The two reptiles stepped into the dumbwaiter together, a rickety wooden box that seemed sturdy enough as they pulled the ropes within, easily lifting themselves up through the shaft, catching glimpses of crystals shining everywhere.  James was somewhat bedazzled by them by the time they reached their stop, the dumbwaiter stopping and the door opening to reveal another kremling, who gazed curiously at the occupants.  Kruz greeted the greeter.
	"Hey there, we're here to see Kannon?"
	"Fer whut?"
	"We need permission to climb the shaft."
	"Business or pleasure?"
	"Ehhh bit of both I suppose."
	"Alrigh', but you gotta answer a question afore I let you out."
	"Shoot."
	"How many windows does the Kaptain's Kabin have?"
	"Four."
Kruz didn't even miss a beat, and James barely had time to even remember.
	"Alrigh', head on through."
James didn't even question such an absurd question, as they entered the mines proper.  Everywhere he looked, blinding white and blue crystals glistened in the walls, a mishmashed array of wooden walkways circling the shaft ever upwards, sometimes even across the chasm in strangely dangerous ways, yet they never seemed to falter.
Despite having a head for heights, he felt very unsafe in such a place, and did his best to not look down or up but straight ahead, focusing on Kruz who guided him across walkways in an almost instinctive manner.  Kremlings passed them by without even looking, carrying buckets filled with either gems, water or just plain old rocks.  Many of them were toiling away with pickaxes, standing upon walkways.  The sounds of sharp metal clanging against mineral rang throughout the strata, as small vultures flew back and forth relaying smaller bags between walkways.
Eventually, after a steady walk towards a central large platform built safely upon a tall thick stone pillar, they stood before a huge kremling with a thick-gut, wielding a smaller cannon under one arm tightly, a belt with a large buckle across his belly.  Earrings jangled off the sides of his head as he turned to look towards the newcomers, his skin light purple like a blood disease.

	"Ahoy there," greeted the cannon-wielding croc gruffly, "what business ye needin'?"
	"Sir Kannon," asked Kruz politely, "we need your permission to climb the mineshaft an' make our way to the keep."
	"The keep eh?  Sumthin' important to relay to the cap'n?"
	"Very.  We're survivors from the Gangplank Galleon an' we need to deliver a message to him fer supplies an' updates about how we're farin'."
	"Ahhh I heard abou' that.  Nasty business, heard it were sabotage of sum sort?"
	"Yeah."
Kruz was slightly worried that Kannon knew, but kept his calm.  James looked around aimlessly at the crystals glaring all over, entranced by their light, bewitching his sight and mesmering him.  He'd never seen such beautiful crystals, and like a child with his first pocket money, he gazed upon them with wonder, gently walking over to one particular box of gems.  As he tenderly thumbing through them with glimmering eyes, Kruz did his best to prove his right to pass.
The raptor gasped as he saw his eyes separate into several more within the crystals, panting softly upon them, stroking his claws ever so softly along them as if they were made of pure glass.  White like crystallised milk.  They were cool and smooth, so fine and oddly-shaped in either single rectangular shapes with pointed ends, or branching multiple clumps all rooted together at one point.  He even tempted himself to bite on one out of plain curiosity, nomming softly and quickly before returning it to the pile, as Kannon finally made his verdict.
	"Well suppose I got no reason to delay ya, so you two can go on up.  Though whut abou' him?"
	"Oh don' worry, he's been with us fer several months now, he's cool, makes a damn good rigger lemme tell ya.  Hey Rex, come on, we can go up now."
	"But...shiny!"
Kruz smirked and took James by the hand, pulling him away from the cache of crystals and towards another walkway guarded by a huge muscular green kremling, who let them pass with the consent of his superior Kannon.  James was admittedly a little disappointed that he hadn't taken one of the crystals for himself, but he tried to ignore their siren shine as they continued to scale upwards, occasionally taking elevators to higher up.
	"Wow you were like a kid in a candy store," said Kruz as he looked at his friend's awestruck expression.  "Whassa matter, you never been in a mine before?"
	"No......so...shiny..."
	"Hahahaha, lookit you, yer just completely lost in yer own world arentcha?"
	"I......uh-um, sorry they're just...beautiful."
	"Don' blame ya, now come on, sooner we get outta here, sooner we get to the captain."

