Difference between revisions of "The Tale of Woe"

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[[Image:TOW Gypsy Camp1.gif|frame|right|The Elephante Gypsy.]]
[[Image:TOW Gypsy Camp1.gif|frame|right|"It's no accident that so many legends and myths surround this place; in fact, I was reading about one just now."]]
'''The Tale of Woe''' is a [[plot]] based in the [[Haunted Woods]] and entails the release of [[Neovia]]. It began on October 2, 2006, and finishing November 20, 2006 (designed to coincide with [[Wikipedia:Halloween|Halloween]]). The plot follows the travels of [[Gilly]], who first appeared as the star of [[The Castle of Eliv Thade]].
'''The Tale of Woe''', or the '''Haunted Woods Plot''', was a [[plot]] set in the [[Haunted Woods]] that began on 2 October 2006, and concluded on 20 November 2006. It introduced the town of [[Neovia]], whose residents were transformed into monsters when they discovered a potion that promised their hearts desires.  


==Plot summary==
It starred [[Gilly]] of [[The Castle of Eliv Thade]] fame, and [[Sophie]] who had previously featured in the ''[[Neopets: The Darkest Faerie]]'' video game. It introduced [[Bruno]] and the mysterious [[wikipedia:Snake oil|Hissi oil salesman]] [[Mr. Krawley]], who taught the Neovians to be satisfied with what they had. In participating in this plot, players took on the roles of the lead characters and helped them surmount the obstacles they face in the story.  
===The gypsy camp===
[[Image:TOW launch06.gif|frame|right|Gilly at the Gypsy Camp.]]  
Deep within the Haunted Woods users happen upon a [[Gypsy Camp]], where a Pink [[Elephante]] greets and warns them of the dangers of the woods - "[...] Trees and creatures roam the night, and they can swallow the unwary. It's no accident that so many legends and myths surround this place [...]" - and reads the user a story of [[Gilly]], when she visited the Camp and heard the story of Neovia...


===The Legend of Neovia===
The plot used the [[wikipedia:Frame story|framing device]] that it was a tale being told to the player by a mysterious [[Pink]] [[Elephante]] they met at the gypsy camp - who in fact is Mr. Krawley in disguise. Nested within this story, the Pink Elephante appears again to tell Gilly about the history of Neovia.  
The Elephante began his tale of a family of [[Edmund]] and [[Alice]], and their three children: sons [[Bruno]] and [[Reginald]], and daughter [[Sophie]] (who the Elephante avoids mentioning until his story is almost over). They lived in [[Neovia]], and had many troubles. Bruno sought the affection of [[Lily]], but lacked the charm and strength to court her, and was not helped in his attempts by [[Oscar]], Lily's current protective companion.


After Oscar hit Bruno for talking to Lilly, Bruno resigned to his fate but stumbled upon [[Mr. Krawley]], who offered him a potion which would make all his troubles go away for only a few [[Neopoints]]. After drinking the potion, the very next day he was handsome, strong and much more presentable to Lily.
==Synopsis==
A mysterious stranger, [[Mr. Krawley]], visited the town of [[Neovia]] with a potion that promised to fulfil anyone's heart's desire - but it transformed the townsfolk into twisted, monstrous versions of their desire for their greed. Desperate to save themselves, they made a deal with the [[Spirit of Slumber]], who 'cured' them of the potion by making the entire town into ghosts that only appeared once a year on [[Halloween]].  


Edmund claimed Bruno was foolish to take such an action, complaining that one must work for success. However, when he was offered the potion by [[Mr. Krawley]], he reluctantly took it to resolve the family's financial hardship. Like Bruno, the elixir worked and he became rich within the next few days.  With the testimonials of Bruno and his father, word of the potions spread quickly. When Reginald took a potion as well, increasing his intelligence and knowledge, the popularity of the elixir was assured. Before long, everyone was taking the potions to have their wishes - such things as height, beauty and youth - granted with a single swig, and only the innocent, such as [[Sophie]], refrained from drinking the potion.
Ten years later, after hearing the story of Neovia, [[Gilly]] accidentally reunited the only two survivors, brother and sister [[Bruno]] and [[Sophie]] and together they find a way to summon the Spirit and undo his spell. The Neovians were restored to life, but were still the monsters the potion made of them. Thanks to the surprising assistance of Mr. Krawley himself, Gilly and Sophie were able to devise the potion's antidote.  


[[Image:TOW prologue2.gif|frame|left|[[Mayor Thumburt]] and the rioters.]]
==Story==
The potion seemed to give everyone in Neovia happiness... but as the days passed, the effects of the potion continued to make their wishes more twisted. Edmund became suspicious of everyone, carefully guarding over his fortune. Bruno became a muscular, deformed monster. Reginald became lonely, seeking refuge in his books when people couldn't stand to talk to him and his great intellect. Curses like this spread to everyone who drank the potion, and the angry town joined together and searched for [[Mr. Krawley]], only to find he had disappeared. They then decided to put the blame on the family which advertised the elixir, and attacked Edmund's home.
[[Image:Tow mob.png|thumb|300px|left|Bruno faces down the angry mob.]]  
Gilly was lost in the Haunted Woods. As night drew in, she found shelter at a [[Gypsy Camp]]. There, she met a mysterious Pink Elephante with glittering, golden eyes. He offered to read her a story before she went to sleep.  


Bruno ran outside to distract the villagers while Reginald and Sophie sneaked out the back and ran for the woods. In the forest, they encountered [[Ilere]], who said Sophie had no where else to go but in her care. Reginald refused such an action, but relented when Sophie went of her own free will, saying she felt safe with Ilere. Returning back to Neovia, Reginald saw Bruno being chased into the woods outside of town, and escorted his parents to an abandoned mansion on the other side of town, used in the past for games of hide-and-seek.
Somewhere in the Haunted Woods was a quiet town called Neovia. A [[Gelert]] named [[Bruno]] lived there, who was was besotted by [[Lily]], a local [[Pink]] [[Aisha]]. Bruno wasn't strong enough or charming enough to win Lily's affections from her boyfriend [[Oscar]], and thought that he would always be lonely.  


Bruno lost those chasing him in the forest, and when the towns people returned they attacked, determined for retribution. Suddenly, [[Mayor Thumburt]] stopped them all and said they must be cured before bring justice to those responsible. The Neovians summon [[The Spirit of Slumber]], who cures them with magic, but at a terrible price...
One day, he met a stranger to the town, a [[Krawk]] with bright gold eyes. He offered to sell Bruno a potion, Hissi oil, that would fulfil all his desires. Overnight, the potion made Bruno stronger and more confident.  


===The ruins of Neovia===
Bruno wasn't the only Neovian to be offered the potion. His father, Edmund, found it made his business a success again and his debts disappear, and his younger brother Reginald found the potion made him smarter. They encouraged their friends and neighbours to try [[Mr. Krawley]]'s potion, and all their wishes - from being taller, or more beautiful, or younger - began to be answered. Only the innocent, like Bruno's sister [[Sophie]], who wanted for nothing, didn't drink the potion.  
[[Image:Tow locket1.gif|frame|The locket that was found in the ghost town.]]
The story ends and Gilly goes to sleep, and after a night's rest she sets out into the woods and stumbles upon Neovia itself. The small town is in ruins, but after looking through a burnt wreck of a house she found a strange silver locket hidden, with the picture inside decayed beyond recognition.


Gilly headed to the [[Deserted Fairground]] and took the locket to [[Lyanka]], of the [[Cork Gun Gallery]]; [[Leeroy]], of the [[Coconut Shy]]; [[Harker]], of the [[Bagatelle]] stall; and [[Ssidney]], of [[Ssidney's Scratch Cards]]. None of them knew who the owner was, although some seemed impressed with the metalwork and one mentioned they were quite popular a long time ago. Heading back to Neovia for more information, she discovers a path leading to a hut in the swampy part of the woods.
The effects of the potion did not end there, however. Bruno kept becoming stronger and stronger, until he was a grotesque muscular monster; Edmund became paranoid that people would want to steal his new fortune; Reginald become so intelligent that no one else could understand him any more. The entire town began to suffer for their greed and wanted answers from Mr. Krawley - but he had disappeared. The town turned their anger on Bruno and his family instead.  


[[Image:Sophies shack.gif|frame|left|Sophie's Shack.]]
While Bruno distracted the mob, Reginald smuggled their sister Sophie, the only one unaffected by the potion, out of the town and into the Woods. The [[Earth Faerie]] [[Ilere]] appeared to them, and took Sophie away to care for her. Reginald returned to Neovia and hid with his parents as the towns people drove Bruno out of Neovia.  
At the hut, Gilly met the adult Sophie, who snatched the locket and shouted for the Usul to leave and not to disturb her. Gilly ran off through the rain and took shelter in a cave. Inside, amongst strange, old artifacts, she was stalked by a dark creature. By arranging a mirror, a broken lamp post, and a chair around a pile of food for bait, Gilly managed to get the monster to eat some of the food, leap back from its own reflection, and stumble across the lamp post and into the chair, where it banged its head and fell into the moonlight, revealing itself to be the horribly disfigured Bruno.


Taking pity on Bruno for her actions, even though he was trying to scare her, Gilly approached him, only to be chased outside of the cave. Gilly ran all the way back to Sophie's hut, asking to be let in from the chasing Bruno, and Sophie answered the door angrily, but calmed into shock when she saw Bruno was alive. Exposition ensues as they related their stories: Bruno hid in a cave from the townspeople deep in the Haunted Woods, never daring to return to Neovia. Sophie went with Ilere to her now current home and was only given a chest which Ilere said contained all she needed to survive, and left her.
[[Mayor Thumburt]] managed to stop the mob before it turned on itself, and together they summoned the [[Spirit of Slumber]], a powerful ghost who haunts the Woods. He agreed to end Neovia's suffering, but for a "terrible price".  


A few days after Sophie settled into the hut, she returned to Neovia only to find deserted buildings. Sophie returned several times in the weeks that followed, but there was no sign of what had happened to the residents until [[Halloween]] night, when she saw ghostly apparitions of the inhabitants living their lives. Sophie noticed the Neovian's faces were without emotion, working and moving in silence, and when she touched one of them, her hand went straight through the Neovian. Sophie concluded they were not physically there, and returned to her hut to work on a cure. The next day, however, the town was once again deserted. For ten years, Sophie revealed, she had been working to cure the Neovians on Halloween night, and had little else left to try.
The story at an end, Gilly went off to sleep. The next day, she left the camp and ventured back into the woods.  


Gilly, almost forgotten in the exchange, remembered the Gypsy Elephante's story and explained the Spirit of Slumber's involvement, realizing this must be the "terrible price" mentioned in the story - while the spirit restored them to their forms before their use of Mr Krawley's potion, they would be unable to enjoy their restoration. Sophie was sceptical it would help, but decides to ask Ilere for information. She was reluctant to bring Gilly along, but relents when Bruno asks her to come, providing Gilly doesn't get in the way (to which Gilly finished Sophie's spoken request before her).
[[Image:Tow reunited.png|right|thumb|300px|Gilly discovered the survivors from the Elephante's story.]]


FIELD_MESSAGE_carelbotapas
Following a path out of the camp, Gilly found herself at the town from the story, Neovia. It was deserted, and in a burnt down house, she found a silver locket. She wanted to return it to its owner. She found a shack in the Woods, and asked the witch who lived there if she knew anything about the locket or Neovia. The witch snatched the locket and shooed Gilly away, threatening to turn her into a stink beetle.


