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Neopia's Fill in the Blank News Source | 28th day of Running, Yr 26
The Neopian Times Week 68 > Articles > The Price of Prosperity

The Price of Prosperity

by wotan_anubis

MERIDELL - At the time of writing of this article it is still day one of the Meridell war and the only soldiers in the field so far are a young Quiggle with a wooden sword and a swarm of Drackonack petpets. In spite of this, however, the armies of King Skarl have already won more than twice the number of battles than Lord Darigan's followers. In short, unless something very drastic happens, it already seems likely that King Skarl will emerge victorious from this war and I fear that not even my limited Battledome skills will be able to change that, though I will, of course, try my best.

But what happens when the war is over? At the moment, this article is still strictly hypothetical since I can't look into the future and see who is really going to win. However, based on the large number of victories gained by the Meridell army so far, I'm betting that Meridell is going to win the war. So, Meridell wins the war, Lord Darigan is captured and the Citadel once again disappears from the skies of Meridell. What will happen then? Why, there will be celebrations of course! The people of Meridell are likely to put on their finest clothes, roll out their best beverage barrels and party all night long. And when the partying has ended the people will return to their normal lives. With the help of the Orb, life in Meridell will be good, people will be happy, content and without worry. Sounds good, doesn't it?

But of course, there are two sides to this story. The people living in the Citadel will not celebrate and will not lead careless lives. After the disappearance of the Orb, their land has started to wither and decay and it is likely that it will continue to wither and decay. In the Citadel, people will live not knowing whether they will be able to survive another day. And in their eyes, there is only one person who is to blame for their misery. King Skarl. I'm not saying that King Skarl is the bad guy (since I already did that in my previous article and I'm not going to repeat myself), but the inhabitants of the Citadel are very likely to hate King Skarl and his flourishing kingdom. And that hatred will be passed on from generation to generation.

So how does this story end, you may ask. It ends predictably. The inhabitants of the Citadel will return to Meridell one day to make their third attempt to regain their stolen Orb. And when that happens, the Citadel inhabitants will once again face the Meridell army. But this time, the Meridell army will be made up of people who prefer to eat good meals over fighting and who have not really paid very much attention to their training since their lives so far have been good and free of worry. The Citadel army, on the other hand, will consist of people who have become very experienced in the art of surviving another day and who are fanatically devoted to the recapture of the Orb. But not only will the Citadel army have more vicious soldiers, they will also have more soldiers. In the happy land of Meridell, not many people would be willing to go serve in some sort of army, whereas the people of the Citadel are likely to join the military en masse with a grim determination not to fail a third time.

So will Meridell be able to win this hypothetical third war? In the scenario I just sketched, probably not. But even if they do win, will the people of the Citadel just roll over and stay away? No. They will come again and again and again until either they have reclaimed the Orb or until everyone has died in the struggle. King Skarl truly has a beautiful, happy kingdom. But the price of his prosperity is high. For so long as the Orb resides in Meridell, King Skarl's kingdom will never know peace again.

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