The Tale of Woe

This article documents a current event. Information may update rapidly as the event progresses.

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 appears to be designed to coincide with Halloween. The plot follows the travels of Gilly, who first appeared as the star of The Castle of Eliv Thade.

Plot Summary

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

Bruno lost those chasing him in the forest, and when the towns people returned they attacked, determined for retribution. Suddenly, the Mayor of the town stopped them, realizing they must be cured before they can hold those responsible to account. The Neovians summon The Spirit of Slumber, who cures them with magic, but extracts a terrible price...

The Ruins of Neovia

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.

Bruno's Cave

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 brother and sister relate their stories: Bruno, hiding from the townspeople, had hidden in the deepest, darkest recesses of the Haunted Woods, never daring to return to Neovia. Sophie, on the other hand, had indeed gone with Ilere... only to be given a chest with "all you need to survive", as well as the hut, and effectively left to fend for herself.

Sophie explained that some days after she had settled into the hut, she returned to Neovia to find only deserted buildings. Sophie returned several times in the weeks that followed, but there was no sign of what had happened to the residents - until she visited the town on Halloween night.

When Sophie returned to Neovia that night, its streets bustled with life again. She noticed something was wrong, however. The Neovian's faces were blank, they walked about doing their daily actions in silence - no speech, no play, no desire or thought or emotion: Just action, without need. Upon accidentally touching one of the returned townsmen, she put her hand straight through him. Sophie quickly concluded that 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, and had little else left to try.

Gilly, almost forgotten in the exchange between brother and daughter, spoke up, remembering the Gypsy Elephante's story. She explained the Spirit of Slumber's involvement, realizing that 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, the residents of Neovia were no longer aware of themselves, unable to enjoy their restoration. Sophie is skeptical that this will help at all, but finally elects to try for information from Ilere. She's even more reluctant to bring Gilly along, but Bruno pleads the Usul's case; she relents, providing Gilly won't "... get in the way. Got it."

Finding Ilere

After much searching, the trio finally found their way to Ilere's home - a large and admittedly spooky tree, deep in the heart of the woods. They inquired within, and Ilere acknowledged Sophie. Sophie explained that they needed her help to restore the people of Neovia, and Gilly explained that it was a spell cast by the Spirit of Slumber.

Ilere claimed that the Spirit of Slumber had power "not to be trifled with", and that her visitors should abandon their efforts before they got hurt.

Suddenly, an enraged Bruno attacked Ilere, who brought up a shield of green magic. Before anything further could develop, Sophie caught the Faerie and her brother in a magical spell. Bruno explained that he could feel Ilere's power, and it was great; yet she had done nothing to help Neovia ten years ago, and refused to even give a helping word.

Ilere acknowledged that the three were not as weak and she had thought, and, when prompted by Sophie, told them that the Spirit of Slumber was an ancient, powerful spirit of a Neopet that had died long ago. The Earth Faerie said that there were others in the Haunted Woods that would be better versed on the legends surrounding the creature.

As the trio turned to leave, Ilere spoke once more. "Sophie... for your own sake... I hope you fail."

Seeking the Spirit

As Bruno groused over Ilere's lack of help, Gilly had an idea; since they needed to know who the Spirit of Slumber was, why not ask the Brain Tree? Sophie refused; she said that she had had a bad experience with the Brain Tree, and refused to elaborate. Gilly, brimming with enthusiasm, started dragging her along, only to receive a blast of Sophie's magic as a blatant refusal.

Bruno rebuked her - Gilly was only a little girl, after all, and the Brain Tree likely had information they needed. Blasting her was completely uncalled for. Reluctantly apologizing, Sophie finally accepted their new destination.

The Brain Tree offered the trio the Spirit's name, but required its date of death before hand. On visiting the Esophagor (as users do on Brain Tree Quests, and over Sophie's considerably-milder objection) in order to find the date of death, the Esophagor pleaded ignorance; because the Spirit of Slumber had not truly died, he required the name in order to give the date.

This stymied Gilly, as it created a circular paradox; they needed the name to get the date, and the date to get the name. Sophie, however, had an idea; if they could find the Spirit of Slumber's earthly bones, she could brew a potion that would tell him his date of death. In answer to Bruno's observation that, without the Spirit's name, they couldn't know which grave was his, Sophie answered, "It's obvious; we'll have to dig up every grave in the Haunted Woods." Her brother and Gilly gulped in understandable fear at the thought.

Plot Solution

Finding the Locket

In Neovia, the user must visit the burnt-down, although fairly structurally intact, house in the lower right section of the Neovia map. At this point in the plot, this house is the only visitable place in the town.

