Solution: Chaos in Neopia

Answer: POWER

Author: Benji Nguyen

Fire and Snow Faeries

Each clue is actually two interwoven clues, one of which clues a phrase that begins with "HOT" and one of which begins a phrase that begins with "COLD". The missing answer here is ONES.

Answer	HOT Clue	COLD Clue
ONES	Wings, slangily.	Beers, slangily.
WATER	A predicament or trouble.	Ice, if extreme enough.
SPRING	A geyser, e.g.	A village in New York.
SPOT	A popular place.	A localized indicator of paranormal activity, perhaps.
FOOT	To move in haste.	When pluralized, reluctance.
WAR	An open military conflict.	A state of political hostility characterized by propaganda.
PRESS	A calendering machine.	A juice extraction method.
BLOODED	Very passionate.	Without emotion, callous.

You can arrange the clues into a diagramless crossword:

				F
				O	N	E	S
				O
		W	A	T	E	R
		A
S	P	R	I	N	G
	R
	E		B
	S		L
	S	P	O	T
			O
			D
			E
			D

Shifting the intersections by the amount specified clues yields the answer PLUSHIE.

Earth and Air Faeries

Each map depicts a city. The city's airport code is a substring of some of your answers. The missing answer here is TEXTBOOK. Indexing with the given number yields the answer TUBULAR.

City	Airport Code	Answer	Extract
Buenos Aires	EZE	TWEEZER	T
Gaborone	GBE	DUNGBEETLE	U
Telluride	TEX	TEXTBOOK	B
Sydney	SYD	PSYDUCK	U
Warsaw	WAW	WAWAPEDAL	L
Singapore	SIN	BASSINET	A
Vienna	VIE	RIVIERA	R

Battle and Library Faeries

The answers to the clues are punned works of literature with a Neopet name.

Entrant #	Title	Neopets (Rank)	Scrabble	Word Count (approx.)	Publication Year
1	MEERCA CHRISTIANITY	21	32	56750	1952
2	LENNY (ONE) LIVED IN A PRETTY HOW TOWN	42	50	228	1940
3	INFINITE JETSAM	45	26	543709	1996
4	BLACK KOI	50	20	125281	1945
5	IF YOU GIVE A MOUSE A RUKI	39	36	291	1985
6	WAITING FOR GRUNDO	11	25	23500	1952
7	KAFKA ON THE SHOYRU	1	36	173100	2002
8	SISTER PTERI	28	13	92000	1900
9	THE DA MYNCI CODE	14	28	138952	2003
10	AISHA KNOWS WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS	19	60	78384	1969

The six contests for sorting the entrants are puzzle answers:

PET POPULARITY (popularity of the Neopet)
SCRABBLE (Scrabble score of the pun title)
CLUE SIZE (length of the given clue)
WORD COUNT (word count of the work of literature)
AGE (age of the work of literature)
ALPHABETICAL ORDER (alphabetic rank of the book)

The missing answer is ALPHABETICAL ORDER. Indexing into the appropriate entrants yields:

Extract	Entrant	Contest	Index
A	AISHA KNOWS...	SCRABBLE WINNER	The 1st letter of Contest 2's first place entrant.
N	THE DA MYNCI CODE...	CLUE LOSER	The 8th letter of Contest 3's last place entrant.
S	SISTER PTERI	AGE WINNER	The 3rd letter of Contest 5's first place entrant.
T	INFINITE JETSAM	WORD WINNER	The 11th letter of Contest 4's first place entrant.
O	BLACK KOI	POP LOSER	The 7th letter of Contest 1's last place entrant.
Y	LENNY (ONE) LIVED...	WORD LOSER	The 5th letter of Contest 4's last place entrant.
E	THE DA MYNCI CODE	AGE LOSER	The 3rd letter of Contest 5's last place entrant.
S	KAFKA ON THE SHOYRU	POP WINNER	The 11th letter of Contest 1's first place entrant.
C	MEERCA CHRISTIANITY	CLUE WINNER	The 7th letter of Contest 3's first place entrant.
A	WAITING FOR GRUNDO	ALPHA LOSER	The 2nd letter of Contest 6's last place entrant.
P	SISTER PTERI	SCRABBLE LOSER	The 7th letter of Contest 2's last place entrant.
E	AISHA KNOWS...	ALPHA WINNER	The 16th letter of Contest 6's first place entrant.

ANS TOY ESCAPE. The answer to this meta is TOY ESCAPE.

Light and Shenkuu Faeries

There is an 8-letter answer for each row in this puzzle beginning with A-G. You can slot in every letter after the first into the grid and subsequently replace the first occurrence of each given letter with a black box containing the specified number (e.g. the first T in the grid will be replaced with a black box 1, the next G will be replaced with a black box 3, etc.). This will form an Akari puzzle.

The missing answer is DELETION, which can be inferred through the feeder puzzle titles, finding a word that satisfies the letter constraints, and the Akari constraints.

A	N	C	E	S	T	O	R
B	O	G	O	T	I	F	Y
C	O	F	A	C	T	O	R
D	E	L	E	T	I	O	N
E	X	P	A	N	D	E	D
F	O	X	W	E	D	G	E
G	A	R	D	E	N	E	R

A		C			1	O
B	O	3		T			Y
C	2	F	2			O
D			E		I
E				N	2
F		1	W			0
G	A						R

Solving the Akari puzzle and taking the letters at the lights will yield the phrase "COOTY FOE IN WAR." This refers to the Neopets mini-game Cooty Wars. Their foe is the MOOTIX, which is the answer to this meta.

Soup and Negg Faeries

You can add an answer to each given word to create a clue with an answer that is a food.

The missing answer is MCFLURRY.

BUNOL PROJECTILE

KENTUCKY DERBY TRADITION

GARFIELD FAVORITE

MCFLURRY EXEMPLIFIES

SERGIO LEONE STYLE

JIRO DREAM

THE AVENGERS POST-CREDITS

IDAHO STAPLE

The column shared by all rows spells the clue MJ'S CHIMP, which solves to BUBBLES.

Faerie Queen (meta)

Each meta answer is the partial name of a Neopets game. The missing parts of the game's title has two letters in common with the backsolved answer to the corresponding meta.

Puzzle	Feeder	Backsolve	Meta Answer	Neopets Game	Meta Missing	Common 1	Common 2
Fire and Snow	Obligatory Binary Puzzle	ONES	PLUSHIE	Plushie Tycoon	TYCOON	N	O
Earth and Air	That's So Classic	TEXTBOOK	TUBULAR	Tubular Kiko Racing	KIKO RACING	K	O
Battle and Library	Arranging the Dictionary	ALPHABETICAL ORDER	TOY ESCAPE	Toy Box Escape	BOX	B	O
Light and Shenkuu	Mutated	DELETION	MOOTIX	Mootix Drop	DROP	D	O
Soup and Negg	I'm Lovin' It	MCFLURRY	BUBBLES	Faerie Bubbles	FAERIE	F	R

Sorting the missing letters in the given order gives the phrase DOORKNOB OF, which is a Neopets item missing the word POWER, which is the final answer.

Author’s Notes

Amusingly, the author of this puzzle did not play very much Neopets. This puzzle was originally going to be a different Neopets-themed puzzle written by a much more Neopets-savvy person. The Earth/Air puzzle used to be an extremely deep Geoguessr puzzle that required looking up specific driver’s license and road sign facts, and the Battle/Library puzzle used to be much harder. This puzzle is already quite large, so thank playtesters for the nerfs.