Defenders & Artefacts: Broken Rules

     Location: Junk Room

     Discoveries: Bite

     Verde started pushing away from him all the objects that were blocking his way. He was trying to forge a path through the pile of discarded items. He desperately wanted to reach the door on the other side of the room, straight ahead. Using all his strength, he started throwing pans and plates, boxes that didn’t belong to him and broken wheels, while creating a small opening for him to pass. Making loud noises, the items crashed with the surrounding junk as he tossed them. After several difficult strokes, he managed to reach the other side of the room, exhausted. This task proved to be more difficult than traversing the hidden jungles of Krawk and having to cut down stray, tangled vines in his way. He took a few seconds of respite and passed through the door to the next room.

     It was pitch black. Verde felt that he had entered a very confined room. He sensed that the walls around, the ceiling above and the floor below were closing in on him. He extended his arms to touch the walls, which were soft and smooth, almost damp. He fumbled around both walls and on his left he found a button, which he pushed. A light turned on from inside the space and his theory was confirmed. He was inside the Mystic Jelly Room. Around him, everything was made of a yellow, gelatinous substance. In various spots, the jelly had been chopped off as if by a knife, and was lying on the ground. In other spots, there were bite marks as if it had been bitten off by a very hungry Neopian. Despite the sight, it did not smell of dessert or anything sweet. He saw the button that he had pressed on the left wall. It was not a button, rather it resembled a berry tart stuck on the wall of jelly. The base was a white cream-filled crust and topped with berries. Right below it was a second - of what he assumed to be a - button. This one was in the shape of a macaroon. The two top and bottom parts were rose pink and the filling was a deeper shade of purple.

     He was unsure what would happen if he pressed the macaroon button, but he pushed it anyway, with excitement. He would do anything to get more information about this house and ensure himself a higher rank as a defender. The Mystic Jelly Room started vibrating in place. With a rhythmic pulsation, the ceiling started moving downwards and the floor started moving upwards. The walls were all converging inwards and Verde was slowly being consumed by the gelatinous substance. It was enclosing around him, until it formed a continuous layer on top of him.

     “What is happening?” he exclaimed, with a hint of panic.

     “Luck has favoured you,” he heard a voice echoing around him, while imprisoned beneath the layer of the sticky dessert. He felt that the yellow jelly was transporting him to another location. They were no longer in the house. They were floating through an abyss of nothingness, stuck in a continuous limbo.

     “Choose your destination,” continued the voice. It was a robotic voice, neither pet nor Faerie. It was not threatening though, simply a voice doing its job and providing facts. A hint of anxiety had started creeping and he was feeling it at the back of his spine. He considered his options and announced to the room that he wanted to explore the top floor.

     With a pop, he felt the room becoming suffocatingly small as if he was being pulled inwards by a black hole and turning into a singularity. The force felt unbearable but after a few seconds and accompanied by another pop, all the walls started moving outwards, unsticking from Verde’s body. The room was getting back to its original shape. The buttons reformed and the exit door reappeared behind him.

     “That was…interesting. This room should be studied further by the defenders,” he talked to himself as he turned to exit. He took his first step on the top floor, onto a marble strip of floor and a horrible shrieking noise filled his ears. With every step he took more annoying creaking sounds echoed and disturbed his calm. He checked his wristband. He was in the Creaky Hallway, where Blanca had passed from earlier. The noisy room irritated him and he wanted to leave this room behind as soon as possible, so he decided to take the first door on his left to enter the Dusty Hallway.

     From the walls of the Dusty Hallway hang landscape paintings, meticulously painted with faded colours, layer by layer. On each painting, the last layer was always a thick veil of dust. The carpet in the middle of the room probably housed thousands of petpetpets living in harmony. He coughed as specks of dust were drifting in the air. Every breath he took made the specks dance around in a random motion. The environment was asphyxiating him and, having just experienced the Mystic Jelly Room, he was certainly not staying a second longer in this room. He quickly moved towards the door on his left and entered the new room.

