Miasmora & Wisric's Grand Meridellian Misadventure

     The last few months hadn't been great for her. She'd been toying with the idea of looking for a different line of work. The rarest thing she'd found had been an Apple Core, a far cry from the codestones she once thought she had a sixth sense for, or the fading bottled faeries she'd found a few of in the past. Every time a Neopian emerged from the pile clutching a Darigan Paint Brush--it had happened not once but twice last month--she found herself wondering if the Meridell Castle cleaners didn't have room on their roster for a set of extra-strong hands. Surely they needed Neopians who were excellent at moving furniture, right?

     But she knew they'd never employ her. Swamp Gas Skeiths weren't as stinky as most Neopians imagined (she didn't think she was stinky at all, but she was willing to accept that maybe she'd just gotten used to the smell, given the way most wrinkled their noses when she got close), but would anyone think a room in the castle was truly clean if she'd been in it and it hadn't been scrubbed down?

     Already there were Neopets waiting on the outskirts of the Dump for the first cartloads to arrive. Some wore boots and gloves, marking them as first-timers, or nearly so: All the regulars knew that by the end of the day, the boots and gloves wouldn't have saved their fur or scales or skin from the muck, they'd just have gotten in the way. Limited their range of motion, made it harder--and, worse, slower--for them to grab hold of the good stuff.

     Wait, was that--Miasmora shook her head as a Kacheek of indeterminate color in full-body protective gear dove into one of the compost heaps against the back fence. The poor Neopet would learn soon enough that the only thing back there were Piles of Dung, and there was a reason those had become...well, wearable.

     Miasmora scanned the other assembled Neopets, taking stock of the faces she recognized--there was some fierce competition today. She didn't know that Robot Jetsam's name, but he was one of the few regulars stronger than her, and had the uncanny ability to swim through the muck. There was Zac too, the Baby Gelert who never seemed to be having a bad time--Miasmora had seem them grab all sorts of treasures, but never once saw them leave the Rubbish Dump with one, which had perplexed her though she'd never asked. And then--

     She groaned.

     Of course Wisric was here. It had been a while since she'd seen the Spotted Ixi--maybe since the last first Saturday, but she wasn't entirely sure. He had the infuriating habit of watching from the sidelines and trying to predict the moment and place something good would surface, using math, or some other such nonsense.

     Even worse, he seemed to be good at it, as if he had some sort of insider knowledge about what all the farmers and castle cleaners and passing Meercas had been up to lately, or the mysterious Dung Faerie's plans.

     As the first cart rumbled up the road, heavily laden, Miasmora guessed, with slops from King Skarl's dinner--that was usually the first cart to arrive--she made a snap decision: Today, she was going to beat Wisric. She was going to find the greatest treasure that turned up, not that insufferable, smug Ixi!

     Miasmora maneuvered around to her favorite look-out spot on a low hill just inside the Rubbish Dump fence. With one eye, she watched the castle's kitchen staff scrape Muddy Bones and Squished Tomatoes out of the bottom of their cart, and with the other, she watched Wisric. He seemed disinterested in this cart--his eyes were fixed on the second cart coming down the road now, and he wore an expression of... consternation? Yes, that was it. Consternation. Whatever he knew, or didn't know, he was unenthused about the day's prospects.

     The Skeith scanned the whole Rubbish Dump. That poor Kacheek was just now extricating themselves from the compost heap, and, just as Miasmora predicted, discovering that their protective gear hadn't done anything but gotten them stuck in it for much longer than they'd intended. Near the back corner, two Grarrls were fighting over a Soggy Old Box that seemed to have something hidden inside it. Miasmora had seen good things come out of Soggy Old Boxes--the only Jhudora the Dark Faerie Doll she'd ever seen in the Dump had been stuck inside one--but more often than not they were full of... well, less pleasant things than the compost heaps.

     Miasmora swiveled her attention back to the road. Farmer Ted was arriving, his cart laden with Baby Haystacks. On a normal day, she would have fought over those--they sold for a pretty penny outside Meridell--but before Farmer Ted even made it through the Rubbish Dump's south gate, his cart was swarmed by the Neopets who had gathered there, most of them having looked a moment before as if they were uncertain exactly what they were doing here. Half a minute later, Farmer Ted was turning around, his cart much lighter than it had been when he arrived.

     Wisric, Miasmora noted, hadn't budged.

     An hour and a dozen comings and goings later, the piles of rubbish had begun building up, and the clusters of Neopets at the gates had mostly dispersed across the Dump grounds. The periodic sounds of squabbling reached Miasmora's post on the low hill, and from time to time she saw a flash of magic from some Battledome weapon or another. That was generally frowned upon, and the Neopets who engaged in such behavior were quickly shunned, but it seemed to happen more often on first Saturdays than--

     Wisric lurched forward.

