Lost Desert Plot

"One thing about Sakhmet, you can guarantee that it's never a dull place, where unexpected visitors can arrive at any moment."

	This page is under construction
	plot summary, plot participation, and possible reworking of prizes section

The Lost Desert Plot was a plot that started on the 30 August 2005 and concluded on 29 November. Prizes were released on 30 January 2006.

The plot introduced Qasala, a cursed kingdom of the Lost Desert that has lain in ruins since it was destroyed in a sandstorm 200 years ago. Prince Jazan sought to undo the curse on Qasala by marrying Princess Amira of Sakhmet, and held her city hostage when she refused his proposal. The plot also featured Nabile and Tomos, thieves with the Desert Scarabs who would uncover the truth about the curse.

Alongside the story, users joined in in solving an enormous and complicated puzzle. After its completion, The Neopets Team would describe it as "biggest plot puzzle we've ever done". It was the first time Neopets implemented a plot which required people to actively participate if they wanted to progress. The players were set very difficult tasks, including exploring and mapping the extensive Temple of 1,000 Tombs, the layout of which was unique to each user; and unburying, excavating, and furnishing the Scroll Repository. They were also faced with numerous red herrings.

Initially, Chapter 14 was portrayed as being the end of the plot - the story of Amira, Jazan, and Nabile appeared to be concluded, but the puzzle remained incomplete. The plot continued with the return and defeat of Jazan's father, Razul, which tied in the end of the puzzle.

Discussion of the puzzles on the Neoboards lead to the coining of the acronym OLDPD, for Obsessive Lost Desert Plot Disorder. Discussion boards tagged with OLDPD would continue for many future plots - The Neopets Team congratulated them on passing 5000 threads during the Disappearance of Krawk Island event.

Several characters introduced in this story would return in future plots: Prince Jazan and Nabile would appear in The Faeries' Ruin, and Nabile, Tomos, and Amira would feature in Desert Diplomacy. The Foreman, who the player encountered during the puzzle, would return in the Altador Plot as the janitor in the Hall of Heroes, and similar, angry Yurbles would appear in The Tale of Woe and The Faeries' Ruin.

The Plot

“...a thriving town in an ancient and timeless land. Sakhmet is home to exotic Petpets, amazing foods, and some of the best entertainers in the land.

But the best thing of all is the Royal Palace, where Princess Amira is watching over everything.

Far from the Royal Palace, the streets of Sakhmet are full of beggars, scoundrels, and villains, including a wily gang of street urchins known as the Desert Scarabs.

One thing about Sakhmet, you can never guarantee it's a dull place, where unexpected visitors can come at any time.”

Marriage Proposal

A mysterious noble named Prince Jazan entered Sakhmet, full of confidence. He introduces himself as Prince Jazan the Fourth to the guards of the Royal Palace, and asks to visit Princess Amira. The guards say that only visitors with an appointment may see Amira. Jazan shows the guards a fake appointment, and they let him pass. Jazan then gives a few coins to the guards.

The Prince's advances fall on deaf ears.

When Jazan enters the Great Hall, he introduces himself as the ruler of Qasala to Amira. Jazan shows a scroll of betrothal, then asks for marriage, which Amira sternly declines. He soon leaves the palace, angered by the princess's refusal.

The two thieves follow.

As the Prince rode away, two members of the Desert Scarabs (a group of thieves in Sakhmet city), Tomos and Nabile, followed him with the hope of scoring some treasure. They tailed the Prince to the ruins of a long dead city. With nothing to show for their travels, Nabile and Tomos returned to Sakhmet.

Meanwhile in the Royal Palace, Amira was informed by Enarka, her Shoyru adviser, about the aforementioned kingdom of Qasala. While the kingdom did exist once, it was destroyed after a deadly sandstorm 200 years ago. They both concluded that with no record relating to Jazan, he would be believed to be an imposter.

Soon after, Princess Amira prepared to make a grand speech to her people. Jazan returned to the city, and Nabile and Tomos hid on the path outside of Sakhmet to ambush him when he left. Jazan interrupted Amira's announcement, once more asking for her hand in marriage. When Amira declined once more, Jazan was thrown into a rage and summoned up a great magical force that teleported the entire city to an alternate dimension where undead creatures roamed.

Jazan the party crasher!

Tomos and Nabile made their way back to the ruins of Qasala. There, they were attacked by the Nightsteed, a mummified Uni, and narrowly avoided death by falling into a pit.

The two Desert Scarabs hide from a strange Uni...

The Scroll Repository

Inside the mysterious dimension, Jazan presented Amira an ultimatum: marry him, or watch her kingdom fall by the princes' undead creatures. For now, her subjects in the palace and the citizens (even the rest of the Desert Scarabs) outside have managed to hold their own against the creatures, discovering that attacking them with blunt weapons can easily topple them. However, Jazan decided to summon a Scordrax, giant two-headed Scorchio, to counter the attack. With no options left, Amira reluctantly agreed to marry him.

A good blow to the head solves everything...

