Chapter 17: Flower Power Over The Cliffs of Dover.
“She’s already flat on her back, that lazy…”
“Selan!”
“I was just kidding. Come on, let’s just carry her to their home.”
“I was almost expecting you to pitch a jealous fit, Selan. You impress me.”
“Guy, there’s a time and a place for everything, and this is not the time for that.”
“You can deal living on water and bread crumbs for a while, right?”
“Um… Selan, I’m sure even a small town like this has a health coverage system or something.”
“I… was just kidding.”
“Selan, you’re a harsh mistress, aren’t you?”
“Oh, you have nooooo idea.”
“Ohoho. Say no more.”
“He’s right, though. I’ll jump him any chance I get, both literally and figuratively.”
“It’s a shame this bed is already taken, though.”
“Aaaand there goes the innocence of the children. Good going, you two.”
“Um…. oops.”
“Yes, that’s exactly the sort of thing we’d like to hear from someone who collapsed from exhaustion ten minutes ago. You get back into that bed, woman, and you close those eyes.”
“You’re… not listening, are you?”
“Well, when women are being difficult, there’s just one thing to do.”
“I mean… why would we care about her opinions and right to choose?”
“Free will dictates that this girl is going to go exploring a mountain and, let’s be clear about this; she will get killed. I don’t necessarily think we should make all her decisions for her, but I’m thinking a little restraint is in order when someone is in the process of making a really stupid decision.”
“I…. know. I know, OK? It was just a kneejerk response. I’m sorry.”
“Remember her king, Maxim. He wasn’t exactly a beacon of gender equality.”
“I know. I’m… sorry too. But this girl isn’t going to last long if she ventures outside town. Which means she’s around the same level as almost everyone else.”
“Do you guys often fight like this?”
“No, we’re usually too busy… well, fighting.”
“Outside, that is. Against monsters. Because… well, nobody else can.”
“Well, that’s… one way of letting off some steam, I guess. Also, once again; the children….”
“Ever since we had a child, me and Maxim have taken turns using drowsy to get a good night’s sleep while the other takes care of the baby.”
“And here I thought women were better equipped for dealing with hungry babies.”
“We do use a bottle too.”
“I would too, if I couldn’t get my regular snoozes.”
“Pshyeah, let’s see how that goes when you have kids.”
“Right! Could you see that happening?”
“Not really, but I imagine Jessy might be willing and able to do something about that.”
“Let’s hear it from Mr. Big Macho Man Randy; Horticulturist, poet and thinker.”
“Well, you know what they say: you can lead a whore to culture…”
“That wasn’t even your joke, you thief.”
“Maybe not, but didn’t we have a place to get to?”
“Well, we’re walking between some minor hills and some bigger mountains to find a very specific mountain. It’s a case of ‘how will we know?'”
“It’s very easy. We just walk into stuff until the scenery changes. Problem solved.”
“It must be nice living in an alternative world.”
“’cause I am an alternative gi-.. you know what? That joke isn’t something I want to be known for.”
“Too late, AlternaGirl.”
“Yes, it’s Flower Mountain. And it’s full of flowers.”
“…..”
“Or not?”
“Well, there are rocks.”
“What the…”
“Is that a… mouse? Or a rat?”
“Or a lemming?”
“Or a…. bear?”
“…sure, why not?!”
“A Lunar bear? He’s a long way from home, isn’t he?”
“Let’s give him a helping boot… up his Lunar butt, that is.”
“THAT’S RIGHT, PARDNER! YOU KNOW WHAT TIME IT IIIIIS!”
“KEEP ON POSIN’, BABY!”
“So, when is it Miller time already?”
“Don’t hold your breath.”
“The big irony is that we can never use this in battle.”
“Well, that sucks. I would like to bash some skulls in with this big baby.”
“Not only are they trampling people’s lawns, but they are also apparently leaving these huge man-eating plants. I knew those gnomes were evil, but this…”
“Somehow, I don’t think this is the flower we’re supposed to find.”
“Well, at least they are flowers. This is ‘Flower Mountain’, after all.”
“You were saying?”
“Beats me. But I guess ‘Rock Mountain’ would be a little bit too redundant.”
“Oh? I would love to live on Rock Mountain. It’s got the best soundtrack.”
“Heeey. You guys aren’t flowers at all.”
“The stuff they’re raising isn’t the kind that smells like roses either.”
“Thank you for that lovely mental… uh, scent.”
