"But there are whispers in the wind, rumors that on an uncharted island across the sea, Captain Blade left behind a treasure the likes of which nobeast has ever seen, one that could make a beast richer than even in their wildest dreams."
—The Tagline
Mossflower Odyssey III: The Lost Treasure of Captain Blade is an Alternate Universe Fic set in Brian Jacques' Redwall canon in a future not too far from the books. After the fall of the Pirate King Captain Blade at the paws of Badgerlord Atlas Stormstripe, piracy has officially been slain and progress has begun to push through Mossflower as the seas and different trade routes have grown safer. However, rumors begin spreading of an uncharted island across the sea that Captain Blade left upon a vast treasure, one large enough that pirates from all over have crawled out of their holes and bilges in search of it. Fearful of a pirate resurgence, Atlas decrees to find the treasure first, and snuff out the flame of piracy once and for all.
Mossflower Odyssey III is a collaborative survivor writing contest written in 2015. Ten authors were accepted to write different characters within the story, one being voted out each week, which eventually leaves the top 3 authors as the winners. This means there are a lot of characters, cast and NPC alike, who are Killed Off for Real. Despite its name, Mossflower Odyssey III is not a direct sequel to any previous Mossflower Odysseys, but is instead just a new entry. As should be obvious, there are spoilers galore, so be warned.
The contest can be read here.
This work provides examples of:
- Action Dad: Robert Rosequill
- Anyone Can Die: The defining theme of ROC Survivor Contests. Also, averted with some characters who were voted off, but still survived.
- Anti-Hero: Atlas arguably. Ciera.
- Babies Ever After: Robert returns home just in time for the birth of his second child. Chak marries another otter in his epilogue and they have a daughter.
- Batman Gambit: Blade does this to Robert during their confrontation. After a short battle where it's clear Robert's time as a soldier has given him the upper hand, Blade merely tosses his weapon aside, knowing that Robert won't be able to kill an unarmed beast. It works and Blade manages to stall long enough to escape.
- Big Bad: Captain Blade
- Big Damn Heroes: Tooley showing up just in time to save Crue. Ciera's reinforcements arriving from Salamandastron just in time to cut off Blade before he gets there.
- Blatant Lies: Blade's story about what happened to Gordon
- Burial at Sea: Fildering's.
- Character Development: one of the main objectives in a Redwall Survivor. Averted with Robert's author, whose main objective was to NOT change.
- Character Name Alias: Gordon goes by the alias of Scully Craws. No one finds out about his real identity until the epilogues. Vasily is also a false name, and was never revealed in story. Word of God confirms it to be Casso however.
- Child Soldiers: It's implied with Figgins that many pirates are this. Gordon and Plink are also members of this trope.
- Coldblooded Torture: Reedox and Vera are both tortured by Torin. A reluctant Gordon does this to Morton before Murdin finishes the job. Ciera tortures Figgins in her application.
- Crapsack World: For vermin at least, especially with a homicidal badger unable to control his rage at the helm of a massive navy.
- Crazy Enough to Work: Convince the mongooses to abandon their false god, assault the Dead Rock, free the slaves, and defeat Captain Blade.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: The battle between the Zephyr and Silver Maiden.
- Do with Him as You Will: Torin's death.
- Death Is Dramatic: Most deaths for important characters fit this trope. Blade's death subverts it because, while his confrontation with Atlas is dramatic, his death is swift.
- Death of a Child: Blade averts this with his order to terminate Ciera's pregnancy. The baby survives to birth however, but is implied to have died later.
- Deceased Parents Are the Best: Chak's mother. Damppaw and Scarcrab.
- Died in Your Arms Tonight: Tooley dies asking Crue to remember him.
- Disposing of a Body: Dremlak did this with several HUNDRED slaves. Chak was not pleased when he found them.
- The Dragon: Dremlak
- Dying as Yourself: Atlas dies having conquered the Bloodwrath.
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Ensemble Dark Horse: Vera, who didn't have a very popular app, but managed to impress the audience with her performance well enough that she received a well-deserved second place. - Everyone Chasing You: Blade during the assault on the Dead Rock. Luckily for him, he's crafty enough to easily escape through a hidden tunnel back to his ship.
