3 Mario's Three Lives

The plumber stomps the tiny mushroom headed foes who wobble toward him, trying to kill him but succeeding only if he's completely careless. He bounces from one head to another, crushing a whole troop of them without touching the ground once. He is an efficient weapon, and these lowliest of enemies are no more than an inconvenience. Crawling through a maze of green pipes, the plumber realizes that he doesn't believe the Devil made the turtles or their king, because that would mean the Devil also made the world and that he will not accept. He hopes he is on the side of good and decides that he must be. He is on a quest to save the Princess, and surely that is a good thing.

Now there is snow covering the land, so he slips and slides precariously down hills toward open crevasses. He springs into the air and bounces off a winged turtle to reach a higher cliff, where he skates across the icy landscape. There is money everywhere and although he picks up as much as he can, it never gets too heavy. This is because it is constantly disappearing from his pockets, going who knows where. All the plumber knows is that when he's found a lot of gold it makes it easier to come back after he falls down a pit or gets hit by some spiky creature thrown from the sky by a surprisingly anthropomorphic cloud. The more money he finds, the less he ends up in the Place Where One Waits Between Continues. He hates that place, with its tense anticipation, and so he looks everywhere for gold coins or else green mushrooms, which both make the same music and have the same life-giving effect.

Finally, he sees the castle in the distance. He's passed several fake ones on his way, convincing replicas built on other worlds, but he knows that this is the real deal. The Princess is there and so is the Turtle King. He enters.