Last week in the Neopian
Times Editorial, an amazingly astounding question and an equally perplexing
answer came in:
My NeoPet has been acting strangely since he found this magical gold ring...
he keeps turning invisible and talking about his 'precioussss'. What shall I
do?
We at the NeoPets office strongly advise that you take that ring to Mordor,
the land where the shadows lie, and cast it into Mount Doom. If you don't then
chances are the whole world will be plunged into darkness by the return of Sauron.
Confused yet? Well, don't try to figure it out by doing a search for all those
things, I tried and found nothing. So I've gone around Neopia asking the wisest
people in the land what they think, then I did some research on my own. Through
all of my research, I've thought up a few questions.
Number one: What is the origin and purpose of the magical golden ring?
Number two: How did the finder know the ring was magical?
Number three (multiple): What are Mordor and Mount Doom, and who is
Sauron?
Number four: Who asked the question?
Number five: Is that pet species normally capable of being invisible?
Number six: What is special about Mount Doom?
The reason I didn't write the answers individually is because they're all
related. Questions two, four, and five I dismissed as "unimportant." So far,
this is what I know as the best answer:
The magic golden ring was most likely created by Sauron for some dark intention,
such as to help him "plunge the world into darkness." The only clue we have
about Mordor is that it is "the land where the shadows lie." One of the Wise
Ones had the brilliant idea that it was somewhere on the back of Neopia! The
truly unique rotation of Neopia causes it to be dark for only one hour of the
day. Therefore, the back of Neopia is in shadow for 23 hours a day. As for Mount
Doom, we know only that it is a mountain and is most likely in Mordor. Strangely,
it seems to be the only place out of the reach of Sauron. The reason for this
is explained down further. Also, it seems to be a volcano.
Sauron requires an entire paragraph to explain. He seems to be one of the
Five Ancient Evils (Sloth and Jahbal are two, others are yet unknown) but I
wasn't exactly ready to ask Sloth or Jahbal for an interview, so I crazily went
and asked the creator of NeoQuest if he knew anything about an evil power known
as Sauron. He turned rather pale, but took me to a spacious cave hidden within
Terror Mountain. He said that NeoQuest's origin had come from that cave. He
pointed at two pictures beside each other. One said "Jahbal" underneath it and
had a picture of him, and, to my great surprise, the other said "Sauron"! I
could not discern the shape, so I still don't know what he looks like. Underneath
these two pictures were scenes of stories. At the end of Sauron's story, oddly,
it shows a ghostly figure. When I asked him, the NeoQuest guy said that when
Sauron was defeated, he used ancient magic to keep his dark spirit alive, although
without a body.
This caused me to create a theory, which all of the Wise Ones say is highly
likely. The magical golden ring was created by Sauron after he had been defeated.
Its purpose is to suck the life out of a NeoPet and make it ready for Sauron
to inhabit. The poor NeoPet mentioned in the editorial is slowly having its
life sucked out, and it is currently in a maddened state. It is also flickering
between Neopia and the spirit world. Even if the ring is taken off, it will
probably still continue to drain the pet's life. If it is destroyed, Sauron
may be able of taking it to the spirit world and draining its life entirely.
About Mount Doom... why can't Sauron reach it? I have come to the theory (not
confirmed by the Wise Ones) that Mount Doom is actually the back side of Terror
Mountain, which is why the NeoQuest cave is there. The reason Sauron cannot
reach it is this: he is powerful enough to overcome Neopia or Mordor alone,
but when they are connected he cannot defeat them.
Will Sauron return? Are my theories correct? Only time will tell, and possibly
not even that. If you know anything of Sauron or the golden ring, I ask you
to please write it in the Times. With the pooled resources and knowledge of
many Neopians, we may be able to stop Sauron and discover the mystery. | 
