Illusen's Bad Day

     Illusen was having a bad day. No, more like an awful, terrible, horrible kind of day. For one thing, it was Jhudora Day. That was bad enough. Second, she'd had bad hair problems when she woke up. That was never a good sign. Lastly, she'd had problems controlling the trees today. She didn't know why; it was just that leaves had been flying all over the place.

     The faerie walked up to the quester who was patiently waiting. "I'm sorry," she said, "but I can't find any of my cookies for the life of me. Is it all right if I give you a comb instead?"

     "Of course," said the quester, trying to appear cool. Really, the person was delighted. She got to have something more valuable than what was supposed to be her prize. Illusen handed her the comb, and she walked away to tell her Yurble friends who were waiting for her.

     Illusen put up her "CLOSED" sign. She needed a little break. She sat down on her leafy mattress in her private room. "Why does everything have to go wrong for me?" she moaned.

     "I can tell you that," said a voice from thin air. Illusen quickly looked around. She was a faerie, and should know things about people appearing randomly, but she wasn't in a good frame of mind. She decided that she wasn't in a mood and so was probably imagining things. Then the voice came again. This time it came from the ground.

     There was a Faerie Grundo standing there. "You're having a bad day 'cause it's Jhudora Day, of course," the Grundo said cheerfully. "I'm Grop, by the way." The Grundo started looking around and examining all of the Earth objects that Illusen had stored in shelves in the bedroom.

     "Don't touch any of those!" Illusen said quickly. "They're very powerful and when they're not handled correctly they could do you a lot of damage." She wondered why the Grundo had suddenly come there out of the blue. Maybe he had just been out for a flight.

     "Come on," said Grop. "I was sent by Fyora with a really important message. We have to leave to execute the mission immediately." His starry wings started to buzz and he got ready to take off.

     "What do you mean?" Illusen asked. "Fyora doesn't usually send for faeries unless it's really important. What does she want me to do?" Illusen was feeling a bit confused. This didn't usually happen. Normally Grundos didn't come to her glade at all, and when they did it was just for a quest.

     "What I mean is the Fyora wants you to help defeat Jhudora. She's waiting for us outside Jhudora's lair. We've got to go there. She picked you because you're a really powerful force of good. She thinks that you together can defeat her."

     "Well, if Fyora really did say that, then let's go!" cried Illusen. With Fyora there maybe bad things would stop happening to her. They could get rid of Jhudora forever!

     After flying for a few hours, Grop and Illusen got right outside of Jhudora's evil lair. Strangely, Fyora wasn't there. "Maybe she forgot," Grop suggested. Illusen frowned. Usually Fyora didn't forget anything or make an appointment as important as this and not come.

     Grop got to the huge, looming, dark gates that led to Jhudora's castle. Purple and green smoke was rising out of the top, letting the whole of Neopia know that Jhudora had the most power today. Illusen wondered why Fyora would pick the day when Jhudora had a lot of power to fight her... and then not show up. Something was a little fishy there.

     Then Grop started speaking in mutters to the huge iron gate. Illusen then felt that something was definitely not right here. She had a sense of foreboding that kept poking at her like little needles. There was something out of the ordinary here....

     Illusen knew that it would be in her best interests to get out of here. She realized that she had been a complete fool. Of course the thing had been a huge trap. Grop hadn't even allowed her time to get any weapons to fight, and then Fyora hadn't showed up. She should have left right then, but she wasn't thinking. As usual on Jhudora Day.

     Illusen pushed off the ground and tried to fly away, but got sucked into a whirlwind of purple back down to the ground. Jhudora cackled on the ground and the gates shut imposingly behind them. Now they were inside the castle. "So you thought you could fight me on the day when my power was greatest?" she said, laughing evilly. "Well I have some plans in store for you!" She gave Grop a bag of Neopoints and he went off looking greedy.

     Jhudora had two of her dark guards lock Illusen in the dungeons for the time being. "You'll be out of there soon enough," she said darkly, "but by then you'll wish you were back in there!"

     A while later, after having had to endure the great torment of being locked in the dark, smelly, dank dungeons with nothing to eat, Illusen was greatly weakened. That was when Jhudora decided to take Illusen out to do her evil bidding.

     The guards brought Illusen into a huge, domed room with purple and green smoke all in front of her, blocking everything in sight. This was definitely a bad thing, for when the smoke cleared up she saw the reason that it had been there. There was a huge zombie army in front of her. Specially trained by Jhudora. In it there were bony Kacheeks, Quiggles, Kaus, Zafaras, and every other Neopet you can think of.

     "Go ahead and fight them!" said Jhudora wickedly, as she took off into the air to watch the sport that she had created. It was then that Illusen saw what she hadn't noticed before. A small opening that could probably be widened by a spell.

     Illusen started dodging the corpses while Jhudora looked on, laughing. She stunned a lot of them with spells, but it wasn't even enough to make a dent in the forces. Illusen soon gave up trying to stun them all. She concentrated on getting toward that spot of light. She fought her way through thousands of zombies trying to get to the opening.

     Finally, after what seemed like a lifetime, she pushed aside the last set of dry, brittle ribs from in her way, and widened the hole in the wall. She quickly flew out. Ordinarily she would have looked back to see how Jhudora was reacting, but this time she flew onward. She pushed against the winds that were trying to pull her back to that terrible arena.

     As she got out of the castle, she faintly hear Jhudora howl, "Nooooo!!!!!!!! Catch her, you fools!" No guard managed to catch up to her, and Jhudora was too lazy to do her own dirty work. Illusen had safely made it out! She resolved to never, ever, do something rash like that again.

     Unless of course, you were talking about the next Jhudora Day. But that's a story for another time.

The End