A Yurble stole my cinnamon roll! Circulation: 174,678,884 Issue: 382 | 6th day of Running, Y11
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The Truth of Snowballs - Where Do They Come From?


by nucnad_eloop

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“Hello, you must be the Neopian Times pet. And you want to know how things work, eh?”

     You nod, wondering what went so wrong in your life that you are stuck talking to the Shoyru running the Ice Crystal Shop, trying to find out how his never-ending supply is made. You shiver in your bargain wooly jumper, taken from the most hidden rack in the Second-Hand Shoppe and seemingly knitted by something using Sticky Hands to hold the needles. It was probably meant to be a Blue Gnorbu on the front but the knitter stopped halfway through the design.

     Your musings are interrupted by the Shoyru’s cheerful voice. “Capital, capital! Well, here we are!” The Shoyru has led you to a place that looks no different from any other. He thumps a little mound of snow on a wall. There are mounds all over the place, and this one doesn’t seem to do anything more than any of the others.

     “Stupid thing!” mutters the Shoyru. “Oh, no, wait a minute. It’s this button!” He hits another mound and a trapdoor pops up under you and you fall into an elevator. Having wings, the Shoyru lands gracefully on the grille. Not having any and unprepared for the drop, you land on your stomach, which hurts and leaves an imprint in your fur. The Shoyru taps a button and you are whisked off sideways before you’ve even got up. Suddenly, you arrive in an enormous cavern with artificial lights illuminating it.

     “Well,” the Shoyru says, as you gaze in surprise at the place, “this is where it all starts.” He opens the elevator gates and steps out, beckoning you after him. You face a chute where snowflakes are tumbling down and landing on conveyor belts, taken off to the main part of the cavern. “First, we have the wet snowflake. Quite simply, our workers just squirt it with a hose.” True enough, as the snowballs are passing along the conveyor, each one is being deluged by a Chia in a clown uniform with a hose.

     “Why are they all clowns?” you ask.

     “Clowns are good with hoses. Hi, Tim,” he says, addressing the last part to a clown, who turns around to wave back. As he turns, his hose squirts a large blast of water into the clown in front of him. This clown’s fake buttonhole immediately squirts a jet of water in retaliation into the face of the clown opposite, who drops his hose, where it writhes around, tripping him up. Leaving the clowns to sort themselves out, you head on to the next belt, which is surrounded by prickly flowers. “Don’t touch these,” he says hurriedly.

     “Why not?” you ask.

     “They’re poisonous.”

     You pull your paw away quickly. In between the flowers, there are pets. About every five seconds, they reach up a gloved hand and squeeze the ball of pollen, causing it to release a deep green drop, which is held and then dripped on a passing snowflake.

     “The gloves took a long time to get right,” the Shoyru says. “Look.” He unearths one from a pocket, showing you the little metal circle built in to the thick material. He taps two of the fingers together, and the circle appears to energize, humming faintly. He uncorks a vial marked ‘Poison’ and drips a small amount onto the glove, where the field generated by the circle holds it in mid-air. He taps the fingers again, and the field is switched off, and the poison falls to the floor. “Right, next one.” He moves on to the next conveyor belt, which is unmanned. The snowflakes are passing through a funny forcefield, which is connected to a machine with Sloth’s head on the side.

     “What’s Sloth got to do with anything?” you ask, bemused.

     “This is one of his mind-control machines used to make pets evil. We’ve modified it to affect snowflakes instead.”

     With not much to see, you move on to two conveyor belts that you have been dreading. “Now, might I just point out, the yellow addition to the snow is not what it is believed to be. It is the result of distilling a certain kind of fungi in the Fungus Cave, on Krawk Island.”

     “I don’t know which is worse!” you exclaim, feeling sorry for the pets that have to use the stuff.

     “The liquid fungus only goes yellow and smells after 20 seconds of contact with water or snow. So our pets are fine. And for the brown, we mix mud with the fungus for a nice 30-second delay.”