===Seeking the Spirit's name===
It started raining and Gilly took shelter in a cave. Inside, a monstrous Gelert was frightened by its own reflection and chased Gilly from the cave. She ran back to the witches shack, and made a shock discovery: the Gelert was Bruno from the story, and the witch was Sophie, his little sister. The siblings were amazed to see each other again.
{|align=right
 
|http://images.neopets.com/images/frontpage/towchapter2_d83kdw3e32.gif
They swapped stories - Bruno had hidden in a cave to escape the townspeople and had lived there ever since, while Ilere took Sophie to the shack and gave her a magical chest of supplies to live off. Sophie had discovered that since that final night, the Neovians had disappeared from the town. They only appeared on [[Halloween]] as intangible, ghost-like beings. "Their faces were entirely blank, and their bodies looked like they were only going through the motions."
 
[[Image:Tow ilere spirit.png|left|thumb|300px|Ilere explains what she knows about the Spirit of Slumber.]]
 
Sophie had spent the last ten years trying to devise a cure, but had had no success. Gilly remembered the Elephante's story and realised that this must have been what the Spirit of Slumber did. Sophie decided to ask Ilere if she knew anything about Spirit of Slumber - and at Bruno's insistence, Gilly was allowed to come along too.
 
After navigating the swamp, climbing down a cliff face, and encountering some [[Ghost]] [[Meepit]]s, they finally came to Ilere's tree. They explained that they wanted to find the Spirit of Slumber to cure Neovia, but Ilere didn't want to help at first. Sophie had to break up a fight between Ilere and Bruno, and Ilere saw how strong her charge had become. The Spirit, she said, had once been a Neopet, but he became a powerful spirit of the Haunted Woods when he died.
 
They went in search of more information from other denizens of the Haunted Woods. The [[Brain Tree]] agreed to tell them the Spirit's real name if they told him when he died, but the [[Esophagor]] could only tell them when someone died if they told him their real name. Sophie came up with another solution - they had to dig up every grave in the Haunted Woods. She had a potion that would tell her when they found the right bones.
 
[[Image:Tow grave robbing.png|thumb|300px|right|They had to exhume every burial in the Haunted Woods.]]
 
They enlisted the help of the [[Caretaker]] to help find all the graves - but his indices had been stolen. They managed to [[Fetch!|recover them]] from a maze and the Caretaker guided them through the graveyards.
 
After exhuming many graves, they finally found a bone that glowed silver when exposed to Sophie's potion - they had found the Spirit's grave, but the headstone was broken. Reluctantly, they came to a conclusion: they would have to go through the Caretaker's register and cross off the names on every other grave. The remaining name had to be the Spirit of Slumber's.
 
Now they knew who he was in life, Sophie could prepare a potion to summon the Spirit. One of them would have to drink it, though, and become possessed by the Spirit - Bruno volunteered, and Sophie reluctantly agreed.
[[Image:Tow bruno spirit.png|thumb|left|300px|The Spirit acted through Bruno's body.]]
The Spirit, speaking out of Bruno's body, agreed with a sly smile to reverse his spell. As they walked to Neovia, Sophie reassured Gilly there weren't any [[Werelupe]]s in that part of the Woods. Gilly reassured Sophie their plan would work.
 
It was Halloween, and the ghostly impressions of the Neovians were roaming the town. The Spirit undid his spell, and they all began to become solid again. Sophie was thrilled - her parents were back to normal.
 
But only for a moment. As soon as they stopped being ghostly, the townspeople transformed back into the twisted versions of themselves Krawley's potion had created. The Spirit had undone his spell, but only that - he hadn't undone the potion as well. Before her eyes, Sophie's parents became monsters again, and she fled, leaving Bruno and Gilly to fend for themselves.
 
The crowd of Neovians turned on them, just as Bruno spotted a familiar pair of gleaming golden eyes. Mr. Krawley was on the other side of the crowd - he sent Gilly to follow him as he held back the mob.
 
[[Image:Tow gilly krawley.png|thumb|300px|right|Mr. Krawley took Gilly to an abandoned building.]]
 
Mr. Krawley led her through a graveyard where the gravestones came alive with gnashing teeth. When she had fought her way through those, she reached trees that grew eyes and mouths at Mr. Krawley's touch, and swung swords made of wood at her.
 
She caught up with him at last at [[Meepit Oaks]], an abandoned asylum. He said he had led her there because she needed something from inside. She ran inside to escape from the hoard of [[Zombie]]s coming up behind her. Inside she found the skeleton of a nurse, and growing from her a single, glowing flower. She took it with her when she left.
 
Bruno managed to escape from the mob, despite Mayor Thumbert's urgings. From his hiding place, he saw his own parents were among those who had turned against him.
[[Image:Tow cure.png|left|thumb|200px|With Mr. Krawley's flower, the cure was complete.]]
Sophie ran all the way back to her shack, where she collected herself and started preparing a potion to reverse Krawley's Hissi oil. She finished a concoction, but couldn't help but think it was missing something. On her way back to Neovia, she ran into Gilly - and recognised the flower she had found as the final ingredient.
 
Sophie blasted her way through the townspeople with her magic until she reached the well. The mayor tried to stop her pouring her cure into the water supply, and as they fought grew stronger and stronger. With Bruno and Gilly's help to distract him, Sophie was able to transform him into a [[Moquot]].
 
The well water dosed with Sophie and Gilly's cure, they decided to return the next day when everyone in the town had had a chance to drink it. Sure enough, everyone was restored: no longer the Spirit's apparitions, and no longer Krawley's twisted versions of their own desires.
 
Bruno could not be cured - Sophie thought he had been under the effects of the potion too long, but he revealed he actually didn't mind looking like that. Edmund welcomed back his son anyway - their family would be together again, and that was what was important.
 
Sophie made her apologies - Neovia just was not her home any more. Nevertheless, at long last, her family was restored.
 
Gilly saw Mr. Krawley watching the happy reunion from the shadows - the people of Neovia had learnt that there were no easy fixes to their problems. He vanished in a puff of smoke.
 
==Participation==
 
While participating in this plot, players took on the roles of the main characters, resolving the problems they face as the story developed. By participating, players learnt more about the events of the plot that weren't explored fully in the narrative.
 
When the player had completed each step but before the next step had been released, they saw a "To Be Continued..." message. After the next step was released, this became an arrow labelled "Continue...".
 
This plot featured a ''Quest Inventory'', a separate inventory where items relevant to the plot were stored. Items in this inventory could not be used, traded, or stolen like items in the user's [[inventory]] can. In previous plots like the [[Lost Desert Plot]], puzzle [[items]] that were discovered could be stolen like normal items, but retrieved again by revisiting the page that had given them.
 
===The locket===
[[Image:Tow burned house.png|frame|right|The locket was hidden in Bruno and Sophie's old house.]]
[[File:Tow locket1.gif|left|frame|The locket.]]
After the final part of the prologue story was released, players could follow a path past the [[Gypsy Camp]] and find the deserted town of [[Neovia]]. There was only one part of it they could explore, the burnt down ruin of the house that Bruno and his family used to live in.
 
The player had to investigate the house and find a lost locket. They could click on every pixel in the image, but there were only ten parts of the house the locket could be hidden in. Which location it was in was random for each user. The different locations were:
 
*(67,201) -- Chair
*(80,135) -- Fireplace
*(147,218) -- Couch End
*(150,115) -- Bookcase
*(175,145) -- Crack in the Wall
*(186,186) -- Sofa Couch
*(210,130) -- Broken Staircase
*(235,232) -- Broken Boards
*(308,199) -- Pillow Spring
*(364,195) -- Table Leg
 
The player could input the co-ordinates directly into the URL - ''<nowiki>http://www.neopets.com/halloween/hwp/neovia.phtml?hvh=</nowiki>'''''[House Code Identifier]'''''?'''''[x,y]''' to visit the locations quickly.
 
After the locket was found, the player had to take it to the [[Deserted Fairground]], where Gilly could ask the following four characters if they could help her identify it.
 
*[[Harker]] the [[Lupe]], at the [[Bagatelle]] stall.
*[[Lyanka]] the [[Aisha]], at the [[Cork Gun Gallery]].
*[[Leeroy]] the [[Quiggle]], at the [[Coconut Shy]].
*[[Ssidney]] the [[Nimmo]], at Ssidney's [[Deserted Fairground Scratchcards|Scratchcards]].
 
The conversations appear bellow the games themselves. Each of the characters would say one of four things at random. For the player to proceed, they had to visit the carnies in a certain order, so as to have the conversations in a certain order. The four possible conversations began with the following opening lines:
 
*"Why, certainly, little miss... Well, what a pretty little trinket this is.  I haven't seen one like it in years."
*"Amazing!  I haven't seen such metalwork in, oh, must be ten years.  Where did you say you found it?"
*"That piece of junk?  It looks like a hundred other lockets I've seen."
*"It looks familiar... where did you get it?  I know someone who'd pay a thousand Neopoints for that locket, though.  At least, I used to.  Haven't seen her in ages."
 
The player had to hear the conversations in that order - beginning with the conversation that used the word "one", then the conversation that used the word "ten", "hundred", and then "thousand". When the characters are visited so that the conversations appear in the above order, Gilly will decide that nobody will help her there. Back in Neovia the player can now follow another path to Sophie's Shack.
 
===Bruno's Cave===
[[Image:Tow cave food.png|frame|right|The monster stops to eat the food.]]
After visiting Sophie's Shack, Sophie shooed Gilly and the player away. Fleeing in terror took Gilly to a dark cave.
 
The cave is unique to everyone, but consists of a 3 x 3 grid of rooms, which all have at least one doorway into them. In the cave, there are several items, some of which can be carried and some of which can't. The chest and the table cannot be picked up, but the lamppost, chair, mirror, rotten food, and key can. Additionally, at least one of the rooms will have a pool of moonlight in the centre.
 
The user can pick up one object at a time, and can be placed down at a certain co-ordinate in the same way as the user searched for the locket in Neovia.
 
When moving about the cave, occasionally the message "Something seems to be following you..." will appear under the picture of the room. A creature would eventually catch up with you, and it will scare Gilly into a random room.
[[Image:Tow cave objects.png|left|frame|The trap is set.]]
Gilly could lay a trap for creature by rearranging the furniture. If the rotten food was placed in any room except for the room with the garbage, the creature would stop and eat, but become nauseated and dizzy. If the mirror was in right place, the creature would see their reflection, panic and flee. If the lamppost was in the correct place, they would trip over it, and if the chair was in the right place, when it tripped, it would hit its head and lie on the floor in a daze. If all this was done in the moonlight room, Gilly would be able to see the creature - it was Bruno.
 
The user must set up a trap in a moonlit room in order to illuminate the creature. To do this, they had to place the following items in the room with the moonlight shining in. They had to be placed in the correct positions, within ten pixels.
 
*Mirror at (240,330);
*Lamppost at (240,215);
*Chair at (235,160);
*Rotten food anywhere in the room.
 
When the monster follows Gilly into the room, it will eat the bait, see its reflection in the mirror, stumble backwards over the lamppost, crack its head on the chair and collapse into the light.
 
===Finding Ilere===
 
When the player returned to the shack, Bruno, Gilly, and Sophie were reunited and set off in search of Ilere. On their way, they had to pass through the swamp, the high woods, and the deep woods. Each section was a [[Wikipedia:Adobe Flash|Flash]] maze, consisting of several 'rooms' linked together by paths.
 
As the player explored each area, they had to collect items to help them proceed.
 
====The Swamp====
[[Image:Tow hissi.png|thumb|150px|right|One head tells the truth, one head tells lies.]]
 
The Swamp had five different areas. In one of them, there was a [[Two-Headed Hissi]] blocking the path out of the swamp. When the user clicked on him, they were told that one of the [[Hissi]]'s heads will always speak the truth, and the other will always lie. This seems like a set up to a [[wikipedia:Knights and Knaves|knights and knaves]] logic puzzle, where the player has to figure out which head to trust based on a clever question. However, the Hissi was too busy arguing with himself to listen to any questions you give it, so the problem cannot be solved in that way.
 
The user must find a stick in the maze, and click on it to bring it into their Quest Inventory. They then must return to the Hissi and, by clicking on the stick in the inventory then on the Neopet, prod it. One of the Hissi's heads will deny that it was poked, so the other head must be telling the truth. This opened the way into the next section.
 
====The High Woods====
[[Image:Tow vines cliff.png|thumb|left|200px|Players had to improvise a rope to climb down a cliff.]]
In this segment, there were twenty different areas. In one of them, there was a clearing somewhere in where there was a break in the trees. The next section is at the bottom of the cliff in this clearing.
 
Around the maze are five types of vine, six of each, which can be picked up in the same manner as the stick in the previous section. These vines must be braided together in a certain combination to construct a rope for a descent of the cliff. Each type of vine was given a particular strength between one and five, assigned at random for each player. The rope the player braided together had to have an average strength of above 3.5 to support everyone's weight.
 
To make matters more complicated, the player had to make sure that the vines they combined were also long enough to reach the bottom of the cliff. Exactly how tall the cliff is was also different for different players. If the player made it too long, a monster at the bottom of the cliff would grab it and pull it away, and the player would have to go back through the woods to find more vines.
 
An effective way of determining which combination to use was to drop all vines at the clearing by clicking them in the inventory and clicking on the terrain, putting them into piles of type, and then trying with six of each in the Quest Inventory until the rope is strong enough and the player is shown a cutscene of the cliff, where the rope is too short. They then had to add vines from the other piles to increase the rope's length without decreasing its average strength too much. They started by adding a vine from the next pile to the inventory and test for the rope's length again, until the rope became too weak or the bottom is reached. If the rope became too weak, the player should have removed the last vine and moved on to the next pile.
 
Once the vine-rope reaches the base of the cliff, the three Neopets climbed down and began exploring the Deep Woods.
 
====The Deep Woods====
[[Image:Tow ilere's door.png|thumb|300px|Runes on the top of Ilere's doorway read, "[[wikipedia:Moria_(Middle-earth)#West-door|Dance friend and enter]]". ]]
 
In the Deep Woods, there were thirty different areas. In one of them, the player found the doorway to Ilere's residence, but needed to solve a magical combination lock to go inside. The lock was opened by seven [[Ghost]] [[Meepit]]s that the player had to find in this part of the Woods.
 
When the user first encountered a Meepit in the forest, it would run away. In order to collect it, they needed to offer it Meepit Juice. The player had to send a score of 400 points or more at the [[game]] [[Meepit Juice Break]] which placed a glass of Meepit Juice into the Quest Inventory.
 
The next time a Meepit is encountered, clicking on the Juice in the inventory, then clicking on the Meepit, offered the juice to the [[Petpet]]. The juice splashed through it, however, and the Meepit would run off again. Sophie realised that she could turn the juice into Ghost Meepit Juice. When fed Ghost Meepit Juice, the Meepits became entranced and followed the group as part of the Quest Inventory.
 
All seven Meepits had to be taken to Ilere's tree. The only way to lower the stone barricade was to put the Meepits on the seven spots of light in front of tree. Clicking on the Meepit picture in the Quest Inventory, then on the floor, would cause the seven Meepits to hop onto the spots. However, the each Meepit had to go to a specific spot - players could rearrange the Meepits by clicking on two of them to swap their positions until they got the right combination. A Meepit who was in the correct spot would dance, a Meepit that was one spot away would look happy, a Meepit that was two spots away would stare, and a Meepit that was three spots away would look sad.
 
When all the Meepits were dancing, the stone door will move and Ilere's home will be open.
 
===Fetching the books===
 
After meeting Ilere, Sophie decided she could summon the Spirit of Slumber if she could find his bones. When the player visited the [[Game Graveyard]], they discovered the [[Caretaker]]'s shack there, owned by an angry [[Yurble]] who looked after all the burial records. However, the records had been stolen by thieves.
 
To recover the books, the player had to play a game of [[Fetch!]] on hard mode. Ignoring what the Master asked them for, the player could find somewhere in the maze a pile of books. Reaching these would add them to the Quest Inventory and they could be taken back to the Caretaker. He had to look over them before he was ready to let Bruno, Gilly, and Sophie read them.
 
===Gravedigging===
[[Image:Tow graveyard closeup.gif|frame|left|Players began exploring the graveyards.]]
The next puzzle was collaborative, involving lots of players working together to exhume graves and test the bones. There were three parts to this puzzle - finding ingredients, digging up the graves, and testing the bones. The tasks were not performed in sequence like the puzzle to find Ilere - the player could choose to do any of them in any order any number of times, although they had to wait five minutes before performing the same task again.
 
This step began on 20 October and finished on 23 October, when the Spirit's bones were finally identified. Together, players dug up 129,764 graves and tested 129,700 bones to find the right one.
 
When the Caretaker was satisfied that his records were complete, he could show players to some of the graveyards. Each graveyard was given a complicated name of random letters and numbers, "according to a complex coordinate scheme that [the Caretaker] devised" but would not explain. He gave the player a list of 25 - 30 graveyards, and when a graveyard was fully explored, he removed it from the list and replaced it with another.
 
Clicking the 'Enter graveyard' button brought the user to a map of the graveyard. Each graveyard was divided up into many squares. The square the user was currently on had a black border around, and the player could move around by clicking other squares. The user could only click on squares they could reach from their current position without walking over graves or barriers.
 
Many of the squares contained gravestones. If the gravestone had a small pile of dirt in front of it, it signified that the digging was underway. If there was a large section of dirt in front of it, it signified that the grave was open and had already been tested. If there was a large section of dirt with bones in front of it, it signified that the grave was open and the coffin exposed, but the bones hadn't been tested yet. If there was no dirt in front of it, digging had yet to begin (although diggers may be waiting to commence).
 
====Finding ingredients====
[[Image:Tow potions.gif|frame|right|Sophie did not label her ingredients.]]
Sophie needed ingredients in order to produce the bone-testing potion. She would give a player an ingredient she needed and sent them to her shack to bring it to her. Unfortunately, the bottles on the shelf in her shack were unlabelled, and it took some trial and error for players to figure out which bottle was which. Sophie started off asking for one of eight ingredients, and then asked for different ones several hours later. The next day, she asked for a third group of reagents. Two of the bottles - [[Slorg]] Slime and Water [[Dung]] - were never used.
 
{| class="wikitable collapsible" style="margin: 0 auto;"
!colspan="3"|Sophie's ingredients (left to right)
|- style="text-align:center;"
!Top Shelf
!Middle Shelf
!Bottom Shelf
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
|
#[[Bagguss]] Juice
#[[Juppie]] Extract
#[[Kadoatie]] Essence
#Tanglevine Sap
#Liquid [[Chokato]] Mould
#Moonwater
#Liquid Meepit
#Slorg Slime
#Bloatershroom Extract
#Liquified Bumroot
|
<ol><li value="11">Crushweed juice</li>
<li>Boiled Tree Bark</li>
<li>Worm [[Snot]]</li>
<li>Soaked [[Babaa]] Wool</li>
<li>Spicy [[Pick Your Own|Mortogberry]]</li>
<li>[[Word Poker|Jurple]] Butter</li>
<li>Boiled [[Meowclops]] Saliva</li>
<li>Barkroot Dew</li></ol>
|
<ol><li value="19">Watery Dung</li>
<li>[[Grundo]] Goo</li>
<li>Powdered Bloodfern</li>
<li>Pureed Sharpgrass</li>
<li>Mutant Gruel</li>
<li>Evaporated [[Snorkle]] Juice</li>
<li>Ghostbeef Essence</li>
<li>[[Zomutt]] Mucus</li></ol>
|}
|}
The three heroes arrived at [[The Foreman|The Caretaker]]'s Shack to find his indices had been stolen by an unknown thief. Without them they could not find and search all the graves of the Haunted Woods, so they searched for them and eventually found them in a maze (corresponding to the plot action in [[Fetch!]]), and had The Caretaker guide them through the gravesites.


Bruno dug up the graves while Gilly helped Sophie create and use potions on the bones unearthed one by one, until one of the bones tested glows, signifying if was of the Spirit of Slumber. Sophie excitedly asked which grave it came from, and Gilly pointed to a broken headstone which bore no name, to which Sophie cried out in frustration. Without much enthusiasm, they all realized the needed to go back to every single gravestone, marking off the legible names they found on the gravestones from the indices and have only one remaining name, it being the Spirit of Slumber's. Upon returning to the Caretaker's Shack however, he was furious they had dug up all the graves of the Haunted Woods and taken his indices, and chased them out. Realizing they needed to move more quietly through the graveyards because of the furious Caretaker, they set out writing off each name from the indices one by one.
If the player returned with the correct ingredient, they were rewarded with 50 [[Neopoints]].
 
====Exhuming graves====
[[Image:Tow open grave.gif|left|frame|An open grave.]]


{|align=left
{| class="wikitable collapsible collapsed" style="float:right; margin:0;"
|http://images.neopets.com/images/frontpage/towchapter7_2s9jsj83.gif
!Digging prizes
|-
|
*Spooky Doughnut
*Ghost Marshmallows
*Fetch! Stamp
*Meowclops Statue
*Sludgy
*Mystery Of Halloween
*Halloween [[Ixi]] [[Plushie]]
*Crystal Ball Table
*Slorg
*Magic Ghost Marshmallows
*Halloween [[Kau]] Plushie
*Halloween [[Wocky]] Plushie
*Halloween [[Koi]] Plushie
*Halloween [[Kacheek]] Plushie
*Halloween [[Lupe]] Plushie
*Pink Spooky Popcorn
*Candy Skull
*Halloween [[Petpet]] [[Paint Brush]]
*Halloween Paint Brush
|}
|}
They eventually found the name ''Jubart Igig'' and they all returned to Sophie's shack where she read up on a ways to summon the Spirit of Slumber. After reading the proper spell, Sophie slammed the book and said it wouldn't work, explaining the only way to summon the Spirit of Slumber was for someone to drink it a special potion and allow him to inhabit their body. Bruno volunteered, to which Sophie objected, saying she didn't want to lose him again. But Bruno reasoned with her, pointing out Gilly was too small and she was needed to create the potion, making him the only choice to bring their family back.


Sophie began making potions, two of which Bruno drank and became really hairy and shrunk in size, but upon drinking the third potion, he dropped the flask to the floor and a sinister gaze was fixed upon his face, signifying he was possessed by the Spirit of Slumber. When asked why he was summoned, Sophie asked him to reverse the spell he placed on Neovia, to which he smiled and agreed.  
To interact with a grave, the user had to be on a square adjacent to one, then click the grave's square. To dig up a grave, there had to be exactly four users (represented by their active Neopet) at the grave site. When a digging team of four was assembled, they had to dig in sequence, with each user's turn indicated to them by a pink highlight around their Neopet. To join a digging team, there had to be at least one empty space. Between their turns at digging, the users clicked the "Wait" button.
 
A player had fifteen seconds to dig when it was their turn, or they would be skipped. If a player missed their turn three times, they were kicked from the digging team and the rest of the players had to wait for a new fourth player to join them. Players could also leave the team voluntarily to try joining another team, but would have to wait five minutes before trying again as if they had successfully completed the task.
 
Every time the player dug, there was a one in three chance of uncovering an item. Mostly commonly, this would be a ''Pile of Grave Soil'', which the player would leave behind so they didn't clutter up their Inventory. Any other items the player uncovered would be added to their inventory - this ranged from a Spooky Doughnut (the most common) to a Halloween Paint Brush (the most rare).
 