     The walls of the new room were all crisp white, as was the porcelain-tiled floor. Unexpectedly, everything felt fresh and clean in the Research Laboratory, in contrast to the previous one. On both sides of the room, bookshelves were mounted on the walls while directly underneath them were benches, where some mad scientist probably ran his experiments. Old pieces of equipment were tidily left on the benches in an organised manner. Long cylindrical tubes ran across the ceiling, providing a bright white light which felt as if it was sterilising the area from any microbes. And then he noticed them.

     Vines started emerging from the ends of the tubes, long, thin and thorny. The light was shining on them brightly, which made them look almost white. Each vine had many protruding thorns which slowly appeared after each section of the vine exited the tube. They rapidly crawled their way from the light source all the way down, near Verde. They were dark green mixed with accents of purples and blues, and they would soon surround him! As the spiky thorns were menacingly getting closer, he observed his surroundings. His only exit was on the other side of the room, and he knew that on occasions like this, he had to rely on his movement.

     After a deep breath to prepare himself, he started running towards the exit. A vine was quick to respond to his escape and came lashing towards his feet. Verde was faster, though. With a mighty leap, he jumped over the vine. It ricocheted with a loud noise on the right benches, knocking aside the microscopes and other instruments that had been left behind long ago. He was standing now in the middle of the room and quickly glanced around him for potential threats. From right above him, he saw a vine falling down, a thorn inches from his face. He fell on the left, knocking down any benches on his way that had survived the onslaught of the vines. With a loud bang, the vine hit the porcelain floor and the whole colony disappeared. As he lay on the floor, he noticed his movement increasing by one point.

     Blanca

     Location: Game Room

     Discoveries: None

     Blanca shivered with disgust. Although she marvelled at the delicate anatomy of them, the thought of the petpetpets crawling on her body made her nauseous. She took two deep breaths to calm down. The game of checkers left mid-play on the coffee table caught her attention and moved closer to inspect the pieces.

     “Black is winning,” she said as she saw the minimal amount of white pieces left and visualised some possible future moves. The game was mere movements from being a success for the black. “It’s funny how a game imitates life,” she uttered with a feeling of sadness at the game, frozen in time, never to be disturbed again. Black will always be winning and white will always be losing in this specific game of checkers. Stuck in this perpetual state, there would be no actual winner in the end. But this didn’t matter now, she had to keep exploring and choose her own fate. She turned to her left, passing over mats of games left on the floor, and took the door on that side of the room.

     A horrible stench reached her nostrils as she entered. A smell of garbage, of rotten food and despair. She hadn’t smelled anything as bad before, not even when cartographing the deep, dirty catacombs in the Lost Desert. The Rotten Room was exactly as its name signified. The walls were originally covered in colourful graffiti, however, they had been ruined by big, thick splatters of a slimy blue substance. All four walls were stained. On the right corner, she saw a forgotten armchair, its cushions broken and the cotton wool popping out, along with the springs. The left side of the room was littered with black bin bags which were covering almost the entire floor. The bags were oozing the blue substance as well. She was left staring at them in revulsion.

     She stared at the bags long enough to notice a faint white glow coming from an item hidden between the bags. She went closer to inspect it. The white glow was reflecting on the shiny surface of the plastic bags. Despite the blue substance dominating the area, the item was miraculously intact.

     A crystal ball was lying there, emitting the faint glow. It looked immaculate, not a single blemish on the glass surface. Blanca could see her reflection looking back at her. She extended her arm to grab it.

     As soon as her fingers met the surface of the ball, the room started spinning.

     “What?” she exclaimed out loud, unable to comprehend. Plastic bags were becoming a streak of black lines and mixing with the blue substance and the smell started getting stronger. The red armchair joined in this merry-go-round, becoming another red streak as the whole room revolved around her, and Blanca was about to throw up. Her mind was spinning for a few seconds before suddenly coming to a halt. She covered her nose as the smell was truly unbearable at this moment, mixed with the fact that the room had just gone mad! She noticed the white light on her wristband. Visions: THREE.

     Azul

     Location: Organ Room

     Discoveries: None

     Azul’s foot tingled. As he passed the threshold to the next room, he turned behind him to face the horror that was the giant, translucent Snowager. It had disappeared, leaving no traces of its existence and of the fear that it had instilled in him. He was still trembling from the experience and couldn’t shake away the thought of his father in the Snowager skin.