With that thought implanted in mind, James did his best to ignore the crystals and head on upwards.  After traversing through the entire mineshaft within a spiral of walkways, interspersed with occasional viewing platforms, pulleys, and pickaxe-wielding workers, they soon saw the lava floes once again at the exit.  They could also spot the ruined galleon near them.
Like Kruz had said, it had managed to remain within its own lagoon of water completely cut off from the lava itself, thickly oozing around the rocks that surrounded the wreck as the flow made its way towards the sea.  The only problem was that the galleon was clearly within boiling hot water, judging from the steam that coiled around the ship, as if they were the ghosts of its former crew.  James was admittedly awestruck by such an anomaly.
	"Wow..."
	"Yeah it's pretty crazy huh?"
	"No kidding, and it's still like, not melted or anything!"
	"Or burned to cinders.  Problem is the only real access route to the next lava river is right through that ship."
	"So how the hell do we get through it?"
	"We got a way, follow me."
He followed Kruz onto a stairway carved into the rock that lead towards the galleon's deck itself, which by the angle of it was far too steep to actually climb over to the other side.  Essentially, they did literally have to go through the ship itself against the risk of being boiled to death.  The interior was surprisingly well-preserved despite the clear signs of rust and warping from both wood and metal.  It was certainly reminiscent in its layout to the Gangplank Galleon, so both of them had little trouble navigating it.
The real problem was the water itself, literally burning hot with steam obscuring their vision now and again.  They did their utmost best in traversing amongst the crates, using secret passages that had been made in them that were specially built for the kremlings.  Clearly they had intended to use this galleon like a passage the moment it had scuppered itself into its own private lagoon long ago.
They were as quick as possible, the raptor sticking close to Kruz as they leapt from crate to crate, mindful of the water, with their tails at least once having been dipped into it.  Kruz was a bit more resistant than James who shrieked from the surprising burn, keeping his tail constantly up in the air afterwards with utmost care.
Thankfully neither of them were unfortunate enough to fall into it and suffer terrible burns before they soon saw the other side of the ship deck, after what felt like an hour of navigating various decks of varying depths of water trapped within them.  Thankfully the water remained still, never making waves that would threateningly splash like acid on either of them.  Soon, they had managed to escape the lava lagoon mostly unharmed.

The other side of the galleon offered only another lava river and the foot of the largest slope of the volcano, which offered a way out of the caldera to the top of it.  James saw no real way across the river, which now had even less to offer in terms of rocky islets to land upon and navigate through.  There was however something unusual, floating above the magma itself.
	"The hell are those?"
James pointed to several blue floating objects lined up over the lava.
	"Balloons, what else?"
	"Wait...what?"
	"We had to make a way over this lava without rocks, so someone had a great idea of balloons, tough ones, the steam from the lava rises up an' keeps 'em in place to land on."
	"That...seriously, that works?"
	"Works fer us, come on!"
Kruz leapt forwards without a care and onto the first balloon, which remained sturdy enough to support his weight, before leaping to the next one with practiced agility.  James followed suit, unsure of whether this was better than the krocheads or not, but at the very least he was higher up from the lava.  Frankly this offered little support since if he fell, he would have nothing to reach for.
Nevertheless, they continued to jump from one balloon to the other across the front of the slope's base, watching for any sudden bursts of magma from the rivers running down it.  There was also the fact that one or two of the balloons were not entirely up to snuff, and would slowly begin to deflate towards the lava.  James panicked, but his friend kept cool and leapt forwards to offer the raptor a stepping stone, since neither of them were sure about a balloon taking both their weight, playing it safe.
After a rather tense episode of trusting one's jumping prowess again and again over the strangely durable balloons, they finally reached the other side, where they were soon met by yet another mineshaft.  James was quite frankly getting tired of seeing only lava and shiny crystals, the latter starting to annoy him by the way they tempted him with their sparkle.
	"We get to the top of this one," said Kruz giving a small recap, "an' when we do, we can hop on over to the top of the slope an' climb out of this place."
	"Finally."
The procedure was the same as before, the dumbwaiter ride up, greeting the guard who verified their authority with an obscure question of the kremlings, as well as the fact that Kannon had let them through.  But there seemed to be another problem in the shaft itself.  Parrots.
	"Dumb bastards came in 'ere squawkin' their asses off at us," said one of the workers, "no idea whut they're on about, they don' even live near here so watch yerself on the walkways."

