Isobel took the opportunity while the boat cut through the waves to sit back and take stock of the situation. She took a small crystal ball from her store and rubbed it once, dispelling a small amount of magic into it. The thing began to shimmer and a moment later Queen Fyora’s face appeared within the lattice’s depths. A method for long-range communication that Isobel always kept on her person.

     “I have learned from the Earth Faerie Ilere that she, the Darkest Faerie, and Valeane travelled to a remote island off Tyrannia,” Isobel reported. “I am headed there now. They went to challenge a creature named Bal’Gammaron, and Ilere believes she remained behind to try and defeat it when the other two fled.”

     “I have never heard the name,” Fyora’s voice echoed through the crystal.

     The Queen looked to the side.

     “Neither has Aethia.”

     “Ilere seemed to think few would have,” Isobel said. “She claimed it was a relative of Drevni, the creature that attempted to lay waste to Neopia Central a few years ago. This island sits on the same fault line as the original site of Drevni’s defeat by yourself.”

     Fyora’s face was grave.

     “We could not defeat Drevni, even all of us together,” she said. “Only seal it away. If Valeane challenged something similar, she was foolish to do so alone.”

     “It is possible that the Darkest Faerie was acting as an unwitting conduit for this being’s energy,” Isobel added. “Her destruction in Altador may have strengthened it, and tipped whatever battle is happening in Bal’Gammaron’s favour.”

     The voice of Aethia drifted through the crystal.

     “I will ready the army for deployment at once. If Valeane fights this beast, she will not do so alone.”

     “No,” Fyora said firmly. “We have different tasks ahead of us, Aethia. Isobel, investigate the island, and secure it if possible. But if this creature is there, do not engage it alone. Report back when you have a clearer idea of what is happening. Aethia, you will travel to Neopia Central. The wizards of their Museum were ultimately responsible for Drevni’s destruction. If they have some special means, attain it so that we may use it too. If nothing else, they may have heard of this Bal’Gammaron. For my part, I shall try and contact Semperia.”

     “Semperia… the Dimensional Faerie?” Aethia questioned.

     “If we are dealing with creatures from beyond this reality, her help will be invaluable,” Fyora said.

     Isobel frowned.

     “Majesty, was she not part of Terask’s coup?” she asked.

     Terask had launched an attempt on the throne decades ago. Many Faeries had joined him, and though Fyora had forgiven their crimes in the wake of Terask’s defeat, most had left Faerieland in shame.

     “Yes,” Fyora said sadly. “But let us hope she has mellowed somewhat in the last few decades. She has walked between the seams of realities that none of us have ever glimpsed. We will need her, I am certain.”

     Isobel nodded. The Queen’s judgement was rarely wrong. With another quick brush of magic, the crystal went dead, and Isobel sat back to watch the waves as the boat sailed on towards the unknown island.

     ***

     The island appeared desolate and, as much as Isobel could see from her observations at the shore, completely uninhabited. There was a small shale beach on the northern side, but the rest of the island, the boat’s captain assured her, held steep rocky cliffs. Isobel bade him to wait for her at the beach while she investigated, providing another lump sum of Neopoints by way of incentive.

     The island was it seemed around a mile squared, and covered in a thick uncared for scrub but curiously no signs of Petpet life. The absence of Neopet civilisation tended to make the creatures flourish in Isobel’s experience, but here, they appeared to be staying away. The Xweetok sensed in the air a faint tingle that she associated with the working of dense magics long ago. It confirmed to her that something had happened there, but the nature of what still eluded her. The initial battle with Drevni on that other island had apparently charged the surrounding ground into that of lodestone, but here the rocks poking above the landscape seemed untouched.

     There were no signs of battle. No tears in the fabric of space and time. No eldritch monsters. And certainly no Valeane. Isobel didn’t like this, it felt like a dead end, and was the only concrete lead that had dire consequences. She spent perhaps an hour exploring the island, hoping to find some hidden cave or chasm, but nothing presented itself.

     At last, towards the southeast of the island, she found a curious stone monument. It was no more than two feet high, and Isobel had not been able to see it amid the undergrowth from a distance. It seemed hastily assembled, a cairn stacked from small stones that had been sourced from the island’s surface. But the top stone had been polished down, and words burnt into its surface with a magical point.

     ’Here I encountered a tear in reality, expanding slowly. There was something in the breach blocking the way, but the tear continued to grow. Something about this island is suited to the breach, I think. I used the best of my abilities to move the portal elsewhere, for I could not close it myself.

     Princess Brigid of Meridell’

     Isobel frowned. She had visited Meridell many times, but had never heard of a Princess Brigid. That said, Meridell was often said to have more nobility than actual inhabitants, so that was hardly surprising. There was no telling when the words had been carved, either. This Princess might have lived a thousand years ago. Still, it was a thread to be pulled at. Meridell would be her next destination.

     ***

     The Neopia Central Museum was a titanic structure carved in faded and pollution eroded marble in the heart of the city’s art district on the east side. Experts on all walks of life could be found within, frittering away their lives in research rooms that barely ever saw light let alone visitors. The wizards who studied magic were the worst of them. Due to their general strangeness, they occupied the basement sections of the museum, which looked more like a castle’s dungeons than any part of the city. They were the oldest parts of the building, covered in spyderwebs and still, in places, lit by burning torches.

     The department was nominally headed by Moriarty Bungle, though Aethia knew by reputation that the people she needed to see were part of a subdivision that called themselves the Necromancy Department. They had been the major figures behind the destruction of Drevni those years ago. The Bruce on reception on the ground floor was most flustered at having the Battle Faerie visit until she mentioned her destination, whereupon she supplied the hardest stare Aethia had ever received. She was directed to the Necromancy Department with a large amount of suspicion, and Aethia suspected that the Bruce continued to stare at the back of her head until the Faerie was well and truly out of sight.

