"Okay, Princess," said Mario into the walkie-talkie, "try flushing the toilet now."

"Okay," replied Peach, who was a full floor above Mario and Luigi.  They were helping her fix the plumbing in the basement.  Peach turned the handle on the toilet, but nothing happened.  She talked into her walkie-talkie, "No, it's not working still."

The pipe Mario and Luigi were seated around began to leak.  "Darn!" shouted Luigi.  "Mario, go get me a rag to clean this up with."

Mario dug through his tool belt, but couldn't find a rag.  "Hold on, I'll go find some paper towels."  Mario got up and started walking around the room, looking for paper towels.  He returned and handed a parched piece of paper to Luigi.

"Thanks," said Luigi, taking the paper.  He almost crumpled the paper up to soak up the small puddle, but he noticed something intriguing about the paper, and stopped himself.  He turned it over, and hit his brother.  "Stupid Mario, can't you see what kind of paper this is?"

"No... what is it?" asked Mario.

"It's a treasure map!"

"Mamma-mia!"  Mario picked up his walkie-talkie.  "Peach!  Guess what!"

"What?" she asked.

"I found a treasure map!  Come here!"

"What??  A treasure map?!  Hold on!"  Peach ran down the stairs.  Upon entering the castle basement, she asked, "You found a treasure map in my basement?"

"Yeah!" said Mario, "Look!  A real life treasure map!"

Peach gasped, "I recognize this island!  It's Keelhaul Key!  Pirates used to reside in this tropical island and would hide treasure there.  I bet this map we have leads us to buried pirate treasure!"

"Ooooooh," said Luigi.  "Treasure!"

"Well," said Mario, "Let's a-go!"

Mario, Luigi, and Peach rented a small luxury motorboat so they could ride in style.  Peach paid, of course.

Luigi was relaxing on the ship's deck in a lawn chair, wearing sunglasses.  "Brother," he said, "bring me a lemonade."

"Not now, Luigi," said Mario.  "I can see Keelhaul key up ahead.  Peach, man the port anchor!"

"What?" asked Peach.  "I don't speak boat-talk.  I don't know anything about boating!"

"Neither do I," replied Mario.

"Well, how do we stop this boat?" worried Peach.

"I don't know!" shouted Mario.  "Turn the motor off!"

"I don't know how to!" said Peach.  "I don't know how to work motors and stuff!"

"Hurry up, you guys!" Luigi shouted urgently, pointing at the island's shore.  "We're going to crash into that rock!"

Peach began screaming franticly.  "We've got to steer the boat out of way!  Mario, help!"

"I don't know how the hell to steer a boat!" Mario shouted angrily.

"Mario!" Peach scolded, "watch your language or I'll have to wash your mouth out with soap!"

"Peach," replied Mario, irritated, "Stop telling me what to do!  I'm busy trying to steer the boat!"

"You guys--" interrupted Luigi.

"Oh, where's the damn boat manual?" hollered Mario, throwing everything out of their box of supplies.

"There is no excuse to talk like that, Mario," urged Peach, tapping her foot and waving her finger.

"Ha ha," teased Mario after checking everything in the box, "I just realized that there isn't any soap on the boat!"

"Guys, listen!" shouted Luigi, "we're going to crash!"

"Luigi, Peach can't tell me what to say, can she?" asked Mario.

"I'm the princess," Peach said with an elegant air of majesty, brushing her hair aside with her hand, "and I can do anything I want."

"Abandon ship!!!" screamed Luigi, diving off of the boat.  Fortunately, Mario and Peach heard him say this, and jumped out of the boat moments before it fatally crashed into the cliff side.

"Now we're stranded on this damn island!" shouted Mario.

"Mario, what did I say about saying bad words?" scolded Peach.

"Guys, guys, do we have the map?" Luigi panicked.

"What?  Oh, yes," said Mario, pulling it out from under his cap, which, fortunately, did not get wet.

"Where's the treasure?" asked Luigi, staring at the paper.

"Mario, Luigi!" Peach gasped, taken aback, "we've got more important issues, like how to get off of this island!"  Peach yanked the map from Mario, and traced the perimeter of the island with her finger.  She sighed, "just as I thought...no ports or anything."

"Oh well," said Luigi.  "I guess the only sensible thing to do would be to set up camp."

