The Price of Ambition

     “I’ve never been here before…” Izzrin said with wide eyes.

     “Me neither. But it’ll be fine.” Truthfully, Annie was scared. She had heard plenty of stories about the horrors that went on in the spooky city, and she worried that at any moment, one of them would be snatched up by a malevolent spirit. She hoped that if they were to take one of them, it would be Izzrin, but she felt bad for thinking that.

     The two of them walked past the Deserted Fairgrounds, going down a marked path to Edna’s Tower. They passed by a decrepit library and a tall haunted house, but what spooked them the most was a groaning noise that came from about a mile away. Izzrin jumped about a foot into the air, and Annie crouched down.

     “What was that?!” The Gelert whispered.

     “It might’ve been the Esophagor. Apparently, if you give him food from the Haunted Woods, he answers questions for you,” Annie explained. She wasn’t fully convinced that the food he wanted wasn’t just Neopets, but all she could do was say what she had heard.

     The two practically tiptoed past where they heard the Esophagor until they came upon a sign saying that Edna’s Tower was just ahead. After following the path for a little while longer, they reached the base and looked up at it in awe. It had a commanding presence like it was trying to draw attention from any other building in the area. There was a small door at the base of it, and the two pets could see the beginning of a winding set of stairs.

     Annie looked over to Izzrin, who seemed to be forcing a smile, judging by the way the corners of her mouth were twitching. “Are you gonna be okay to go up? If you need me to go up alone, I can, as long as you promise to wait down here.” Despite making that offer, she didn’t expect Izzrin to not bolt the second she went into the tower.

     Izzrin looked like she wanted to say that she would stay, but the two of them were quickly alerted to a twig snapping in the woods and a loud snarl. Both of their heads snapped up. “Um. I think I’ll go with you,” Izzrin said, her voice shaking.

     They began the slow climb up the tower, walking on the cold, stone stairs. There were a few windows along the circular staircase, but no decorations or indication that this tower was even occupied. If Annie hadn’t seen light at the top of the tower from outside, she would’ve thought it was completely abandoned. Their trek was silent until they got closer to the top. Then they could finally hear some voices and see a little light peeking out under the inside door.

     “I guess this is it, huh?” Annie said quietly, once they got to the very top. They were a foot away from the door, and neither of them was reaching to open the door.

     Izzrin was staring at the doorknob as if it would jump out and grab her. “You first.”

     Annie sighed, knowing that if she didn’t do anything, they’d stand there for ten years. After steeling herself for a moment, she reached out and turned the doorknob. As she opened the door, the smell of mysterious, magical items hit her. It wasn’t a disgusting smell, but it smelled organic and fresh, in an odd way. Despite having seen magic plenty of times in battle, she could never truly describe how it smelled.

     Across the room, a stealthy Gelert with a hood over his head spoke to someone in a hushed tone. Annie couldn’t see who the other person was since they were being blocked by the Gelert’s body. She wasn’t sure if either person knew that they had opened the door, so she spoke up. “Um, hi, we’re here to see Edna?”

     The Gelert whirled around and glared at the two as if they had disrupted something very important. From behind him, Edna peeked out curiously. She was shorter than Annie expected but looked every bit as eerie as she sounded in all the stories. “Hm? Who’s askin’ for me?”

     “My name is A-Anerada… I need your help,” Annie said. Normally, she would’ve been staring at the ground, but for some reason, she couldn’t keep her eyes off of the Zafara.

     Edna looked over to the Gelert and made a shooing motion with her hand. “Go on now, Netherley. I’ll see you again tomorrow and you’ll probably introduce yourself to me again. Just bring me the Lantern of Time you keep talking about and then we can get somewhere.”

     Netherley made a huffing noise and did another dramatic whirl, this time while holding his cape. “I’ll do my best, but I can’t promise anything. Take care, Edna.” He stormed out of the room in a way that seemed more purposeful than angry.

     After he was gone, Annie and Izzrin looked back to Edna. She looked mostly amused by the whole affair. “Don’t mind him. He seems to be stuck in some sort of time loop. Now then, what can Edna do for you today?”

     Annie was a little overwhelmed by everything she had seen so far, and they had only been at the tower for ten minutes at most. Even the room had an ominous vibe, with lots of eerie decorations, ingredients in jars, and books on the shelves that boasted titles she didn’t want to think about. “Well, I need your help…”

     Edna snorted. “Yeah, you said that to me already! But can you tell me what happened?” She was looking back and forth between Annie and Izzrin as if both of them were the ones with the problem.

     “Oh, uh, I have nothing to do with this. I’m just gonna uh… stand in the corner here.” Izzrin backed up and stood by the wall, pulling out a cinnamon granola bar and chomping on it. It seemed like she was trying to eat it quietly, but the crunching sounds of it filled the awkward silence in the room.

