A Spooky Escapade: Part Three

     Finally, when all of the pet's legs were tired, with the exception of the much stronger Ketchup, they reached the bottom. The ghost looked over his shoulder with a wicked smile curling on his lips and barked out a menacing laugh. "Over here," he whispered in a barely audible voice and led them over to a crude wooden door stuck in a dirt wall at a corner of the room.

     The Chia carefully opened the door, letting the suspense build up in the air. "In you go, my children," he cackled and stepped aside, watching them with his glowing red eyes in a way that made the fur prickle up on the back of every pet's neck.

     "Let's do this," Tidus whispered to the group encouragingly. "For our six hundred and seventy-eight Neopoints."

     Ramrod nodded and added, "For Daisy."

     "Sure, why not," Tidus muttered in an unenthusiastic voice, shrugging his shoulders.

     The group of pets shuffled bravely into the room. "Welcome to the demonic Crypt that Eliv Thade wickedly haunts," the ghost Chia told them in his monotonous voice. All four of the pets had realized by now that the ghoul described every room as the most atrocious place in Neopia, and they knew that the Crypt would most likely only contain a coffin, and perhaps some dust.

     They were right. As the smoke cleared, the group peered into the darkness to see the coffin of Eliv Thade himself. "Guys, I'm scared," Cunchicka said, hoping for a cliché effect. Her friends simply rolled their eyes and ignored her.

     "I must leave you all to Eliv Thade now. It has been my pleasure leading you all to a certain death," the Chia announced. "I am positive that none of you will figure out Thade's final anagram of ultimate evil, but good luck anyway. If you need any hints, I'll be upstairs."

     The four pets turned and watched the ghost Chia begin to ascend the stairs. He was beginning to fade from sight, until he started getting fancy in the way he walked up the stairs and slipped, rolling back down to the bottom. Getting up, he grumbled sour words, then climbed up again until he had faded from the sight of the pets.

     Ketchup looked back at the room and slowly began walking in. "Now what?" she asked her friends, scratching her head.

     "Eliv Thade? Eliv? Hello-o! Anyone in here?" Tidus called out, going to stand by Ketchup.

     "Shh, listen!" Ramrod ordered and they all froze in their spots, ears turned up in the air. A small giggling sound was coming from somewhere inside the room, and instantly the four pets knew who it was.

     "Daisy!" Cunchicka shouted gleefully. "It sounds like it's coming from that coffin-thing over there."

     Tidus slowly approached the coffin and was about to lift his paw to pry it open when something flipped the top back and jumped out of it screaming, "Boo!" at the top of its lungs.

     "Ahh!" They all jumped back in alarm. Cunchicka ran and hid behind Ketchup, covering her eyes, when she saw that the repulsive-looking thing was indeed Thade.

     "You've made it this far," Eliv Thade began, "but you will never pass this level! My assistant has been too lenient with you, but he is unsmart, unlike me. Prepare to face your doom!"

     "Yeah, right," Ramrod countered. "Nothing is too challenging for us. You said so yourself, we've made it this far!"

     Thade blinked. "A petrified Slorg could have made it here faster than you all did."

     Cunchicka yelled at Thade with an angry expression on her face, "Okay, okay! Enough with the insults, you ghoul! Just give us the anagram." Her friends nodded in agreement.

     "Okay, fine," the spectre said, cackling. He swiftly pointed towards the ceiling, where the final anagram had been written with an evil ink.

     The four pets stared at the jumble of letters blankly. 'TSOHG.' As Tidus and Ramrod scratched their heads, Ketchup sighed, and declared, "This one is impossible, we're never going to figure it out!"

     Thade cackled, then stepped out of the coffin, closing the lid on a squealing Daisy. He watched as the pets stood there, staring at the ceiling with serious looks on their faces. The Kacheek looked like she was hurting herself, and the Kyrii seemed on the verge of tears from the frustration that their task caused.

     Suddenly, Ramrod looked as if he got hit with a bout of inspiration and stood up straight, declaring, "I got it! It has to be 'soght'!"

     "Soght?" Tidus repeated, raising an eyebrow at the Werelupe. "You've been spending way too much time around Cunchicka, my friend."

     Thade let out a high-pitched giggle that was extremely uncharacteristic of him. "Oh, you lot are so much fun to watch! But I have an appointment to attend soon, so just give up! Never, I repeat, never, will you figure this one out!"

     "Okay, we get it," Tidus drawled.

     "Anyway," Thade continued, "this coffin will remain locked until you figure out my impossible anagram. You all will be down here for ages. Good bye for now, weaklings!"

     Ketchup rolled her eyes. "Just leave us alone, you stupid ghost."

     Thade's face suddenly turned quite pale. He gulped and asked, "Did you say...ghost?"

     Ketchup looked at Thade in confusion and replied, "Yeah, so?"

     "Do you know what that means?" Eliv asked in a whispery voice.

