And so Mushpuff began to once again make his way down his tunnel to find the fish at the end. Alas, when he reached the portcullis and the fish, the fish was now a different fish and the prior fish was on the table, being sold with the straws.

“Hello,” said the new fish. “Would you be interested in buying straws? Or fish? We take turns selling them.”

“Yes, I’m aware,” said Mushpuff. “I had a talk with your coworker. He agreed to sell me a straw if I killed 22 bears for him.”

“Ah, yes,” said the fish. “A fair trade, I’d say. Those bears have been tormenting us for far longer than the period of time between 3 and 4 planks of wood.”

“....what?”

“Well, have you killed them?”

“Yes! Come right this way,” said Mushpuff, leading the fish out of the tunnel.

The fish grabbed a piece of paper and a pen and flopped after Mushpuff on his back fin. It was quite a long walk because the fish was so slow and it kept falling over every few seconds.

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Upon exiting the tunnel at the site of the 22 unconscious bears, the fish began taking notes. This process took multiple minutes. At one point, Mushpuff looked at what the fish was writing, but it was either nonsense scribbles or a very dense and scribbly language he couldn’t recognize.

“Well then!” said the fish after many minutes, which was a long enough time for Snorter to fall asleep. “It appears that these bears are not dead.”

“But they’re laying down!” said Plagiarize. “Isn’t that enough to be considered dead?”

“Well, no. Because they’re breathing.”

“Well watch this, then!” said Klumpkrump, picking up the Energy Cube.

“Careful with that!” exclaimed Hoofa.

Klumpkrump zapped all the bears with the cube, vaporizing them. However, one of the bears was wearing a Magic Energy Cube Reflection Amulet, which reflects Energy Cube lasers. It bounced off the bear and hit the fish, vaporizing him instead.

“Why didn’t we just do that from the start?” asked Plagiarize.

“Because it’s immoral!” said Bird.

“Immoral or not, that fish was an obstacle. Let’s go get that bracelet.”