"Hey Karina, as long as we're here, why don't we try Test Your Strength?" the Cybunny said, tugging on her friend's sleeve.

"Oh, come on, Sunny..." Karina said, rolling her eyes. "Everyone knows that game is rigged."

"How can you resist?" Sunny asked in an exasperated tone. "Look at the jackpot! 173,678,600 Neopoints!" she said, hopping up and down in excitement.

"It's only that high because no one ever actually wins it, and yet they all waste their Neopoints trying. Besides, look," Karina said, opening her right paw. "I only have 50 Neopoints left, and I don't want to waste th-"

Sunny, however, had already snatched the coins from her friend's palm, and adding them to her own sum.. there was just enough needed to try the game.

"Sunny!" Karina yelled, running up to her friend, as the Cybunny raised the mallet and swung. Unable to do anything now, the Acara watched anxiously as the scale shot up, higher and higher, at an incredible speed.

Arnold, the Mynci who was in charge of the game, stared in horror as the two friends chanted together, "97... 98... 99... ONE HUNDRED!!!" The Cybunny and Acara erupted in squeals, hugging each other as they jumped up and down. "WE DID IT! WE DID IT! WE'RE RICH! WE'RE RICH! WE'RE RICH!!"

The two friends then turned expectantly towards Arnold...

"Huh?" Karina asked as she turned to Sunny, but her friend looked equally clueless. "Where'd he go?"

"I'd bet he ran away, so he wouldn't have to give us our money." Sunny said, narrowing her eyes and flattening her ears suspiciously.

Karina balled her paws into fists. "Ooh, that filthy little Mynci!"

However, they were both surprised by a voice that came from behind them. "Were you two talking about me?" the voice asked.

The Cybunny and Acara whirled around, to face none other than Arnold himself. "I believe I have what you want," he said innocently, holding up a tiny pouch that jingled when he shook it.

"But..." Sunny began, her ears popping up once again. "But it's so small! That couldn't possibly hold over a hundred million Neopoints."

"Ahh, but it does," Arnold chuckled. "You don't think I would be able to carry around 173,678,600 coins, do you?"

Karina and Sunny both blushed; they'd thought differently.

"No, no, no," Arnold continued, "I'm not that strong." Handing the bag to Karina and Sunny, the Mynci smiled genuinely at them. "Go ahead, open it!"

The Cybunny and Acara needed no further urgence. Sunny poured the contents into Karina's paws. One large silver coin plunked out, labeled 100 mil... followed by another, which had 50 mil engraved on it, and several other coins of much smaller denominations.

Karina turned to Arnold in surprise. "I didn't know they made coins worth this much!"

The Mynci merely grinned. "Then I see you have much to learn. Now, shoo! I have to scrounge up some Neopoints for tomorrow's jackpot." He spun around sharply on his heel and disappeared into the gloomy Fairgrounds, leaving the two friends to observe their mysterious treasure.

What they didn't notice was that the sign displaying the jackpot hadn't changed at all. In fact, as Karina and Sunny headed off, stunned by their enormous luck, the hundreds place on the counter clicked up by one...

..."What should we buy?" Sunny asked through her numb, excited lips.

Karina sighed, rolling her eyes. "We shouldn't buy anything. We need to deposit it in the bank," she said, reaching towards the pouch that lay in Sunny's paw.

Sunny quickly tightened her grip as she turned towards her friend to glare at her. "Well, technically, they're MY Neopoints, so I'll do want I want with them!"

Karina drew her paw back with a hurt expression on her face. "Sunny, what's the matter with you?" she asked gently, afraid she would set Sunny off again. Karina realized that her friend looked just as scared as she had been.

"I... I'm sorry, Karina. I don't know what happened," she stammered, handing the small pouch to the quivering Acara.

Karina shook her head. "No, it's OK. You're right. We deserve to buy something. How about heading towards the shops?"

The friends smiled warmly, but inside they both felt shaky about Sunny's behavior.

Sunny squealed with delight as they arrived at a fancy weapons store. "I've always wanted some nice weapons for the Battledome!" she exclaimed while admiring a long sword through the window.

Sunny dragged Karina inside, and immediately asked about the rare sword.

"How much is it?" the eager Cybunny demanded.

"Six-hundred thousand Neopoints," the shopkeeper, an unkempt Quiggle, whistled through the gap in his teeth.

Sunny practically laughed in his face. She didn't even bother to try to make the price lower. The Cybunny fished through her pouch until she found a one million Neopoint coin. Sunny handed the coin to the shopkeeper, then expectantly awaited the receipt of her change.

The Quiggle looked at the coins inquisitively, and said...

Sunny pounded one clenched fist in the other, while Karina rolled her eyes.

"I knew it," she said. "There's no such coin, is there?"

