The Great Mysteries of Meridell by chaos_shadow14 |  |
Untitled Document
CITADEL OF DARIGAN - Even past war times, the arguments continue; who was in the
right, Lord Darigan or King Skarl? Obviously, dependant upon the side you chose
to remain loyal to, your response will vary accordingly. Anybody with one of the
Draconian shields in their bio will doubtless argue that Lord Darigan had every
right to invade Meridell and retrieve his property, while the Meridell defender
will debate with the adverse points, that King Skarl was only doing what was necessary
for his kingdom, as any good king would, and was totally oblivious to the means
by which the Orb came into his possession.
Although now it's got me wondering why Meridell was in such bad shape is Skarl
was such a wise and benevolent ruler. Ah, well.
The point remains to be contested for a long time, obviously, and will probably
go on ad infinitum (or until Neopets gets up the next plot part, but sometimes
one must wonder if there's much of a difference). However, until that point,
we'll just have to remain in eternal turmoil and have people ripping each other's
throats out about the point.
However, through this all, there is a mystery that still remains, several
questions still unanswered (if only I could think of them) that may well point
in the direction of the true enemy. Let's examine the ones that I actually do
know.
The Orb
First and foremost, everybody knows about the Orb. It's a magical artifact
that seems like somebody had to do geometry homework on it - I wonder what the
teacher thought of that. When it enters a kingdom, it bestows upon the land
a surplus of food and rids the area of all plague and disease. Everything will
spontaneously become green again, and all of the sad, decrepit people within
the land will suddenly be grinning their heads off as the ominous, omnipresent
rain clouds leave suddenly and make everything all better, excluding the fact
that people didn't get to sewing up their clothes again for a while.
Now, all of this begs a simple question; where did the Orb come from? Is it
a remnant of an ancient civilization that moved elsewhere and left it for the
next band of nomads to prosper from? Is it a Hidden Tower artifact that Fyora
accidentally let slip onto the world way below? Is it really just a hunk of
junk that gained magical powers because somebody did their geometry homework
on it? Math is power, after all, although I don't think that's what the posters
wanted to mean.
Under the first idea, why would anybody want to just up and move without taking
such a valuable possession with them? Was their something horrible about it
that they didn't wish to follow them, or were they just feeling particularly
generous that day and said 'The needy nomads that might not even come here could
use this' while promptly dumping it off in the middle of nowhere?
If the second, why would Fyora be so careless with something so valuable?
Obviously, she would know about it, and would probably keep it safe or give
it to a waning country (like Meridell). Or did she not know about the powers
is possessed and simply allowed it to fall off of the cloud?
And if the latter, then I really wish my Algebra homework could bestow powers
on one of my random little gold trinkets. That would be cool!
Forgetting creation theories, however, one must also notice the cause and
effect of the Orb; when Draconia had it, their land was beautiful and pretty
and stuff, and Meridell's suffered mildly. When Meridell managed to steal it/find
it/pick it up and accidentally misplace it in their pockets (Hey! It's perfectly
feasible!) and brought it back to Meridell, Draconia suffered horribly and felt
the need to get it back.
Does this mean that the Orb is actually an evil artifact, perhaps even created
by a certain villain that we haven't heard too much of anything major from for
a while that happens to live in a random castle that rises and flies on whatever
night of the year it is and gives our Neopets diseases and has a moustache?
If it is (an evil artifact in general, I mean) then perhaps it creates a sense
of dependency along with the pretty landscape and erases all thoughts of defence
from the ones who own it, and when it's taken away it leaves a path of decay
behind it so everything goes all freaky and noxious (For those of you that managed
to follow that first sentence, no pun intended, really)? So now that Meridell
no longer has it, will they be left in nothing but decay and ruins?
The Knights
There are two sets of knights that I recall; one of them was the troop that
went off and got the Orb, and the other was a team that went to the Draconian
Citadel and never came back. The first has a very clear story; they were wondering
around, got help from a freaky old Kyrii shaman, went to Draconia, got the Orb
one way or another, and came back to Meridell and made things pretty again.
So what about it? Perhaps something more went on during the mission...
Obviously, when King Skarl's land was deteriorating due to reasons we can't
even begin to think about just yet, he sent off a troop of his finest knights
(one of which was a Kougra, which in ancient turned out to be Castle Defenders,
which everybody knows are disturbingly powerful spirit things) in order to see
if they could find anything that would help the kingdom.
Hold the phone right here! Okay... Drop the receiver... Good... Anyway, what
one must wonder is how King Skarl knew that there might have been a way to help
their kingdom. I mean, Meridell is the only 'kingdom' that I know of, but in
ancient Neopia it may well be that every location was a kingdom. But, then,
kingdoms oftentimes don't bother to help each other out because the one they
tried to help could rise up against their assistant and then take them over.
So how did Skarl even dream of being able to get assistance, from another kingdom
or a magical artifact that may not even exist. Hmm...
