Keinal stopped and looked up towards the scary, dark windows of the manor. It was a completely murky, green colour and looked as if it had not been cleaned in years - perhaps ever since she and her owner could buy a Christmas Paint Brush for only 3,000 NP off the 'friendly' Shop Wizard.

"Are you sure that's where they threw my Blue Bouncy Ball?" she asked the scary band of rather frightening and buff group of Skeiths. They had a shady, crime-like look on their faces and were grinning rather menacingly.

"Of course, little Gnorbu!" said their leader as some of the Skeiths chuckled a bit. "Would we ever lie to you?"

"Well, I dunno..."

"Come on, just go inside!"

"Oh fine, I will, I will..."

Keinal didn't normally fall for tricks like this, but her owner was poor. They couldn't afford to lose a whole Bouncy Ball.

"Well then, go inside!" the Skeiths said, one by one. Quickly and silently, while the Gnorbu was going up the path, they slowly snuck away giggling evilly to themselves.

Keinal hadn't always been a Gnorbu. In fact, she used to be just a plain Blue Kacheek, as normal as any other 2,198-day Neopet might be. She had aged many petpets and still remembered a time long ago before avatars and the way to remove siggy lines, but yet she and her owner had still not grown out of their newbie years. Owner and Keinal: that's how their Neofriends referred to them, for Owner had never given anybody her actual name or shown anybody her real appearance. She always stayed in a tattered, grey robe, cloak and hood, never wearing anything else. In fact, Owner hadn't even washed it since the Tyrannian War, where she rode to battle in a royal, magnificent white colour on Keinal. They had achieved many war points for fighting off the invaders, but Owner had taken a blow at the waist. Her money bag had riched, and most of her Neopoints spilled on to the battlefield. Or, this is what she told Keinal.

Owner never really could stockmarket her way up to ultimate riches again, and as a result Keinal lacked the protein food that made her strong. She began to grow thinner until she was left purging the streets of Neopia Central of recycled Neocola cans and dropped food, seeing if she could just once feel the way any Neopet would feel if they were bloated...

Until one day everything changed. Owner had taken her fishing, and after a few months of fishing every single day Keinal finally fished up a strange, swirly potion. Excited at her luck, she drank it while Owner was reading a guide to the Stockmarket. Little did she know that she had drunk Owner's fortune-to-be, and even less did she know that she was going to turn into a Gnorbu...

That same Gnorbu was slowly trudging up the hill to the Long Manor, a Manor owned by a highly successful foreign owner named Mr. Long. He and his four pets, all of them eloquently painted, had lived in the Manor in the middle of Tyrannia for quite some time, looking like a piece of civilization amongst the under-educated Tyrannians. However, he had mysteriously vanished during the night, leaving only one message to his pets which nobody in the area knew how to read.

They had not been seen since. Amongst the Volcano-village Neopets these days, the Manor was considered to be haunted. Nobody knew what had happened there. Nobody knew what happened to Mr. Long.

Keinal finally reached the great, marble double-doors which led into the mansion. Pillagers had come and, chunk by chunk, they had slowly chiseled away the doors so Keinal only had to jump over a small stump of marble to get inside.

The interior of the manor was covered in a very thick layer of dust. The only things that the Gnorbu could make out were the paintings, for they had been glued to the wall using some sort of dust-absorbent glue. As Kenail went down the hall, they seemed to tell the story of the Tyrannian War; scenes which were familiar to the old Neopet. The monsters were depicted well, looking as if they could almost jump out of the frames themselves.

Though most modern Neopets might be afraid while going down the mansion, Kenail was not. In fact, she was downright bored. She guessed that it was just because of the fact that she had already seen and lived all the scenes before, except for one of them.

At the very end of the hallway, there was her Blue Bouncy Ball. She went to retrieve it, but a dusty painting on the wall above her distracted the Gnorbu in mid-run.

There was a painting which she had never seen before, even in real life. It showed something which she could not see clearly, though she would bet her Bouncy Ball that it looked like a table with some parchment on it. In the middle of the painting there was a silver light, and where the light shined upon everything was completely colourless. The only thing that stood out that had anything to do with the silver light was a quill, completely silver and completely real-looking.

And it was real. It was actually, actually real.

Completely forgetting about the Blue Bouncy Ball, she reached in the painting, took the Silver Quill, and dashed out of the Manor.

