Resurrection

Another two dungeons later, Seb decided to go on with the main story quests. Trudging back to Craylock, he took the liberty to gaze around the town. He recognised the fleet of ships which engaged in 'trade' with the Southswarders, he recognised the open plaza in which he arrived into Mossflower, he even recognised the Perched Bird, the tavern where people spend fake currency to have the time of their lives… if they're lucky.

What he didn't recognise was the face of the weirdly-dressed hare in front of him.

"Heya! We've been observing you chaps for a while now. You managed to unburden three whole dungeons! You would be totally splendiferous at murdering extremely dangerous elemental summons!"

"I guess?"

The hare continued, "Go to Kalno and walk west for seven minutes minimum. Then you'll reach the Veil, which is a bally ole forested swampland. This means you got to Nest, and you'll seek out Eula." He shrugged. "Oh, and you'll be going there a flippin' lot, just letting you know. Do memorise the route, wot wot."

Seb furrowed his brows. "Surely there's a convenient Warp Crystal that takes me right to it?"

The five-second long silence that followed Seb's question was broken by the stranger's laughter, which took another five seconds, if not more. "That's a good one, oh man. Convenient warp point? You're positively adorable." Seb crossed his paws and waited for the hare to stop laughing, which he eventually did. "I'm Forsyth, by the way."

0000

Gathering his teammates, Seb finally made the trek to Nest. It took them a total of fifteen minutes, and Seb hoped that Forsyth was joking when he said that they would have to frequent that place.

He was not.

But eventually, they found Nest, an idyllic little village in the middle of nowhere. Well, not exactly. Seb was quite dismayed to find out that it was located above the ground in a grove of trees, with a labyrinthine series of walkways, ladders, bridges and nets designed to somehow make navigation easier. He was even more dismayed when Jared told him he would have to pass through them every single time they were called back there.

Its inhabitants, led by a female badger, were quite excited to see them, which soothed Seb's mood somewhat. "I am Eula. Behold my majestic meline body, and weep for you cannot create a badger character until Patch 2.0: Visions of Salamandastron."

Seb's tail shook sideways and his lips curled up in an expression of bemusement. "Not sure how that's relevant, but OK."

"It was foretold that the Taggerung would come to Nest," continued the badger, "and the fact that there are four of them is good news. Now, I'll introduce you to our members."

"Er, we already know them." replied Seb.

Eula gestured to a familiar sable, who bowed in respect. "This is Mekai."

"Already met," said Seb again, trying his best to sound just as respectful.

"This is Forsyth." The hare waved.

"We know." Fret looked like he was going to kill somebeast.

The badger pointed at a squirrel. "Skoven."

"Seriously, stop!" said Jared, clearly annoyed.

Eula winced, then shot the Taggerungs a spiteful look before turning to face another beast - another otter. "And this is Bard."

Kio decided to do nothing but sigh.

"Together," continued the badger, "we are the members of the Nestene Community!

"That's cool, I guess." replied Seb. "So what do you do?"

Eula flashed the otter a smile. "Absolutely nothing!"

0000

And thus, the four chosen Taggerungs, each one a mighty warrior, are introduced to their Nestene allies. But what is happening on the other side of the world, in the ruins of Loamhedge Abbey? We shall see next time…

On second thought, why not do it now?

"It has been fifteen seasons," said a female mouse, clad in the best armour a Southswarder smith could ever produce. Kezda was the kingdom's foremost general, after all, and she deserved nothing less. "Fifteen seasons since the event that I will now awkwardly recap to the people watching this cutscene. Especially for the ninety percent of players who didn't do their research, or haven't seen this before."

"Burr aye!" said Rainald the mole, one of her most important subordinates. "Yoo'm be 'ee grea'es'!"

"I know." replied the general without even acknowledging his presence. She didn't even truly know how Rainald made it so far into her inner circle, but she had quotas to fill, and the higher-ups would not like it if a mole didn't accompany her wherever she went for some reason.

"Why do we need to be in full armour to have this discussion?" asked Liska, another of her aides. "I'm sweating my hide off!"

Kezda turned to the squirrel. "How else is the audience going to know we're the bad guys?"

Rainald and Liska's eyes shifted towards something at the corner of the Loamhedge ruins. It was a great black sphere, and only Kezda knew its use.

"Burr 'okey, wot be' um 'ee dark surckle?"

The mouse lifted up a paw and whispered, "It's a surprise tool that will help us later."

The mole shrugged. "Oi'll just foller aloong bloindly, burr aye!"

In another corner of the base, two spies from Mossflower were conversing in whispers. The game didn't even bother with giving them names, so in accordance with genre custom, they would have so many death flags that they could talk to each other in semaphore.

"Yes, yes." A red-clad shrew approached the duo, taking off his helmet in a smooth motion. "My evil, evil schemes are coming to fruition. I'm the only one who takes his helmet off, so I'm the only one here who's actually important.

"So… any plans about invading Mossflower we should know about?" asked the first spy, a grey mouse. "I forgot because… I hit my head really hard on a ship?"

The shrew, Naron, squinted his eyes. "Where were you born?"

"Er… Gystra?" said the second spy, an otter.

"Yeah. Gystra."

"Wrong answer," said Naron, slaying the mouse with a single blow of his axe.

"Oh geez!" exclaimed the otter.

"The correct answer is Whelpville, because you died like a little whelp. I'm a video game villain, so I have a rather… unique sense of humour."

"By unique you mean bad, do you?" asked the remaining spy, totally devoid of survival instincts and still somehow oblivious to the axe coming right at his head. Pulling his weapon free from the otter's corpse, Naron sighed before laughing at his own joke.

"Of course not. That would be ridiculous."

With Southswarder forces coming into Mossflower after twenty seasons, how are our heroes going to cope? Will they triumph over the odds and secure freedom for their homeland, or will they fail and see it fall? Find out in the next chapters of Heroes of Mossflower!

A/N: Happy birthday, Lichard. I don't know whether you'd be interested in a birthday present about an MMORPG, but I hope you like what I have written for you - and the future chapters as well.