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Description
  And, finally, here it is. The final chapter of Paper Mario: Double Darkness. It's kind of amazing that I've already made it this far. It seems like just yesterday I was wasting my February break on the beach in Florida sketching out the Prologue. Anyway, I really think this is my best title card yet! All that detail turned out perfectly! It seriously makes me want to go back and redo the title cards for the first couple chapters.
    So, as I already mentioned, unlike any of the other chapters, even the ones that have been significantly remastered, Chapter 9 is completely new. Because of some serious story changes during my huge revamp last year, I needed to add an extra chapter. (Honestly, I probably would have liked to stick with the classic 8, but as this would require removing a chapter, I don't see it happening.) Specifically, with the addition of the Shadow Spire portal, Darkblot being completely redone as a villain, and several other factors, it no longer made much sense to keep the game's finale in the present. So now, Mario will have to travel back to the Nox Empire to put an end to Darkblot's ambitions, retrieve the stolen stars, and save the Mushroom Frontier from a complete temporal overhaul.
    Finally, here's the description for Chapter 9. WARNING: Really, really, REALLY, absurdly high amounts of reading ahead.

Characters (from left to right):
Umber: The venerable archmage of Corona City. Rallies all the wizards of the Nox Empire to help Mario break into the Shadow Spire. As the only other major authority figure around, he and Specteira have a bit of a rivalry.
Parri: A high-ranking astronomer from the Mt. Mushroom Observatory. Usually he acts pretty professional, but at the moment he’s panicking about his job security, because being an astronomer is impossible if there are no stars. He was the first partner to join Mario, back in the Prologue.
Mario: If you don’t know who this guy is already, I recommend you go and play some Paper Mario games before you go on reading this.
Specteira: The ruler of the Nox Empire and Mario’s adventuring companion for most of the game. Abandons Mario after discovering that the Mushroom Kingdom had a part in destroying the Nox Empire as well. After being infused with a huge amount of dark energy by Darkblot, she becomes Dark Specteira, the final boss of the game.
Darkblot: The mysterious, dark sorcerer whose attempts to conquer the Nox Empire 5,000 years ago were in part responsible for its demise, and who has now gone back in time to finish the job, seriously warping the present in the process. It turns out that it’s actually a physical manifestation of the dark energy the Nox Empire has trusted for so long! How ironic!

--CHAPTER 8 / CHAPTER 9 TRANSITION--
    Mario has spent the last eight chapters searching for the scattered pieces of the Shadow Spire portal so that he can reassemble it, travel back to the Nox Empire, and defeat Darkblot once and for all. Having just recovered the ninth and final Portal Piece from King Darkonivus in Bowser’s Castle, the time has finally come to do so. As the appearance of Darkonivus has made all too clear, he’s just about out of time before Darkblot’s attempts to change the past write over the present completely, so at Infinnah T.’s request, he skips his visit to the Mt. Mushroom Observatory and heads straight to the Shadow Spire dig site.
    Infinnah T. is waiting at the ruins. Mario hands her the final Portal Piece, the Fireheart Cylinder, the machine’s power source. She takes it and heads into the Shadow Spire. Various bonking and drilling sounds emanate from behind the top-floor window on the ruined tower, followed by silence, and the final wedge on the window starts to glow along with the others. The portal machine is now at last in working order.
    Once Mario enters the portal, he won’t be able to return to the Mushroom Frontier until he’s finished the main story, so he should get any unfinished business out of the way now. When he’s ready, he lets Infinnah T. know, and she gives the party a quick pep talk about how the Mushroom Frontier is counting on them and leads them toward the Shadow Spire. But before they reach it, the sky suddenly turns dark, the ground starts rumbling, and distant buildings and objects begin changing chaotically. Then the Shadow Spire starts starts rising out of the ground and the surrounding pieces fly around it and fit themselves back together. The barrier between the two timelines has finally broken!
    Mario rushes through the hole they’ve been using as an entrance just before it’s filled in and hurries up the stairs while dodging flying bricks to the room where the portal machine is. He powers it on, leaps into the portal that appears, and escapes. As he leaves, the camera cuts outside, so that the last he sees of the Mushroom Frontier is the fully repaired Shadow Spire, surrounded by bolts of magic, against an unnatural, magic-fog-covered night sky.


--CHAPTER 9--
    5,000 years in the past, Mario steps out and finds himself outside the gates to the capital of the Nox Empire, Corona City (World 9-9). As a race that gets its power from the night and stars, the Nox have enchanted their sky to block out the sun, so it always appears to be night, and the streetlights only give off a soft blue glow. As foreign as Corona City feels, though, it’s still a city, and includes an item shop, an inn, a library where Mario can learn more about the Nox, and a store called Chet Rippo’s Weird Warehouse with extra-rare badges and items. And most notably, the Shadow Spire, the legendary magical tower that attracts all the dark magic the Nox use.