     You hurry on to two much more nice-smelling belts. “The peaches and blueberries we use are 100% organic, and this is one of the most envied jobs. The lucky ones manning – or rather, petting – these belt have been very brave in subduing escapees.”

     “What escapees?” you ask.

     “We... uh... we’ll come on to that,” he says, and moves on to a belt covered in ash.

     “Don’t tell me... exploding snowflakes,” you say.

     “Well done,” says the Shoyru, oblivious to your sarcasm. “Hello there, Frank,” he says. “That’s Frank,” he adds to you, somewhat unnecessarily.

     Frank waves, still holding the explosive snowflake, which does what explosive things do best, i.e. go bang. The Shoyru sighs, and pulls out a headset. “Okay, someone sweep up Frank, please,” he says into it, then puts it away before anyone replies. “That happens.”

     He moves on to another unmanned belt. “Icy snowflakes,” he announces, pointing to a giant ray which is zapping each snowflake and, presumably, turning it into ice. He moves on again, stopping at a big cauldron. “This is the sticky stuff.”

     “For sticky snowflakes,” you say.

     “Yes,” he says. “We mix glue, the kind that goes into the glues you buy, with ummagine juice.”

     “Why the ummagine juice?” you ask.

     “Partly because it amplifies the stickiness, but mainly because it looks and smells so darn nice.” He indicates the tubes, which lead to a reservoir by each pet. The pets hold pipettes and keep refilling them from the reservoir. “Problem with the glue is that it weakens the-” a reservoir suddenly shatters, showering the pet with sticky stuff, which hardens instantly, cementing the poor Lenny, “-reservoirs,” he finishes needlessly. He retrieves his headset. “Can we get the crane down here now?” He listens. “Bring the one that they used to move all those boulders from the scroll place.” Another pause. “Yes, the Lost Desert Plot one. Thank you.” He stuffs the headset away and moves on to another cauldron. “For the stone snowflakes, we use grated-”

     “Rock fruit?” you guess.

     “Yes, indeed,” he says. “Mixed with-”

     “Rock potion?”

     “Yes,” he says, slightly annoyed. “It works just like the sticky one.” He stalks on. “Here is the glowing one.” He moves on again. Pets with paintbrushes line the next two belts. “Mushed up molten hot chillies and chilli chia hot sauce. The pets paint it on for spicy snowflakes and then mint flavoured toothpaste for the minty ones.” The next bench is lined with Grarrls, Skeiths and Boris.

     “Why do you use only these three species?” you ask, somewhat dreading the answer.

     “These snowflakes, being abominable and all, are incredibly strong. A recent survey showed that Grarrls and Skeiths are the heaviest and Boris the strongest of the normal pets from creation.”

     Looking closer, you see that each pet is armed with a sticky hand of some sort, and the conveyor belt is caged by thick metal with small viewing ports. There are dents all over it, showing the strength of the snowflakes. You move on quickly, and arrive at an escalator.

     “Going down!” cries the Shoyru, hitting a button. You shoot down into the lower cavern. “Now here, this is where snowballs are made.” He indicates the large piles, and the pets working at the conveyors. “It takes five snowflakes to make a snowball.”

     You stroll past the types you have seen before, and stop at the belt where the tortured snowballs are made. Again, only the three species occupy the belt, but they are also armed with rocks and daggers. Suddenly, one of the snowballs breaks free, smashing through the hard metal. One of the Grarrls throws a sticky hand at it and traps it, but is lifted off his feet as the magical snowball rises. A Skeith grabs onto him, and their combined weight stops the snowball getting higher. It growls and shoots back down again, towing the large weight of two pets seemingly with ease. The Grarrl wraps one end of the sticky hand around his wrist and draws his dagger. He flicks it and it bursts into flames. He throws it at the snowball, but it dodges and corners sharply, throwing the pets to the ground but continuing to drag them.