"Well, I've never come across any," the Quiggle shopkeeper said. He looked at the two miserable friends and shrugged. "Well, even my customers usually aren't rich enough to have such coins, so I could be wrong. Try the bank. They'd know for sure."

The Quiggle handed the Cybunny back her coins with a sad shrug. Sunny accepted the coins unhappily, and Karina patted her shoulder.

"Well, maybe they're real, and people just don't know about them," the Acara said. "C'mon. Let's go make sure."

"And if they're fake?" Sunny asked, swallowing hard.

"Then we'll be out a hundred Neopoints... big deal. That's what happens to everyone who plays Test your Strength, anyway." Karina said, smiling encouragingly. The two friends walked into the bank together. This time, Karina took the sack and handed it to the rather fierce-looking Skeith banker.

"Excuse me, sir," Karina said nervously. "Have you heard of hundred... or fifty, uh, million... Neopoint coins?" Karina grinned hopefully until her face felt as though it might fall off. The Skeith raised an eyebrow cynically and replied...

..."You must be mad! A coin worth a million Neopoints? Nonsense. Utter nonsense. Where'd you ever come up with that idea?"

"Uh," Karina began, her face flushed as she fished the coin from their pouch, then handed it over the Skeith. "How about that?"

The Skeith inspected it, turned it over, then raised his head to look at her with skeptical eyes.

"We won Test Your Strength," Sunny explained quickly. "Arnold gave us these. He said they were real."

The Skeith dropped the coin onto the counter. "Arnold!" He declared, almost laughing out loud. "That crazy little Mynci. Everyone knows his game is rigged. This must be one of Arnold's little pranks... Hmm, but even Arnold knows the kind of serious trouble he could get into if he were caught counterfeiting..."

Karina sighed. "Does that mean they're fake?" Her mood dimmed considerably, and her shoulders drooped.

"Well," the Skeith replied, causing Karina and Sunny to look up towards him hopefully. "We could check the Neopian bank records, to see if a coin like this has ever been made."

Karina and Sunny cheered and thanked the Skeith, crossing their fingers as he began to check.

"Not much chance, ladies, but I can still try..." the Skeith told them as he began going through the files. "I mean, a million Neopoint coin..."

The banker suddenly let out a loud gasp as he stared at a document.

"What, what?" Karina and Sunny asked, huddling behind the Skeith to look at the paper. Staring at the tiny print, Sunny read aloud...

Sunny quickly dropped the coins and shuddered.

Karina continued reading. "Thousands of these coins were created, but most of them were destroyed because of the old belief that they carried evil. Nobody knows exactly how the dark faeries were able to make these coins, therefore it is currently impossible to recreate them. The curse supposedly..."

"What?" Sunny shrieked, "What did the curse do?"

"I don't know." Karina said, replying as calmly as she could, "Somebody used white-out to cover up the rest of it."

The bank manager got up and said...

..."This sounds bad, indeed. Perhaps you girls should just hand the coins over to me... for now, at least, until we can learn more about them. It sounds dangerous, and this is probably best left to the professionals," he said, finishing with a somber tone while still eyeing the document closely.

However, when he reached a hand out to retrieve the high value coins, Sunny grabbed them defensively, thrusting them into her pouch. Karina looked on in horror as her friend's face contorted into a harsh, possessive grimace. It was the same look she'd had before, when Karina had advised her not to spend the money.

Suddenly, Karina was absolutely certain that the coins were just as evil as the text suggested.

"Now Sunny, listen... he just wants to help, I mean... surely, we can trust him to keep--" Karina began in what she hoped was a soothing voice.

Sunny cut her off before she'd gotten the chance to finish, though. "Oh, so now you're part of this, too? You're both just jealous... you just want to take from me what I've rightfully earned! These coins are mine!" With that, the Cybunny ran from the Bank, coin pouch clutched firmly in her paw.

"Sunny!" a stunned Karina yelled, "Come back!" She tried to pursue her friend, but soon realized that it was no use. Sunny had always been a much faster runner. Deflated and flustered, Karina returned to the interior of the Bank. "What am I going to do now?" she sighed, placing her tired head on the counter.

The Skeith's monstrous features softened slightly at her evident distress. "I'm afraid there's not much we can do, at least not until we can decipher the rest of this paper, or find Arnold. And, frankly... there's not much chance of us doing either."

The Acara raised her head slowly, and it was evident from her increasingly excited face that an idea was slowly dawning on her. "You know, I think I just might have a plan," she remarked with a smile...

The Skeith eyed her intently. "What does it say?"