"A Silver Quill, Keinal? Is that right?'"

"Yep, it sure is!"

She had run straight out of the Manor, down the street, and found the Skeiths laughing madly at a recent deal they had made when they poached a Keno egg and left one of Lola the Baker's Baby Pteris as replacement. The Gnorbu had whipped out the Silver Quill and showed the bullies what she had found when they threw her ball into the haunted building.

"And what does it do?" demanded the Head Skeith, whose name was only HS since nobody ever dared ask him what it might be.

"Well..." Keinal mumbled to herself a bit after saying 'Well'. She didn't exactly know WHAT it did; all she knew was that it was silver and very, very old.

Yes, it looked very old indeed. It resembled the Neopian Times trophies she had seen within various user's trophy cabinets, except for the fact that of course it was silver. It seemed to have some sort of an aura to it; an aura of inspiration and myth; an aura of creation.

"Haha, look guys, she doesn't even know what it does!" HS laughed, with all his group members following suite (rather reluctantly, it seemed).

"I do so know!" declared Keinal, though she actually had no idea at all. "It can... it can... watch this!"

And with all of her Gnorbu might, she threw it at the nearest rock structure with all of her might. Keinal didn't think she'd be able to throw it very powerfully, but she actually ended up doing so. The Quill flew through the air and hit the rock so hard that it cracked in two. Inside was a large amount of shining, sparkling ancient diamonds.

"Ohoho! Very nice!" said the group members, but HS looked afraid.

"Don't move too close! It might be boobytrapped!"

His other group members snorted. "As if, HS!" they chuckled before rushing towards the stone.

Suddenly, the Silver Quill, the point of which was still in the rock, began to glow as if a sudden sunlight had emerged from the smokey clouds. It got brighter and brighter as the Skeiths moved closer and closer, and with a loud popping noise the light got so bright that HS and Keinal had to put their paws over their eyes. When the light finally faded and the Gnorbu managed to blink all the strange dots of her eyes, she looked at the scene. The rock with the diamonds inside had gone, and the Silver Quill was once again beneath her hoof. The only thing that seemed drastically different was that the Skeiths of the Skeith gang had turned completely to diamond.

Both Neopets were breathless as they looked at the diamond sculptures of the Skeiths. Their faces contradicted with the actions of their bodies. Their figures appeared to be shocked and looked as if they were trying to make a fast getaway before they were turned to diamond. However, their faces looked calm, as if they had just exchanged another Grarrl Keno egg.

"What just happened?" stuttered HS, still too shocked to move. "What just happened!"

His last statement was more forceful, and the large Skeith sounded extremely angry. Keinal tried to imagine what would happen to her next after HS's minions had all been turned to diamond.

It wasn't the best thing to imagine. She quietly tried to creep away, but tripped over a small pebble on the street. Stumbling, she fell right over on her back, and couldn't get up again. The large Skeith, silhouetted against the young Tyranninan sun, slowly turned around with a large snarl. Smoke billowed out of his nose as he gave a wild roar so loud that the noses of the Diamond Skeiths cracked and fell off. He slowly crouched and leapt at the struggling Gnorbu, who was mesmerized by HS's actions and unable to get up.

When he was in mid-jump, Keinal's senses returned to her. "Help!" she screamed, but no people ever came so close to the Long Manor anymore. Therefore, nobody heard her. She waved and wiggled her hoof desperately, trying to find some kind of a way out, but the Skeith was nearly upon her.

She basically forgot about the Silver Quill, still clutched in her hoof. When Keinal was screaming desperate for somebody to aid her, she never actually noticed that the Quill was beginning to glow and that she was randomly 'drawing' health crosses in the air. These crosses all became solid and three-dimensional without either pet noticing, and quickly they began to stack together into some sort of a wall in front of the Gnorbu.

It was with a loud THUMP that Keinal finally stopped struggling and looked up from the ground. A gigantic wall that somewhat resembled a Destruct-o-Match game had appeared right in front of her. It appeared that HS had ran right into it and was then knocked out, never noticing the strange wall since it had been transparent (it was now green) and couldn't think clearly through his rage.