- Family-Unfriendly Death: Lots, but Twilbee's death comes to mind.
- Fangirl: Plink to Captain Blade
- Fantasy Gun Control: The story takes place in a more traditional Redwall setting so guns are unheard of... but that quickly becomes subverted, as the plot twist is that Captain Blade is still alive and has discovered how to create gun powder and cannons so that he can defeat Atlas and the Waverunners with weapons they aren't prepared for.
- Final Battle: A large scale ship battle between several scores of ships, with the two main ships: the Zephyr and Phantom- blaring cannons at one another. Meanwhile, a team of Waverunners, Robert, and Plink are aboard the Zephyr to confront Blade before he makes it Salamandastron and Hearth.
- Final Girl: Plink when she finally turns against Captain Blade.
- Friend to All Children: Robert.
- Frothy Mugs of Water: averted
- From Bad to Worse: Washed up on an island, then captured by mongooses, then given as offerings to a malevolent god who turns out to be the Big Bad.
- Good Parents: Robert and Violet Rosequill. Mrs. Hagglethrump. Damppaw. Subverted with Rindclaw, who is regrettable for his past abuses that Tooley doesn't even remember.
- Gorn: The room of dead slaves Dremlak shows Chak. Chak's author also put careful detail in describing the tiny pieces of BONE Torin takes out of Reedox's tail after he cuts it off.
- Great Escape: The slave revolt.
- Happily Married: The Rosequills. Dekeft and Laika. Damppaw and her late husband Captain Scarcrab. Hylan and Villian. Arguably the Hagglethrumps. Presumably Chak and Salina too.
- Heel–Face Turn: Rindclaw. Chak. Arguably Ciera, assuming she wasn't already good.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Tooley dies saving Crue
- Heroic BSoD. : Robert becomes almost mentally shut down after Plink tells him where Gordon has gone. Crue screams that she's going to kill Shuga after he stabs Tooley.
- Highly-Conspicuous Uniform: The Waverunners blue and gold uniforms and the neo-pirates bright red sashes. It's even used by Crue as a way to tell the mongooses which beasts are their friends and enemies.
- In-Series Nickname: Rob. Fild. Fred. Tools. Ver. Cy.
- Interspecies Romance: Many readers and some of the cast wanted Vera and Hylan to become a couple due to their good chemistry together, but Vera's author wanted nothing to do with it, ultimately averting this trope when Hylan became married to another pine marten.
- Inspirational Martyr: Both Blade and Atlas fall into this trope, heck Blade does it twice technically. Minstrel also falls into it when he inspires Chak to mend his ways.
- It Always Rains at Funerals- Averted. It's sunny during Chak's funeral for his slaves, Daggle's burial, and Tooley's funeral in Crue's epilogue, and merely nighttime when Vera and Gordon set Fildering out to sea.
- Isle of Giant Horrors: Mossflower Odyssey III takes place on an island inhabited by giant snakes, deadly natives, and is guarded by a Ghost Ship.
- Join or Die: After the Fire God scene when Blade reveals himself to still be alive, Atlas realizes that the prisoners he's taken- at least the vermin anyway- will have to join his pirates or be killed. The woodlanders don't have much of a choice however and are taken as slaves.
- Karma Houdini: All of the pirates working for Blade get off scot free after his death, and are even given the opportunity for better lives. Justified because Swiftpaw has no way of telling which of them were actually pirates and which were just sailors who were subjected to the previous trope, and thus can't deliver justice.
- Knight Templar: Atlas. Arguably Ciera.
- Last Villain Stand: Blade does this to a blind Atlas. He likely would have made it out alive had Swiftpaw not intervened.
- Legacy Immortality: Ciera reveals during the epilogues that due to the nature of pirate legends, it's possible that Captain Blade will never truly die.
- Literary Allusion Title: "Atlas Shrugged," but it was intended as a pun.
- Little Stowaway: Plink. Gordon also counts.
- Make It Look Like an Accident: Gordon's death is covered up by Captain Blade. "He just went on a secret mission is all." Plink, naive and trusting as she is, believes it and only begins to doubt when both Robert and Ciera don't.