“YOU KNOW WHAT TIME IT IS!”
“Well, doesn’t it feel like we just passed the idiot test or what?”
“At least that old guy isn’t around to be all patronizing and treatings us all like three-year old’s.”
“Who now?”
“You… don’t wanna know.”
“Having to combine hammer use AND hookshot use? Man, they’re pulling out all the puzzle stops this time around.”
“Who knows? Maybe we’ll have to hammer a hookshot bomb later, while firing arrows at switches from moving platforms.”
“And that’s just for starters.”
“So… what do you guys want to fight? The huge ferret or the… uh, orc… American football player?”
“Or a biker?”
“Let’s just keep the fight…. not confusing.”
“Ferret it is, then.”
“Aw, poopie. We need a key.”
“I… think I know what this key is going to be called.”
“BUT BEFORE THAT….”
“What the hell?!”
“I got a bad feeling about this.”
“Oh, it’s just Tron.”
“Yep. It’s the ‘spikes up the butt’ edition.”
“Guys, talk if you must, but don’t stop walking. Please.”
“All that just so we could blow up a wall.”
“Hey, I’ll suffer any pain for the opportunity to blow stuff up.”
“You were the party leader, so you don’t get to talk about suffering pain.”
“Now, now, Guy. You’re a big boy now. Just pull down your pants, and I’ll put some band-aids on your ouchies.”
“Hey! Jessy’s the only one allowed to do the hands-on approach on this bum.”
“So says the guy who was all ready to save some maidens a few towns ago.”
“You studly studmuffin, you.”
“OK, the egg and the ring I can understand, but… flying ax?”
“It’s the axe that doesn’t give a flying f-..”
“YES THANK YOU TO BE SHUTTING UP NOW!”
“Seriously, Guy. We have some language standards here. Think of the children.”
“Oh, what was I thinking. They almost learned some bad words along with all the murder and sexy, sexy implications.”
“Well, here we are at the top, and there’s been little to no flowers yet. Remind me why they call this mountain ‘Flower Mountain’ again.”
“Hey, don’t ask me.”
“You were the one who wanted to go here the most.”
“That doesn’t have anything to do with this!”
“The what now?”
“Well, uh… I guess it’s a… plant, at least?”
“We shall unleash the full potential of potassium in our enemies diets.”
“Or maybe it’ll bitchslap the enemy with its bush.”
“I’m… not going to touch that comment.”
“Hurhur.”
“Uh…. could we please forget I ever said that?”
“I don’t think I can ever unsee THAT mental image.”
“Oh, thank God; a place we are allowed to jump down. Kind of pisses me off that we could’ve done that in a lot of places, but noooo… nobody thought of actually drawing some arrows there.”
“We need an officially sanctioned arrow patrol, tasked with inspecting all the surrounding landscapes, drawing arrows for people to jump down.”
“That would truly be a boon for mankind. Save us a whole lot of trouble of having to think for ourselves and stuff.”
“Oh, for the love of… this place needs some pest control.”
“Time to pull out the weed-whacker and whip up a batch of rodenticide while we’re at it.”
“And what do we do with biker orc? Call the cops?”
“Nah, for that, I recommend a big can ‘o vigilante whoopass.”
“Hmmmm. Which body part should I cut off first?”
“Given how fancy these guys get with their swordplay, it’s a miracle there haven’t been any self-inflicted decapitations.”
“Well, he shouldn’t go around poking his nose in other people’s business.”
“That’s still no flowers.”
“At least it’s plant-based.”
“Until we cut it down, anyway.”
“Eh, there’s still some greenery around.”
“Oh, Christ, not this again.”
“No, there’s something different about this.”
“I… uh, it’s a spiky labyrinth now?”
“That’s just weird.”
“Step lightly. We don’t want our shoes perforated.”
“Can we reach that door?”
“I guess not.”
“Cheer up. That means we get to take the long way around.”
“Oh, joy.”
“So, when we appear from the side, this thing forms a different labyrinth. That’s… ingenious, I guess.”
“But where does ‘labyrinth of spikes’ fit into ‘Flower Mountain’?”
“In the same boat as everything else not flower related, I guess.”
“This isn’t flowers either.”
“That’s no reason to cut it down, though.”
“What do you mean? That’s the best reason.”
“Gah! What is this?”
“Looks like we’re in for a looooot of battles.”
“And the whole party’s here too. Plants, necromancers, pigmen AND bignoses.”
