A Yurble stole my cinnamon roll! Circulation: 102,975,150 Issue: 203 | 12th day of Hiding, Y7
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Breadfish? yes. Butterfish? yes. Toastfish? ....


by elinion

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MARAQUA - Ingleoakastilmazilia, the most beginnerest of beginning beginners ever beginning (and hard to type so I shall call her Ingle), was fishing down in Maraqua. She had only the faintest idea of how to fish, and had been sitting around for several hours without getting a fish, while watching other, more skilled fisherpets land lots of fish and items that float around the ruins.

Of course, when her luck did change, she was completely unprepared. As the fish nibbled on her line, she screamed excitedly, "I got a bite! I got a bite! Can you believe it?"

Ingle was so excited with the fact that she had actually had a bite that she let the fish escape, and several others were startled by her loud shrieks and also let their fish escape. There was mumblings about tossing her into the large crevasse nearby, but as she settled down quickly, there wasn't anything they could do about it..... yet.

Her next fish came within only minutes of the first, and this time she was able to haul it in, though when she did, Ingle jumped around screaming and didn't seem to want to stop. This time the other Neopets tossed her off the fishing dock and she went to Mystery Island, clutching her fish tightly.

As she got to the beach, Ingle inspected her fish. It was a breadfish. This was the beginning of her troubles.

"Breadfish?" she asked, puzzled. "Why is there a breadfish? Is there a butterfish? A toastfish?" She set off to ask the great smart pets of Neopia.

First, she went to the Techo from the training academy. "Oh wise master of training, I know there is a breadfish, but is there a butterfish?"

He glanced at Ingle, then replied, "Indeed there is a butterfish. If that is all you wish to know, then leave and stop cluttering my dojo with senseless questions!" Slightly more knowledgeable, but still unsatisfied, she went to seek answers from people who knew fishing, particularly the people of Maraqua.

Ingle asked of Caylis, "I know there is a breadfish, and I know there is a butterfish. Is there a toastfish then?"

Caylis shook her head as she said," There is no such thing as a toastfish." Ingleoakastilmazilia (In case you forgot what her real name was, since I only mentioned it at the beginning) shrugged, but went back to the dock.

"There must be a toastfish," she told herself. "If there is a breadfish, and a butterfish, then there must be a toastfish. It simply hasn't been discovered yet."

She went off to Meridell, thinking that maybe Illusen would be able to tell her where the toastfish was. "Don't be silly, little Hissi, there isn't anything called a toastfish. There's toast, and there's fish, but there isn't toastfish."

Still not dissuaded, she went to Faerieland; if anyone could know, they would be able to. But all the faeries, from Jhudora to the library faerie, all said the same thing, "There is NO toastfish. Now go away!" Slightly disheartened, and more than a little obsessed.

Traveling to Brightvale, Ingle desperately asked the wise King Hagan the question that haunted her every waking thought. "Oh wise, wise, wise, WISE, King Hagen, I know that eveyone else says it doesn't exist, that it's just a figment of my imagination, but I need to ask. Do you know where I could find a Toastfish?"

He scratched his head and thought. "No, because there isn't a toastfish to be found. You should believe everybody when they say it doesn't exist. It doesn't." Yet even with that final tone, Ingle refused to accept the fact that toastfish were imaginary. Even if they were, she reasoned, she could try and catch imaginary fish, and she might succeed.

So she set out to discover a toastfish, even though all the Neopets she talked to said it didn't exist. She fished and fished and fished and fished and fished and fished and fished, etc. She got many fish, and lots of rotten sandals and kelp, but never a toastfish. She still sat there, and stubbornly told anyone who got near that there WAS such a thing as a toastfish. Of course, the other pets who wanted to fish eventually threw Ingle off the fishing place, since she was scaring them away, not to mention the fish.

But she still insisted that the toastfish existed for those who wanted to find it, and would go down to the underwater docks to fish for one whenever she wasn't driven off.

Eventually her brother (Neosanusuke7) clubbed her on the head and dragged her off to Kauvara for a potion that would make all thoughts of toastfish vanish from her mind. She still says "Toastfish!" whenever she goes down to the dock, but she's not obsessed anymore.

Someone might go down to the ruins and try to fish for a toastfish, and I wish them luck. But it is a quest that drove many (and by that I mean one) pets insane. All of the pets that used to fish down there (Unfortunately I never bothered to remember their names as I had to hide Ingle from the angry mobs storming my house) can tell you that she never gave up her quest until she was hit on the head and drank a forgetful potion.

Maybe there is a toastfish, maybe it is just the crazy ramblings of an obsessed Hissi, or maybe it is the fabled fish of fishyness, but Ingle's family privately rue the day she caught a breadfish. It brought years of insanity (Just like the quest for the fabled duckberry by her brother, it seems to run in the family), and ruined several perfectly good lawn gnomes that had a lot of life ahead of them.

But a lesson was to be learned here, fish don't eat lawn gnomes (at least normal fish don't, but giant angry snails do. I learned that the hard way.). If any do, you want to stay away from those. They probably eat Neopets too.

 
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