Keeping that in mind, he sends the knight's off on a quest that they may not
even come back from. What a nice guy. The knights go off for a while - nobody's
sure how long - and leave the castle even more defenceless than it was before
(logic sure is nice, isn't it?) However, on the way to nowhere, they meet up
with the old Kyrii shaman, who just happened to know where a mystical orb that
could make everything better was. She pointed it out, and the knights trekked
off, located and found/stole/took the Orb, then went back to Meridell, which
immediately became all shiny and stuff. Whoo.
So. We know about the Orb, and we know about the knights, or at least one
group of them. Personally, I think the other group went to Draconia, caught
the disease that the Draconians had, turned into hideous/cool mutants, and then
decided that, since they'd be mistaken for the enemy and pummelled with Snow
Mudballs from the Militia Mob, they'd just stay with Darigan so as to avoid
injury. That's my theory, though.
However, there are still a few unsolved mysteries, and the most pressing that
I can think of is this; whatever did happen to the old Kyrii shaman?
The Shaman
The Kyrii is truly a one-scene wonder. She (I'm assuming that they're an old
woman, because little old ladies are almost always all-powerful super people
that look really frail, and I just can't imagine a guy rocking back and forth
waving a staff like that) appeared for less than one scene, did some freaky
magic junk, and then pretty much caused the entire war all because she managed
to point out where a pretty golden ball with geometry homework on it was. She's
also been debated quite a bit, and I'm pretty sure that the question stands;
"What did happen to that Kyrii?"
Well, I can't begin the fathom the answer to that, but I can begin to guess
why the Kyrii just happened to know where the Orb was. I've seen the theory
before that, somehow, she was related to some sort of Ultimate Bad Guy (like
Dr. Sloth or whatnot) or was, in fact, a disguise that Sloth or somebody of
the like put forth in order to point out to Meridell the location of an Orb
which conveniently enough would lead to a horrible war wherein lots of places
get destroyed. Yay!
Perhaps, however, the Kyrii was for real, although I doubt that severely.
She might have been a prophet of sorts, or a seer, or what have you, but I for
one think she was out to destroy both lands, although for what motives I can't
begin to grasp. Perhaps she was insane, and wanted to be remembered for causing
the destruction of two lands. Perhaps she wished to, after it was all over,
offer herself as a savior to one of the lands and rebuild it, then rule over
them. Or maybe she didn't even know the Orb existed and wanted to get a laugh
out of it when the Meridellians did a full circuit of Neopia. That would be
sort of funny to see, actually... But I digress.
We still have the mystery of the Kyrii shaman/seer/lunatic before us, and
I don't think any amount of speculation, good, bad, or strange, is going to
help us get closer to the truth. Perhaps Neopets will clear this up one day
- who knows?
However, there is one thing that is absolutely evil. One thing that can only
be the Ultimate Bad Guy that we've been searching for all along. Yes, my fellow
Neopians, I'm talking about...
The Twig
Yes, indeed. The infamous Twig, which could also be mistaken for a very weird
tree root. This is the true cause of all evil and discussions/arguments of Meridell
and all that has happened in it. Without this Twig, I doubt that much of this
could have ever happened.
It was by this Twig that Jeran, a little blue Lupe with a fake sword and shield,
was sent back into Meridell to become her greatest knight (although the Castle
Defender is obviously an even greater knight than Jeran... I'll think about
that later) Now, considering the difficulty that Jeran posed during the battle,
I'd say that Meridell's defences weren't exactly that great... And he was their
greatest knight... People wonder why they lost.
It was also by this same Twig that Lisha, Morris, and the Blumaroo and Zafara
who do absolutely nothing but beat up a couple of obviously simple Draconian
guards were sent back to Meridell in order to aid in the battle. This also presented
Lisha a chance to meet up with her long lost brother, Jeran, and the two promptly
forgot about each other, so that serves no purpose. I doubt that, if they hadn't
been sent back to fight in the war, Morris would have been in the first wave.
Had Morris not been in the first wave, then they wouldn't have gone down that
easily. If they hadn't gone down that easily, then Meridell might have had a
better chance of winning. But, then, he was up against a bunch of Drackonacks;
what kind of fight is that?
And despite the destruction of Meridell, despite the battle that raged all
around it, what did the Twig do? It just lay there, laughing at our misfortune!
I don't know how a Twig laughs, but it was doing it, I tell you!
That, and the fact that I think everybody had to trip over the Twig to get
to Meridell...
Well, that about covers everything that I can thin of concerning Meridell
and the strange mystery of it all. I'd say thank you for reading my first-ever
publication in The Neopian Times, but my English teacher always says that it's
not a good way to finish an article and... You know, I don't listen to my English
teacher that often anyway.
Author's Note:If you have any questions, comments, concerns, or topics
that you just might like me to write another article about, then Neomail me
with it. I guess I'll apologize now to anybody who found this in the least offensive,
which would probably include the Kyrii Shaman/Seer/Lunatic for her own section
(and for my possibly messing up their gender... Imagine doing that...), the
Twig for its own section (and not even getting a gender) Hubrid Nox for the
passing allusion I made to him (don't hurt me) and anybody that has formed a
guild/cult in order to worship said figures.
Apologies said, I guess I'll say good night, so long, see you later, and
remind you to always remember the Twig, and the great service it has done us
all.
|
