Miasmora & Wisric's Grand Meridellian Misadventure

     The Ghost Scorchio shrieked back. "Begone? ME?!? You begone, spirit! How dare you intrude here and--"

     Miasmora stepped between them. "I think there's been a misunderstanding."

     She studied the Ghost Scorchio for a moment. A tattered pink gown of Meridellian antiquity hung from her shoulders, the fabric swaying gently in a breeze that didn't exist. There was a hint of gold in her tousled, spectral hair, though when Miasmora focused on it, it vanished. An echo of her crown, perhaps?

     On the one hand, she was glad the ghost princess had found them. It saved them from having to romp around the Royal Wing in search of her, and all the trouble that might cause if their ruse was uncovered. On the other hand--she'd hoped to make a better first impression than this. If she had to guess, she would guess that this apartment had been the princess's in life. Perhaps it had been empty since then, until King Skarl's special event and his unaccounted for (and really, uninvited) guest had forced its use.

     On the other other hand (she couldn't think of any Neopets off the top of her head that had three hands, but she was sure there had to be some), one of her worries had been assuaged already: The princess was perfectly capable of communicating in modern language the rest of them could understand. So, apart from the rage in Isoldeia's glowing red eyes, this was going okay, Miasmora thought.

     "Misunderstanding?" the Ghost Scorchio bellowed. "You are in my rooms!"

     Well, right on that count.

     Miasmora hesitated a moment, trying to decide how to respond. She'd already told one royal Neopet that they were not when they thought they were today, and she hadn't done the best job of that. She glanced at Wisric for--well, she wasn't quite sure why she glanced at the Spotted Ixi; he was useless in situations like this.

     "We're sorry," the Swamp Gas Skeith finally said. "We didn't know it was yours. We-- Erm, well, my friend here has just gotten some bad news, and King--" Wait. Was mentioning King Skarl a good idea, or a terrible one? "He's in need of some hospitality. The castle servants let us in here. I don't think they knew either. Would you mind sharing your rooms for a little while? Please?"

     "There are other rooms!" Isoldeia bellowed. Miasmora was pretty sure she felt the floor beneath her feet shake. She hoped the princess's manifestation wouldn't attract attention from anyone passing in the hall outside, or they would all be in deep trouble. Probably.

     "There aren't today, I'm afraid," Miasmora said. "The castle is full. There's a feast and--"

     The anger in Isoldeia's eyes twisted into confusion. "A feast? My birthday isn't until next month! Why is he throwing a feast tonight?"

     Miasmora sighed. "Your Highness, I'm very sorry to have to point this out, but, well. You're-- Um, you're a Ghost."

     "Nonsense!"

     Miasmora gestured to her spectral form, which was, and had been for the last few moments, floating a few inches off the stone floor of the chamber. The princess looked down at herself, and Miasmora braced for the explosion she was sure was coming.

     Except it didn't.

     Isoldeia studied herself for a moment, and then nodded. The bright red shade of her angry, confused eyes faded to a pale, almost beautiful pink. "Oh. Right," she finally said.

     Misamora gaped. "Right?" she echoed.

     "Sometimes I forget," Isoldeia said.

     "That you're a Ghost?" Miasmora cringed as soon as the words were out of her mouth. That was a touch insensitive, wasn't it? Maybe she wasn't as good at interaction with Neopets as she thought.

     The Scorchio drifted back down to the ground. It seemed to take her no small amount of effort, and her feet sank a few inches into the stone as she settled, disappearing from sight. "Memory is a fickle thing for Ghosts as old as I."

     "So we've gathered."

     Misasmora jumped at the sound of Wisric's voice from the corner of the room. She'd almost--almost--forgotten he was there. When the Ixi noticed her attention had turned to him, he made a gesture to indicate the half sheet of paper tucked in her pocket, as if she could have possibly forgotten why they'd gone through all the trouble of getting here.

     "We actually were hoping to find you," Miasmora admitted.

