Well, the crown has been found, thanks to the valiant efforts of the 10,000 treasure hunters searching the length and breadth of Neopia. Here is the solution, in case you were wondering how everybody did it.

We put LOADS of red herrings in. Anything we didn't mention here was most probably designed to send you in the wrong direction :)

1. Our first clue is the note apparently left by the two Meerca thieves. If you look carefully, the foolish Meerca had signed his name at the bottom - Heermeedjet.

2. Checking out Heermeedjet's Homepage, you can see that he talks about a secret meeting at Hubert's Hot Dog Stand, and also names his brother, Meerouladen.

3. If you look at Meerouladen's Homepage, he also mentions the meeting, but says there was a code word to remember - Codestone.

4. Our search takes us to the Neopian Bazaar. Clicking on Hubert's Hot Dog stand reveals a URL with the text password= at the end. Fill in the correct word, 'codestone', and Hubert hands you a note.

5. The way the note was encoded was that every vowel was replaced with the letter after it in the alphabet (a=b, i=j etc...). Unscramble the note to reveal a secret meeting in the trapdoor room under Peopatra's Pet Pet Shop.

6. Viewing the source of the shop reveals a hidden link to the Trapdoor. Follow this link and you should find a diary on the floor. The diary only appears if you search very hard!

7. The diary has the following message hidden in the source...

The numbers correspond to a name (Sayinnah), the code being a=1, b=2, c=3 etc... The next clue is on Sayinnah's Homepage.

8. You now arrive at the Lost Desert Cybunny Defence Initiative. The Cybunny asks for three numbers. If you highlight the entire page you can see three words, Cybunny InforMation MatrIx. The three numbers correspond to the roman numerals of capitalised letters in the three words, in this case 100, 999 and 1001.

9. Entering the correct code takes you to a message board that mentions a guild owned by happy_islander. Visit this guild and you will see a link to an important meeting on the calendar on Mystery Island.

10. Following the link, you arrive at a Parrot. The parrot will give you lines of a conversation between Malkus Vile and Sankara (two of the plotters). Malkus says that he requires a deposit of half a million neopoints that must be put into a certain deposit box. The # of the box will be posted to a certain Neohome Address.

11. Arriving at 15563 Fruity Path, Mystery Island there is a note on the floor. Reading the note reveals the following poem...

The clue is in the first letter of every line of the poem - pointing to a web page at www.neopets.com/mmm.phtml.

12. The flash puzzle on that page can be solved by pressing certain letters on the keyboard and dragging the corresponding letter. When solved it gives you the deposit box ID of 84561587. Going to that deposit box (you have to type ?box_id= in the safety deposit box URL), you see a note on the floor.

13. If you take this image into a paint program such as Paint Brush, and do a flood fill on the background, co-ordinates are revealed.

14. Going to this location on Mystery Island (when you move your mouse over the HTML version of the map you will be able to see co-ordinates), you find a deserted beach. Sometimes a picture of the beach will come up with writing on... as follows.

15. Put the letters together to make the phrase 56south42west. Alter the co-ordinates in the message and you get 335, 127.

16. Visit these new co-ordinates and HURRAY!! YOU HAVE FOUND THE CROWN. The figure in the distance is Malkus Vile, a big fat yellow Skeith, and a master criminal. Oh... and he got away...