Episode 2: The Ogre King & the Purple Crystal

Once upon a time, in the land of Atheria, there was a Princess Nea, and a Princess Lulu, and they went on the most amazing adventures. 

One thing that everyone should know is that they were really good friends with Prince William and Prince Paul of Cedar Landing. Two princes that lived just beyond the North Woods near the sea. On this day, Princess Nea and Princess Lulu were venturing into the village to do some shopping for food so that people at the palace could make lunch and make a wonderful feast for dinner. As they were walking through the village everyone was talking about the amazing, colorful, meteor shower that happened the other day. Now a meteor shower is when a bunch of stars shoot across the sky and then disappear. Although what happened may not really be an actual meteor shower since it wasn’t really stars that fell but crystals that didn’t stop everyone from calling it one.   

As Nea & Lulu walked in the shop to get up some groceries, they asked the shopkeeper if there was anything new happening in the village today.  

“Well, you know about the rainbow meteor shower that happened the other day?” Nea & Lulu both nodded. “It turns out one of the rocks that fell ended up near the Gozdur, the Ogre Village and King Bealock has one and is telling everyone about how it’s magic.” 

“The Ogre Village?” Lulu said, just to be sure. Then she looked at Nea with a twinkle in her eye. 

And the two of them wondered, could this be another stone, just like the one Paul had found that started glowing? And could this be another part of Tuck’s “big adventure”? 

Nea & Lulu hurried back to the castle only to find Tuck pacing around the grounds shaking his mane and acting as if something was horribly wrong.  

“Nea and Lulu of Sparland.” He addressed them. “News has reached me of the ogre king and I fear he is not aware of what he has found in the Morewit Swamps.”  

Without thinking twice, Princess Nea and Lulu responded, “We’ll go immediately. We can check it out and see what’s going on.”  

And without another word they turned around to leave Tuck standing alone in the castle garden.  

“Princesses,” He snarled, reminding them to show some manners. “You will need some help. Take these cloaks.” And from the sky came down this beautiful falcon with two magic cloaks. 

“Put these on,” he said. 

And when they did they looked at each other and nearly screamed. Nea had become a large green ogre version of herself and Lulu as well.  

“Now, when you venture in to ogre village, you can see what King Bealock is doing with the stone he found. You can see if it is, in fact one of the falling stars that fell from the sky. If it is, we will need to make sure it stays in safe hands. Can you find out if it glows?” 

The girls nodded, then quickly took off their cloaks. They had experienced enough of their ogre-selves and were eager to start their adventure.

Now Gozdur is quite a ways away from Castle Sparland and when Nea and Lulu got close they were pretty exhausted and decided to say the night in the fields nearby. The next morning as they dawned their cloaks, they both chuckled a little – now being a little more familiar with their ogre-selves. 

“Wow, you really do like an ogre.” Lulu said to Nea.  

Nea had had green skin, had a heavier build, and had a funnier shaped nose and ears than her human self.  

Now, as they walked through the village, the girls almost missed the fact that all the ogres were buzzing about what the king had found. You see they were so nervous trying to make sure no one knew they were really humans underneath but as everyone kept walking by and ignoring them they got more and more comfortable – as ogres.   

They quickly decided they needed to eat and walked into one of the ogre cafes and sitting in the corner was a very quiet ogre wearing glasses. Now this was unique because most ogres didn’t wear glasses. They preferred not to see well, rather than wear glasses. After they ordered something to eat, a few other ogres entered the cafe and sat next to this quiet ogre and started asking him questions. 

“So you lost it, did ya?” they asked. 

“The king took it. What is an ogre to do? If THE KING wants something, the king gets it!” said the quiet ogre.  

“That’s King Bealock for ya!” one of the ogre’s said, slapping the quiet ogre on the shoulder. 

As they left the cafe, Nea & Lulu thought “we must go up to the castle but we need to come up with a good reason why we’re here to see the king – we need a plan.”  

So, they thought and thought until a really good idea came to them - let's bring the king something we know every ogre loves! We’ll bring him a special gift he’s sure to enjoy! And walked over to the shop next door and picked out a few things they would need. 

Now Gozdur Castle was big and built into the side of a large hill. As the girls walked up, they began to have second thoughts, but knew they needed to complete their adventure – they were on a mission.  

“Knock, knock, knock” went the door. 

“Oh king, oh king,” we are two fellow ogre’s from a far off land, here to bring you a special gift.”  

And the ogre guarding the door said, “Who are you? I’ve never seen you before.”  

And they said, “We have traveled afar because we heard that the king had found something special. And our leader sent us to come learn about it … we brought something special for the king that he might like.”  

Now, the ogre let them in, but they said, “What gift do you think you could have that King Bealock would want?”  

There was one thing that the girls knew the Ogre King loved more than anything. It was a very special dish. It’s called strombozi. And, yeah, the Ogre King (and many, many others) loved it. It was actually a dish very common in [Sparland] among humans, but not as common among other beings. 

“We’d like to make the king strombozi tonight for dinner.” 

As soon as the ogre heard the girls mention strombozi, he immediately let them into the kitchen.  

“How have you two learned to make strombozi? No one other than humans have ever been able to make that.” 

Princess Nea & Lulu just smiled and said, “It’s a secret we can’t tell you, otherwise we’d put out lives in danger.” 

And the two of them got right to work. 

Later that night, they all sat around with King Bealock and started making conversation. Eventually, once everyone had a bowl of strombozi, the two girls asked him about this special rock he found.  

And the King opened up his jacket and said, “Yes, I have. I found something very, very special. It fell from the sky a few weeks ago during that meteor shower.” And he held out his palm and inside it was a purple crystal – just like the one Paul had found. It was actually very, very dark. And seemed to get darker in his hands. In fact, unlike the other crystal that glowed brighter – this one seemed to dim darker. All these thoughts were going through their heads, but they didn’t share what they thought because they weren’t sure if the King Bealock should know about the glowing crystal. 

“What a beautiful rock. Do you think you’d ever sell it?”  

Immediately, the king lashed out, “No! It's my crystal. They legends say these rocks give those who own them special powers, special powers that nobody else has. And I am going to figure out how to do it.”  

At that moment, Nea & Lulu realized two things: one that maybe these crystals were magic and that, two, this ogre king wasn’t very nice. Realizing that the king could get even angrier at any moment, they thought it best to complete their mission and head home.  

As they were leaving the village, they bumped into a few ogres.  

And because Nea & Lulu were princesses with a bunch of manners, they often replied with a polite response like, “Excuse me or Pardon me.” But the funny thing is, ogres don’t normally say those things, let alone say them back.  

But two of the ogres they bumped into actually did. They said, “Excuse me and pardon me.” To Nea & Lulu as they left.  

Back at the castle they waited for Tuck to return.  

“This is not good. Possibly worse than I thought. If the ogre king doesn’t release the crystal, and instead tries to use it himself, for selfish reasons, it will be very bad for him and even worse for everyone else. Prince Paul’s heart is pure and he is willing to use the blue crystal for good – to heal the earth. He has vowed to be responsible and noble.”  

“Tuck,” said Nea, “Me and Lulu are going to put together a plan to get the purple crystal from the Ogre King. We’re going to figure out how to make sure that crystals is used for good.” 

…but that story is another night.