Prologue

Many stories deal with deserts. A journey across its vast, featureless, sandy landscape is always seen as a metaphor for the struggles of life. Deserts are holy places – religions are born in the cradles of the shifting dunes. Deserts are lonely places, and for those who travel across them, it provides much opportunity for thought.

Where the red-yellow sands of the Koopahari met the fertile soils of the Mushroom Kingdom, the Realm of the Koopa began: the realm of the chelonian people of Yamauchi. On this realm’s throne sat Morton Koopa, the First, otherwise known to his subjects as “Bauzur”, and to the rest of Yamauchi and beyond as “King Bowser”. The Queen of the Koopa was unknown to everyone, but his children of six princes and one princess had grown as infamous as their father had. Everyone knew about them. And if they were not known, they became known when the human heroes from Earth, Mario Mario and Luigi Mario, almost singlehandedly turned the tide of what had become known as the War. Their efforts were amazing considering the second Realm of the Koopa.

This realm coexisted with Bowser’s realm – in fact Bowser was the figurehead of this realm and pulled its strings. Yet he could only pull them so far. It was a realm of secrecy: of lies, backstabbing and murder. Bowser’s realm stopped at the edge of the desert. This realm consisted of the entire world, with branches out into the worlds beyond the Warppipes.

It was the realm of the KBT – the Koopat B’krakt’gotopekt Tograk’lok, the Committee for Koopan State Security.

Originally, it was founded as a committee, headed by the King, dealing in the best interests of the domestic security of the Koopa Kingdom and its people. But the committee went further than just heading a police force. They turned it into a Gestapo. Then they realised that the world beyond the desert could affect Koopan State Security. They turned it into a Secret Service.

They accepted anyone into the KBT. Whether you had a shell on your back or not, a Mushroom, a Yoshi, a Kremling or any sentient race that existed anywhere the KBT’s tendrils reached, as long as you were willing to gain information for them and had a desire to bring down an authority other than Bowser’s or its own, you were trained to be a KBT agent. They were trained. Soon the unofficial motto of the KBT spread – “If a tree rustles its leaves in the wind, the KBT will know about it before you do.” Such was their skill.

The KBT even sought out authorities within the Kingdom’s borders. With the fall of a major bank and the family that ran it by KBT investigation, many other authorities and powerful families sought alliances with the Committee. The alliances were strained, they were tense, and had been ever since, especially where bad blood ruled.

On one end of such a feud was the B’ralku family, governors of the province of Ket’nalkok, set in the mountain range north of the Koopahari. The land was reasonably fertile, and the crops it produced yielded much economic return to the B’ralku. They had no qualms about showing how wealthy they were.

But like waving hundred-dollar bills aloft in a crowded street, other families would try to snatch their wealth away from them. Being influential through both money and power in the Committee gave them a great advantage – those who tried to steal from the B’ralku fortune were often arrested, if not killed, by hired KBT agents.

Seeing that thievery would get them nowhere, the other end of the feud soon belonged to the Gr’tokoru family. It owned a powerful transportation company based in Ket’nalkok, its prime service exporting the produce of the province and returning with everything that Ket’nalkok didn’t have, the taxes naturally going to the B’ralku. They realised that the only way they would get the wealth of the B’ralku was to kill them.

The B’ralku, thanks to the KBT, knew this. The Gr’tokoru knew that the B’ralku knew. The B’ralku knew that the Gr’tokoru knew that they knew. As is only inevitable (and understandable) in this situation, every B’ralku and Gr’tokoru knew of the other’s actions.

It was just as well that the governor’s nephew, Telg Rak’potot B’ralku, was inspired by his family’s allegiance with the KBT to join them at a very young age. He would play spy-games in the moor behind his parents’ villa. He saw his way in through his uncle on his mother’s side – when the War broke out, he was at the officer’s side in the G’rekt, the Koopan army.

He was positioned in the intelligence section, and through the officers in it, he found his way into the KBT – his life protected by law, for if any other Koopa were to kill him, the conspirators would be executed or banished from the Kingdom.