With this new danger in mind, James and Kruz made their way upwards, seeing the many green-and-red parrots that flapped and squawked throughout the mineshaft.  They were already annoyed by their cheerful expressions as they began to fluster, or even attack the workers by throwing nuts, eggs or just divebombing them.  The two travellers were not spared either, as they hastily slapped the birds away in their hastening climb upwards.
James also could not resist himself from grabbing a particularly shiny crystal from a crate in the midst of the bedlam that occurred, the workers trying to concentrate while parrots were fought back with pickaxes, cannons, and fellow vultures fighting them in the air.  In fact it was both the vultures and the wasps who would be doing most of the fighting to protect the kremling workers in their mining efforts.  It felt longer to scale this mineshaft, even though Kruz had said it was actually shorter than the other one.
But they would soon make it out to the very top, despite the many scratches and bruises they received from the assault of the parrots, snarling at them and managing to take down one or three with some slashing attacks.  The caldera's exit at the top of the slope was oddly inviting to James.  A large pool of lava, one of the main sources of it certainly in this place, with a kremling-made stairway leading upwards and out of it on the other side.  Thankfully they could cross the pool with the help of several platforms along it within reach of each other.  But James had to comment on something.

	"Heh...this is a bit...odd you think?"
	"Whatcha mean bro?"
	"Well, a big lava pool like this, all these stepping stones near the end of this area...looks like the perfect place for someone to ambush ya out of the lava or something right?  Like a last test, or a boss of this area or something?"
	"Heh, yeah, I guess...wonder what kinda guy would wanna fight here?"
	"He'd have to be crazy for sure."
	"Well you know how it is.  You the boss of some place, power goes to yer head, they're all crazy like that."
	"Hah, yeah I guess that's true."
With nothing more to say, they reached the staircase and happily climbed out of Crocodile Cauldron, panting with relief at the feel of the cool polluted sea breeze caressing their flesh.  They rested for a while to take in their freedom from the magma lagoon, gazing upon the island itself with some weariness at having only just started their ascent to the top.
	"You serious about goin' up to face K. Rool?" asked Kruz.
The slightest waver of hesitation laid hidden under his usual nonchalance.  But James was adamant.
	"Yeah.  I'm not leaving this place until I get answers from him."
	"I dunno whut the rest of the kremlings are gonna be like to us, but at least Kannon was pretty good to us."
	"Yeah...so!  What next?"
James stood up raring to go again, the brown-scaled ex-rigger standing with him.
	"Well, now we gotta go through Krem Quay.  That used to be our main port, 'til some jackass crashed an oil tanker into it an' turned it into a swamp impossible to get out of."
	"Shit."
	"That is if yer a ship.  Kremlings can still walk along it to the other side, then we just ask Kudgel to let us pass an' we'll be at Kremland, which I know yer gonna love."
	"Kremland?"
	"You'll know it when ya see it.  Now come on, let's get our feet wet."
With that, they scaled down the other side of the volcano and into the swamp itself.
The first thing that came to James was the stench of the swamp itself.  It was pure pollution, the water corroded into a horrendously soupy tar that bubbled with heaving gasps of air struggling to break the dark green liquid.  It smelt like rotten dish water, vapours coiling before him like the stench of kerosone.  Kruz was less bothered by it all as they surveyed the scene.

The place was largely just one fetid swamp with large deadened trees stiffly against the backdrop of it all, the only item of interest in the whole place being the large galleon literally split in two, spanning the breadth of the bog itself.  At the other end of the swamp, where the front of the ship tipped upwards, there lied a tantalisingly well-lit cavern.
	"Alright lemme see," pondered Kruz aloud, "we gotta cross the bayou over to the galleon's stern, which we gotta swim through in order to reach the middle of the swamp.  There's a buncha krockheads who can help us cross over to the bow of the galleon which we gotta climb up, all the way to the rigging which is kinda slimy.  We won't have problems there but the last part we might."
	"Why?"
	"We gotta go through brambles.  And damn are they nasty.  But hopefully we can get through there with our rigged-up passageway through it and then we can get by Kudgel.  We'll stop by his brother Klubba on the way an' see if we can't get a favour."
	"Right.  Okay, let's do this."
With trepidation, James and Kruz walked into the bayou itself.  It was largely straightforward and posed little obstacle to the two reptiles, occasionally having to leap between boardwalks with other makeshift platforms, such as hardened lily pads.  James also noted a lot of barrels lying around the place, or somehow kept suspended in mid-air by means unseen to him.  Kruz however opted for other ways and with the help of a friendly krochead or two, they were soon nearing the galleon's remains.  As they reached near the end, they soon heard a terrible cackle, which made James jump with a start.
	"Wh-what was that!?"
The cackling responded once again, the kind of sinister arrogant cackle that would become a prelude to mischief.  Kruz was unfazed by this, and he said to nobody in particular:
	"Yer a barrel of laughs aintcha?"
Soon the cackling came closer towards them, and the owner of such a terrible laugh faded into being.  A long-armed pirate's cloak, imperial green, floating in mid-air, its arms dangling with a wispy aura with two piercing bright red eyes coming from the top of where the head would be.  It spoke with an oddly educated voice.
	"Hnyuh hnyuh hnyuh...what business do two young lads such as yerself have within this wretched bayou?"
	"We're just passing through, business an' all."
	"Is that so?  You'll be passing through my galleon too?"
	"That's the plan."
	"...I never seen a kremling like YOU before."
The spirit slowly floated closer to James, who was genuinely freaked out and tried to back away, shaking with the realisation of what it was.
	"G-...y-you're..."
	"Dead?  No more?  Expired?  Ceased to be?  Pining for the fjords?  Why yes, I am."
	"U-u-um-"

Kruz stepped in and put a hand to James' snout to stop him shaking.
	"Rex cool it, he's with us.  Sorry, he's new to the isle, he's not got the hang of everything yet."
	"Aaaaah...I would shake yer hand but...unless ye want me to give ye a barrel out of thin air, I can do little else."
	"HE WOULD TOO!"
A voice squawked from behind James, making him jump and scream with fright as he turned around swiftly to see a panicky little yellow kremling, wearing a barrel around himself.  His facew was gnarled with what appeared to be old burns, as well as having one of his eyes kept firmly shut with a bloated purple lid.
	"H-he knows eeeeeverything!"
	"Hnyuh hnyuh, I suppose I do."
	"Th-the hell is with you two!?!?" cried out James.
	"You look different!  Oooooh...not kremling, not kritter, neeking, zinging, flitting?"
	"Wha-no, I'm a raptor dammit!"
	"Raptor?!  New to me, and I seen a lotta things, believe you me, since I died."
	"Wha-...you're dead too?  But...you look...alive."
	"NO!"
The yellow kremling backed off, shaking in his barrel with sudden fear.
	"Not alive!  Not anymore!  Hhhh...they...they come for me if I am alive...but I'm dead, dead like all of them are...dead...inside."
	"...uhhhh Kruz?"
	"Yeah Rex?"
	"...I wanna get out of here.  Right the fuck now."
	"In a bit, I think we need to ask sumthin'."
	"Nnnnnnnhhhh!"
James whined and tried to keep close to Kruz's strangely stoic stance against these two anomalies, his private thoughts spiralling with panic.
Holy fuck there's ghosts and everything in this place!?  What the hell's up with this island?!  I wanna get outta here, right fucking now, I didn't think ghosts were real and I never needed to know if they were!
	"Did you see the captain pass through here?" asked Kruz to the cloaked one.
	"Ohhhh yes.  Carryin' an ape with him he was, an' a whoooole bunch of his bodyguards.  We wouldn't bother them of course, but he passed through here well."
	"How long ago was it?"
	"Ohhhh I can't tell.  Time has no meaning to me anymore."
	"No time to lose!" squawked the yellow croc.  "Time is nothing, time for tea, time for BIRTHDAYS!"
The barrel-wearing kremling giggled and shivered with the kind of glee that could only come from excitable fear, a shaky giggle that would echo throughout dark abandoned hallways, a fearful reflex.  James was starting to giggle slightly himself from his own fear of these two, trying to comprehend.

