World 1
As the two brothers emerged from the pipe they could hear the booming voice of Ravana echoing off in the distance. Rama stepped out of the tube first and noticed they had been transported from their lush green forest to a scrubby flat world with cracking brown dirt. The peculiar thing about this world was that it had earthen cubes floating in the air.
"What are those blocks doing floating in the air?" Lakshmana inquired.
The brothers went over and investigated the first strange floating block, which was quite far above their heads. From underneath it looked inert, so Rama jumped up to see if he could get a closer look.
"Aaaahhhhhhh!" Rama screamed as his jump thrust him through the air with impressive and uncontrollable force, resulting in him whacking his head on the underside of the block. When Rama landed on the ground he saw coins in his vision and thought he had a concussion. "Lakshmana, would you find me an ice pack? I think I might have hit that box a bit hard, because now I see coins on the ground." Rama moaned in despair.
Lakshmana replied, "Dear brother, those coins are real. Our jumps must be more powerful in this arid cube world! Get up, collect these coins, and let us jump into the next blocks on our path."
Rama collected himself and then it was Lakshmana's turn to hit the next block. Out popped a monkey candy, which Lakshmana promptly ate. Suddenly, Lakshmana was twice as big as before.
"Looks like I'm the big brother now," Lakshmana joked as the brothers came upon an obstacle - a large green tube. Inside the tube was a flower, which seemed nice at first. But then, the flower turned its head and snapped at the brothers! The flower had big sharp fangs!
The plant was clearly too ferocious and bloodthirsty to simply kill. The brothers took a step back from the pipe and jumped directly upwards to see if they could jump over the wicked flower, but neither were able to jump above its pointy fangs.
"Look, there's a floating platform right there. Maybe we can jump from there to clear this demon plant," Rama suggested.
The brothers leapt up onto the platform and then in turn jumped over the angry plant.
"You have defeated me, you clever boy Rama!!" the plant wailed at the brothers. "Ravana planted me here in this pipe many years ago in preparation for his evil plots, but I am actually a nice flower. Since you have defeated me, I will leave you with a gift," the plant continued.
Suddenly, the flower shrunk in size and became very still. Left in its place was a small glowing red flower, and it fit perfectly into Rama's hand. Once he possessed it, Rama grew to the size of his brother and his clothes changed into a red fire suit. As Rama jumped in the air with glee, fire shot out of his sleeves in all directions.
"Hello, mighty warrior," came a voice from the shadows. A small monkey emerged into the clearing. "My name is Hanuman, and I want to help you on your quest. Come, let's proceed to the next level!" Hanuman exclaimed. Then the brothers ran with Hanuman through a castle and into the next stage in their journey.
Author's Note:
In this first story, I wanted to get the brothers going on their quest to save Sita from Ravana, all while introducing the mechanics of the new world they are in. Since one of my primary goals is to show the parallels between the Super Mario universe and the Ramayana universe, I wanted to show the first minor rakshasas that Rama meets on his quest in the form of basic Mario enemies, such as a piranha plant. The piranha plant is a standard Mario enemy that cannot be killed by jumping on it (unlike minor enemies like goombas or koopas). Instead, Mario has to jump over piranha plants in order to "defeat" them. In this story, the piranha plant represents Viradha, who was made into a rakshasa against his will. When Rama defeats Viradha he doesn't kill him with weapons, but has the clever idea to cast him into a pit instead. In the Ramayana, this story does come before Sita is abducted, but I wanted to show some demons that Ravana planted along the way. I also introduce power-ups throughout this level primarily so readers can begin to understand how they integrate into the overall story. Additionally, I set up the next story in this storybook by introducing Hanuman near the end. Hanuman represents Toad from Super Mario Bros. and it will be clear later why that is. For right now, the reader knows that this is the Monkey Kingdom, which is likened to the Mushroom Kingdom in the video game. Likewise, almost all toad or mushroom themed things from the video game will be replaced with monkey-themed things - for example, the classic Mario mushroom power-up was replaced by a monkey-shaped candy in this story. Finally, I wanted my characters to complete their first level of Super Ramayana Bros., earn some points, and get ready for the battle that is about to come.
Bibliography
PDE Ramayana: Ramayana Online: Public Domain Edition
Specifically, the abridged Viradha Story taken from M. Dutt