    At first, Specteira is elated to finally be home, but she doesn’t take long to notice something is wrong. The ambient magic feels less tamed, and the only people around are a few shadow creatures that look like Darkblot patrolling the town plaza and chasing down any Nox citizens on sight. These enemies, called Astral Aspects, sport high HP, invisibility and drain abilities, making them some of the nastiest foes in the game. After Mario beats the Darkblot doppelgangers, they decide they had better report the intrusion to the boss and retreat.
    Cautiously, the party proceeds down the abandoned streets toward the Shadow Spire. The dark magic levels inside are higher than Specteira has ever seen anywhere before. Clearly, Darkblot is involved. But when they try to enter, the doorway takes them right back outside. Mario heads back the way he came, but the movement-blocking magic seems to follow him around, and he soon becomes trapped inside a ring of swirling force. Then a troop of Darkblot’s minions jump out. They recognize Specteira right away as the empress of the Nox, and Mario as that guy from the future that Darkblot warned them to not underestimate.
    They lead the threats back to the Shadow Spire, but then they’re freed by a magic blast from a nearby building. An old Nox wizard appears on the balcony and yells at them to run. What little Nox resistance is left can’t afford to lose their leader. He quickly writes down directions to the rebel base and teleports it into Mario’s hands, then ducks inside. Once they’ve escaped the guards, Specteira explains that the wizard was Umber, Corona Town’s archmage and next highest authority after her. The directions in his note are pretty vague, so Mario will have to do a bit of puzzle-solving to find the hideout. It’s behind a seemingly ordinary wall which he can walk through into a dark study. There, Umber greets him and starts filling him in on their adversary.
    Darkblot, he explains, first appeared back in the early days of the Nox Empire. At first, he didn’t seem to want to conquer them. He did, however, steal a considerable amount of dark power, which led to a catastrophic energy shortage. Once the Nox elders figured out who was behind it, Darkblot was sealed in the Pit of 100 Trials and wasn’t considered a threat again until he mysteriously materialized outside the city gates a couple weeks ago. He and his shadow duplicates snuck into the city and gradually infiltrated the Shadow Spire. Then they disabled the tower, cutting off the empire’s power and leaving them vulnerable to a full-on invasion. Now, the city is overrun, all the other Grand Mages are in jail, and with the magical barrier on the Shadow Spire, Darkblot is untouchable.
    Wait, Grand Mages? Umber elaborates that there are eight more wizards in the Nox Empire who report to him. Maybe they could have broken the barrier together, but they’ve all been caught by now. When Mario isn’t willing to accept it, Umber agrees to let Mario try and find them, but insists that Specteira stay. They can’t risk having her captured. Reluctantly, Mario heads back alone, but just before he leaves the area, she sneaks out of a window and reunites with him. She exclaims that they’ve gotten this far together, and she’s not about to abandon Mario now. They both have a huge stake in this, after all.
    The next part of the chapter is a little like the Toad rescue segment at the beginning of Sticker Star, but with fewer people to rescue spread over a larger area. Each mage Mario saves rewards him with a vision of what’s happening in one of the previous chapters in the present. What he sees is worrying, to put it mildly. Finally, when everyone has joined Umber, he offers Mario a chance to look at Mt. Mushroom as well. He can barely recognize it-- all of the buildings are reassembling themselves into bizarre towers and statues shaped like nothing in particular, and the place is absolutely overrun by Astral Aspects.
    It’s clear that there’s no turning back now. Mario tells the Grand Mages to begin their spell. They link hands, draw the darkness from the air, and create nine magical shockwaves that radiate out and slash the barrier around the Shadow Spire into pieces. Umber announces that the way to the Shadow Spire is open. He would help more if he could, but that was about as much dark magic as they had left. Finally, he warns Mario about Darkblot. Somehow, he can handle far more dark magic than any living thing should. How is it possible?...
    The end of the adventure in sight, Mario returns to the Shadow Spire and steps inside. The darkness-channeling tower and the last dungeon of the game addresses everything Mario’s learned on his quest. There are damaging pits of dark energy, invisible floors and walls, wormholes, areas with wind or low gravity, rooms that are so dark even Sunshine’s ability only illuminates a small radius, and extra-tough puzzles with all of the above. Battles include Astral Aspects, Dark Boos, Dark Bones, Moon Clefts, Rocky Wrenches, and Duplighosts.
