Role Play Pool Party!

Seeing both of them climb up there safely, he climbed up the side of the cliff and reached the ledge. The Ghost House was a few feet in front of where they had just climbed from, he looked to the right and there he saw it, there was an oak tree resting right to the side of the old pond. It was graying, but it looked solid enough to be able to ram an object aside. Removing the grappling hook from the ground, he brought both of them back with him and began to walk towards the oak tree to inspect it.

"If we can dig some of this earth off from around the base of the tree, I may be able to push it down from behind", he stated as he looked at the tree intently. "I didn't bring any shovels, so we'll have to clear that earth by hand."

He approached the oak tree and got down on his hands and knees. He began to scoop the dirt away, it wasn't soft dirt but it wasn't hard enough to cause any problems either.

"If thats what we have to do, then so be it. Thats what we'll do," Clive said and knelt down and started shovelling with his hands. He pushed as much dirt as he could away as he could.

She came over to the tree where Clive and Xiuhcoatl was and helped brush the dirt away from the back of the tree's base. The roots of this old, dying tree were beginning to reveal themselves. They looked so old and frail, the tree had probably been here for hundreds of years. Wiping the dirt off her hands, she nodded at her work seeing it was just roots popping up over the land. She then moved to where the other two were and helped them finish clearing the dirt away.

Digging away the last of the dirt with his hands, he stood back and looked at what they had uncovered. Enormous tree roots, popping up from the ground and digging back in like giant claws. He looked to Clive and then to Crystal and nodded.

"Okay guys, here's the plan,", he said thoughtfully. "Clive, I want you to go down to the ground level. When Crystal flies up to tie the middle of the rope to the top of one of those jagged rocks, there will be half the rope hanging down towards the ground floor and the other end of the rope up around the ledge here." Resting against the tree for a moment, he gave it a good slap with his palm. "I'll put all my weight behind the tree and knock it down to the ground up here. We'll then take my end of the rope, tie it around the middle of the tree. Then we'll join you down there, and all three of us will pull your end of the rope straight back. The tree will lift, we'll sway over to the right with the rope as hard as we can til it directs over to where we are, then we'll drop it."

He took a deep breath, that was a whopper he thought to himself. "Ready guys? Let's do this."

He continued to walk down the hallway, following the trail of lit torches. He noticed at the last lit torch on the wall, there was a large pot sitting there. "He'd never leave this behind.", Orinda said aloud, his voice echoing down the hallway. Something was up, he just knew it. With the only light coming from his own lit torch, he jogged down the dark hallway. "Kollin! Chugami!", he bellowed. Hopefully one of them would hear him...

SPLAT! The rotted and very stinky tomato splatted as far as Chugami's small arms could throw. At least, not without stepping back out into the corridor, something he most certainly did not want to do. Alone. With his torch dying.

He decided that would have to be the start of the trail. The rotten foodstuffs he had found in the pantry would hopefully lead someone here who could help him get back to some more recognizable local.

He continued holding back thoughts that there might be someone... or something... that would be distinctly less friendly wandering the corridors. Or that the castle was trying to eat him. What was it about this location that would start nibbling away at him like this...? The nebulous nature of Bowser's departure, maybe...?

Getting the rope from Xiuhcoatl, she gave Clive a pat on the back of his shell. "Come on, lets climb back down", she said cheerfully. "You hold the end of the rope and I'll fly up and tie it to the rock formations above the Ghost House."

She walked to the edge of the cliff, turned around and slowly climbed down by hand to the bottom floor.

Making his way further down the dark hallway, he started to hear the faint sound of melodious beeps. He stopped and thought to himself, either Koopa Castle was the gateway to the Metroid universe or something was down there, good or bad. Bracing himself, he continued down the hall as the sounds got louder.

Clive nodded at Crystal and slowly climbed down after Crystal to the bottom.

She waited on the ground floor as Clive arrived to meet her there. "Okay", she said, with a smile. "I want you to hold the end of the rope." Pointing to the sharp rock formations hanging on the roof of the cave above the Ghost House, she continued speaking. "I'll grab the rest of the rope, fly up to those rocks and tie the middle of the rope to them."

She offered him the end of the rope and nodded to him. "I'm ready to do this when you are."

"I'm ready as always," Clive replied and took the rope of Crystal's hand and held it tight. "Let's do this."

Taking a deep breath, Xiuhcoatl walked behind the tree and stretched out his muscles. He put all the power out of his arms, legs and back as he pushed hard against the tree. Hearing the old tree crack, the roots began to tear away from the ground as he pushed the tree towards a 45° angle. Grunting and groaning as he worked tiredlessly, he pushed up against the tree harder, feeling the tree rip the last of its roots from the earth. Giving out one last grunt, he finally knocked that old oak tree over as it came down with an earth shattering crash that echoed throughout the Dome. Stepping back, he wiped the sweat from his forehead as he waited for Crystal to tie the rope.

Grabbing the rest of the rope, she flapped her little silver wings furiously as she began to take up into the air. It took her a few moments to reach the rock formations above the Ghost House, she was at least 40 or 50 feet in the air. Her wings still flapping very quickly, they formed a bit of a pink glare as they sped over the top of her pink shell, she took the middle of the rope and flew one complete cycle around one of the rock formations. Securing it in a standard knot, she did another cycle to double knot it around the rock.. then she did one more quick cycle around, making sure it would stay secure. Right around this time, her wings began to slow down.. they were not big wings, so they could not stay in motion as long as the wings of a paratroopa. She felt her wings become tired, as she looked down. She was still 40 feet in the air, above the Ghost House.

