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Spell Chamber, Jhudora's Castle, Jhudora's Cloud, Faerieland
Jhudora sneered at the cowering figures.
"You have failed me too many times," she said,
"and now you will pay the price. I know you two share a bond of love. So I expect
this curse will be the most fitting." She turned away from the cage, and the
owner and Usul that were unfortunate enough to be locked in it. She took a jar
from a shelf and sprinkled its contents into a cauldron.
"Darkness magic, I summon thee, work thy evil
here..." she muttered an incantation under her breath as she worked.
"Lusu, remember how you wanted something for
your birthday, and I said I had completely forgot?" the owner whispered to the
Usul.
"We're about to be cursed, and you want to talk
about that? I can't believe you!" retorted Lusu the Usul in a whisper.
"I was lying. I wanted it to be a surprise. So,
surprise." She handed something to Lusu. "Happy birthday."
"Wow..." breathed Lusu.
"D'ya think you can use it to mess with the potion?
Wait 'til it's almost done, then when she's about to use it, grab something
and add it, maybe you can stop the curse."
"Got it."
Jhudora, unaware of the plotting behind her,
worked on for several more minutes. Now she was done her potion. It was ready
to curse -- all she had to do was finish the spell.
"Evil come and evil curse, work thy black magic.
Make now no mistake, ensure it to be tragic!"
This was when Lusu shot her new Rainbow Sticky
Hand at a random jar on the shelf, and pulled it back. The jar shattered on
the rim of the cauldron and its contents mixed with the curse-potion. Jhudora's
eyes went wide. She turned to the cage.
"Fools! You have no idea what you've --"
With a rather loud booming sound, the potion
froze everything around it, and it didn't stop there. Everyone on the cloud
got knocked with a blast of pure magic. But nothing on Neopia was spared from
the curse. It was originally intended for two victims. It got more than a hundred
million instead.
Nobody noticed the magic flecks flying into the
night. Not even the residents of 38629 Main Street, Neopia Central, where one
magic fleck was headed.
For two, the curse was devastating. For all Neopia,
it caused mass panic.
38629 Main Street, Neopia Central
Point of View: Pets
Dany770 the blue Shoyru awoke with a start. Something was wrong, but his groggy
mind wouldn't comprehend it. Where was that light coming from?
"Dany770, I need you to come with me," said a
calm voice.
"Wha...?"
"I was afraid this would happen," the voice muttered,
then nearly shouted, "WAKE UP, DANY!" and shook him.
"NOT THE MERRY-GO-ROUND!" Dany screamed, coming
out of a nightmare. He looked around and saw a Light Faerie looking at him,
one eyebrow raised.
"I won't ask," she commented.
"Dany, you okay?" Serennaa, Dany's adopted red
Gelert sister, called from her bedroom two rooms down.
"Yeah, go back to sleep. Just a nightmare, that's
all," called back Dany. He checked his clock. It was 4:30.
"No time to explain right now, but we need to
get you to Faerieland," instructed the Light Faerie.
"What for?"
There was a brief pause while the Light Faerie,
who had dropped her eyebrow, raised it again.
"I did say there was no time to explain? Queen
Fyora will explain everything once we get there," repeated the Faerie "Now come
on. We have a long way to fly."
"Queen Fyora?" Dany repeated, unbelieving, and
followed the Faerie out his bedroom's window.
* * *
Two and a half hours later, Serennaa sighed and got out of bed. Since Dany
had woken her up, she had been having a hard time getting back to sleep. She
went down the stairs connecting her second-floor bedroom to her study, and out
across the yard into the dining room to fix some breakfast. Yawning widely,
she decided on surprising sirSquire01, her owner, with Fluffy Faerie pancakes
and some apple juice for breakfast. She worked quickly, wanting to finish before
he came in.
Pouring the apple juice into three cups set around
the table in the living room, Serennaa glanced at the clock. It was already
eight-thirty. She cast a reproachful look at the dining room, filled with evidence
of the hour and a half it took her to make breakfast. Suddenly a baby Blumaroo
came by the house, jumping up and down, grinning with joy, shouting, "BLUMAROO-AROO"
at the top of its lungs like the roosters sirSquire talked about sometimes.