    After Mario and friends have found his way through the bottom half of the tower, they reach a sanctum where hundreds of Astral Aspects are gathered under a balcony. They can see part of Darkblot’s head on the balcony from their viewpoint. He commands his minions to give him the dark magic they’ve gathered. They produce countless orbs of energy, and Darkblot, to Mario’s surprise, effortlessly absorbs them and suddenly looks even more powerful. He then sends the Astral Aspects out to keep gathering up dark magic, promising that soon, it will all be theirs once more. Specteira is surprised to see Darkblot say this, as the Nox Empire was the first to use dark magic at all. Who else could claim it belongs to them?
    In order to get to the spot where Darkbot was, Mario must go through the outside deck of the Shadow Spire (a giant puzzle where Mario must illuminate all of the lights there before proceeding) and a few more regular inside rooms. For a second, it looks like no one’s on the balcony now. But then a pipe of dark energy running overhead opens and sprays a black cloud over the area that condenses into Darkblot himself!
    That’s right, Darkblot says, he’s made of dark magic-- he’s a physical manifestation of dark magic, in fact. And that means he’s everywhere in this tower at once, and has in fact watched Mario this whole time. Before long, all the dark magic will be his, and it will return to its former, intended state as an untamed agent of evil. And Mario’s precious future civilization will be history, so it’s no use trying to save it. Well, it and the Nox Empire, Specteira interjects, which actually makes Darkblot laugh. He says The Nox Empire was doomed ever since they first tried to control his power. Besides, even without him, she’d have at least one major threat against her... With that, he dissipates into dark mist again.
    Mario tries to leave the room, but is cornered by what looks like every Astral Aspect in the Shadow Spire. He fights back by hammering them into the walls, where they get sucked into the power grid, activating a warp beam that allows Mario to keep moving upward. He continues fighting enemies, avoiding dark zappers, messing with pipe circuits to direct the power, and finally, completes a segment similar to TTYD’s Tower of Riddles where each room activates part of the power supply to create another warp beam.
    The second warp brings Mario to an area he recognizes. It’s where he’s been entering the Shadow Spire in the present. Here he runs into Darkblot a second time. He-- or it may be more accurate now-- is amused to see Mario and Specteira are still trying to stop him, but especially surprised that they’re still working together. Pressed on this, it turns to Specteira and accuses Mario of manipulating her! It explains that after escaping the Pit of 100 Trials, it discovered something interesting about the Nox Empire. Namely, it contribution to its fall aside, it was the Mushroom Kingdom that came over and conquered it. If Mario hasn’t been candid about this, it proves his loyalty lies only with them!
    Of course, Mario never meant to deceive Specteira, but she realizes she may have been too trusting, exclaims she doesn’t know who to believe anymore... and runs off. But Darkblot goes on. It has decided it’s time to stop Mario once and for all. Even with no special moves, Mario’s long-anticipated battle against the evil sorcerer begins quite well, mostly because Darkblot starts with the same stats as in the Prologue. But on each turn, it absorbs more of the near-infinite dark energy in the Shadow Spire, until finally Mario has no choice but to back off.
    At this point, Darkblot comes frighteningly close to ending Mario’s ambitions, but suddenly, it starts panicking and screaming at Specteira. By now, she has apparently almost made her way to the portal room to confront Darkblot on her own! Forced to deal with the more immediate threat, Darkblot vanishes from Mario’s presence, leaving him free to continue up the final stretch of the tower.
    At last, Mario catches up to his foe and his (former?) ally in the portal room. He and Darkblot immediately confront each other. Darkblot re-iterates that as long as it has the power of darkness on his side, nothing can stop it. Mario insists he will anyway. Meanwhile, Specteira stays behind them, feeling extremely conflicted as both parties beg her cooperation. Faced with a tough decision and escalating pressure to make it, she finally snaps and declares, if neither will help her and her empire, she’ll just have to take on both of them! She just needs a little extra power to do it... She turns around and uses the portal to splash herself with dark energy. But as Umber warned, there’s only so much people can hold at once, and soon she collapses on the floor.
    Worse, seeing this gives Darkblot an idea. It steps in front of the portal and works its magic. All at once, every bit of dark power in the whole Shadow Spire, including itself, blasts into Specteira! The whole room goes dark. When the moonlight from outside the window breaks through, Mario is met by a shadowy form of his old friend. In Darkblot’s voice, it announces that now all the power in the Shadow Spire, plus that of the empress of the Nox Empire, is in its control! Now Mario will certainly have to surrender!
