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Neopian News Network: Lutari Island Investigation


by aerlam

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Neopia Central (NNN) – Few places in Neopia are as mysterious as Lutari Island. The average Neopian might be able to tell you that the Lutari species originates from that place... but not much else. The reason for the lack of general knowledge about Lutari is simple. No one can get there.

For little over three years, Lutari Island has been pummeled by a freakishly large storm, the likes of which Neopia has never seen before. The Storm makes all forms of sea and air transport far too dangerous to attempt any kind of approach or rescue to the island. Communication with the island residents has not been made in three years.

What is most curious about this storm is since it appeared out of the blue, barely anything about it has changed. The wind speed, the location, even the diameter have barely fluctuated. It remains firmly parked right on top of Lutari Island, unchanging.

Even to those who have little knowledge of Meteorology, this all sounds odd. So we here at the Neopian News Network decided to investigate.

Professor Hugo Smith, a portly middle aged Skeith is a tenured professor of Meteorology at Mystery Island State University. His area of expertise is in tropical storms and is widely regarded one of the foremost experts in his field.

He agreed to speak to us regarding the Lutari Island situation.

"It is not uncommon in the least for the Lutari region of Neopia to experience strong tropical storms in during the summer months depending on certain conditions."

He shows us a map showing the course of numerous storms in recent years. Several of the storms are shown to have either hit parts of, or all of Lutari Island.

"What is strange, however, is that ever since this storm appeared over Lutari Island, the number of total storms in the area has decreased dramatically in recent years. If storms do appear, they never come close to Lutari Island and are drastically smaller in size and power. I can say with absolute certainty that this is not natural. Since we here at the university began tracking the Neopia's weather patterns, at no time on this planet have any other weather patterns ever shown anything like what we have seen here."

From what we learned on Mystery Island from Professor Smith, we were sure that the storm over Lutari Island could not be natural, so we began researching other ways that this storm could have been created. After a quick search of the Neopian Wide Web, we discovered a company based in Faerieland called Weather Solutions Inc.

Weather Solutions Inc. (WSI), bills itself as "Neopia's premiere weather control company." They specialize in affecting the weather over a small geographic area, usually for events such as birthdays and weddings. Their services do not come cheap, costing upwards of 850,000 Neopoints for a basic package guaranteeing two hours of sunshine in a two-mile radius.

WSI allowed us to speak to one of their employees in their Headquarters in Faerie City.

We spoke with Marylin, WSI's spokesfaerie. She like most of the employees of WSI is an Air Faerie.

"Since time immemorial, we Air Faeries have had the ability to manipulate the weather."

As she says this, she flicks her wrist, creating two small rain clouds to fill the empty cups in front of us with water.

"But the scale of weather that one Faerie can accomplish on her own is very, very limited. For example, it's far easier to remove rain that it is to create it. It can take up to sixteen Faeries to clear rain from a two mile radius, which is about as simple you can get in the field of weather magic. If you want to create a rainstorm or a snowstorm, you'd need considerably more manp—err, faeriepower to pull it off."

We asked her; hypothetically, it would be possible to create a storm of comparable size and strength of the one currently hitting Lutari Island.

At this, Marylin paused for a couple of seconds, clearly choosing her words carefully.

"It would... theoretically speaking, of course, be possible to create a storm on that scale with magic—Not that Weather Solutions would ever cause such a lethal storm, of course. But even if a group of Faeries would consent to creating a storm that size, you would need literally thousands of faeries to sustain the storm. And Faeries, like all creatures, need rest so you would have to have shifts... it seems like far more effort than it's worth. Besides, even if Faeries were behind this, how would you hide that many Faeries? It would take a conspiracy far too large to cover up."

We left Faerieland feeling just as confused as when we arrived. If it was not a natural or magical occurrence, then what could be behind this storm?

When we returned to our offices in Neopia Central, we received a call from a source that requested that we meet at an undisclosed location in the outskirts of Neopia Central. They requested that we not refer to them by name, so we shall refer to them as "Borovan."

Borovan is a member of an underground organization known as Seeking Truth About Island of Lutaris (STAIL). STAIL claims to have been investigating the Lutari Island Storm for months.

"If you look closely at these photos, they clearly show small ships that occasionally fly over the storm system. The ships are small can only seat one person. It is clear however; that the technology used to construct them is advanced. They also have all the hallmarks of Virtupets technology. We believe that Dr. Sloth is involved."

Borovan tells us as they pull out a folder to show us digitally enhanced photos of small one-person spacecraft. He then shows us pictures that were clearly taken in space of several cube-shaped satellites. Borovan continues talking.

"STAIL believes these are an experimental Virtupets weather control satellites. We've dubbed them the 'Weather-Control 5000.' Several of these have been in a geosynchronous orbit over Lutari Island for years. They first showed up a week or so before the storm appeared near Lutari Island."

When asked why nobody has noticed the ships or satellites before, Borovan responded:

"It's obvious. Sloth is utilizing some form of mind control-. "

At this we decided to end the interview. There is no way that the great and glorious Dr. Sloth would ever be behind such a horrid plot. Besides, everyone knows that Sloth is super nice and wouldn't harm a mootix. To imply that he would ever use any form of mind control is a downright impossible. He is far too good and perfect to ever do that. He also smells nice. All hail Sloth!

Ahem.

Unfortunately, we were not able to discover the cause for Lutari Island's strange storm; only time will tell if this terrible storm will pass.

For the Neopian News Network, this is Aerlam signing off.

All HAIL SLOTH!

 
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