Keinal looked at the strange Quill in her hoof. Both times, she needed some sort of a distraction or protection method, and both times the Quill had granted it to her. What if - what if it was a magic quill? thought the Gnorbu as she swung up on to her feet once more. What if it granted the desires of anybody who held it? Still looking at the Quill, Keinal began to walk home without looking up.

Long Manor was built on a, rocky hill on the outskirts of Volcano Village. It was basically at the very base of the Tyrannian Volcano, and was in the greatest danger of being wiped out by the Lava River, which flowed in a ring like a moat right around the hill. There was bridge made of Volcano Rocks from Mystery Island that led to the village. Keinal and the Skeiths had been right at the base of the river, next to the bridge. The village was about a kilometer away from the Manor. Keinal walked along the rocky gravel path to the village right now, and was so entranced by the Silver Quill she didn't even notice that the gravel trail began to move by itself.

"Ugh, why is it so bumpy all of a sudden?" Keinal asked the Quill, though it didn't respond at all. She looked down at the ground to see if perhaps there was a gravel spill from Old Granville's gravel farm when she noticed that the ground itself was moving. The only time she had ever seen such a circumstance was at the Virtupets Space Station when she had visited it years and years ago on holiday.

Long-awaited inertia suddenly made the Gnorbu fall over flat on her face. Holding on to the Quill, she looked up to see what was causing the gravel flow when she noticed that a single, sleeping Niptor, with its jaws open in a devastating way, was on a small, grassy, non-gravel part of the path. Though it was small, Keinal had enough experience with said petpet that she knew that the Quill was taking revenge on her since she had used it to grant one of her wishes. It made sense to her, since when the Skeiths had tried to take the diamond rock out of greed the Quill's power made them supernaturally turn into diamond.

Keinal thought it best not to use the Quill again to get her out of this situation, since she didn't know what kind of horror she would be in for if she used its magic to survive this situation. Instead, she flopped her belly like a fish and as a result her front legs ended up in front of her. This meant that her hooves, which had copper horseshoes on them, acted like a shield that jutted out from her head. The Gnorbu closed her eyes and waited for impact.

Sure enough, with a loud clanging noise her horseshoes hit the teeth of the snoozing Niptor. It dented the copper horseshoes, but Keinal herself wasn't harmed at all. Upon contact, the snoozing Niptor woke up and then sped away off the lane with loud, short screeching noises. The lane itself had stopped moving, and now that the Niptor was gone and Keinal was on her feet once more, she could see that she was only a few yards away from Granny Kacheek-McGee's Volcanic Potato House. Overjoyed and extremely tired, she cantered in.

Owner and Keinal's house was right at the very edge of the other side of the village. It was basically a shack-like Neohome that had once been McGee's secondary potato farm. This was the only place that Owner could afford; it was either that or living in the jungle of Mystery Island or the very heart of the Haunted Woods.

Keinal entered her house through a drape, since they couldn't afford a door. Their home had only two rooms: a room for eating and another room for living. The room for living, or the living room, was an utter mess, as usual. Owner was, surprisingly, sitting on a threadbare, purple armchair and had her eyes closed. She was mumbling random letters and numbers to herself. Her pet knew the reason why: Owner had been to the stockmarket again. Everytime the family managed to earn a few thousand Neopoints from the games, it disappeared almost instantly at the stockmarket. Owner just didn't have any luck or strategy towards the establishment whatsoever.

The Gnorbu thought that it was best if she spoke quieter. "Owner?"

"Mmhmm?" she responded rather absentmindedly.

"Look – look what I found…"

She held out her hoof with the Silver Quill towards the armchair rather nervously. Owner, quick as a flash, snatched it and inspected every single inch of it with widened, bloodshot eyes.

For a few moments, neither owner nor Neopet spoke. Finally, Owner asked her Gnorbu, "Where did you get this?"

"Long Manor… it was just sitting at the base of a painting –"

"Are you sure that it wasn't actually sitting INSIDE the painting?" Owner interrupted adruptly.

"What? Well…" Now that Keinal thought about it, it did seem rather shiny, as if it were some sort of an oil drawing, before she had pulled it out of the house. "…I guess?"

"Return this immediately! Don't ask questions, and don't come home till you do!" Owner seemed frantic, and had immediately turned red. "This thing is evil; anything that comes out of there is evil!"

"But – but!"

"No! I need you to put it back exactly where you found it right now!" Owner gave Keinal an extremely evil but worried look.