====Bone testing====
[[Image:Tow spirit's bones.gif|right|frame|The Spirit's "bones glow with an unearthly silver light."]]
In order to test whether the dug up bones are those of the Spirit of Slumber, the user took some potion from Sophie, entered the graveyard, and found an open grave. The user could "Wait" at a grave being dug up until the coffin was exhumed to test it, as well as looking for a coffin already uncovered.
 
If the user was first to the coffin with the potion, they were asked to "Continue", and were then given the mass and volume of one of the bones. They were then asked to decide how many drops of potion, up to 250, were needed to test the bone correctly. The formula for working out the number of droplets needed was  
 
 
that is, the density squared, times twenty-five. The result was to be rounded to its nearest whole number.
 
If the player used too many or too few drops of potion, Gilly would either get charred by an explosion or sick from the fumes.
 
After testing a bone, the user saw whether or not the bone was the Spirit's. If it wasn't, the user gained 150 [[NP]] and had to wait a while before being able to test a bone again. The user could return the potion to Sophie on the control panel after taking it if they were unable to, or did not wish to, test a bone. They would not be able to use the potion again for a five minutes.
 
The Spirit of Slumber's bones were the 129,700<sup>th</sup> tested, and were found by the player [http://www.neopets.com/userlookup.phtml?user=heavenest heavenest].
 
===Process of elimination===
 
After they identified the Spirit's grave, Bruno, Gilly, and Sophie discovered that the headstone was missing. In order to find out his name, players had to go through the Caretaker's records and cross off every name that was on another gravestone until only one was left.  


Sophie and Gilly followed the possessed Bruno back to Neovia. Along the way, Sophie reassured Gilly [[werelupe]]s weren't normally seen in the woods around Neovia, while Ginny reassured Sophie the town and her family would be cured as Sophie looked at the charred remains of the locket her mother gave her.
If the player had kept a note of the graves they had visited in the previous step, they could cross off these names right away. Otherwise, they had to visit the 1,586 graveyards and check the names again. Sophie had taken the Caretaker's reference books, which were organised by date of death. The player had to look up the date of death from the gravestone, and then cross off the name they had seen.  


{|align=right
Once a name was marked off, a red 'x' was painted on the gravestone. Working together, players managed to rule out all but one name by 28 October - the Spirit of Slumber's real name was Jubart Igig.
|http://images.neopets.com/images/frontpage/towchapter8_fo3wds43ls.gif
 
===The Summoning Potion===
[[Image:tow bruno hairy.gif|left|frame|Bruno had to suffer Sophie's trial-and-error.]]
In order to summon the Spirit, Sophie needed to make a potion for Bruno to drink. However, she wasn't sure of exactly which ingredients, or how much of them, she needed.
 
In this step, the player had to create three potions before Sophie got it right. Each experiment started with a cauldron full of red potion, and the player had to change it into a different colour. Each ingredient they could add could change some colours of potions into a different colour. For example, an ingredient might change a red potion to a blue potion, a green potion to a red potion, and have no effect on a blue potion. What each ingredient did to each colour potion was different for each player and each experiment.
 
{| class="wikitable" style="margin: 0 auto; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"
!colspan="5"|Ingredients
|- style="background-color:#ffffff;"
|style="width:100px;"|[[Image:Tow bumroot.gif|Bumroot]]
|style="width:100px;"|[[Image:Tow slorgblossom.gif|Leafy Slorgblossom]]
|style="width:100px;"|[[Image:Tow jurpleberries.gif|Crushed Jurpleberries]]
|style="width:100px;"|[[Image:Tow salt.gif|Salt]]
|style="width:100px;"|[[Image:Tow sansam.gif|Bronze Sansam]]
|-
|Bumroot
|Leafy Slorgblossom
|Crushed Jurpleberries
|Salt
|Bronze Sansam
|}
|}
the Spirit of Slumber led them to Neovia's town square, and he raised his hands and said, "Let the spell be undone!"  In an instant, the inhabitants of Neovia and Sophie’s family were restored to material form as Bruno fell unconscious. As Sophie tried to wake Bruno saying their family was cured, Gilly was trying to get her attention as she stared at the Neovians. Annoyed, Sophie turned around and watched in horror as the Neovians began to transform, realizing the Spirit of Slumber only reversed his spell and not the potion. They returned to their cursed forms and mutated even more monstrous, including her mother, father and brother. Sophie ran in horror at the sight, and Gilly and Bruno tried to chase after her, but were surrounded by the mutated Neovians.


===Into the fray===
In the first experiment, the player had the first three ingredients to use - Bumroot, Leafy Slorgblossom, and Crushed Jurpleberries. The player had to make a purple potion without adding more than four ingredients - adding too many ingredients would cause to potion to turn black and bubble over, and the user would have to start again. The purple potion wasn't right - it just made Bruno grow a lot of hair.  
Mayor Thumburt pointed to Gilly and Bruno, saying they were to blame for the way they were now, and the Neovians attacked. Bruno scanned the angry crowd and saw lurking at the edge Mr. Krawley. He began to run away after he was noticed, and Bruno urged Gilly to chase after him as he fought back the crowd. Gilly ran after Mr. Krawley into a graveyard, whose gravestones turned to life and attacked her. Grabbing a nearby shovel (perhaps left by a gravedigger), Gilly defeated all the gravestones, after which Mr. Krawley used his magic to bring the surrounding trees to life, which Gilly needed to defeat as well before continuing her chase of him.


{|align=left
In the second experiment, the player had a new ingredient to work with - Salt - and had to make a four-colour swirl potion. They could add up to six things before the potion boiled over. The potion they began with was different to the first potion - this meant that the ingredients would have a slightly different effect. This potion ended up shrinking Bruno instead.
|http://images.neopets.com/images/frontpage/towchapter10_di239dksi3.gif
 
In the third experiment, the player had another new ingredient - Bronze Sansam. The player could add up to nine things in order to make a silver and red potion. This was the correct potion at last.
 
===Chasing Mr. Krawley===
 
After the Spirit of Slumber undid his spell, Bruno had to fight the Neovian townspeople, who had been restored to corporeal form but were still afflicted by Mr. Krawley's potion. Meanwhile, Gilly saw Mr. Krawley and chased after him towards [[Meepit Oaks]]. Players could take to the [[Battledome]] to fight against the monsters they encountered.
 
The monsters were released in four waves. First, players helped Gilly defeat animated gravestones starting on 2 November, then they fought against animated trees from 4 November. Players could help Bruno fight against the townspeople from 7 November, and the mysterious shadows from 8 November.
 
Unlike previous plots where players could carry on earning points for as many opponents as they could defeat, each opponent had a limit. After the player passed this limit, they could carry on fighting the opponent, but couldn't earn any more plot points from them.
 
<div style="text-align:center;">
{| class="wikitable" style="display:inline-block; margin: 0 5px; text-align:center; border:0;"
|-
!style="width:150px;"| Enemy || Win limit || Difficulty
|-
!colspan="3" style="font-weight:normal;"| ''1st Wave''
|-
|[[Image:ostones.gif]]<br>[[Ominous Stones]] || 30 || 8
|-
|[[Image:mstones.gif]]<br>[[Macabre Stones]] || 30 || 10
|-
|[[Image:fstones.gif]]<br>[[Furious Stones]] || 30 || 12
|-
!colspan="3" style="font-weight:normal;"| ''2nd Wave''
|-
|[[Image:blelm.gif]]<br>[[Black Elm]] || 20 || 15
|-
|[[Image:blabeech.gif]]<br>[[Blathering Beech]] || 20 || 30
|-
|[[Image:savsyc.gif]]<br>[[Savage Sycamore]] || 20 || 50
|}
|}
Chasing Mr. Krawley to the front of '''Meepit Oaks''', Gilly confronted him and he revealed himself as Mr. Krawley for the first time, but said it was not him she needed, but what was inside the asylum. Calling him a liar, Krawley said he led her there for a reason. Just then, Zombie Neopets moaning for brains walked into the courtyard, blocking escape. Krawley said she needed to make a decision, as the way out was closing, and Gilly hesitantly walked inside.
{| class="wikitable" style="display:inline-block; margin:0; text-align:center; border:0;"
|-
!style="width:150px;"| Enemy || Win limit || Difficulty
|-
!colspan="3" style="font-weight:normal;"| ''3rd Wave''
|-
|[[Image:hdorf.gif]]<br>[[Herman Dorfdrap]] || 20 || 55
|-
|[[Image:bjub.gif]]<br>[[Bennie the Jub]] || 20 || 100
|-
|[[Image:distown.gif]]<br>[[Disgruntled Townspeople]] || 20 || 200
|-
!colspan="3" style="font-weight:normal;"| ''4th Wave''
|-
|[[Image:shrishad.gif]]<br>[[Shrieking Shadow]] || 25 || 50
|-
|[[Image:creshad.gif]]<br>[[Creeping Shadows]] || 20 || 75
|-
|[[Image:malshad.gif]]<br>[[Malevolent Shadow]] || 15 || 150
|}
</div>
 
===The Curing Potion===
 
In this step, players had to help Sophie create the antidote to Mr. Krawley's potion. Unlike creating the summoning potion, Sophie had to start from scratch.
 
Players had to produce five different potions by creating increasingly complicated composites. Composites were made from raw ingredients that had been prepared by burning, crushing, soaking, and/or desiccating. Composites had four magical properties - Conjuration, Divination, Enchantment, and Power. The four different preparations increased or decreased these properties, in different ways for different ingredients. An ingredient could be burnt for up to 30 seconds per gram, crushed for up to 60 seconds per gram, soaked for up to 90 seconds per gram, or desiccated for up to 120 seconds per gram. Any more than this wouldn't be able to change the magical property levels any further.


Meanwhile, Bruno fought against the crowd of Neovians being herded by Mayor Thumburt, and hid in a cellar when the danger became too great. From the safety of the cellar, he saw his parents cursing him, and mourned at the fact he couldn't help them.
When the player produced a composite, it changed colour depending on which was its highest property. If it had two properties within ten points of each other, it showed a combination of those colours. The player could also see the exact numbers for each property each composite they made had.  


Sophie ran all the way back to her shack, and on the inside finally collected herself and began to make a potion to cure Neovia, which she tested on her [[Meowclops]] who went through many side effects before becoming a safe potion. After completing the concoction she left for Neovia but couldn't help thinking there was something still missing.
Each of the ten ingredients are modified in a different way when the player performs a certain operation on them. The maximum amount each property can be modified is listed below. This information had to be worked out by players during the plot.  