After a day of strenuous labor, working mainly with the destroyed pieces of their ship, Mario, Luigi, and Peach set up a very livable camp, which they nicknamed Shantymushroomtown.  The moonlight magnificently lit up their seaside camp.

"I don't see why we had to set up a store," complained Peach, inside the small tent that Mario and Luigi had spent most of the previous day building.  Most of their selection consisted of things that washed ashore from their ship wreck or things they could find on the island.  "Nobody's going to visit this store!" continued Peach.   "Plus, look at this selection!"  She picked up a small, red berry.  "Why would anyone come in here and spend eight coins on a berry that you picked off the bush right outside of this tent?  If they really needed a berry, wouldn't they just go outside and pick one off of the bush?"

"Oh, Peach," complained Mario, "you're making me hungry."  He picked up the berry, and turned toward Luigi.  "I'd like to buy this berry, please."

"That will be eight coins," replied Luigi.

Mario dug in his pocket, and was very embarrassed to find that he had no coins.  He began blushing profusely.

"That's all right, Brother," said Luigi.  "I'll let you have it for free."

"Thank you!  I'll pay you back later, I promise."  Mario ravenously gulped down the berry.

Peach scoffed.  "Ugh, how can you be sure that berry's not even poisonous?!"

Mario's eyes grew wide.

"No, no," reassured Luigi, "it's very simple.  'If red touches yellow, you're an okay fellow, but if red touches black, then you're dead, Jack.'  Mario's okay anyway because the berry is only red."

Peach grew too frustrated and retreated to her own hut for the night.

"Mario," said Luigi, "Peach looks really bored."

"But the TV got ruined when the boat sank," he sighed, picking up a dead, wet handheld TV (they were selling it for one billion coins).  "I'm a-tired, Brother.  Let's go to sleep."

"Okeydokey," said Luigi.  He and Mario went to their hut and both went to sleep on their beds, which were raised, flattened mounds of sand.

That night, the three of them were each haunted by the same nightmare.  "Leave this island while you can, or your bones will be ripped from your spirit and will plunged forever under this island.  Go now, or die gruesomely."  It was quite unsettling.

Mario was the first to wake up the next morning, and was surprised to find himself lying in two-inch-deep water.  He got up, and woke up Luigi.

"Hmmm," said Luigi.  "I guess the tide has come in.  Darn, we should have planned ahead for this."  The water had rushed in, weakening the tent's structure (it looked like it could collapse any minute) as well as completely destroying their beds.

Mario dashed out of his hut and into Peach's, waking her up.

"Whah?" she said, awkwardly confused about the water.  "Mario, did you have the same nightmare about the pirate?"

Mario was shocked.  "I thought it was nothing; I dream of threats from Bowser all of the time--did your dream say anything about bones in the island?"

"It means we'll die if we don't leave!" Peach worried hysterically.  She began running her fingers through her hair, hopelessly trying to remove the salt and sand.  Mario and Luigi also had lots of salt and sand in their mustaches.  Mario actually liked the salty taste, and often caught himself running his tongue through his mustache.

Mario frowned.  "Luigi!" he called.  Luigi soon came into Peach's hut.  "You had this dream with a giant skeleton, right?"

"Yeah," he shivered, "it had a sword and other deadly, stabby weapons."

"Hmmm," thought Mario, "I only have one idea: that skeletal monster must be guarding the treasure and wants us dead!"

"Of course," said Peach, who gave up on trying to neaten her hair.

"Let's follow the map," suggested Luigi, who was catching on to Mario's idea, "and kill the skeleton."

"But that won't help us get home, will it?" asked Peach, desperately.

Mario shrugged.

"So our camp was here," Peach pointed at the map.  "It's conveniently where the treasure map's trail starts."

"Yep," said Mario, as they began crossing a rope bridge.

"So I guess that means we're about right here, where the trail intersects this small bay?" she said, pointing about two-thirds of the way through the trail.

"Yeah," said Luigi.  "We're two-thirds of the way there."

"Whoa," said Mario, "don't look down!"

Peach intuitively looked down and gasped.  "I don't think I can do this.  I can't cross this bridge!  It's like I could fall right between these slats!"

"It's okay, Peach.  We're more than halfway across the bridge!" said Luigi.  "If we turned back now, we'd only have to walk even longer on the bridge."