     Hurrying over to a locked cabinet, the Shoyru produces a key and opens it. A row of good snowballs look back at him. He removes two, and gets out a length of rope tied so that it has three ends, each with the hand of a sticky hand on them. The good snowballs fly over to the area where their tortured companion is still lugging the pets around, and the Shoyru grabs it with the hand. The good snowballs are attached to the other ends and their strength easily stops the suddenly straining tortured snowball. They pull it over to the conveyor belt and force it into the hole. The sticky hand detaches from the tortured snowball and the gates slam shut on the snowball. “The gates are made from Dariganium, which is one of the strongest metals known to petkind,” he says. “Problem is, it’s very expensive, so we could only afford that much.”

     “What about the snowballs that don’t have corresponding snowflakes?” you ask, keen to get away from the snarling snowballs.

     “Ah, well they are made from ordinary snowballs, and then we change them. Here, for instance, we have the fiery snowball belt. We merely pour fire sand over them. And there is the one for sand snowballs.” Pets have buckets of sand and are pouring them out over little packets of snowballs. The next belt contains another Sloth machine, except this one gives off a red field. “This one is the same as from the evil place, but the extrapolating whats-its-face is magna-thingied by 500 and something percent.”

     “That sentence started off well,” you chuckle.

     “It got away from me, yeah. Anyway, I don’t know the details, but the snowballs then go through red and yellow paint to create the colour scheme and the big E.” You move on again, where pink wings are being stuck on by faerie pets. Obviously finding it a bit boring, the Shoyru hurries on.

     “Ah, the faerie snowballs. Both kinds are made here.”

     “Both? There’s Jhudora’s, I know, but which others?” you ask, puzzled.

     “The best of the best. Taelia’s. You hardly think that the Snow Faerie wouldn’t have a brand of snowball, do you? They are made very simply. We add crushed night stone to evil snow and some more night stone to sticky snow and lay them side by side. Some force we don’t understand swirls them into Jhudora’s snowballs, and Taelia’s are a mix of peach and blueberry snow with little wings crafted out by our faerie pets over there.” You move on to two fairly deep holes surrounded by domes. At the bottom, pets are sweeping them out. The Shoyru keys in a code quickly, opening a door. He leads you to a viewing gallery, where you see a number of little hoes built into the side.

     “What are the holes for?” you ask.

     “Hey, Jan!” he calls. A bossy-looking Kyrii with a clipboard stalks over to the pair of you. “He wants to know what the holes are for.”

     “Stan!” she calls, imperiously. A Scorchio with little bruises all over him hurries over. “Explain about the holes to Mr Devant and his guest.”

     “The holes are, uh, for firing the colours,” he says nervously. Then a computerised voice blares from loudspeakers in the domes.

     “All staff, please clear the domes. Hostile release in 35 seconds.” The sweepers down below hurry out through a gate, which closes behind them. “10... 9... 8... 7... 6... 5... 4... 3... 2... 1... hostile release.”

     Suddenly, a mass of snowballs roll out of a gate. Immediately, the guns begin shooting tartan patterns, bullseyes and faces onto the snowballs. Upon landing, the faces instantly turn into ugly faces and glare at you.

     The Shoyru walks off, moving to the other dome, where snow wurms and bouncy eyes are being shot at with bubbles. When a bubble encases a snow wurm or eyeball, it solidifies.

     “Well,” the Shoyru says, while you gaze open-mouthed. “I think your tour has come to an end.

     “But what about -”

     “Bye!” The Shoyru hits a button and you are propelled back up into the shop before you can ask about good snowballs. You sigh, and begin the long trudge back to the bottom of the mountain, your jumper left somewhere in the warm cavern. Suddenly, an ugly snowball flies at you and bonks you on the head. Laughing evilly, it rebounds away into the night.

     You sigh, and write a quick note to your editor. You look through your selection of stamps, and pick a first class sticky snowflake stamp. You let a single drop of Neomailing Ink fall on it, activating the simple spell. The snowflake grows, and then flies off, spinning, into the cold night.

The End

 
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