Faeries Land

     Rospa laid on the ground in Faerieland. She’d been hurt in the blast that came when the mysterious diamond she’d found exploded. She’d been on her way to report it to Queen Fyora when she flitted too quickly, causing her hands to heat up and the fragile diamond to explode.

     Walking through the city, Yenil, a Grey faerie, saw the explosion and rushed to help.

     She kneeled next to Rospa. “I’m Yenil. I’ve got you.” She told Rospa while she looked her over to ascertain where she was injured. “Let’s get you up.”

     “Yenil!” She exclaimed with a wince as she felt a twinge in her back. “I’m Rospa. I work with Ivima at the Rainbow Fountain!”

     With their attention on each other, the two faeries failed to notice that scattered on the ground around lay millions of Neopoints.

     Before long, Queen Fyora and a number of other faeries showed up to help. The Air faerie, Psellia, and her Lupe, Trevorance, rushed to the scene. They all looked at the Neopoints in bewilderment. However, Queen Fyora had seen this strange magic before, and she knew as much as she wanted to just vanish it all, there was no way of reversing the millions of Neopoints just laying around in piles.

     Rospa gathered herself and stood tall to talk to the Queen. “I don’t know why it exploded. I was just on my way here to show you the diamond Ivima and I found inside a cloud.”

     The faeries and Neopets standing around all gasped and started murmuring to each other. A diamond in a cloud?

     Queen Fyora motioned them all to quiet. “It’s called a Faerieland Cloud Gem. When heated to extreme measures by the hands of a faerie, a Fire faerie no less, it explodes, producing piles of Neopoints.”

     The crowd all gasped again. No one knew what this information meant for them.

     “These diamonds hold no value as a commodity per se. From our studies in the castle’s libraries, they seem to sometimes just, disappear . . . . But, only if they were to get picked up or held by someone not a faerie, even for just a second. When that happens, it instantly vanishes forever.”

     Psellia interrupted the Queen, wondering which diamonds she was referring to exactly. “The diamonds that you had me embed in buildings and statues around Faerieland . . . are all so beautiful.” She pointed at the explosion site, then asked, “Are those diamonds dangerous?” She hoped the Queen would say those were different diamonds than the ones she’d come to admire seeing every day.

     “Only when heated up by a faerie. These cloud gems started appearing after the fall of our land. They’ve shown up once every few months, sometimes years, and have always been repurposed to use as ornaments for symbolic statues, as a reminder of the hard work everyone has done to rebuild the city.” Queen Fyora made sure to leave out any information that could put the faeries in danger. Though she was not wrong about the diamonds being used for the reconstruction of the land, Queen Fyora was not telling them the whole truth. For this, the Xenia playing card in Ivima’s hand was suddenly granted movement, and it magically flew away.

     Ivima cried out. Several of the faeries dashed to grab it and keep it from flying away. Holding the card again, Ivima told the Queen about the card, how it was a witch trapped inside, and admitted to having let Xenia into the Rainbow Fountain without permission. The Water faerie’s truth terminated Xenia’s movement. The skill on her card allowed Xenia to use a single spell only when she knew for a fact that someone was lying. The card kept still once more, firmly held in Ivima’s hand.

     The Water faerie then turned to apologize to Trevorance personally for letting the witch paint him, which wouldn’t have happened had she never trusted the horrible Wocky.

     Psellia stopped her from saying any more, wishing to keep his power a secret. Again, Xenia was granted movement. The card sprung up, but this time was quickly captured by a magical shell cast by the Queen herself. Queen Fyora drew the card closer to study it. She winced as she read its description of the mischievous Wocky. “It knows more than us faeries?” She asked, her curiosity aroused, pointing her staff at the card. “Let us see why . . . .” She tried to unbind the Neopet from her card, but it didn’t work.

     With courage, Trevorance looked over at Psellia, then turned his gaze to step forward to his Queen. His owner wanted to stop him, but something told Psellia it was right for him to come forward for the sake of Faerieland. An explosion of Neopoints was not something she ever expected could come from the diamonds, which she considered good luck for so long, so she let him confront the Queen.

     Trevorance explained his ability, then bowed down to the Queen in respect. “Perhaps I can help.”

     Queen Fyora was intrigued to see how his ability worked. She looked at the piles of Neopoints, then asked him to demonstrate by using them.

     He summoned his cloud to appear above him. The Neopoints were doused in prismatic colours, which fell from the cloud, and turned them all into a single card. The title of the card was “Exploded Nem,” and its description read: “The remnants of a Nem, also known as a Faerieland Cloud Gem. It once belonged to The Neopoint.”

