Story of Seasons: An Ambrosia Story

[Proto Man]

A few miles from the outskirts of Ambrosia, Mireya let out a sigh and leaned against a tree. She’d managed to ‘escape’ from the crowd of excited citizens by excusing herself to use the bathroom and slipping out a back window. With the strange mini-metropolis behind her for now, the half-night elf was able to enjoy some fresh air. This zone of the Tangled Green wasn’t that violent, and with the growth of the settlement, it had become even less so over the last year.

The princess—the strange, short one (why were all these primes so tiny?) with the pink hair and dead eyes—had given her permission to live outside the city proper and still consider herself a citizen of Ambrosia. The ability to live on her own yet still trade and mingle with civilization on her terms was perfect for the woman, who was still used to living life on the edge of society. While she had come to love Blues like a naïve kid brother, she knew she had to be on her own to truly find a stride.

After walking another half mile from the city, Mireya came to a nice little spot. It wasn’t much—a clearing wide enough to let a few rays of sunshine touch the forest floor. Even so, it felt like a beacon, drawing her toward the end of her little exodus from Ambrosia. Walking into the light, Mireya glanced up at the sun and smiled as it warmed her mauve-colored skin. As she soaked in some of the lovely rays, she removed her heavy pack and dropped it against the closest tree. A beat later, she removed her spear, scimitar, kukri, and her collection of small chakras and placed them on the ground.

“Axe…” the half-night elf muttered as she knelt in front of her pack, pulled open the drawstring, and rooted through the tools. It didn’t take long for her to pick out the yellow cloth that protected the business end of her chopping axe. Since she was a secondary, she would have to do her work the long way.

Stepping back, she eyed up the closest tree, and as she hacked it down, she found herself whistling the little tune that Blues used to hum to himself. Despite her lithe frame, she was through the tree in just under a dozen heavy chops, and once she was clear of its path, she moved on to her next adversary. Unlike the blighted monsters and undead creatures she’d fought over the last few months, the trees were far less aggressive.

[Proto Man]

It was a strange feeling to realize that time wasn’t passing in the wonky, erratic manner it tended to when there were primes around.

By herself, Mireya got to enjoy each and every day to its fullest, without the strange distortion of time associated with individuals like Blues. It wasn’t that she disliked the time she spent with her adopted younger brother, but she enjoyed the peace and quiet.

In a month, she’d made a small home from some of the nearby trees. As she was neither a night elf nor a human, the structure she built was something in the middle. It had all the human trappings you’d expect, but she maintained the earthy, natural look that the other half of her bloodline came to call home.

After a taking nearly a ten day period to perfect the house, Mireya had started to assess the land around it. While she’d spent a long period as a hunter living in the roughest parts of the Tangled Green, parts of her life had also been spent in one of the high elf duchies and some of their human analogues. As a result of that time (and some information that she could only guess had been preprogrammed into her by whoever had summoned her), she knew a little bit about growing plants.

With all the time in the world, Mireya had spent a week or so digging holes, tilling soil, checking lighting, and testing drainage conditions. At the time, she hadn’t been quite sure what she wanted to grow—just that she wanted to eventually grow something to allow her to subside on a larger variety of food once her ample stockpile dwindled.

By the time she passed a month since her departure from Ambrosia, she had what she wanted. A few paces from her house, she’d found a nice little patch of dirt that didn’t bog down when she subjected it to constant inundation of liquid. She still had nothing to grow there, but she found some solace in knowing that she could if she wanted to.

Maybe pumpkins? Pumpkins are fun.

Once that situation was settled, the half night-elf grabbed up her gear and prepped for a little journey. Since she didn’t want to head back to town so soon after departing, she was planning to go a little deeper into the verse. From her traveling days, she knew a few places where she could access a couple of the mineral veins in the region. The tools she’d picked up at the market in Ambrosia were effective but cheaply made, and she knew she could build better if she had the proper materials.

With any luck, she’d be there and back within a few days.

[Proto Man]

It’d been a long time since she’d sat down and actually made something that wasn’t designed to tear open throats or punch through armored hides.

The journey to get supplies had been a major success, with the half-night elf managing to have something close to fun as she dredged through a small ravine that ran almost alongside a tributary of the Animus River. At nearly five stories under the surface, she’d managed to locate a few suitable veins of iron and coal. There had been some other shiny ores, but for the time being, she wanted to focus on the essentials, rather than getting distracted by superfluous things.

