I don't know why I bothered. Clearly, you've bought into the lies and the falsehoods that TNT feeds you every day though their so-called "new features" and their precious weekly "editorial" in the mainstream newspaper The Neopian Times, instead of doing your own research - like me - and finding out the TRUTH. And don't get me STARTED on the Neoboards, where clearly, TNT only shares the information they WANT you to know.

WAKE UP, BABAAS.

Whether you want to believe it or not, the truth is out there. Waiting. And if you don't seek it out and find it yourself, then eventually, it's bound to find you.

The truths I shared with you recently was only the beginning. But now, I've stumbled onto something even bigger than any of those. A secret TNT has been keeping and denying the truth of for DECADES. Because finally I - Nick Neopia - have found undeniable proof that the so-called "non-existent" Jelly World really does exist.

How did I find this out, you ask? It's actually very simple. You see, it all started when someone - who I will NOT be naming to maintain their anonymity - came to the Sceptic Tank with some veeeeery interesting information...

By the time I finished skimming the first few pages and sipping my drink, they had vanished, but the proof was in my hands. I focused back on it. Each file was coded but appeared to be about a citizen of Neopia who had allegedly been turned jelly coloured, something I have been carefully tracking over the years but never found proof of. Even the Neopians had no idea when I inquired or maybe that's what they were told to do...

There has been no explanation as to how or why but the files showed that someone out there was keeping track so they must have a way to cause this phenomenon. The only other piece they left me was a blue book with a piece of what could only be a MAP tucked inside.

The Map was strange, showing so kind of an island and an underground land, but there were no names of places. I turned to the book for more details.

The book began with a story that told of a secret place, hidden under the water, where someone could do research or anything really if they found it. Isolated and filled with secrets. I thought about it and realized it could be where someone was conducting these experiments, including the mysterious jelly colouring. This meant someone DID know the truth about Jelly World and where it was located. I packed my bag as fast as I could (really there wasn't much to pack, I always have a go bag ready) and raced off to catch the next ship to Mystery Island.

All this information I kept to myself as my journey began. I stayed tucked into my room as I poured over the near gibberish scrawled on the files pages. The book helped some but it seemed to be just a journal retelling a story they heard of this mysterious underwater place. No name was signed but as I looked closer the writing in the book seemed to look more and more like a neater version of the scribbles on the lab files.

When I compared the handwriting I realized it must be the SAME author. Someone had begun the journey to this land and MADE it. The wheels began to turn in my head. The scribbles looked like something I had seen on coins from Maraqua...could it be?

As soon as the boat docked on Mystery Island I raced to see if anyone would be travelling to Maraqua. It had to be my next destination. By the time it was late afternoon I was catching a ride on a pirate ship who was headed to Maraqua. I told no one of my quest but did inquire to one of the kitchen crew if they'd ever heard of a strange underwater place.

"Underwater ye say?" the Krawk asked as he chopped furiously. "Besides Maraqua?"

"Yes!" I replied.

"Nope. There is no other place. Yer thinkin up wild dreams," he replied before turning back to his stove.

I stepped away disheartened, leaving the kitchen and going back to my room, until I heard a small voice.

"Psst! Hey! You!" it called. I turned to find the voice only to find...

"Me?" I asked, pointing a finger at myself.

The Yurble opened the door to his room a little wider and motioned for me to enter with a jerk of his head. After I stepped across the threshold, he quickly locked the door and turned to face me, slowly unsheathing his cutlass as he inched towards me.

My knees went weak immediately. I was not expecting that at all. But I put on a false bravado, standing my ground and glaring at him.

"Why arr ye goin' there?" the pirate growled.

"Where?"

"Don' play dumb. I heard ye askin' the kitchen crew about it," he answered. "Yer tryin' ter steal all the loot?"

"Wait, you know about this place?" I asked, my fear temporarily forgotten as excitement built within me. He must have some information about it. How else would he know what I was referring to when I spoke to the Krawk just now?

The Yurble squinted his eyes suspiciously. "Who knows?" he merely replied after a moment of silence.

"Look, I'll make you a deal," I suggested. "You tell me where the place is and bring me there. In return, I'll help you find whatever you want. I'm not interested in gold and treasures anyway." Well, except for the Maraquan coins but I wasn't going to tell him that.

"I don' trust ye. No man is not greedy." The pirate shifted his grip on his cutlass, and the blade caught the sun's rays that filtered in from a porthole, glinting maliciously.

I gulped and held my hands up instinctively. "You can... cut me down if I go back on my word. How does that sound?" A preposterous proposal but I had to try.