"Ohhhh," whined Peach, "we've been walking for hours."

"No," disagreed Mario, "according to my watch, we have only traveled for zero minutes."

"Your watch got ruined when the boat crashed--your watch went underwater," said Luigi.  "You've been telling me it's 2:40 over and over all day, Mario."

Actually, Mario and company had been traveling for almost four hours, through a very dense jungle.  However, they really hadn't had much trouble until they ran into a dead end.

"Hmmm," said Luigi, looking down at his map.  "The map says the trail goes right into this cavern, but the entrance seems to be blocked by a solid wall."

"And a creepy wall at that!" said Peach.

"How can we get through?" asked Mario.  "Hmmm, there's a hole in the wall, but it's not nearly large enough for any of us to fit through."

"Stop kidding, Mario; I wouldn't even be able to stick my fist in that hole.

"Hey," said Luigi, "what's this?"  He walked up toward the wall, and wiped some dirt off of a dull, weathered plaque.  He read it, "Skull Captain casts his gaze!"  What's that mean?"

" 'Skull Captain casts his gaze'?! " asked Peach, surprised.  "That sounds familiar."

"What?" asked Mario.  "Have you been here before?"

"No no, Mario," said Peach, "but it sounds like the first line in a song I've known all my life.  I don't remember where I heard it, but..." and she began singing.

"Skull Captain casts his gaze!
Red Jewel shines and plays!
Boom-bassa-boom festival!

"The 'Stache brothers, best
of friends! Three times Red
'Stache lands on his end!

"Green 'Stache's belly four times
is whacked, so let's hear
those fireworks go BOOM!

"At the boom-bossa-boom
festivaaaal!"

Peach blushed.

"Skull captain?" asked Mario.  "That's like the skeleton in our nightmare!"

Peach nodded.  "The song says something about a red jewel."

"Well," said Luigi, taking out a uniquely-shaped, shiny red gem he had in his pocket, "Mario found this jewel, and he handed it to me so we could sell it at the store, but I ended up keeping it for myself because it looks like a skull.  I'm sorry, Mario.  It was a selfish thing to do.  I'll never do it again, I swear.  But anyway," Luigi caught himself going off-topic, "I think that this red jewel," he said, holding it up high, "is just the one that your song talks about."  Luigi walked up to the wall, and inserted the skull-shaped gem into the hole.

"Oh, look," said Peach, "it's glowing in the sunlight--just like in the song!  It's so beautiful!"  The sunlight shined through the gem and caused red light to dance all over the wall around it.

"Peach, what's the next part of the song?" Mario asked urgently.

" 'The 'Stache brothers'... like you and Luigi, you both have mustaches!" Peach smiled.  " 'Three times Red 'Stache lands on his end...' "

"Hmmm," thought Mario.  "Well, since I'm wearing red, I guess I'm Red 'Stache."  He jumped up, and landed on his rear end.  He got up, jumped, and fell on his butt again.  He did it a third time.

"Look!" pointed Luigi, "the red gem has started glowing!"  He had to shield his eyes, it was glowing so brightly.

"Then what, Peach?" asked Mario.

Peach had to run through the song in her head again to get to, " 'Green 'Stache's belly four times is whacked.' "

Mario walked over to Luigi, and gave him a quick, swift blow in the belly.

"Ow, Mario!"

Mario whacked Luigi in the belly three more times, and--BOOM!--the wall collapsed in a bright, colorful explosion, displaying a deep, dank, but attractive grotto behind it.

"Oh my goodness!" gasped Peach.  " 'Let's hear those fireworks go BOOM!'... the whole song was designed as instructions on how to enter this cave!"

"Duh!" said Mario.

"Well," said Luigi, "let's go in."  He let Mario and Peach go in front of him, then sneakily took the red jewel and put it in his pocket.

It was stunningly beautiful inside the grotto.  Light seeped in from an unknown source, filling the entire cave with a dim light.  Streams of seawater of water ran through, creating waterfalls all over the spacious cave.  In the deepest part of the grotto, the waterfalls all collected into a large pool, creating something like a lake, and filling the entire cave with mist.

"Considering how hard it was to get in here," said Peach, "there sure as heck better be some good treasure in here!"

"Uh-oh," said Mario, "this cavern goes very deep.  Look at this ladder," he said, picking up a rope ladder that was attached to the top of the cliff.