Every co-ordinate of the map is linked, but only certain key co-ordinates produce an individual result. These co-ordinates are:

• (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 co-ordinates exist in the URL of the links. The structure of the URL used in conjunction with the locations in the map follow the following format: http://www.neopets.com/halloween/hwp/neovia.phtml?hvh=[House Code Identifier]?[x,y] thus the co-ordinates can be manipulated by changing them at the end of the URL link. This makes hopping to the above locations very easy.

When visiting the locations above, there will be one of the ten (which is random for each user) where Gilly finds the charred silver locket. A form button that will appear beneath the locket, which when clicked will add the locket to the Quest Inventory.

At the Fairground

After the locket has been gained, the user must head to the Deserted Fairground, where the following four characters will talk to Gilly about the locket she has found:

• 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 Scratch Cards.

The conversations appear bellow the games themselves. There have been some bugs where the conversations do not appear. Methods of rectifying it include clearing one's cache, refreshing, or playing one of the four games.

Each of the characters will give a different conversation, and while these are four set characters, it is random for each user which character has which conversation. Each conversation starts with one of 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."

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, a small path that leads away from the town becomes hyperlinked to a new site, Sophie's Shack.

At the Cave

After visiting Sophie's Shack, Sophie will run the user off. Clicking the form button bellow, "Flee in Terror", will bring Gilly to a dark cave. Clicking the "Go into the scary cave..." button will send Gilly inside.

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. It will eventually catch up with you, and it will scare Gilly into a random room. By placing the Rotten Food object on the ground in one of the rooms, when the monster passes through it, they will, instead of scaring Gilly into a random location, stop and eat. They will then become disoriented and run off to a random room.

The user must set up a trap in a moonlit room in order to illuminate the creature. To do this, the following items must be placed at the following co-ordinates of a room with a pool of moonlight in the centre:

• Mirror at (240,330).
• Lamppost at (240,215).
• Chair at (235,160), or sometimes (225,155).
• Rotten Food at (330,325).

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.

Into the Woods

When the user returns to Sophie's Shack, a section of dialogue will be visible of the troupe - Gilly, Sophie and Bruno - where they decide to head out to find Ilere.

There are three sections to find Ilere, each section works in a similar way. Each section is a Flash maze, where you will see a screen with several paths leading from it. One of these (except for the first screen of each maze) will take the user back to the previous screen. In each section, there is an item, or several items, that must be collected to advance.

The Swamp

In the first section, there is a two-headed Hissi blocking one of the paths. When the user clicks on him, they are told that one of the Hissi's heads will always speak the truth, and the other will always lie. The Hissi is too busy arguing with himself to listen to any questions you give it, so the problem cannot be solved simply by using logic.

The user must find a stick in the maze, and click on it to bring it into their Quest Inventory. The user must then 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 you poked it, so the other head must be telling the truth. This opens the way into the next section.

The High Woods

In the section segment, there is a clearing somewhere in the woods where there is a break in the trees. This is where there is a cliff, and to proceed, you must descend it.

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 assembled in a combination, random to each person, to construct a rope for a descent of the cliff.

An effective way of determining which combination to use is 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 one's inventory until the user is shown a cutscene of the cliff, where the rope is too short. The user should add a vine from the next pile to the inventory, and continue doing so, testing after each vine, until the vine becomes too weak or the bottom is reached. In the former event, the last vine should be removed and a vine from the next pile be included, with the process continuing.

Once the vine-rope reaches the base of the cliff, the three Neopets will climb down, and the next section will start. Note that it is possible to construct a rope with more than three sets of vines, but inadvisable; the rope will then be snatched away by a monster, and the vines scattered through the woods again.

The Deep Woods

In this maze, the object is to collect the seven ghost Meepits, and then use them to open the lock to Ilere's tree residence.

When the user first encounters a Meepit in the forest, it will run away. After this happens, the user must play Meepit Juice Break and send a score of 400 points or more. This will place a glass of Meepit Juice into the Quest Inventory. The next time a Meepit is encountered, clicking on this in the inventory, then clicking on the Meepit, will offer the juice to the Petpet. The juice will splash through it, however, and it will run off. Sophie will turn the Meepit Juice into Ghost Meepit Juice, and when the above procedure is repeated, this time the Meepit will become entranced and follow as part of the Quest Inventory.