After pondering for a bit, the Yurble grinned, exposing his crooked and yellowed teeth. "Those Mutant Jetsams will love some extra food."

Uh oh, I didn't like the sound of that but if it could get me closer to my goal, I'll have to take the risk. Besides, it also got me wondering if the Jetsams were the results of other experiments conducted in that secret place, just like the Jelly-coloured Neopets. I kept that thought in the back of my mind to investigate later as well.

The pirate sheathed his cutlass, then opened the door. "The ship'll arrive by nightfall. Meet me at the deck when it's docked," he instructed before exiting his room, leaving me alone in there.

I rushed back to my own quarters and did some more reading to familiarise myself with the concept of the coins. Once the sky had taken on a darker shade, I packed up my belongings and headed out to the deck to meet up with the Yurble again...

Without a word, the pirate led me down into the colourful world of Maraqua. Kelp drifted in the currents, colourful anemones opened and closed, a school of Maraquan Gallion chased each other merrily past, an Aisha displayed her shimmering seashell wares in front of a little shop… all well and good, but I wasn’t here for such trivial, tourist pursuits! I was here to uncover the TRUTH. The DEEP TRUTH. And there were few places deeper than Maraqua.

Or so I thought. But the Yurble seemed to think otherwise.

He led me down sloping tunnels and around bend after bend until we emerged into… an ancient ruin?! Here, beneath Maraqua all this time?!?!?!?! I caught my breath in wonder.

“Of course!” I exclaimed. “The secrets of antiquity, hidden forever until those with the COURAGE and IMAGINATION to see them for what they really are could rediscover them!” I turned slowly in a circle, taking it all in, and gasped at what I saw. “Look!” I said in tones of hushed wonder to my pirate guide. “Do you see that? Doesn’t that relief carving look like… a GRUNDO?” I scrambled for my notebook to hastily begin a sketch. “COULD IT BE that in ancient times, Grundos from KRELUDOR visited Maraqua and helped them develop their rich society? And this information was SUPPRESSED by TNT?!?!”

The Yurble made a noise. At first I thought it was admiration for the speed with which I made my brilliant connections. Then I realized he was laughing at me. LAUGHING!

“Ye do realize that this part o’Maraqua was only destroyed by pirates nah so long ago, do ye not?” he said. “ 'n it’s hardly a secret. Ye can’t walk nigh-on two feet without trippin' o'er some poor soul who came down here t' do some fishin' 'n came back wit' naught but a rotten boot.” He started laughing again, wiping his eyes.

“This is just a joke to you,” I said, hearing my voice rise to a feverish pitch of impassioned intensity. “You brought me all the way down here just to laugh! Well, who’ll see who’s laughing when—“

“Calm yourself. I didn’t bring ye down here fer a joke. At least, nah jus' fer a joke.” The Yurble beckoned. Still simmering with bruised pride—but not so much as to squash my curiosity, because I pride myself on curiosity that’s as un-squash-able as a Skeith’s dinner—I followed.

We stopped next to a gash in the rocky seabed. No, not a gash—a *chasm*. The chasm emitted streams of eerily-glowing bubbles.

“See down thar?” the Yurble said. “They say that sometimes a new kind o' Maraquan Neopet comes up out o' thar. But none o' 'em will say anythin' about what’s *down* thar. I reckon somebody be hidin' the secret t' thar loot, be what I reckon, and those Maraquans who come up be sworn to secrecy. But I needs a hand explorin' 'n carryin' the loot back up, 'n if ye wants t' poke yer nosy nose around while we’re down thar…”

I did. But it was nothing as trivial as loot that I expected to find down there. The Yurble could have the treasure. I stared down into the pit and marvelled. Could the secrets of Jelly World be down there? Anything was possible. Anything was possible, and that was what TNT was never willing to acknowledge! But for know, I knew….

Straight down and to our left was a portion of the tunnel that seemed...dull, unkempt, maybe even old. And the Yurble didn't even wait for me to answer; he already started shuffling down that fork in the tunnels. It was up to me to jog after him.

This time, there were no Maraquan shopkeepers, or colourful seaweed, or aquatic Petpets swimming past us. The tunnel wound downward into the chasm, and suddenly it felt more...stifling? I was certainly feeling a bit more claustrophobic, especially as we drifted farther and farther away from the sun, yet the Pirate Yurble was not bothered at all.

Soon we were groping in darkness. I was reaching out to touch the walls, listening for the Yurble's footsteps ahead of me, sniffing the musty air and hoping we wouldn't run out of air in here.

