Shades of Darkness: Shadow is Arising - Part Eight

It was the day after the kidnapping, and I was running around putting up missing flyers, although I really didn't think that they would help. After I finished placing flyers all over Mystery Island, I went back to my Neohome and found Pudding talking with a Light Faerie.

"Um, what's going on?" I asked them.

"Hello jesse12_3," said the faerie.

"Um who are you?" I asked rather rudely. "And if this is about a quest, I'm not doing it! I've got enough on my hands to deal with right now!"

"My name is Antelia, and no, this isn't about a quest," spoke Antelia calmly.

"Well what's it about then?" I wasn't in a good mood, and this Faerie was just making me angrier.

"This is about the Shades."

I quickly sat down on the couch.

"So?" I asked.

"I have a task for you. You're the only one who can do this. It's going to be very dangerous, and very hard. The Shades are gaining more power by the day, and we Faeries can't stop them. I'm the only Faerie that actually believes that they're back. We need a powerful person to stop them. So myself, and the Woodland Council of Azlan in Meridell, decided to find someone to fill a role that will determine the fate of Neopia. Now we had to be very careful in choosing someone, as people had tried to fulfill it, but failed, and the results were disastrous. Now have you heard of The Guardian of Neopia?" asked Antelia.

"Err, I just found it mentioned in a book not too long ago," I said.

"Well you need to know more. The Guardian of Neopia is a great responsibility. The Guardian wields magic so powerful it could blow Neopia into pieces. The most recent Guardian was the Space Faerie...but she disappeared after the war with Sloth."

"So who is this new Guardian person?"

Antelia drew a small golden sphere out of her pocket.

"This sphere is infused with the strongest light magic. It selects the Guardian. Touch it."

"Why me? I'm not fit to be the Guardian of the entire planet."

"Only the sphere will tell you if you're fit to. It was made long ago by the best magic welders in the land. It reads your personality in a way. Just touch it."

I put my hand on the sphere. It started to glow gold. I withdrew my hand, but the sphere still glowed.

"You are the Guardian," said Antelia.

"How do you know, it's just a sphere, it has no mind of its own," I retorted...I didn't want to believe this.

"If you weren't the Guardian, the sphere would have done nothing. And before

you take up the challenge, the Azlan Woodland Council will make sure you are

fit to do it. They also have the remains of the broken Sword of Neopia, a powerful weapon. Now you and your friends are to go to the Azlan Woodlands, which are deep inside Meridell. It also means crossing Torono_Darkshadow's territory. This will be dangerous, but Azlan is the only community that even knows that the Shades exist. Now, your friends all live in Neopia Central, so you should find a meeting spot there to begin your journey. I will get supplies for you. Any questions?"

I had a million questions buzzing through my head at the moment, but I only asked two.

"Why did you choose me to do this?"

"All will be told in time," said Antelia

"And what about my Eyrie, Dark_Intrepid? He was kidnapped yesterday, and I have this strange feeling that it was Shade activity."

"I don't know about your Eyrie, but I will try to find out some things," Antelia said and disappeared with a flash of gold light.

I walked over to the Neomail can in a daze and began to write letters to all my friends explaining my situation.

"Pudding," I asked dazed my Kougra after I finished writing letters. "What just happened?"

"Some Faerie appeared in your house and told you that you had to save the planet." said Pudding.

"Okay," I said dazed. "I'm going to go take a nap. Wake me up when all three of the replies come in."

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Antelia sent a message to meet on the edge of the Meridell-Neopia Central boarder in two days while she bought us supplies. During the time I had left before we road to Azlan I mostly spent sleeping, since I wasn't going to have a good sleep for a while.

Finally the day came. My friends and I met on the border. Antelia was there, along with Seven Unis.

"These are some of Azlans finest Unis. It will be quicker to ride across the plains then to walk. Smaller pets will ride double with someone. Nevony, you can carry supplies."