     Misamora caught the motion out of the corner of her eye. She turned her head just in time to see what had finally caught the Ixi's interest: a pair of castle cleaners bent double under the weight of a single crate they were lugging toward the highest pile of rubbish in the entire Dump. She'd seen them bring crates like this a few times, but they were always full of Old Paper, which was next to worthless--sometimes she could find an eccentric Neopian Times writer willing to pay two or three Neopoints per sheet, for the "aesthetic appeal" of writing on "storied" paper, whatever that meant, but mostly it was no better than any of the other junk that piled up.

     She couldn't imagine what kind of interest Wisric would possibly have--it wasn't like he could carry more than a handful of the sheets out of the Dump, rules being rules--but she lurched after him anyway.

     She pushed through Broken Spoons and Bits of Barbed Wire, which nipped at her sturdy legs, and reached the spot where the cleaners had dumped the crate's contents a few long seconds too late. Wisric was already hoofing through the pages, that look of consternation back on his face. Miasmora watched him for a few seconds, trying to puzzle out what he was doing. What he could possibly be looking for.

     A lazy breeze caught several of the scattered sheets (and an extra foul stench) and carried them downwind, and still, she wasn't--

     Wait, what? Was that?

     Miasmora focused her gaze on one of the sheets the wind had picked up.

     Unlike all the other Old Paper she'd ever seen at the Rubbish Dump--and she'd seen a great deal of Old Paper in her time--there was, undoubtedly writing on this one.

     She knew instantly that this is what had piqued Wisric's interest (how he could possibly have known was still a mystery to her--maybe it was just a lucky guess, something he hoped would happen one day, but she had trouble believing that), and she dove after the sheet.

     Behind, Wisric dove too. As Miasmora reached her hopefully-not-too-short-arms for the page, she wished she'd been a little more subtle about what she'd noticed. But it was too late for that. She focused on her prize, tried to ignore Wisric's clambering hoof, and seized the edge of the paper.

     For a heartbeat, she thought she'd triumphed.

     Then she realized it wasn't Wisric's hooves she should have worried about. The Ixi had seized the opposite corner of the Old Paper in his teeth. Their eyes met. Miasmora snarled, and yanked.

     The Old Paper ripped. The sound seemed to ring through the Rubbish Dump, and the Skeith imagined every eye in the place turning toward them. Obviously that wouldn't happen--to anyone who hadn't seen what she had seen, the two of them were squabbling over a sheet of Old Paper, which was ridiculous--but she imagined it as she watched the paper tear, corner to corner.

     She glimpsed the writing on the other half before Wisric pulled away with it--no, not writing, but a drawing.

     Her stomach sank.

     The paper tore clean through, and her suddenly loosened grip sent her careening backwards, away from Wisric and his half of the page.

     She eyed him, disgruntled, and he eyed her back. Then, simultaneously, they both looked down at their half of the sheet.

     Miasmora's was full of text, as she'd thought when she first saw it floating on the breeze. She only had the corner of the drawing, but she could tell immediately that it was a map.

     A treasure map.

     And Wisric had the other half. The good half. The half with more of the map.

     She squinted at the text on the bottom of the page. Most of the words were familiar--at least familiar-ish--but she couldn't make sense of what it meant, like it was in some sort of code. The only silver lining was--she was pretty sure anyway--not even insufferable Wisric could make sense of it.

     The only thing she could tell for sure was that part of the text seemed to be a key of some sort.

     She looked up at Wisric again, just in time to see him looking up from his half of the page at her.

     Ha! So he couldn't make sense of the map without the key, and she had the key! This wasn't a total loss after all.

     Except--

     She snarled at the Ixi. "You could just give me the other half and stay here. I'm sure there's a Whinny or something buried in this mess."

     "That may be true. Odds are good, actually, I suspect."

     The Ixi wasn't wearing glasses--Miasmora had in fact never seen him wear glasses--but she imagined him pushing glasses up the bridge of his nose as he spoke.

     "But finding a Whinny, or even a Paint Brush, has a capped upside. A known maximum value. This--" He waved his half of the sheet at her-- "Is an unknown. At present, it could mean any number of things, and that is far more valuable to me."

     "If you can figure out what it means."

     "Yes, well. I think we've both realized what comes next."

     Miasmora groaned.

     If they were going to find where this treasure map led, they were going to have to work together weren't they?

     "I'm sure you don't," Wisric said, wrinkling his nose, "but just in case, do you happen to know anyone who could tell us what this means?"

     Miasmora snarled again.

     "No, of course not. Well, luckily for you, I have an idea."

     To be continued…