The world around me started to come in to focus once more. The first thing I noticed was a familiar smell in the air, the smell, of tea! I opened my eyes to find myself back in that tea room place, and low and behold, I had a cup of tea in my hands already. As I looked around, there were loads of people, suddenly appearing from nowhere, then running out through the only door in the building. I tried to speak to some of them as they ran past me, but they all had no time for me. Soon the room was empty again, except for that man I met when I first came here (in episode 0). I walked towards him, and said “hi”. “Oh hi there” he said, “you better get out there quick, all the best stuff will be gone soon”. “Sure sure” I agreed but still confused “em what just happened to me, I was talking to the woman I met, erm Cora, and
suddenly im here again!”. “I see your confusion, what has mearly happened is that Mud has reset itself” he stated mater of factly. “Oh I see” I lied “and what does that mean exactly?” “Well you see, with all these people out there, running around taking treasure, using weapons, and moving things about, well if it was left to continue like that, then we would have no treasure left, and all the weapons would be useless. So what happens is that after a set length of time, Mud resets itself, putting all that treasure back in place, bringing new weapons to the land and putting everything in its rightful place. Now as you can imagine, people soon learn where all the best treasure and weapons are just after a reset, although sometimes it’s, moved slightly. So, you better get out there and find it hadn’t you” He led me over to the door again and opened it once more. “What about you, aren’t you coming” I said just before I entered the land once more. “Dont worry about me” he said “I’ll be fine” and with that I was chucked through the doorway once more.

When I opened my eyes to see where I was, I found myself in a very smelly swamp. I looked around but I could not see very far. Well standing here wasn’t doing much good, so I decided to start walking. As I started walking, out of nowhere came this hideous, banshee. I froze in shock. It looked at me, unsure what to make of me. Cora came through the mist and spotted me. She also spotted the banshee stood looking at me. Slowly Cora egged over to me. I opened my mouth to ask Cora if we should attack it, but before I could, her hand suddenly covered my mouth. She grabbed my arm, and we slowly egged our way out of the swamp. As the mist cleared we both let out a sigh of relief. “Why’d you stop me from speaking” I asked as we continued onwards. “Simple” she said “as soon as you speak in the with that banshee”, suddenly I heard a loud wailing scream come from behind us, Cora smiled and said “that happens and you go deaf”. “Oh I see” I said “where we off to now?” “Where are you off to is a better question. You see, as you stand at the moment, your not a at all very strong. Your on a the lowest level of them all, and you stand a very good chance of getting killed.” “What am I going to do then” I asked. Cora handed me a piece of paper with directions on them. “Simply follow these directions using the inbuilt compass on that devise on your arm, and when you get to the spring, drink some of the water from there, then come back to the swamp here, and do it again. Keep going until your up to swordsman’s level, then contact me” “Contact you, how’d I do that” “Well either shout, or use your telepathic ablates” “IM TELEPHATHIC?” I asked stunned. “Oh yes did I forget to mention that, anyway I have places to go people to see, and you have directions to follow, so see you later” and with that she ran off. Rightly ho then, I thought, lets have a look at these directions.

After a short time, ok it was longer then that, after a long time, I finally found this “spring” place Cora spoke of. It look basically like a fountain coming out of the ground. “Oh well, I have nothing to loose”, I muttered to myself, and I drank the water. The water was cool, and very refreshing at first, but then I started getting very dizzy, either that or the world was actually spinning. The power of this water, made me faint. When I woke up, I was in a forest. I checked what level I was now on to see how many points I was, and to my surprise, I was now at level 1. Brilliant, only 10 more levels to go. Well I continued to do this for quite a few more times, ok ok, quiet allot of times, the water seemed to get less powerful, and gave me less points everytime I went up a level. Finally I was a swordsman, great, and I don’t even know how to swing a sword, but for some reason, I felt stronger, more powerful, and more enriched then when I was a novice. Anyway, what’s next, oh yer, contact her, ok, I’ll give this telepathic thing a try. Rocko to Cora, come in Cora, are you there, I’ve finished, im a swordsman. Suddenly I heard this voice in my head saying, “great meet me at the rapids just north of the swamp”. Wow I thought it DOES work. I made my way to the rapids and met up with Cora. “What’s next” I said eagerly. “Ok then” she said “I’d like you to meet some friends of mine, at the hut, come with me”. I followed her a little way and we came to this old, yet sturdy hut, which was quite big. As we entered through the door, I heard a voice cry out “The time to strike is now!”. I looked up to see this followed by the same bloke stabbing a knife in to a map laid out on a table. I was slightly nervous as we entered the hut, but Cora seemed very comfortable at ease and in control. “Oh is it now” Cora said “we strike when the time is right, not when YOU start getting edgy”. The bloke who had made the statement grabbed his dagger and put it back in his sheath. Another, more calmer male said from the back, “is this him, the one that squashed a wizz!”. “That’s right” Cora said “meet Rocko, Rocko, meet Foz” and she pointed at the slightly impatient one “Cloud” and she pointed at the more calmer male “and Zordell” and she pointed to a female I had not noticed at the back”. “Errm hi” I said. Errm hi, I Dont believe I said errm hi, these people are obviously well trained military people, and I said errm hi, doh! “Nice to meet you” said Zordell, and she shook my hand. “Do we have to take amateurs with us” grumbled Foz. “Because I said so” replied Cora sternly and sharply. “Fine but if he starts holding us back then were leaving without him” said Foz. “We’ll go on” Cora replied “when I say we go on, not before, not after, have you got that” and with that they both met eye for eye in the center oft the room. “Hey cool it you two” spoke up cloud. “Yer lets just do the job and get it over with” said Zordell. “Fine to Pan view then, come on” said Cora. I followed them to the entrance of a mine. “It’s just through here” Cora whispered to me, “Follow these directions and you’ll make your way through”. With this she handed me a staff and said, “you’ll be needing this”. They went through the mine one by one. First was Foz, then Zordell, Cloud, and as Cora disappeared out of site it hit me, what exactly are we doing here, what are we striking. I’ve got a weapon so I guess I’ll be fighting something, but fighting what, and am I ready? I made my way through the mine. As I neared the exit, I heard fighting, and it got louder the closer I got. All around me was black, and I was concentrating so hard on the directions, that it was quiet a shock when daylight suddenly reappeared. I looked up, to see, no, it can’t be, there fighting dwarfs! I was so shocked, that I nearly dropped the staff I was holding. Then suddenly one of the dwarfs spotted me. He came running over waving his axe, im going to die!

Will our hero really die? Why has that strange man in the tea room, never leave the tea room? What type of tea bags do they use there? Are they really fighting dwarfs? How can he be a swordsman, when the closest thing to a sword he’s held is a bread knife? Many more questions, and even less answers, in the next installment of...........

ROCKO’S (not so modern) MUD LIFE!