Meanwhile, the duo of Nabile and Tomos braved through a few deadly traps before finding an ancient library. soon discovered the tombs of ancient Qasala, and Nabile set about trying to translate the Qasalan hieroglyphs. She discovered that Qasala had been struck down with a horrible curse, and that only true love, by Jazan's marriage to a Princess of Sakhmet, would lift it.

Nabile learns of Qasala's tragedy and the reason behind Jazan's proposal.

As Nabile continued to find out more about the curse, Tomos messed a strange ring which teleported the two of them back to Sakhmet. The two are captured and seperated as the preparations of the wedding were underway.

During the wedding ceremony, Nabile arrived, interrupting and explaining that the marriage would not break the curse, as neither party loved the other. As she explained, Amira's adviser makes a startling discovery based on a picture behind the young Ixi: Nabile was actually a descendant of Princess Neera, a Sakhmetian Princess whose status was stripped by her own father after falling in love with a commoner. This revelation made Nabile a princess herself.

Nabile learns of a secret of her own...

Discovering her lost heritage, Nabile agreed to marry Jazan in Amira's place, having learned to love him. With the marriage complete, Sakhmet returned to the desert, and the couple set out back to Qasala.

Nabile and Jazan find love...

Razul

Some time afterwards, Jazan's heart was mended and his and Nabile's love blossomed. However, they soon discovered that the curse had not been broken. Refusing to have such a lively person stuck in such a dead and dismal place, Jazan convinced Nabile to return to Sakhmet. She reluctantly agreed, but not before promising to search for an answer. Heartbroken, the prince refused to eat, slowly weakening in the process.

But the curse refused to change, and Jazan makes a difficult decision...

It wasn't long before an unnatural storm descended upon Sakhmet, and Emperor Razul, Jazan's undead father, arrived to lay waste to the city. Claiming to have been freed from his imprisonment by the marriage, he effortlessly destroyed the Sakhmet army. Sensing Nabile was in danger, Jazan set off at full speed to the city.

Razul arises!

The Emperor located the Princesses within the palace, and overpowered Jazan while Nabile was caught in the crossfire. Razul was once again challenged by an enraged Jazan, who succeeded in countering and destroying his father. With Razul dead, the curse of Qasala was finally lifted, and peace returned to the desert.

Jazan's father is vanquished, but at what cost?

The next morning, Nabile was recovering from her injuries, while Jazan and the Nightsteed returned to their kingdom.

Nabile survives the crossfire and all is right with the world...

Plot participation

	This page is under construction
	Incomplete - see official solution for now

Official Solution

Tablet

To complete the tablet, users had to find parchments revealing the location of each tablet piece. To receive the third parchment, participants had to bet and feed a Poogle in Poogle Racing. To find the parchment that revealed the location of the 11th tablet piece, users had to lose a game of Fetch!.

Battledome

Opponent		Difficulty
Spirit of the Ruins		50
Scordrax		150
Razul		100000

While it was a puzzle plot, the Battledome was used as part of the puzzle solving.

Prizes

Sand Mite (1000-? points)	Furniture Merchant (4,000-6,450 points)
Desert Scarab (12,850-22,800 points)	Dune Explorer (23,800-62,800 points)
Scroll Specialist (134,300-164,300 points)	Qasalan Archaeologist (179,300-194,300 points)
Aegis of Sakhmet (199,300-229,300 points)

Prizes were awarded on January 30, 2006, in the form of a gift shop, which people spent their accumulated points. upon visiting the shop, a trophy was added to the User Lookup of those who scored any points during the plot. they were...

Top winners released by the Sakhmet Royal Prize Commission...

First place with 229,300 points

• parkersc

Tied for second with 214,300 points

• dolphinling
• dragon_cleric

Tied for third with 204,300 points

• cran_b
• sum41girl2k
• ub3r_g00b3r

There were also trophies handed out for sand and block movers, which were only available to view through the each users individual plot stats page.

Sand Mover

Block Mover (in the user's symbol)

	Top Sand Movers	Top Block Movers
1.	lordjetro - 73	sinisten - 14
2.	majacal_daze - 70	sunshinebubbles - 14
3.	jenlynng - 68	soerenl - 13
4.	princess_peace001 - 64	indisguise - 13
5.	rosebud2554 - 64	kimik000 - 13
6.	parkerchempro - 62	takumi0830 - 13
7.	pretiful - 62	tracy17901 - 13
8.	marigoldd - 62	barrymanglow - 13
9.	samniann - 62	bassexe_04 - 13
10.	devingl - 62	Still lost in the Repository. :(

The furniture mover statistics were never released, said to be stolen. It may be a joke on The Neopets Teams part, as they say they can't continue to find the statistics, as the Sakhmet guards are looking for those who stole The Foremans missing toenail polish, and can't bother to look into something as furniture. It's generally believed the TNT lost the data, or had no way to gauge how many were taken into the Scroll Repository.

Trivia

The Lost Desert trading card logo.

• The sixth Neopets TCG expansion, Lost Desert, was released in conjunction with this plot.

External links

• Plot Info: Lost Desert Plot
• Prize Redemption: Gift Shop of 1,000 Rewards
• Caption Competition: #621, #625, #639