    ...Of course, he doesn’t, and the first phase of the final boss starts. Dark Specteira is even more powerful than Darkblot was, and just keeps healing any damage for the first several turns. Just as Mario’s opponent is ridiculing him and demanding that he give up, the portal shuts down and reappears in its usual color. On the other side, Infinnah T., along with many of Mario’s other allies, have climbed to the top of the Shadow Spire to escape the chaos below. They shout their encouragement and promise to do what they can to help. When Mario explains his situation, Infinnah T. has an idea. If Mario can turn the Shadow Spire back on, it will divert the dark energy back into the Nox Empire and out of Darkblot!
     With her help, Mario operates the portal machine and plays through a minigame where he must match Nox runes. Upon completing the minigame, the pipes on the walls flow with dark energy, and outside, the streets of Corona City light up again (as much as they’re supposed to, anyway). Dark Specteira is severely weakened by this, to the point where it falls down and drops Specteira’s spellbook. Now Mario can use special moves in battle by himself! And good thing, because Dark Specteira recovers quickly. The real final battle has arrived at last.
DARK SPECTEIRA
Tattle Entry #144
So, it all comes down to this. In his effort to secure its victory over the Nox once and for all, Darkblot has sacrificed its own physical form and taken control of... me. Our combined form, Dark Specteira, is vulnerable now with the excess magic flowing out of the Shadow Spire, but it’s still a frightening opponent, and if we can’t stop it here, the Nox Empire AND the Mushroom Frontier will be lost to time forever... Maximum HP is 200, Attack is 11, and Defense is 0. It can attack by blasting various types of dark magic, turning the stage dark so our attacks will miss, and inflicting tons of status effects-- including positive ones on himself. I know that’s me in there, but don’t worry about that now! Give that body-stealing blob of darkness everything you’ve got! And, Mario... I’m sorry I double-crossed you. If it weren’t for me, this would all be over by now. But please, forgive me and bring an end to this... for both of us...
    When Mario KOs Dark Specteira, the dark energy possessing it dissipates and turns back into Darkblot. Specteira regains control of herself and joins with Mario to finish off Darkblot for good. Having already taken one beating, it reverts to its Prologue stats again and can actually be defeated in only a couple turns. It screams a few last words about how Specteira chose the wrong ally, how they could have spread darkness across the world together, and explodes into dark mist, leaving behind the bag of stars it stole at the beginning of the game.
    Mario’s quest is now finally over. But before he returns to the present, it’s time to say goodbye to his friend. Specteira apologizes and admits that Mario really was looking out for her. Perhaps he was right to not tell her what happened to her civilization. As long as the Nox Empire and its darkness is around, the will of Darkblot will remain. The Mushroom Kingdom will surely arrive soon, and when it does, there’s only one way to save her people... As a final token of thanks, Specteira urges Mario to keep her spellbook, so the world will always remember the Nox Empire’s mistake.
    Mario returns to the present to find that, while the land is still scrambled, it has stopped changing and the Astral Aspects have disappeared. Everyone who saw Mario through the final battle is there to welcome him. Mario tells them about his victory over Darkblot, which is why the time shift stopped. Now, Infinnah T. explains, they must prove to the forces of time that Darkblot is truly gone. Mario nods and releases the bag of stars into the sky. Their light burns through all the wild magic in the Mushroom Frontier, and soon everything is back to normal.
    Everyone exits from the re-ruined Shadow Spire back to the Mt. Mushroom plaza. Everything is just as Mario remembers it at first, but soon one major discrepancy becomes obvious: Among his enthusiastic welcome party are several Nox people! When Mario is surprised by them and wonders how they can be there, Infinnah T. reminds him that when the Mushroom Kingdom came to take over this colony, the last empress of the Nox, instead of trying to hopelessly stop them by force (as has been the case until now), she decided to peacefully surrender. If she hadn’t, the Nox probably wouldn’t even be around today!
    It’s kind of weird for Mario that he’s the only one who remembers Specteira and how she helped to save the Mushroom Frontier, but one way or another, his work here is done. He says goodbye to his friends and partners, boards the Star Spinner, and sets off back to the greater Mushroom Kingdom.
    The final scene in the game is Mario and Luigi sitting at home a few weeks later. Luigi says, now that they’ve both caught up on each other’s adventures, it’s probably time for them to have a little downtime until the next Bowser attack. They then hear a knock on the door. When they open it, Toadsworth is there to offer another invitation to the castle for cake. Mario bids goodbye to a disappointed Luigi and heads outside. But then, after a pause, Toadsworth adds that, actually, Peach was inviting both of them! Luigi excitedly hops out of his chair as well and joins his brother to discover the real reason Mario enjoys being Player One so much...
