Story of Seasons: An Ambrosia Story

[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.