Faeries Land

     The Xenia card hovered above the star field on the floor in Queen Fyora’s throne room, preparing to make her move in the game. Queen Fyora along with the Air Faerie, Psellia, and her Rainbow Lupe, Trevorance, were playing the game against a group of uninvited foes, who’d managed to infiltrate Faerieland that day. Now they all were stuck in a combat card game that didn’t let anyone leave until the game was finished. The Faeries believed this was due to Trevorance’s new “game magic”, the first in history to possess it.

     The card’s Wocky witch cackled sinisterly as she upgraded her invisibility to the max, letting her card completely pass from view for this round!

     Psellia wasn’t sure if it was possible to hit a target one couldn’t see, but then, suddenly, the card started to flicker in and out. It seemed that Shoonee’s love spell was still active. The Kacheek cupid had hit Xenia’s right arm with a spelled arrow earlier in the day, and now it was fighting Xenia while she tried to stay invisible! Manifestly, when Xenia upgraded her own card, she also must have enhanced the power of Shoonee’s spell on her.

     Psellia and Trevorance saw it, too. They nodded to each other, then turned towards the card, both standing firmly with their legs bent as they studied the flickering. They spotted their chance. Trevorance stomped his paw and howled just as Psellia raised her hand and shouted, “Now!” The ball of light smacked the card, and the Faerie team won the game, scoring way over the 1,000 Nova points they needed to win.

     The star field vanished beneath them as the game wrapped up. The Neopets, trapped inside the cards, were released and transformed back to their normal selves to lie unconscious on the floor.

     While Queen Fyora’s team celebrated their victory, a blast of light shot from the center of the throne room floor outward through not only the walls, but also spreading across the entire city. Then, Faerieland trembled.

     The ground quaked as The Neopoint emerged, rising from beneath the Healing Springs, finally freed. The Neopoint had laid all this time beneath Faerieland, stuck in the soil. For years, it had waited for the rise of a chosen one to be bestowed with the power of game magic. Moreover, The Neopoint was a Faerie dragon that could create an endless supply of Neopoints from the Nems, Neopoint Gems, it dropped. These Nems would last for no more than ten minutes before disappearing forever, unless picked up by a Faerie before their timer ran out. On the rare occasion when a surplus of Nems magically appeared underneath the city, it caused some Nems to pop out from the Faerieland clouds.

     The Neopoint looked like a giant wishbone attached to a Flotsam without flippers. It had been waiting for the chance to use its Nems for a game, knowing its riches would then go to a good cause. The Neopoint had been created from the sorrows of the denizens of Faerieland, who had seen their homes in ruins after the collision of their city. The collective grief then created a being into the shape of a Faerie’s wish. The dragon had tried its best to escape its prison between the land and the city, without success. Its periodic growls and the sound of dropping Neopoints over the years, was its way of letting everyone know it was there, hoping to be freed. Trevorance winning the game was the start of a new magic slowly unfolding throughout all Faerieland, changing everything for the better as it spread.

     Queen Fyora, Psellia, and Trevorance finally arrived on the scene. Many Faeries and Neopets surrounded the Healing Springs, scared of the beast lying in the water before them. They weren’t sure what the wishbone-looking dragon was talking about when it asked if they would like it to open a hoard of Nems.

     “So, this Nem belongs to you?” The Queen asked the Faerie dragon, holding up the Exploded Nem card.

     The Neopoint looked at the card and nodded. “Yes,” it replied, happy to see its Nem turned into a cute flat image.

     “Until now, we called them Faerieland Cloud Gems.” The Queen kept her cool, seeing that the dragon was no threat. She turned to look at Trevorance. “The game magic book said something about requiring a special game host from beyond to ‘start the first trial.’”

     Trevorance only nodded; however, when the dragon heard this, it became eager. “How does this game work?” It asked excitedly. “Can we play now?”

     Trevorance conveyed to the dragon how the card game worked as well as how to beat the opponents to win.