Her wings stopped moving, they had ran out of gas.. with nothing to keep her in the air, she began to fall with a scared scream. "Help me!", she screamed as she fell faster towards the hard ledge below her.

He had been watching Crystal making her rounds with the rope, it was quite impressive.. almost beautiful. He had gone into a bit of a daydream about her, dazing off in his own world until he heard her scream. He snapped out of it and saw her falling and falling fast. If he didn't catch her, she would be seriously hurt.. Clive was on the bottom ledge, he wouldn't have far enough time to get to her before she hit the ground.

He used his tail as a pogo stick, giving him a bounce like a spring. Taking one bounce, he whipped his tail straight out to her. Just catching her above the midsection, his tail latched around her tightly. His tail came down fairly hard, but she was safely curled up inside his tail so the impact wouldn't be too severe.

He looked at her and sighed in relief. "That was a close one.", he said with a smile.

Clive who had been holding the rope dropped it in shock after he saw Crystal falling and rushed over to where she was falling to try and catch her. Seeing Xiuchoatl catch her made Clive breath a sigh of relief.

"Well done Xiuhcoatl. Nice catch," Clive said. Turning to Crystal, he said "Hey, are you okay Crystal? That was quite a fright, I was really worried for a moment."

Orinda got more worried as the mysterious beeping noises got louder and louder. Walking through the dark hallway, the lit flame of the torch directed the light upon a door. The sounds seemed to be coming from inside there, who or what was in there was beyond him or his imagination.

Approaching the door, he got brave.. whatever was in there, it had Kollin.. it had Chumagi, or both of them. Without hesitation, he kicked the door open. "STOP!", he screamed at the figure in the room.

Still clearly shaken up, she gave Xiuhcoatl a big hug around his very flexible tail. "I don't know how you did that, it was amazing", she said, still catching her breath as her heart was beating fast from the fall. "But thank you, you just saved my life."

She nodded to Clive and smiled. "Thank you, I am okay", she said in a quiet voice as the shivering began to quickly disappear from within it. "My wings are very tiny, they can not go like that for very long." She flapped them again, turning her head to look at them. "They've always been that way, as long as I can remember.. I am not sure why.", she said with a shrug.

Kissing Xiuhcoatl on the cheek as she got up, she walked over to the fallen tree and looked it over. She then looked at the end of the rope that was hanging just above it. "Assuming we're going to tie this", she said to both of them. "Xiuhcoatl, you hold the tree up from the back end just high enough for us to slip the rope up and around the tree trunk and then I can tie it."

"Anything I can do?" Clive asked walking over to Crystal and Xiuchoatl.

Xiuhcoatl nodded and got up also, he had taken a hard fall trying to catch Crystal. He did not mind though, at least she was unharmed from that potentially very serious fall. Walking over to the right end of the fallen oak tree, he used both arms to power it up a few inches off of the ground with just enough room to get a pair of arms under and around it to tie the rope securely.

Grabbing the rope from above the log, she used one hand to slide it underneath the log and caught it with the tips of the fingers on her other hand. She then held the rope tightly together with both hands as she delicately began to tie the rope around the tree trunk with a knot, running another two knots through it to make sure it was snugly secure. This log was heavy and the rope was not extremely sturdy, it had be secured in order to make it down to the ground floor without giving way. She looked to Xiuhcoatl and smiled. "Okay, the rope is secure.. now we climb down to the ground floor?"

He nodded in response to Crystal's question. "The pulley used the last of my rope, we'll have to climb down the ledge very carefully.", he said as he inspected the pulley system once more. "This should work, but we'll need to work carefully and delicately."

He stepped over to the ledge and became to climb down to the ground floor.

"Are you okay going before me Crystal? I'll stay up here and watch to make sure you get down safely. We don't want another accident like last time. Next time, you might not be so lucky," Clive said.

"I'll be okay", she assured Clive with a smile. "As long as I don't try to fly down there anyways."

Moving to the edge of the ledge, she very carefully began to climb down the cliff and down to the ground floor to meet up with Xiuhcoatl.

Clive smiled and nodded at Crystal's safe landing before beginning to climb down himself. He slowly climbed down looking both up and down to make sure he was safe. He gripped onto the ropes with his hands and began his descent to the floor below. Once he had reached the bottom, he let go of the rope.

"What do we do with the rope now? Should we leave it where it is because there's no way I'm going to let you fly up there again to retrieve it." Clive said.

Xiuhcoatl shook his head and paced about for a second stretching out his legs. "She's not going up there this time, we need a really good bounce.", he said as he stopped pacing and looked up at the rope dangling down. It was easily 15-20 feet above the ground, this would be a tough jump and would require a solid grip on the rope after he got up there.

"Guys, when I say jump and grab on.. jump.", he said, looking at Crystal and Clive. He took a deep breath, bounced on his tail like a pogo stick four times and sprung up high into the air upwards towards the rope. He came about five feet from hitting his head on the Dome's roof and came down just in time to grip both claws around the rope tightly, he had about five or six inches of rope left below his hands. He didn't have much time to slip, they'd have to do this quick or else he'd have to come down for a crash landing and try it again, if it didn't wind up hurting him. Not bothering to look down, he bellowed "Jump and grab onto my tail! NOW!", in a voice that was filled with anger yet with a hint of fear. His tail was now hanging straight down just a few feet above Clive and Crystal.

He only had a few moments to spare as the grip would not last long, dangling at least 25 feet in the air.