*** THE END***

Description
  And, finally, here it is. The final chapter of Paper Mario: Double Darkness. It's kind of amazing that I've already made it this far. It seems like just yesterday I was wasting my February break on the beach in Florida sketching out the Prologue. Anyway, I really think this is my best title card yet! All that detail turned out perfectly! It seriously makes me want to go back and redo the title cards for the first couple chapters.
    So, as I already mentioned, unlike any of the other chapters, even the ones that have been significantly remastered, Chapter 9 is completely new. Because of some serious story changes during my huge revamp last year, I needed to add an extra chapter. (Honestly, I probably would have liked to stick with the classic 8, but as this would require removing a chapter, I don't see it happening.) Specifically, with the addition of the Shadow Spire portal, Darkblot being completely redone as a villain, and several other factors, it no longer made much sense to keep the game's finale in the present. So now, Mario will have to travel back to the Nox Empire to put an end to Darkblot's ambitions, retrieve the stolen stars, and save the Mushroom Frontier from a complete temporal overhaul.
    Finally, here's the description for Chapter 9. WARNING: Really, really, REALLY, absurdly high amounts of reading ahead.

Characters (from left to right):
Umber: The venerable archmage of Corona City. Rallies all the wizards of the Nox Empire to help Mario break into the Shadow Spire. As the only other major authority figure around, he and Specteira have a bit of a rivalry.
Parri: A high-ranking astronomer from the Mt. Mushroom Observatory. Usually he acts pretty professional, but at the moment he’s panicking about his job security, because being an astronomer is impossible if there are no stars. He was the first partner to join Mario, back in the Prologue.
Mario: If you don’t know who this guy is already, I recommend you go and play some Paper Mario games before you go on reading this.
Specteira: The ruler of the Nox Empire and Mario’s adventuring companion for most of the game. Abandons Mario after discovering that the Mushroom Kingdom had a part in destroying the Nox Empire as well. After being infused with a huge amount of dark energy by Darkblot, she becomes Dark Specteira, the final boss of the game.
Darkblot: The mysterious, dark sorcerer whose attempts to conquer the Nox Empire 5,000 years ago were in part responsible for its demise, and who has now gone back in time to finish the job, seriously warping the present in the process. It turns out that it’s actually a physical manifestation of the dark energy the Nox Empire has trusted for so long! How ironic!

--CHAPTER 8 / CHAPTER 9 TRANSITION--
    Mario has spent the last eight chapters searching for the scattered pieces of the Shadow Spire portal so that he can reassemble it, travel back to the Nox Empire, and defeat Darkblot once and for all. Having just recovered the ninth and final Portal Piece from King Darkonivus in Bowser’s Castle, the time has finally come to do so. As the appearance of Darkonivus has made all too clear, he’s just about out of time before Darkblot’s attempts to change the past write over the present completely, so at Infinnah T.’s request, he skips his visit to the Mt. Mushroom Observatory and heads straight to the Shadow Spire dig site.
    Infinnah T. is waiting at the ruins. Mario hands her the final Portal Piece, the Fireheart Cylinder, the machine’s power source. She takes it and heads into the Shadow Spire. Various bonking and drilling sounds emanate from behind the top-floor window on the ruined tower, followed by silence, and the final wedge on the window starts to glow along with the others. The portal machine is now at last in working order.
    Once Mario enters the portal, he won’t be able to return to the Mushroom Frontier until he’s finished the main story, so he should get any unfinished business out of the way now. When he’s ready, he lets Infinnah T. know, and she gives the party a quick pep talk about how the Mushroom Frontier is counting on them and leads them toward the Shadow Spire. But before they reach it, the sky suddenly turns dark, the ground starts rumbling, and distant buildings and objects begin changing chaotically. Then the Shadow Spire starts starts rising out of the ground and the surrounding pieces fly around it and fit themselves back together. The barrier between the two timelines has finally broken!
    Mario rushes through the hole they’ve been using as an entrance just before it’s filled in and hurries up the stairs while dodging flying bricks to the room where the portal machine is. He powers it on, leaps into the portal that appears, and escapes. As he leaves, the camera cuts outside, so that the last he sees of the Mushroom Frontier is the fully repaired Shadow Spire, surrounded by bolts of magic, against an unnatural, magic-fog-covered night sky.


--CHAPTER 9--
    5,000 years in the past, Mario steps out and finds himself outside the gates to the capital of the Nox Empire, Corona City (World 9-9). As a race that gets its power from the night and stars, the Nox have enchanted their sky to block out the sun, so it always appears to be night, and the streetlights only give off a soft blue glow. As foreign as Corona City feels, though, it’s still a city, and includes an item shop, an inn, a library where Mario can learn more about the Nox, and a store called Chet Rippo’s Weird Warehouse with extra-rare badges and items. And most notably, the Shadow Spire, the legendary magical tower that attracts all the dark magic the Nox use.
    At first, Specteira is elated to finally be home, but she doesn’t take long to notice something is wrong. The ambient magic feels less tamed, and the only people around are a few shadow creatures that look like Darkblot patrolling the town plaza and chasing down any Nox citizens on sight. These enemies, called Astral Aspects, sport high HP, invisibility and drain abilities, making them some of the nastiest foes in the game. After Mario beats the Darkblot doppelgangers, they decide they had better report the intrusion to the boss and retreat.
    Cautiously, the party proceeds down the abandoned streets toward the Shadow Spire. The dark magic levels inside are higher than Specteira has ever seen anywhere before. Clearly, Darkblot is involved. But when they try to enter, the doorway takes them right back outside. Mario heads back the way he came, but the movement-blocking magic seems to follow him around, and he soon becomes trapped inside a ring of swirling force. Then a troop of Darkblot’s minions jump out. They recognize Specteira right away as the empress of the Nox, and Mario as that guy from the future that Darkblot warned them to not underestimate.
    They lead the threats back to the Shadow Spire, but then they’re freed by a magic blast from a nearby building. An old Nox wizard appears on the balcony and yells at them to run. What little Nox resistance is left can’t afford to lose their leader. He quickly writes down directions to the rebel base and teleports it into Mario’s hands, then ducks inside. Once they’ve escaped the guards, Specteira explains that the wizard was Umber, Corona Town’s archmage and next highest authority after her. The directions in his note are pretty vague, so Mario will have to do a bit of puzzle-solving to find the hideout. It’s behind a seemingly ordinary wall which he can walk through into a dark study. There, Umber greets him and starts filling him in on their adversary.
    Darkblot, he explains, first appeared back in the early days of the Nox Empire. At first, he didn’t seem to want to conquer them. He did, however, steal a considerable amount of dark power, which led to a catastrophic energy shortage. Once the Nox elders figured out who was behind it, Darkblot was sealed in the Pit of 100 Trials and wasn’t considered a threat again until he mysteriously materialized outside the city gates a couple weeks ago. He and his shadow duplicates snuck into the city and gradually infiltrated the Shadow Spire. Then they disabled the tower, cutting off the empire’s power and leaving them vulnerable to a full-on invasion. Now, the city is overrun, all the other Grand Mages are in jail, and with the magical barrier on the Shadow Spire, Darkblot is untouchable.
    Wait, Grand Mages? Umber elaborates that there are eight more wizards in the Nox Empire who report to him. Maybe they could have broken the barrier together, but they’ve all been caught by now. When Mario isn’t willing to accept it, Umber agrees to let Mario try and find them, but insists that Specteira stay. They can’t risk having her captured. Reluctantly, Mario heads back alone, but just before he leaves the area, she sneaks out of a window and reunites with him. She exclaims that they’ve gotten this far together, and she’s not about to abandon Mario now. They both have a huge stake in this, after all.
    The next part of the chapter is a little like the Toad rescue segment at the beginning of Sticker Star, but with fewer people to rescue spread over a larger area. Each mage Mario saves rewards him with a vision of what’s happening in one of the previous chapters in the present. What he sees is worrying, to put it mildly. Finally, when everyone has joined Umber, he offers Mario a chance to look at Mt. Mushroom as well. He can barely recognize it-- all of the buildings are reassembling themselves into bizarre towers and statues shaped like nothing in particular, and the place is absolutely overrun by Astral Aspects.
    It’s clear that there’s no turning back now. Mario tells the Grand Mages to begin their spell. They link hands, draw the darkness from the air, and create nine magical shockwaves that radiate out and slash the barrier around the Shadow Spire into pieces. Umber announces that the way to the Shadow Spire is open. He would help more if he could, but that was about as much dark magic as they had left. Finally, he warns Mario about Darkblot. Somehow, he can handle far more dark magic than any living thing should. How is it possible?...
    The end of the adventure in sight, Mario returns to the Shadow Spire and steps inside. The darkness-channeling tower and the last dungeon of the game addresses everything Mario’s learned on his quest. There are damaging pits of dark energy, invisible floors and walls, wormholes, areas with wind or low gravity, rooms that are so dark even Sunshine’s ability only illuminates a small radius, and extra-tough puzzles with all of the above. Battles include Astral Aspects, Dark Boos, Dark Bones, Moon Clefts, Rocky Wrenches, and Duplighosts.