     When the Queen read this text, she was distressed to learn that the one thing she’d been trying to figure out ever since Faerieland crashed to the ground, would suddenly show up on a simple playing card. Not long after the city fell, its denizens started to hear eerie growls, followed by the sound of Neopoints dropping to the ground. No one could ever figure out where the sounds came from. One day, the Queen became the first faerie to find a Faerieland Cloud Gem. When she opened its contents, she immediately knew something sinister was afoot. She’d been the one to commission all cloud gems that were found to be used for building the city. Now, she had a name for the culprit: The Neopoint. She thanked the Lupe for his work and invited him to her throne room for a talk.

     Psellia asked if she could come, too, and was allowed. The faeries all went their own ways, but many stayed near the castle to help clean up the mess left behind by the explosion.

     Inside the castle, Queen Fyora asked them to meet her in the throne room while she went to grab a couple of books first.

     Psellia warned Trevorance things could get dangerous soon. “Stay sharp, listen to what the Queen is telling us.”

     “Of course. I always listen to you, why wouldn’t I listen to the Queen?” Trevorance replied, confused.

     Psellia wasn’t certain he understood just how grave things could get from here on out, and worriedly turned to look away from him. Trevorance kept quiet and thought to himself. He wanted to show her he really meant it, that she could rely on him to do good.

     The Queen entered, two books in her arms. One of them was already open. It was a colourful book, the cover a mix of several hues, all about game magic. Faeries could always use magic, but, to their knowledge, none had ever figured out how exactly to wield game magic, though they’ve tried by hosting games for years. The Queen gave Trevorance the book to examine. “This book says that your power is a form of constriction magic that looks to only ever play fairly.” She pursed her lips as her head turned to the side. Faeries believed they played their games fairly, but they had yet to show any signs of harnessing game magic. In fact, the book described it as “untouchable, even by faerie magic.” She asked Trevorance to please use his card-creating power on the book itself so that it could reveal some truth about game magic that the faeries had failed to understand all these years.

     The Rainbow Lupe stomped his paw, summoned his cloud, and splashed the book with his rainbow cascade. When it turned into a card, the Queen sauntered to pick it up, then read what it said.

     “Let’s see. ‘How much you want to play with something in Neopia dictates the rules. Have fun.’ Interesting, it comes with hidden rules. Trevorance, I asked you to turn this book into a card because some magical items can have secret magic hidden inside them.” She showed them the second book she’d had to collect from a secret chamber. It was a special book, shimmering all around, called “Neopoints of the faeries”. The book floated on its own from the Queen’s hand as if sentient, and it was written with faerie magic drawn from the power of knowledge itself. The most intelligent of the faeries had done their best to gather all the energy in Neopia that could help them better understand the Faerieland Cloud Gems, which had exploded Neopoints in the millions. The Queen knew it was wise to have created a copy of the original, which she had kept hidden in the small library Xenia had infiltrated earlier. She believed its card form should reveal the book’s hidden truth about someone the book called “The Game Master from Beyond”. No one knew what that meant. Some faeries thought it meant they needed to compete to see who the best was at hosting their games for Neopians.

     After Trevorance used his skill, the Queen hurried over to read the card. It read: “The Neopoint, the wealthiest wishbone of all, shall be born and slumber where the faeries land. This dragon will be a game master.”

     Just then, Balthazar’s gang crashed in, trying to find Xenia. They had run through the city, whisking any faeries into bottles along the way, straight towards the castle. Balthazar had been waiting for this moment. He’d been planning, anyway, to attack Faerieland ever since it fell from the sky. Now on land, it was easier to infiltrate. Plus, he could now also use his Lupe henchmen to brutally remove Xenia lest she spread any word about Nigel’s dark involvements, especially those affiliated with the corrupt and misguided Balthazar. When the Lupes had seen the Queen enter her castle, they charged in, knowing many of the other faeries were still outside cleaning up the mess from the explosion. These Lupes were well-armed with zap weapons, and even wore spy gear from head to toe. Balthazar was not messing around. He had spent a lot of his earnings from the stock market to build an army of like-minded Lupes. They were ready to fight the Queen, if need be.

     One Lupe signaled for another to go search the castle for Xenia. Before the Lupe could escape, Trevorance leapt to block the exit of the throne room. Ready to pounce, with fire in his eyes, he howled to distract the henchman and draw attention away from Psellia hovering above as she cast air magic on him. Despite having spent most of her days lying around on clouds, she was quite powerful. The Lupes sprang to the attack, and Psellia shouted, “Trevorance! Now! Use your game magic!”

     He obeyed. Suddenly, the henchmen were surrounded by a splash of rainbow colours, then, moments later, they fell to the throne room floor as cards.

     The Queen read the cards one by one, and found one indicated a particularly alarming fact. “‘This Lupe henchman reports everything to his boss. Everything, because his boss has cameras everywhere.’ His boss . . . .”

     “What happens now?” Psellia asked. “Do we just lock the cards away for good, or do we use them?”

     Trevorance looked confused. “Use them how?”

     “Well,” Psellia replied slowly, choosing each word with care. “Your magic requires a game to be played. Wouldn’t it stand to reason that we need to figure out the rules to the card game?”

