Mewtwo, after his inspection, had concluded that the Sword of Darkness is one of the most evil things he has ever seen, and that it must be destroyed. So, of course, it had to be destroyed.
And so, the questers called forth the foremost authority on magical items: Link. His opinion was that "You must go and cast this sword into Mt. Doom... err... I mean Death Mountain!" Of course, that was Young Link, who had been watching way too much Lord of the Rings recently. The Questers demanded a second opinion from the young one's elder counterpart. And so, Young Link went to fetch him... "HEY, BIG BRO!!! GET IN HERE!!!!! THE QUESTERS WANT TO TALK TO YA!!!!"
Link came in, his finger noodling around in his pointy ear. "AHH!!! Not so loud! Sheesh! What is it?" Young Link looked up at him.
"They want to know if throwing the sword in that safe over there into Death Mountain will destroy it."
"Death Mountain? Sure! That stuff'll fry ANYTHING."
But the Questers were not satisfied. They wanted a third opinion. And so, Link sent for Zelda...
"ZEEEELLLLDAAAAAA!!!! GET IN HERE!!!! NOW!!!!! THE QUESTERS WANT TO TALK TO YA!!!!!!!!!"
And Zelda came, her finger noodling around in her pointy ear. "LINK! WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT SCREAMING!?"
"Uhh... don't do it?"
"Right. Now, what's the problem?"
The Questers explained their dillemma, and Zelda, after much thought, responded...
"...These pretzels are making me thirsty."
The fair princess then instructed them to go to Death Mountain, and cast the sword into the crater, to which Young Link indignantly responded "I COULD'VE TOLD 'EM THAT!"
And so, Mewtwo, using his psionic abilities, "phoned" the Gorons at Death Mountain to order some Red Tunics... even if he was disappointed with the Questers' performance in Dreamland, he wasn't about to send them to a horrible flaming death inside Death Mountain... though it appeared he would have no choice. He soon learned that the Gorons were in the middle of a terrible Red Tunic shortage.
The Questers (among them Aribar, Gibby, Demon, StarSteel, and SkyHigh and Metal who were both dumb enough to volunteer for this) set out for Death Mountain, their tasks: To investigate this tunic shortage and destroy the sword (which was still in those three safes, which poor Gibby had the misfortune of having to carry). They entered the Goron city and went to see Darunia. Meanwhile, Aribar was messing around outside with a bunch of bomb plants and that big pot in the middle of the city. Darunia told them that a strange man had taken all the Red Tunics in the city and brought them into a mysterious temple that had appeared over the crater, capping the mountain, and making things rather chilly for the Gorons, who were used to thousand-degree heat.
Upon exiting Darunia's chamber, the Questers suddenly exploded. No, this was not the work of an evil GM. This was the result of Aribar trying to chuck bomb plants into that pot and failing miserably. And with that, the Questers vowed revenge, and chased Aribar up the slopes of Death Mountain.
As they neared the entrance of the crater, there was but one last wall to climb... unfortunetly, the Tektites that made this area their home were none too pleased to see them.
After a bit of a tough scrape, which included Questers leaping off of the wall and Metal hurling a Tektite off of the mountain, the Tektites were finally all killed, and the Questers were able to move on, into the boiling hot crater of Death Mountain. They knew that they would have to be careful, or else they would surely perish in that horrible place...
Upon entering Death Mountain Crater, the Questers saw before them a temple of COLOSSAL proportions... and, naturally, they decided to enter it. Upon entering, they encountered what might possibly have been the most difficult puzzle they had ever seen... which is saying quite a bit, considering this might have been one of the easiest puzzles in existance.
The majority of the room was occupied by a pit filled with hot coals, which was about 50 feet deep. To the left of the room, there was a superheated door and several buttons. To the right, a tiny ledge with a several loose decorative blocks at regular intervals. In the pit were six platforms, all aligned in a straight line, leading up to the sixth platform, which was large and circular, and had a chest with a piece of red cloth dangling out of it...
"THE TUNICS!!!" Everyone shouted in unison. The Questers leaped to the first platform... only to find that the second was out of reach. In order to get across safely, they would have to rush against time and extreme heat to solve the puzzle. StarSteel first experimented with the buttons on the left. Upon stepping on one, the platforms would conveniently move closer together. Meanwhile, SkyHigh checked the ledge on the right, and tried to move the blocks. He concluded that they needed to move the blocks onto the switches... though he couldn't have been more wrong. Every time he tried to move a block, it would fall in between the platforms. Now, as stated previously, it was a fifty foot drop into the pit, which was filled with hot coals. Apparently, Sky's perception of depth and space had left him for a fleeting moment, and he leaped into the pit to retrieve the MASSIVE blocks from the pit that he couldn't POSSIBLY climb out of. He repeated this action twice, causing him to lose a life.
Finally, after much heat damage (which nearly killed a number of Questers), StarSteel concluded that, in order to get across, they needed to stand on the switches (while also putting the safe on one of them) while one of them jumped across and grabbed the tunics. Everyone else stood on the switches, and Star jumped across the platforms. On each platform, StarSteel encountered a Lizalfos, but they turned out to be quite pathetic combatants, and Star was able to proceed on... until finally, he reached the last platform... where he met a GIANT Lizalfos. Luckily, he was able to hurl it into the pit... but...
"YAAAAAHHHAAHAHAHAHAAHHHHHH!!!!!!" The Lizalfos burned its butt on the coals, and jumped back out... landing right by the other Questers. After a quick fight, StarSteel FINALLY made it back with the tunics, and everyone put them on. The place didn't seem so hot anymore, and that superheated door was now merely a lukewarm door. The Questers finally entered to find the most startling sight they had ever seen....
...A Goron shop.
"Hurrrr! Gurt day to ye, zurrz!
"Since when do Gorons talk like moles from Redwall?"
"Shut up, Gibby!"
The Questers took this opportunity to re-stock on the supplies they used up recovering from the heat damage, and then some. Aribar, feeling in the spirit of Christmas (although this was still November when this happened, mind you), donated 300 coins to StarSteel so that he could buy a Home-Run bat. The Goron, touched by Aribar's generosity, gave him an SP jar. SkyHigh, however, was NOT in the same holiday spirit... enraged by the fact that the Goron was charging him more than everyone else, he lashed out at Metal. (In retrospect, Metal did partially provoke Skyhigh, what with poking him in the eye and all. However, Skyhigh somehow forgot he had a helmet on and acted as if Metal's metallic finger had actually touched his eye.) After a few attacks, StarSteel felt that he needed to be taught a lesson, and tossed him back into the pit of hot coals. He came right back out a la the Lizalfos earlier, and was about to attack StarSteel when...
"...And to think I called you my student..."
"OOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHH Sky's in TROOUBLE!!!!!"
And trouble indeed is what Sky was in. Alys had shown up, and she wasn't happy to see her pupil picking on the other Questers. With a MASSIVE burst of strength, Sky was sent flying through the ceiling, never to be seen again. Well, at least until he showed up back at Quester HQ later, penniless and distraught. Alys took Sky's place in the party.
The next day, the Questers were joined by Kinnin. Meanwhile, StarSteel borrowed a cart from the Goron to help carry the safe. With that, the Questers moved on, not knowing what danger awaited them ahead...
"Lord Zio, everything is going as planned. The Questers are walking right into my clutches..."
"Very good, Dagon. Retrieve the sword and give them a befitting funeral. I shall be there to check your progress as soon as I am done with my business here."
"Yes, my lord."
"WOAH! Hold on guys!" Kinnin said. Everyone stopped and turned back.
"Ahh, what is it NOW?"
"This place is probably loaded with traps... we'd best be careful."
"Ahh careful-shmareful! I know what I'm doing. GAH!!!" StarSteel stepped on a pressure plate, nearly taking a spike through the foot...
"See what I mean? Loaded with traps... baka."
Kinnin had no clue how true his words were until even MORE spikes shot out of the walls on either side of the passage ahead, blocking their way..
"Oh, great. Just great. NOW what do we do?"
StarSteel had an idea. He stepped up to the spike, and whacked it as hard as he possibly could with his home-run bat. It flew into a wall, and the spikes ahead parted. "You were saying?"
The gang continued forward, activating plates and whacking spikes as they went (StarSteel made the mistake of KICKING one of them, thus getting that spike through the foot that he missed earlier), until finally, only ONE was left. The rest of the group ran around the plate to the door at the end of the hallway, but Kinnin and Star stayed behind...
"Everyone stand back!" Kinnin leveled his gun with the plate... and StarSteel, who got a little nervous, ran ahead to join the others... right when Kinnin shot the plate. Needless to say, StarSteel became the most gruesome sight in Smash Quest history. For a time.
After the last plate was taken care of, StarSteel returned on a platform as usual, in a very stabby mood. The Questers opened the door... and what did they find, but an old friend of theirs from Oddworld: A Big Bro Slig! Faced with a GIANT gun, the Questers decided it would be best to come quietly...
They eventually arrived in a scene not unlike Boss Nass's chamber in Otoh Gunga from Star Wars: Episode 1... but instead of the Ocean all around them, they saw molten lava. At the head seat sat a man in dark red armor, who stood in the Questers' presence.
"Ahh, the Smash Questers, I see... and right on time, too!" Aribar stepped forward.
"Who are you and why are you doing this?"
