The situation gets a little hairy.

“Then let’s take this party elsewhere, shall we?” Merlee said as she pulled on a piece of decorative trim on the bookcase, turning it like a knob, and pushing it open to reveal a secret passageway. “One of the reasons I picked this study in particular,” she explained, as she descended down the revealed staircase. As she walked past a torch on the wall, it flickered to life with a magical, smokeless flame. “This staircase leads to a secret room in the basement that’s otherwise inaccessible from the rest of the Mansion. Save for an escape route, of course.”

Mario and Merluvlee followed after her, the latter shutting the secret door behind them, casting the entire passageway into relative darkness. There was an aura of mystery about this chamber, Mario had to admit as they walked down the steps with their only guide being the torches that lit up as they approached them and extinguished after they had passed them by.

After an awkward walk in silence and a couple of switchbacks, they arrived at a landing with a heavy steel door set in the wall. “Oh dear, this is quite dusty…,” Merlee muttered, wiping off a small pedestal next to the door with her sleeve before pressing her hand to its surface, “I do hope that everything’s all right in there.”

After a beep, and a slight clunk, the door swung open with the almighty grinding groan of metal scraping on metal heavily. Stale air filled the landing, and the room inside flashed with a soft yellow light.

“Well, there are no cobwebs, at least,” Merlee sighed as she led the other two in.

After the study above, Mario was expecting the adjoined safe room to be quite Spartan in appearance. Nothing else could be further from the truth. He felt like he had stepped into a large studio apartment that was owned by a former baroness. A plush red shag carpet with golden Celtic knot designs awaited them just past the door, which also held what looked like to be the safe room’s living area with a love seat, coffee table, and wall-mounted television. Behind the love seat, along the wall was a kitchenette, which Merlee was currently perusing, checking the cabinets and humming inquisitively to herself. Along the far wall was a glorious four-poster, cherry wood bed with golden gossamer curtains. To one side of it sat an antique dresser with a large mirror attached, and tucked away on the other side, in the far corner was a door. Judging from the sign hung on it, Mario made an educated guess that was where the bathroom was kept. Looking up, he could see that the room was lit up primarily by a crystal chandelier from an inset in the ceiling which was mirrored to increase the amount of light it could shed.

It was very beautiful, Mario thought as he sneezed, but also incredibly dusty in here.

“This is why I said we should’ve taken more time to be prepared,” Merluvlee sighed irritably as she strutted in, casting spells to cleanse the room of dust and dirt, “How are you not embarrassed by this horrid housekeeping?”

“I thought the other Merlees would take care of it!” Merlee whined piteously, “I hardly ever use this place!” She opened the refrigerator and yelped as a Fuzzy leapt out at her. It missed and got to enjoy its freedom for all of five seconds before Merlee zapped it with a lightning spell, carbonizing it into dust on the spot. “Okay, the fridge is a health hazard, lovely. I was hoping to offer you a drink, but I guess we’ll just have to make do with water?”

“Water’s fine,” Mario said as he stepped in, and the steel door shut behind him, locking itself with an ominous clunk.

“Mario, could you come here and…,” Merluvlee hesitated, “Strip for me, please?”

“You certainly waste no time,” Mario chuckled as he stepped up to the place she indicated, next to the love seat.

“You’re the one in a hurry,” Merluvlee told him as the kitchen sink sputtered to life. “At least the sink works,” Mario heard Merlee mutter.

Mario started with his socks and shoes, sitting down on the plush couch to do so. Placing his bare feet onto the carpet was honestly one of the satisfactory feelings in the world. He wiggled his toes, savoring the soft touch of it fibers. Maybe he should have one of these installed in his room, whenever the castle staff got around to assigning one to him. Or maybe in the harem would be better, taking someone on a rug like this had to be miles better than doing it on hardwood. Although, Mario would not envy whoever would have to clean it up.

Having basked in the luxurious carpeting for long enough, Mario got back up and took off his cap and gloves, setting them on the arm of the sofa. Then, after making sure that Merluvlee was still looking, Mario unfastened his overalls on clasp at a time, slowly.

Mario shimmed the denim off, and Merluvlee jumped, “You’re, uh. You went commando today, I see.” The was indeed no more fabric hiding Mario’s member from the world, it twitched slightly from the feeling of freedom and the cool basement air. It was already at half mast, and it kept growing as Mario stripped off his shirt. He smirked at the shaman, relishing in her apparent embarrassment.

“What are you talking about over h…,” Merlee said as she came from around the couch, holding a tray with a pitcher of water and a few tumbler glasses. She then saw Mario’s state of undress, eyes fixed between his legs and finished that thought with a quiet, “Oh my.”

Mario thought about saying something smart, but decided against it, lest it ruin the moment for them.

Merluvlee was the first to recover, clearing her throat with a soft “Ahem. That is very impressive, but there is one slight problem.”

Mario frowned, “And that is?”

“In order for the ritual to succeed, we need to imprint a design on your skin,” Merlee said set the drinks down on the coffee table, “And all of that hair would get in the way.”

Mario looked down at himself, he was indeed an incredibly hairy person. Normally, he had everything shaved below the neck, as he thought the look would attract Peach’s attention before and it was easier to clean the grime that accrued from plumbing off his body that way. But after the moon, Mario kind of let himself go. To be honest though, he kind of enjoyed this look a lot more, it made him look and feel more masculine.

“How much hair are we talking?” Mario replied skeptically.

“Just around the pubic area,” Merluvlee looked like she was about to touch him in the indicated area, but settled for pointing at his crotch instead.

“The ritual states that a tattoo needs to be inscribed there,” Merlee said pulling an old folded sheet of paper out of her pocket, “But if you’re wanting something less permanent, we believe we have found a suitable work-around.”

“Which is?” Mario asked. She was right, he wasn’t too fond of the idea of having anything permanently inscribed on his skin at the moment.

“We’re calling it the copy-paste approach,” Merlee explained as she unfolded the paper and set it on the table for Mario to see, “We ‘copy’ the design from this parchment and magically, but temporarily ‘paste’ it onto your skin. After the ritual’s over, we can just utilize magic to dispel the pasted image from you. Think of it as a magical temporary tattoo.”

“And you need to remove my hair for this?” Mario asked her as he looked the design over. It made him think a lot of the emblem that adorned Vidyhyne’s forehead, but instead of a tribal design resembling a woman’s uterus, it was more like a set of three eyes, with the third being set above the other two and much larger. The tattoo itself looked as though it would take up the entire pelvic area, working around a space where Mario assumed the penis would be in this design.

“Yes,” Merluvlee replied, “To make sure that the tattoo’s placed properly. We, uh, didn’t think that this would be a problem, to be honest. Every time we’ve seen you in swimwear, we never saw a single strand of hair apart from what was on your head.”

“But, if it makes you feel any better,” Merlee followed up, “We can supply you with a poultice that’ll make your hair grow back faster after we’re done here!”

“It’s not snake oil, is it?” Mario replied doubtfully.

“No!” Merlee sounded offended, “Why does everyone ask that the first time? Snakes have nothing to do with hair growth potions!”

Mario couldn’t help himself, he snickered a little. He apologized right after, “Your reaction was just priceless.”

Merlee crossed her arms with a harrumph, as Merluvlee asked, “So is it okay if we removed your hair from there?”