     They’d all seen that the Xenia card could fly around on its own. Looking to put the pieces together, they laid the cards out next to each other. In an instant, to their surprise, a field appeared beneath them in the shape of a five-pointed star. The four cards disappeared and rematerialized each at one point of the star, leaving the Queen, Psellia, and Trevorance standing together at the fifth point.

     The game began.

     A shower of glittering Novas fell on each of the star’s points, giving each player 50 Nova points to their score. No one said anything in fear of making a wrong move. After some time, Trevorance chimed in. Being the creator of the cards, he somehow felt that he knew how the game was meant to be played.

     “You need 1000 Nova points to win. The four opponents in front of you must all be defeated. Each turn, your attack will start with the opponent to your far left on the star field. If you manage to hit them when they’re not blocking, or if you can break through their block, your attack continues by flying to the next opponent in line. Each successful hit lets you attack the next opponent and so on, all within one turn. Attacking all four will score you bonus Nova points.” Though Trevorance was smiling during his explanation, happy to get to play possibly the most fun game he could ever imagine, he growled before continuing. His eyebrows furrowed; he spoke seriously now. “Careful though, they all use their card skills to block, and each one is different. The only way to find out is to play.”

     Queen Fyora’s eyelids were hanging rather low, thinking this couldn’t be serious. She tried to leave, but found she was unable to because the star field prevented her from leaving. Realizing she had no other choice, she decided to be the one who would win, telling Psellia to keep a lookout for anything dangerous that might occur. Queen Fyora let out a large blast that instead came out more like a small ball of light within the game’s star field, shooting over to the first opponent. She hit him directly, as to be expected of the powerful faerie. The ball traveled, and she struck again. She hit all but the last opponent, Xenia, who used magic to turn her own card invisible just as the Queen attacked. Above Xenia, words appeared saying Wocky witch used invisibility!

     The first of five rounds netted the trio 190 Nova points, and Xenia 100.

     The star field glowed, commencing the second round. Queen Fyora hit only two henchmen before the third figured out her timing and shielded himself with his spy gear vest. Above his card, a line of words appeared. Lupe henchman used Balthazar’s armour! Surprised to read this, the Queen tried harder to win this game so that she could hurry and deal with Balthazar herself.

     When it came down to the last round, the trio had 910 Nova points, the others several hundred each. Trevorance chimed in once more. “Be careful. On this last turn, anyone can work together, and spend all or part of their Nova points.”

     She took note of it, and asked Psellia if she would let Trevorance play this game, a dangerous task for anyone, including the Queen, who was still unfamiliar with all the rules of game magic and its power.

     Psellia wasn’t sure, but Trevorance let her know that he was certain he could win, if Psellia joined him to play. He looked lovingly at his owner. “All I’ve ever wanted since I was a pup was to make you proud,” he told her. “I couldn’t be happier that the Queen’s given me this chance to prove that I’m a good Lupe.”

     Psellia rubbed away the tears wetting her cheeks. Now, she finally understood what it meant to be connected so deeply with a Neopet that they would trust their owner to work together. She had always loved the comfort of the soft clouds she lounged on for so long, but this felt different. It was exciting!

     “I love you, Trevorance,” she whispered before she agreed to play with him. Both came up with the perfect way to spend their Nova points for the last turn. Of their 910, they used 75 to upgrade their blast, and 50 for the boost in its speed. With this, they needed to score a total of 215 Nova points to win.

     The two went for their first attack. Psellia blasted the ball of magic at the henchman to her left. He used his points at this moment to upgrade his defense. But, Trevorance had been carefully watching every move each opponent made this entire game. He told her to wait until he knew it was the right time, and Psellia managed to hit him thanks to Trevorance!

     The ball of light continued. The next henchman spent all his points upgrading his zap blaster to fight back the ball. Trevorance once again knew when to attack, and Psellia got another successful hit in.

     The third henchman figured his shield worked the first time, so he upgraded it to the max using all his points, using even the extra ones he earned from deflecting the ball throughout the game. His card glowed brightly from the max upgrade, worrying Psellia a bit. She looked over to Trevorance, who was reviewing the henchman’s previous movements to himself in his head.

     The Queen wondered what was taking Psellia so long, as the ball stayed hovering in front of the henchman’s card.

     Psellia took a deep breath. She smiled at her Lupe and said, “Trevorance. No matter what, I'm always happy to play with you. I feel like I’ve won just by seeing you grow so much.”

     Trevorance shouted, “Now!”

     Without hesitation, Psellia raised her hand to cast the attack from the ball.

     Trevorance had been watching the card, following its peculiar pattern of shaking every now and then. He could tell the henchman was using a shield because he was a coward inside. At times, that henchman card would shake almost as if in fear, a fear that Trevorance could sleuth. He knew that whenever he saw that card start to shake, the Queen was able to strike it.

     Psellia had one opponent left. Xenia.

     To be continued . . .