Monstro, based on the 1940 film Pinocchio served as a central meeting point for the players after the water worlds took place.
Participants:[]
Story[]
The Maze[]
Upon being swallowed by a whale, Kel, AJ, Marx, and Kaida, come to as an old man and a young red head girl stand over them. The girl introduced herself as Kairi, apparently her and her friends were swallowed after they built a raft to escape their island. Her friends have not returned from their search to find Mr Geppetto's son who got lost further in the whale. The group offers to search for the boys, but Kaida asked for the names of those who they were looking for. Upon hearing Sora's name, she found herself a little confused and concerned over this, but kept that to herself as they headed into the maze that was the whale, in search of Sora, Riku and Pinocchio.
Using the right hand rule that Kaida suggested, the group stepped into the first chamber where Kaida starts to explain to Kel and AJ that she knew these kids, but not as kids, more like when they were in their 50's. Kaida loosely explained the time travel aspect and that all of them were from a time before hers, and they find themselves discussing what that means while they continued to travel through the maze that was the insides of the whale, finding no clues to where the kids might be.
While the group searched for the kids, another group of travelers found themselves swallowed by the whale. Castur, Ananta, Ignis, Stratos, and Faust found themselves landed in front of the same old man as the other group before them. Geppetto offered to fix their ship for them as well, but mentioned other travelers that looked similar had gone into the whale ahead of them already.
All the while Kaida managed to get herself separated from the rest of the party and had to navigate the maze alone. The team split again when AJ chose to go a direction different than Kel and Marx, which in the end led him back to Kaida, with Kairi in tow.
Ananta was the first of the other group who decided to enter the maze alone, leaving everyone else to come to terms with what happened. The third and final group ended up getting swallowed shortly after, awaking a bit away from everyone else as a small cricket named Jiminy hopped on them to wake them up, despite Aux's displeasure. Castur soon sees that Ananta ran ahead and rushes to follow after her,
Kel and Marx found themselves at a dead end, but in that last chamber there was a walking, talking puppet who claimed to be playing hide and seek with his friends, Sora and Riku.
As Aux managed to get to where Faust and Ignis were, Ignis ran ahead into the whale leaving the others to question Faust on what was going on and why he was not heading into the whale himself. Though hearing that the others were in the Whale, Karina rushed ahead, Aux soon following. Ignis managed to meet up with Kel and Marx inside the whale. Karina and Aux didn't make it too far before they found Castur and Ananta, while Kaida and AJ were being infinitely more useful finding Sora in the process of their search. All the while Ananta was crying over a snide remark from Aux and Karina felt the need to call her out on it.
Eventually Kaida, AJ, Sora and Kairi managed to meet up with Kel, Ignis, Marx and Pinocchio, but Sora thought Kel was trying to hurt Pinocchio and stepped to to protect the puppet. Kel and AJ tried to deescalate the situation, while Faust's timely arrival managed to deescalate the situation between Karina and Ananta.
As the large group moved forward, two heartless dropped from the roof and trapped Kairi and Pinocchio in cages before slingshot their way out and flushing the group back into a previous chamber, closing off some of the exits. At least Karina's group managed to find Riku. Riku immediately got threatened and tried to threaten them talking about his weapon. It was cute. Eventually they managed to convinced Riku that they were on the same side and continued their search only to find a heartless with Pinocchio trapped in side. No sooner then they found it, did they get expelled back into the mouth of Monstro.The other group was not far behind, as the same thing happened upon them finding the heartless with Kairi.
The Mouth[]
By the point everyone had returned, Beuce and Stratos had woken up thanks to Luna's care and Steels watchful eye, though they were thrown straight into chaos. Though the heartless weren't in sight anymore, Sora and Riku found themselves wanting to go after their friend. They were forced to stay behind with Geppetto instead, while the group decided to go in after. Though it took some convincing from Beuce to get Riku to back down. Meanwhile Faust tried to give Sora a keyblade, much to Karina's dismay.
Trying to convince Sora and Riku to stay behind didn't go as planned. Armed with a wooden sword, Sora chased after Riku, giving Aux the sense he knew exactly who these kids were. Kaida confirmed it before Riku got knocked away and Sora tripped, splitting a potion, which in the end caused the area to fill with acid, dividing the group onto separate platforms, each with their own enemies. The group managed to take down all the individual enemies, and while Aux went to get Pinocchio, Riku and Sora both went to catch Kairi. As the group giggled and spoke, there were other reunions happening as between members of SoS. While Kaida gladly took the confirmation that she had not accidentally broke Beuce's keyblade in the last world, Aux and Kel were helping Karina who was struggling to control her darkness after using the aura for the first time. Some were familiarizing themselves with the newer members, while others just caught up and talked.
Geppetto, happy to have his son back managed to finish the work on the ships in order to repair them so the party could set out again. The mice reminded the group that it was time that they start heading back to the place they were originally supposed to reunite, Olympus. Before they set out however, Karina gave Kaida the pins she bought as thanks for Kaida being there for her, and Kaida gave her a wooden carving in return of a cat.
The mice proceeded to recap what they knew of what happened. The princesses that were captured and those what were safe. They revealed that Kairi was a princess, but when they offered to protect her, she turned them down, preferring to stick with her friends and let Riku and Sora protect her. Before there could be too much more discussion however, the whale shook violently and everyone was pushed into various boats that Geppetto had repaired and expelled once again from the giant space whale that had swallowed them before.