     Intrigued, The Neopoint wanted to learn more. When it heard of Nova points, it was ecstatic to learn about points other than Neopoints. After being shown what a Nova looked like by a Pink Kacheek, Shoonee, who’d been standing in the crowd, the dragon conjured and dropped a Nem from the sky. It told the Faeries to pick it up and open the cloudy diamond gem. A Fire Faerie did so cautiously. “Are you sure?” She asked, shaking her head in worry. “I don’t want to have to pick up another huge pile of undeserved Neopoints.”

     “But, it’s different now,” The Neopoint told them.

     The Fire Faerie did as the dragon asked, but decided to send the Nem as far away as she could before blasting it with her magic. When the gem exploded, a wave of Nova chips came flying out in the thousands.

     The Faerie dragon wanted to be a part of the game in some way. It even wanted the winner’s prize to be 100,000 Neopoints, but the Queen disagreed. “No, we need to make this fair for everyone,” she instructed. “One thousand Neopoints is sufficient.”

     “But . . . only a thousand Neopoints?” It swayed its large body to and fro in the Healing Springs, but a stern glance from the Queen caused it to settle down.

     The crowd all nodded their heads in agreement that things always seemed fairer to receive just a moderate payout for the games they played.

     “Okay . . . How about this?” The Neopoint created a tiny Nem that, when squeezed, even by a child, broke open immediately without the need of magic, leaving 1,000 Neopoints behind for the winners.

     Queen Fyora smiled.

     The Neopoint turned his attention back to Trevorance. “Please, tell me, how did you change my little Nem into this?” The large dragon reached forward and clamped its wishbone forehead to snatch the card from Queen Fyora’s hand.

     Trevorance stomped his paw to summon a cloud above himself, his magical powers helping to elucidate. After hearing from Trevorance that he could paint anything, even a Neopet, into a card, The Neopoint hummed in curiosity. “But I will only ever use this power for good, never evil,” Trevorance disclosed.

     The dragon thought it over. “Turn me into a card,” he declared. “I wish to be the final opponent!” Like a young child, the dragon giggled with excitement. “The other opponents in the game will be my Nems, short for Nova Gem!” It went on to explain the rules of the game, believing so far, inexperienced, that the whole point of any game was just to create the rules. “The Nems will occasionally explode themselves to deflect the player’s attacks, then reappear each time until they are successfully hit. The aim of the game will no longer be to fell an enemy, but rather to hit the Nems one by one when they are not exploding.” This change made it all feel more like a real game using hand-eye coordination without any sense of violence. Also, the dragon said it would use its own card ability, as the final boss, to create several Nems at once to frequently explode all together and deflect attacks for a prolonged period, making itself the toughest part of the game.

     A blast of light unexpectedly shot from the ground outward across the city. It was followed by a trembling felt by everyone around the Healing Springs as a flashing large game station rose from the ground. A cute pink sign rested above it, with the words “Light Nova Ball” and the images of both Trevorance and The Neopoint on it.

     “A game host from beyond, right?” Psellia asked the Queen, suddenly sure Trevorance had a higher purpose than just being her Neopet. She supported her Lupe to follow whatever made him happy.

     Queen Fyora pointed out to the dragon what she remembered from the book on game magic, reciting that a host from beyond was required.

     The Neopoint shifted his focus towards Trevorance, lowering its head to get a closer look at the Rainbow Lupe. “What does a game mean to you?”

     The Lupe thought it over as he remembered a simple wisdom he found now to be more common sense than anything. “How much you want to play with something in Neopia dictates the rules,” Trevorance answered. He looked over to his owner, Psellia, then back at The Neopoint. “And I think everyone in Neopia should play Light Nova Ball! A game is more than just about the prizes you could win. Sometimes, [i]who[/i] you play with matters, too. I want everyone to play and have fun.”

     Using its whole body, the dragon happily splashed the water, a few waves flowing out from the edges of the spring. “I’m ready, Trevorance. Paint me into a card.” It lowered its head further, now bowing to the mystical Lupe.