     He took a few moments to calm down and looked around him. The new room was the exact opposite of the previous one. While the one before smelled of damp cloth and was drenched in water, this one had the odour of burnt wood. The floor was made of wooden planks, all charred on the surface. Most of the originally brown exterior was now black and crispy, with leftover soot covering a big portion of the floor. The walls were scorched as well. The old wallpaper that was covering them had melted in many locations, revealing a black brick wall behind it. It was appropriately called the Charred Room.

     In the centre of the room, sitting on the floor, was a motionless baby Vandagyre. It was looking directly at Azul, with its enormous eyes which were adorably disproportionate compared to its body. Around the baby was a strange, faint white aura.

     “What’s a baby doing here?” Azul exclaimed as soon as he saw it. He moved closer to it, inevitably kicking up soot from the floor with each step. The baby Vandagyre started coughing, its beak making clucking noises. Azul wanted to help the poor soul but he wasn’t sure if he should get involved. He decided that his defender’s duties were a higher priority, and that he shouldn’t have even considered not intervening. The sounds emitted by the baby were increasing in volume. They reached a crescendo and a high-pitched noise filled the room - the source being that tiny baby with the cute eyes - rendering Azul almost incapable of thinking or acting. Nevertheless, he blocked his ears with his hands and rushed towards the baby, as more soot took flight. Lowering one hand from his ear, he extended his arm and touched the baby, to pick it up.

     On contact, the room started spinning around him and the noise ceased. The vortex lifted even more soot from the ground and engulfed Azul, spinning around him like a tornado. The walls looked like they had melted away, revealing the black brick, getting faster and joining in the spinning as long black lines. Azul was left startled in the middle, holding the baby Vandagyre and trying not to fall over, his head racing with thoughts and regrets. The baby had stopped crying and was staring at his surroundings in awe. Its enormous eyes got even bigger in amazement and with its little wings, it was trying to reach the charred brick that had now formed imprisoning streaks around them.

     In an instant it was all over. The wallpaper half stuck and half melted itself on the brick wall, and the soot fell and covered the floor. Azul and the baby were standing in the middle of the room, still looking around them in astonishment. His wristband lit up. The blue light informed him that, having found the baby, he gained one point in clarity and one point in intelligence, as long as it was under his custody. Unfortunately for Azul and his friends, it also showed Visions: FOUR.

     Purpura

     Location: Ballroom

     Discoveries: Mask

     Purpura decided to leave the dolls alone. They had already caused her enough trouble. Even though she truly hoped to find a piece of equipment through the dolls, as it would signify another step towards both her egotistical goal and her professional life, it would be better for her skills if she no longer interacted with them. She left them lying on the floor right next to the rainbow and decided to continue her journey straight to the next room. Maybe one of her friends would try their luck later.

     One step into the room is all it took to leave her spellbound. The room was an exact replica of the Hall of Heroes of Altador. The twelve protectors’ statues were all arranged in a circle, in the centre of the room. The floor had the distinctive square pattern as in the original Hall, with the cream and brown tiles masterfully decorating it. Surrounded by the statues, the great sun-shaped emblem of Altador was formed with orange and yellow coloured tiles. She examined the statues from afar. All the statues were skillfully made of stone and brightly lit by the light that entered the room from the windows behind them. Even more so the statue of Siyana, the Light faerie also known as the First to Rise. In addition to the sunlight, her statue had a yellow glow around her, making her stand out even more than the rest.

     Purpura was intrigued; she wanted to get closer and inspect the First to Rise. She was sure there was a reason for the yellow light emanating from the statue. She took a few steps towards the centre of the circle when, suddenly, an invisible aura started dragging her towards the left corner of the room. As much as she fought against it, she couldn’t stop moving. This unrecognisable force was firmly pulling her, her feet trailing behind her. Suddenly, the aura was no more. It had placed her in the corner, but only for a second.

     With an ear-splitting sound, the floor beneath her feet shattered into a million pieces. Cream and brown tiles were being disintegrated, giving way to a hole in the ground. She was terrified. She struggled, using all her strength to hang on from a piece of brown tile on the surface. There was nothing she could grab, though, as anything she touched fractured. Her strength had failed her. Her only option was to let herself fall through the opening in the ground.