“All the better to cut off, my dear.”
“Right on the nose about that.”
“Maybe we should stop picking on them.”
“I’ll pick those noses any day.”
“Dude, ewww.”
“Niiiice. Someone’s gonna feel the burn from this point forth.”
“If you ask me, I think someone’s missing the point of a sword.”
“Yeah, I thought so.”
“Let’s jam it into the ground and see if a door grows.”
“No, we need Seed keys for that.”
“Of course.”
“Boingy boingy boingy.”
“I don’t think our spines will be very grateful for this.”
“Well, we can’t exactly climb these small rocks.”
“Why not?”
“Well, because… um… because I said so?”
“Oh, OK.”
“This has got to be it. Once we enter the room, there will be flowers everywhere.”
“That would be nice, because I’m getting fed up with this place.”
“Hey, you were the one who wanted to go here, Randy Savage.”
“We established the fact that these guys aren’t flowers earlier, right?”
“Yep.”
“We could always turn them into good fertile ground for some, though.”
“Not sure why you’d expect flowers to grow inside a cave, though.”
“Normally, I’d agree, but if eagles can find it within themselves to live inside a cave, I’m not going to take anything for granted.”
“Wait, seriously?”
“Yeah, back when Tia was the only other party member, we were spelunking inside this cave. And it wouldn’t be the last enemy encounter that didn’t make any sense either.”
“Time to start savin’ with the stars.”
“But first, let’s refill… something.”
“Yeah, I forgot what this thing does as well.”
“Wait, is that…?”
“Can it be?!”
“It’s a flower. But is it that flower?”
“I… guess not.”
“What the hell is a ‘Rogue Flower’ anyway?”
“When flowers walk on the wild side. Or grow, I should say.”
“It’ll pick our pockets if we turn our backs to it.”
“And it’ll charm the panties off the ladies.”
“I prefer a kingly meal myself.”
“And here I thought food was the way to a MAN’S heart.”
“The more you know, huh?”
“I sure hope so. Fighting flowers is kind of weirding me out.”
“Tell me about it. It got particularly creepy when Selan started that ‘he loves me, he loves me not’ thing while cutting it down, petal by petal.”
“Tell me about it. That wasn’t a side of her I particularly cared to learn about.”
“Well, it’s… white.”
“That’s… not the best kind of implication, huh?”
“If you’re dead set on reading too much into it; no. No, it isn’t.”
“So, whaddya think about that, Megaman? Sure beats any old powerup any day of the week, huh?”
“Flower Power. It’s the best kind of power.”
“Yeah, so I hear those damn hippies say.”
“Well, that was… not the most exciting of excursions.”
“At least it got us out of the house.”
“What’cho talkin’ bout, Willis? I don’t think I’ve lived in a house since…”
*COUGH*
“….uh, since we went out on a new journey?”
“Ohoho, nearly stepped into the big pile there, huh, Maxim?”
“Mint or strawberry?”
“The what in the where now?”
“Strawberry, please.”
“I guess that leaves mint for us guys.”
“Mmmmm. Fresh.”
“Morning? It’s evening now.”
“Uh…. oops?”
“I guess we shouldn’t have cast drowsy on her so early.”
“Well, them’s the breaks, I guess.”
“That was the general idea, yes.”
“You’ll get a good price because you’re good people.”
“And by that, we mean for free, and an elbow in the side for Maxim.”
*oof* “I was just kidding.”
“Well, we weren’t exactly expecting you to eat it. Of course we picked it so you could grow a whole lot of them.”
“That’s… uh, nice. Sounds all plant’y and stuff.”
“Thank God we had a boy.”
“Ye-..wait, what?”
“That was our deal. If we had a boy, I could choose the name. If we had a girl, Selan got to choose.”
“Insinuating something, dear?”
“Nonono. I’m just saying it’s a… um… nice name. For a flower, that is.”
“Well, we are clearly wasting our time being heroes.”
“We all have our part to play, Maxim. Some plant flowers, while others run them through with their swords.”
“Uh… Selan, maybe we should take this conversation outside.”
“I’ll say. Look, her eye is twitching now.”
As this somewhat bizarre side quest is completed, our heroes feel they have done their part to make the world a more beautiful place. And so, the issues with the flowers and the overworked girl behind them, they are free to return to more pressing concerns.
“Oh, we were just off picking some flowers.”
“And stabbing some others.”
“….on second thought, I don’t want to hear about it.”