"Fine, oh fine…" said the Gnorbu. "I'll take the stinking thing back!"

"Good, good…" Owner returned to her seat and lost herself in her thoughts once more.

Long Manor was just up ahead; after the mysterious gravel slide the hill was now easier to climb. The strange diamond figures of the Skeiths had moved by themselves: two of them 'guarding' one side of the bridge, two guarding the other, and a final two guarding the doors of the Manor. The rock with the diamonds and the green wall made from health crosses had disappeared. As for HS, he was still slumped at the side of road, knocked out.

Keinal reached the double-doors of the Long Manor once more. She pushed open the door once more and entered. Light flittered in from holes on the ceiling, which guided her down the long hallway. Dust covered every single inch Keinal could see, and spyder webs were so common it was as if they could multiply by themselves. The paintings were as menacing as ever.

"Why do I have to put this back, anyway?" Keinal asked the painting at the very end of the hall from where she first found the Silver Quill. Her voice echoed once in the hall before completely disappearing as she reached out to put it back. However, she was distracted by something that moved inside the painting.

"Hello?" she asked it, but nothing happened. She shrugged to herself; the cobwebs and the dust in the filtered sunlight must've affected her vision. Keinal was about to put it back in the painting when all of a sudden a voice spoke to her from inside it.

"Arr har har!" said a voice. The Gnorbu leapt three feet in the air before finally landing some meters back from the painting. A large cloud of dust flew up in the air in front of it, dilating the light rays so that they all shined down upon that one painting. In the still-dull light, Keinal could make out a thin portrait of a man with a large silver mustache, monocule, and a gigantic black top hat. Surrounding him were the figures of four elegant Neopets, which acted like a border around what was assumingly their owner.

Since the voice had a heavy accent and the painting was in the Manor, Keinal could only think of one person who the painting must portray. "Are - are you Mr. Long?"

"Why, yes I am!" the voice boomed once more. "And – Keinal, is it? – I think you have my Quill?"

"How do you know my – your Quill?"

"Yes, my Quill! Look down at the bottom of my painting!"

The Gnorbu looked. Mr. Long was actually sitting down at a desk, and a letter was open right in front of him. She couldn't read much of it since it was in another strange language, but she recognized it as the only legacy of Mr. Long after he had disappeared from his Manor: the note he had left his pets. However, she soon saw what Mr. Long was trying to indicate: his hand was in a form in which it looked like he was writing with some sort of a Quill. And that Quill was in her hoof.

"Oh… oh that Quill! Would you like it back?" Keinal was extremely frightened and moved towards the painting, intending to put it back in his hand, when all of a sudden a pillar of dust stopped her.

"Goodness, no! Don't you know what the Quill does?" Mr. Long boomed as the pillar of dust fell back to the ground.

"N – no…" Keinal stuttered. She already knew that she was probably about to finally found out the story of the Silver Quill.

"Well, well, where to start… a few centuries ago, an extremely powerful Light Faerie created three items of extreme enchantment, magic, and worth: a Thyora's Tear, made from one of her own tears which could captivate the hearts of any, a Fire and Ice Slushie, made from the blessings of a Fire faerie and the Negg Faerie respectively which was a thief's greatest desire, and this: a Silver Quill, made silver from the last light of the Star of Wishing which can grant any wish.

"The Light Faerie's items were the talk of all Neopia Central, but she had put too much magic into them. When she attempted to make a fourth item of extreme magic, she ended up running out of power and became a Grey Faerie. The Faerie, clutching the Tear, Slushie, and Quill, went to Fyora to seek power. Fyora, extremely angered that the Faerie had abused her power, exiled her to a dark cavern in the Underclouds of Faerieland. With the items, she cast them away on to Neopia, for if they were kept together in any other place then their combined powers would re-power the Grey Faerie and make her a Light Faerie. She didn't want the Light Faerie to make whatever fourth item she was going to make, fearing that all of Faerieland and Neopia might be at risk.

"With the items, common people found them. I believe the Tear found its way to a strange island off the coast of Mystery Island and then in a deep chasm-society in the depths of Terror Mountain, the Fire and Ice Slushie was hid amongst other Fire and Ice Slushies, the shipment of which was lost near the base of Terror Mountain, and the Quill fell in Tyrannia. It is the very same Quill which you possess right now."

