MERIDELL - Ever since the words "new world" popped up, everyone has been holding
their breath waiting for the war that ALWAYS seems to come with a new world.
Now all of us blue-faced Neopians can let our air out and start breathing again.
*gasp sputter cough cough* Whew! That's better! And now that war is WHOO HOO
finally here, it means we actually get to fight. And not only do we get to WHOO
HOO actually fight, we get to PICK SIDES TOO!
In case you've been away on vacation on Mars and don't know what's been happening
the last few months, I'll clue you in:
The World of Meridell pops up. We get a lot of cool games like "Go on an
Illusen's Quest While the Turmaculus is Awake to Count as Many Towering Potato-Turnips
as You Can While Picking Your Own Meristones". The Citadel of Darigan floats
up.
OK, you're now pretty much up-to-date. There is a war going on between Meridell
and Darigan because they are playing tag with floating gold ball. If that confuses
you, let me explain the history behind this conflict. It can be found in the
story of the "Champions of Meridell". I will now explain the plot of the story
so you can be even more confused.
Chapter 1: A valiant Blue Lupe in shining armour beats the stuffing
out of a bunch of scary monsters with his sword. A nearsighted Yellow Aisha
in a school uniform beats the stuffing out of a scary Skeith with her lunchbox.
In fact, she hits him so hard, it leaves bruises on his friends.
Chapter 2: Lisha, (which seems to be short for Yellow Aisha), goes
to a museum and sees a grown-up version of her long-lost Blue Lupe brother,
Jeran, in a really old painting. He is a really famous knight from long ago
and this is a total shock to her. She had never heard of this knight before,
despite the fact her Quiggle friend, Morris, is standing right behind her dressed
up exactly like that knight and wearing Blue Lupe ears.
Chapter 3: Lisha, who can't be that old, SUDDENLY remembers
that she lost her brother while playing Hide and Seek. It just slipped her mind
until now. But I guess she just has a poor memory because she can't remember
how to count backwards either.
Chapter 4: Lisha and her friends decide to go to the ancient ruins
of Meridell to find her long-lost brother. Probably to ask him how a Yellow
Aisha and a Blue Lupe managed to be brother and sister. She waves her pretend
wand and POOF! Not only does she zap her Quiggle friend back in time, she zaps
herself and her two other friends who aren't even anywhere near her at the time.
Chapter 5: King Skarl summons his greatest, strongest knight to the
throne room. He has a big problem that he needs to work out. It's probably why
the knight is called "Sir Borodere" in the painting and is called "Jeran" now.
Meanwhile, a Draik guard does a double-take. That's because the other Draik
guard walks off to the right and reappears on the left. So he decides to throw
the four kids in the dungeon until they come up with a good explanation.
Chapter 6: On the way to the dungeon, three creatures even stranger
than a Quiggle wearing Blue Lupe ears, crash through the window and beat up
the Draik guards because they said a really incredibly dumb thing like, "Halt!
Who goes there?". Lisha then uses her pretend wand to zap one monster while
her Zafara friend dressed up like Kauvara zaps another monster with a pretend
potion. Not be be outdone, the Blumaroo and the Quiggle knock out the last monster.
This makes sense because four kids with no real weapons are always stronger
than heavily armed Draik guards. The guards are so grateful they take the kids
to see the king without even bothering to put the winged demons in the dungeon
or tie them up or anything.
Chapter 7: The guards take the kids to King Skarl and Lisha explains
everything to him. At this point, Jeran, the brave Knight, SUDDENLY remembers
that when he was a kid he was playing Hide and Seek with his sister Lisha. He
tripped over a stick, went back in time and landed in the highest tower of Meridell
Castle. Sounds reasonable to me. That happens to me all the time. Durn sticks.
Somebody should pick them up because they're a real hazard. Anyway, now that
Jeran and Lisha have been finally reunited after all these years, they totally
ignore each other. That PROVES they are brother and sister.
Chapter 8: King Skarl launches into a brief history of Meridell. There
was disease, famine, starvation and patches on everyone's clothes. And for some
odd reason no one was happy about this. So the king sent out some of his knights
to find help. Luckily for them, an old Green Kyrii with bad teeth just HAPPENED
to know where they could find a mystical orb that would magically make everything
really really nice again. No one knows where the knights found it, but they
brought it back and POOF! Everyone was healthy, the fields were green, everyone
was well-fed and there were patches on everyone's clothes. Okay, so three out
of four ain't bad. So King Skarl's theory is that the winged demons have come
to steal the golden orb, which not only floats, but looks like someone scrawled
their geometry homework on it.
Chapter 9: There are no words in this chapter so I'll just describe
what happens. A cross-eyed Red Ixi eats a flower and suddenly a shadow covers
the entire land. Large plants that look like octopus arms with spikes pop up.
The Ixi does a dance and gallops away. Not to be outdone, the plants start to
dance too. I'm not sure, but I think they're doing the Macarena. End of chapter.
So there you have it. The entire history so far of the cause of the war between
Meridell and Darigan. Now you get to pick which side you get to be on! To help
you make your decision, I will now attempt to explain both sides of the dispute
in a fair and impartial manner.
Reasons to Join the Meridell Side
When you go to Meridell Castle, the first thing you read is this: To the
South of Meridell lies the castle of King Skarl, king of the whole of Meridell.
Skarl wisely rules the land, with the help of his top knights and peasant militia.
Notice that King Skarl is described as being wise. No one has ever been described
as being wise AND evil. Or as being wise and a mean, greedy thief. Wise is GOOD.
We have just read nine chapters of this story. Okay, so we read eight and
watched one. But the hero of this story is a brave, dashing, noble knight named
Jeran. Except in the second chapter where he's called Sir Borodere, but that's
not the point. Lisha is good. Jeran is good. And they're both on the side of
Meridell. That sounds good to me.
We just GOT Meridell. We waited forever for a new world to finally come and
now we're supposed to sit back and watch it sink into oblivion like Maraqua?
I don't think so.
Meridell is being attacked by a evil citadel floating in the sky. Note the
word "evil" in front of the word "citadel". And no decent lord would have a
citadel instead of a castle, anyway.
King Skarl didn't technically steal anything. The knights came back with the
orb. And they didn't even know about it until a Green Zafara with yellow teeth
told them about it. If Lord Darigan should attack anyone, he should send out
all his hideous minions to beat HER up.
What do you think the Darigans do with their garbage? They dump it out of
their cloud citadel and it's been raining scab cake crust on Meridell for two
days. Eww. Yuck.
Reasons to Join the OTHER Side
Lord Darigan calls King Skarl a liar, a betrayer and a thief. Just because someone
SAYS something like that doesn't mean it's true, but it makes it SOUND like
Darigan could possibly, remotely have a tiny unimportant reason to attack.
The bad guys look pretty cool.
If floating castles in the sky were a bad thing, then I think we should be
terribly afraid of the faeries.
Nobody likes the bad guys so no one is joining their side. If you want to
be a rebel, this is the side to choose. I joined the Army of Meridell because
I got caught up in the Peasant Militia Mob and I didn't want to look bad in
front of all those villagers by leaping over to the other side. Especially when
leaping over to the other side means leaping about 500 feet straight up. Okay,
okay. So I'm a sheep. BAAA BAAA. You happy now? What can I say? I don't like
heights and I can't see me using a ladder every time I need to talk to my boss...
So the question is: should you join the wonderful, gallant, courageous citizens
of Meridell or the nasty, vile, ugly beasts of Darigan? The choice is yours.
Don't let me influence you in the least. Like I said, I'm completely neutral.
GO MERIDELL! | 