Once all seven Meepits are collected, Ilere's tree must be found. It is covered by a stone barricade, engraved with runes, and seven spots of light sit on the floor in front of it. Clicking on the Meepit picture in the Quest Inventory, then on the floor, will cause the seven Meepits to hop onto the spots. The Meepits must be rearranged, by clicking two adjacent the Ghost Meepits (which will exchange their positions), until all the Meepits are dancing. Visual hints make this relatively simple:

• Happy Meepits are one space from their proper position.
• Staring Meepits are two spaces from their proper position.
• Sad Meepits are more than two spaces from their proper position.

As there are only seven positions, this reduces the possibilities to two for each Meepit.

When all the Meepits dance, the stone door will move and Ilere's home will be open.

The Graveyard

The user next needs to find the graveyard of the Spirit. At the Game Graveyard, there is a new picture of The Caretaker's Vault: click on it to enter.

The Caretaker (an easily-angered blue Yurble) angrily informs the user that his indices are missing. Without them, he cannot locate a the graveyard or grave of anyone.

The books must be found. If the user plays Fetch! on hard difficulty, they will find somewhere in the maze a pile of books. When the user reaches it, as it's certainly not what the Master asked for, you'll be told to "Flee", with that being the only button on the page.

After clicking the "Fleeing sounds pretty good right now.." button, the Fetch! game is over and when the user returns to the Caretaker's vault, he'll be happy to see the return of his records.

The Search for the Spirit of Slumber

With the indices carefully checked, you may now begin searching for the correct grave. First, though, Sophie needs to make bone-testing potion; as mentioned in the dialogue beforehand, Bruno will be digging, and Sophie mixing potions, which leaves little Gilly to retrieve potion ingredients.

Retrieving potion ingredients isn't all that difficult, on the face of it; just go to Sophie's Shack and get it, right? Riiight... except that there are no labels on the jars. The key is in the number of the item as you mouse over; here are the known ones to date:

• 1=Bagguss Juice
• 3=Kadoatie Essence
• 5=Zomutt Mucus
• 7=Liquid Meepit
• 12=Boiled Tree Bark
• 13=Worm Snot
• 16=Jurple Butter
• 22=Pureed Sharp Grass
• 26=Glowing Zomutt Mucus

More as they're found. When you get one right, you get 25 NP from Sophie (as a tip, no doubt).

Digging is slightly more straightforward: Find an "unoccupied" grave, and click to join the diggers. Click "Wait" until the pick marker circulating among the diggers gets to you; then click "Dig". (Be careful; if you leave a grave you've joined, you'll be unable to return to it for a few minutes.) Once a grave is dug up, you'll rest for five minutes. (Warning: It may seem impossible to get out of the graveyard once you're in (heh heh heh), but it isn't. At the left side of your screen is the gate, which will take you back to Sophie.)

An important thing to remember is that it takes four users, operating in series, to dig up a grave. Of course, as you'll soon find, there really aren't too many undisturbed graves left in the Haunted Woods by this point... after all, there are thousands of users working on this at the same time.

Finally, it's time to test the bones; but how many drops of potion do you need? The answer comes with the information you're given about the bone. You are given the mass and volume of each bone; divide mass by volume, and you have the density. Square the density, multiply by 25, and you have the number of drops to apply, from 1 to 250.

Success at digging earns you prizes, up to and including a Halloween Paintbrush; success with the potion gets you 150 NP. But be warned, the race is definitely to the swift in this case; dialup users will wind up feeling like a kid in a body cast unless they get very, very, VERY lucky, and watch as the graves are summarily dug up without them. (Speaking from frustrating experience, yes.)

Quest Inventory

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.

Trivia

• An Aisha resembling Megan can be seen in images of the Gypsy camp.
• This plot seems to be based off the movie/book 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, 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
• The name "Mr. Krawley", given to the Krawk with the potions, is taken from the Haunted Woods Expansion Set for the Neopets CCG; in the actual plot, the Krawk has not yet been named.
• There are considerable differences between the plot's information and the flavor text of the Haunted Woods Expansion Set for the Neopets CCG; 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 blue Lupe with an earring) is nowhere to be found. Likewise, Ilere is a Villain in the CCG, but a reluctant aide in the plot.
• The Caretaker in the plot bears a remarkable resemblance to The Foreman, a character in the Lost Desert Plot, who likewise bears a strong resemblance to the Janitor in the Altador Plot. The only difference is, the Caretaker is a blue Yurble, while the other two are orange Yurbles.

External Links

• Plot Info: The Gypsy Camp, The Tale of Woe (comic), Neovia, Sophie's Shack, Burned-down House, Bruno's Cave
• Quest Inventory
• Neopets TCG: