Ancient Home: Part 1

     "Holding The Fire"

     Shrieking in the night within the circle of torches around them, a mass of horned evil coconuts gathered in front of their king. The tribe lived in an uncharted area on the southern shore of The Isle of Fay. It was a strange land in the sea, east of Brightvale. The king opened his mouth and screamed so loud that, for a brief moment, he dwarfed the sound of the crashing waves. The sound blew out the flames from the surrounding torches, leaving the tribe surrounded by darkness. The wails from the crowd died down.

     The king exhaled in tempo, each breath louder than the one before. "Hoo! Hoo! Ha!" The puffs repeated, and all the other coconuts joined in. The king leapt into the air and slammed down onto the stone podium beneath him.

     The crowd of coconuts whooped in unison. They rolled around, spreading out to form a mob in the shape of a runic symbol. The tribe's tradition honoured the isle's dark deity, Thapalms, every lunar tide by performing an unholy dance. The coconuts formed themselves into the shape of the first symbol and jumped together, seven times, before they moved on to the next.

     A terrible storm passed over The Waterspout, directly south of the tribe's settlement. Meanwhile, in the deep trenches below the tornado, the water bubbled from the volcano erupting underneath the ocean floor.

     "Thapalms! Thapalms! Deprave! Deceit!" chanted the king evil coconut to his subjects, whose burning red eyes all radiated energy out their husks from the ritual. The tide swelled in as they performed.

     "Malefic! Malefic! Hoo! Hoo! Ha!" The horned tribe finished their seventh jump, then prepared to make the next symbol when they were suddenly enveloped by a surge of water washing over them.

     The screaming coconut minions who drifted towards the coast were saved by the row of rocks that stretched along the shore. The king, up on the podium, was pulled the opposite direction out to sea. The boiling current swiftly propelled him to The Waterspout and tossed him about, shattering his brass laurel. A 30-foot wave picked him up, then spat him back out towards The Horn of Mystery Island, north of the Island Mystic. The enraged king floated towards the shore, hollering over the loss of his crown . . . .

     "I found another rock with writing on it!" Vanduck called out to Scavert, his Gelert best friend. "Hold on. This doesn't look like a rock." Vanduck brushed the sand off the treasure he found, then held it up to the sun to get a better look.

     "Looks to me like a broken shard." Scavert who had been following his friend joined him in examining the object. "Can you see if it has some history behind it?"

     The Gelert was referring to his friend's ability, his psychometry, to unveil the past hidden inside any ancient relic. This ability had become more powerful since the day the two first met months ago. Now, it only took a couple of pecks from the psychic Vandagyre's beak for it to activate.

     "Sure, I can try. I wonder where it came from." Vanduck lowered his paw to hold the fragment under his beak. "Well, here goes." He dropped his head to strike it. His head jerked back up, and his three eyes froze, open, as visions of the shard's past rushed into view.

     Vanduck saw what his instincts considered to be . . . chaos. He'd been practising his abilities by foraging with Scavert daily, but had yet to learn how to break away from the astral Neorealm once the visions came to him. The hell he was witnessing, for what felt like hours, would change the Vandagyre forever.

     "Whoa! Vanduck! Are you okay?" Scavert feared his friend was in danger when he saw tears rolling down the shivering psychic's face. He knocked the haunted fragment out of Vanduck's paw, then shook him by the shoulders, trying to snap him out of the nightmare.

     When Vanduck returned to his senses, he was unable to form a word or close his eyes, for fear he might get drawn back into the terror of the shard. He leaned his arm on Scavert's shoulder as they walked towards the hut of the Island Mystic, who had once told Vanduck he was impressed by the young Mutant Vandagyre's psychometry and was free to visit anytime.

     As they walked, Scavert heard a faint growl coming from a pile of driftwood. The Gelert followed the eerie sound and found the angry king coconut's face protruding from the stump. "What in Neopia is that thing? It can't be alive, can it?" He leaned closer, incredulous, to examine the coconut's burning eyes.

     "Malefic! Malefic! My crown! My crown!" the king bellowed in agony, stunning the wary Gelert. The coconut's eyes shifted towards the two Neopets, its flames bursting forth. The flames in his eyes swiftly weakened, for he judged and assumed the two standing around to be subjects ready to serve him. "The treasures! Such treasures! Get me free!" he repeated incessantly.

     Scavert stopped to think about what the frightening face was offering. The old Gelert seafarer's boat had been breaking down more often than he'd like to admit, and selling a rare treasure would go a long way to buying a new boat. Scavert couldn't resist the temptation, so he grabbed the coconut by the husk and yanked him out from the driftwood. He placed the growling king inside his satchel, then continued following Vanduck.