Dykred and Leader doubled on a striped Uni along with Nfc and Hop, who mounted a starry Uni. Lupenor got his own brown Uni, along with Pudding who mounted a silver. Bananagirl mounted an Island Uni. Bananababy would have to walk, as she was too big, and she could help Nevony carry supplies. Antelia mounted a white Uni. I mounted the last, which was rainbow. For the people in our party that were fighters, strapped to the sides of our Unis were our preferred weapons. In my case, it was a sword. Antelia said that we might need to fight.

We rode at a steady pace for the first day, as we weren't in Shade territory and didn't want to tire the Unis out incase we needed to move faster later on. The Unis would talk to each other, but hardly to us. I didn't blame them, as Nfc and Dykred were arguing about which was better; arrows or grenades.

The second day, however, we weren't so lucky.

"What's that dark blob up ahead?" asked Dykred, scanning the horizon. We moved closer to the object.

"It's a rider," said Nfc. Shortly after that the rider turned and took off towards the north.

"We need to move," said Antelia. "If I'm right, that was one of Darkshadow's patrols, making sure people like us aren't in his territory."

The Unis galloped now. We needed to get out of here.

"Turn right, or we'll be visible from the Shade fortress!" shouted Antelia. The Unis veered right. We passed into a clump of trees that were very thick. The Unis slowed down a bit, as the path was narrow.

"I'm going to leave you on your own now," said Antelia. "I have some business to take care of. Azlan will be the next forest you see from here if you just keep going straight. It's about a day's journey from here. When you get to Azlan, you will see how thick the trees surrounding it are. They are so thick, that you can't enter it like you can in a normal forest. Keep riding until you see a large, flat stone. Tap on it three times with your fist. That's the secret gateway in. I'll meet up with you there." Antelia rode off on her Uni.

"Hey what's that?" asked Nfc, pointing to an object on the ground up ahead. It had been a few hours since Antelia had left. We were out of the trees and on a great plain.

I rode my Uni over to the object. It was an unconscious green Zafara, lying face down in the grass. He wore all black, and there was a dagger in his belt. There was a black arrow in his left arm. A few feet away from him was a cloud Uni, who was still conscious, but was lying on the ground, very weak.

I dismounted my Uni and went over to the Zafara just as my friends were approaching. I rolled the Zafara over on his back. His face was turning slightly purple.

Nfc dismounted and walked over to the Zafara. He knelt down by the Zafaras left arm and examined the arrow.

"Bring me something to wrap his injury up," Nfc said to me. I ran over to Nevony and began going through our supplies. I pulled out some cloth and ran back down to Nfc, who was now trying to pull the arrow out without making the wound bigger. I handed him the cloth. With one quick motion he pulled it out, head and all. He then quickly rapped the cloth around the wound. After the Zafara was taken care of, Nfc went to examine the arrow.

"There's slow reacting poison on the arrowhead. That's why his face is purple," said Nfc. "I've only heard of this type of poison before. It's called Shanlacron. It acts very slowly, but I say this guy only has a few hours left."

"I'm sure Azlan has the cure for it. There is a cure right?" I said.

"Yes there is, the Nectar of the Frumberry cures it. Now let's look at the Uni."

The Uni wasn't poisoned, but had two broken ankles and was suffering from Reptillioritus.

"We're going to have to carry this Uni in a support between two other Unis, he can't support his own weight. I went and grabbed more cloth out of Nevony's pack. I cut four round holes in the cloth for the Unis legs. I tied it between Nfc's and Dykred's Unis. They walked over to the injured one. It took Nfc, Dykred, Bananagirl and myself to lift the Uni into the support. I then walked back over to the Zafara, picked him up, and put him on the back of my Uni before I mounted. Once we were all ready to move again, a war cry raged on the other side of the field. Winged and blacked cloaked, several things appeared.

"Ride fast, those are Bladack!" yelled Nfc, drawing was bow for protection. The Unis ran at a breakneck speed, and the Bladack took to the air. The Bladack were gaining and were now firing arrows at us. We dodged their arrows easily, but could we out run them?

To be continued...