Lives and Whims of a KQ Token

     Little by little, my companions were taken off the shelf and carried away. I thought I would be left behind, unwanted and unloved, until I was picked up and placed in a large display case full of others in all shapes and sizes. A few people entered, and when they saw me they rushed over and picked me up. After reading a tag on my base, they would always remark that the bonus NC item from me was ugly and that I wasn't worth the bother.

     I sat waiting for what seemed like a lifetime when "she" walked in. She had admired me for years but could never afford the plushie yielding my awesome self, an animated and shiny Key Quest token. She picked up the plushie and walked away. Tucking me into her display case, she smiled and told me she would never use another token again. She walked away once more, and my world went black.

     I awoke to the sound of some cheery but otherwise irritating music. The world before that moment did not exist.

     I blinked my eyes and looked around for the source of the sound. I found myself lying on a soft bed of grass in front of a small house. With no clue as to how I arrived there, I searched my memory for an answer. My last memory was being inside a display case. I arose to my feet but found myself alone.

     Listening closely, I heard voices mingling with the music inside the strange house. I walked forward and turned the handle, pushing the door open. There was only one way to go, forward into a dark hallway.

     I made my way along the door-lined hallway. I tried to turn the handle on a nearby door; it seemed locked, yet I could hear raised voices from the other side! I wandered up the hallway aimlessly and was assaulted by loud voices behind door after door as I passed them.

     After seemingly an eternity of stumbling through the darkness, a light flicked on ahead. I hurried to reach the door and stepped inside before it slammed shut behind me. Momentarily panicking, I scrambled for the door handle but found nothing but a smooth, solid wall behind me.

     I gathered myself and turned around. The room was well lit, with a small wooden platform in the middle and four colored blocks painted on the floor. A large wooden door occupied the far wall. Avoiding the platform, I walked to the wooden door and opened it only to see that it led back to the grassy area where I had originally awoken. I sighed and resigned myself to examining the platform.

     "Please choose a color," said a voice from above my head. With a start, I moved forward softly to stand in front of the platform.

     After considering the options, I stepped upon the closest color. My feet became stuck tightly wood, and my color choice had gone so far as to give my body a distinctly reddish tinge.

     I waited for something else to happen. I did not know what was I waiting for, but did not have to wait long until I found out.

     Hearing movement behind me, I saw someone else enter the room. He leapt onto the pedestal and landed on the yellow space behind me. He flashed a quick smile, and we stood awkwardly for a minute before a large die appeared in the space between us.

     Yellow reached up and touched the die with his hand before gesturing to me that I should do the same. I then stretched out and brushed the die with my fingertips.

     Almost immediately, the disembodied voice that had originally instructed rang out boldly through the room again.

     "Player Red, what house do you choose?" it demanded.

     I looked at Yellow for some kind of context.

     "There are four houses," he told me, "Faerieland, Neopia, Haunted Woods, and Lost Desert. In the world we will be visiting, I would suggest either Faerieland or Neopia." he smiled.

     "Faerieland, please," I requested of the voice.

     "Player Yellow, your choice?" it asked Yellow.

     "Neopia, please," he answered, giving me a smile once again.

     In the space in front of us, a large blue door had appeared. Yellow stepped towards it and gestured that I should follow. I stepped off the platform, unsure of what would happen next.

     Yellow grabbed the door handle and pushed it open before yanking me through into a world of bright, white light. For the second time, I felt a moment of total nothingness.

     Then I tumbled out in front of a beautiful house. It was welcoming, and the view through the window afforded me a glimpse of spacious rooms. I wanted to explore it, but my feet wouldn't move from beneath me. Instead, they remained firmly planted in the soft soil beneath them.

     Surprised, I took more complete stock of my surroundings. The air was thick and dry, and the scenery was depressing. Fires glowed all around me and the lovely house.

     A die popped out in front of me. Remembering my first experience with a die, I knew what I needed to do. Touching the die it flashed up with a number before my feet sprang free of their bindings and the ground around me broke out into brightly-lit squares.

     "Chose the way you wish to go," commanded the voice as some invisible force pushed me forward.

     A large whirlwind lay to my right. The path branched out again to my left. I paused, trying to make a good decision, but I must have waited too long, because the choice was taken from me and I moved along automatically instead. As I crossed the squares, small golden coins fell from above me onto the ground near my feet. Reaching down I picked them up before they disappeared. My next step found me on a space that looked like a key. A key fell from the sky nearly hitting me. Picking it up it too disappeared. I had gathered a few keys and many handfuls of gold coins before the voice pierced the world again.

     "Starting Minigame!" it announced. Almost immediately, I experienced a flash of light and burst out of the square-lined area and onto the side of a pond. Yellow had joined me and was picking up a fishing rod at the pond's edge.

     I had never even seen water before, yet I was expected to fish?

     I grabbed a rod nevertheless and fumbled with it to attempt casting... and caught Yellow's line instead. Yellow merely chuckled and demonstrated good casting and drawing technique to me. I soon felt like an expert fisher, but the flash struck again and pulled me back to the squares and the path. An array of keys appeared before me, demanding a selection.

     Horrible things seem to be a regular feature of this world, I mused. One minute I was minding my own business, and the next I was sinking into quick sand. A bundle of cotton wool fell on my head when I had done nothing more offensive than stand in one place. The cotton made it hard to walk, much less do anything else I needed to do.

     Despite the obstacles, I figured out that I was supposed to collect a key of each color. However, as I drew close to the last one, I was tugged into a swirling vortex that pulled me right back to the beautiful home I had started from originally. I journeyed back, but on the way I was besieged by spiders, drenched in water while attempting to wash a one-eyed cat, and (to top it all off) forced to cling to giant plants that grew as I tried to water them.

     When I finally obtained my last key, a door opened up in front of me and presented an escape route. I stepped through into a treasure vault and was allowed to choose four items before everything went dark and I found myself standing in front of the house once more.

     I didn't wait to move. I leapt forward with excitement, trying to guess what might happen next, and eagerly anticipated my next adventure.

The End