    After Mario and friends have found his way through the bottom half of the tower, they reach a sanctum where hundreds of Astral Aspects are gathered under a balcony. They can see part of Darkblot’s head on the balcony from their viewpoint. He commands his minions to give him the dark magic they’ve gathered. They produce countless orbs of energy, and Darkblot, to Mario’s surprise, effortlessly absorbs them and suddenly looks even more powerful. He then sends the Astral Aspects out to keep gathering up dark magic, promising that soon, it will all be theirs once more. Specteira is surprised to see Darkblot say this, as the Nox Empire was the first to use dark magic at all. Who else could claim it belongs to them?
    In order to get to the spot where Darkbot was, Mario must go through the outside deck of the Shadow Spire (a giant puzzle where Mario must illuminate all of the lights there before proceeding) and a few more regular inside rooms. For a second, it looks like no one’s on the balcony now. But then a pipe of dark energy running overhead opens and sprays a black cloud over the area that condenses into Darkblot himself!
    That’s right, Darkblot says, he’s made of dark magic-- he’s a physical manifestation of dark magic, in fact. And that means he’s everywhere in this tower at once, and has in fact watched Mario this whole time. Before long, all the dark magic will be his, and it will return to its former, intended state as an untamed agent of evil. And Mario’s precious future civilization will be history, so it’s no use trying to save it. Well, it and the Nox Empire, Specteira interjects, which actually makes Darkblot laugh. He says The Nox Empire was doomed ever since they first tried to control his power. Besides, even without him, she’d have at least one major threat against her... With that, he dissipates into dark mist again.
    Mario tries to leave the room, but is cornered by what looks like every Astral Aspect in the Shadow Spire. He fights back by hammering them into the walls, where they get sucked into the power grid, activating a warp beam that allows Mario to keep moving upward. He continues fighting enemies, avoiding dark zappers, messing with pipe circuits to direct the power, and finally, completes a segment similar to TTYD’s Tower of Riddles where each room activates part of the power supply to create another warp beam.
    The second warp brings Mario to an area he recognizes. It’s where he’s been entering the Shadow Spire in the present. Here he runs into Darkblot a second time. He-- or it may be more accurate now-- is amused to see Mario and Specteira are still trying to stop him, but especially surprised that they’re still working together. Pressed on this, it turns to Specteira and accuses Mario of manipulating her! It explains that after escaping the Pit of 100 Trials, it discovered something interesting about the Nox Empire. Namely, it contribution to its fall aside, it was the Mushroom Kingdom that came over and conquered it. If Mario hasn’t been candid about this, it proves his loyalty lies only with them!
    Of course, Mario never meant to deceive Specteira, but she realizes she may have been too trusting, exclaims she doesn’t know who to believe anymore... and runs off. But Darkblot goes on. It has decided it’s time to stop Mario once and for all. Even with no special moves, Mario’s long-anticipated battle against the evil sorcerer begins quite well, mostly because Darkblot starts with the same stats as in the Prologue. But on each turn, it absorbs more of the near-infinite dark energy in the Shadow Spire, until finally Mario has no choice but to back off.
    At this point, Darkblot comes frighteningly close to ending Mario’s ambitions, but suddenly, it starts panicking and screaming at Specteira. By now, she has apparently almost made her way to the portal room to confront Darkblot on her own! Forced to deal with the more immediate threat, Darkblot vanishes from Mario’s presence, leaving him free to continue up the final stretch of the tower.
    At last, Mario catches up to his foe and his (former?) ally in the portal room. He and Darkblot immediately confront each other. Darkblot re-iterates that as long as it has the power of darkness on his side, nothing can stop it. Mario insists he will anyway. Meanwhile, Specteira stays behind them, feeling extremely conflicted as both parties beg her cooperation. Faced with a tough decision and escalating pressure to make it, she finally snaps and declares, if neither will help her and her empire, she’ll just have to take on both of them! She just needs a little extra power to do it... She turns around and uses the portal to splash herself with dark energy. But as Umber warned, there’s only so much people can hold at once, and soon she collapses on the floor.
    Worse, seeing this gives Darkblot an idea. It steps in front of the portal and works its magic. All at once, every bit of dark power in the whole Shadow Spire, including itself, blasts into Specteira! The whole room goes dark. When the moonlight from outside the window breaks through, Mario is met by a shadowy form of his old friend. In Darkblot’s voice, it announces that now all the power in the Shadow Spire, plus that of the empress of the Nox Empire, is in its control! Now Mario will certainly have to surrender!