     "Me?" Isoldeia said. "How can I be relevant?"

     "You're fluent in Old Meridellian, we heard?"

     "Oh. Of course."

     Misasmora withdrew her half of the map and held it up for the Ghost Scorchio to see. "Could you tell us what this is, please? Maybe translate the key for us? Actually. First, could you give my-- acquaintance and me a few minutes? There's something we need to discuss."

     Isoldeia shook her head. "Asked to wait in my own rooms. Ghosthood, huh." But she graciously gestured toward the royal apartment's study, a cosy room full of dark wood shelves, and carpeted with a lush red rug. "Prince Xandrius and I will wait for you here."

     As they slipped into the study, Miasmora and Wisric exchanged a glance. She recognised the Royal Gelert?

     "I should have guessed. She's been around forever," Wisric said, half-closing the door to the sitting room. "Anyway. What are you doing? If she sinks back into the stone and--"

     "Look. If she tells us both what this paper is, you can just run off with your smarts and figure out where the treasure is without me. I've done too much work to just get cut out like that, so I want you to go somewhere else, and I'll listen to what she says, and then you're going to have to trust me--"

     "There's no treasure," Wisric said.

     Misasmora stared at his smug, insufferable face. "No. Treasure," she repeated, stunned. As the words came out, she looked at him--really looked, not just assumed what she'd see--and realised that all the smugness she imagined in his expression was decidedly absent.

     "At least not the kind you're hoping for. And you know how many Neopoints I have left after Kiss the Mortog. What I'm saying is--I can't guarantee that today will work out better for you than the Rubbish Dump. But I need your help."

     Miasmora began pacing.

     He'd used her?

     The study was many things--cosy, beautiful, lined with books she was sure Wisric would love to get his hooves on--but one thing it was most certainly not? Large enough for her to properly pace. So Miasmora thought very hard about just screaming instead. The royal guards would come running, and she could tell them everything, and Wisric would surely be punished--

     --but so would she.

     Miasmora found her thoughts wandering back to that morning and the moment she'd spent wondering why Wisric, who always seemed to find the best treasures in the Rubbish Dump, was at all interested in a crate of Old Paper. Why, he'd always seemed interested in the carts no one else bothered with. Maybe it was just luck. If no one else was looking through those piles, obviously, he'd find the treasures hidden in them. But why was he interested in them in the first place?

     She had to admit that since they left the Dump that morning, Wisric had been growing on her. He'd surprised her more than once. She also desperately didn't want that Mortog kissing (her whole morning, really, but especially the Mortog kissing) to have been a total waste.

     "You were right a few minutes ago when you said I never trusted you. You want that to change, you tell me everything. Right now. And then I'll think about whether or not I want to help you after this, or scream for the guards. And you should know that screaming for the guards right now is really tempting."

     Wisric took a deep breath. "I think you noticed the servants, ermm, notice me earlier."

     Miasmora nodded.

     "I was a librarian. Here. According to Korbat downstairs, my job was maintaining King Skarl's library. It's not very big. Not much work. So I spent the rest of my time working on personal projects. I'd been corresponding with the editor of the Neopian Times about a comprehensive history of Meridell. That sort of thing. Well, I found something. Actually, that might not be true. I can't prove this, but I think it was left for me. I don't know who by. But that part doesn't matter.

     "It was a letter. A very old letter. I had a terrible time making sense of what it meant. I think now it was probably Middle Meridellian--halfway between Old, like our map, and modern. I started asking some questions. Trying to figure out if it was real--if the names on it were real Neopets. If they could have known the things the letter meant, they must have known. Someone didn't like that. Convinced King Skarl I was lying. Worse, that I was...unloyal. Fortunately for me, whoever was behind it didn't hate me enough to suggest I was a traitor. But I was dismissed. My work is still here, in the castle library. Years of it."

