Every Stamp Tells a Story by pikatribble |  |
NEOPIAN POST OFFICE KIOSK - Hello and welcome to all fellow philatelists (for
those who don't know, that means stamp collectors). You know, stamp albums have
been introduced to Neopia for over a month now, yet there have been almost no
articles about them. In fact, a search of The Neopian Times turned up only a
single article - Neopian
Stamps - Are they Good for Anything? By scooby361989 in which the
answer to the question in the title seemed to be not right now, but maybe someday.
I, however, do think that Neopian Stamps are good for something... collecting!
But don't think of it has just collecting tiny scraps of paper with glue on
the back, or as something to put into an album and forget about. No! Every stamp,
from the most common to the rarest holographic one, tells a story.
In what I hope may become a semi-regular series, I hope to share with you
the tales behind these stamps…the Neopets, places, and events they commemorate.
Hopefully, stories will help further your appreciation of this collectibles,
and help you to understand the joys of stamp collecting.
We begin today with this stamp:
This is the fairly common Mystery Island Kougra Stamp, but there is nothing
common about the Kougra whose picture is on it. Though the name of the stamps
claims it only to be a cute little Kougra, this is, in fact, one of Neopia's
greatest undercover agents... Awley.
Most of Awley's adventures remain classified, however, with Awley's recent
retirement, the events surrounding some of his cases have been made available
to the Neopian Public. The picture on the stamp was taken just before his first
(and one of his most famous) cases... the Case
of the Golden Juppies.
Until recently, the only version of the events that took place prior to the
capture of the infamous Juppie Smuggler, Mulvinn the Wocky, was that detailed
in the Neopedia, which depicted Awley as Mulvinn's partner in crime. However,
nothing could be further from the truth...
Awley had been hired by the Mystery Island Council of Excruciating Remorse
to attempt to find the hideout of Mulvinn the Wocky, who was one of the most
notorious golden juppie smugglers of that day. It was his first real case, and
he had been deep undercover for a few months, working on minor smuggling jobs
to build up his reputation as a rookie smuggler, when Mulvinn approached him.
Mulvinn was looking for a partner for a really big job, and though reluctant,
agreed to take Awley into the smuggle with him. However, Awley, though interested
in catching Mulvinn, also needed to find out where in Neopia Central Mulvinn
was storing his smuggled Juppies, before the fruits were sold to the black market.
This storehouse, it was felt, would provide more than enough evidence to put
Mulvinn in jail permanently. Realising that Mulvinn would never reveal such
a location to an inexperienced unknown like Awley, a setup was needed to gain
Mulvinn's trust.
Now, according to the Neopedia, what happened that day was inexperienced rookie
smuggler Awley panicked as a Mystery Island Customs Officer inspected their
cabin, shooting the officer with his trusty sparkshooter, but only after the
officer called out an alarm. In fact, the inspecting officer and all the others
who responded to the alarm had been made aware of Awley's mission, and were
all wearing special armour beneath their black uniforms, which helped diminish
the sparkshooter's impact. However, as Mulvinn and Awley worked to fight their
way out of the surrounding officers with their harvest of ill-gotten Juppies,
each officer played their part perfectly, freezing as they were hit with blasts
from the sparkshooters of Mulvinn and Awley, even though they could move within
a few seconds. One of the Pango officers raised his rainbow gun, taking direct
aim at Mulvinn, and pulled the trigger just as Awley leapt forward and pushed
Mulvinn to the ground, the blast of rainbow flashes catching Awley's hindquarters.
Mulvinn was impressed by his rookie partners actions to save him, and firing
a couple quick rounds from his sparkshooter to disable the other guards, he
and a sore but not severely injured Awley quickly gathered up the contraband
Juppies and ran for the coast. Waiting tied to a rickety dock was a makeshift
raft, constructed of 200 toy sailboats lashed together. The pair loaded up the
raft and jumped on, setting sail for Neopian Central.
The ruse with the customs officers worked, and upon reaching Neopian Central,
Mulvinn took Awley to his storehouse to recover. The entrance to the storehouse
was hidden down an unimpressive alley in the marketplace. Mulvinn pressed a
couple of bricks on a plain looking wall, and a door in the bricks slid open.
The room inside glittered with light... filled floor to ceiling with smuggled
golden juppies. As they walked inside, Awley pressed a secret button built-in
to his sparkshooter, which activated a tracking device. Within moments, the
sound of sirens could be heard racing towards the hidden warehouse. At the screaming
sirens, Mulvinn whirled around... to find Awley's sparkshooter aimed squarely
at his head. Awley smirked…"The name's Kougra…Awley Kougra and your juppie smuggling
days are over, Mulvinn."
Mulvinn was taken away and locked up for life, and the stolen juppies were
returned to the inhabitants of Mystery Island. The Council, deeply grateful
to Awley, awarded him 30 golden juppies, as well as offering him his choice
of any property on the island on which to live. Awley went on to solve many
other cases, until he finally retired earlier this year. For his own safety,
he choose a place deep within the Mystery Island jungle to set up his retirement
home, changing his name and painting himself so his identity would remain unknown
by any criminals who might be seeking revenge. Rumours say he has started farming
his own fruit, careful to not plant too many golden juppies so as not to deplete
the soil of nutrients. So, who knows? Maybe the next time you bite into that
Elppa, perhaps it was farmed by Awley himself…and that blue Kougra who looked
at you suspiciously in the Island marketplace might be a world famous super
spy.
So as you can see, once you know the story behind the stamp, they are not
merely boring scraps of sticky paper. Each stamp can help you to discover a
new adventure, once you know what inspired it. Until next time, I wish you happy
stamp collecting! |
