Daring Dailies

      The Mutant Kacheek slipped on a pair of sunglasses and jabbed a bendy straw into his orange juice box before settling happily into his beach chair for a little nap. It was nice to feel his toes in the sand and the sun on his brain.

      Not as nice as he’d thought, actually…he frowned and peeked open an eye, searching for the offending cloud blocking his sun, only to find himself staring directly into a pair of shiny purple buttons.

      “Dancin’ Darblats!” Benji cried, jolting awake with such a start that his lawn chair collapsed on him. His squished juice box dribbled sadly into the sand.

      A familiar guffaw came from between the purple buttons. “Did I scare ya?” asked the Burlap Kau.

      “No, Wybie, you caught me using a new exercise machine - the tail cruncher,” Benji said sarcastically, then realised his mistake just a second too late.

      “How does it work?” Wybie asked earnestly. He didn’t exactly ‘get’ sarcasm.

      “Don’t worry about it - it’s a trade secret, patent pending,” Benji grumbled. “Why are you here?”

      “I was looking for you! I thought — well, it’s such a beautiful day, it would be a shame to spend it all alone,” Wybie began.

      “Oh. I guess, if you were lonely…” Benji said, trying to remember where he’d left his spare folding chair for the Kau to join him.

      “And then I thought, ‘hey, Benji’s probably sitting alone with nobody else to talk to, so why not make his day a little less sad?’” Wybie finished cheerfully.

      Benji’s crumpled tail twitched. “Of course. That makes more sense.” He brushed the sand off himself carefully and folded up his lawn chair, but Wybie said nothing else; just continued looking at him with those hopeful, somewhat clueless button eyes. With a sigh, Benji decided it would be more hassle to get rid of him than to just go along with whatever he had in mind. “Well? What do you want to do?”

      Wybie bounced happily from hoof to hoof before pulling a list out of his rucksack. “Lookie here! I found a list of the Top Most Recommended, Funnest Dailies Ever to get Mega-Rich!”

      Benji raised a brow quizzically. The actual title for The Neopian Times article Wybie had ripped out was ‘Survey: Neopia’s Top Dailies’. “Really? You wanna go all around Neopia just to spin a couple wheels and throw a bunch of Neopoints down the drain, just to risk getting robbed by the Pant Devil or cursed with an illness?”

      Wybie frowned. “You mean…you don’t wanna get rich with me?”

      “C’mon, Wybie! You know we’re never gonna win anything. That stuff’s for suckers.”

      “Maybe we’ll have good luck! And then, it’ll be for suckers and luckers,” Wybie chimed in.

      Glancing down at his crushed juice box in the sand, an idea struck Benji. Maybe he could finally show Wybie once and for all that you needed to be careful because the world wasn’t all cupcakes and sunshine, even if he had to learn it the hard way. “Okay. You know what? Let’s do it. Let’s do all the most fun, action-packed dailies we can find. You take the lead; with your can-do attitude, you’ll get rich in no time.”

      Wybie leapt with excitement, kicking up a storm of sand. “Yay! All aboard the Fun Train!”

      And so, the two travelled all across Neopia. At first, Benji felt guilty for setting his friend up for failure and disappointment, but as the day went on he found himself doubling down. They trekked across the scorching Tyrannian plateau, fought their way through a crowd of Neopets which seemed to be made of nothing more than sharp elbows and kicking paws, and finally managed to grab a serving off the Giant Omelette.

      “Yay! Cheese!” Wybie said, licking his lips and going in for a bite.

      “That’s not a cheese omelette, that’s a rotten omelette! Can’t you smell it?” Benji cried incredulously, snatching the plate away before the Kau could give himself some horrible egg-borne plague.

      Wybie shrugged. “Some cheeses are smelly,” he said simply.

      Next, they were off to the Lost Desert to see Coltzan’s Shrine. Benji stood too close and accidentally drew Coltzan’s attention, rewarded only with the sand under his feet suddenly growing scorching hot and causing him to yowl in pain, hopping from paw to paw as he ran away.

      Wybie chased after him, tail flapping cheerfully in the sand-laced wind. “What fun - I heard a distant scream!”

      “That was me!” Benji hissed.

      They won nothing at the Fruit Machine, though Wybie pointed out with delight that the Brain Muffin someone else had won bore a striking resemblance to Benji. Nor did they have any luck at the Forgotten Shore. Wybie tripped over his words in a failed attempt to make King Skarl laugh and ruined his own punch line, and King Hagan dove behind his throne and threw his ‘Out Studying’ sign haphazardly on the floor as soon as he heard Wybie begin with, “An Angelpuss is nothing if not…”

      “Maybe he’s just really inspired by Angelpusses,” Wybie guessed dreamily as the two left Brightvale.

      Next was the Wheel of Excitement; Benji watched as the Wheel landed on an unnerving ball of fire, and suddenly the Lava Ghoul swooped down out of thin air and breathed scorching-hot flames down on poor Wybie.

      “I love the smell of a campfire!” Wybie gushed as Benji raced him to the soothing waters of the Healing Springs.

      “You’re made entirely of straw! You shouldn't be anywhere near campfires!” Benji cried out.