"Well," said Luigi, "let's drop the ladder down the side of the cliff and climb down."

Mario dropped the ladder down, and climbed all the way to the bottom.  "Peach, you go next."

"Okay," she said, climbing down the ladder.  However, Luigi impatiently started climbing down when Peach was only halfway down, and the ladder, unable to support their combined weight, snapped at the top.

Peach screamed as she fell, but Mario managed to catch her.  Then, Luigi fell on top of them.

"Oh no," said Peach, "now we can't get back up!  The ladder snapped and we have no way of attaching it to the top!"

"That's okay," said Mario.  "There is hopefully another way out of the grotto."

"Well, let's keep going, then," said Luigi.  They continued to walk through the cavernous grotto.  "You know," said Luigi, "pirates used to store their treasures in grottos like these."

"It looks like pirates have already been here," noted Mario, pointing out the half-sunken boats that rested in the large pools of water.

"How much farther do you think we need to go?" asked Luigi, after a while of exploring.  It was very difficult to track their progress on the map, and Luigi had lost their place.

"Oh, look, over there!" said Peach, pointing at a small tunnel somewhere to their left.

Mario, Luigi, and Peach got down on their hands and knees and crawled through the small tunnel.

They ended up outside in a small, enclosed cove, covered almost entirely by a very high, cavernous ceiling.  The mouth of the cavern was very big, and they could see the ocean outside.  "Whoa," said the trio as they entered the cove, in which many sunken ships were floating around...except for one old, very worn-out ship, which floated right on the shore.

"Look!" said Peach.  "A ship!"  They all walked over to it.

"Hmmm," said Mario.  "The name on the side says, 'The Black Skull.'  Sounds scary."

Luigi looked down at his map, and said, "Let's go anyway; the map says the treasure's in a cove.  The treasure is probably inside!" and they all went inside.

There were little sparkles on the opposite corner of the wall.  Everyone gasped.

"The treasure!" they all said in unison.

Mario ran over to the pile of coins, gold, jewels, doubloons, crowns, and other sparkly valuables.  He took a big scoop with his arms, and hugged the money.

"I love coins!" shouted Mario.

Peach tried on one of the crowns.  "Ooooh, I feel even more royal!  Call me Super Princess Peach!"

Luigi stopped digging through the rubies.  "Did you guys hear something?"

"Behind us!" said Peach, and instantly the three turned around, and gasped.

"The pirate skeleton that haunted us from within our nightmares!" they all shouted in unison.  He was a skeletal monster floating a foot off of the ground.  His skull was cracking, he had four arms, and he wore a pirate's hat.

"That's correct, mi amigos," he said, in a strong but fake Spanish accent.  "I am Cortez, the thousand-year-old spirit of the most fearsome pirate in history, and I rule this cursed island."

"Cursed?!" gasped Mario.  "So our ship crashing...that was a curse?"

"No," said Luigi, "you're just incapable of running a boat."

"Step away from my treasure," said Cortez.

They obeyed.

"What are you doing on this island?" asked Cortez.

"We want treasure!" said Mario, picking up a handful of coins from the large pile and throwing them high into the air.  The coins flew all over and made a lot of noise as they each crashed against the walls and floor of the boat.  Several of the coins flew directly into the side of Luigi's face, and this irritated him greatly.

"You don't leave with anything," said Cortez.  "Not even your lives.  Comprende?"

Peach, Mario, and Luigi then noticed the sharp, stabby, life-threatening weapons wielded by Cortez.  In his left hand was a cracked cutlass.  In his other left hand, a very sharp rapier.  In his right hand, a brassy sword, and instead of his other right hand was a rusty old hook.  Peach fainted at the frightful sight.

"Princess!" screamed Mario.

"Now look what you've done, you big bully," complained Luigi.  "You made the princess faint.  I hope you feel all high and mighty."

Mario kneeled down next to Peach.  "Stupid skeleton," he said.

"Why do you want to kill us?" asked Luigi.

"This is my island," said Cortez, coarsely, "and this is my treasure.  Simply stepping on the island is enough for me to want to mercilessly kill you, but touching my treasure," he coldly glanced at Mario, "will cost you your lives, and much more."

Mario reflected on this, and was thought it better that Peach had fainted; all of this would make her very unhappy.

"Well," suggested Luigi, "what if we simply left without taking any of your treasure?"

