Miasmora & Wisric's Grand Meridellian Misadventure

     He'd refused to explain much of his plan, and she was wondering if this wasn't a terrible mistake. It probably was. Just like he'd said, they knew nothing about what the Old Paper they each now had half of actually said. They assumed--hoped--it was a treasure map of some sort, and they'd earn more following this lead than waiting for treasure to surface at the Rubbish Dump, but she wasn't the math sort, and didn't like the odds of coming out ahead nearly as much as Wisric seemed to. Buuuut she'd been down on her luck, and had decided before they even spotted the mysteriously used Old Paper that today she was going to do whatever Wisric did, and going to Meridell Castle was what Wisric was doing.

     They crossed the bridge--the moat around Meridell Castle smelled nearly as bad as the Rubbish Dump, though no one would ever say that out loud where it might get back to King Skarl--and veered right, toward the forested grounds outside the castle's crenellated walls.

     "Where are we going?" Miasmora demanded.

     "Service entrance."

     "Do you care to elaborate?"

     "Not really."

     The Skeith huffed. Today, she thought, was going to be a very long day.

     They made their way along the winding path that led to the back entrance of the castle's main tower. There were a few other Neopets on the path with them, most of them hurrying with their heads down, arms laden with supplies. Cart wheels had left deep ruts in the path, though there were no carts now, and there were voices barking orders up ahead, around the corner.

     "Listen very carefully," Wisric said. "You are not to say a single word. Understand?"

     "You got it, boss," she replied. She hoped Wisric picked up on the sarcasm in her voice, but she somehow doubted he was the type to notice things like that.

     They approached the back door of Meridell Castle. It was a great wooden thing, banded with iron for reinforcement, and almost as intimidating as the front entrance. Two guards in Meridellian livery flanked the door, pikes in hand, scrutinizing the face of every Neopet who passed by. If not for those small movements of their eyes (and her past experiences with castle guards, which she much preferred not to recount), Misamora would have thought they were entirely decorative. Statues, not Neopets.

     Wisric led them into the queue of Neopets waiting to pass through the door.

     "Are you going to tell me--"

     "I said not a word!" the Ixi whispered. "Look like you belong!"

     Miasmora glanced down at herself and chuckled. Surely a Swamp Gas Skeith couldn't look like she belonged in the castle.

     But, a moment later, to Miasmora's surprise, they were through the door.

     The guards hadn't said a word. They'd glanced at Wisric and Miasmora. One of them, she was pretty sure, had wrinkled his nose, just the tiniest bit, breaking character as she passed by. But then they were in the dim hallway beyond, with half a dozen doors arrayed on either side of them. More Neopets were scurrying around here on one errand or another--some of them carried trays, others had elaborate garments draped over their arms, still more had brooms and mops and pails of half-dirty water.

     No wonder the moat smelled so bad, Miasmora thought.

     Wisric peered through the nearest open doorway, and then pulled her along after him into the hallway beyond.

     "Have you been here before?" Miasmora asked.

     "Yes."

     "You're an excellent conversationalist, you know."

     "Doubtful." The Spotted Ixi paused a moment, seeming to do some sort of mental calculation--why did it always seem like math with him?--and then backtracked a few dozen paces to a half-open door. Someone inside was speaking in a quick, clipped tone. A moment later a Blue Skeith lumbered out of the room and down the hall past them, without sparing either Wisric or Miasmora a glance.

     Wisric pushed into the room once the Skeith was clear of the doorway. Miasmora followed.

     The room was larger than Misamora expected, long and narrow, with a desk at the far end facing the door. Behind the desk, a Candy Korbat (Miasmora wondered for a moment if there wasn't the tiniest bit of danger in being a Candy anything in King Skarl's castle, but she pushed the thought quickly out of her head) fluttered over a stool. In front of him, a ledger larger than he was, the size of at least eight Old Papers laid down side-by-side, lay open. As they approached, he dipped a quill in an ink pot and made a small notation on the massive page.

     "Hello, yes, excuse me," Wisric said, positioning himself directly in front of the Korbat. Oddly, he kept his eyes cast down, as though he didn't want the Korbat to see his face, and he did something to his voice, so his words were shrill, rather than carrying their usual ancient-sounding softness.

     "Hmm?" the Korbat replied.

     "There were two castle cleaners who carried a crate of trash to the Rubbish Dump just now. Can you tell us where we can find them?"

     Miasmora peered over his shoulder at the ledger. It was full of names and numbers--payments, she realized, for work rendered.

     "They're busy," the Korbat said.

     "It's quite important," Wisric insisted. "Surely you could help us good citizens of Meridell out?" Still, he wouldn't look the Candy Korbat in the eyes.

     The Korbat finally looked up from his ledger. His eyes darted to Misamora, and--yep, he definitely wrinkled his nose. She tried not to laugh.

     "Today is a very busy day. As much as I live to serve the good citizens of Meridell, my first duty is to King Skarl, and I simply cannot allow you to disturb the cleaners today. There is simply too much at stake!"

     A shuffling sound came from behind Miasmora and she glanced back to see a Zombie Wocky shuffling into the chamber. The Korbat looked past her, and smiled at the Wocky, turning back a few pages in his ledger. "Thank goodness, someone useful! There's a fifty Neopoint bonus today, if you can--"

     "What if we help?" Miasmora interrupted him.

     Wisric snorted, quietly. In the ruffling shift of his stance, Miasmora could practically hear the words Not. A. Word!. But he was hopeless with people, she was pretty sure, and wasn't going to get them anywhere. She thought she was starting to understand his plan--ask the cleaners if they knew anything about where the paper had come from and who might understand what it meant--and if it was going to work, they needed to find those cleaners.

