Mushrooms are not plants.
Mushrooms are not the point of all your dreams.
Mushrooms are not delicious.
Mushrooms are not your best friend.
Mushrooms are not the savior of the kingdom.
Mushrooms are not beds.
Somebody please tell this to the Waxman oaf next time he shows up.
~~~
The King of Ooo had Toronto kick open the doors to the main hall for him. “I declare this a surprise party insp—”
“Your highness!” Pinkie declared, bouncing up to him. “We’ve been expecting you!”
The King stumbled over his own feet. “But… this was supposed to be a surprise inspection! Who told you?”
“Nobody? I didn’t think you’d come for an inspection, I thought the food would just be irr-e-sist-able!” Pinkie leaned in and winked. “So… what do you think?”
The King fell silent as he walked down the hall, examining all the food, banners, balloons, and games thrown about every which way. He stuck his finger in one of the cakes, eating it without thinking. Lickig his lips, he came to lay his hand upon one of the balloons, the rubbery noise filling the otherwise quiet hall.
Inwardly, Pinkie gulped. She was pretty sure she had the King pegged as a self-absorbed yet clueless individual who loved to be pandered and wasn’t of the sort to be insulted by large amounts of “sucking up.” His face was on numerous instances of the food items, including most prominently the mushroom pizza. Pinkie was banking that this would earn his favor easily.
And if she didn’t know a few things about his recent erratic behavior, she would have been sure she had him in the bag. Another successful friend.
But he was staring at the mushrooms on the pizza a little closely…
“Delightful,” the King declared, eventually. “The lighting’s a bit off but I have never seen this tacky hall with proper lighting. Toronto, make a note to fix that tomorrow.”
“Sure,” Toronto said, not even bothering to write it down.
“Now, the festival begins in a few hours, correct?”
Pinkie nodded. “Yep! Then the doors open to the public! But you can partake of anything at your leisure—nothing here will spoil or cool. You candy people really know how to preserve your meals properly!”
“Yes, yes, we do.” The King waved a dismissive hand. “Now, I am going to take a nap. Do not disturb me until the party is about to start.” He clapped his hands to punctuate his order and he marched out of the hall.
“I think that went well,” Marceline observed.
“It did…” Pinkie scratched her chin, smirking. “Now we begin phase gamma.”
“What?”
Pinkie coiled like a spring and bounced to the door the King had left through, peering around the edge stealthily. She noted which way the King turned before bounding after him, skidding to a stop at the edge of the hall and peeking at him once again.
“Are you following him?”
“Yep,” Pinkie whispered. “C’mon, be sneaky.”
Marceline rolled her eyes and became invisible. As far as Pinkie could tell, she was alone. Licking her lips, she continued her pursuits. She slinked along halls, crawled up walls, and always caught the King just as he turned a corner into another section of the castle.
To her immense disappointment the sneaking didn’t last long. He arrived at the doors to his chambers in only a few minutes. There were two guards stationed, but that was no issue for Pinkie. She ducked behind a corner and took an ornamental vase off a nearby pedestal—likely some priceless historical artifact—throwing it on the ground the moment the King opened the door.
The banana guards gasped. “Someone’s breaking vases!” They ran down the hall to investigate, leaving their King alone. As they turned the corner, Pinkie jumped over them. They didn’t even see the pink blur as she hit the ground like a cannonball, rolling right for the King. Jumping out of her spin, she blew a party blower.
The King whirled around. “Who’s there?”
He saw nothing. No banana guards, no Pinkie.
With a shrug, he entered his chambers and shut the door behind him, keeping the room dark. He removed his excessively large robes and draped them over a rack before jumping onto his bed. As a King, he had his choice of sleeping arrangements, though it was to be expected that he owned an extravagant bed with space enough for somewhere around a dozen people. What was not expected was the massive blue mushroom floating a foot off the ground. He crawled onto the mushroom, let out a yawn, and fell asleep.
A few minutes later Pinkie removed the robe from her hooves, smirking. I’m in, she thought.
“Impressive,” Marceline whispered in her ear.
Pinkie nodded.
“But unnecessary. I’m invisible. You really didn’t need to go through all that trouble. I coulda gotten us in lickety-split.”