     “A Card paint?” Someone in the crowd curiously asked, wondering how to officially name this original colour that Trevorance could now paint.

     “Like a Card Paint Brush?” Shoonee asked in return, relieved to see the turnaround of her Lupe friend’s fate after their long day of chasing the dastardly Xenia.

     Trevorance and the dragon were overjoyed to soon be working together to host Light Nova Ball, the interactive card game. It would soon bring even more joy to those coming to visit the spring, now having a fun activity to do after a relaxing soak.

     Once the game station was set and all went their separate ways, the Queen encased Xenia’s unconscious body inside a magical floating shell. She flew with the witch to her throne room. She needed to devise a plan to learn why Balthazar had attacked the city, and to discover where he was now.

     When she arrived, she used her staff to cast a magical seal, walling all the entrances with a force field, even the open tower windows. She removed Xenia from the magical shell and laid the witch’s unconscious body on the floor in front of her. The witch’s right arm was pink and covered in hearts, but the rest of her remained unchanged. The little hearts let her know just who it was that struck this Wocky witch. The Queen was thankful for Shoonee, the cupid, for leaving a bit of her undying love for Faerieland on the witch, even if only her arm was affected by it.

     As the Queen was thinking what she should ask the Wocky, sections of the room’s walls started to glow, first here, then there.

     When she was rewarded with 50 Nova points that suddenly appeared out of nowhere, she smiled. “So, everything is going to be a game now . . . .” She walked over to her private library, tucked behind her throne. “I’ll take this book on game magic with me and read it twice through.”

     The room glowed again, and a stone wall magically split apart to reveal a chamber, a portal full of black and blue swirls floating deep inside. She picked up Xenia to carry her in her arms, for they were almost at the Hidden Tower anyway. Queen Fyora entered the chamber, but suddenly the Wocky disappeared, then reappeared directly outside the entrance. Assuming it was game magic doing its thing, the Queen acutely cast the same shell as before around Xenia. Then, once more, she attempted walking into the chamber, Xenia floating inside the Faerie bubble behind her. Upon entering, she was rewarded with 250 more Nova points. She stepped into the portal with the black and blue swirls twisting around inside. It teleported her elsewhere.

     The walls closed behind her, and the throne room lit up like an arcade, for the Queen had won. She was now safely alone in the place where she’d hidden all the secrets about the Hidden Tower. The Wocky witch was still unconscious. All the Queen had to do now was wait for Xenia to wake up as she began to silently and patiently read the game magic book. She had no doubts that the Wocky would confess, one way or another, what she had learned about Faerieland’s long-standing, and mysteriously lucrative, Hidden Tower.

     Deep in the forest near the edge of the city, Nigel the Chia impatiently lurked and paced in the shadows, with heavy footfalls. He’d had enough of waiting around. Heading towards Faerieland, he was determined to see why the Moltara his henchmen were taking so long with the job. Just when he was about to exit the forest, he found the Lupe henchmen being thrown out of the city, and each one of them unconscious.

     He quickly phoned Balthazar to inform him of the situation.

     “About time you called to tell me. I saw the whole thing on my spy camera!” Balthazar fumed. Without saying anything further about what he saw concerning the Faeries’ new game magic, he abruptly hung up.

     Nigel glared at the henchmen on the ground, frustrated by their failure. He hoped the next time would pay off. He really wanted those Kacheek and Sons Landscaping shares Balthazar had promised him. With those shares, he was sure he’d make billions after the next attack on Faerieland. Of course, that would depend on whether Balthazar got what he wanted out of tormenting the Faeries.

     Nigel turned around and walked back into the forest. On his way, the Chia mogul opened his phone and called his advisor to order all but 100 of his shares of Faerie Clothing Ltd., be sold. He would keep one hundred of them so that he could keep track of the cloudy city’s growing finances for now.

     The End.