After returning to her home, which was thankfully unmolested, Mireya set up the small portable furnace she’d bought in Ambrosia. With that, a sturdy little hammer, and an afternoon, she managed to work away any rust she may have accrued in regards to plying and smithing iron.

The two hundred square feet that surrounded the woman was quickly started to shrink, and the addition of another chest to store her remaining raw materials only made the place cozier. Once she put a tool rack on the wall, she filled it up and stashed some of the spares beneath her bed.

Once back outside, Mireya glanced around the clearing and tried to think of what she should do next. Her food supply was still good, and she’d acquired enough metals and fuel to keep her going for at least a month. She turned around and stared at her house, wondering if she should add another room on to the side. With a separate room, she could probably more easily store all her ‘work’ materials, and the extra space could double as a shed for surplus lumber. The last thing she wanted was to chop a lot of wood only to have it warp or get mildew.

Mireya’s head was dancing around with ideas, and it was only at the last second that she head the footsteps calmly approaching from behind her. With a twist, she drew a knife from her belt but relaxed upon seeing that Mitch the Moogle was the one walking at her. “Mitch?”

The little fella hopped up into the air and started to dance back and forth. “You remembered, kupo!” He said cheerfully as he dropped back down in front of her and pulled a small sack from his back. “I brought you some stuff, kupo!”

“How did you even know where I am?” Mireya inquired as she stooped down and untied the little bag. Inside the burlap sack was an assortment of seeds. “Seeds?”

“Of course, kupo, they’re for your garden!” He said as he gestured with his pompom toward the patch of semi-tilled earth. “That’s why you’re out here, isn’t it, kupo?!”

Mireya furrowed her brow but ultimately knew that the little guy was trying to help her. “Something like that,” she replied as she poured out some of the seeds. “So you want to help me plants these… maybe give me some peace of mind that they’re not going to grow into giant, man-eating plants?”

“Only a few of those are Piranha Plants, and they’re perfectly safe if you feed them, kupo!” Mitch said, his matter-of-fact tone devoid of any sarcasm.

[Proto Man]

The plants were there in the ground.

Mireya wasn’t quite sure what she’d just spent the last few hours planting, but if Mitch could be taken at his word, she’d know at some point in the near future. With the farm started, the moogle had taken off after passively forcing a small tea party with her. He mentioned that he really enjoyed the track of forest where she was living, and while he didn’t come outright and say it, the half-night elf had a genuine feeling of dread that the moogle would be back in a more permanent capacity.

Just what I need… neighbors.

Once Mitch was gone, Mireya set about setting up the little storage room, and try as she did to drag it out over a few hours, it was done before she realized it. The new side room allowed her to squirrel away all of her tools, raw materials, and the majority of the equipment she used to process it. That allowed her to actually have a small space to prepare food and a larger space for sleeping and relaxation.

“Not too bad,” the woman muttered as she left through the front door and glanced at her front yard. She’d have to add some additional fences and a little pathway, but for the most part, it looked nice. With some of the trees cleared away, there was fresh grass starting to come in around her home, and after another week or so, she might have something close to a lawn.

“All good things in time.”

***

Neighbors...

A plural word. As in, more than just the one.

Mireya had expected Mitch the moogle to return at some point, and she even figured he’d set up nearby. What she hadn’t expected was for the goofy little creature to have ‘associates’ who would follow him out to the half-night elf’s neck of the woods.

Mitch the moogle was joined by three of his friends. The first was some sort of talking lady turtle who called herself Jenny. Next was a pudgy pink thing with pointy ears and short limbs. Mireya couldn’t figure out if ‘Clefairy’ was the name of the individual or just its species. Mitch’s last friend was a walking, talking pirate crocodile who went by the name Klomp. They all seemed like generally pleasant individuals, and Mireya liked them all the more when they accepted her ‘brilliant advice’ that they settle a mile away.

After the meeting with the quartet, Mireya had taken as many days as she could without going to visit them. She was on the verge of quietly packing up her belongings and huffing it to a position further into the jungle when a voice of reason in her head—Damn you, Blues, this is your fault—convinced her to go visit them.

The trek hadn’t taken more than fifteen minutes, and when Mireya exited the brush into the clearing, she was amused at what she saw.

The four friends had all built their homes in the same vicinity, with an unpaved street wide enough for a cart separating them. All four of them had goofy little one-room, one-story buildings that almost awkwardly matched their origins. Jenny’s house was made of green bricks that matched her shell, and Klomp’s abode was made of simple wood with a crows’ nest and a cannon sticking out the back window. Clefairy was in an elegant little white home, and Mitch’s house had a little pompom and wings as decoration.

