100 Ghost Stories

      One night in Shenkuu a group of four pets were sitting around a fire and telling ghost stories. The thought was that if they told one hundred stories that they would be able to summon a ghost. It was already late and they had told a few stories already, but now the darkness was really setting in and the four started to get scared. It was now Corran, a Stealthy Grarrl’s turn to tell a story.

      “This takes place deep in the mountains of Shenkuu, before pets had begun to make villages at the top of the mountains,” he began. “When the land was new and pets lived few and far between, ancient spirits would be there trying to trick them into getting lost. There was one such pet, Dalmagar, a Royal Mynci. He had come from a small kingdom and was trying to deliver an important message to the next kingdom over, but he would have to pass through the mountains. He packed his bag and was all set to go on his journey when he was given a pendant by his father the king. The King told Dalmagar to wear it throughout his travels, lest he become lost in the mountains. Dalmagar begrudgingly accepted the pendant, since it was shaped like a lotus petal, and he had no interest in wearing anything with such a flowery design to it. He put it on so his father could see, and got a big smile from the greying old Lupe. With that, Dalmagar was on his way.

      As Dalmagar was traveling he had forgotten he had the pendent on. Traveling deeper into the mountains he noticed how dark it became with the trees casting their shadows over the path. Deeper he walked into the forest, and he started to hear strange rustling in the bushes. Figuring it was just small creatures he kept moving. Then suddenly on the path was a white Eyrie carrying a wooden box on his back. Dalmagar stopped and asked him if he was lost in the forest. The Eyrie turned to look at him and immediately glanced down to the pendant. He told Dalmagar to keep wearing it since there were many restless spirits in the woods today. Dalmagar reached down and looked again at the pendant. He knew he had forgotten about something earlier, and this was it. This pendant was so silly looking that even a passerby noticed it immediately. Dalmagar thanked the Eyrie and kept on his journey.

      Once he was out of sight of the traveler he took off the pendant and slipped it into his pocket. He felt relieved to finally get it off so no one else could see it. It just felt embarrassing to wear something like that. As the hours passed and he walked deeper into the woods he knew that the next town should not be too much farther down the path. From there it would be just another day’s travel to reach the other kingdom.

      Dalmagar kept walking and soon enough it was getting dark in the forest. He kept looking around and wondering why he still was deep in the forest. It didn’t make any sense. He continued to walk and soon enough night had fallen. He took a torch out of his pack and used it to light his way. He continued to walk but never seemed to get any closer to the end of the trail. He had walked this path before and it never had taken this long for him to get to the end. Dalmagar failed to notice the wisps of white smoke swirling around him everywhere, except for the pocket holding his pendant.

      The White Eyrie looked down from higher up in the mountains, watching a faint light from a torch keep wandering in circles. He shook his head sadly as he realized that this was another victim of the mountain spirits that would be lost forever, cursed to wander endlessly.”

      Corran concluded his story with a sinister smirk as all the other pet’s faces were filled with fear. They had walked deep into the mountains to this secluded spot afterall, and now they were worried about getting lost this far out. “Well, I guess it is my turn now,” chattered Tyreal, a Starry Korbat, who still looked quite shaken from the previous story.

      “This one takes place more present day, present time. It is about a Brown Yurble name Leanne. She and her family lived aboard the Virtupets Station. With all that strange tech around of course she would stumble upon it and get interested in it. She stared to save up her allowance as much as she could to be able to buy more parts for the machine she was building. On the Space Station they have tech to be able to send each other letters instantly and Leanne noticed something weird in her class. She started to discover that students were going missing.

      Um…where was I going with this again? Oh wait!

      So they had this tech to allow them to send messages to another, and the students discovered that when the students went missing, they had been sent a certain message the day before. Then Leanne started to build her tech to try and find out what was going on. That was what was happening, I got mixed up. Anyway,” He continued as the other pets rolled their eyes at his poor storytelling skills.

      “So Leanne decided to take it upon herself to look into what was happening. She used her machine to connect up with the Space Station itself to try and find any information related to what was going on. Apparently more people had started to disappear than just from her class. It almost seemed like it all had a connection to their advanced tech. As she started looking into it more she realized that her machine was still not powerful enough to be able to get the data she was looking for. So she went out to purchase even more parts for it.

      Soon her machine was taking over her room, and she no longer knew how to perfectly control it. And what she failed to realize was where some parts had come from. There was one piece that came from an old disused elevator. This single piece contained a bit of code left on it from years back, a piece of code the technicians had thought they wiped clean. But soon Leanne would realize just how dangerous it was.

      As she was fiddling with her machine, it started to make an odd whirring. She tried to find the cause of the noise but couldn’t tell what was running. Then suddenly an all too familiar green character appeared on the screen. It looked straight at her and smiled.

      ‘Thanks so much for helping me, those pesky programmers thought I was deleted for good, but they missed a piece. Seemed all those disappearing pets did get someone’s attention. And now that I have this at my disposal, I will be able to retake the Space Station. And I’m not looking to play a game this time around!’ The green character spoke. Leanne had instantly recognized it as Neopet V2. All because of her, she had unleashed this on the Space Station, she brought back the one thing that pets so many years ago had tried to stop. She slumped in her seat, not knowing what would happen to her or the rest of the pets aboard the Space Station. Now helpless as Neopet V2 made its way through the system and started to infiltrate everywhere. Leanne looked up from her slouch to see its smile, and then the lights turned off around her. All that was left was Neopet V2’s glowing green face.”

      Tyreal finished up and looked around. He had hoped it was still scary even though he had messed up in the beginning. Luckily for him everyone’s faces were still pretty white so he knew his story had worked. Tyreal then nodded towards Yonda, a white Kyrii, who was next in line for a story.

      “Not even just last week, I was alone in my home. Everyone had gone out and taken a trip to Neopia Central so I was left by myself. I sat around bored for a while until I decided to play Neoquest I to pass the time. I was trying to upgrade my trophy and was so invested in the game I did not notice the time. I felt something come into my room, which was strange since the door was closed.

      So I got up and looked around, and I spot a ghost right there in my room! In my own home!” Yonda started to tell before she got interrupted.

      “Really? We all know your brother decided to paint himself Ghost. This isn’t a real ghost story,” Corran scolded her.

      “What are you talking about? It is a story, and contains a ghost, therefore, it counts!” Yonda countered back at him. Tyreal just shook his head at another argument between the two. Jormack, an Orange Kougra and the last friend in the group, laughed at the two friend’s antics.

      But unknown to the rest of the group, this wasn’t the real Jormack. As he laughed, he looked back at his shadow, which was also laughing, but was facing the wrong direction. Soon enough the other three friends would realize their mistake in trying to tell one hundred ghost stories.

      The End.