"But why does the Quill bring misfortune to anybody who uses it to make a wish?" asked Keinal, trying her hardest to quickly digest all the information.

"When the Light Faerie fell, the items began to malfunction. The Thyora's Tear became the lust of all mortals and began to capture those whose hearts were filled with greed; the Fire and Ice Slushie blinded any who looked at it in direct light, and the Quill… well, I think you can see what the Quill does."

Mr. Long looked around his manor sadly. "When I drew my entire Manor from scratch, a swarm of lava-flies from the Volcano came and wrecked the entire place. All my memories of Neopia were placed in paintings made by the Quill, and the Silver Quill itself joined me in this painting. Perhaps it is to taunt me; perhaps it is to captivate anybody else who might come across this house; I do not know. I do know that it is now pure evil and must be destroyed before it can be re-united with the Slushie and the Tear."

"But how? And who?" Keinal asked, though she already knew the answer to her second question.

"You, of course!" Mr. Long declared, patting his other hand against the desk. "If you tear my painting off the wall, which disables me from ever talking to you again till you place the painting back on the exact same location on the wall, you'll find a secret shelf with a small shard of the Tear and the empty Slushie cup. My pets have gone to great peril to collect these items, though they couldn't carry the exact items, for me. They themselves disappeared shortly after depositing them at my manor in front of my portrait. The only way you can destroy the Quill is to destroy the other three items also. They are too magical to ever disappear, but you can disintegrate them so that the power in the neurons of each molecule of the items can't ever be re-united to give the item their full magical functions. And of course, there's only one place in the area that's hot enough to melt such items…"

Mr. Long sneezed, and a large portion of dust fell from an extremely grimy window next to the portrait. It looked out to the Volcano, which was emitting generous amounts of lava at the moment.

"The Tyrannian Volcano is one of the five Neopian locations with enough external heat to destroy items. You must ride down Lava Falls using the boat that is tied to the back of my painting and get to the very center the Volcano by riding to the birth of the Lava River."

"But…won't that be hot?"

"Do not worry; the boat is blessed by the power of water and light. Those who sit in it will remain cool in all situations. Now go! Open my painting like you would a door."

"Oh… okay!... here I go…"

With great Gnorbu force, Keinal tore the painting off the wall. Dust fell in layers, but she didn't care. She ran forwards, and found that it was actually like a dock made from lava rock which jutted straight out from the hill. Sure enough, there was a shelf attached to the small hallway of rock which lead to the dock containing a single, sky-blue almost transparent shard which shined by itself in the semi-darkness and a cup with a magical L written on it with some sort of glowing rainbow ink as opposed to the red N that is usually written on slushies.

The Gnorbu snatched the cup, stuffed the shard and the quill inside, and secured it tightly. Keinal then looked for the boat, and saw it: a wooden canoe which was a medium-length jump out in the lava. A metal chain attached it to a small pole on the side of the top of Lava Falls, which bubbled down the hill with barely a sound. The Gnorbu felt her very fur stand up on end from the extreme heat, but it wasn't too hot for her to overheat or anything horrid like that.

She stuffed the Slushie Cup in her mouth and then prepared to jump, but in mid-preparation it slid out from her teeth and fell in the lava as she leapt right into the boat. It shook a bit: not enough to flip the boat and the Gnorbu over but enough to loosen the metal chain. The metal chain came right off the boat and the end which was attached to the boat fell into the lava, melting instantly. The force of the Falls, which the Slushie with the magical items had now fallen over, caused the boat to start moving by itself, and Keinal screamed as she went over the edge of the hill. The boat had some sort of heat-resistant metal razor at the bottom which caused it to skirt over the lava as if she were water skiing.

When she finally reached the base of the waterfall, she saw the Slushie cup with the Quill and shard of the Tear float into a cavern. Keinal, desperate to get them back before something else (like a lava-fly) in the Volcano could snatch them, quickly searched the boat for some sort of a paddle. She found two: large, wooden things which were surrounded by an earthen yet fiery glow.

Cautiously, the Gnorbu dipped them in the river and pulled them out, expecting them to be completely burnt. However, they were not. These must be made of the same material as the boat: light-weight and unable to burn in lava. As quickly as she could, Keinal paddled towards the cave and entered the darkness.

Lava bubbles were bursting from the walls, and the strange, slow flowing noise the lava made was everywhere. In her mind's eye, she could imagine lava simply seeping out of the walls from the magma chamber, wherever it may be in the volcano.

After a few minutes she saw a light ahead, and hastily paddled towards it. She found an island of black volcanic rocks at the base of sunlight which shone down upon the heart of the volcano like a spotlight. Keinal docked the boat against the smoothest part of the rock she could find and ran on to it. Looking up, she could see the sun. That must be the hole of the volcano, she thought to herself. Along the walls of the cavern-like part which led to the hole, lava flowed down smoothly. When it reached the room she was in right now, it flowed off to the side, where there were many small holes which, she thought, must lead to other parts of the volcano. This explained the lava flowing from the walls in the 'entrance' hallway.

Looking around, Keinal saw that lava surrounded the entire island of rock she was now on. She quickly did an inspection of where the Slushie cup had gone, and found it washed up on a smooth, shore-like part on the other side of the rock.

The Gnorbu leapt over a jut of rock perturbing from the exact center of the island and went to the other side. She scooped the cup right out of the lava and poured the Quill, Shard from the Slushie cup before throwing the cup itself into the molten rock.

It sizzled and burned before sinking underneath, only leaving a few dust-like pieces of the items left, floating at the surface of all the lava. Thinking that her task was done, she made to went back to the boat when suddenly the Volcano began to make odd noises, as if it were about to –

"Erupt!" Keinal screamed to herself, desperately looking for a quick way out. "Oh, this is so sudden too…"

The magic of the items must have caused the Volcano to unleash iit's/i own powers! Quickly, Keinal hugged the rock figure that jutted out in the direct center of the island and embraced herself for the eruption.

A great gurgling sound slowly arose from the walls and the magma chamber, and without any warning it made a large belching noise before the stream of lava, which incidentally erupted from underneath the rock, flew up with increasing power before coming right out of the volcano.

The Gnorbu opened her eyes, daring a look around. She could see Long Manor, followed by the village, from that height. Keinal moaned to herself: she knew she was going to get scorched by the searing-hot lava, so she might as well get a final look…

With even less warning, the lava descended and slid down the volcano at a great pace. It was heading towards the village.

"Oh no! Granny McGee and Owner and everybody else – they'll all get burned to death with barely any warning at all!" Keinal thought to herself. She had no idea what to do, except…

The part of the lava with the dust of the Quill, Shard, and Slushie was still right next to her. Concentrating as hard she could on that little area, she thought to herself: 'Let me find a way to prevent the lava from melting the village!'

A great, blinding burst of light came from every single piece of magical dust that was within the lava, and quite suddenly the wave of molten rock rose as high as the sky. It was rushing right past the village and headed to the ocean, burning uninhabited parts of the plateau and the jungle in its path. When it got to the sea, it skidded along it like a tidal wave. Keinal even considered riding the volcanic-rock island like a surfboard when the impact of the lava wave created a gigantic water wave as high as the clouds, though she decided not to when she could see Faerieland from such a height.

The Gnorbu was swept right on to the cloud, and looking around she saw that she was in the throne room of Fyora the Faerie Queen herself. Owner was right beside her.

"Welcome to Faerieland, Keinal the Kacheek!" Fyora said, getting up. "I have a lot to thank you for – you were the one who destroyed some of the most dangerous, yet powerful, items on Neopia…" She walked towards the kneeling Gnorbu and held out a hand. Keinal took it, still mystified, and found out that she was once again a Kacheek.

"Wha – what… I don't get it…"

Owner laughed. "Can you not see? bI/b was the Light Faerie who once had it all… fortune, riches, and even you… but when I became a Grey Faerie, or 'we became poor', I ended up losing everything – except you. You had to live with me in another form until the items were redeemed by someone that was extremely close to me and destroyed."

"Tha – that's great!" said Keinal, though she was still mystified. She began to think back to a time when they were rich and not poor, and suddenly she remembered: her Owner was in fact a Faerie! She just had one more thing to ask her…

"Owner?" asked Keinal, somewhat hesitantly now that her Owner was draped in beautiful, flowing golden robes with long blonde locks of flowing hair.

"Yes, Keinal?"

"What is your real name?"

Owner laughed. "My real name? My real name is Latiniyana."