      Clearly, Benji’s plan was not working; his friend was still just as naive as he’d been at the start of the day. He needed to kick things up a notch. And so, once Wybie was extinguished and left only somewhat charred and smoking, the two trekked up the snowy banks of Terror Mountain and found themselves in the Snowager’s cave.

      “Be very, very careful…” Benji whispered from the mouth of the cave, where he was peeking out from the cover of a large boulder.

      “What did you say?!” Wybie yelled so loud that the powdery snow on the mountain quivered, threatening an avalanche.

      Benji tensed and shook his head silently. Somehow, the Snowager did nothing more than twitch in his sleep. Wybie had clearly locked in on a very pretty Snowager Usuki, as he approached the hoard of treasure beneath the monstrous beast. However, it appeared he had locked into the doll too intensely; he didn’t even notice the Snowager’s tail as he trampled upon it with his hoof.

      The Snowager recoiled in pain, shaking the Kau off his tail before showering him in a particularly vicious blast of razor-sharp icicles. The force of the blast shot Wybie straight out of the cave, where he landed in a large snowbank next to Benji.

      “Wybie! Are you okay?” the Kacheek asked, pulling his friend up out of the snow with great effort.

      Wybie shook his head side to side as if to shake off the impact, and the icicles stuck against his Burlap all tinkled against one another like a wintery wind chime. “Look! Free ice!” he said, pointing to a rather large shard of ice which jutted out from a newly-ripped seam on his shoulder. “Feels real good after the Lava Ghoul - thanks, Snowy!”

      The Snowager, who had been in the middle of nursing his injured tail, glared out from his cave as if wondering whether a second icy blast would travel far enough to reach the Kau.

      “That’s it! I don’t get it! All day, you’ve done nothing but waste time and energy and Neopoints travelling all over the land, just to get nothing at best, and gravely injured at worst. How are you not even a little bit jaded?” Benji demanded, his head so hot that the light dusting of snow atop his brain melted.

      Wybie suddenly looked quite sad, and he looked down at his feet as he kicked nervously at a pile of snow. “It’s not a waste,” he said.

      “How is it not?!”

      “I thought we were having fun together. Spending time with you is never a waste; not to me,” Wybie mumbled. “Besides, I thought it would make you really happy if we won something together. I’d get burned by a million Lava Ghouls to make a good friend like you happy.”

      Benji’s shoulders slumped heavily, feeling heavy under the burden of his guilt. “I’m sorry, buddy. I didn’t mean it like that. I got so caught up in worrying about you getting hurt or ripped off that I forgot to just have fun.”

      A spark glinted in Wybie’s button eyes. “You…you were worried about me?”

      “Of course. You’re…well, you’re probably my best friend,” Benji admitted. He was about to continue apologising, when suddenly a massive load of Burlap tackled him and pinned him into the snow, wrapping him up in a great big hug.

      “We’re best friends! Best friends forever! Do you know what that means? Now we can buy all those cool best friend bracelets, and matching keychains, and get matching Petpets — maybe I’ll even start saving for a Kacheek morphing potion…” Wybie began.

      “Let’s, uh…let’s just start with finishing up your Top Most Recommended, Funnest Dailies Ever to get Mega-Rich. Then we’ll go from there, okay?” Benji said with a weak laugh, though his voice was muffled against the still-charred Burlap of Wybie’s arms.

      “Yippee! I saved the best one for last - I think you’re gonna love it,” Wybie sang, wasting no time in springing to his feet and taking off down the mountain.

     ——

      “Are you sure about this? Maybe we should just go home; I’ll stitch up some of those new ripped seams. I mean, this is a lot of money…” Benji said nervously.

      Wybie shook his head, undeterred. “Nope! It only took me 111 days to play 333 games of Fashion Fever to save up.”

      Stunned, Benji stammered out, “Oh, right. That’s only, what - 3 and a half months of your hard work and savings?”

      “Exactly!” Wybie said, turning back to the Wheel of Extravagance just as the massive Tonu finished double-counting all Wybie’s Neopoints. Satisfied, the Tonu turned to the wheel and, with a hefty grunt, gave it a great spin as hard as he could.

      The wheel spun in a dizzying blur; Benji slipped his sunglasses back over his nose to shield them from the glint of the sunlight reflecting off all the gold. Round and round and round it spun, finally slowing to a stop on a panel adorned with carvings of great, flexing muscular arms.

      “Congratulations! You’ve won +10 intelligence points. Come back soon,” the Tonu said gruffly, though he didn’t sounded too concerned over whether or not they ever returned.

      “Hey, that’s…that’s actually a really good prize!” Benji said, clapping Wybie’s shoulder triumphantly.

      Wybie, however, turned to look at Benji with a tearful frown.

      “What is it, buddy? What’s wrong? If you’re not happy, I’ll try and help you earn those points back - maybe I can sell a few things, cut back on the orange juice boxes…” Benji stammered.

      Wybie shook his head to cut him off. “I just realised, I don’t think King Hagan was really inspired by my Angelpuss’ wisdom!”

      “Oh. Guess that intelligence boost kicks in straight away, huh?”

     The End.