A Hidden Land: Custard World!

     Hey, Neopians, I am Ron190 “Ronnn” the Custard Eyrie. Something you probably don’t know about, a very wondrous place, is my home, the land of Custard World, and that’s what this article is about. My gooey paws aren’t so good for operating a typewriter, so one of my friends, Robin329 the Custard Ixi, asked his Owner, mbredboy31, to type this up for me. mbredboy31 even managed to get a spot for my article in The Coconut, which he told me is the most trustworthy newspaper in all of Neopia… what an honor!

     Custard World is a very special place, located in a place I can’t really describe on paper, describe out loud in words, or even precisely mark on a map… you can ask any Custard pet to guide you there, though, every Custard pet knows the way to Custard World. It might be a bit hard to find a Custard pet as we really are quite rare (mainly due to our low popularity among Owners,) but we do exist. (Personally, I’m constantly traveling around Neopia, it’s my job to tell everyone about this. Hopefully this article helps me to bypass my social awkwardness…)

     Anyway, Custard World is made of custard. Most people say it takes a while to get used to walking around, as they’re trudging through the ground like they are trudging through mud, but… the world will help you, if you let it, as funny as that sounds, but it really works once you believe and you try it. The other, extremely unique thing about Custard World is that nothing is truly permanent, things move about constantly, always moving and being reformed. It’s one of the things I love most about it, every day is new and different… the rest of Neopia seems so cold and rigid by comparison. Still, however, the general areas and activities are relatively constant, so here is a sampling:

     - The City; We have one main city in the middle of our domain. Despite being heavily built up, surprisingly more so than a lot of cities elsewhere in Neopia, everything is still changing, so it’s a place of continual architectural experimentation. A lot of us live here, but there are also a variety of shops, mainly selling things like people’s sculptures and custard that comes in unique flavors, as opposed to the regular custard that most of the place is made of. The shaped custard works great as a food and comes in innumerable fun shapes, great for any food gallery collector. (By the way, the City does have a name, which is listed on a signboard in front of it, but someone changes it every day. Why pick just one name when you can have all the names, right?)

     - The Forest; a sprawling maze of trees. Most visitors who come here get lost and need the help of the locals to find their way out, but, those who do figure out the patterns of the shifting trees can find a wide variety of wildlife, both of the plant and animal variety (brand new discoveries are always common here,) as well as a tranquil place to rest… at least until the next hapless lost Neopian happens to stumble past where you’re meditating.

     - The Ocean; most visitors would say that an ocean of custard, in this case having a bit of a blue tint, is completely redundant since the entire place is already an ocean of custard, but it still has what you would call a beach. The ‘ocean’ has some pretty big albeit slow waves from time to time, so there’s a notable surfing scene. Others opt to liken the slowly moving waves to the dunes of a desert and so there happens to be an outpost hidden far out on the surface of the sea.

     - The Mountains; Well, you would call it a huge mound of custard, but a Neopian mountain is a huge mound of dirt, so, same thing. Skiing and snowboarding here feels much different from what they do on Terror Mountain, but, on the plus side, everything is soft, so you don’t have quite so much to worry about if you fall. The most notable thing here is the group of secret dojos nestled among the peaks. Custard World natives and visiting Custard pets travel there to master techniques only we can use, like gooey shapeshifting and sculpting the custard around ourselves with our minds. Most of us can only really master one of the two, by the way (I have the latter ability.) Everyone else can still visit to enjoy the view and observe the students as they train.

     - The Custard Mound: We have a mound of free custard that we’re not using and we’re willing to hand out to anyone who drops by, since no visitor just wants to eat the custard off of the ground, so having a specifically assigned mound of it makes it much more palatable. Not that many people actually come here to use it, probably because they’re already tired of egg-based foods because of all of the free omelettes they got from the Giant Omelette, so we almost always have a healthy supply for if you do visit.

     - The Farm; while you’d think we grow food at the farm, and there are indeed fields full of farm plants, we Custard pets living here don’t actually eat any of the food directly. The nutritious output of the plants diffuses into the ground and then we soak up nutrients through our feet, so we never need to eat food or drink water while we’re here. Regardless, we still have fun games for visitors, like Custard Potato Counter. It’s really hard since the custard potatoes blend together and it’s hard to tell where one ends and another begins, but it’s fun to see people try!

     - The Sporting Arena; here in Custard World, our sporting events are some of the most popular events among us. A lot of these resemble Neopian equivalents, with the most notable of these being fighting tournaments not too unlike the Battledome fights. However, only Custard pets (and also the occasional Snot pets) can officially enter these fights, and, really, they are quite unlike any fights you’ve ever seen in any Battledome. Thanks to our unique abilities, it really is a spectacle. Since we can’t really KO each other, the fights are judged on a mix of stylishness and effectiveness.

     - The Art Exhibitions; we also hold a variety of art-based competitions, which, unlike the sporting competitions, are open to all. Since our attempts at painting inevitably turn out rather smudgy, we focus mainly on three dimensional formats such as sculpture. The rest of Neopia focuses really heavily on 2D formats for their contests, so this is a great change of pace for any artists looking for a different medium to show off their abilities with. It’s a bit trickier to sculpt with custard than with something like snow or sand, but, with a bit of practice, you’ll make it work just fine.

     We’d love to have more games and activities and we have tons of ideas, but, as you know, establishing new fun activities anywhere in Neopia requires numerous talks with planners and legal team and piles and piles of paperwork, hence why most Neopian lands take years to introduce new activities, us included.

     Well, what are you waiting for? Visit today! …Or whenever you can find a Custard pet to guide you here, of course! We’d love to have you here! And not just because Custard World is slowly fading away out of existence because not enough people are visiting and believing in it, and I didn’t just make that up just now to guilt trip you, that’s the whole reason I was assigned this job… anyway, visit today!