It was just as well for the young Telg, for on the very day he was admitted and made his oath to his King and Committee, his widower uncle, his cousin and his father were on a daytrip in the mountains. The Gr’tokoru knew of this – they had a sniper overlooking the road.

The car rounded a bend along the clifftop road, straight into the sight of the sniper. He fired.

Whether or not anyone was killed by his shot is a mystery. The report claimed that the chauffeur either swerved off the cliff to avoid another shot or the weight of his then dead body against the steering wheel turned the car over it. Either way, everyone in the car perished in the fireball at the bottom, their bodies incinerated.

Telg became the heir to the Ket’nalkok governance. Although the law gave him protection, it did not stop his fears that the Gr’tokorus could kill him, covering their tracks. Telg also had a family of his own, also protected by the law – his wife, Vatari, and his two Koopaling sons, Garat, and Kroko. They shared his fears too. For fifteen years, Ket’nalkok had no governor.

Telg received medals for his service, but he prized three medals above all other: a B'kraktgoto'pekttoru First Class for spying on Markior, the Yoshi Guardian Spirit, an annual K'titolko Medal for infiltrating a Kremling base on Kong Isle, and an annual T'gataltok for bringing the largest amount of information in a mission for the same year, in the same mission. He kept them inside his blue shell at all times, a source of confidence when the going got tough.

Tougher yet was yet to come. He spied on Banjo the Honey Bear and Kazooie the Breegull on the Isle O’Hags as part of an agreement reached between Bowser and an ally, the witch Grunty Winkybunion. The bear and bird had defeated, almost single-handedly, the Gruntling army and defeated the witch twice. The witch was sick of the humiliation and the Koopas were afraid that the duo might have turned their attention Kingdom-bound.

There was some strange element in the soil in Spiral Mountain, the part of the isle where the duo lived, that caused vegetables to gain semi-sentience and grow to monstrous heights. A hole had been created by the KBT as a protection against them.

Telg was attacked by one such vegetable – an eight-foot tall carrot. He ran to the hole to protect himself from it – as ridiculous as it already seemed, the hole opened up beneath him, and he was pulled to the planet of Zolott, landing in a great desert traversed by human slave traders known as the Tullabanarigans.

He was captured by one such slave train, sent to the heavily fortified city of Tullabanariga, and sold into slavery by the name he became known as – “Tob”, an acronym for “stupid turtle-thing”.

After months of horrible treatment, he was able to escape through the sewers after his owner died. Unfortunately, his luck seemed to be elsewhere as he ran straight into another slave train.

One night, along its journey back to the city, it stopped atop a dune as it found on the strange, vacuum world, a Yoshi, a member of the lizard-like race of Tob’s homeworld. In the morning, when the Yoshi awoke, the Koopa found himself wrapped around by its prehensile tongue. He pleaded with the Yoshi to let him free and not to eat him in return for his help and advice about what was about to happen. When the Yoshi introduced himself, he was taken aback – it was none other than Dyluck Thanatos Yoshi von Kippo, a.k.a. Lich. He was the Guardian of the Cyan Arc, a powerful and ancient Boomerang of Light. Tob had been designated by his superiors to investigate the Yoshi after he had come to the country and stolen one of Bowser’s teeth – straight from his mouth. Tob knew that it would be pointless to arrest the Yoshi and rather detrimental to both of them, so the two formed a friendship quickly, particularly as they were sold to the same person.

Also on this crazy planet was Markior. Being close friends with Lich, he picked up his location and his forced labour. Angered by the slavery, he sent his army of Protoss warriors to free them, then in absolute rage, he destroyed Tullabanariga single-handedly. In the rescue party was Lich’s love, Riu, or better known as Dragon. The two were delighted to see each other. However, Ulrezaj, Markior’s nemesis was on Zolott as well, and he sent Dragon mad and began to control her mind. She quickly joined Ulrezaj, Lich devastated by this loss.

Tob sensed this, and realised that his loss could be used to his advantage. He bargained with him – his confidence provided by his medals, he would infiltrate Ulrezaj’s lair and free Dragon. In return, Lich would do what the Gr’tokoru did to him – he would eliminate them, and Tob could have Ket’nalkok.

But all did not go to plan…