Super Mario Sunshine

Chapter 34 - A Surprise from Ricco

A few minutes later, the two humans stood at the edge of a small cut in the cliff, staring downward into a shallow trench that dropped off into a narrow pathway down the white mountainside. Eyeing his companion skeptically, Mario shrugged.

"So are we going down?"

"Oh yes! But we cannot walk here; we have to slide!" Il Piantissimo said cheerfully.

"It looks like more of a drop than a slide," Fludd observed critically over Mario's shoulder. "Are you certain of its safety?"

The masked man waved an arm at the machine and laughed. "Of course! I would not lead the hero to a place of demise!" He gestured politely to the hole, never dreaming of going first.

"Uh-huh," Mario observed, nevertheless stepping forward. Pausing only a second at the very edge, he shrugged and remarked, "If there's no ground at the bottom, you'll never hear the end of it." And with that he jumped.

"Mario-!" Fludd cut himself off as the world jerked itself away from him, leaving him to process his own words.

Wind soared past his ears and threatened to take his hat as Mario positioned himself feet-first down the mountainside, leaning forward slightly to avoid crushing Fludd behind him. Although he'd expected it to be a rough, grating ride, he actually found to his surprise that the rock was smooth and allowed him to slide with ease.

As soon as he'd pushed off, a question he'd often been asked in his childhood popped into mind: If everyone was jumping off a cliff, would you?

Mario hardly thought that was applicable here, though. He didn't need others to tell him to jump off a cliff.

Focusing on the horizon far off to the sea on his right, which seemed to get higher as he approached the ground, Mario kept a steady balance and held on to Fludd. His only concern as he neared the bottom—he could now see there was a small landing—was that Il Piantissimo might be coming in close behind him. Therefore, as soon as he rolled to a less-than-comfortable stop on the stony ground at the cliff base, Mario sat up and scrambled out of the way to avoid being beaned by the man in cosplay.

Well, that was fun. Dusting himself off, he stood with a grunt and gazed back at the towering cliffs now above him.

"You all good, Fludd?"

"Okay if you are," the pump replied, and seemed like he wanted to say more but it never came. If it has to do with me jumping off cliffs, I'm all good anyway, Mario thought, turning his mind to the bay.

What had all been below his feet just instants before was now like gargantuan skyscrapers over their heads, blocking out the sun and the warmth he had experienced for most of his stay on Isle Delfino. Standing here in the shade, he almost felt it possible to get cold.

Watching the white peaks stab the sky, Mario became too enraptured with scanning for objectives—shine sprites and otherwise unusual commotions—to notice his guide slide onto the shore beside him. They had landed on a small (and it truly was small) shoreline close to the underwater drop-off. Looking across the crescent-shaped bay, he could see that there really wasn't much flat land anywhere.

"Here we are!" Il Piantissimo said proudly, as if Mario had been unaware. "What do you think?"

"Well, I've gotta start looking for shines," his companion replied, walking up to the water's edge now and peering dubiously into its depths. The water was standing so still he almost expected to see algae growing on its surface. The very top, which he could see his own reflection in, seemed to be mostly clear, like an outer layer; past that, he couldn't see more than a few inches deep for the violet and magenta shades of murk below. It almost looked like the heavy substance in a lava lamp, only this was enormous and still like a layer of silk.