“Do you like it?” The moogle said, his little frame fluttering out one of his windows upon seeing the half-night elf.

“Looks like a lot of work,” Mireya muttered as the pirate-crocodile came out of his house. The woman hadn’t noticed before, but Klomp actually had a peg leg to go with his eye patch.

“We had them boxed up,” the crocodile replied as the others joined them. “Just a matter of plugging the pieces together, you know?” The matter-of-fact tone he had seemed to imply that this should be general knowledge.

“Oh, yea,” Mireya lied as she glanced around the area. Had they really managed to remove the trees so seamlessly? Only Klomp appeared to have the physique needed to chop down a tree, and the crocodile was missing an eye and a leg!

“We’re really excited!” Jenny remarked as she pointed to the woods just east of their houses. “There’s a nice river down there, and we even think we got some caves to explore.”

“The air is so nice out here, too!” Clefairy interjected. “Although it’s so quiet compared to Ambrosia… almost a bit too lonely.”

Mitch puffed out his tiny chest. “No worries, we’re going to liven this place up, one step at a time. The four of us are going to do what we can to help you out as well, Mireya.”

“Huh?”

“Well yea, you’re going to need our support to be successful with your farm, right? We’re all very handy, and while we can’t drop everything, we’re definitely going to do everything we can to help you out!”

Mireya held up her hands and shook them even as she smiled. “That’s okay, Mitch, I’ll be fine.”

“Nonsense,” Jenny replied. “Clefairy and I have some great merchant connections in Ambrosia. We’ll be trading some of the goods we make out here for town merchandise. We’ll take your stuff as well, if you want.”

“And you already know that I have an excellent green thumb,” Mitch added. “We’ll grow the best plants and vegetables together, Mireya! And Klomp is an amazing carpenter and blacksmith. He’s really the best.”

“You over-sell my skills,” the crocodile chuckled. “Although I’d wager no one knows how to work a piece of steel like me.”

I’m never getting away from these folks.

“Sounds wonderful,” Mireya said as she cursed her inner Blues. If the preteen robot was still here, he’d be over-enthused at the prospect of working with the little motley assortment of characters. “I can’t wait.”

With that, the half-night elf was dragged to some tea over at Clefairy’s house.

[Proto Man]

Had it really been over two months?

Mireya stared in a mixture of shock and dismay at the screen of the little device. The timestamp on the message seemed to indicate that it’d been nearly two months since the half-night elf had first met her ‘neighbors.’ In that span of time, life had become relatively calm, something that the woman found quite pleasing, to say the least. Her little garden of strange fruits and vegetables had grown into something closer to a full-fledged farm. She’d cleared out a few of the surrounding trees to open up some more field space and let more sunlight in, and the results had been better than she could have every hoped.

The crops were ready in rather well-timed cycles, and whenever she harvested one of the rows, she’s simply seed the next variety. A little advice from her peers and some morsels of information retained from her time with the humans told her that it was important to rotate your crops. If you kept growing the same thing in the same soil, you’d eventually drain the ground of its nutrients and ruin your chances at having successful harvests.

While she kept some of her produce for her own needs, Mireya gave the rest to her friends. They ate some of it, and what they didn’t eat, they would take into town and sell. From what they told her, there was a pretty nice market for the ‘niche’ crops she grew in her little slice of semi-isolated heaven. When they came back from those trips, they’d always give her what she thought was too generous a portion of the earnings—after all, they were doing the heavy lifting by transporting and selling the stuff. Compared to that, the farming part was simple.

Over the last few weeks, their little pseudo-community had amassed a small degree of wealth, but no one was really certain what they wanted to do with it. Unlike a human settlement, there wasn’t a concept of ‘ownership’ in the Tangled Green, so they didn’t have to peddle their pocket change to an overlord to pay for taxes or expanding their holdings. And since the verse was so rich in natural resources, they had no want for basic materials, which left them with no real options.

Setting aside the coins into the underground container where she stored them, Mireya sat down with the dataverse device. Mitch had brought the contraption back after one of his trips to town, and while the half-night elf wanted nothing to do with the dataverse, he insisted she kept it as ‘a connection.’

Given the context of the message, Mireya felt silly for throwing such a conniption about the handheld piece of machinery.