     Cunchicka spoke up, replying, "Umm...that you died already?"

     Thade rolled his eyes and yelled in a frustrated voice, "Look at the ceiling you foolish pets!"

     Four heads turned up to the dirt ceiling with it's inky letters spelling out 'TSOHG' and crinkled their foreheads. After a few minutes they all looked back at Thade blankly.

     "Kyrii, you guessed the anagram! Don't you get it?" the ghoul cried.

     "When did I guess it?" Ketchup asked, puzzled.

     "OH!" Ramrod exclaimed. "I get it! The answer to his pathetic anagram is...ghost!"

     Suddenly, a soft rumble came from the coffin, growing louder and louder. After a climactic tremble the door to the old casket shot open in a malefic burst. Six hundred and seventy-eight Neopoints floated from the coffin and shot back into Cunchicka's paws. In return, she tossed the old sock that had absent-mindedly been in her grasp the entire time back in, landing right next to a confused Polarchuck. Daisy crawled out in a befuddled manner and let out an ear deafening squall.

     Thade laughed shrilly. "Because you figured out my three impossible anagrams, with no help at all from anyone, I shall return to you your Neopoints. And that Polarchuck. Farewell, foolish juveniles!"

     They watched Thade stroll casually out of the crypt, as if the only event going on in his castle was shoe-tying instead of stressful anagram-solving.

     "Daisy!" Cunchicka cried out happily and the Polarchuck waddled into the Kacheek's open arms. Then, in a sudden mood swing, she began sniffling.

     "What's wrong?" Ketchup asked, not understanding how her friend could be sad.

     "Well, you know, I just miss that sock!" Cunchicka wailed. "It was such a good sock. The way it smelled, the way it felt on my hand, and the way it made such a cute sock-puppet was perfect. Now, I'll never see it again."

     "You're joking," Tidus said flatly. Without waiting for a response, he quickly changed the subject. "Anyway..."

     "I can't believe we did it!" Ramrod cried randomly, in a happy voice. "Let no one doubt our awesome anagram-solving skills! We managed to save the six hundred and seventy-eight Neopoints and Daisy all in the same breath!"

     The other three pets let out a celebratory yell, all so happy that the whole ordeal was over with. "Let's get out of here," Tidus suggested. His friends nodded in agreement, sudden fatigue hitting them from all of the excitement.

     The four emerged from the castle a half hour later and as she swung the door open, Ketchup cried out, "Yes! Fresh air at last! Let's celebrate by wasting our Neopoints at the Deserted Fairground! Again!"

     Ramrod blinked. "But...we just ventured through Eliv Thade's castle to recover them. Did we only go through all of that to waste them on rigged games?" he demanded.

     "Yes," Cunchicka replied assertively. Ketchup and Tidus nodded in agreement.

     "Whatever," Ramrod said, staring up at the sky, "let's go ahead then!"

     The group contently walked back into the entrance to the Deserted Fairground that they had been in what seemed like days before. Avoiding the Wheel of Misfortune, they all diverted their attention to the Spooky Foods cart.

     "Mmm, peanut butter spiders!" Cunchicka squealed, her mouth watering in anticipation of a delicious treat. She pointed in the window and accidently dropped the six hundred and seventy-eight Neopoints that were scrunched up in her paw. Looking down, she shrugged. "Oh well, I'll get those later. But, don't those spiders look good, Tidus?"

     "Yeah, delicious," Tidus assured her sarcastically, rolling his eyes.

     Nevertheless, the four of them each picked out food from the stand and went over to stand by a spindly, abandoned tree so that they could try to enjoy their treats.

     Cunchicka looked at the Neopoints in her hand, now picked up from the ground, and frowned, saying, "Wait a minute, shouldn't I have an extra one hundred Neopoints? And, where's Daisy?"

     Suddenly, a loud siren erupted, shattering the air, and brightly-colored lights flashed, illuminating the dim sky.

     "What all that about?" Tidus asked in confusion, struggling to see what all the noise was for. The group started walking, curious as to what was happening.

     "It looks like it's coming from Test Your Strength," commented Ramrod as the center of the commotion came more into view.

     The four of them hurriedly waded through the crowd of pets with their jaws wide open, to see just what was going on. "That Polarchuck won the Test Your Strength jackpot! I don't believe it!" Arnold the Mynci cried.

     "Polarchuck...huh?" the group thought for a moment. As the crowd cleared just a bit, they revealed who the center of attention was. Daisy sat giddily with a mallet in one of her paws, as Tidus and his friends stared at her with confounded expressions on their faces that quickly turned into wide smiles.

     "Congratulations," Arnold told them, "it seems your Polarchuck has won the jackpot. Two hundred million Neopoints will be transported into your bank accounts shortly."

     As everyone gaped with stunned expressions glued permanently onto their faces, Tidus grinned. Maybe Daisy wasn't such a useless petpet after all.

The End