Amber Spiral

Rise and shine! Here’s a question for you early birds: do you ever remember your dreams?

Mine was more like a vision, image after image streaming right into my head. Now it feels like a Mino sat on it!

First, I was drifting on the winds towards a village: a small ring of houses surrounded by rice fields. It was set deep in a valley with snowy peaks in the distance, but I didn’t recognize where it was.

Then I was passing harmlessly down through the soil into a dark chamber. A temple or a tomb perhaps, I couldn’t see much except for a pot or a vase on the far side from me.

What really caught me off guard was the image of a woman with short red hair, lavish red robes and a kind smile. It was my mother! My father let me believe she was gone – was he lying? Is she still alive? Why hasn’t she ever come and found me?

This vision felt so real, I refuse to believe it was just a dream. Maybe if I find the village, I can find my mother! I think I know someone who can help me track it down. That is, if she’ll talk to me: I hear Chamille’s not exactly walking a noble path these days.

Underneath the Yang Tavern…

At first I’m relieved to be dropping through a hidden trapdoor into the Rainburrow, but then I see the state of Chamille’s ‘den’ and my stomach drops. Everywhere I look are crates and boxes of goods that I’m 99% certain that she shouldn’t have. I guess Karlof was right about how she’s been spending her time…

“You’re early!” a voice rings out from a dark corner, lit only by a bank of computer screens. Chamille slurps down the last dregs of a slushie and practically leaps over her chair to see me. “It’s been too long, Sky! You don’t have to make up a dream-quest just so you can see me.”

I chuckle nervously and try to hide my feelings about her current activities with light chit-chat and a rundown of my vision. I’ve barely finished describing the village when Chamille jumps back into her chair and starts typing away. Seconds later, she’s showing me a quaint little village that looks exactly like my vision.

“Here we go! Right at the bottom of the valley under Haunted Hill. At least six food bloggers say they have the best potstickers in the NINJAGO® world. Sounds like you’ve got competition, Sky – sure that’s not the real reason you wanna go there so badly?”

If the village in the valley is real, then maybe my dream really was a vision, and maybe my mother really is still out there! There’s only one way to find out…

Well, we made it to the village just in time for sundown, and the fair was in town! The ‘Red Star Carnival’ had everyone out in the village square, which made it the perfect time to see if anyone knew my mother. I only have old photos of her, but it was the best shot I had right now.

Things might’ve gone more smoothly if Chamille helped, but she just had to go using her elemental power to mess with the carnival. The magician, ‘Egon the Extraordinary’, was awing the crowd with a stack of floating chairs when an exact copy of him jumped onstage and started calling him an imposter! His concentration broke, the chairs fell everywhere, and the crowd laughed the poor guy off-stage. Typical Chamille!

That wand of his was strangely familiar though. It reminded me a little of my father’s Staff of Elements…

Sadly, I had no luck finding clues to my mother’s whereabouts, although I did try some potstickers. They’re pretty good. Ours are better, though. Obviously.

The carnival was starting to wind down for the night when I finally caught up with Chamille, who suggested talking to the performers. As annoyed as I was at her for not helping, it was a good idea…or at least it felt like one right until we knocked on Egon the Extraordinary’s trailer.

“Thought you’d show me up in the middle of my act, did you? Well, I’ll show you!”

No sooner had we opened the door than a barrage of furniture came flying right at us!

Honestly, things were a little anticlimactic. Once Chamille and I dodged the tornado of teak tables, Egon the Extraordinary was out of furniture to throw at us. It took all of five seconds to get the wand away from him – a wand embedded with Chronosteel.

“I just wanted to scare the purple one away!” he quivered. “She made my whole audience laugh at me – I didn’t get any donations tonight! Not a single cent!”

“Chamille? I think you – we – owe this poor guy an apology.”

“Fine,” Chamille said, kicking her feet and mumbling a pretty unconvincing “sorry”.

“We really are sorry, Egon. We didn’t know what to expect from coming here…”

I handed back the wand and explained our quest to him. It turns out that our new friend Egon was, until recently, a demolition expert for Znap Construction. He always dreamed of being a performer though, and one day, while tearing down an abandoned warehouse, he saw his chance. He accidentally drilled into an ancient, forgotten tomb, where he found the wand and a bunch of other mysterious relics.

I bet it’s the tomb from my vision! He’s agreed to take us there tomorrow. I’m not sure what any of this has to do with my mother, but if it’s the same tomb that was in my dream then this is too much of a coincidence to ignore.

Morning Ninjagrammers! I know it’s early, but I wanted to give you a play-by-play of the tomb now that Egon’s brought us to this dank, eerie hole in the ground.

I’ve asked Chamille to stay topside with Egon, both to keep a lookout and so that she can’t pocket anything she sees down here. At best, these dusty relics belong in the NINJAGO® Museum of History. At worst, they need to be locked in a secure vault where no one can ever stumble across them again.

Yeah, there’s something wrong here, and it’s not just the armies of bugs crawling all over the walls. This is exactly what I saw in my vision, and now I can make out details: the walls are lined with relics from another time, each one embedded with small chunks or strips of Chronosteel.

It’s a weird assortment of knick-knacks – a harp, a helmet, even a fan – but I’m starting to build a picture here. I can feel them humming with power, and I’m certain each one is charged with a fraction of an elemental power. That tracks with Egon’s ‘magic’ wand – I think you’re right about it holding the power of Wind.