Berry Blitzkrieg has ambushed Guu in the Nexus. While she has back-up, our most recent reports state that she’s out-numbered and only holding out. Anyone who could spare themselves to help, please head towards the Nexus. She was last seen near the fountain. For those already there, reinforcements from Ambrosia are currently on the move!

While she respected the Princess for letting her live near her home, Mireya probably would have ignored the call to arms had the aggressors been anyone else.

Unfortunately, Mireya knew exactly who the villains were in this equation. The hybrid had become acquainted with Berry Blitzkrieg and its sociopathic princess during her time living among the humans in Camelot. A deluded monarch oblivious to her own malice and rampant xenophobia, Princess Bonbon was a shining example of the very worst that humans had to offer. If this attack was some sort of declaration of war, Mireya knew she couldn’t just sit around and let the humans expand their sphere of influence into the Tangled Green, especially if that meant the subjugation of Ambrosia.

With a frown, Mireya slipped the device into her satchel. Once the bag was secured, she rushed over to her cabinet and threw open the door. Her eyes settled on the polished battle gear that she hadn’t used for the better part of four months. As her hand settled around the haft of her poleax, a small smile spread across her face.

A beat later, Mireya emerged from her home and set off for the gate.

[Proto Man]

Five months?

Mireya wiped her brow and stared across her vegetable garden. In her absence, Mitch must have been tending to her fields, because the crops were lush, green, and adorned with oversized fruit and vegetables. The half-night elf had expected for everything to be shriveled and desiccated upon her return.

“There you are, kupo!” From Mireya’s back door, the floating moogle waved his hand and came zipping over to the woman, who caught him out of the air with an awkward hug. After giving Mitch a few seconds of affection, Mireya gently pulled him away from her and let him float around in little circles until he wore himself out enough to carry a sensible conversation.

“The field looks good,” Mireya remarked as she walked through the gate and looked at a patch of tomatoes. “Looks really good,” she said with a chuckle as she turned to look at her diminutive friend and neighbor.

“I kept good care of it, kupo!” Mitch answered as he pointed to a tiny, moogle-sized water can near the corner of the garden.

That thing’s the size of a toy, how long must it have taken him to water this plot? The half-night elf made a mental note to be kinder to the goofy little animal in the future.

“How did it go in the Nexus?” Mitch asked as he flew much calmer circles around Mireya. “Kupo, we heard that the princess was attacked by that meanie from Berry Blitzkrieg!”

Feels like months ago…

“You heard correct,” Mireya remarked as she recalled battling with Princess Bonbon Surprise (or whatever that racist puta was called) and her sparkling lackeys with their matching uniforms. “We drove them off, which was pretty nice fun.”

“What did you do after that?” Mitch asked as he came to a rest atop a fencepost.

Mireya smiled as she recalled scrambling through the back alleys of Nippur with Proto Man on one arm and Mickey Mouse’s clothed hand squeezing the other. “I met up with two of my friends. For some reason, the Nexus was filled with a lot of people at the time. My boys were just escaping from some pocket verse at the time, and there were a lot of other primes piling into the place thirsty for blood and baubles.”

“Oh!” Mitch flew a few quick circles before settling back down and starting to hop from one foot to the other. “I believe I read that, kupo! An angry man with sunglasses and bland speech patterns!”

Mireya snickered at the moogle’s remark. “I’ll take your word for it, Mitch. Anyway, the boys and I headed to the Endless Dunes, because Mickey was looking for his lady. We had to take some detours to avoid those imperial maricóns, and we wound up in Nippur… you know that place, right?”

The moogle hopped up and down. “Golden King for the golden city, kupo! He was a jerk to Princess Guu a few years back.”

“Yea, well he ain’t around no more, so the place was all crumbly. The boys had taken out Gilgamesh, so some people wanted to murder them. Others wanted to make ‘em saints, but they tried to steer clear.”

“Did you find the queen?”

The half-night elf shook her head. “No clue. I lost track of both of them after a few weeks. I heard that Proto Man saved some people by a gate, but by the time I found the place, it was too late. Mickey had already run off at that point, and I couldn’t get a hold of either of them. How hard you think it is to answer a text? One of them has a computer built into his head.”

Mitch frowned upon seeing a flash of the stress Mireya felt at having lost contact with the two small primes.

“I’m sure they’ll both show up safe and sound, kupo!”

“I hope,” Mireya whispered as she turned back to look at the field of vegetables. “Otherwise, I’ll kick both their asses.”