     “Um, yeah. It’s just me. So…” Annie fidgeted with the straps of her backpack as she spoke. “There was a guy who sold me a potion and he said it would make me stronger. I drank it, and although it kinda did, it also turned me Mutant. We think the person who sold it to me was Dr. Sloth disguised as a Krawk. We haven’t been able to use any morphing potions or anything to fix it.”

     “Dr. Sloth, eh? I wouldn’t put it past him to pull this kinda thing, but I’m pretty shocked that you aren’t able to change it back.” Edna said, crossing the room to pull a book out from her shelf. It was titled The Evil Dr. Sloth, and Annie assumed it was one of the more expensive ones that Bryn didn’t have.

     “Well, we went to see a scientist from the Space Station at the recommendation of Kauvara. He looked at her findings and said that it contained the properties of regular Transmogrifications potions, but also something called Grundite that they use to make Grundos up there.”

     Edna opened the book and flipped to one of the pages. She read it intently in silence for about thirty seconds, and Annie shifted uncomfortably in place. “Dr. Sloth was actually the one who created the first form of Grundite. It was intended to be permanent, but the scientists up there refined it so it could make life without the permanent effects. It seems like he still has access to its most potent form, so that’s probably what he used to create the potion he gave to you.”

     Annie nodded in solemn silence. Because Edna hadn’t mentioned any cure or solution, she was worried that it meant there was nothing that she could do.

     However, her hopes were lifted when Edna raised her paw. “However, I have seen Grundite used before, and I think I might have an idea of how it can be counteracted.”

     Annie lifted her head excitedly. “Really?”

     “Yes, my dear.” She went to another part of the room and opened a drawer that revealed a thick stack of binders. “I keep logs of all the spells and experiments I’ve done so I can use them if I run into the problem again. Let me look under G for Grundite…”

     “Does that mean you think it could be cured? I’d really like to go back to normal…” Annie trailed off a bit. She’d learned lately that normal didn’t mean what she thought it meant before, but it didn’t change her desire to be purple again like she used to be.

     After another thirty seconds of silence, Edna found the page and set it down on a table. She gestured Annie over so she could read the page, and they both took a look at it. “I’ll warn you first that this is an incredibly complicated spell and requires a lot of ingredients that may be difficult to get. And on top of that, there is no guarantee that it’ll work. I haven’t performed it before, but some of the concepts have been passed down since Grundite has existed.”

     Annie sighed. She wanted a sure-fire guarantee, something to reassure her that one, it would work, two, there wouldn’t be any adverse side effects, and three, that she would be able to keep her strength. But at this point, even a two-percent chance was better than no chance at all. “Okay. What would I need to do?”

     Edna pulled out a piece of paper to write all the ingredients down on. “This is gonna be a long list, so be ready for it. Some things are easy, but some are gonna take a little elbow grease.” It took her a minute or so to write it all down, but once it was done, she handed it to Annie, who read it aloud.

     “One plushie, any kind. One Maraquan coin from the Ruins. An item blessed by the King of Altador. Something created by both Jhudora and Illusen. Snow from the very top of Terror Mountain. And lastly, an item worthy of beating Dr. Sloth.” As Annie read the ingredients, she grew more and more concerned. Some of them seemed easy, but others looked near impossible. She wasn’t strong enough to beat Dr. Sloth, even in her current, enhanced state. How could she ever have anything that could beat him? But ultimately, the possibility of getting back to the way it used to be stood over any other fears she had.

     “Okay. I can do it,” Annie said with determination. After her bold statement, she had a moment of thought and turned back to Izzrin. “Hey, you brought a plushie with you on the trip, didn’t you? Would you be willing to give it up?”

     Izzrin defensively backed up. “No! No way! This is one of my special plushies! I love them all!” She hugged her backpack even though nobody was close enough to grab it.

     Annie turned back to Edna with a sigh. “Can it be literally any plushie at all?”

     “I suppose, yes. But I think it would be a little better if the plushie was well-loved,” she replied, squinting at her original notes.

     “I mean, I guess I could get Bryn to give me one of hers, but that would involve going all the way back home and then coming all the way back here,” Annie complained. “What kind of plushie is it anyway?”

     Izzrin warily took it out of the bag. “A Darigan Cybunny plushie.”

     “How expensive was it? If it wasn’t that bad, I can buy you a new one.”

     “Abouuuuut… five thousand neopoints. But I want you to throw in an extra plushie too!”

     Annie rolled her eyes. She wasn’t looking forward to having to spend more money, but if it made her journey a little more convenient, she would. “Fine. But the other plushie can’t be above two thousand. Deal?”