     "The cleaners are very busy, yes, but what if we helped with some of the work? Instead of payment, we'd take you telling us where we could find those two cleaners."

     "You," the Korbat said uncertainly, "want to clean?"

     "Well, he'll clean. I'll supervise. From a distance." Internally, Miasmora grinned. She was going to enjoy this.

     "Fine. The northwest stairs need scrubbing. Sweep first. Do not use moat water to scrub, there's a well in the corner of the courtyard. And you'd better not just mop, those stairs need to be scrubbed!."

     "Yes sir!" Miasmora maneuvered around the Wocky. Wisric followed her, even the sound of his footsteps sulking.

     When they were back in the hallway, out of earshot of the Korbat, the Ixi stopped abruptly. "What were you thinking?!"

     "That your plan was about to fail and someone needed to step in," she said with a smile.

     Wisric sighed. "You do know that bribes are a time-honored tradition in Meridell Castle."

     "I know-- Wait. What? You were going to bribe him?"

     "Of course I was."

     "Isn't that--"

     "Time. Honored. Tradition." Wisric bristled. "He's going to note our names and descriptions down in his ledger, record the amount we would have been paid for the work you've just signed us up to do, and pocket those Neopoints himself. It works out mostly the same--we're down Neopoints and he's got more--except now we have to spend what's probably going to be hours scrubbing down a staircase. Excellent negotiating."

     Miasmora huffed. The Ixi understood sarcasm after all, it seemed. "Well, if you'd explained what your plan was when I asked, we wouldn't be in this position, would we?" A sense of satisfaction built in her. "And now, because you didn't, I'm going to watch you do the scrubbing."

     "Absolutely not."

     "You saw him wrinkle his nose. He won't consider it a job well done if I'm anywhere near those stairs. Unless you want to go back and try to bribe him again, hmmm? You heard what he said to the Korbat. A fifty Neopoint bonus. And he's going to pocket that plus two regular wages from my bargain, do you really want to pay him more for a little bit of information?" She wondered what was going on in the castle--certainly something special, for King Skarl to be raining Neopoints down on anyone who would do his chores. Maybe an important visitor.

     Wisric grumbled. "Fine, but you're hauling the water."

     ***

     Two exhausting hours later--despite Miasmora's strength, her muscles burned--the pair returned to the large chamber at the back of the castle. The Candy Korbat grinned when he saw them, and Misamora, as much as she had enjoyed watching Wisric scrub the eighty-seven steps of the northwest tower, found herself second-guessing her approach. Maybe it would have been better if Wisric had gotten to bribe him after all.

     Just as the Ixi predicted, the Korbat took their names, noted two sums in his ledger, and handed them none of the pouches of coins he had behind his desk. He flipped back to an earlier page and trailed his wingtip down the plethora of entries recorded there. "Sandt and Mirix," he said. "Those are the two cleaners who carried that crate to the Rubbish Dump this morning." He flipped back to the current page, and again trailed his wingtip down the long list. "They're currently in the kitchens, polishing silverware. Be quick about whatever business you have. And please don't--" He wrinkled his nose, sighed, then looked past Miasmora and waved for the next Neopet in line to approach his table for a work assignment.

     The Skeith fell into her usual position a step behind Wisric as he led them through the twisting castle corridors toward the kitchens. When she realized he hadn't asked for directions, not from the Korbat or anyone else they passed, she started to wonder how it was that someone who seemed to know the castle so well ended up spelunking at the Rubbish Dump--and why it was that he felt the need to hide his face from anyone who seemed like they might be in a position of any authority. But that wasn't really any of her business, and she pushed the thoughts aside, like many of the others she'd had today.

     The kitchens, somehow, were busier than the rest of the castle, and seemed as if they must be as big as the rest of it combined. Wisric seemed lost in the hustle and bustle, but Miasmora recognized the two cleaners they'd seen earlier, and cut an easy path through the mess of deliveries and food preparation and frantic cleaning going on all around them. Wisric followed in her wake, this time.

     "Hello," Misamora half-shouted over the noise of the kitchen. She showed Sandt--she guessed the Techo was Sandt, anyway--her half of the Old Paper, and gestured toward the nearest door out of the kitchen, trusting that he would understand she wanted to talk to him.

     Sandt looked askance at her, and then at the silverware arrayed on the counter in front of him.

     "Two minutes, that's all we need!"

     Behind her, Wisric shifted. Miasmora saw a flash of gold out of the corner of her eye, and groaned. The Ixi was rubbing two Neopoints together.

     The Techo's eyes lit up, and he followed them eagerly out into the quieter-but-not-entirely-quiet corridor, attention fixed on those flashing coins.

     Miasmora, annoyed, rushed to talk before Wisric could get a word out.

     "We found this in that crate of Old Paper you delivered to the Rubbish Dump this morning," Miasmora said. She felt Wisric's eyes on her, imagined how irritated he must be that she was the one doing the talking again, and smiled. "It seems that this slipped into the crate somehow, and we're trying to figure out what it means--could you help us find someone who might know?"

     "For example," the Ixi butted in, "if you know where in the castle it might have come from, so we can go talk to the Neopets there to see if they might know something?"

     The Techo laughed. "You still gonna give me those there coins if you don't like what I have to say?"

     'Like it or no, as long as it's the truth, these are yours," Wisric promised.

     "That there's Old Meridellian, see." Sandt said. "There're only a handful o' Neopians in the whole world who can make sense of that. And allll of 'em are Ghosts."

     Miasmora glanced at Wisric.

     Wisric glanced at Misasmora.

     This was getting complicated.

     "I can tell ya where to find the castle ghosts, if ya like." He raised an eyebrow at Wisric, who withdrew another two coins from his belt pouch and added them to the first two.

     To be continued…