	"You'll have to excuse my yeller friend.  He's dead ye see."
	"You don't say," said Kruz sardonically.
	"Ohh yes.  Went down with all of us in that terrible oil fire, remember Klobber?"
	"YESSIR!  Ohhh I remember, it's all over my face, SPLISH SPLASH, FUN AT THE PARK, HEHEHEHEHEHE!"
	"Hnyuh hnyuh hnyuh!  Ohhhh it was fun...fun to die, losin' me body, gettin' to float around thanks to the glory of our leader."
	"Glory, yes yes much glory, no guts no glory!  None of us got guts anymore, all burst, festooned!"
	"Well good luck with that," said Kruz, "but thanks for the info."
	"Glad to help...hope to see you again soon."
The cloaked spirit chuckled darkly, his friend giggling and jumping in his barrel as the Kruz and James walked on, briskly so to put as much distance between them and the locals as possible.  When out of earshot enough, the raptor had to ask:
	"Okay, you need to tell me why there's fucking GHOSTS and LUNATICS in this swamp!"
	"Well, remember I told ya about that oil tanker that crashed into here?"
	"Yeah?"
	"Well the galleon that's here was docked here too with a crew.  If they didn't die from the crash, the oil fire afterwards would finish 'em off.  Lot of 'em became spirits just floatin' around here with nowhere to go.  And the ones who did survive went crazy from grief.  That and most of the spirits here tend to hate the livin' with a vengeance and wanna try and kill most who come into this place, that's why Klobber's 'dead', as he says."
	"...they...uh...the ghosts wanna kill us?"
	"Some of 'em anyways.  Others'll actually help anyone even if they love to kinda dick around with the livin'.  They can't really let go of the whole death thing, and none of 'em can leave either thanks to this island."
	"What do you mean thanks to this island?"
	"Let's just say...this place is a lot deeper than ya think.  Now come on.  Hope you got good lungs for this part."
With that cryptic message, they walked onwards, climbing into the galleon through a hole in the side.
	"It's gonna be dark, but don' worry, we just find ourselves a Glimmer an' they'll help us out."
James could hardly believe they were going to swim in it after all he had been told, and he was still reeling from the fact that ghosts existed in this place.  Trying to ignore the past frightful encounter, he followed Kruz into the water, holding his breath as best as he could.
Thankfully they had assistance from the local wildlife, the Glimmers as Kruz called them.  A small brown anglerfish with a natural light on the end of a tube from its head, easily lighting up the entire sunken galleon.  The water was wretched enough for James to not have to see the murky aura it possessed.  The remnants of oil and swampwater, the raptor trying to ignore it as Kruz guided him along the pathway using Glimmer's help.  Wherever the kremling pointed it to, it shone along their way.

Occasionally they found small pockets of air to breathe from, gasping with each other above the sickening sludge before going back down with Glimmer's aid.  Other than feeling threatened for their health, there was little incident in the galleon's hold, except for one unusual event.  Halfway through, walking through the very bowels of the sunken stern, was a green kremling in red-and-white striped pants and a peg-leg.
He merely gazed at the two swimmers, his eyes clearly deadened and glazed over.  He didn't even say a word and merely kept walking with his limp, across the bottom of the hull.  There was little more for the two to say until they reached the other side of the galleon.  Finally submerging through a hole above the water level. they soon made their way through to the center of the swamp.
Standing within the central region of the mire, it was only then that James realised how wide it truly was, judging by the divide between both halves of the galleon, bustling with all sorts of strange creatures.  Wasps, dragonflies, krocheads, and small yellow kremlings wielding huge pairs of cutlasses with a terribly manic glee in their eyes, cutting anything and everything that came near them.  Kruz noted out a path for them across the thicker swampy sections by either the krocheads or giant catskills bobbing above the water, large stalks with sausage-like ends.

Leaping between the large plants was easy enough for the two, having trained themselves expertly so on shipmasts to be able to handle it.  But it was more everything else they were having problems with.  The cutlass-wielding scaly midgets for starters were all practically insane, swearing allegiance to K. Rool no matter what and at their first approach, did not even say more than two words before they tried to cleave the ex-riggers in two.
Thankfully due to their diminituve size they were easy for the two to handle, deflecting at least one blade to be able to get an opening to skewer them straight through.  James was somewhat intimidated by the size of the blades they wielded, but his scissors were big enough to even deflect two at the same time, easily slashing them out of the grip of one unlucky mad kremling to impale through the chest.
Kruz, with his smaller sword but better experience, was more sneaky in his ways of letting the enemies try and cleave downwards with an overhead swing, before stepping to the side and slicing through their necks or waists when they had slammed their cutlasses straight into the boardwalk.  They babbled and chittered their own little language, earrings dangling amidst nasty chuckles.  Thankfully there were not many patrolling the boardwalk and the two passed through with no injuries.  The insects could care less for the slaughter.
Other kremlings were in the swamp as well, usually of the spring-legged variety and also remnants of a crew long gone.  It was quite a stretch of the marsh they had to cross, but soon they reached the other side towards the bow of the galleon.  Near the base of it however, was a strange tollbooth, slightly lit up with a small metal shack.
	"Oh good," said Kruz with a smile.  "We can talk to Klubba here an' see if we can get somewhere."
	"Who is this Klubba guy?"
	"He runs the tollbooth.  Come on, you'll love 'im, he's a great guy."