The Inventor's Craft

      "Something has happened." He said with glee. "Something has happened!"

      "What? Nothing changed." Mira responded with a roll of her eyes.

      "But don’t you see, it worked!" the young faerie beside her spoke with the same enthusiasm as the Neopet inventor. Her brown dress was quite plain for a faerie. Then again, Kreludor isn't a place to be one's fanciest attire on. Especially with the places that she and Mira had been visiting.

      She is a dark faerie who currently worked as an apprentice of the Space Faerie. Her name is Delina.

      The Space Faerie is only there to ensure Landelbrot doesn't blow up the moon. She doesn't like staying on or near Neopia all that much. That must be why she's called the "Space" Faerie.

      "Delina, don’t cheer on his insanity." Mira told the faerie beside her. The Space Faerie's scowl was prominent today.

      "My Confusionator is not insanity." Landelbrot said as he crossed his arms. “It is innovation!”

      His laboratory assistant beeped as it dusted Landelbrot's workbench.

      "See even Adam agrees." Delina giggled.

      The robotic petpet whirrs as it flown around the lab. Landelbrot claims that the name Adam came to him in a dream. He had this dream after falling asleep while working on his assistant's programming.

      Mira scoffs. "It makes the same sound for everything."

      "Unless he’s low on battery power." Landelbrot explained as he pat the petpet on the head. "Then it's more of a boop than a beep."

      The Space Faerie glared at the Neopian inventor. "Come Delina, we’re leaving." She turned and began to walk out of the laboratory.

      Delina didn’t follow her right away, though. “I think what you are doing is interesting, but I can see why Mira is keeping an eye on you.”

      "Thanks, Delina, but I'm not the evil man she thinks I am." Landelbrot said as he went to check different statistics of his machine. His love of Neopia is great. Even if for the most part, his love of inventing is greater, he invents for the sake of Neopia.

      Adam went over to his master and beeped. The sound the same as its last.

      The Lutari made some slight changes to his invention.

      Delina then looked over the many pieces of mechanical equipment around the lab.

      She spotted a lot of random rigs of things he's never quite finished. "You should do something with all these incomplete projects."

      "Well, unlike you faeries, I can't just ask neopets to fetch me items to complete my work." He complained as Adam handed him a wrench.

      Delina looked over the inventions as they sat on display. "Have you ever considered combining them?"

      Landelbrot drops his wrench as he comes to a great realization.

      "Adam could you give us some tools, we have work to do."

      As they work on the machines, Landelbrot tells Delina the story of his past.

      He believes that Neopia needs chaos of some sort. Something to keep things interesting without causing much trouble. Even so, the people of Neopia are happy without things just happening.

      He grew up in Moltara. There he was considered a robotics prodigy.

      He even created robotic petpets out of things you could find in Moltara with ease. They had thoughts and feelings like any other creature of Neopia. He managed to create a whole industry of robot petpets that he passed on to his assistants.

      After that inventing process became a success, he moved on to other projects.

      First he created a special ray gun. It could turn neopets into robotic versions of themselves. He called it the Robotification Zappermajig.

      It never quite worked out well as no one wanted to test it out. He once used it as a weapon only for it to not fire its robotifying beam again. He never quite figured out why. Even so, he had to hide away after that incident.

      The Random Event Machine, as he called The Confusionator's prototype, caused too much chaos. He had to leave his hidden laboratory in a water tower to continue working on it.

      Mira only knows of his exploits because of his latest move to Kreludor. He worked in an abandoned mine turned laboratory on anything and everything.

      Once they finished their work, they had a series of items. Landelbrot called one his new laser pointer. It works as more of a weapon than a tool. Another item, Delina found as more of an accessory than a weapon. That one is the Gleaming Quad-Blade Sword.

      "That was so much fun!" She said. She was happy with the results of their endevour.

      Landelbrot smiles at her. "I would assume that means this was more fun than practicing spells with Mira."

      "That stuck up faerie wouldn't know fun if it hit her in the face." Delina remarked as she picks a piece of wire from Landelbrot's hair.

      "That must be why she couldn't figure it out."

      Adam floats over to them and starts cleaning up the scraps with a beep.

      "Thanks, Adam, you are a wonderful assistant." Delina says as she pat the petpet's head.

      He beeped.

      "Mira doesn't understand the concept of my machine's function." Landelbrot mentioned as he started another rambling. "When something happened because of my invention, it didn't have any effect on anything. Nothing changed, but something did happen. That something was nothing."

      Delina elbowed him. "Well duh!"

      "I have to show you something. It is a project I only recently started working on."