     "You know your way around, why not just go get it?" Miasmora asked. "I mean, we're already here, you can probably talk Prince Xandrius into being your escort, and you can leave me out of this." The Skeith wasn't sure whether Wisric continuing on this quest on his own was what she really wanted. For all the trouble he had caused her, she did want to know what the map was to, what the key said, where it all led, and a more-than-small part of her hoped that Wisric would say--

     "That's not it. I mean, I could just rewrite those things." He raised a hoof and tapped the side of his head. "It's all in here. Some dates I should double-check, probably. But the most important parts are up here. The thing is--"

     "You want to clear your name," Miasmora guessed.

     Wisric nodded. "I want my job back."

     "And so what, you've just been hoping this piece of paper would randomly turn up at the Rubbish Dump?"

     "I was hoping something would turn up at the Rubbish Dump. Not this, necessarily. I don't even know what this is. But it's old enough to matter. Old enough to maybe lead me--lead us--to some information I can use to clear my name. I hope. I mean, I suppose it could lead us to treasure." He took his half of the torn Old Paper out of his belt pouch. "I think this might be a map of part of the underbelly of the castle."

     "You mean where that other Grarrl was."

     "I'm not sure. It's a maze down there. We could wander for days and might not even find the right floor, let alone the right part of the right floor. When we were down on those stairs, I thought about just giving up. That this was a colossal waste of time. But then something the Ghost Moehog said gave me hope. The thing about him is that he has been asked to bring this up. I think there's someone down there. If we can find them. Someone who might know a great deal about Meridell's earliest history."

     Misamora glanced toward the study. "I'm getting a little tired of talking to Ghosts."

     Wisric sighed. "Me too."

     "If you're right, we're going to find a Ghost down there."

     "I know."

     She sighed. "Okay. Well. Let's see if she can tell us where this map leads."

     Wisric smiled.

     "Hey now. Before you get too excited, this is not a commitment. I reserve the right to go home at any point in the future." Or back to the Rubbish Dump, to try to salvage the rest of the day. "Is there any chance there's treasure down there?"

     "I suppose it's possible."

     Miasmora nodded. Wisric handed her his half of the torn Old Paper, the half that was more drawing than text, and the two of them stepped back out into the sitting room, Misamora holding the recombined piece of Old Paper out for the Ghost Scorchio princess to examine.

     Her eyes widened and darkened as she took in the markings on the Old Paper. "Caelric," she breathed, her voice low and tinged with--resentment? anger? Something darker? She looked up, studied Miasmora a moment. Then her eyes fell on Wisric, and her expression changed entirely. There was a gleam of recognition in her eyes, and the corners of her mouth turned up into a smile that was either excited or nervous--Miasmora couldn't tell. What she could tell, from Wisric's unwavering focus on the tattered halves of the Old Paper, was that the recognition was one-sided. She trusted that he would have told her if he'd dealt with Isoldeia before. Perhaps--perhaps she was just mistaking him for someone she used to know.

     "This is Caelric's handwriting," Isoldeia said.

     --but Miasmora doubted it.

     For a few minutes, the princess hemmed and hawed over the paper, a dark shadow eclipsing the gleam in her eyes.

     "What's wrong?" Miasmora asked, suddenly worried that, even after her heart-to-heart with Wisric, their adventure was about to end here.

     "It's coded. Do you have something to write with? I can spell it out for you, but I can't--" She stopped talking. Miasmora waited a few heartbeats, but guessed the Scorchio must have gotten distracted trying to puzzle out the code.

     "Your Highness?" Miasmora prompted.

     Another moment of silence passed. "Ah!" Isoldeia finally said. Then, contrary to her exclamation, she shook her head. "No, I don't think I can decode this. Caelric was too clever for his own good. I can transcribe it into modern Meridellian for you, I think. It won't be exact, but it should be close enough--yes, I think I can make it close enough for you to decode yourselves, once you find the key."

     Miasmora glanced at Wisric. She had the sinking feeling Isoldeia didn't just mean the text on the map when she said "key."

     She groaned.

     Where were they supposed to find a key for an ancient cypher?

To be continued…