Pinkie’s smile didn't falter the slightest bit.
“So, what’s the plan?”
Pinkie pointed at her eyes, then at the King. She proceeded to stare at his sleeping form, unblinking.
“...You know, if he wakes up…”
Pinkie jumped behind one of the King’s dressers before popping back out, winking.
“You just winked at my hip.”
Pinkie waved a hoof in front of her eyes and raised an eyebrow. Before Marceline could say anything else, she held a hoof to her face to shush her. The King may have been a deep sleeper, but she didn’t want to take chances Marceline’s voice any longer.
Pinkie sat and waited.
And waited.
And waited.
“I’m bored,” Marceline whispered fifteen minutes later.
Pinkie gestured at the door.
“You really gonna keep watching him?”
Pinkie nodded.
“Fine, knock yourself o—”
The King sat bolt upright. Marceline fell silent and Pinkie jumped behind the dresser.
The King hadn’t seen them or, if he had, he paid them no mind. Instead, he ran out of his chambers so quickly Pinkie couldn’t get a good look at him. She jumped after him, not even trying to hide her presence from the posted banana guards.
“Wh—hey what were you doing in there!?”
Pinkie didn’t answer, she just ran after the King. She knew she was onto something—he hadn’t put on his robes and was running at top speed without any care for the dignity of his movements. Something had changed about him. Pinkie didn’t know what, but she was hoping she was about to find out.
This time, the chase was much more satisfying. The King ran through corridor after corridor, taking stairs up and down, running through halls that hadn’t been dusted in years, and entering basements filled with old bones. If he hadn’t kept his gaze fully forward at all times, Pinkie would have thought he was trying to lose her. As it was, she wasn’t entirely sure the King even knew he was being followed.
Eventually, he came to a metallic door deep in the basement. It opened automatically without him even touching it, shutting closed before Pinkie could jump in after.
No fair! Pinkie pressed her hooves to the door, trying to force it open. It didn’t budge. What’s back here?
She could hear him rustling around in there, breaking a few glass objects in the process. There was a grunt, the sound of something squishing, and then a magical reverberation followed by silence.
A few seconds later Marceline opened the door from the other side. “He teleported away.”
“Teleported?” Pinkie bounced into the room, frowning. “But he’s not a wizard!” She took a moment to examine the area. It was clearly a laboratory of some kind, lined with beakers, electronic equipment, and metallic devices Pinkie couldn’t even begin to guess the purpose of. The place was an absolute mess, however—torn notebooks were littered everywhere, several beakers were broken, chemicals drizzled all over the floor, and several devices looked as though they’d been punched through.
“He’s not a wizard,” Marceline confirmed, drifting over to the back of the lab. “He used this thing to teleport.” The thing in question was a blue crystal disc embedded in the floor. “He just stepped on it and…” Marceline dropped to her feet on the disc and nothing happened. “Poof!”
“Poof…” Pinkie jumped onto the platform and tapped it a few times. “I guess only he knows how to use it…”
“We’ve lost the trail.”
“Maybe not…” Pinkie put on her hat and pipe, smirking. “Let’s look for clues in this room!” She put her muzzle to the ground and started sniffing, careful not to inhale any broken glass. She found four Kingly footprints, two receipts for lemonade, a magic 8-ball, sixteen bars of gold, four shredded notebooks… and one piece of paper upon which a lot of things were scrawled. Picking it up, she scrunched her muzzle in contemplation.
The paper contained a truly absurd number of hastily scrawled triangles, several of which had eyes drawn in them. Less common was a circle with ten dots along the edges, and what appeared to be a drawing of one of the pyramids outside. What appeared to be words were jotted in the margins, but it was unreadable.
Marceline frowned. “I know the King’s handwriting is bad, but…”
“This was written recently… under stress. Every line is harsh, almost panicked.” Pinkie traced a hoof over the rough edges of the page. “This… was written by someone hurting.”
“...Are you feeling sympathy for the dip?”
“Yeah. Call it a weakness, but I think virtually everyone deserves sympathy.” She folded up the paper and stuck it in her mane. “We should get out of here in case he comes back. I don’t think there’s anything else for us to find here.” She found herself thinking of the circle with ten dots. “Something bigger than I thought is going down.”