     Her body hit a cold, slanted surface. She was slipping down a metallic slide, away from the Hall of Heroes. There was enough room for her to comfortably lie down and let the slide take her wherever it wanted to, leaving behind the glowing statue she so wanted to touch.

     The slide came to an end and she was abruptly thrown on the floor, unfortunately losing one point of movement from the impact. She downright hated losing points in any of her skills. If she was to be useful on this expedition, she needed to conserve points and use them according to each task at hand.

     She was in a compact room, full of gym equipment. She stood up and turned behind her to see where she had come from. At the bottom of one of the walls was a circular opening; that’s where she must have entered the room from. She attempted to climb back in, but it was impossible to climb back up through it, as it was too slippery. The purple map jumped out of her wristband. It signalled that she had just fallen in the Gym, on the basement level. The slide now appeared on the map in two locations: one in the Hall of Heroes and the second one in this room. She was the only dot found on the lowest floor. The basement! That was the worst location she could have fallen. The map did not have any directions on how to reach the ground level. The only helpful information was that one of the rooms on the basement level hid a set of stairs that led back upstairs. She just had to find it.

     The Gym was cluttered with different apparatuses and exercise equipment. Hand weights, boxing gloves, ropes, old bags, shoes and socks. She inspected them for a second until a faint yellow glow, just like the one in the Hall of Heroes, caught her attention. Then, at a small distance further, another faint white glow appeared. It was near the corner, almost hidden inside a metallic cabinet.

     The yellow glow was coming from an old pair of shoes lying on the floor. They were discoloured, their laces were half eaten by some Petpetpets and they were lying on their side, pieces of shoe fabric cracking off. She got closer and tried to lift them up. Upon touching them, the shoes started moving. They lifted themselves up and, with a quick movement, the laces magically got tied. Purpura startled away from them. Once nice and tight, the shoes started running on their own, making laps around Purpura. She froze in place, ready to attack if she perceived any suspicious movement. However, after three laps, the shoes ran back to their original location, untied their laces and lay down on their side, exactly like she had found them. The faint yellow glow disappeared.

     “That was strange!” she exclaimed and checked her wristband. She had gained a point in movement. Her wristband now marked this location on the map with a positive effect, so that her friends could also take advantage of a point level up if they so wished.

     “At least that makes up for the point I lost falling down the slide,” she said in relief. She quickly scanned her friends’ points to make sure no one had been rendered unconscious. Reassuring herself that everyone was in good health, she turned her gaze to the metallic cabinet with the half-open slide door.

     She moved closer to the cabinet, slid the door to open entirely - which was in need of a thorough oiling - and faced the white glow. A Moehog skull was placed on the bottom shelf, with its vicious horns and spiky orange mane. It was emanating the white glow, just like the one she had seen around the mask in the abandoned room. She knew exactly what would happen if she touched the skull, however she had to do it as it would be a good addition to her arsenal of artefacts.

     She braced herself and lightly touched the Moehog skull with the tip of her finger. As expected, the cabinet rushed away. The equipment around her started moving, gaining speed and, as if melting away from within, started revolving around her. She knew that she had to wait for this madness to be over. She could see the grey lines formed by the streaks of equipment all around her, the metallic surfaces reflecting her face on a thin strip of line every time they passed in front of her as they kept spinning. Abruptly, the room returned to its original state.

     She quickly checked her wristband to be informed about the skull. She was happy to find out that the Moehog skull, during a precarious time, would allow her to mitigate any damage on her strength or movement by taking the damage as clarity or intelligence. Obviously, she would prefer to not lose any points at all, but at least the skull allowed her to have better control. What she was dreading though the most was also true. In purple writing, the wristband informed her: Visions: FIVE.

     As soon as she looked away from her wristband, the equipment came alive once more. They increased in speed, the metal streaks reflecting her face again back to her. She started levitating off the ground, with no control over her body. Her feet hung loose, her head fell back and her arms were wide open.

     “What is going on?” she thought, horrified but unable to speak. She was left levitating once more, as the tornado of items encircled her.

To be continued…