    ...Of course, he doesn’t, and the first phase of the final boss starts. Dark Specteira is even more powerful than Darkblot was, and just keeps healing any damage for the first several turns. Just as Mario’s opponent is ridiculing him and demanding that he give up, the portal shuts down and reappears in its usual color. On the other side, Infinnah T., along with many of Mario’s other allies, have climbed to the top of the Shadow Spire to escape the chaos below. They shout their encouragement and promise to do what they can to help. When Mario explains his situation, Infinnah T. has an idea. If Mario can turn the Shadow Spire back on, it will divert the dark energy back into the Nox Empire and out of Darkblot!
     With her help, Mario operates the portal machine and plays through a minigame where he must match Nox runes. Upon completing the minigame, the pipes on the walls flow with dark energy, and outside, the streets of Corona City light up again (as much as they’re supposed to, anyway). Dark Specteira is severely weakened by this, to the point where it falls down and drops Specteira’s spellbook. Now Mario can use special moves in battle by himself! And good thing, because Dark Specteira recovers quickly. The real final battle has arrived at last.
DARK SPECTEIRA
Tattle Entry #144
So, it all comes down to this. In his effort to secure its victory over the Nox once and for all, Darkblot has sacrificed its own physical form and taken control of... me. Our combined form, Dark Specteira, is vulnerable now with the excess magic flowing out of the Shadow Spire, but it’s still a frightening opponent, and if we can’t stop it here, the Nox Empire AND the Mushroom Frontier will be lost to time forever... Maximum HP is 200, Attack is 11, and Defense is 0. It can attack by blasting various types of dark magic, turning the stage dark so our attacks will miss, and inflicting tons of status effects-- including positive ones on himself. I know that’s me in there, but don’t worry about that now! Give that body-stealing blob of darkness everything you’ve got! And, Mario... I’m sorry I double-crossed you. If it weren’t for me, this would all be over by now. But please, forgive me and bring an end to this... for both of us...
    When Mario KOs Dark Specteira, the dark energy possessing it dissipates and turns back into Darkblot. Specteira regains control of herself and joins with Mario to finish off Darkblot for good. Having already taken one beating, it reverts to its Prologue stats again and can actually be defeated in only a couple turns. It screams a few last words about how Specteira chose the wrong ally, how they could have spread darkness across the world together, and explodes into dark mist, leaving behind the bag of stars it stole at the beginning of the game.
    Mario’s quest is now finally over. But before he returns to the present, it’s time to say goodbye to his friend. Specteira apologizes and admits that Mario really was looking out for her. Perhaps he was right to not tell her what happened to her civilization. As long as the Nox Empire and its darkness is around, the will of Darkblot will remain. The Mushroom Kingdom will surely arrive soon, and when it does, there’s only one way to save her people... As a final token of thanks, Specteira urges Mario to keep her spellbook, so the world will always remember the Nox Empire’s mistake.
    Mario returns to the present to find that, while the land is still scrambled, it has stopped changing and the Astral Aspects have disappeared. Everyone who saw Mario through the final battle is there to welcome him. Mario tells them about his victory over Darkblot, which is why the time shift stopped. Now, Infinnah T. explains, they must prove to the forces of time that Darkblot is truly gone. Mario nods and releases the bag of stars into the sky. Their light burns through all the wild magic in the Mushroom Frontier, and soon everything is back to normal.
    Everyone exits from the re-ruined Shadow Spire back to the Mt. Mushroom plaza. Everything is just as Mario remembers it at first, but soon one major discrepancy becomes obvious: Among his enthusiastic welcome party are several Nox people! When Mario is surprised by them and wonders how they can be there, Infinnah T. reminds him that when the Mushroom Kingdom came to take over this colony, the last empress of the Nox, instead of trying to hopelessly stop them by force (as has been the case until now), she decided to peacefully surrender. If she hadn’t, the Nox probably wouldn’t even be around today!
    It’s kind of weird for Mario that he’s the only one who remembers Specteira and how she helped to save the Mushroom Frontier, but one way or another, his work here is done. He says goodbye to his friends and partners, boards the Star Spinner, and sets off back to the greater Mushroom Kingdom.
    The final scene in the game is Mario and Luigi sitting at home a few weeks later. Luigi says, now that they’ve both caught up on each other’s adventures, it’s probably time for them to have a little downtime until the next Bowser attack. They then hear a knock on the door. When they open it, Toadsworth is there to offer another invitation to the castle for cake. Mario bids goodbye to a disappointed Luigi and heads outside. But then, after a pause, Toadsworth adds that, actually, Peach was inviting both of them! Luigi excitedly hops out of his chair as well and joins his brother to discover the real reason Mario enjoys being Player One so much...
*** THE END***