      He then went deeper into the laboratory. A hallway that it is still more like a lunar mine than his workstation. Delina was curious of what this other project is. Then just as she begins to follow him, Mira appears in front of her.

      "What are you doing? Don't you realize how dangerous that guy can be." She says. "We're leaving this lab before he pulls out some bomb on you."

      She grabbed Delina and uses her magic to teleport them out of the mine.

      "I don't think he would build a bomb." Delina mumbled to herself. She doesn't want to lose her chance at working with the legendary space faerie.

      Mira sat on a boulder by the mine entrance and rubbed her temples. "I think Landelbrot is onto something big and troublesome. Something that could be worse than anything Sloth could ever do."

      "I thought you said The Confusionator didn't work."

      The Space Faerie glares at Delina. "That's the problem, he's going to keep working on it. I don't think Neopia will be safe once it does." She sighed. "That machine is so random. It is possible that the events it creates will be catastrophic."

      "Maybe I could talk to him about adding a limiter. I think he trusts me more than you." Delina suggested.

      "You can try, but I doubt that scientist will listen to reason." Mira said. "That's why he's considered a mad one."

      The next day Delina returned to Landelbrot's laboratory. He's hard at work preparing his machine for another test run.

      Feeding items into its engine, he talked to Adam. "The chances of a pointless event are quite high. Even so, the more events it creates, my chances of an interesting event go up."

      The petpet beeped and pointed at Delina. Its owner turned to face her and smiled wide.

      "Greetings Delina! What happened to you yesterday? I wanted to show you The Coincidence." He said as he ran up to the Faerie. His tail swished around with excitement as his claws mindlessly tapped on the tool he held.

      "Mira forced me to leave." She explains. "What's The Coincidence?"

      "A spaceship!" He calls out. "Now as awesome as that is, it is not important right now. The Confusionator is almost ready for another test run."

      "I actually came here to talk to you about that." Delina says.

      Landelbrot pulled a lever and the machine lights up. A petpetpet appears and scurries under a pile of tools.

      "Something has happened!" The Lutari yells as he pumps his fist into the air.

      Adam goes after the petpetpet and Delina giggled. "I was thinking about how you've been working on this machine. Are there any safety measures to make sure it doesn't do anything too chaotic?"

      "Of course, what do you take me for?" He then went on to explain what happened to The Confusionator's first prototype.

      It was able to change neopets, but not the course of events. He hid it away in a secret laboratory with an old assistant to guard over it. He claims that the assistant is madder than even him.

      "Even with all his weirdness, that Scorchio is good at keeping the ray functioning." Landelbrot said to conclude his story.

      This fact astounded Delina. "It is still in use today?"

      "Well if anyone were to find my old lab, I'm sure he'll reward them with a blast from it." He chuckles. "Since our initial research, he only uses the ray on volunteers. Most would come back again and again. They only hope of obtaining something they were missing."

      "But the ray works as a random means of change. Who in their right mind would risk losing everything for one little thing?" Delina stated.

      "I heard from my old assistant recently. Maps to his secret lab cost a fortune that many are willing to spend all they've saved to get."

      "And he's the mad one."

      Adam beeped as it flew around Delina.

      "The definition of Madness. Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result." Landelbrot explained. "I call myself a mad scientist for that reason. Even with my previous leading to disaster. I know they are important to the history and future of Neopia."

      He sounded so noble as he spoke that it put Delina into a state of shock. "So you already have safety precautions on The Confusionator."

      "If it were to create an event that would cause great harm to anything. It will change the event to be pointless. Like the event was only a dream." Landelbrot responded.

      Adam flew next to its master who leaned onto the square petpet's body. It beeped in response.

      "Oh hush, I built you with the strength of ten Battledome fighters."

      Delina smiled. "You know as much as I hate to say this..." Landelbrot pushed up his glasses in anticipation. "Mira is cool and all, but I think I'd rather build things with you than learn magic with her."

      "Splendid! Let's get started." He rushes past her towards some piles of old machinery from the mines. "Be ready to catch things, because I will be throwing the good supplies your way."

      "What are we working on now?" Delina asks.

      Landelbrot jumped into a cart filled with springs and gears among other things. "You're a crafty faerie, I'm sure you could find some use out of all this rubbish." He tossed some pieces of metal and copper wire her way. "Like any good inventor, I started with whatever ideas sprung from my surroundings. Hone your craft, Delina. I'm sure one day your talents will bring you great praise."

      "And I'm sure that someday neopets will spend fortunes to help complete your inventions."

      The End.