{|align=right
{| class="wikitable collapsible" style="margin:0 auto;width:807px;" cellpadding="0"
|http://images.neopets.com/images/frontpage/towchapter13_ew832isu3i.gif
!colspan="2"|Ingredient property changes
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
|
{| class="wikitable collapsible collapsed" style="width:400px;margin:0;"
|-
|style="width:80px;background-color:#ffffff;"|[[Image:Tow bumroot.gif|Bumroot]]
!colspan="4"|Bumroot
|-
!Action
!Conjuration
!Divination
!Enchantment
!Power
|-
!Burn
|<nowiki>+30</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+15</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+15</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+8</nowiki>
|-
!Crush
|<nowiki>+36</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+18</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+18</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+9</nowiki>
|-
!Soak
|<nowiki>+42</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+21</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+21</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+11</nowiki>
|-
!Desiccate
|<nowiki>+48</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+24</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+24</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+12</nowiki>
|}
|
{| class="wikitable collapsible collapsed" style="width:400px;margin:0;"
|-
|style="width:80px;background-color:#ffffff;"|[[Image:Tow slorgblossom.gif|Leafy Slorgblossom]]
!colspan="4"|Leafy Slorgblossom
|-
!Action
!Conjuration
!Divination
!Enchantment
!Power
|-
!Burn
|<nowiki>+8</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+30</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+15</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+15</nowiki>
|-
!Crush
|<nowiki>+9</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+36</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+18</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+18</nowiki>
|-
!Soak
|<nowiki>+11</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+42</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+21</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+21</nowiki>
|-
!Desiccate
|<nowiki>+12</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+48</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+24</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+24</nowiki>
|}
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
|
{| class="wikitable collapsible collapsed" style="width:400px;margin:0;"
|-
|style="width:80px;background-color:#ffffff;"|[[Image:Tow bagguss.gif|Bagguss Pulp]]
!colspan="4"|Bagguss Pulp
|-
!Action
!Conjuration
!Divination
!Enchantment
!Power
|-
!Burn
|<nowiki>+15</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+8</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+36</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+30</nowiki>
|-
!Crush
|<nowiki>+15</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+8</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+36</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+30</nowiki>
|-
!Soak
|<nowiki>+21</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+11</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+51</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+42</nowiki>
|-
!Desiccate
|<nowiki>+24</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+12</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+58</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+48</nowiki>
|}
|
{| class="wikitable collapsible collapsed" style="width:400px;margin:0;"
|-
|style="width:80px;background-color:#ffffff;"|[[Image:Tow sharpgrass.gif|Sharpgrass]]
!colspan="4"|Sharpgrass
|-
!Action
!Conjuration
!Divination
!Enchantment
!Power
|-
!Burn
|<nowiki>+60</nowiki>
|<nowiki>-6</nowiki>
|<nowiki>-3</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+60</nowiki>
|-
!Crush
|<nowiki>-6</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+60</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+60</nowiki>
|<nowiki>-12</nowiki>
|-
!Soak
|<nowiki>+90</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+90</nowiki>
|<nowiki>-18</nowiki>
|<nowiki>-9</nowiki>
|-
!Desiccate
|<nowiki>-24</nowiki>
|<nowiki>-12</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+90</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+90</nowiki>
|}
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
|
{| class="wikitable collapsible collapsed" style="width:400px;margin:0;"
|-
|style="width:80px;background-color:#ffffff;"|[[Image:Tow bloodfern.gif|Bloodfern Loam]]
!colspan="4"|Bloodfern Loam
|-
!Action
!Conjuration
!Divination
!Enchantment
!Power
|-
!Burn
|<nowiki>+60</nowiki>
|<nowiki>-30</nowiki>
|<nowiki>-30</nowiki>
|<nowiki>-30</nowiki>
|-
!Crush
|<nowiki>+390</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+120</nowiki>
|<nowiki>-90</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+180</nowiki>
|-
!Soak
|<nowiki>-90</nowiki>
|<nowiki>-90</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+90</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+270</nowiki>
|-
!Desiccate
|<nowiki>-30</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+330</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+360</nowiki>
|<nowiki>-90</nowiki>
|}
|
{| class="wikitable collapsible collapsed" style="width:400px;margin:0;"
|-
|style="width:80px;background-color:#ffffff;"|[[Image:Tow jurpleberries.gif|Crushed Jurpleberries]]
!colspan="4"|Crushed Jurpleberries
|-
!Action
!Conjuration
!Divination
!Enchantment
!Power
|-
!Burn
|<nowiki>0</nowiki>
|<nowiki>0</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+180</nowiki>
|<nowiki>0</nowiki>
|-
!Crush
|<nowiki>+180</nowiki>
|<nowiki>0</nowiki>
|<nowiki>0</nowiki>
|<nowiki>0</nowiki>
|-
!Soak
|<nowiki>0</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+180</nowiki>
|<nowiki>0</nowiki>
|<nowiki>0</nowiki>
|-
!Desiccate
|<nowiki>0</nowiki>
|<nowiki>0</nowiki>
|<nowiki>0</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+180</nowiki>
|}
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
|
{| class="wikitable collapsible collapsed" style="width:400px;margin:0;"
|-
|style="width:80px;background-color:#ffffff;"|[[Image:Tow wool.gif|Babaa Wool]]
!colspan="4"|Babaa Wool
|-
!Action
!Conjuration
!Divination
!Enchantment
!Power
|-
!Burn
|<nowiki>+300</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+300</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+300</nowiki>
|<nowiki>-1,200</nowiki>
|-
!Crush
|<nowiki>+300</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+300</nowiki>
|<nowiki>-1,200</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+300</nowiki>
|-
!Soak
|<nowiki>+300</nowiki>
|<nowiki>-1,200</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+300</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+300</nowiki>
|-
!Desiccate
|<nowiki>-1,200</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+300</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+300</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+300</nowiki>
|}
|
{| class="wikitable collapsible collapsed" style="width:400px;margin:0;"
|-
|style="width:80px;background-color:#ffffff;"|[[Image:Tow sansam.gif|Bronze Sansam]]
!colspan="4"|Bronze Sansam
|-
!Action
!Conjuration
!Divination
!Enchantment
!Power
|-
!Burn
|<nowiki>+120</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+150</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+90</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+180</nowiki>
|-
!Crush
|<nowiki>+180</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+240</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+180</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+240</nowiki>
|-
!Soak
|<nowiki>+180</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+270</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+180</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+90</nowiki>
|-
!Desiccate
|<nowiki>+120</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+240</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+60</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+12</nowiki>
|}
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
|
{| class="wikitable collapsible collapsed" style="width:400px;margin:0;"
|-
|style="width:80px;background-color:#ffffff;"|[[Image:Tow madvine.gif|Madvine Root]]
!colspan="4"|Madvine Root
|-
!Action
!Conjuration
!Divination
!Enchantment
!Power
|-
!Burn
|<nowiki>+120</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+300</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+240</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+660</nowiki>
|-
!Crush
|<nowiki>+360</nowiki>
|<nowiki>-120</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+240</nowiki>
|<nowiki>-480</nowiki>
|-
!Soak
|<nowiki>-270</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+300</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+540</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+480</nowiki>
|-
!Desiccate
|<nowiki>+180</nowiki>
|<nowiki>-240</nowiki>
|<nowiki>-120</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+60</nowiki>
|}
|
{| class="wikitable collapsible collapsed" style="width:400px;margin:0;"
|-
|style="width:80px;background-color:#ffffff;"|[[Image:Tow essence.gif|Nova Essence]]
!colspan="4"|Nova Essence
|-
!Action
!Conjuration
!Divination
!Enchantment
!Power
|-
!Burn
|<nowiki>-540</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+420</nowiki>
|<nowiki>-360</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+240</nowiki>
|-
!Crush
|<nowiki>+600</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+420</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+180</nowiki>
|<nowiki>-540</nowiki>
|-
!Soak
|<nowiki>+540</nowiki>
|<nowiki>-360</nowiki>
|<nowiki>-240</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+660</nowiki>
|-
!Desiccate
|<nowiki>+360</nowiki>
|<nowiki>-120</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+480</nowiki>
|<nowiki>+60</nowiki>
|}
|}
|}
Back at Meepit Oaks, Gilly walked through the corridors of the vacant asylum and fought off zombies and pieced together the mystery of what happened there, eventually finding an unwilted, glowing purple flower in a jail cell containing a long dead nurse named [[Lucy]]. Taking the flower and sneaking past the zombies on the outside, Gilly ran into Sophie who saw the flower and realized it was the final ingredient of the potion. Placing the flower in the potion, they set off to pour the contents into the well of Neovia.


{|align=left
====First potion====
|http://images.neopets.com/images/frontpage/towchapter15_so329s3lk2.gif
[[Image:Tow meowclops 1.gif|right|frame|Sophie's Meowclops became a test subject.]]
|}
 
At Neovia, the residents were waiting for her, but she blasted away all of them except Mayor Thumburt, who told her to go home and pretend nothing happened, sparing herself the heartache she would feel if the cure failed. Saying she would take her chances, she blasted the Mayor with her magic, who easily deflected it and hit her to the ground. Bruno pounced upon Mayor Thumburt and pulled him off her, realizing he was much stronger than he appeared. All three of them gathered together and fought against Mayor Thumburt, who began to mutate and become more powerful, until he was turned into a [[Moquot]] by Sophie.
.  
 
Without Bruno to test the potion on, Sophie tested it on her [[Petpet]] [[Meowclops]] instead.  
 
Sophie noted, "The smell of burning Meowclops hair is to be avoided at all costs."
 
====Second potion====
[[Image:Tow meowclops 2.gif|left|frame|The Meowclops grew an extra head.]]
, the second composite, but couldn't use more than 10 grams of any one ingredient in it - due to a bug, this requirement wasn't actually checked.
 
The player had a fourth ingredient to work with, Sharpgrass.
 
Sophie admonished her Meowclops for fighting with its [[Bearog]] head.
 
====Third potion====
[[Image:Tow meowclops 3.gif|right|frame|The Meowclops gained delusions of grandeur.]]
For the third potion, players had two more ingredients to work with, Bloodfern Loam and Crushed Jurpleberries. They had to produce two composites,
 
The other composite the player needed was a special composite called Spectral Essence. Sophie eventually remembered that it was made from Bloodfern Loam and Leafy Slorgblossom, but couldn't remember which property it needed. In fact, any composite that combined at least one gram each of Bloodfern Loam and Leafy Slorgblossom, with a Power property of at least +350 would become Spectral Essence.
 
'Dr. Meowsloth' complained, "You fool! You'll pay for this treachery! I, Dr. Sloth, will bring your ruin down upon you!"
 
====Fourth potion====
[[Image:Tow meowclops 4.gif|left|frame|The Meowclops resembled a cubist painting.]]
For this potion, the player could also work with
 
The other two composites they had to produce were special composites. They had to produce another 10 grams of Spectral Essence, but had to prepare it so that it and Babaa Wool. It required Conjuration and Diviniation properties of +200 or more, and no one ingredient could constitute more than 40% of the Goo by mass.
 
This [[wikipedia:cubist|cubist]] Meowclops couldn't even mew correctly - it said "Emw" instead.
 
====Fifth potion====
[[Image:Tow cure potion.gif|frame|right|Sophie's last attempt.]]
For the final potion, the player had access to Madvine Root and Nova Essence.
 
For this potion, the . and , or Psionic Singularity. Which one they needed was chosen at random.
 
Platinum Mist was made from twice as much Bronze Sansam as Sharpgrass, along with Madvine Root. All four magical properties needed to be +300 or more. Ice Plasma needed exactly one gram of Nova Essence mixed with Bumroot and Sharpgrass. Two of its properties had to have negative values, and the other two positive or 0 values. Psionic Singularity was made from four times as much Madvine Root as Nova Essence. To make it, any action had to be performed on either one (but not the other) of the ingredients for one second per gram. Sophie gave hints to help the player figure out what to combine for this composite.
 
This was Sophie's last try at making the cure. "If this one's not safe, then I don't know what I'll do..."
 
===The Meepit Oaks Sanitorium for the Psychologically Fragile===
[[Image:Tow meepit oaks dining room.gif|left|frame|Meepit Oaks was abandoned for a reason.]]
In the next step, the player helped Gilly explore the abandoned asylum, [[The Meepit Oaks Sanitorium for the Psychologically Fragile]]. After Gilly got past the animated gravestones and possessed trees that the player had battled during an earlier step, she was chased inside the asylum by a crowd of zombies. The player found Meepit Oaks by clicking on the mist in between two buildings at the top centre of the Neovia map.
 
The asylum consisted of a maze of several rooms: an admissions lobby, a dining room, an outside courtyard, a supply room, and a cell block with five cells. The staff and patients are either dead or missing. Each pair of rooms was connected by identical looking hallways. In each hallway there were six doors - one led back to where the player had come from, one led forwards to the next room, and all the others led back to the same hallway. Which door did what was chosen at random for each player.
 
As they explore, the player and Gilly find journal pages scattered in different rooms that describe the last days of the sanitorium's head nurse, [[Lucy]] the [[Acara]]. She and two other asylum staff - [[Dr. Valus]] the [[Scorchio]] and the janitor [[Miles]] the [[Nimmo]] - had been left in charge of Meepit Oaks while the rest of the staff went back to their families in Neovia for Halloween. They must have become caught up in the Spirit of Slumber's spell, because they never returned, and when Dr. Valus visited Neovia the next day, the town was deserted.
 
Together, the three remaining employees struggled to look after all the patients until help arrived in the charismatic, golden-eyed Dr. Alexander from [[Neopia Central]]. He brought a special elixir that made the patients subdued and easier to care for - it is left to the players to make the connection between Dr. Alexander and his elixir and Mr. Krawley and his Hissi Oil. Dr. Alexander gave Lucy a magic, glowing flower that would never wilt, and needed no sunlight or water.
 
Dr. Alexander disappeared, and without the supply of the elixir, the patients became violent again. One of them escaped his restraints when Dr. Valus tried to feed him, and he let out the rest of the inmates. They attacked the remaining staff, and locked Lucy in one of the cells.
[[Image:Tow gilly zombies.gif|frame|right|"Thanks for the idea, Bruno!"]]
Gilly and the player arrive in Meepit Oaks' admissions lobby. There, they can find a page of Lucy's journal and two lamps bolted to the floor. The bolts on one of the lamps have rusted through enough the Gilly can pull it up when the player clicks on it, and it gets added to the Quest Inventory. The lobby had doors leading to the left and right. The left hand door led to the dining room, and the right hand door led to the courtyard.
 
The courtyard had four doors in it, one leading to the dining room, one to the lobby, one to the storage room, and one to the cell block (left to right). In the cell block, the player finds the way forward blocked by Miles' Petpet [[Zomutt]]. Lucy's journal provided a clue to how to placate the Zomutt - it seems it had buried a bone it had found in the courtyard. Returning there, the player could find where it was buried, but they needed a shovel to dig it up.
 
Gilly and the player could find one in the storage room, along with the skeleton of the late Dr. Valus. It seems like he might have been looking for a weapon to defend himself with, but ironically, he had asked Miles to put a lock on the tool closet "so that Dr. Kirkbride will stop stealing gardening supplies". Searching Dr. Valus' pockets, they discovered a journal page and a key, but not to the tool closet. The player needed to fetch the key from Miles before they could get a shovel.
 
Miles' corpse was in the dining room, surrounded by zombies. They would chase Gilly and the player away before they could reach Miles or the journal page. The player had to use the lamp from the lobby as an improvised weapon to shoo them off. The key was in Miles' breast pocket. The player could now unlock the closet and retrieve a shovel, and then use this to dig up the Zomutt's bone.  


With the Mayor finally defeated, Sophie urged Bruno to drink the potion, who instead told her to pour the contents into the well to cure Neovia. Returning the next day after all the residents had a drink from the well, they were greeted warmly by everyone, including Sophie and Bruno's family. Returning to the well, Bruno quickly drank from its waters, only to realize he was cursed too long. This didn't bother him, however, as he was used to his form now. Edmund rejoiced in having the family together again, but Sophie said she didn't feel home in Neovia anymore, and was used to being alone. As she bid them goodbye, Gilly saw Mr. Krawley smiling as he watched from a dark alley, who then disappeared in a puff of purple smoke.
This would occupy the Zomutt enough so that the player could enter the cell block. All the cell doors were rusty and locked. Dr. Valus' key would open only one, where the final journal page was: Lucy's cell.


===The end===
===Mayor Thumburt===
With the Tale of Woe finished, the Pink Elephante bid the children who were listening good night, and said it was best not to wander into the woods after dark, as you never knew what would swallow the unwary. Later, when users and their Neopets came to visit the Elephante again, they find he had disappeared, and when they asked a Red [[Wocky]] gypsy where the Elephante who told The Tale of Woe was, she said there was never an Elephante in their camp.


==Plot participation==
After Gilly and Sophie were reunited, Sophie combined the flower with her golden potion to produce the cure. They planned to put it into the town's water supply, but first they had to get past [[Mayor Thumburt]]. Players were challenged by him when they visited Neovia, and helped out by attacking him in the [[Battledome]]. His challenge made his motivations clear:
Plot participation put the user in the role of the lead characters of the plot, helping them in certain situations as the plot progressed.


For an in-depth look at what users needed to do to complete the plot, see [[The Tale of Woe plot completion]].
<blockquote>''"He was elected to be mayor of the town, but who ever really wants to be just mayor?"''</blockquote>


==Quest inventory==
Mayor Thumburt was too strong for any player to defeat individually, but their combined effort slowly weakened him. Players earned plot points for losing to him up to 30 times. As the fight wore on, the Hissi Oil's effects on the Mayor became more pronounced and he became more and more monstrous. Each of his three forms carried different Battledome equipment.
This plot brought in a feature called the '''Quest Inventory''', where items discovered in the plot are stored. Items in this inventory cannot be used, traded, or stolen in the way items in the [[Inventory]] can, like previous plot quest items in the past.
 
{| style="margin:0 auto;"
|-
||
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center; width:120px;"
|-
![[Mayor Thumburt#First Form|First Form]] || Difficulty
|-
||[[Image:Mayor_15ca79bf08.gif]]
||10,000
|}
|
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center; width:120px;"
|-
! [[Mayor Thumburt#Second Form|Second Form]] || Difficulty
|-
||[[Image:Mayor 2d41c753c4.gif]] || 100,000
|}
|
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center; width:120px;"
|-
![[Mayor Thumburt#Third Form|Third Form]] || Difficulty
|-
||[[Image:Mayor_38324c61a5.gif]] || 100,000
|}
|}


==Prizes==
==Prizes==
{| style="float:right;width:360px;text-align:center;border:0;"
{| class="wikitable collapsible collapsed" style="float:right;width:360px;text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:center;font-style:italic;font-size:8pt;background-color:#bbbbbb;" colspan="3"|Task Trophies
!colspan="3"|Task Trophies
|-
|-
!style="width:80px;text-align:center;font-weight:normal;background-color:#bbbbbb;"|Trophy
!Trophy
!style="width:80px;text-align:center;font-weight:normal;background-color:#bbbbbb;"|Criteria
!Criteria
!style="width:200px;text-align:center;font-weight:normal;background-color:#bbbbbb;"|Ranks
!Ranks
|-
|-
|http://images.neopets.com/halloween/hwp/trophies/hwp_trophy_digs_82cf57ce1c.gif
|http://images.neopets.com/halloween/hwp/trophies/hwp_trophy_digs_82cf57ce1c.gif
Line 110: Line 876:
|Completed Graves
|Completed Graves
|'''Grave Digger''' 1 - 4<br />'''Bone Thief''' 5 - 21 - ?<br />'''Mortician''' ? - 25 - 110 - ?
|'''Grave Digger''' 1 - 4<br />'''Bone Thief''' 5 - 21 - ?<br />'''Mortician''' ? - 25 - 110 - ?
|-
|http://images.neopets.com/halloween/hwp/trophies/hwp_trophy_testing_4d60381703.gif
|Bone Testing
|'''Potion Spiller''' 1 - 2<br>'''Bone Exploder''' 3 - 10 - ?<br>'''Scientist''' ? - 12 - 15 - ?
|-
|-
|http://images.neopets.com/halloween/hwp/trophies/hwp_trophy_potions_71d801d938.gif
|http://images.neopets.com/halloween/hwp/trophies/hwp_trophy_potions_71d801d938.gif
Line 117: Line 887:
|http://images.neopets.com/halloween/hwp/trophies/hwp_trophy_names_73d295f746.gif
|http://images.neopets.com/halloween/hwp/trophies/hwp_trophy_names_73d295f746.gif
|Name Elimination  
|Name Elimination  
|'''I Can Read™''' 1 - 3 <br>'''Bookworm''' 4 - 25 - ?<br>'''Head Librarian''' ? - 32 - 204 - ?
|'''I Can ''' 1 - 3 <br>'''Bookworm''' 4 - 25 - ?<br>'''Head Librarian''' ? - 32 - 204 - ?
|}
|}


On the January 4, 2007, The Neopets Team released the [http://neopets.com/halloween/hwp/stats.phtml user statistics] page which marked each step of the plot the user had completed. Additionally, the statistics for the user's fights in the Battledome opponents were included along with minor trophies and ranks associated with other tasks during the plot.
On the January 4, 2007, The Neopets Team released the [http://www.neopets.com/halloween/hwp/stats.phtml user statistics] page which marked each step of the plot the user had completed. Additionally, the statistics for the user's fights in the Battledome opponents were included along with minor trophies and ranks associated with other tasks during the plot. At the same time, the official plot solution was released.


At the same time, the official plot solution was released.
{| style="text-align:center;border:0;margin:0 auto;"
!style="text-align:center;font-weight:bold;" colspan="7"|<big><big><big>Trophies</big></big></big>
|-
|http://images.neopets.com/halloween/hwp/trophies/hwp_trophy_1_e29fdb5cca.gif
|http://images.neopets.com/halloween/hwp/trophies/hwp_trophy_2_0cff20b5ca.gif
|http://images.neopets.com/halloween/hwp/trophies/hwp_trophy_3_5e76bf00fa.gif
|http://images.neopets.com/halloween/hwp/trophies/hwp_trophy_4_df9d1168a0.gif
|http://images.neopets.com/halloween/hwp/trophies/hwp_trophy_5_56b107e4f4.gif
|http://images.neopets.com/halloween/hwp/trophies/hwp_trophy_6_ca33aee5fd.gif
|http://images.neopets.com/halloween/hwp/trophies/hwp_trophy_7_baef4b8eef.gif
|- style="background-color:#00aa55;color:#ffffff;font-weight:bold;font-size:90%;"
|Swamp Slorg
|Asylum Inmate
|Vine Weaver
|Meepit Wrangler
|Neovian Citizen
|Master Chemist
|style="padding: 0 2px;"|Honorary Mayor of Neovia
|}


Overall plot points were not given until March 2, 2007, when a new trophy for a [[User Lookup]] was given showing the total number of points given based on the overall participation in the plot. [http://neopets.com/halloween/hwp/shack.phtml Visiting Sophie's Shack] awarded the user with the Tale of Woe [[sidebar]] theme and the ''Tale of Woe - Krawley'' [[avatar]], providing the user had participated in the plot.  
Overall plot points were not given until March 2, 2007, when a new trophy for a [[User Lookup]] was given showing the total number of points given based on the overall participation in the plot. [http://neopets.com/halloween/hwp/shack.phtml Visiting Sophie's Shack] awarded the user with the Tale of Woe [[sidebar]] theme and the ''Tale of Woe - Krawley'' [[avatar]], providing the user had participated in the plot.  


Additionally, a selection of 32 prizes was provided for users to 'purchase' with their plot points. 'Spending' the points did not result in the player using the points that had earned them their rank. Most of the plot prizes were references to the activities of or user responses to the plot.
Additionally, Sophie now offered a selection of 32 prizes for users to 'purchase' with their plot points. 'Spending' the points did not result in the player losing the points that had earned them their rank. Most of the plot prizes were references to the activities of or user responses to the plot.
 