She covered her ears, (or at least tried to, it's a little hard with Gelert
ears) and figured on seeing sirSquire in a few minutes. She waited patiently
at her place at the table, waiting for sirSquire and Dany to come to breakfast.
Dany wouldn't care about anything but the pancakes; sirSquire, though, would
probably take a few moments to look at the messy dining room. Serennaa waited,
and waited, but nobody came.
"'Squire?" she called, using his nickname. "Did
you really sleep through that --" she stopped short as she poked her head into
his room. Her owner wasn't in there.
Weird, she thought, as she headed towards
Dany's room. He didn't leave a note or anything.
She climbed the stairs on Dany's side of the
house into his room. Dany, too, had disappeared. She ran back to the dining
room, and searched frantically through the mess for some note explaining why
her brother and owner had left. There was none. She checked the living room.
And the back room. And the spare room. And the play room, and every other room
in the house. There was no note anywhere.
"SirSquire? Dany?" Serennaa called, walking out
onto the street. They weren't there, nor was anyone else. But then, it was a
little early, nobody would probably come out until later. Serennaa resigned
to lying on the sidewalk in front of the house, and waiting.
Point of View: Owners
About that time, sirSquire01 got out of bed, dressed, and headed to the dining
room for breakfast. He found it covered with flour, and the table covered with
a rather alarming amount of burnt pancakes.
"Dany, have you been goofing off again?" he called,
half amused, half annoyed. He turned to see if his pet was in the living room,
hiding, and found three places set on the table there. The plates had what looked
like something that was supposed to be some form of pancakes, but had gotten
ruined. Then again, he thought, they look better than the lot in the dining
room...
"Serennaa, Dany, did one of you make breakfast?"
He grinned, then glanced through the rooms on the bottom floor. His pets were
nowhere to be seen. He checked their bedrooms, but those too were empty. There
was no note, either. Shaking his head, worried, he realized he couldn't find
his pets on an empty stomach, so he sat down at his place at the living room
table and ate.
Point of View: Pets
The sun hid behind the only cloud in the sky. Pets had come out of houses,
calling for their owners.
"Yours too?" asked Serennaa, and got nods from
the other pets.
"What's going on?" cried a young JubJub from
the back of the group, looking as though she was near tears.
"Oh, oh, it's okay, we'll find our owners," whispered
an Acara, standing next to the JubJub, and patted her back.
"That's a good question, though. Who could have
done this?" asked Serennaa.
"It may have been a spell. Nobody can kidnap
this many owners in one night without someone noticing," offered a Moehog.
"Right. Now, who would cast a spell to make all
the owners disappear? Only one person. Jhudora."
"You really think she did it?" piped up a Meerca.
"Who else? And whatever she did, it took my brother
too - Dany770, a blue Shoyru. I say we send someone to go to Jhudora's cloud
and figure out what's going on."
The pets cheered.
"Any volunteers?"
Silence.
"No, no volunteers? Then I'll go. Stay here,
and if my owner, sirSquire01, comes back, or if you see Dany, tell him what
happened and to wait at the house. I'll be back soon enough." And with that,
Serennaa set off to Faerieland.
Nobody had noticed the pebble that had hovered
off the ground and shot down the sidewalk.
Point of View: Owners
The sun hid behind the only cloud in the sky. sirSquire01 was near panic.
His pets were gone without a trace, although
one of them had made a breakfast and a mess. He strode out onto the street,
standing in front of his house, and paused. What was he so panicky about? They
had probably went to the market for something to clean up the mess with, or
maybe just to hide from him, since he'd probably yell at them.
Maybe he was so panicky because many of the owners
on the street were calling for their pets. He went up to his neighbor and asked
what was going on.
"My pets all disappeared! Not a trace! No note,
no explanation..."
"Same here. One of them made breakfast, though..."
SirSquire started yelling for everyone to calm
down, gather round, nothing can get better if there's panic.
"Now, I think what happened is pretty obvious:
our pets have all disappeared," sirSquire told them.
"First prize for stating the obvious, but where
are they?" shouted a man from the back of the group.
"That's what we need to figure out. Has anybody
found any clue to where the pets may have gone?" Asked sirSquire, and got a
lot of no's.
"I just wish there was something we could do!"
one owner exclaimed, picking up a pebble and throwing it down the street in
frustration.
"There is. I'm going to see the Faerie Queen."
To be continued...
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