We rejoin our hero as he is about to meet a very mysterious character indeed. Who is he? What does he know? Let’s find out.

“You got the gear?” the man asked. “Yer, I got the gear, but have you got the payment?” the other man asked.“Of course I’ve got it,” the first man replied as he chucked the bag at him. The second man checked inside the bag, and looked up with a smile. “Nice doing business with you,” the second man said as he gave the first man a stone and left. The first man started to come over to Cora and myself. As he got into the light he checked his stone. He crushed it in his hand and muttered “useless”. He beckoned over to one of his heaviess, and whispered something to him. With that the heavy smiled and walked off in the direction of the man who left, moments later screams were heard. He looked up to Cora and myself and smiled. We were in some type of underground sewers, or stream of some sort. It was dark, dingy, dangerous, and every now and then a snake would pass by hissing. Cora took a step towards the man and said, “I’ve brought him”.Cora turned to me and said “this is Jaster, the one I was telling you about, he makes it his business to know a lot, about everything”. Jaster stepped up to me. He looked me up and down then said “you're not what I was expecting, I’d have thought the guy who could arrive in the tea room without a cup of tea, who also tamed the mighty Spunky would look more, fiercer”.

Changing the conversation I asked, “I’m here to learn about these tasks that I’ve heard about”. “Ah yes,” Jaster replied, “the tasks. Well to put it simply, there are a set number of tasks which you have to complete before you can become a wizard, and that’s besides getting a little over 200,000 points.” “What are these tasks” I asked eagerly “and how many are there?” Jaster just laughed and said, “I can’t simply tell you, you have to find out for yourself, and besides, I think you may know a couple already. Anyway, there might be a wizard watching us right this minute, do you want us all to get killed?”

What a wasted trip! I come all this way to find out, I have to learn more stuff, what does a guy have to DO to get a straight answer around here? I turned to leave and as I started walking away Jaster asked, “so how DID you tame Spunky”. I looked back at him and said, “it’ll cost you”. He smiled at me and said, “you're learning.” “Come on” I said to him and Cora “I’ll tell you on the….. ”

“It’s very quiet.”
“You’re telling me.”
“Are we ready?”
“I think we are, is everyone here.”
“Their all here, every wizard and witch there is.”
“Even together there aren’t that many of us.”
“Ok then, are the mortals in suspended animation?”
“Yes, that’s why it’s so quiet.”
“And peaceful.”
“If this works, we’ll have successfully made another stable world for life.”
“But this time, magic will never leave this world.”
“These shall never turn their backs on magic like the first.”
“It is time, form the circle.”
“We must focus our attention on the task at hand, the world must grow, the mortals must become complete.”
“Quite please, we are about to begin”

It’s very quiet, too quiet. Even from my island far from their shore, I can usually still hear the shouts, the calls, their arguments, but I don’t here any of that. Never mind I’m sure they have their reasons. They’re too insignificant to think about for long. Sitting out here, alone on this island, I have spent too long here. When the magic in the first world was dying away, and when they came to me, and made their proposition, but they have never came through. They told me I was the last of my kind, the last dragon. I had suspected this before they had told me. Those mortals were too busy fighting anything and everything, to realise that they were killing too much. I was promised a mate here, a companion in this New World, a place where magic shall never die. Magic has never died, and neither have I, nor can I ever die, nor can anything, or anyone, die. It’s fine for everyone else. They have each other; I have no one. I think I shall sleep, I have nothing better to do now, but sleep.

What the hell am I going to tell them? “Oh sorry guys, the other wizzes and I have, well, had a slight problem?” No, that will never do. Oh I’m going to have to get it over with. But I’m going to have to be careful; I can’t go over board with the special effects this time, a blue flash, that will have to do. 3, 2, 1, here goes shazam.

“I’ll tell you on the way to the…. Hold on, how’d I get back in the tea room?” A few other people were appearing obviously half way through doing something. Wdi was curled up sleeping on the floor, Foz was meditating, and Joey appeared in the air with a dagger in hand, and landed hard on the floor - obviously he was attacking something. The lights were dim, and everything seemed quiet... Looking around I counted nine of us in total, once people had stopped appearing, and Cat the wizard standing over in the corner. “Cat the wizard?!” I said startled. Everyone turned to look.

“Hi, how are you all doing” Cat said with a false self-confidant aura around him. “What’s going on Cat, the wizzes messed up or something?” Jaster said and everyone laughed, except for Cat. He looked worried for a moment, then he managed to refocus “No no, nothing like that Jaster, why should there be anything wrong at all” he added a false laugh, “well maybe one slight teeny weenie problem, nothing to worry about though”.

“If there is nothing to worry about then” Zordell said “I’d like to go back in to the land and finish off those dwarfs, you coming Rocko?” and as she said that she went to open the door, to go back into the land. “NO, DON’T GO OUT THERE!” Cat shouted before I could answer Zordell. “Why not?” asked Foz, “something HAS gone wrong hasn’t it”. “Something you can’t put right,” added Jaster. “What’s gone wrong cat, we have to know” demanded Cora. Cat lowered his head solemnly, and walked over to the door. Zordell moved out of the way, and joined the rest of us. “This has happened” Cat said, and he flung open the door.

We all gasped. Normally when that door opens, there is a mist which you can’t see though, but that had gone, you could see straight out into the land, what was left of it. All around was open space; the stars and rest of the universe could be seen in all directions, not just up. It looked as if the whole world had been destroyed. Half a tree came by, which was slowly turning into a whole tree, leaf by leaf. Cat shut the door then sank to the floor. Everyone was stunned. The room fell silent.

Oh my god, what have they done? Can this really be true? Can it be put right? If it can’t will it be the end of these episodes? What will I do if it is the end? We’ll have to wait and see in the next cataclysmic episode of……..

Rocko’s (not so modern) MUD life!!!