Karina swallowed hard, then read out loud:

"The curse was supposedly designed to corrupt the heart. Many Neopets, upon recognizing the obvious worth of the coins, would treasure them as possessions, never letting them out of their sight. These Neopets became so obsessed that they would eventually lose all touch with reality. The Curse of the Coins of Evil, as it came to be known, has been deemed responsible for consuming hundreds of pets all over Neopia. While most who obtain the coins are soon beyond the aid of any outsiders, there is believed to be one counter curse: a secret chant, known only to the ancient leaders of the Lost Desert. It has only been recorded on one scroll, whose whereabouts are unknown. According to legend, the only way of lifting the curse is by reciting this chant in the presence of both the coins and the corrupted pet."

The paper dropped from the Acara's shaking hands. She looked up at the Skeith. "We have to do something, and fast," she cried. "Sunny's my best friend, and if that wasn't a blatant display of greed, then I don't know what is!" Her big green eyes welled up with tears. "However, the only way of stopping the curse is by finding this chant," she said softly. "It could be anywhere. How can we find it?"

The bank manager looked at her thoughtfully. "A scroll, eh?" he said. "I think I may be able to help..."

"...You see, the Rare Scroll Collectors of Southern Neopia have a safety deposit here, and they haven't made a payment for the past 2,500 years, ever since their society broke up."

"I doubt VERY much that they would have put something that rare here," Karina sniffed, "but we can always try. Which box is it?"

"It's box number 1337," answered the Skeith.

"Then let's go check it!" Karina shouted with pleasure.

"Well," the bank manager replied, "I'm not really supposed to be in that part of the bank, ever since I ate a chokato that someone was keeping back there... but I have an idea."

The Skeith pulled two green hats out of his pocket, one of which he commanded Karina to put on her head.

"What is it?" she interrogated, puzzled about what they were doing.

"Here, let me put mine on..." he said, disappearing into thin air as he placed it on his head. "Don't you recognize an invisihat when you see, or rather don't see, one?"

"You are brilliant," Karina crooned, leaping and hugging thin air. "But, how do we get back there?"

"That's the easy part," he replied, walking through an open door. "We're already there. Now, the hard part is getting past the guard, without him hearing us. However, as long as we stay quiet when they're near us, we shouldn't have a problem."

They walked through the labyrinth of boxes, desperately searching for number 1337. They were just about there, when they saw the beam of a flashlight...

"What is Sunny doing in here?" Karina said, quietly gasping. She took note that her "best friend" had knocked out two security guards, who lay unconscious on the floor. The pouch containing the evil coins was still clutched tightly in the paw (the one that was not holding the flashlight).

"I m-must protect my precious coins!" Sunny stammered, glancing around wildly. "They said I could find their friends here. M-more coins! I will protect them all!"

Sunny quickly dodged into a side corridor, right past... box 1337!

"Keep an eye on her... maybe try distracting her while I open the box," the Skeith whispered to Karina, startling her in the process. She had almost forgotten he was there, because of the invisihat. That's it!

"The hat!" she said softly. A plan quickly came to Karina, and almost as quickly she relayed it to the Skeith, just out of Sunny's earshot. "She won't be able to fight you; she'll probably try and run. Throw me your hat when you take it off. She'll be momentarily distracted by your presence. Open the box and get ready to read that scroll. Leave the rest to me!"

The Skeith followed Karina's orders, and as predicted, Sunny was thrown off by his appearance and backed away, almost hissing. Karina got close to Sunny and, with one swoop of the invisihat and a quick prying paw, Karina shoved the bag of coins into the invisihat!

"NOOOOOOO!" Sunny wailed, frantically looking for the coins. "WHERE? Where? Where did they GO?"

Karina pulled off her invisihat, which was a big mistake. Sunny's look changed from desperation to outrage, and she began attacking Karina with everything she had. "YOU STOLE MY PRECIOUS COINS!"

Just as Karina thought she couldn't hold back her friend anymore, the sound of incantations came from behind Sunny. The Cybunny's attacks slowed, and suddenly, she became conscious of what she was doing.

"Karina... I'm so sorry! Did I hurt you badly?!" Sunny cried to the Acara.

"I'll survive," Karina joked, happy that her friend was back. She turned to the banker and smiled. "Thank you. It looks like you found that scroll just in time."

Sure enough, the Skeith was standing behind the two, holding a parched piece of paper in his hands. "Glad to help, ladies. Now, about those coins... I believe I can now bring them to the same fate as that chokato," he said, smirking. Karina gladly gave him the invisihat, which still held the coins. After locking them a metal box for protection, (which happened to look quite tasty to the Skeith), the hat, scroll, box, and evil coins were gone in a single gulp.

"And now," Karina said, turning towards her best friend, "I believe we owe a certain Mynci a visit. Will you join us on your break, Mr. Skeith?"

"Most certainly," he replied. "Oh, and I'll just have you know that my second career is as a practicing lawyer. Let's see how well Arnold swallows that," the Skeith replied, giving yet another smirk as the three left the bank, giggling with laughter.

The End