     The Necromancy Department’s door was clearly one of the least used in the building. A thick layer of spyderwebs stuck to the door as Aethia firmly knocked and opened it. The room was broadly circular, lined with shelves of occult and evil-looking items, from stuffed heads to thickly dripping candles.

     The only occupant of the room was a grey Wocky wearing a cape. He had a thin black goatee beard that looked suspiciously well-groomed. He saw soon in the middle of what looked like some sort of chalk pentagram when Aethia entered, but he gasped sharply when he saw her and stumbled backwards as he stood, almost knocking some things from the shelves.

     “What is it?” a voice from the shelf demanded. “What’s going on?”

     A Moehog skull, turned backward towards the wall, began clattering up and down by itself.

     “Silence!” the Wocky hissed. “We have a visitor!”

     “Who is it?” the skull demanded.

     “No one who needs to speak to you!” the Wocky said. “If I need you, I’ll turn you around. Until then, you are still on a time out, Viktor!”

     He turned back to Aethia, cleaning his chalked hands on his cape and offering one to shake.

     “Doctor Friedrich Manzazuu,” he introduced himself. “Head of the Necromancy Division. Please to meet you. No need for you to introduce yourself. I know who you are, of course. Whatever can I help you with, my Lady? Er… that is, sir. Ma’am.”

     “You are one of the wizards who defeated Drevni?” Aethia asked.

     “Yes, yes, of course!” he said.

     “Actually,” the skull on the shelf piped up. “That was mostly me.”

     Manzazuu gave a nervous laugh and retreated back to the shelf for a hurried and very terse series of whispers after which he turned the skull round to face her.

     “Viktor Satre,” the Wocky said. “Previous member of the faculty here, and unfortunately we can’t get rid of him, though his skull is the only thing left now. He did, technically, have a part to play in the effort. But it was really a team effort!”

     “Then I need to speak with you both on a matter of grave importance,” Aethia said. “What do you know of Drevni, and the family of beings it belonged to?”

     Manzazuu and Viktor exchanged a glance.

     “You mean, the Others?” Manzazuu asked. “Drevni himself we knew little and less about at the time, but since his destruction we’ve been able to classify and research him. We’ve placed him in the pantheon of… well, some unwholesome cults worship them as Old Gods, but that isn’t what they are. They are just… Other. Creatures beyond the scope of mortal minds that exist in dark realities beyond our own dimension. They are immensely powerful. Nearly unstoppable. And they care little for the affairs of Neopia. We are but a speck to them.”

     “Then there are others of them,” Aethia said.

     “Yes, yes,” Manzazuu said. “The most commonly cited by those who dabble in the occult is Florthu, regarded by many as a juvenile and the weakest of them. If they can be said to be creatures that hold concepts of old or young, as they seem to straddle definitions of linear time. Drevni we think sat somewhere in the middle.”

     “And what of the one they call Bal’Gammaron?” Aethia asked.

     There was a sharp intake of breath from Manzazuu.

     “She’s a woman after my own dark heart!” Viktor laughed.

     “It’s… not many dare even mention his name,” Manzazuu said. “He is referenced in some truly dark texts, banned and burnt on good orders in ages past. He is the strongest of their ruling triad, if you care to believe they answer to each other in any kind of strict hierarchy. What is clear is that the others fear and avoid him. He is known as Bal’Gammaron, the Profane.”

     “That’s not the full title!” Viktor barked. “It is Bal’Gammaron, the Profane, Destroyer of Worlds, Devourer of Universes, Expunger of Life, Eternal Chaotic, High Scion of Desolation, King of-”

     “She gets the idea,” Manzazuu cut him off. “Sufficed to say it is not a nice thing.”

     “And how would you go about defeating it?” Aethia asked.

     “Defeating it!?” Manzazuu almost choked in shock. “Why, that’s not the sort of question that has an answer. It’s just unthinkable. Bal’Gammaron is so powerful, so potent that it might as well be a constant force of the universe. Would you ask how to defeat gravity? To kill time? It’s not a matter of defeat. If Bal’Gammaron ever made it to Neopia, all would already be lost.”

     Aethia gave him a hard stare.

     “He’s not… he’s not made it to Neopia, has he?” Manzazuu asked.

     Viktor began laughing madly.

     “We don’t know,” Aethia said. “But it is a possibility. How did you defeat Drevni?”

     “I defeated it in the greatest blast of magic Neopia has ever known!” Viktor cackled.

     “It’s the reason you Faeries couldn’t stop it originally,” Manzazuu explained. “Size. The amount of magic a thing can contain is dictated in part by its size. So we grafted bones onto Viktor until he was the size of a skyscraper, and then unloaded the magical energy of a dimensional rift into him.”

     “And then I exploded!” Viktor laughed.

     “The blast took Drevni out too,” Manzazuu added. “But that simply isn’t an option with Bal’Gammaron. Even if you had someone large enough and a convenient pool of raw magic nearby to charge them, he is on another level. He’s not defined by typical notions of mortality. He simply is or is not. When the stars are right, he can jump between worlds. When the stars are wrong, why, he can’t even exist.”

     “Then you are telling me there is no way to stop him,” Aethia said.

     “Exactly,” Viktor said, his skeletal grin mocking her.

     “If he manages to step even one foot on the soil of Neopia, it is already over,” Manzazuu added.

     Aethia nodded, sadly. A battle that could not be won. She’d never encountered one of those before. But the course of action was clear. The dimensional rift where Valeane was keeping Bal’Gammaron at bay. Their only hope would be to close it. And for that, Fyora had been right. They would need Semperia, the Dimensional Faerie.

     To be continued…