"Luigi!" Mario quietly urged.

"Mario," whispered Luigi, "are you crazy?  We'll die if we take this treasure, but at least we have a shot if we don't take it."

"Fine," resigned Mario, "I haven't liked our trip one bit; I want to go home.  Let's go."  He turned around to exit the boat, and this made Cortez very upset.

"How dare you??" roared Cortez, rushing with a whoosh to appear right before Mario.  "I'll kill you!  Ye dare leave me ship before I kill you?"

Cortez's cold, dead eyes glowed eerily.  The ship shook violently.

"Whaaaaaa!" shouted Mario as he lost his balance and fell to the floor.

"Don't shake the boat!" begged Peach as she was startled awake.

"I didn't shake the ship," said Cortez, a bit perplexed.

Luigi looked out the window through one of Cortez's telescopes.  "We're being attacked!"

"Who's attacking us?" asked Peach.

"Ummm..." said Luigi as he peered through the telescope, "...Bowser!!"

"Bowser??" Mario and Peach shouted hysterically.

"He's loading another cannonball!" shouted Luigi.

"Cortez!" said Mario, "we have to fire back at Bowser!"

"I can't without the Skull Gem to power my ship," admitted Cortez.  "It was lost many years ago..."

"Oh!" said Luigi, pulling the red gem out of his pocket.  "I have it!"

"Ah," said Cortez, taking it.  They all ran up to the deck.

"We've got to board his ship and stop him!" said Peach.

Cortez threw the skull gem into the magic ship engine, and the Black Skull began sailing toward Bowser's ship, the Bowser Blackstar.

Cortez had some difficulty getting his ship close to Bowser's since they were being shot at with cannonballs.  When they were close enough they all ran up on deck to talk to Bowser.

"Bowser!" shouted Peach, "Why are you shooting us?"

"I'm going to sink your boat so you can't get the treasure!"

Luigi gasped.  "How did you learn that the treasure is here?" he asked.

"Well," said Bowser, "I was calling Peach's cell phone to ask if today was a good day for me to kidnap her, but she wasn't answering--"

"My phone sank when our boat crashed," she pointed out to everyone.

"So I got her voicemail instead," continued Bowser.  "Her voicemail message said, 'Hi!  It's Princess Peach of the Mushroom Kingdom.  Sorry I'm not available at the moment.  I'm out treasure hunting with the Mario brothers!'  So I called Mario's cell phone and his voicemail picked up too.  It said, 'It's-a me, Mario!  I'm not in town right now, but if you need to reach me, I'm at Keelhaul Key!'  I pieced two and two together, and now here I am to steal your treasure!"  He roared a mighty laugh.

"Nobody gets my treasure," growled Cortez, glancing at Mario.  Mario blushed.

"Bowser, nobody wants you here," said Luigi.

"I'm boarding your ship," said Mario.  He took the boarding board, placed it between the two ships, and carefully balanced his way across.

"Get off my ship!" roared Bowser, swinging a punch at Mario, but missing.

"Go away!" yelled Mario.

"Never!" said Bowser.  "I'm going to kill you, then nab the princess and the treasure, and hightail it out of here!"

"Nobody likes you," said Luigi.

"I'm gonna kill you too, Luigi!"

"Nobody's killing anyone!" said Mario, courageously.

"Oh yeah?" said Bowser.  He hawked a fireball out of his mouth to fry Mario, but Mario jumped out of the way, and the fireball struck a pile of rope instead, catching it on fire.

"This is my cue to leave!" said Mario, crossing back to the Black Skull, then picking up the board so Bowser couldn't cross onto the ship.

"Noooo!" shouted Bowser as the fire spread across the wooden deck and masts.  His ship was ablaze.  "Oh well," he forfeited, "a captain must go down with his ship."  And Bowser sank into the water with his ship.  (He later found himself stranded on Keelhaul Key, but found it incredibly easy to get a fire going.)

"Thank you for defending my ship," said Cortez.  "To reward you, I'll spare you your lives and return you home."

"Hooray!" cheered Peach.

"Can we keep some of the money too?" asked Mario.

Peach shook her head.  "Mario, be thankful for what we have: our lives and each other!"

"Hell, we didn't have to come all the way here for that," said Mario.

"Hey," scolded Cortez, "watch your language!"