Peck's Pottery

 Peck liked making pottery for Graham to store his tools in, as she made odd shapes of pots just for him. She also liked making pots for Cosmo, as they had to have labels of various plants, and she would paint the picture of the plants instead.Cosmo loved her work, and so she created pots for anyone who paid her enough gems. One day, Amelia asked her if she ever put her work on display.
"No,"Peck said, laughing."They are my work, and you have to pay me at least 750 gems for one." Amelia didn't look very happy. 
"Well, then I will get you back!"Amelia snarled."Such beautiful pottery must be displayed."

 After that, barely anyone came to Peck in her art studio for pots, and each day Peck thought it was a slow day. However, after two years only ten customers came.
"Could it be Amelia's fabled curse?"she wondered."After all, she is famous for her cursed vow, and learned the art of curse."Peck knew that that was true, and started to shape pots to hang in the canyon. She gathered wet sand from the riverbank,dyed it, and spun it into pots. Soon, she was ready to hang her pots on lines of thick rope.
"Close Sesame!"she shouted, and everyone was blocked off from the canyon. She strung the pots, and tied each end of each rope to a small alcove in the rock. She moved onto Coral Canyons, and soon Peck had displayed all the pots.
But she wasn't done, however. She painted the next batch of pots with runes and rare dyes, and crafted a small lean-to near the "bridge", and lay all the pots on a wool cloth.
"Open Sesame!"Peck shouted, and everyone was let in again. The Jammers streamed in to buy pottery, and gawked at her work. Peck grinned, and called out to Amelia, if she could hear her:
"I feel better now that everyone can buy my work and observe!"

 

Greely's Observatory

This story takes place before Shade died, and is a very special one to Greely. Greely fans, I recommend this post for you.

Greely's Observatory

 by Amy Jiao

 Greely loved gazing up at the stars to look at Shade's deity, Moon, and knew well that she hosted Shade. However, he had to lie on the Temple of Zios grass to see the stars clearly, and the grass was withered from ages of dryness. So he decided to make an observatory up in the Chamber Of Knowledge. First, he gave the items on display there for Peck to replicate into den items, and moved the Elf Star into the storehouse of the Temple Of Trivia.
"I hope that a brave Jammer finds this star, and hides it somewhere else, as this is where all the amulets come from,"he wrote on the star, and slid it under the sand in the pool of sacred water inside the tree.
 Greely progressed to shaping out a staircase up to a small room with his mind, and smoothed out the ridges in the stairs. He then filled the room with Jamaasian artifacts, and a few telescope near a mirror for looking at the stars. He smiled, and opened the observatory to the public.

 Shade was overjoyed when she saw what Greely had done because of her, and told him that you could see Moon the freshest near her den in the Forgotten Valley. The next day, though, she was ambushed by phantoms who were against the Coraxese...

Lisa's Magic Campfire

Lisa is a very good storyteller, as we can see in the video Return Of The Alphas, and has  a magical campfire. But where did she get her campfire, and where is it now?

 Lisa and Graham both loved storytelling, and often told stories with pink/blue mist, which often fired up the imaginations of their guests. However, the more complex the story, the more mana it took, and sometimes they didn't even have enough mana to teleport back to their hut, and they would have to drink Cosmo's special leaf-flavored mana potions, which neither liked.
"What shall we do?"Graham asked Lisa one dawn.
"Our mana is always drained, but we cannot abandon our young ones just for mana."Lisa said. Graham shook his head, and his wild hair flew everywhere.
"Well, we could use a system of strings and levers and pulleys to launch us a mana potion every hour, and adjust the path of the vial chute every time we shift locations."Graham said, putting on steampunk goggles and summoning a magic map. Lisa rolled her eyes.
"You're more complicated than my Scrabble puzzles."she muttered."A wild animal whose spirit stone not yet retrieved could gnaw through the bamboo chute, and the precious vial would drop, for it to drink."Lisa had a point, so Graham tucked away the magical map somewhere far away through telekinesis, and slid his steampunk goggles onto his forehead.
Lisa thought for a moment, and looked at Greely loping down the corridor, on his way to enchant one of Amelia's arrows. Suddenly, she grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, and dragged him toward her. He yelped in surprise.
"Greely, I need you to enchant a firepit and place it in the Sarperia Forest."she told him. He nodded, and slipped out of her grasp. Graham nodded, and slunk back to his room to plan out a good story.

                       

The Elves

            

 See what these items are? Yes, they are Elf Tail Armor, crafted especially by the elves of Jamaa. They are now extinct, but here is the story of the star they created when they died out...

