them time to actually make a plan, the bookkeeper started making his way out of the troll pen. Gwolfski looked like he was about to lay out another plan, but was cut short by the rest of the koopas walking towards the exit.
Mottled Petrel ran up to the bookkeeper right as he got to the door "Hey, uh, do you have a list of the available animals or something? You're the bookkeeper and all, it would help us if-" "I didn't have time to grab my records before I came here, and without them I haven't the faintest clue what's down here. We're going off of a 'you see it, you like it, you get it' basis. I do know that there are plenty of things down here that the state has been trying to get rid of for years, so chances are no one will mind if you take them for next to nothing." Mottled Petrel looked a little disappointed that there was no available list, but also glad that this was being done pretty informally. The bookkeeper opened the door with another sigh, and was startled to find that there was something resembling a large, feather covered scorpion resting on the outside of the door. Whatever it was, it quickly clambered up the door and disappeared over the top of the building. The bookkeeper shivered, but continued on his way. Mottled Petrel looked to his right to see Urlance Woolsbane hoist a now bandage covered Stingpie over his shoulder. Farther right still was the mini bunker that was the laser ceratosaurus pen. Even from at the door of the next pen over, the bookkeeper could hear the lasers and cries of rage as the monsters inside tried to break their way out.
"Do you think we could a few of them?" Mottled Petrel asked, pointing his thumb across the moat "How much are they going for?" "Pphhff, we've been trying to get rid of them for as long as we've had them. I'd personally pay you to take some, but since I can't, and don't actually want to, they'll be just one embark point each. We'll wait for them to calm down and hopefully get a muzzle on them. After that, they'll be your problem." Mottled Petrel didn't seem to understand the gravity of the mistake he was making "We'll take two breeding pairs". The bookkeeper couldn't help but snicker at the realization that he'd be able to easily dump all kinds of unwanted animals onto these guys with Mottled Petrel in charge. He marked them down for the four most dangerous and unruly laser ceratosaurs the mountainhome had. "All right, four of our more well behaved laser ceratosauruses. Let's continue down the hall and see if there's anything else you like.". The other four koopas finally caught up with the bookkeeper on the fungus lawn, Mottled Petrel didn't mention his request for laser ceratosauruses, which would probably come back to haunt him.
Gwolfski looked like he was going to try to tell the group his plan again, but was interrupted by a growing ruckus further down the hall. It seemed that a medikoopa was busily trying to console a fungus tree while a gaurd stood watch next to him. From the top of the tree came a mix of loud grumblings and broken koopish. 'Oh gods, is that another crazy we have to ship out.' thought the bookkeeper "HEY! What the hell are you two doing over there? We don't need anymore tree loving hippies in this fort!". The guard looked over and yelled back "Come over here and I'll tell you about it, I'm not going to yell it all!". 'You're fucking lucky I'm on my way over there anyways, or I'd send you both to the jail cells under the pretense of tree loving' thought the bookkeeper, pushing his way into the knee high grass.
As he got closer he could start making out what the medikoopa was saying to the tree "...up there for days. You can't keep living like this Enemy Post, I know you aren't a savage so why can't you come with us and start doing something with your life?" the medikoopa said up to the tree, where a koopa and a dinosaur of some kind could be seen. The koopa in the tree was very dirty with a wild head of hair. Over his shell was what appeared to be a dinosaur skin of some kind that had been shoddily turned into a toga. The dinosaur behind him was a theropod that was about 5 feet long with short but usable arms, it had a long tail and looked like it was VERY uncomfortable with being up in a tree. The koopa in the tree, Enemy Post was apparently his name, growled back "NEVER! No way but hunter way! No way but dinosaur way! Never come down, never stop hunting." He spat some lighting down at the medikoopa, not with enough strength to do any damage, but strong enough to splatter all over the medikoopa's face. The medikoopa slowly wiped the splatter off of his face, to reveal the expression of someone who has lost all of their patience.
"I can't keep doing this Lord_lemonpie, I'm a physician not a therapist. This guy's really grinding my gears and I've had enough of him!" the guard, Lord_lemonpie, looked up into the tree to see Enemy post beating his chest while growling profanities "I don't blame you Moony, but you're the closest thing we've got to a therapist.". The bookkeeper and the 5 expedition koopas were now close enough to have a reasonable conversation, Lord_lemonpie noticed this and answered the bookkeeper's questions before he even asked them "This guy's been down here causing problems for a while now. He just walks around killing off our livestock at random and then eating them with his ornitholestes up there. He hasn't even learned any skills from it, the animals are too docile when he shoddily strangles them to death to consider it hunting, he just puts the entire animal on a spit so he isn't learning butchery, and he eats the animals whole so he isn't learning cooking. If he had actually learned something we'd have him employed and rehabilitated, but he's useless and dangerous so we're sending him off to some fort that's about to be founded called Modded Hell." he told the bookkeeper, twirling around his steel mini-chomp in boredom.
Moony kept talking to Lord_lemonpie "Give me that flask, I need something strong." Moony reached into Lord_lemonpie's backpack to pull out a zinc flask, he then took a large swig. "A bit too tangy for me, but it's okay. What is it?" he asked, capping the flask and putting it back in Lord_lemonpie's bag "Uh, I don't know, I just grabbed the first thin I saw. I remember it was in a yellow barrel in the corner of the stockpile." Moony thought about this for a moment "Hey, aren't the yellow barrels used to store-" Suddenly, a deep rumble can be heard inside Moony, followed music that seemed to resonate from his bones. The bookkeeper recognized it as the super mushroom song, but it was incredibly off key and distorted. Fear tore across Moony's face as he recognized it too "I thought that brewing a power up removed its abilities? Why the fuck do you even have this on you?" Lord_lemonpie looked mildly concerned "I thought that too, but I did notice some floating particles in the barrel, must have been brewed by a novice. But it looks like you'll be fi-" Moony's right upper arm suddenly grows 10 times larger than its previous size, with a lot of audible cracking of bones. Moony screams, and then his legs grow as well, more cracking can be heard. Finally, the rest of his body catches up, but some parts of his body look bigger than others. His scream of pain is quickly replaced by a scream of rage as he realizes his new power. He looks over at Enemy Post with a crazed grin, Enemy Post looks like he's about to shit his pants as he foresees the terrible beating he's about to get.
Moony grabs the mushroom tree with his two upper hands, and tears it straight out of the ground without so much as blinking. Enemy Post and his dinosaur fly out of the tree and land painfully near the bookkeeper. They look uninjured, but their moans of pain tell the bookkeeper that they're going to have to be dragged out. 'Good, I don't want any trouble from this guy. I'm not sure what I'm going to do about the big one though'. Moony snaps the tree between his hands like it was a toothpick and throws the two split ends at Enemy Post. Thankfully, the pieces don't hit anyone, except for a random farm hand that happened to be walking by. It doesn't look like the impact killed him, but he could easily be horribly maimed under the wreck of the tree. Moony lets loose another cry of rage, and then storms off down the hall, tearing up trees as he goes. Somewhere farther down the hall way one of the trees flying though the air hits and destroys a creature pen, about 40 pidgeys fly out and into the hallway. Before Moony could make it into the fort proper and do some serious damage the song ends, and he shrinks down to his normal size, accompanied by a sound that could only be compared to throwing a box full of skeletons down a flight of stairs.
Needless to say, Moony slumped onto the ground and stayed there. Lord_lemonpie reached into his backpack and then dumps his flask out onto the ground, anyone who was actually paying attention would have noticed that the grass below him grew an extra two inches when he did it. "Could you go check on him?" the bookkeeper asked Lord_lemonpie "and after you have a doctor look at him could you take him to the jail? When you get there there should be a left and right wing, take him to the left one" screams can be heard farther down the hall as the not quite tame pidgeys find some random farm hands that happened to be having a really unlucky day. "All right, but what's so special about the left wing?" Lord_lemonpie asked, not entirely interested, but curious nonetheless. The bookkeeper grinned as he thought about it and looked down at the ledger in his hand "Oh, nothing specific. I just thought he might like the left wing better." on his ledger he wrote 'Moony: physician. Sentenced to 30 days imprisonment, followed by lifetime in Modded Hell'. "Are you sure? If we're punishing him wouldn't we want to send him to a wing he wouldn't like-" "Just do it" snapped the bookkeeper. Lord_lemonpie did a half hearted salute, "Can do" he said as he walked to go throw his friend in jail.
'We're going to be here for years at this rate' the bookkeeper thought "Let's keep going, please, try to stop talking to people along the way so we can get this over with. I'll get someone to clean this mess up later". He started walking again, ZM5 takes the opportunity to pick up Enemy Post and sling him over his shoulder "what do we want to do with the dinosaur?". Mottled Petrel turned to answer after some thought "We'll take it with us, we'll also pick up a mate for it on the way and we'll be having -Ornitholestes roasts- in no time.". ZM5 shrugged and hoisted the dinosaur on top of Enemy Post. The group was off again.
---
Rereading this one I felt that it came out a little weird, I'd appreciate your thoughts.
Poll
5 (6.5%)
Author
Topic: The Resurgence of Modded Hell (Back, Still Broken, Now With Giant Butterflies) (Read 285010 times)