Lottery

The Story

CRACK!

Frederick jumped, sending a delicate tool flying from his work table. Just in time, he managed to catch it in his free hand, and then he set everything he had been working with down on the table in an orderly fashion. What could it be now? That had almost sounded like it came from the roof.

Fred couldn’t risk any disturbances right now. He was so close to getting things right with the portal to Solaria, but a small error could make the portal go wrong. He couldn’t risk losing the glitch energy painstakingly collected by so many of the citizens of Lunaria, and so needed by the Wajas of Solaria. Before he could proceed, the noise needed to be investigated. He turned to leave his lab.

And stopped short.

“...Dad?” He moved quickly to straighten his lab coat. “This is a surprise.” A surprise, and a relief. How long had it been since he had actually set eyes on his father? Years, now? He hadn’t even heard from Oswald in some time, and had feared the worst considering the last thing anyone had known he was doing was setting off into the depths of a remote desert. The recent arrival of the postcard had set Fred’s mind at ease, but it hadn’t indicated that his father was coming here, had it?

Yet there he was, looking much as he ever had, if quite a bit more suntanned. But the gray hair, the long mustache, the patched labcoat: all the same as ever.

“Did you get my letter?” Oswald asked.

Fred nodded. “Yeah, several days back.”

“Good, good. I wanted to ask your help with something about that. What have you got going on here though?” Oswald stepped forward into the lab, craning his neck around his son to peer at the dark portal behind him.

Frederick scrambled to think of how much he needed to catch his father up on. A lot had happened since Oswald last set out. “To make a very long story short, it turns out there’s an alternate dimension of Lunaria known as Solaria, but their world has come apart. I’m assembling a portal to open up a way there so we can bring it a new Pear Tree.”

“Goodness.” Oswald worked his way through the cramped lab to inspect the portal more closely. “I’ve heard tales of such a possibility as that, old ones. How exciting! You’ll have to tell me more about it. First, though, I’ve got something I need to explain to you. Do you mind coming outside?”

“I was just about to go, actually,” Fred said, remembering the noise suddenly and wondering if his father had anything to do with it. What had he done, landed a Waja up there?

Outside the front door lay a couple of traveling bags. One caught Fred’s eye- in the water bottle holder sat a glass bottle flickering and jolting with trapped energy. He bent, reaching for it curiously.

“Tsst!”

Fred stopped short at the sharp hiss from behind him, and turned, looking up.

Standing on the roof of his hut was a Waja like he had never seen before. She was tiny, hardly the size of a fox, but with great, long ears. Her tail was a bushy mass, and the fur at her neck stood up as though filled with static. Between her great ears were a pair of crooked horns, one of them broken. In her mouth was a long copper rod. She stared at Fred with eyes that shone in the evening dim, and then turned and leapt from the roof onto the woodpile, and from there scrambled down to the ground.

“Is that… my lightning rod?” Fred asked.

The Waja set it down and stepped onto it with her front paws, looking hard up at him, challenging. “Is it?” Her voice was creaky with age.

Oswald caught up then and paused to look over the scene. “Ah, you’ve met Farrah.”

“Is this what you were talking about in your postcard?” Fred asked, putting two and two together. “The Wajas that spring from lightning? They’re a new breed?”

“Yes.” Oswald paused, mustache twitching. “Well, actually, quite an old one, but they’ve long been lost to the world. Farrah is one of very few left.”

“Which is why I need this,” she said, before picking up the lightning rod again and trotting off with it a short way from the house.

“Farrah and I have been working on a way to save the breed for some time now. It turns out the legend is a bit of an exaggeration, as tends to be the case. These Wajas- the Velox- don’t spring from lightning, but they do have an affinity with it, as well as their desert homeland. We’ve found that if we combine these energies, we can create a breed changer to turn any Waja into a Velox.”

Farrah had been busily jamming the lightning rod into the swampy earth, but she turned back to the men now. “It takes a few things. Sand, of course. Lightning.” She nodded towards the glass bottle Fred had tried to touch before. “And then we need a way to channel them together. Wires, lightning rods."

“Ozzie tells me there are all kinds of Wajas that spend all their time just gathering stuff from the caves and forests around here, so the plan is to recruit them to get all the things we need. They bring it to me, I make them a breed changer, and BAM! More Veloxes, everywhere. Breed: revitalized.” She grinned toothily.

“We just need to get word around now, and figure out where Farrah can set up shop,” Oswald explained. “Things have changed a lot since I was last here though, so I was hoping you could help. Perhaps I can help you with your portal afterwards, to help make up for the lost time.”

“Of course!” That was hardly a question. Fred considered. “So you have to unleash lightning to make this work?”

“Yes.” Farrah’s eyes shone and Fred almost thought he saw a flicker of static around her.

“So somewhere roomy would be ideal,” Oswald added quickly.

“Oh, I know a place,” Fred said. A place that was already burned down, a place that had lain empty for some time now. It would be perfect. “Were you thinking of giving me a demonstration first, though? I’m very interested to see this new breed changer, and it’s pretty remote here too.”

Farrah’s grin widened. “Oh, I was hoping to.” She darted to the bags and grabbed the bottled lightning in her mouth.

The TLDR:

As many of you have speculated, we did make a new breed! No it's not a shark breed, that was just an unintentional red herring designed by Canuka's love for oversized plushie sharks. Hence why the red shark plushies name was Herry. *Insert a winky face here.*

Any hoot! This one will be a bit different from past breeds, in that while tokens can be bought and for a limited time Star Packages can be bought. The main way to get the breed changer is through a quest. Some of you may have already started hunting, but the items to build the breed changer can be found in the Mining Caves. Specifically:

• Bottled Lightning: Sparkling Grotto and Raccoon Forest (Reminder that the Bottled Lightning is catchable, so you have to watch for the event when mining.)
  
• Lightning Rod: Murky Forest
  
• Coil of Wire: Murky Forest
  
• Pile of Sand: Sparkling Grotto
  

This turn in quest works exactly like Nicola's, you collect the items through digging in the caves and then turn in through Farrah's Quest found in the Smoldering Park.


When you turn in the quest, you will receive a Fulgurite, which is the Velox breed changer.


Please bear in mind that this is not meant to be a quest that can be done in a matter of hours, but over time to ensure the breed changer maintains its worth.

Velox also now has a page in the library breeds.

The Breed Info:

This breed is on the more common end of the spectrum. Additionally, it's tokens will be available year round, though the packages will exit the shop February 28th. It's breed changer will be available year round though through Farrah's Quest.

The Games and Events:

Design Contest - Ends January 31st EOD
Site Raffles! - ends February 13th EOD


Keep an eye out on SM for some contests for this breed as well!

The Credits:

All of the staff have been busy bees while working on this. But a huge shout out to the following staff:

• Fatal for doing a good majority of the pup and teen images, markings, mutations, and items!
• Sparra for a handful of items, the story, ideas, Farrah art, and quest (as well as much more that I am probably forgetting).
• Zeph for the scales marking, concept sketches, and the introduction post up above.
• Splinter for the pumpkin thief items.
• Danny for the wigs.
• Code for all the coding he had to do to make this a reality.
• And a huge thanks to all of the mods and artists who helped reposition items.