 

 The Elves

 by Amy Jiao

 The elves are an intelligent race, as Lisa knew very well, although the phantoms stole from them frequently. They loved jewels, and valued mining talent. Now, Lisa sat at her magic campfire telling young Jammers the story, as their legacy had long faded.
"Listen closely, little ones, as I will tell you more later."Lisa told them. The young Jammers watched their marshmallows cook, and listened.
"A long time ago, before the First Phantom War, Mira and Zios created this land. They created animals and plants, but were unhappy to see that nothing had a talent for crafting metal, and the metals they had lovingly molded out of nothingness sat unused under the earth. So they created the elves, and placed them in the Forgotten Valley, where metal creeps  through every crevice. They taught the elves how to mine, and how to sew, abilities any Jammer would've sat and begged for. Soon, the elves were prosperous, and frequently gave the Jamaasians and Coraxese elf armor, and taught them how to bend steel, and craft hammers of rock and bone to mine minerals. The races all lived in peace, and would often argue over elf material playfully. But then Zios died, and Mira cried the phantoms into existence. Since the elves crafted armor, the phantoms targeted them first. The elves were strong, but the phantoms eventually overtook them. The phantoms stole all their armor, and put it on to gain much power. As the elves lay bloody and dying, their essence  became a blue star of  turquoise and was laid in the Chamber Of Knowledge in their memory, near all the valued artifacts. But when Greely created the observatory(long story, next post will account it), the artifacts near the star became den items."
Lisa used her powers to show Mira flapping in the campfire flames, and the young ones gasped.
"So what happened to the star?"a clan apprentice asked her, but with the persistence of a Warrior.
Lisa cleared her throat, and held up a sapphire amulet hung around her neck.
"Greely loved the elves, and moved the star into the depths of the Wisdom tree, the tree in the Temple Of Trivia. He duplicated the star, and had Graham award the replicas to smart Jammers who played in the temple's contests, for the elves also valued intelligence."Lisa said. The sun started to rise, and her form started to flicker.
"Goodbye, young ones, and come back here at dusk to hear another story."she said. The sun rose fully, and the young Jammers were left gawking at the pink mist rising into the sky, to come back as Lisa every dusk.

A Deity Clash

Many have awaited the moment the other deities the alphas have encountered come together. This is an adaption of a document by Otto, who saw through Moko's eyes when Apophis tried to manipulate the other deities into joining his cause...

 A Deity Clash

by Amy Jiao  Otto

 I was Moko again, although I had sworn that I once had been in my grass bed, counting gazelles. The helephant had jade clothes on, although I don't know why he needed such expensive clothes when we were walking through the Jamaa sewers. A seal that looked disturbingly like Harper was behind me, along with a wolf shaped out of stars, were behind me in single file. We all walked toward a dark waterfall of black goop.
"We are going to negotiate with the phantom king and queen."Moko whispered to me. We were going surprisingly fast for deities that felt like they had mattresses glued to our bodies, and walked right over to the waterfall. A bridge of phantoms formed between the drop and a large hole in the wall, which was alarmingly stable. The phantom bridge felt like Jell-o, which wasn't reassuring at first.
"Don't look down,"Moko hissed in my ears. I looked down. Green hands grabbed at us, where Apophis lived and feasted on foul water and thoughts. Green spirits of forgotten scammers and hackers rose from the green mist below, then dissipated on the concrete ceiling. I stopped in shock so quickly that the other two deities bumped into me, disrupting the bridge.
"Move on!"Shade's and Harper's voices both growled at me. I was shocked.
"You two both are diviners too?!"I asked them. They nodded.
"Of course, pachyderm brain."both said, rolling their eyes. Shade was fighting Firetail far away, as far as I knew, and Harper was being nursed back to health by Cosmo.
"So you two are dreaming, like I am."I asked them warily. They rolled their eyes in unison.
"Our guests want to send us an important message."they both said. But by the time they finished their sentence, I was already clambering into the hole.
"Slowpokes!"I teased. The two girls ran over, and stuck their tongues at me.
"Not!"I yelped as they pushed me in head-first. My laughter quickly died down as I saw how dreadfully magnificent the phantom headquarters were. Skulls of prey decorated the onyx pillars, with phantom flags(I quickly sent some to Greely for sale) decorating the obsidian walls. I was in the grand hall, with portraits of famous phantoms like Elvanto and the little scout. Glow-in-the dark phantoms lit the halls, and jewels that made phantoms edible were on display in glass cases, along with hedgehogs. The floor was platinum, with Hope diamonds as the glass for the ceiling. The ceiling revealed that this place was under miles of rock, and vents everywhere fed foul thoughts to become new phantoms. Harper, Shade and I walked down the hall to the throne room, where steel pillars of phantom buccaneers supported the tall ceiling meant for Apophis to stretch. There, hundreds of phantoms gathered around the steps up to the podium, which I guessed that was meant for two thrones, but the thrones were moved aside. Instead, Apophis sat there like a charmed cobra.
"Ready for our meeeting,brethren?"Apophis hissed, a hiss that could paralyze ADHD children. All three of us flinched.
"Scat!"Apophis shouted at the phantoms. They went back to their various duties, such as guarding the base, kitchen work, or simply just invading the minds of innocent Jammers. We all sat down on large thrones Apophis's minions pushed toward us, and Apophis flicked his tongue in content.
"Sssso, I know of your lil' vows to the alphassss."Apophis hissed, his eyes murky with evil. He said "vows"as if it was the worst insult he could think of.
"Apophis, what are you up to."I said, but it wasn't my voice. Moko had momentarily controlled me.
Sorry, Moko told me as he slunk into my consciousness. Harper and Shade also looked like their guests were speaking for them, and they also hated it.
"Would you like to join me???Firetail has turned, and he is powerful. Veery powerful, indeed."Apophis hissed. It took all my will not to listen.
"He was always evil, brother."Cithara hissed."That is no reason to brag about." Apophis looked anguished.
"But Zios has also turned, and he created the worldddd."he hissed. We all looked at each other, and understood. Greely had discovered this when he was on a self-imposed quest to revive Shade, and it was gruesome.
"We shall not, Apophis, and we will leave, your reasons are puny."Moon said, her stars twinkling. We exchanged looks again, and knew that Harper would tell the story of the Cithara Order to distract Apophis while we disconnected from our dream.
"Wait, I would like to tell a story."Harper said.
"I love storiessss."Apophis said."I listened to the voice of the sea when the ocean firssst existed...."Apophis said.'
"So, when Firetail was trapped in a cage of snow and ice, I created an order of seals to keep him bound. They were called the Cithara Order. I only selected the most loyal seals, especially maidens. Every year, the Cithara Order told Firetail bedtime stories, mostly Jamaasian myths. He was always slightly sleepy at each time, but he was too scared to emerge! However, one year the Cithara Order had to control the polar bears from slaying their pups, as that limited the breathing hold territory, and forgot to tell Firetail bedtime stories, and he awoke, burning his way through the cell. He rampaged on to create the lands of no-ice, and the Cithara Order has been trying to slow down Global Warming before he burns my sacred seals to ashes."While Harper talked, I disconnected all bonds.
Good night, Moko said as he returned to his coffin.
"NO!"Apophis bellowed before we all woke.

 So I went on to warn the alphas, and Harper helped me. They are now plotting a plan against Apophis, and I will pass this file on to Amy, as the enclosed information is vital. If you are reading this, keep it a secret. If you tell it to a traitor or non-Jamaasian, I will have no chance but to kill you with the tip of my spear.

A Godly Disease

Many believe the speculation that gods cannot grow sick. However, Mira once was poisoned, and nearly faded away. This is the accounting of the quest resulting in the phantom assassin's deeds.

  A Godly Disease

 By Amy Jiao

 Chapter One

 Every assassin needs a proper toolkit, right? Well, Elvanto, a famed phantom assassin, had everything. You must be thinking,"But it isn't possible!" However, with magic on your side, especially dark magic, that IS possible.
"Hmm,"he muttered as he surveyed Mira's statue. He had a lance, spear, sword, bow and quiver, a dung bomb, and vials of potions popping in and out of his tool belt, but none would work on a cast. He needed a poisonous claw extension. 
Elvanto's arms grew fearsome claws, deadly poison dripping from them. Since the only Jammers out were scammers and hackers planning their new moves, nobody would stop Elvanto. The moonbeams glinted off his essence, and he moved in for the kill. First dashing, then leaping, he injected a drop. The metal started to steam, and the cast melted away,revealing a white egg of light. Mira hatched from that egg, and grew to full size, but keeled.
"Elvanto, curse you."she snarled. He melted into shadow without any reply. Then, a mechanical owl perched in a nearby tree noticed Mira, and recorded everything. It sent signals back to the hut, where Graham frowned at his computers. He turned in his swivel chair.
"Mira is sick."he told his fellow alphas."We must act, or Mother Sky will die."

 Chapter Two

 Cosmo was mixing sleep potions out of plants for himself when Lisa burst in, panting. Apparently, she had run the length of the hallway just to see him.
"What?"he asked her sleepily."It's midnight. Go to sleep."
 Lisa pulled down a grass drape, to show the sun rising."It's dawn, Cosmo."she said in a stern voice.
"Mira is sick, and Elvanto has poisoned her. She has been revived, but her presence may fade and leave Jamaa to utter chaos if we don't act soon." Cosmo stroked his chin where his beard should be, but it had been taken away centuries ago."Only the skin of Firetail can heal her."he said after some thinking.
"The Firetail or a Firetail?"Lisa asked him."The Firetail."he confirmed.
Lisa looked shocked."Then only Harper can save her."she said. Cosmo looked tired.
"Harper is very powerful, and is a good alpha, but she is in the spotlight too often."he groaned. Lisa shook her head.
"She has beat him before, it is her destiny. We must not tamper with fate." They sent a text to Harper, as she could go over the details on her phone with a wooden case later.

 Chapter Three

 Harper received the text, and nodded.
"I will go to the Coraxese ice palaces, where Firetail will be fighting the spirit of Melissa and Shade to melt them."she said.
"It is also territory where my powers will be strongest." Harper set down her phone, and told her mother what she would be doing. Her mom didn't look scared, and nodded. "Your father had this determination, as he was part of the Cithara Order. They are a similar force, keeping order in the lands of ice."(More will be posted on the Cithara Order later, when Cithara, Apophis, Moon, and Moko, the other deities besides Mira and Zios in Jamaa, come together.)Harper felt relieved feeling a connection to her faraway father, and trained for a bit. She sharpened her claws, swam against the deep sea currents(deep POOL currents,actually), then teleported far north into the Corax region of Jamaa.

 Ice palaces surrounded her, phantom runes etched on them. The sun was present, yet had no effect on the snow. Snow cannons and spirits of long dead archers stood on the turrets, ice between their wrinkles of age. If you are wondering, Melissa is an antlered moose who distracted the Phantoms when they were attacking Jamaa through snowfalls, and fought the phantoms here. Greely had preserved her as a rune in Coral Pathways, but her spirit kept fighting here, defending it from Firetails and the Firetail. Harper slid into the palace, and glimpsed a gruesome glance she had to say "OMG"over.

 Chapter Four

 Shade, the experienced Coraxese priest and Melissa, the Coraxese antlered hero(her antlers were a birth defect) fought Firetail, a flaming red serpent with flames forking from it's mouth and scales. Ichor poured from many places on it's pelt, yet only Shade and Melissa tired, despite Shade being alive and Melissa drawing on the powers of her looksake(if one existed). Harper snuck past them, in case Firetail had shed some skin during naps. 
"Cithara, please help me."she prayed silently as she wound through the maze of halls, ballrooms, bedrooms and other rooms. The runes of various deities etched on the walls glowed, and the Cithara pictures formed into a seal as large as Mira, with clothes woven of auroras. 
"I shall help you, my diviner and alpha."she said in a voice that was loving, and yet chilly at the same time, like Cithara's embrace on the lands of ice that kept them that way.
"Go into the heart of this castle,"she instructed."I have placed  a magical compass inside you to guide you there. You shall call on me whenever you like."Cithara faded, and Harper was left in the swirling winds of the castle.

 Chapter Five

 Of course, Harper could find her way with the sensation of the compass tugging at her gut, but the slide was still tedious. Harper slid down ice slides, wallowed through snow, and swam across polar bear-infested springs. She was shaken after that, but she remembered that the Coraxese built their homes above powerful ancestral graves, and protected the tombs with all their might. A palace without a mummy guardian would be doomed to fade.
"Are you looking for this?"a rather handsome voice said. Harper nearly jumped out of her blubber, and turned. A grey wolf that looked like Greely held a red blanket of red scales, yet he had a cloak of words on him and unforgiving eyes, as if his life was more miserable than Amelia's, and her life was driven by a false oath. It was Seth, Greely's son. Harper took it, and he faded. That was easier than she had expected.
"Wohoo!"she shouted, whispering Gangnam Style under her breath, even including the "sexay ladeey"part she loathed. But she regretted her cheers when a roar came from the direction she had came from, and her mind burst into an inferno.

 Chapter Six

 "You will Not, Not heal Mira!"Firetail bellowed. The fire serpent slithered over ice and polar bears, accompanied by Cosmo's worst enemy, Elvanto.
"We had a deal, Firetail, to stop her from getting your cloak. I shall take care of this."Elvanto said in a raspy voice. Firetail growled, but just slithered away to fight Melissa, Shade and Seth forevermore, as Edgar Allan Poe might say. Elvanto got flaming claws out of their unnatural sheaths, and approached her slowly.
"Give me the cloak,"he snarled."Or, get your head chopped off and your guts presented to Apophis."

 The next few minutes was a blur, as Harper feinted, used powers of all the alphas, and blocked/ counterattacked Elvanto's moves.
"You're worse than an apprentice!"Elvanto would taunt, but Harper kept her powers on the defensive. Soon, Elvanto got tired and stabbed at her. However, the wards of Marco's mind blocked it. It cursed, and tried a sludge punch,but Cosmo's force fields kept it away. Harper put on Firetail's shedded skin in the cloak form, and felt fiery energy course through her veins. She lunged, and combined all the Alpha's powers to destroy Elvanto. He floated there in shock as he was torn apart, to depart into the lands of the dead forever. Harper managed to teleport into Lisa's bedroom before fainting from exhaustion.

 Chapter Seven

 Cosmo approached Mira carefully, and put his paw on her glowing feathers. She looked down at him, face tired and eyes full of pain.
"C-cosmo, the hero will come in time. Give me the cloak so that I can sleep in peace until then."she sighed shakily. Cosmo didn't look satisfied.
"But, Mother Sky, I can keep you awake until then."he told her. Mira shook her head.
"T-the poison is the only thing that keeps me out of statue form right now, and you would not keep retrieving Firetail's cloak just to keep me alive, would you?"Mira smiled, and the look in her eyes told Cosmo that it was hard for her. Cosmo sighed, plucked a few of her feathers for magical use, and draped the cloak on her shoulders. Mira glowed with such radiance as she became her true form that Cosmo had to look away, and when he glanced at her, she was nothing but a turquoise stone. The stone sat at the statue of Mira's feet, and he took the round stone. Mira possibly was strong enough to be separated from her stone, as she had spliced this stone from her statue, so Cosmo slid it in his skirt.
"Mother Sky, I will find a way to revive you and Zios."he muttered.

 The End Beginning of The Beginning...

The Phantom Scout!

Recognize this item? Yes, it is the frozen phantom, a den item many treasure. However, there is a dark story behind the sudden appearance of the item...

 The Phantom Scout

by Amy Jiao

 The little scout had led the fire trooper invasion, and hosted Apophis, but had failed to succeed in his mission. His peers still looked up to him, but the phantom rulers, as Apophis split in two, weren't happy that they had to deliver a defeat threat.
"Little one, wash the dishes with lava!"they would scream at him after meals, and one of his peers would try to take the job, but the rulers were persistent. 
"Little one, you must do the laundry in the Zios river!"they ordered him now. He  took all the armor and robes, and washed the fabric gently in the river cave, only lizards and spiders daring to live this far in. A few water striders and toads swam around him, and suddenly all the animals fled. 
"Huh?"he asked the air, but it felt like his voice was lost in a bog, and when he tried to run, he was trapped by the bog as icy zombies gripped him. Icy? Frost covered him, and his legs went numb. Greely, Amelia, Marco and Harper stood triumphantly in front of him.
"You cannot freeze me! The laundry isn't done!"he shouted as the ice covered his eye, and he attached to the wall.
"Nice work."Amelia told Greely, Marco and Harper.
"That was a rockin' couples night, Amelia."Harper whispered.
Greely touched the ice with his paw, and white DNA seemed to flow in his leg. Then, he closed his eyes, and made a duplicate of the scout.
“We shall make these den items for the Jammers."Greely said, and the others nodded. However, the phantom scout had a trick up his sleeve, if he had any.
 Red rays were fired from his eye, and the cave started to collapse.
"Run!"Amelia shouted, and they needed no reminders, for boulders were coming down faster than Superman could fly. The alphas barely made it out of the cave before the boulders blocked off most of the river, and it froze. 
"Tell the alphas what happened! I need to cast a complicated spell to contain the river's banks!"Greely shouted as the river started to flood the temple. Amelia looked reluctant, but the three teleported away. Greely chanted a long spell to contain the river, and slid into Brady Barr's lab in exhaustion, falling asleep. He would later rejoin the alphas, though, and they would continue their mission to destroy the phantoms.