Welcome to Story Quest, a weekly podcast where we bring your stories to life!
In this episode we bring Madhav’s story, The Mystery of The Chipped Amethyst – to life.
If you have a story idea, you could be like Madhav and have it turned into a Story Quest. All you have to do is send us your story idea here. We know you have the best imaginations and together we can create the most brilliant stories!
That’s just what Madhav did. You can watch the story they suggested come to life below, plus they tell us all about the inspiration behind the story at the end.
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Read along to The Mystery of the Chipped Amethyst
You can read along to the story while you listen. Just follow the text below. Don’t worry if you find a word tricky – you can pause the video whenever to give yourself more time.
The Mystery of the Chipped Amethyst.
The demon hoardes from the nether world ROSE UP! SCREAMING – the battle raged on fiercely across the Wintery World, and the land was barren and bare.
Fire serpents SWOOPED and DIVE, terrifying the townsfolk who wondered if the sun would ever return to the lands again! The thunder seemed endless and all was dark and gloomy!
Sounds pretty horrible right? It’s going to take a while for us to find out what’s happening there, as our story starts a bit less dramatically. In a muddy field.
Something was twinkling in the mud – the girl who was called Jada stopped playing and drew closer – it glittered and caught the sunlight and she widened her eyes in delight as she bent to pick it up. A jewel! A beautiful lavender coloured jewel – it was a little chipped but glittering in her palm.
“Wow – you’re lucky!” said her friend Eric. “That’s an amythest!” Eric had never had any luck. He didn’t have any money, or any land, he was fairly happy though, he was the sort of person to be happy if other people were.
But soon Jada felt anything but lucky. Over the next few weeks the farm crops wouldn’t grow, and the chickens stopped laying eggs. There was an invasion of raccoons and then when theyd finally got rid of them, an angry squirrel started following her about and throwing acorns at her.
When she went fishing with her dad, they didn’t catch even a sprat and a tiny raincloud appeared over their boat, soaking them to the skin.
“It’s that jewel – it’s cursed!” Yelled her father and angrily he threw the jewel over the side of the boat and it sunk out of view. The raincloud disappeared in an instant and they began to feel the tug of a catch on the line. Phew!
A little while later it washed up on the shore of a little cove, where smugglers and pirates would lurk.
Stridor was a smuggler and a pirate and he knew a jewel when he saw it!
“Aha! There be bounty!” He said in glee picking up the treasure – it might be chipped but it was a fine piece and he gripped it tightly and imagined the money he would make at the market.
But things began to go wrong for Stridor. BADLY wrong. First of all he lost his ship. It just seemed to have disappeared. The other pirates swore blind they hadn’t stolen it but it was no where to be seen. Then, a treasure map ended up leading him to the village toilets – no treasure there! Then he found that whenever he touched gold coins he broke out in a rash and started to sneeze and sneeze and sneeze!
“What do you mean you’re allergic to treasure?! You’re a pirate! The others jeered and laughed.”
It was absolutely ridiculous.
“It all started when I picked up that dastardly amythest!” He snarled. “It’s cursed I tell you!”
And with that he threw the jewel over a cliff top, after which his luck did seem to get a bit better.
The next person to find the chipped amethyst was a valet to the King. He was trying to get in the King’s good books so with great pomp presented the jewel to his majesty.
The King was so delighted that he placed the jewel in his own crown.
Annnd that’s where things started to go REALLY wrong. Maybe because the King was more powerful than Jada or Stridor, or maybe because it had found a home on a crown the cursed amythest really got to work.
First of all the dakness came and winter descended on the realm. Even though it was meant to be summer. Of course THAT meant the crops failed. Then the demon hoardes from the netherworld BURST from their lairs tempted by the gloomy blackness, riding their fire serpents and terrorised the people and scorched the land.
The people knew something had to be done and so banded together to go to the castle and get the help of their King.
The King stood on the balcony, resplendent in his crown and tried to quell their anger and fear.
“My good people! We must stay strong in the face of this curse and hope that it will lift soon.”
Jada pushed through to the front. Something caught her eye – the King’s Crown.
“It’s the jewel!” Gasped Jada – “the chipped amythest!”
“The jewel is cursed – the amethyst in your crown!” She shouted. The townsfolk were puzzled and some of them laughed but then Stridor the smuggler came forward too.
“Aye! It’s cursed all right – that’ll be the reason everything’s gone mad!” He chuckled.
“Call the mage!” shouted the mage was a hermit wise in the ways of enchantment – he was hauled somewhat unceremoniously out of his hovel and the crown was shoved in his hands.
“The amythest – do you know what it is?” urged the King.
The old mage took the glittering stone from the crown, and turned the jewel over in his hands. “Ah ha! We thought this was lost forever – I didn’t think I”d see it again! And you’ve been wearing nit in your crown? Bless my soul no wonder the winter has come.”
But what IS It?
“THIS is the amethyst of Amara – the dragon queen. It was chipped from her crown many moons ago by thieves and such was her fury that she placed a curse on anyone who would touch it!”
“Then we should return it to her! Any volunteers?”
Suddenly all the townsfolk seemed to be very distracted and looked the other way, some nonchalantly whistling.
The mage chuckled. “Now they know of the curse none will touch it! How to return it without attracting bad luck on the way?”
Suddenly a voice piped up. “I’ll take it! I’ve not got a farm to lose, or a kingdom to fall – I haven’t any riches to disappear.”
It was Eric! Well I suppose if you’ve never had any luck you’ve nothing to lose!
The villagers cheered and crowded around him, and he was off!
Yes it did rain CONSTANTLY all the way to the mountain lair of the dragon queen amara.
“Saves me having a shower later” he thought.
And yes he did accidentally step in some dog poo. They trod in some fox poo. And then slipped in some bear poo which didn’t end well.
“Ah well, that’s meant to be good luck!” He said, shrugging his shoulders,
And when his belt mysteriously disappeared causing his trousers to fall down he just laughed – after all trousers falling down is ALWAYS pretty funny, right
And after many hours he arrived at the dragon’s lair. Nervously he peered inside.
“Amara! I have found the missing jewel from your crown”
The enormous dragon slowly shifted and moved towards the entrance of her cave. Glittering gold scales twinkled in the evening light. A crown on her head contained jewels the like of which Eric had never seen – diamonds as big as dinner plates, rubies the size of apples and sapphires and emeralds. He could see the gap on the crown where the amythest must have been.
She bowed her head and Eric shaking like a leaf put it carefully back in its place.
She happily blew a puff of steam from her snout and her jaws curled in a wide smile. Her voice boomed loudly.
Thank you young sire – your reward will be riches greater than you can imagine! And she tapped her claw on a treasure chest.
So Eric’s luck suddenly changed – he became rich with all the gold coins in the chest although he ended up giving a lot of it away – after all he was happiest when other people were happy too.
And the jewel safely back in the chipped amythest lost its curse, the realm returned to peace and prosperity and the dragon queen returned to her slumbers once more. I wonder what dragon’s dream about?
And that’s the story of the mystery of the chipped amythest!
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