"You may call me Dagon! And I see the lovely miss Brangwin is with you? Ah, I see you are just as lord Zio described!"
Everyone but Alys (who just started to look really angry) gulped and stared wide-eyed at the mention of Zio.
"Z...Zio?"
"Haha, yes! Zio! You see, I am one of the Quester Hunters, an organization assembled by the great Count Dracula himself to wipe your presence from the face of this world."
"THAT'S SADISTIC!"
"What's sadistic, my friend, is the slaughtering and killing of innocent vampires! Now, my Slig, give me that safe."
The Questers tried to hold on to the safe tight, but the Slig was just too big and too strong. Dagon broke through the safe with his bare fist, and pulled out the Sword of Darkness, which morphed into a jagged blade appropriate of a weapon as evil as it. He grinned evilly from behind his dark helmet, and looked down at the Questers.
"Fare well, my enemies..."
Instantly, the floor just dropped out from under the Questers. They fell into a room as dark as a patch of midnight that had never been cleared away, landing on each other.
"ACK! HEY! Watch it!"
"AHH! ..Sorry Alys..."
"...Hey, whut was that?"
"I dunno."
"Sounds familiar....."
"Should we go take a look?"
"Hey, who's there?"
"...Aint that Aribar?"
"I think it is, Abe!"
"ABE!? MUNCH!? Where are you guys!? What are you doing here!?"
"Hang on, we'll find ya..."
After much stumbling around in the dark, they FINALLY bumped into a light switch. The two Oddworld heroes joined up with the Questers, explaining that they were here to save their Mudokon pals, and everyone proceeded through the now found door, hoping that things would get better.
"Try moving it this way."
"NO! That's the way it was when we STARTED!"
"Well maybe if we..."
"You're just messing it up even MORE!"
"Abe, you holding that button down?"
"Eeeeyup."
"All right, let's try... THIS!"
The Questers were struggling with a slide puzzle of some sort in the depths of Death Mountain. They were locked in a room filled with machines, and, if Abe wasn't holding that button down, a counter would start ticking down from ten to zero... and they did NOT want to find out what happens when that counter hits zero.
After solving many puzzles, the Questers finally gave up, and just let the counter start ticking down...
10... 9... 8...
"You sure this is a good idea?"
"No, but I'd rather be blown up than solve another one of those STUPID puzzles."
7...6...5...
"...We're all gonna die when that thing hits..."
"Ahh, shaddup Abe!"
4...3...2...
"NOOOO!"
Abe rushed to the reset button... but it was too late.
1...0...
As the counter hit 0...
...The doors opened.
"...What? Where's the explosion?"
"...WHAT THE HECK KIND OF DEFECTIVE TRAP IS THIS?"
"Oh, just shut up. We've got stuff to do."
The group entered a sewage area from there... where they battled familiar enemies from their past: Octorocks and Octorocks on crack! After much hard fighting, the group moved on through the sewer, finally coming to... that's right.. MORE Octorocks on crack... one of which blew a hole in the wall with its super-powered beam.
All right, I'm getting SICK of writing this chapter. This is driving me NUTS. Let me just sum up the rest of this chapter for you.
-Metal found an ancient sword-the Sword of Light, to be exact-in the hole blown open by the octorock.
-The group moved on to a shop owned by one of Abe's Mudokon pals, who had an unusual attraction to shiny things, as well as fluffy things, for that matter, who would only allow them to use his elevator if he brought them a shiny, fluffy mushroom.
-Aribar made the Mudokon's head explode when he asked him to locate himself.
-A Stalfos that had recently been defeated managed to come up and stab Alys in the shoulder, disabling her for a part of the mission.
-After defeating Volvagia and beating a GIANT skulltulla, the Questers acquired the Shiny Fluffy Mushroom in the Dark World.
-Abe and Munch were able to resurrect their Mudokon pal with some spooce they found.
-The elevator took the Questers up to Dagon's chamber, where they battled the warlord of fire himself! He shifted from human to draconic form, and darn near toasted the Questers before he exploded, bringing the whole temple down around them, and transporting them all back to Death Mountain Crater, as it was before the Temple appeared. The showdown commenced, and Dagon drew the Sword of Darkness. Things were looking bleak, but StarSteel was able to use the Sword of light to counter his dark powers. Dagon got cocky, and shouted that he was the greatest fighter in the world, which angered Zio who had just shown up, and provoked him into killing Dagon.
-The Questers then held off Zio, who managed to take back the Sword of Darkness after everyone found out that *BUM BUM BUUUM* IT CANNOT BE DESTROYED BY LAVA! Luckily, they were able to keep the Sword of Light out of his hands and bring it back to the stadium, where they were handsomely rewarded for a job well done.