     Although still rattled, Vanduck tightened his grip on Scavert's shoulder as they neared the Island Mystic's hut. They hurried forward to where the mystic waited, the king wailing along the way.

     "Ahh, I guess you came here to have your fortune told, eh . . . Vanduck. You, Gelert, help him drink the potion by the door." The Island Mystic stomped his foot, then gestured to the potion with urgency. Scavert quickly obeyed; he held the pestle of medicine up to Vanduck's beak to drink. It worked quickly, and soon Vanduck felt the nightmares that plagued him dissipate. "Now, we will talk about the evil you brought to my hut and how to send it back to where it came from."

     "But we didn't bring the evil shard from the beach! We left that back where we found it." Without Vanduck even realising it, his tentacles swayed towards Scavert.

     "That is not the evil. You know which one I'm talking about . . . Scavert," the Island Mystic snapped, looking at the satchel hanging on the seafarer's shoulder. "The dastardly coconut is from a land near this island, a place where my nemesis, the Isle Shaman, lives. That wretched JubJub is always up to no good. Now I see he's been busy making evil coconuts with his runes. The gall of that shaman!"

     "He uses runes?" Scavert remembered the stones he and Vanduck found over the past few months. He withdrew the strange artefacts from the side pocket of his satchel and showed them to the mystic. "I heard somewhere that runes are like rocks with symbols. Are any of these runes?"

     Before the mystic could respond, the king suddenly shrieked from inside the satchel. "Get me free! Get me free!"

     Scavert put away the rocks, then grabbed the king evil coconut and held it out with both paws towards the fortune teller, who said, "That, seafarer, is a rune."

     "This?! No, this is a scary coconut face that said something about 'treasures, such treasures'. Know anything about that?" Scavert replied, furrowing his brow; the Gelert had his mind now on the riches the coconut had promised.

     "Scavert, wait. Look." Vanduck pointed at the distinct symbol on the king's forehead. "I think Mystic is telling us the marking on its face is a rune. I don't know how to explain it, but I keep seeing that symbol shrouded in a darkness, and I feel like I'm drowning. Those visions I saw from the shard . . . They looked a lot like the rune on that coconut."

     "Deity! Deity! Thapalms! Thapalms! Thapalms!! Thapalms!!!" screamed the king evil coconut at his disrespecting subjects. "Such treasures! Get me home! To Thapalms!"

     "How vile . . . The Isle Shaman is harnessing energy from coconut trees that he's imbued with his dark runes. That must be where this shrill coconut came from. And now it believes in some rudimentary deity, unaware its true creator is nothing more than a deranged JubJub." The mystic turned around and grabbed a palm frond he had weaved into a small basket and blessed with defensive prayers. "You need this. It can safely store this coconut and the pieces of its broken crown." He turned back towards the mutant. "I'm sorry, Vanduck, but you must retrieve not only that first shard you found but also all the remaining shards. Then, return them all to The Isle of Fay."

     "Mystic, you can't really expect me to go back to that thing, can you? If you could only see what I saw." Vanduck looked a little sick just thinking about it.

     "Ahh, but I did. When your mind was subjected to the chains of that dark place, your body froze, but your powers heightened. You shot out a psychic wave across the island that reached me in the middle of my meditation. The foul visions you saw from that king's wretched crown, I, too, was witnessing," the mystic explained.

     Scavert kept quiet as he tried to figure out how to pinpoint the remaining shards. He knew Vanduck would not be able to touch another one of those cursed objects.

     "My powers got stronger again?" Vanduck asked with a smile.

     "Well . . . here it is . . . 'You will be chased by a group of angry Koi!' That is your fortune today. Know that the Koi cannot resist the lure of a shiny pearl or gem." The Island Mystic reached his paw out to nudge Vanduck's feathered chest and the lucky bone necklace he wore. "Throw the bone to the Koi when they approach."

     "Oh, Mystic, I can't do that. You gave me this necklace when I first came, alone, to Mystery Island. I was just a toddler, an orphan, thinking I was doomed . . . but you were there. You helped me understand my psychic powers were something I shouldn't be ashamed of, although I didn't understand everything you were talking about back then. Now I do, and I just can't let go of the lucky bone. It's how I remember you." Vanduck's three eyes looked down solemnly.

     "I gave you that necklace because I knew you'd need it one day. Know that there is more to your story than you think. Now leave at once! That repulsive coconut's shouting is driving me mad!" Raising both his paws, the Island Kyrii swayed back and forth, then made a pushing motion as he enchanted the Vandagyre before him with strength and courage. He then shoved the two friends out the door and slammed it shut.

     The two comrades walked the way they had come along the beach. Scavert noticed Vanduck's tentacles moving on their own towards him. "Hey. I didn't know about you being a . . . Well, what you and that geezer were talking about, I mean. I . . . ." He paused to think before continuing, not wishing to patronise nor belittle Vanduck for growing up without a family. "Listen. You know that my brother is kind of a tough pill to swallow at times. I know he just likes to have it his way as the guild leader and all, and, look, I love my brother for giving me a job there, but—"

     "It's fine," Vanduck interrupted. "I don't really think about it that often. Sometimes, I remember I grew up alone, but really I have always had my mind on my psychic abilities." He let out a soft sigh, content as he looked back at his past.

     Both Vanduck and Scavert saw the shard on the ground as they approached and noticed the king had been quiet while they walked. Was he eavesdropping on their conversation?

     "Yeah, those powers of yours sure are something. But, I don't want you to think I'm using you for your powers or anything. You've always been good to me. I guess what I'm trying to say is . . . Vanduck, you're my brother, too. We're family." Scavert stopped walking abruptly, his eyes wide as he put his paw in front of Vanduck to stop him, too. "That's it!" he exclaimed as he turned towards the puzzled Mutant.

     "That's . . . all you wanted to say?" Vanduck asked.

     "What? No. I mean, I've got it! I know how to keep you from going back to that evil vision whenever we find a shard. Remember when we first met? You pecked at the necklace I found, but you shared that vision, with me. We faced it together." The Gelert smiled as he stared at his friend, waiting for Vanduck to get the gist.

     "Wait. You're right. Mystic said he could see the vision while I was far away, so . . . ." Vanduck began to get excited over the realisation.

     "So, if you let me see inside the shard's past, like you did with the necklace, then I can guide us to the other fragments!" Scavert tossed his satchel over to land near the shard, upsetting the king, who growled as he lost his patience.

     "But, how will you locate the other pieces? I can because I'm psychic, but . . . ." The Mutant tapped his beak with his paw.

     "You said it yourself. Your powers are getting stronger, and I didn't want to point it out earlier, but your tentacles have been following me this whole time. I thought maybe it was 'cause of the rune coconut in my bag." He pointed towards the satchel a few feet away, then to Vanduck's tentacles inching towards him. "But I think it's me."

     "Hmm . . . It's worth a shot. Let's try it!" Vanduck put down the palm basket and turned to pick up the shard and share his psychometry with his friend. No, not just a friend, his brother. The feeling of having a new family warmed his heart and lifted his spirit. He shared a smile with Scavert, the sunlight directly hitting the two companions through a passing cloud. Then, holding the crown shard in one paw, he pecked it once. In an instant, the green and purple hackles on his head rose, and his tentacles grappled Scavert's arms as a yellow light shone from the suction cups.

     The toxic shadows from the vision drained their souls of joy and hope. The dark astral Neorealm formed a pool of spellbinding misery, distorted waves, shrouding the crown's runic symbol glowing red. Thapalms was never a deity, but a coconut tree that had been embedded with a dark rune that looked like the letter "V" sitting on top of the letter "T". Nonetheless, all the evil coconuts that fell from the tree praised Thapalms, as though it held a power over the island, over them. Once in a blue moon, perhaps on a lunar tide, a rare kind of evil would drop from the dark coconut tree: a king with a crown and the runic symbol marked on its husk.

     The suction cups detached from Scavert's arms and allowed him to break free from the vision. Vanduck was still stuck in it, but Scavert took the shard from his paw and released him. The psychic was surprised that he no longer had the looming fear of the darkness on his mind after the vision.

     Suddenly, as if blowing in the wind, he heard the faint voice of his good friend, the kindly Island Mystic, and his words of wisdom.

     Vanduck chuckled to himself. "'Have some courage. Have a life.' Those were always your words, Mystic." He fondly thought about all the times the Island Mystic danced to give him encouragement, telling him they were incantations. In reality, the warm-hearted mystic was only trying to make the orphaned Vandagyre happy, treating him like he were his own child. Whenever the Island Mystic did a silly dance, he knew it would bring a smile to Vanduck's face. "Scavert, do you feel all right?"

     Scavert counted time in his head as he listened to the ocean waves to confirm that he was really there. "Yeah, I'm . . . I'm good." He paused to think for a moment. "Wait. Why would you be asking me? How about you? Here, lean your hand on my shoulder."

     "No need! I feel perfectly fine." Vanduck noticed his glowing tentacles. "Whoa! So did it work? Are you able to see the other shards around?"

     The annoyed evil king coconut screamed in frustration. He wanted to go home, and these subjects weren't making any effort to get him there. His eyes flared, burning through the satchel. Freed from the bag, he rolled over to the two brothers, startled from his outrage.

     "Oh no! We forgot to put the coconut in the palm basket!" Vanduck had totally forgotten to do so after getting shoved out of the Island Mystic's hut.

     Scavert nimbly jumped forward to protect Vanduck, then lunged towards the coconut. He grabbed it, instantly silencing the king evil coconut as it realised it was actually scared for the first time in its life. A rush of energy passed through Scavert's body. He could now see, feel, and even hear where the remaining broken pieces were. None of them knew that Scavert was actually fortified by the first rune he had found with Vanduck on the beach long ago. He had kept that rune in his back pocket as a lucky charm, but, in reality, it was a rune of the obelisk from Tyrannia's battleground, oceans away from Mystery Island.

     After Scavert told Vanduck that the second of the three crown pieces was lying in the ocean, they took off in the seafarer's boat. When they reached the spot where Scavert sensed the crown the strongest, he dove into the water to collect it from the seabed. Vanduck was always impressed by Scavert's swimming ability, and he was glad they made such a great team. Vanduck would use his skills to locate hidden objects with high amounts of energy trapped inside, then Scavert would find the way to go get them safe and sound.

     Suddenly, Vanduck's talons began to glow white on and off.

     The blue head of the old Gelert broke the surface of the water, and gasped for air. "I am pretty sure this is it, because all the Flishy and their mommas were swimming away from it!" He held up the shard for his brother to see. "These things . . . They really are cursed, aren't they?" He jumped back into the boat, then placed the shard in the blessed palm basket. The king shot a baleful glance at him from inside the basket, but Scavert calmly reached over and touched its husk to find the whereabouts of the final piece.

     The Waterspout had blasted the king evil coconut towards the horizon, the tornado fragmenting the brass crown he was wearing. The first piece was flung south towards the western shore of Mystery Island. The second shard had been dragged down to the bottom of the tornado, where water boiled from the fissure that had erupted magma. The swift currents tossed the second piece into a remote grotto, where it became wedged inside coral on the wall. The third slice was tossed out to one of the scarcely populated isles to the west of Mystery Island, just north of Scurvy Island. These four small isles, uninhabitable for any Neopet, only attracted a handful of pirates, who came to bury their treasure.

     "It's on that little island ahead. I can feel it. Whenever I close my eyes, it feels like the rune's begging me to find it, yelling for me to hurry," Scavert said with a firm voice. "Once we have this third piece, we'll just need to go to The Isle of—"

     Scavert was interrupted by a loud squeal, a pop, and then silence as the boat's engine ceased working. The boat slowed to a stop; he attempted to restart the engine, without success. "Sorry, Van. That isle isn't too far away. Maybe we can just swim there?"

     The Mutant agreed. He jumped into the ocean and prepared to shoot stored water from the stalks on his legs to propel himself, ready to skate over the surface.

     The Gelert dove into the water, the hushed king held inside the basket in his arms. He opened his eyes underwater and saw the mystical bioluminescence covering the rock walls of a tunnel. He swam back up and told Vanduck to follow him, feeling the mental pull from the rune.

     The two held their breath and swam through the tunnel. Reaching the end, they saw the walls narrowed drastically. They were running out of breath as three aggressive Koi, each holding a jewelled staff in one fin, appeared out of nowhere, one charging towards them. Remembering what the Island Mystic had told him, Vanduck quickly ripped off the lucky bone from his necklace; he tossed it at the brute. Satisfied, the greedy Koi snatched the shiny gold bone, then all three swam away.

     Scavert shot ahead and found the tunnel ended in an underwater cavern. He gestured to his brother, and together they reached the surface of the water and air. The cavern walls were full of runes! There was a large cave painting of a coconut holding what seemed to be a spear with its foot.

     "Finally! You're finally here. Come, traveller! Bring my beautiful evil coconut to me," the voice shouted from behind a cave pillar. The brothers exchanged a look, for Vanduck's talons began to glow. They walked forward as the voice continued. "What's this?! Why do I not hear the delightful cries of my evil coconut echo in these chambers?" The shaman, a coconut JubJub, leaped out to reveal himself. He sniffed the air and assessed the seafarer. "You! How did you get your hands on that obelisk rune?!"

     "Obelisk rune? Really?" Scavert's eyes widened in surprise. "I had no idea!" He looked slightly abashed and laughed softly, then turned towards Vanduck and shrugged his shoulders.

     The cynical shaman studied the Gelert for a moment, then nodded his head, certain that the seafarer had no idea of the divine protection the rune bestowed. With a wry smile, he devised a new plan.

     "Let me introduce myself. I am the Isle Shaman, the famous Neopets god of coconuts, Pango Pango. And, I can grant you unimaginable riches from the obelisk. Just hand me the coconut, and I can guarantee you will always be the victor on the battleground." The shaman held his foot out for the king whose eyes flared with rage, aching and wishing he could violently scream in the Blue Gelert's arms.

     To be continued . . .