Avatar Goldmine

     Rysony, felt as excited as a child on Christmas day waved the letter at Neq and Lordrion. Lordrion grumbled stating that it should’ve been him instead.

     Rysony folded the letter and said goodbye to Neq and Lordrion as he made his way to the stands where the side games were being held.

     On his way, he decided to go for Shootout first. Rysony knew he was good at this, as he had often scored on Meggily whenever they practised their shootouts in their Neo-home garden. He fired the Yoouballs in quick succession into the goal, scoring 85 out of 100 when he had to be escorted out, as Rysony had reached his limit for the day. Ry decided to head for the Slushie making, which he wasn’t very good at, and only managed to deliver 4 slushies. ‘Can’t be good at ‘em all I guess!’ He shrugged to himself, as he walked towards the ‘Make a Noise’ stand. As loud as the noise was, he was determined to score points for his team. He decided to give it a go, as he needed to make up for his failure at Slushie Slinger, although the words echoed in his head “I’ll never play that game”.

     As he was placed in between a large group of fans, they were all screeching away louder, and louder. Rysony just wanted to leave, to escape from this living nightmare. He then suddenly remembered how Lordrion had gotten on his nerve, to a point where he would’ve just have loved to face him 1 to 1 at the Battledome. He decided this was the opportunity to join in with the crowd, screeching as loud as he could, releasing the anger he had been holding in. He spent the next couple minutes screeching and watching the onlookers holding their ears as they walked past by.

     When the 2 minutes were up, he walked out into the daylight and saw the chia police he'd seen outside his Neohome standing outside. Many thoughts were swimming through Rysony's mind ‘Did I screech too loudly?’ ‘Was my ticket not valid after all?’ He thought to himself. As Ry walked outside nervously, the Chia police approached Rysony and stuck a medal on his shirt. Ry was startled and checked what the medal was. The chia police proceeded to say in a friendly manner ‘For your efforts in the recent Staff Tournament and Altador Cup side games you’ve earned Rank 1. Congratulations!’ The chia police handed over Rysony’s avatar for obtaining Altador cup rank 1.

     As the chia police walked away, Rysony jumped in the air to shout excitedly ‘Rank 1 and done!’

     Rysony was walking back to his tent he heard a loud grunt ‘Ry! Where do you think you’re going?!’ It was Omareh, and he was inviting Rysony to hang out with his team in their after-match celebrations. The celebrations went on all night, as Rysony and Omareh grew to be friends.

     The next few days, Rysony decided to take it easy, soaking in the Altador Cup atmosphere, drinking Neocola and chatting with his new friends. However, from time to time, he thought regretfully about his sister. He knew Meggily would have loved this. Rysony often wondered to himself if he’d even be able to find Meggily.

     After several days passed, Ry decided to watch the semi-final game where his beloved team Shenkuu took on the almighty Terror Mountain.

     When the game ended 2-1 to Shenkuu, his team erupted into wild celebrations. They were in the finals! Omareh walked around the stadium arena the next morning with a little headache. He hadn’t slept the previous night, as he had been attempting to find a ticket so he could watch his team play in the finals. When he heard a loud shout ‘RYSONY!’ He hadn’t heard a shout that loud since Ellen scolded him for being naughty at Neo-school. Rysony gulped and turned around to see a guy wearing Shenkuu tracksuit and gesturing Rysony to come over to him. As Rysony walked over to the human wearing the tracksuit, the man very quickly introduced himself ‘Hi there. My name is Orc, coach of Shenkuu.

     ‘I was incredibly impressed to hear you scored 85 goals in the shootdown the other day, I’ve never seen or heard anything like it! I would like to invite you to play in our final later, Shenkuu Versus Maraqua’. Rysony couldn’t believe his ears. He felt like he was dreaming. ‘Well?’ The coach asked impatiently. ‘Umm, yes of course! I’d love to!!’ Rysony quickly replied. ‘Very well, I’ll see you at 5 pm tonight. The game starts 7 pm.’

     Rysony rushed back to his tent to grab his water and quickly take some ‘Grumble Be Gone Tablets ‘ to get rid of his headache before heading to the stadium. As he walked down the player’s entrance Rysony greeted the guard. The tall guard wore a tall black hat and red uniform with black trousers ‘Very well, in you go. Good luck’ The guard said as he crossed his name off a list. ‘It can be a dirty game.’ The other guard warned. Rysony gulped but shrugged it off as he walked through the doors and into his team’s changing room.

     As Rysony entered the small dressing room, a couple of Yoouballs were flying about as the team practised. The room was decorated with hundreds of Shenkuu banners and bunting hung on the wall. All of Rysony’s new team-mates greeted Rysony warmly. A desert Gnorbu introduced herself as Mirsha, the team captain. The whole team suddenly sat and quieted down as Orc, the coach who Rysony had seen earlier, entered. ‘Hello everyone, this is Rysony. He’ll be playing as our attacker today.’

     They quickly discussed tactics as they all got changed and ready for the match. Rysony suddenly heard a bell ring, signalling that their game was about to start. ‘Good luck, team Shenkuu!’ The team shouted in unison as they all put their hands in the middle.

     As they walked down the tunnel, Rysony gulped as he got closer to the stadium. He could hear the cheering booming through the stadium, and it somehow seemed more concentrated than being in the crowd. The stadium was packed, and he could see flags of blue, red and yellow to represent both teams waving about as hundreds to thousands of fans showed their support. He was living his dream!

     Rysony stretched and caught eye contact with Omareh who smirked at him.

     As Rysony was the attacker of the team, he stood in front of his team – facing Omareh, who was Maraqua’s attacker, who continued to stare while smirking at Rysony. The players could feel a slight rumble as the ground broke apart to let the Yoouball out. The whistle blew and the game started! To Rysony’s relief, the first Yooyu was a ‘Normal Yooyu’. This sigh of relief didn’t last for long though as Omareh swiftly slapped the ball with his tail. He beat Rysony to the first ball and passed the ball down to the Maraquan winger who very swiftly passed back to Omareh. Omareh rushed forward in front of the goal to neatly shoot the ball down the middle and right past the goalkeeper. Maraqua fans started celebrating, as the Shenkuu goalie fell backwards with his hands in his face in embarrassment. Maraqua was already in the lead after 4 seconds! The crowd cheered loudly as ever, especially for Omareh as he had guided the team to the final.

     Rysony faced off against Omareh once again as a Fire Yooyu came out this time. It which seemed to roll to Rysony’s direction, but Omareh still managed to grab the ball and powerfully fire the ball into Rysony’s team goal’s top corner. It was already 2-0 to Maraqua, after 10 seconds. Could it get any worse for Rysony, and his team?

     Shenkuu started to fight aggressively, taking the opposing team out much as they could, much to the delight of the fans. Rysony managed to get ahold of the Snow Yooyu, which was the 3rd Yooyu of the game and passed it to Larcy Phu, their star central player. She passed it back to Rysony as he neared the goal. He imagined he was back in the garden at home, with Meggily in goal. Ry impressively curled the ball around the goalkeeper. The stadium roared in celebration! Neocola was being poured everywhere and popcorn flew higher than he imagined corn-kernel physics made possible. The whistle blew for half time and the team grouped up to refresh themselves with water and to discuss tactics. They all agreed they had to mark Omareh heavily.

     In meantime, the commentators were talking about ‘One of the most specular first halves they had seen.’

     As the bell rung once again, the teams came back out. Rysony and Omareh glared at each other, as they stood opposite each other once more. Rysony managed to grab the Yooyoo off Omareh this time and scored a clean goal.

     As the half went on, Omareh almost scored on the Shenkuu goalkeeper but the Clockwork Yooyu exploded just as he went to shoot the shot. With 10 seconds remaining, the Fire Yooyu came out. Rysony superbly grabbed it and made a break for the opposing goal with Omareh right behind him. Rysony was trying to push off the challenge from Omareh, when suddenly he heard a BANG! The ground rumbled and dust went flying into Ry’s face but he ignored it and went on to hear a majority of boo’s as he scored. He assumed the boos were coming from the opposing fans, as he thought he’d won the game for Shenkuu.

     The whistle blew and Rysony went back to shake Omareh’s hand as a sign of good sportsmanship, but he was nowhere to be seen. Rysony saw everyone huddled around in a circle. Confused, he ran over to where everyone was huddled and saw the Maraquan Grarrl lying on the ground, covered in dust.

     Rysony was alarmed and tried to shake Omareh several times but he would not respond. Omareh just laid there staring at the sky blankly. Rysony realised he must’ve pushed Omareh into the ground. At first he was in disbelief, but then he remembered how a similar thing had happened to him after defeating the Black Pteri.

     Rysony decided to whistle for Harry to take Omareh to the Faerieland Healing Springs. While he waited for Omareh to come back, Ry’s stomach felt like it was doing somersaults. His teammates patted his back to show their support.

     After much encouragement, he finally walked up to collect his medal and help hold up the trophy. While he was holding the trophy, Harry came back to confess that Marina was only able to bless Omareh with 3 hit points. He was going to be fine but would have to stay with Marina for awhile.

     Despite feeling a sense of relief, Rysony also felt a pang of intense guilt. He hadn’t meant to hurt Omareh. The team came around him, telling him it wasn’t his fault and it was part of the game. Ry decided to dedicate the trophy and his medal to Omareh as he walked back to his tent, away from everyone.

     Rysony spent a few moments in solitude, trying to gather his thoughts and plan his next steps. He was exhausted from all the excitement involving the Altador Cup, but he knew his journey wasn’t even close to being over. He needed to keep moving forward if he had any hopes of finding his sister Meggily. It had been days now, and he felt further away from her than ever. He felt aimless and unfocused, and found himself wishing he had someone to turn to for advice.

     “Wait a sec – I know who can help me out!” Rysony exclaimed to himself. He looked in the distance at the sun and noted it was beginning to make its downward dip into the horizon for the evening. He didn’t have much time if he wanted to make it to the docks before sunset. His destination wasn’t exactly close, but he could board a ship and set sail with the hopes of arriving by morning.

     Rysony packed up his sleeping bag along with his weapons and briskly set off towards the coast of Altador. He was determined to get there before the last transport ships departed for the night. After a ten-minute walk, he could begin to see the outline of the ship sails and noted a few Vaeolus soaring and dipping above them. The clanging of a bell began to ring and Rysony broke into a run, knowing the sound was a signal that the last ships were about to take off.

     He made it to the docks and ran up and down the wooden planks, desperately trying to find the right ship. Finally, he spotted a stately looking vessel adorned in green, gold and white banners. Rysony bolted up the wooden platform just as one of the shipmates, a yellow Acara, was about to reel it in. The Acara studied Rysony with a puzzled expression on his face. “Can I help you?”

     “Yes, I need passage!” Rysony panted as he reached in his bag for his purse of Neopoints. “One ticket to Brightvale, please!”

     To be continued…