<br clear="all" />


The complete list of plot prizes stands as follows:
The prizes to choose from were:


{| style="width:100%;border:0;"
{| style="margin:0 auto;"
|width="50%;" valign="top"|
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
|
*'''Hissi Oil Keychain''' - 25 points
*'''Hissi Oil Keychain''' - 25 points
:''Guaranteed to solve all your key-storage problems, or your money back.''
*:''Guaranteed to solve all your key-storage problems, or your money back.''
*'''Package of Assorted Vines''' - 50 points
*'''Package of Assorted Vines''' - 50 points
:''Ooh! Its got a yellow one!''
*:''Ooh! Its got a yellow one!''
*'''Titanium Grave-Digging Spork''' - 75 points
*'''Titanium Grave-Digging Spork''' - 75 points
:''It will never rust, which is good because it will take you ages just to dig a single grave with it.''
*:''It will never rust, which is good because it will take you ages just to dig a single grave with it.''
*'''Surplus Bone-Testing Kit''' - 100 points
*'''Surplus Bone-Testing Kit''' - 100 points
:''If only there were any bones left to test.''
*:''If only there were any bones left to test.''
*'''Talking Tombstone Alarm Clock''' - 500 points
*'''Talking Tombstone Alarm Clock''' - 500 points
:''Mostly it just talks to itself.''
*:''Mostly it just talks to itself.''
*'''Haunted Woods Graveyard Reference, 57N1064 through R51-8AHS''' - 500 points
*'''Haunted Woods Graveyard Reference, 57N1064 through R51-8AHS''' - 500 points
:''Alphabetical order? What does that mean?''
*:''Alphabetical order? What does that mean?''
*'''Eau de Esophagor''' - 750 points
*'''Eau de [[Esophagor]]''' - 750 points
:''Contains hints of refuse, muck, and bile!''
*:''Contains hints of refuse, muck, and bile!''
*'''Gluten-Free Potion Composites Cookbook''' - 800 points
*'''Gluten-Free Potion Composites Cookbook''' - 800 points
:''For witches and wizards with sensitive digestive systems.''
*:''For witches and wizards with sensitive digestive systems.''
*'''E-Brand Chemistry for Beginners® Cross-Promotional Play Set™''' - 999 points
*'''[[E-Z BrandChemistry for Cross-Promotional Play ''' - 999 points
:''Sophie heartily endorses this event and/or product.''
*:''Sophie heartily endorses this event and/or product.''
*'''Two-Bobbleheaded Hissi''' - 1,000 points
*'''Two-Bobbleheaded Hissi''' - 1,000 points
:''They bob to avoid being poked with a stick again.''
*:''They bob to avoid being poked with a stick again.''
*'''Open Grave''' - 1,000 points'''
*'''Open Grave''' - 1,000 points'''
:''A perfect place to take a nap.''
*:''A perfect place to take a nap.''
|
*'''Graveyard Reference Book [[Plushie]]''' - 1,000 points
*'''Graveyard Reference Book [[Plushie]]''' - 1,000 points
:''Some of the least fun bedtime reading in history.''
*:''Some of the least fun bedtime reading in history.''
*'''Neovian Genealogy''' - 1,000 points
*'''Neovian Genealogy''' - 1,000 points
:''Skeith plus Zafara equals... Ixi??''
*:''Skeith plus Zafara equals... Ixi??''
*'''Ghost Meepit Dance Party Ultra Remix''' - 1,200 points
*'''Ghost Meepit Dance Party Ultra Remix''' - 1,200 points
:''Features the Hokey Pokey and other spin-around-in-a-circle favourites.''
*:''Features the Hokey Pokey and other spin-around-in-a-circle favourites.''
*'''Villager Pitchfork''' - 1,500 points
*'''Villager Pitchfork''' - 1,500 points
:''Wait a minute, Neovians arent farmers...''
*:''Wait a minute, Neovians arent farmers...''
*'''Haunted Chess Set''' - 2,000 points
*'''Haunted Chess Set''' - 2,000 points
:''Sometimes, the pawns move THREE spaces when you arent looking!''
*:''Sometimes, the pawns move THREE spaces when you arent looking!''
*'''Damp Cave Feng Shui''' - 2,000 points
*'''Damp Cave Feng Shui''' - 2,000 points
:''How to best arrange the furniture you have scavenged over the years.''
*:''How to best arrange the furniture you have scavenged over the years.''
 
|style="width:50%;" valign="top"|
*'''Ominous Stone Plushie''' - 2,000 points'''
*'''Ominous Stone Plushie''' - 2,000 points'''
:''Doubles as a handy, yet spooky pillow!''
*:''Doubles as a handy, yet spooky pillow!''
*'''Nurse Skeleton Bobblehead''' - 2,000 points
*'''Nurse Skeleton Bobblehead''' - 2,000 points
:''What is she so happy about?''
*:''What is she so happy about?''
*'''Potion Cabinet''' - 2,500 points
*'''Potion Cabinet''' - 2,500 points
:''With pull-out shelves for storing extra-large bottles of mysterious goo!''
*:''With pull-out shelves for storing extra-large bottles of mysterious goo!''
*'''Ilere Plushie''' - 3,000 points'''
*'''Ilere Plushie''' - 3,000 points'''
:''Do not take this plushie lightly, for it is vastly more powerful than you can ever imagine!''
*:''Do not take this plushie lightly, for it is vastly more powerful than you can ever imagine!''
|
*'''Accursed Mittens''' - 3,000 points
*'''Accursed Mittens''' - 3,000 points
:''They pack quite a punch, just dont try to pick anything up with them.''
*:''They pack quite a punch, just dont try to pick anything up with them.''
*'''Tale of Woe: The Untold Story - by Reginald (Autographed Copy)''' - 3,000 points
*'''Tale of Woe: The Untold Story - by Reginald (Autographed Copy)''' - 3,000 points
:''To my biggest fan - Love, Reggie''  
*:''To my biggest fan - Love, Reggie''  
*'''Rusty Asylum Cell Door''' - 3500 points
*'''Rusty Asylum Cell Door''' - 3500 points
:''Repeat after me: The red stuff is RUST.''
*:''Repeat after me: The red stuff is RUST.''
*'''Behind the Rusted Door: The True Story of the Meepit Oaks Sanitorium''' - 4,000 points
*'''Behind the Rusted Door: The True Story of the Meepit Oaks Sanitorium''' - 4,000 points
:''Madness! Madness, I tell you! No, seriously, the book is about madness.''
*:''Madness! Madness, I tell you! No, seriously, the book is about madness.''
*'''Enraged Mayor Thumburt Plushie''' 4,000 points
*'''Enraged Mayor Thumburt Plushie''' 4,000 points
:''MAYOR SMASH!''
*:''[[wikipedia:Hulk (comics)|MAYOR SMASH]]!''
*'''Creeping Shadow Hammer''' - 4,500 points
*'''Creeping Shadow Hammer''' - 4,500 points
:''Your opponents may have trouble dodging it, as its hard to tell where the hammer is...''
*:''Your opponents may have trouble dodging it, as its hard to tell where the hammer is...''
*'''Mysterious Potted Flower''' - 5,000 points
*'''Mysterious Potted Flower''' - 5,000 points
:''That extra special final ingredient for making your garden look lovely!''
*:''That extra special final ingredient for making your garden look lovely!''
*'''Spirit of Slumber Plushie''' - 6,500 points
*'''Spirit of Slumber Plushie''' - 6,500 points
:''This plushie will keep you in a very, very deep sleep at night... heh heh...''
*:''This plushie will keep you in a very, very deep sleep at night... heh heh...''
*'''Ghost Paint Brush''' - 8,000 points
*'''Ghost Paint Brush''' - 8,000 points
:''This spooky looking paintbrush will give your Neopet a scary new look.''
*:''This spooky looking paintbrush will give your Neopet a scary new look.''
*'''Thumburts Cane''' - 10,000 points
*'''Thumburts Cane''' - 10,000 points
:''Wise politicians do not rule with an iron, er, cane.''
*:''Wise politicians do not rule with an iron, er, cane.''
*'''Rusty Lamppost''' - 12,000 points
*'''Rusty Lamppost''' - 12,000 points
:''Walk softly and carry an absurdly large metal pole.''
*:''[[Wikipedia:Big Stick ideology|Walk softly and carry an absurdly large metal pole.]]''
|}
 
The complete list of overall trophies is below:
 
<div align="center">
{| style="width:640px;text-align:center;border:0;"
|style="text-align:center;font-style:italic;font-size:8pt;background-color:#bbbbbb;" colspan="8"|Overall Trophies
|-
!style="width:80px;text-align:center;font-weight:normal;background-color:#bbbbbb;"|Trophy
|style="width:80px;"|http://images.neopets.com/halloween/hwp/trophies/hwp_trophy_7_baef4b8eef.gif
|style="width:80px;"|http://images.neopets.com/halloween/hwp/trophies/hwp_trophy_6_ca33aee5fd.gif
|style="width:80px;"|http://images.neopets.com/halloween/hwp/trophies/hwp_trophy_5_56b107e4f4.gif
|style="width:80px;"|http://images.neopets.com/halloween/hwp/trophies/hwp_trophy_4_df9d1168a0.gif
|style="width:80px;"|http://images.neopets.com/halloween/hwp/trophies/hwp_trophy_3_5e76bf00fa.gif
|style="width:80px;"|http://images.neopets.com/halloween/hwp/trophies/hwp_trophy_2_0cff20b5ca.gif
|style="width:80px;"|http://images.neopets.com/halloween/hwp/trophies/hwp_trophy_1_e29fdb5cca.gif
|- style="font-size:7pt;font-weight:bold;"
!style="width:80px;text-align:center;font-weight:normal;background-color:#bbbbbb;font-size:10pt;"|Title
|style="width:80px;"|Honorary Mayor of Neovia
|style="width:80px;"|Master Chemist
|style="width:80px;"|Neovian Citizen
|style="width:80px;"|Meepit Wrangler
|style="width:80px;"|Vine Weaver
|style="width:80px;"|Asylum Inmate
|style="width:80px;"|Swamp Slorg
|- style="font-size:8pt;"
!style="width:80px;text-align:center;font-size:10pt;font-weight:normal;background-color:#bbbbbb;"|Point Range
|style="width:80px;"|? - 44,080 - 37,850 - ?
|style="width:80px;"|? - 36,735 - 29,290 - ?
|style="width:80px;"|? - 28,990 - 25,555 - ?
|style="width:80px;"|? - 21,920 - 16,090 - ?
|style="width:80px;"|? - 15,825 - 12,360 - ?
|style="width:80px;"|? - 11,000 -  3,000 - ?
|style="width:80px;"|? - 2,050 - 30 - ?
|}
|}
</div>


==Trivia==
==Behind the scenes==
[[Image:TOW Neocam Apology.jpg|frame|[[The Neopets Team]] worked hard to combat the errors, requiring them to post a notice on the [[Neocam]] that they were on the problem.]]
[[Image:Hauntedwoods tcg.jpg|right|frame|Haunted Woods TCG logo.]]
*This plot was released in conjunction with the Haunted Woods expansion for the [[Neopets TCG]].
*Although the only repercussion for disturbing the graves the plot characters faced was losing the co-operation of the [[Caretaker]], after the [[Spirit of Slumber]]'s bones had been found, players exploring the [[Haunted Woods]] began to experience visitations from angry [[Ghost]] [[Neopet]]s, like this:


*An [[Aisha]] resembling [[Megan]] can be seen in images of the Gypsy camp.
{|align=center width="450" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" border="0" style="margin: 0 auto;"
*The plot appears to be based off the [[Wikipedia:Something Wicked This Way Comes (novel)|book]]/[[Wikipedia:Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983 film)|movie]] '''Something Wicked This Way Comes'''.
*When part 3 of the plot was released on October 13, 2006, the new section of the plot came upon many database issues (such as [http://images.neopets.com/halloween/hwp/items/meepit_0ad0b6fa0d.gif Ghost Meepits] appearing in the users plot inventory at random), requiring [[The Neopets Team]] to move the database, replacing all pages relating to the plot with the following texts (as the errors were happening more than once)
**'''TEMPORARY DB MOVE - WILL BE BACK SHORTLY'''
**'''MORE DATABASE ISSUES -- GEEZ THERE'S A LOT OF YOU GUYS -- DON'T HOLD YOUR BREATH'''
*Sophie's saying of how she had a "bad experience" with the Brain Tree and Esophagor probably refers to the Brain Tree Quest, which a user must complete tasks for the Esophagor to fulfil the Brain Tree's request. The rewards for completing the quest are almost always lower in value than the cost it is to complete them, which is probably why Sophie is upset about them.
*On October 23, 2006 around 6:25 NST, the following message appeared when any user tried to access the graveyards or any other related pages along with an [http://images.neopets.com/halloween/hwp/graveyard/femur_glow_edbd8280f3.gif image of a glowing bone]...<blockquote>''heavenest found the Spirit of Slumber's bones!''<br><br>''The bones glow with an unearthly silver light.''</blockquote>It is currently believed the user ''heavenest'' found the bones, and as such there is no reason to continue searching graves. About 1 hour after this, users who roamed around the Haunted Woods received the following [[Random Event]]s, with different [[Ghost]] [[Neopets]]:
{|align=center width="450" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" border="0"
|-style="background:orange"
|-style="background:orange"
!colspan=2| Something has haunted!
!colspan=2| Something has haunted!
Line 253: Line 1,000:
|http://images.neopets.com/pets/angry/koi_ghost_baby.gif || '''BOO!'''<br><br>Uh oh! It looks like all that digging up of graves has disturbed some of the more... eerie denizens of the Haunted Woods. A peace offering would be nice... or perhaps you should just RUN!!
|http://images.neopets.com/pets/angry/koi_ghost_baby.gif || '''BOO!'''<br><br>Uh oh! It looks like all that digging up of graves has disturbed some of the more... eerie denizens of the Haunted Woods. A peace offering would be nice... or perhaps you should just RUN!!
|}
|}
It's unknown what will come from this, and what the ghosts of the defiled graves will do in the Haunted Woods.
 
*There are considerable differences between the plot's information and the flavor text of the Haunted Woods Expansion Set for the Neopets TCG; while characters, names and settings remain constant, the "plague" mentioned on the card, "Curing the Plague" (which depicts a slightly-altered Spirit of Slumber, who appears to be a mutant Lupe with an earring) is nowhere to be found. Likewise, Ilere is a Villain in the TCG, but a reluctant aide in the plot. Also most notable is the lack of a TCG card of Gilly.
:The apparitions did not actually harm the player.
*The Caretaker in the plot bears a resemblance to [[The Foreman]] of the [[Lost Desert Plot]] and [[Altador Plot]], the difference being The Caretaker is a blue Yurble, while the The Foreman is an Orange Yurble.
*After testing one of the potions, Sophie's [[Meowclops]] became a [[Bearclops]], a [[Petpet]] species that wouldn't be released for another six years.
*Upon the closing of the name-finding activity, a dialogue appeared at the Caretaker's Shack in which Gilly revealed the name to Sophie: Jubart Igig"Doesn't sound like most of the other names we found.  Maybe it's an anagram of something...Nah." This is an inside joke reference to the game [[The Castle of Eliv Thade]] which Gilly originated from.
*This plot is referred to in the following [[Random Event]]:
*The user [http://www.neopets.com/randomfriend.phtml?user=marina_87 marina_87] is credited to defeating the 3rd form of Mayor Thumburt, receiving 100,076 points to her battle score.
 
*Neopets like the [[Gnorbu]] and [[Bori]] are part of the inhabitants of Neovia, even though these Neopets weren't released until a few years ago.
{{RandomEvent
|BGImage=[[Image:Bg haunted woods3.jpg]]
|Image=[[Image:re gilly.png]]
|Text=Gilly says, "Have I ever told you the Tale of Woe? It's ever so spooky. Come along..."
}}
 
===Bugs===
[[Image:TOW Neocam Apology.jpg|frame|left|[[The Neopets Team]] notice on the [[Neocam]] about fixing bugs.]]
 
*When the third plot step was released - where the player had to find Ilere - on 13 October, players experienced glitches including the Ghost Meepits appearing in the Quest Inventory at random. To resolve the bugs, [[The Neopets Team]] had to move a database. While the database move was occurring, plot-related pages were replaced with the following messages:
<blockquote style="text-align:center;">'''TEMPORARY DB MOVE - WILL BE BACK SHORTLY'''<br />'''MORE DATABASE ISSUES -- GEEZ THERE'S A LOT OF YOU GUYS -- DON'T HOLD YOUR BREATH'''</blockquote>
*The first wave of [[Battledome]] opponents - the animated gravestones - were added to the [[1-player challenger]] list a day early, on 1 November, before the non-war challengers were removed.
*Players experienced considerable lag in the Battledome during the first two waves of enemies due to the sheer number of players battling at once.
*One of the rules set for the second composite step, that one of the composites couldn't have more than 10 grams of any single ingredient, was not enforced due to a programming bug.
 
===Cameos and references===
*One of the gypsy camp members is an [[Aisha]] called [[Megan]], who would go on to feature in ''[[Neopets: Petpet Adventures - The Wand of Wishing]]''.
*The player encounters a [[Two-Headed Hissi]] while looking for [[Ilere]]. One of its head always lies and one always tells the truth. This is a reference to the [[wikipedia:Knights and Knaves|Knights and Knaves]] puzzle, although it plays out differently here.  
*Ilere's doorway is inscribed with a message in runes, "dance friend and enter". This is a reference to the [[wikipedia:Moria (Middle-earth)#West-gate|Doors of Durin]] in [[wikipedia:JRR Tolkien|Tolkien]]'s [[wikipedia:Lord of the Rings|''Lord of the Rings'']], whose inscription reads, "speak friend and enter".  
*Sophie doesn't want to ask for the [[Brain Tree]] and [[Esophagor]]'s help due to a "bad experience" she had with them. To solve the Brain Tree's quests, players must complete two of the Esophagor's quests. These often cost the player more than the reward is worth.  
*The [[Caretaker]] revisits the angry [[Yurble]] stock character from the [[Lost Desert Plot]] and the [[Altador Plot]], the [[Foreman]].  
*After discovering The Spirit of Slumber's real name, Jubart Igig, Gilly wonders aloud, "Doesn't sound like most of the other names we found.  Maybe it's an anagram of something... Nah." - this is an inside joke to the [[game]] [[The Castle of Eliv Thade]] where the player has to unscramble anagrams, starring Gilly.
*The evil shadows [[Bruno]] and the player fight in this plot resemble the [[Wraith]]s the player encountered in [[The Faeries' Ruin]].  
*One of Sophie's potions makes her Meowclops act like [[Dr. Sloth]].  
*After the plot, a [[Wocky]] Gypsy claimed there was never any Pink Elephante in the [[Gypsy Camp|camp]]. This may be a reference to "[[wikipedia:seeing pink elephants|seeing pink elephants]]", a euphemism for alcoholic hallucination, as in the 1941 movie ''[[wikipedia:Dumbo|Dumbo]]''.
*The plot appears to be based off the [[Wikipedia:Something Wicked This Way Comes (novel)|book]] and [[Wikipedia:Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983 film)|film]] ''Something Wicked This Way Comes''.


==External links==
==External links==
*'''Plot Info:''' [http://neopets.com/halloween/hwp/gypsy_camp.phtml The Gypsy Camp], [http://neopets.com/halloween/hwp/comic.phtml The Tale of Woe (comic)], [http://www.neopets.com/halloween/hwp/neovia.phtml? Neovia], [http://www.neopets.com/halloween/hwp/shack.phtml Sophie's Shack], [http://www.neopets.com/halloween/hwp/neovia.phtml?hvh=7e82eb43e7bf50a688a9c729ab116780 Burned-down House], [http://www.neopets.com/halloween/hwp/cave.phtml Bruno's Cave], [http://neopets.com/halloween/hwp/maze.phtml Haunted Woods Maze], [http://www.neopets.com/halloween/hwp/caretaker.phtml Caretaker's Vault], [http://www.neopets.com/halloween/hwp/graveyard.phtml Graveyard], [http://www.neopets.com/halloween/hwp/lab.phtml Sophie's Lab], [http://www.neopets.com/halloween/hwp/asylum.phtml Meepit Oaks]
*'''Plot Info:''' [http://www.neopets.com/halloween/hwp/comic.phtml The Tale of Woe] <small>(comic)</small>, [http://www.neopets.com/halloween/hwp/solution.phtml Tale of Woe Solution], [http://www.neopets.com/halloween/hwp/stats.phtml Tale of Woe Score]
*'''Plot Solution:''' [http://neopets.com/halloween/hwp/solution.phtml Tale of Woe Solution]
*'''Plot locations:''' [http://www.neopets.com/halloween/hwp/gypsy_camp.phtml The Gypsy Camp], [http://www.neopets.com/halloween/hwp/neovia.phtml? Neovia], [http://www.neopets.com/halloween/hwp/shack.phtml Sophie's Shack], [http://www.neopets.com/halloween/hwp/neovia.phtml?hvh=7e82eb43e7bf50a688a9c729ab116780 Burned-down House] {{dl}}, [http://www.neopets.com/halloween/hwp/cave.phtml Bruno's Cave] {{dl}}, [http://www.neopets.com/halloween/hwp/maze.phtml Haunted Woods Maze] {{dl}}, [http://www.neopets.com/halloween/hwp/caretaker.phtml Caretaker's Vault] {{dl}}, [http://www.neopets.com/halloween/hwp/graveyard.phtml Graveyard] {{dl}}, [http://www.neopets.com/halloween/hwp/lab.phtml Sophie's Lab] {{dl}}, [http://www.neopets.com/halloween/hwp/asylum.phtml Meepit Oaks] {{dl}}, [http://www.neopets.com/halloween/hwp/quest_inv.phtml Quest Inventory] {{dl}}
*'''Plot Score:''' [http://neopets.com/halloween/hwp/stats.phtml Tale of Woe Score]
*'''Editorial:''' [http://www.neopets.com/ntimes/index.phtml?section=editorial&issue=262 262], [http://www.neopets.com/ntimes/index.phtml?section=editorial&issue=263 263], [http://www.neopets.com/ntimes/index.phtml?section=editorial&issue=264 264], [http://www.neopets.com/ntimes/index.phtml?section=editorial&issue=265 265], {{ed|270}}, {{ed|281}}, {{ed|301}}, {{ed|371}}, {{ed|447}}, {{ed|463}}, {{ed|468}}, {{ed|575}}, {{ed|553}}, {{ed|602}}, {{ed|603}}, {{ed|636}}
*[http://www.neopets.com/halloween/hwp/quest_inv.phtml Quest Inventory]
*'''Neopets TCG:''' [http://www.neopets.com/tcg/displayCard.phtml?edid=11&id=28 Mr. Krawley], [http://www.neopets.com/tcg/displayCard.phtml?edid=11&id=89 Hissi Oil]
*'''Editorial:''' [http://www.neopets.com/ntimes/index.phtml?section=editorial&issue=262 262], [http://www.neopets.com/ntimes/index.phtml?section=editorial&issue=263 263], [http://www.neopets.com/ntimes/index.phtml?section=editorial&issue=264 264], [http://www.neopets.com/ntimes/index.phtml?section=editorial&issue=265 265]
*'''Selected Fansites:''' [http://sunnyneo.com/taleofwoe.php SunnyNeo - Tale of Woe Solutions]


[[Category: Plots]]
[[Category: Plots]]
[[Category: Battledome]]
[[Category: Battledome]]

Latest revision as of 20:07, 25 January 2015