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The Secret Behind the Wishing Well


by butterfly7672

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I’m pretty sure we all know the Wishing Well. Remember that old well you used to stand by in Neopia Central, aimlessly dropping countless coins in while muttering about a Faerie Paint Brush? Or that place you visit every day, refusing to give up the hope of getting a Neopets 14th Birthday Goodie Bag? Or maybe that place where you wished for the umpteenth time for a Baby Paint Brush only to see a Baby Brush Plushie pop up? Yeah, that Wishing Well. Glad we’re all on the same page.

- -

Well, I’m here to prove to you that it’s not as magical and innocent as it seems. Yes, it might seem crazy now, but I’m telling you- that well isn’t what it seems to be.

Are you paying attention now?

So many things about the Wishing Well are still a mystery today. Where did it come from? Why is it here? And most importantly, where do all those Neopoints go? Well, I have a theory. A theory that I may have just proven, as a matter of fact. The Wishing Well is no ordinary well. The hundreds of thousands of Neopoints dropped into that well every day have to go somewhere, right? And I think I know where. That well is sending money to the meepits.

- -

There. I said it. Jeer and mock all you want, but when they take over, you’ll know that I warned you.

Okay, maybe I’m getting ahead of myself. I should probably explain.

Oh, just in case you don’t know, meepits are fluffy, pink creatures of pure evil. Their furry tails and huge eyes make them desirable petpets, and their cuteness makes the demand for them fairly high. But don’t be fooled. Like the Wishing Well, meepits might seem cute and innocent, but they have plans. Plans that involve world domination, to be specific. Are you beginning to see where I'm going with this?

- -

Luckily, being one of the rarest petpets in Neopia, there weren’t enough of them around to be considered a real threat. Note my use of past tense.

As you may know, Neopets went through a transition sometime last year. For a short period of time, Neopia was in complete chaos. For days, the maintenance Pteri appeared to be everywhere at once, cawing at everyone who tried to enter Neopia to visit their pets. It was utter madness. Once things had settled down a bit, TNT gave everyone a few gifts as a thank-you for being patient while the world went down in flames. 1,000 Neopoints, 150 NC, and, of course, a meepit.

That’s right. As if meepits weren’t bad enough on their own, now there were thousands of them, each running amok in every active user’s household, inventory, or Safety Deposit Box. The worst part? My fellow Neopians didn’t even seem to realize that evil was lurking under their very roof.

Everyone was oblivious. I could hardly believe it. Was I the only one who realized that we were blindly housing the definition of evil itself? I was told to be paranoid when voicing my theories. But I knew I was right, and I persevered.

* * *

Ten months, eight days, 47 minutes, and approximately twenty nine seconds. That’s how long I waited, researching, trying to find anything out of the ordinary. And what did I find? Nothing. Nada. Zilch. But I didn’t give up. I knew my patience would reward me one day.

However long it took.

Eventually, I would find something, right? But months passed, and I became less of a hardcore investigator and more of some paranoid freak who hides in the bushes with binoculars and flinches a little whenever they see the color pink.

Yet I refused to give up. Even as I became more and more discouraged, I knew that something was up with those meepits. And I was determined to prove it to all of Neopia.

- -

Then, one day, it happened. As I was doing my regular search around the area, scanning for anything out of the ordinary, I saw it. A single meepit, wandering around Brightvale on his own. I normally wouldn’t have thought much of it. The creatures were everywhere, so it wasn’t uncommon to see them around.

Really, I wouldn’t have bothered any other time. But something about that one meepit captured my interest. I couldn’t pinpoint it at first, but it made me uneasy. So I followed it.

I soon realized what it was that made me so suspicious of the petpet. For one thing, he wasn’t just wandering around. He went forth with purpose, like he had somewhere to be and something to do. And his eyes- they were constantly scanning the area, but not as if they were looking for something. They darted around suspiciously, as if he were making sure no one was watching. He acted like he didn’t want to be seen.

Course, being the hardcore investigator/creepy paranoid stalker that I was, I could have just been imagining these things, but I followed the little guy anyway. Years of investigation/creeping around has taught me one important thing: secrets can be found where they’re least expected. So I kept following him. For hours. Through and out of Brightvale, through Kiko Lake walked a little pink petpet, followed distantly by a hardcore investigator doing her best to be as inconspicuous as possible.

Keen for a break after what felt like an eternity of walking, I was relieved when he finally began to slow down. But, of course, being a hardcore investigator, that feeling of relief was quickly replaced by curiosity and suspicion. What were we doing in Neopia Central? Why did the little meepit scurry here all the way from Brightvale? What’s here that’s so special?

Even before we turned the final corner, I was running my theories through my head. Still, so many questions remained. More than anything, though, I was curious. The two of us, a little meepit and a hardcore investigator not far behind, stumbled into the Neopian Plaza. I darted behind the Plushie Shop as the petpet suddenly stopped and whipped around, as if checking once more to make sure no one was watching. Then, the meepit scurried up to the Wishing Well, and my heart fell. What was this? Did that little petpet really walk all that way just to make a wish?

Determined that there was something more, I took a step closer to get a better look. The silence was broken by the sudden snap of a branch breaking under my paw. I froze where I stood, holding my breath, as the meepit whirled around and met my eyes. He gave a little squeak of surprise, and, to my confusion, immediately turned back around and dove straight into the well. Yes, you read that correctly. He dove right into the Wishing Well. You can probably imagine my expression at that very moment, as the only thing running through my mind was something along the lines of what the heck just happened?. I wasn’t just going to leave it there though. Once my shock wore off, I was determined to figure out exactly what the heck had just happened. But how? I was too big to fit down the well myself...but a camera certainly wasn’t.

- -

Mere hours later, I sat at the table looking through the footage of my cameras with my mouth agape. I had purchased two Zafara Tourist Cameras and hidden them both: one outside facing the Wishing Well, and the one my trusty Faellie had managed to hide at the bottom of said Wishing Well. Although it was too dark to see much, I had assumed that they had dug some sort of passage or tunnel that was connected to the well. Either that, or the meepit I saw jump in had just been treading water at the bottom for the past few hours. I was speeding through the footage to see if I had gathered anything important when a sudden flash of movement made me pause. I rewound the footage a few frames and pressed play. Camera A showed nothing out of the ordinary. A cloud Mynci, casually strolling through the Plaza, stopped by to drop a few coins in the well and murmured a wish under his breath. Camera B, however, showed something interesting. A blurry blob of pink appeared, which, when the camera focused, formed itself into two meepits. They began to gather up the gold when, after a brief moment of what seemed like hesitation, one scurried away and returned a few moments later with a Baby Brush Plushie clutched in its mouth. It put the plushie into a little basket at the bottom of the well and used a pulley to slowly bring the basket up to the top. Camera A showed a Baby Brush Plushie pop out of the water, and the mynci grabbing it with delight before a shadow of disappointment crossed his face. He sighed and walked away as the meepits I could see from Camera B resumed collecting the neopoints. They gathered it all, staggering under the weight of the coins, and scurried away to the right and out of the camera’s range.

Enough evidence for you? Go see it for yourself. My knack for coming up with crazy theories has finally gotten me somewhere. Not only is the well funding the meepits’ heinous plans, but they’re the ones controlling the well. The Wishing Well isn’t magical at all! But now that I’ve finally figured out the truth, this concludes my research. The meepits will be defeated, now that I’ve exposed their secret. Just one more thing before you go-you might want to read the first letter of every paragraph. For no reason in particular, of course. After that, head on over to my friend Milly649’s petpage. It might answer some questions. But for now, this is goodbye.

 
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