The weirdest thing is this urn. It’s plain, no markings or creepy symbols, but I can’t take my attention away from it. It’s like it’s watching me, beckoning me to touch it, and I don’t think I can help myself…

Sorry for the radio silence, folks. The second I touched the urn, everything turned upside down! Let me fill you in.

Suddenly, I was pulled into a new vision. My mother was there, but so were a hundred other people – the past Elemental Masters of Amber. Ninja, guards, leaders, even a chef, but there was one figure looming behind them all.

The Original Master of Amber.

Pure knowledge was flooding into my mind – the true history of my element!

I watched a dishonorable Metalonian blacksmith grow jealous of the Elemental Masters.

I saw his fascination with an ancient, crooked tree with mystical amber, ensnaring anything that got too close – bugs, people, even pure energy.

With this knowledge, he crafted the very first Chronosteel and used it to bind fractions of the Elemental Masters’ powers into those artefacts. Channeling them into the Urn of Enmity, he created a new power – Amber, an element to steal other elements!

Finally, after a life shaped by envy and regret, his power passed down, I watched his ultimate defeat by Wu and Garmadon. He tried to use the urn once more, to sap whatever gifts the First Spinjitzu Master had passed onto his sons, but the urn itself had grown hungry. It sucked his spirit inside instead! The brothers thought it was a fitting punishment and sealed the urn away in this tomb.

I was stunned! Amber wasn’t an original element? It was made by someone as selfish and spiteful as my father?

Unfortunately, the Original Master of Amber hadn’t just been an image – he was still in the urn, trying to escape his amber prison. He was uncovering my past, watching me manipulate the Elemental Masters, hurting my friends…and I could feel his disappointment at my redemption.

Before I could do or say anything, there was another explosion of light and this time I felt the whole world shifting around me, getting bigger and bigger…

At first, when the light faded, I thought I was in a treasure vault full of gold, but then my eyes adjusted and I realized that my surroundings – an antiquated blacksmith’s workshop – were covered in hardened, amber resin.

I could dimly hear Chamille and Egon’s voices from beyond, shouting my name, searching for me, but I knew I had to face this alone. “At last,” came a booming, ancient voice, and a ghostly form drifted out into view. Spectral yellow chains ran from the amber around the workshop into his back, keeping him trapped inside this mockery of his home.

“Skylor Chen.” I felt sick at hearing the Original Master say my name. “You have done well, following in my footsteps. Using the Amber to divide and conquer. I am almost sad to have to take it from you, but I must restore myself if I am to escape this urn!”

“Restore yourself? You don’t mean…”

“Take your body and leave your spirit here in my place? You are a smart girl!”

I steeled myself for battle as wheels turned in my head. Had the Master of Amber been sending me the visions on purpose? Was the vision of my mother all a lie, told to bring me here? Had I walked straight into his trap, like a mosquito in, well, amber?

I pushed those dark thoughts away. I wasn’t letting him steal my body and my powers without a fight.

“The urn hungers for what it can absorb, but my story will not end here. The power of Amber will be mine again!”

Suddenly, he stretched out a spectral hand, and I could feel him draining my elemental power from me! Ironic, right?

The power of Amber was laid out between us, like playing tug-of-war with a thunderstorm.

“This is the truest expression of power: taking it for yourself!” he cackled. “Nobody deserves power, it is all for the taking. That is what I created Amber for, and how I shall wield it again!”

I could feel the power slipping away from me, but something in those words cut deep.

“I don’t believe that,” I shouted back, pouring every last ounce of my will into drawing back my power. “It’s not about what people deserve, it’s how we use what we have. You might have created Amber to steal power, but I want to use it to work with others! Unity, never jealousy!” It all clicked. I had a moment of clarity I haven’t felt before, and overwhelmed the Original Master in a burst of yellow light! “Never. Not by my father, and not by you.”

The Original Master dropped to the ground, utterly defeated, his willpower exhausted and the chains on his back shattering. I know he was a ghost but now he seemed more translucent, and from the look in his eyes, I could tell he knew what was coming next.

Green energy flickered into life behind him as a portal to the Departed Realm opened. The chains that the urn had used to stave off the beyond for years were gone, and the portal began dragging him inside, kicking and screaming.

For a moment, I thought I saw my father’s silhouette watching me from behind the portal, but then the Original Master passed the threshold and the portal imploded in a puff of greenish smoke.

With the Original Master gone and no chains around me, I was freed back into my body, leaving me and Egon alone in the wreckage. I was disappointed to hear that Chamille bolted with some of the artefacts, but I can deal with her betrayal later. Egon helped me collect up the other relics – I know a sub-basement beneath Borg Tower that would be perfect for these.

He was a little reluctant to hand back the Whirlwand (his choice of name, not mine) worried that he was a fraud without it.

“Back to the construction site. Without the wand, I’ll never be anything but a fake.”

“No,” I assured him. “You can be authentic. A real magician.”

I hope he follows my advice.

As I look at the Urn of Enmity, I can’t help thinking about what the Amber was created for. The Original Master of Amber was obsessed with taking what wasn’t his and it sent him down a very lonely path, just like my father.

I think of my friends, and I’m so glad they helped me to find a different path, where the Amber can be a tool for teamwork, not theft. Unity, never jealousy.

Despite all the excitement, I was sad that I’d been so easily manipulated by the Original Master of Amber. My vision seems suspicious in hindsight – perhaps I wanted to believe in it so badly that I let myself walk into an obvious trap?

Maybe it’s time to accept that she’s gone. It feels like losing her again, but if this adventure has shown me anything, it’s that some things are best left in the past. Besides, I have an exciting future ahead.