     “Deal!” Izzrin said, reaching out to shake Annie’s hand. After they shook, the Gelert handed the plushie over to Edna. “Are you gonna uh… throw it in a stew or something?”

     “Not right now,” Edna said with a cackle. “But once I get everything, then I will. I’ll hang onto it in case Annie doesn’t succeed. Don’t wanna throw something in and have it all go to waste, y’know?”

     “Alright. Now that that’s all done, let’s get going. I wanna start hunting down all those other ingredients as quickly as possible,” Annie said, beginning to back out of the room with Izzrin. She was still nervous, and she didn’t believe in herself enough just yet. But what else could she do? She had no choice but to try.

     ~

     The next day, all of the Golden family met around the table to decide how they would go about the different trips that needed to be made. The piece of paper that Edna had given Annie sat on the table, right in the middle so everyone could see it. Poppy turned it towards her slightly so she could study it in great detail. “Maraqua, Terror Mountain, and Altador are definite visits. And then I’m not sure if you’ll need to go to Faerieland, Meridell, or both to get something made by Jhudora and Illusen.”

     “And then what about the weapon worthy of defeating Dr. Sloth? How’s that gonna work?” Annie asked, the anxiety evident in her voice. Of all the things she needed to retrieve, that was the one that stressed her out the most.

     “Well, there is a library in Faerieland,” SB answered. “You could take out the Beating Sloth book for a bit to see what that tells you. I’m afraid it’s something neither Bryn nor myself have read, otherwise, we would’ve told you what we learned.”

     “So the question is, who will join Annie on each journey?” Saorsie asked. “Obviously one of us can’t go every single time, and Poppy will always have to stay home.”

     “Maybe we could assign someone to each trip, like a sort of volunteer thing?” SB suggested. She reached out and pointed at each item on the list. “One person for Maraqua, one person for Terror Mountain, and so on. I think it would make the most sense for me to go to Maraqua, since although Annie would be able to breathe in most of Maraqua, she’d need a helmet for the Ruins, like at the Space Station.”

     “I could go to Altador or Meridell, maybe?” Saorsie offered. “They have a really nice fashion scene in Altador especially.”

     “If Saorsie doesn’t go to Meridell, then I will,” Bryn added, barely looking up from Kau Faerie Tales. “We can stop over in Brightvale on the way.”

     “So that leaves Terror Mountain and Faerieland. Do we want to double up?” Poppy asked.

     “Actually, I have a better idea than that,” SB said, leaning forward. “You took Izzrin with you to the Haunted Woods, maybe she’d like to accompany you to Terror Mountain? And lastly, you should take Tuskgus with you to Faerieland. I think he’d really like to go.”

     Now that Annie wasn’t so afraid of Tuskgus, she knew that taking him on the trip would mean a lot to him since he grew up in Faerieland. “Alright, so that settles almost all of them. But what about the Sloth thing?”

     Everyone at the table went silent. Saorsie looked down awkwardly, Bryn didn’t look up from her book, and Poppy sighed. SB was the only one keeping eye contact with Annie. “Uh, we can cross that bridge when we come to it. Let’s get all the other materials first.”

     “So where should we go first? I don’t know if it really matters which order we get them in, as long as they all come back to Edna at the end,” Annie said. The Terror Mountain one seemed the easiest, but at the same time, a trek up to the top of the mountain wouldn’t be a walk in the park.

     “How about Altador first?” Saorsie blurted out. She sounded a little too eager, and she covered her mouth the second the words came out.

     Poppy gave her a sceptical smile. “Why are you so interested in running off to Altador all of a sudden? Is it because of…” She trailed off, but Bryn picked up on the statement immediately.

     “Neopian Fashion Week! I knew it!” Bryn exclaimed, putting her book down and pointing an accusing paw at her sister. “You just wanna go because Limbre is premiering a new line!”

     Saorsie sighed. “Okay! Yeah, yeah, maybe that’s why. But we can hit two Pteris with one stone that way, right? I can see the fashion show, and Annie can get a gift from Altador. Everybody wins!”

     Poppy chuckled and shook her head. “Shameless. Well, I see no problem with it. As long as you help your sister out at least a little bit.”

     “Yay!” Saorsie clapped excitedly and bounced up and down in her seat. “Limbre’s presentation is tomorrow, can we go then? Please? Pretty please?”

     Annie rolled her eyes but nodded. “Yeah, sure, whatever. I can use today to go ask Izzrin and Gus to pencil some time into their schedule for me. We can probably fly tomorrow, but it might take a while, so we’ll have to take a lot of breaks.”

     “Anything for Limbre,” Saorsie said, her eyes shining with admiration.

To be continued…