Anything was possible. If this Yurble believed that there was treasure to be found here, then I believed that there were secrets to be had, as well.

"So," I said slowly, "no one else bothered to question why these tunnels do in fact lead down to this secret underground - underwater - place? There has to be a reason why even this chasm is connected."

"Ye ever wonder how Maraqua came t'be in the first place? Where Maraquans came from, before they settled in Old Maraqua and then New Maraqua? That's why they built this 'ere tunnel. T'get their answers, much like ye. 'Cept...they weren't gettin' their answers. Folk who come back don' wanna talk about it. An' that's why I figure there must be some sorta treasure. Relics o' a time afore even Old Maraqua. Worth millions."

I frowned in the darkness. I could have sworn I heard something huge and possibly dangerous swimming past the tunnel. Could ancient Maraqua really be tied to Jelly World somehow? Or the origins of those mysterious jelly Neopets?

"Here we are. Hold on to yer Whinnies."

I heard the Yurble stop, and I followed suit so I wouldn't bump into him or his prickly mane. Squinting, I saw him move to turn something - judging from the sound, it was probably a lock. With an almighty yet weary creak, it swung open, and I could almost smell the secrets waiting to be revealed, hear them call to me.

Lights came on, some flickering, revealing the chamber the Yurble and I had just walked into. There were yellowing papers and torn books littering the floor, ancient contraptions that probably wouldn't look out of place on Kreludor, broken marble statues of Maraquan Neopets, and on the walls were diagrams and pictures of various Neopets. My eyes were briefly drawn to one that seemed to be exploring the anatomy of a jelly Neopet, while the Yurble was already eyeing what looked like Maractite and gold trinkets, tarnished but likely still valuable.

Then I heard an actual voice calling to us.

"No! Stop! Don't come here!"

"Who's there?" I asked at the same time the Yurble asked, "Show yerself! Come t'steal me loot, eh?"

Emerging from deeper in the chamber, waving their arms frantically, was a Jelly Blumaroo...

A freaking JELLY Blumaroo. 

Where is TNT to explain that one, HUH!?!?!?!

Call it a sceptic's intuition, but I instantly halted my forward momentum and raised my palm to my pirate guide, gesturing for him to do likewise. I could tell there was DEEP TRUTH to her words. I could tell she was a (likely Grundo-taught) scholar that heralded TRUE danger; she was not simply trying to hide the TRUTH from us because she was tied to those establishment 1% TNT-funded globalists trying to control the population with their "inclusive" propaganda.

I jumped into my journalism mode and retrieved my Neopetz® branded notebook. (I'd had several hundred of these things made back in the day, RIP, and had to use them all before I could justify getting some "Scpetic Tank with Dr. Nick Neopia, Ph.D. Y'24 from (online) Truth Telling University" made.)

"Who are you? Why are you here? What is this place? Why shouldn't we come here?" I asserted. "And most importantly -- none of the comments you're about to make are PEER REVIEWED, correct!?!?"

The Yurble captain temporarily ceased his looting and just turned his gaze, glaring at us as we conversed.

"Of course none of this is peer-reviewed," she started haughtily. "I'm DISGUSTED you'd even suggest such at thing. And FYI, My name is Anon Y. Mouse," she said snootily, folding her arms. "Or Nona Ur Bizniz."

I liked her already. "I'll go with Nona, thank you." I scribbled it in my notebook. "And I'm sorry to call you out on your review stance. I just had to make sure you were a free thinker like myself and not a Babaa."

"Fair, it's good to question." She nodded me and gave a hint of a smile. "And, I told you to stop because I wasn't sure whether I could trust you, whether you'd be able to handle the TRUTH. But it seems you are, so... well, let me start at the beginning."

"That is a good place to start," I agreed.

"Alright. You see," Nona continued, "I lived in Jelly World. I lived there for a long time, actually... Almost against my will--

"Probably TNT mind control, TBH," I interjected.

"--I was constantly bouncing around the Volcano and being chased by a Pterodactyl..." She narrowed her eyes at me. "It was as though I was getting too close to something, there."

"Maybe that volcano was the last stronghold of the ancient Neopian civilization that helped build Jelly World," I conjectured, "and that Pterodactyl was guarding it so you wouldn't find out THE TRUTH."

