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MYSTERY ISLAND - There isn't a whole lot that happens in Neopia that makes me
shake in my Lucky Green Boots. But when I first saw that I could no longer go
to the Tiki Tack Tombola for my daily "You don't even get a booby prize" message,
I suddenly became a little panicky. Not even getting a booby prize from the Tombola
man was a daily ritual for me, and now something bizarre has happened so that
I can't enjoy doing that. And quite frankly, I am not the type of person who accepts
not getting my daily booby prize lying down. I had to find out WHY I could no
longer not get my daily no prize.
If you have spent the past couple of weeks in the Deep Catacombs Coffee Shoppe
and don't know what I am talking about, there is a message at the Tiki Tack
Tombola that now reads: "The Tiki Tack man is nowhere to be seen. He never
leaves his Tombola unattended (and if he does, there is usually a note)... and
it also looks like there was signs of a scuffle, as some of the items have been
knocked from the shelves. I wonder where he has gone?"
At first I wasn't very concerned about it. It's true the Tombola looked a
smidge untidy, but I assumed he had ransacked his own place looking for a pair
of socks. Since he never wears socks, I figured he really had to hunt hard for
them. To be honest, I didn't see much difference between the Tombola and my
own bedroom after I look for socks, so I simply shrugged it off. And when I
popped over to the Tiki Tack Gift Shop, sure enough, there he was. Since he
was still sockless, I guessed he hadn't found them after all. But the next day,
a Kougra was sitting in his shop with a happy look on his face. That's when
I started to get worried. If that Kougra had bought a jar of pickled olives
there and discovered that they can't be eaten, he might have eaten the Tombola
man instead. It would sure explain the satisfied look on the Kougra's face.
I was ready to write the Tombola man off as a "Random Hungry Neopet Event",
when the Techo Master vanished from the Mystery Island Training School. His
place was also slightly untidy, so I was beginning to wonder if the Tombola
man had decided to look for his socks in the Training School too. But there
was an item in the News Page that said: "The Tombola Man has vanished, and
today it seems that the Techo Master has been kidnapped from the Training School..."
I had a gut instinct that told me that more than socks were missing. Using my
superior detective skills, I immediately deduced that the Tombola man and the
Techo Master had been misplaced too.
Now I don't know who is in charge of Mystery Island, but I was personally
outraged that they didn't seem to take their job seriously enough to keep their
citizens from wandering off. So I was determined to figure out what happened
to them. Since I don't have a prayer at defeating those two Meerca brothers
in the new Defenders of Neopia mission, it seemed like a good way to be a hero
and receive the adoration of all of Neopia. That plus the fact that my pirate
Krawk was hungry and was demanding his daily ration of Tombola-freebie snail
subs and was threatening to slice me up with his hook if I didn't deliver soon.
But just as I was packing my Lupe warrior lunch box for an afternoon of Tiki
Tack Tombola man hunting, a whole bunch of others on Mystery Island appeared...
to... ummm... disappear. But I have a theory about what happened to everyone,
so don't worry. The Stoneman will now explain everything.
First of all, we need to ask ourselves what the Tiki Tack Tombola man and
the Techo Master have in common. The answer is... codestones. It's no coincidence
that just before he vanished, the Techo Master had raised the price of training
higher level pets in his school. This means that there was a lot of pressure
on the Tombola man to give out more free codestones. He was extremely NOT very
happy about this and a fight broke out between him and the Techo Master. Apparently
this rumble started in the Tombola booth and kept going all the way to the Training
School. Both places were trashed in the process. The Tombola man and the Techo
Master are now at the law offices of their lawyers filling out the paperwork
to sue each other for damages. If you've never had to deal with a lawyer before,
I'll give you a hint. They charge by the hour. So the Tombola man and the Techo
Master could be gone for weeks. Mystery solved.
What about the others that are missing? Well, I can solve those puzzles for
you too. The next Mystery Island personality to disappear was the Island Mystic.
It seems an Acara named Mora was playing cards with the Island Mystic. He got
three of a kind which obviously beat whatever cards she was holding. This made
her mad so she ripped the bone out of his nose and bonked him over the head
with it. He was immediately rushed to the Neopian hospital emergency room. Anyone
who has ever gone to the emergency room in the hospital will tell you that he
will be in the waiting room for at least a week while they verify that he has
the proper health insurance.
Of course, after Mora bonked the Island Mystic and gave him an amnesia-inducing
concussion, she got very frightened. After all, she did attack him with a deadly
nose ornament. Afraid that she would be arrested by the Chia police, the Acara
made up the whole story about someone grabbing the Mystic while she just happened
to be conveniently hunting for dust Snowbunnies under his bed.
The next guy who vanished was the Mystery Island Tour Guide. But I have a
sneaking feeling that he isn't really missing. The clue was two bawling coconut
heads screaming "Daddy is gone! Waaah!" If the kids in HIS family are anything
like my brother and sisters, he is probably in the garage building a new cart
since his kids borrowed the one he had and "accidentally" smashed it up coasting
down the side of the volcano. So there you have it. Four missing Mystery Island
citizens found. Sort of.
I know what you're thinking. How do I explain the fumes coming out of the
volcano and the eyewitness account of the Cooking Pot Faerie? Well, I can clear
those things up too. At the risk of being flamed--literally-- by Fire Faerie
fans, I think it's pretty obvious what is going on. If you go to the Uber Faeries
Quests page, it says this about the Fire Faerie: "This Faerie keeps scorching
her outfit and needs more clothes. In return she will increase your pet's strength.".
Okay, we have a Faerie sitting in the middle of a volcano. Her clothes spontaneously
catch on fire at odd moments. I think we can pretty much guess why the volcano
is smoking.
As for Jhuidah, the Cooking Pot Faerie, she admits herself that she fell into
the pot while it was filled with a shrinking potion. It seems that a disgruntled
Cooking Pot patron with red feathers in his hair got annoyed because she refused
to accept his combination of ingredients. Quite frankly, I'm surprised nobody
has pushed her into her own pot long before this. I know I've been tempted to
do it on more than one occasion myself.
It just so happens that Balthazar came trotting by and saw this tiny Faerie
doing the backstroke in a bubbling brew. So he popped her into a glass container
he just happened to have handy. Imagine his surprise when the shrinking potion
wore off and she grew back to her normal size. He did what you would expect
him to do. He took the opportunity to hightail it back to the Haunted Woods
before she could zap him for giving her a bad hair day.
So there you have it. All of the mysterious disappearances of Mystery Island
have now been explained. Everything is back to normal. Which means, of course,
I can't find my socks.
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