"See, that thought crossed my mind, too," she replied, nodding slowly. "But the TRUTH is far, far more... interesting. You see, when Flash died, the Pterodactyl stopped chasing me. But the world also became really... blank. It was then that I started to question my existence and became a Free Thinker. I went back to the volcano, and it looked like just a volcano... except that I knew that couldn't be the case, or else--"

"Why would it be so heavily guarded?" I finished her thought.

"Exactly. Well, I decided, YOLO, and jumped in. And I was transported to here!" She gaped. "I venture out and have since met a few other Jelly Pets in Neopia, and every single one told me it's as though they don't exist. Half of Neopia doesn't pay them any attention, and the rest say they're crazy or lying. Heck, a few told me they went to the Neopian Times about it, but the biased and controlled MSM wouldn't run the story, saying it wasn't in the readers' best interests." She was downright heated now, so heated I thought she might melt.

I liked heated discussions. 

"It's all a sham!" I replied. "They're all Babaas!" 

"ALL BABAAS!" Nona repeated.

We hollered away as the captain looked on, scared and confused.

"It was then," she said, pointing at her charts of jelly Neopets, "that I decided to study Jelly pets, their physiology, and what makes them different from 'normal' Neopets. But I had to do it in secret. Sure, I left a few clues and maps in case a real TRUTH SEEKER came looking. But I knew I had to come back to here."

"So where IS here?" I inquired, my eyebrows higher than usual.

"Honestly, that has been an even more fascinating topic." She gestured around. "This is THE land that time forgot, where all of Neopia's secrets come to die... or live." My eyes widened and I practically panted at her words. "As far as I can tell, this place was originally some testing server backup that TNT forgot to decommission. Like, look at those Maraquan coins."

I walked over to the Yurble and his loot stash, and we both studied the coins. Why... the scribbles looked like just that. Scribbles. And all of them looked just a little different from each other.

W.I.P.s.

I felt my hair raise.

"Why," began the captain, "these'r like no coins I've seen befir in me life! Forgeries! Fakes!"

"Wrong," the Blumaroo countered -- confirming my suspicions. "They are backups of designs for coins that never went live, before TNT finished fleshing out their designs of Old or New Maraqua, and/or the Maraqua that may have existed between the Old and New. And there are other, even more fascinating things further down the chasm." She saw me practically drooling and added, "And we'll visit some -- briefly. Regardless, this has all led me to believe that Jelly World -- my homeland -- was created by some rogue programmer in TNT's early days and never uploaded to the main Neopets world. Why? Maybe we'll find out. But a saved backup ended up here... Yet some of us Jelly Pets have escaped. And TNT has been trying to suppress us and the existence of Jelly World for years now."

Nona paused for dramatic effect. "And I'm gonna take you there, and you're gonna help me vindicate Jelly World and its residents..."

She agreed with a nod. "It's high time we exposed everything." The Blumaroo pushed the picture aside, revealing a secret elevator with rusty iron grills for doors. There was a small blue button at the centre, which she pressed. The gates creaked open noisily and slowly.

It was a really tight fit for two but we managed to squeeze in. It was fortunate that the Yurble didn't want to follow us. "I be huntin' fer mer loot," he'd said. Nona then pressed another few buttons on the keypad and down we went.

We stopped at the first level - a vast area of quadrilateral, bright yellow Jelly blocks with simple shading. "This is the first version of Jelly World," Nona briefed me. "The programmers probably didn't think much of it when they designed this because those doors that you see," she pointed at one of the square black holes embedded in the Jelly, "lead to nowhere."

My hands were working furiously to jot down notes and sketch the land that I saw before me. My attention was focused on a huge semicircular blob of Jelly with what looked like pieces of tangerine and olives in it. But Nona - or maybe it was the elevator - didn't give me time to finish before it moved on to the next level.

This floor didn't differ much compared to the previous floor in terms of the buildings' structures but there were now trees and two extra blobs of giant semicircular jellies. They looked like they would be great tourist attractions with the added pop of neon colours.

The Blumaroo merely mentioned that it was version 2 of Jelly World before showing me version 3, where a couple of buildings finally led to a food source - Jelly (unsurprisingly). She said that the citizens were happy that there was finally somewhere for them to visit but it got boring and insignificant after a while.

We skipped past versions 4 and 5, which gave me a bit of time to catch up with my notes. I beamed at the treasure trove of diagrams and information before me. This will SURELY shock Neopia to the core!

When the elevator stopped again, the iron doors opened this time, again with a screeching sound that sent goosebumps down my arms. Nona motioned for me to step out.

"This is the final version of our land, the one that we Jelly Neopets currently live in..."

"Now here's the weird part," Nona said. "Sometimes Neopians actually come here, from Neopia, mostly to steal from our food source. And you can see actual tourists over there, buying souvenirs from Jelly Foods. But when they leave, they act like our world DOESN'T EXIST. Like they got their jellies from... nowhere. And when WE visit Neopia, we're just not acknowledged at all."

I nodded vigorously. "I even heard TNT themselves laughing about you in their video last month," I said. "You deserve JUSTICE."

"We deserve JUSTICE," Nona echoed.

"But how can I convince the rest of Neopia that you exist if they won't believe THEIR OWN EYES when they see you?" I leafed through my copious notes. "I have all this proof, but if people think I'm crazy then all the proof in the world won't make them change their mind."

"See, what we need isn't more proof," Nona replied. "We need more Neopians to CONFIRM what you're saying is true. We need to SPREAD THE TRUTH."

"YES!" I jabbed my notepad so emphatically that it nearly tore. "Let's start with those tourists over there."

With Nona bouncing after me, I raced over to a Blue Skeith and Red Cybunny who were coming out of Jelly Foods, sharing Jelly Berries. "YOU!" I boomed in the friendliest tone I could muster. "You're from Neopia, right? Tell me, do you believe in Jelly World?"

To my great anger, the Skeith and Cybunny exchanged glances, before the Cybunny replied, "No, of course not. We're in a dream, you see. I'm actually on a diet."

"And I'm allergic to jelly," the Skeith added.

"So this is just a fantasy where we can eat what we really want," the Cybunny concluded.

"BABAAS!" Nona hollered in the background, but the two Neopians acted as if she just wasn't there.

I saw the dire nature of the situation. I had to intervene immediately. I had to WAKE these Babaas UP. Stepping forward determinedly, I PINCHED the Skeith on the arm...

How will this story end?

“How dare YOU, my good woman!” I said. “Taking the fruits... er... the jellies of these good ‘Pets, using them to enrich yourself, and decrying it as nothing but a DREAM?”

The Skeith huffed. Her Cybunny friend reached out a paw to pat me condescendingly on the hand. “Most people don’t realize that they’re dreaming when they’re dreaming,” he said soothingly. “So it’s not your fault.”

I could feel myself growing more and more heated, turning almost as ruddy as if I had run face-first into a Red Paint Brush. “I am not dreaming!” I said. “And neither are you! Neither are any of you!” I spun around, fists raised. “You are all real Neopians! You are all part of Neopia! JELLY WORLD IS PART OF NEOPIA! WAKE UP, BABAAS! WAKE UP! WAKE UP!”

...wake up... wake up.... wake up....

Suddenly I could feel myself falling through a misty haze, as if descending gently from a great height through soft lavender clouds. As I descended, I thought I could see a White Aisha napping on a cloud, an alarm clock with an appropriately alarmingly smug face, and many Babaas leaping over a fence in an endless indigo field. Babaas who were demanding that I perform acts of addition and subtraction, multiplication and division! A veritable nightmare!

And then I was in my bed, with my own alarm clock blaring at me.

"Forty-two divided by seven is six,” was the first thing my mind—addled by its maths nightmare—could manage to push out of my mouth. But then I remembered my purpose. Somehow, I had been flung out of Jelly World by the Powers that Be. But my mind was intact! And that last vision only reinforced my purpose.

“Wake up, babaas!” I said, springing from my bed. I crossed the floor to my sceptic’s board and hastily scrawled new notes. I drew a maractite coin, but one that was oh-so-subtly wrong. I drew a Jelly Blumaroo being chased by a Pterodactyl. I drew a sleeping White Aisha and an endless field of leaping babaas. Using push-pins, I skewered them, with increasing purpose, to my board, and then connected them with string to one another, and to other elements on the board—the maractite coins to Lutari Island, the pterodactyl to the graveyard of Flash, the Babaas to Neopia Central.

“You think you’ve beaten me,” I said, folding my arms. “You think you’ve got me. But I’m still on your trail, TNT!” I laughed to myself.

Over the sound of my laughing, I could hear what sounded like an echoing laugh. I whirled around and opened my door.

In the doorway, there was a basket with a blanket. Snuggled in the blanket was none other than a Babaa, blinking up at me.

Maybe I should have taken that as an insult, or a taunt. But not me! I took it as a sign. I had opened a door, and a Babaa had awakened in front of me.

I swept my new Petpet into my arms. “Wake up, Babaa,” I said.

“Baa,” he said.

I took him inside. Every good investigator needs a sidekick, after all.

The End.