- Mad Scientist: Blade.
- MacGuffin: Vera's amulet.
- Meaningful Name: Atlas is of course named after the Greek Titan, and believes he and the Waverunners alone hold up the world and protect it from destruction. Blade's name is not his real one and is a misnomer, having given it to himself because of his belief that no one respects a beast for their mind, but for their sword. Gordon's alias Scully Craws is a symbol to his adoration of piracy. Julia's last name Burnet, is false, and was given to her as an inside joke between her and Torin for their past work together.
- Mission Briefing: Atlas does this to Swiftpaw in the prologues. Similarly, there's a scene in the epilogues where Drandy Roaringale gives a briefing to a squad of Waverunners and Cyril.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Lord Atlas Stormstripe. Captain Blade.
- Nightmare Fuel: Twilbee's death during the Fire God scene. Plink and Tooley's confrontation with Maurick. Chak finding out where the rest of the slaves in the Dead Rock 'went.' Torin's collection. There are more than that too, but probably too many to name them all.
- Not Quite Dead: Atlas after being blasted by cannons from the Ghost Ship and falling into the sea while wearing full armor. He comes back in week 3 and attacks Ciera. Captain Blade is mentioned in both prologues to have been killed by Atlas. Turns out the blow to Atlas's head Blade dealt him completely ruined his memory, and he only thinks he killed him. Blade comes back in round 4 of the contest, ready to get his revenge.
- No, Mr. Bond, I Expect You to Dine: After Ciera vouches that he's a pirate to Blade, Gordon is invited to have a meal with him. Of course, Gordon doesn't make it out alive, and has given Blade all of the intelligence on Salamandastron that he could ever want.
- Off with His Head!: Chak does this to Dremlak.
- Offing the Offspring: Blade personally ordered one of Scarcrab's pirates to attack Ciera while she was pregnant with their child in an effort to kill it before it was born. It survived.
- Oh, Crap!: When the Fire God takes off his mask and reveals he's Blade.
- Opt Out: Crue did this after being voted out of the contest. After Blade escapes from the Dead Rock, Crue stays behind. Justified, seeing she's a healer, and many of the mongooses, slaves, and Waverunners, are injured from the battle with Dremlak and Maurick.
- Our Long Patrol Is Different- The Long Patrol, the canon army of hares in the Redwall novels, is renamed to the Waverunners. This is because of Atlas extending the army enlistments to any goodbeast, not just hares.
- Passing the Torch: Swiftpaw, after breaking down about not being able to save anyone, does this to Robert.
- Playful Otter: averted with Chak.
- Plucky Middie: Fildering.
- Public Execution: Dremlak is played straight. Torin, however, gets executed by the public.
- Psycho for Hire: Torin.
- Rape, Pillage, and Burn: Atlas says that Blade's pirates did this frequently. Julia Burnet's inside joke of a last name implies she also partook in this a few times.
- La Résistance: The mongoose army and the Waverunners, the former having realized that they were tricked by Blade pretending to be their god into serving him, and the latter captured and enslaved after the events of the fourth week. Round out the party with a healer squirrel, fatherly hedgehog, former slavedriver, and a simple fox cook, and the power of good prevails.
- Saving the World: If Blade wins, it's explicitly said he'll likely have the resources to not only conquer Salamandastron, but also Redwall and the rest of the Western Coast.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Ciera's reaction to Blade's neo-pirates. She runs away during the night, and is only seen again in the epilogues when it's revealed she betrayed Blade and brought the Waverunner reinforcements.
- Sequel Hook: "Blade will return, and it can be as anybeast."
- Slave Galley: Chak is the slavedriver.
- Slave Liberation: Part of the plan to defeat Blade involves first rescuing the slaves he has within the Dead Rock.
- Shout-Out: Before he became a pirate, Captain Blade was raised in an orphanage in Carrigul, a reference to the first Mossflower Odyssey.
- Surprisingly Sudden Death: Vasily. Minstrel.
- Survivor Guilt: Robert is remorseful in his epilogue that he survived when younger beasts didn't.
- Sword over Head: Robert defeats Blade but is unable to kill him.
- Tap on the Head: Averted with Atlas, who survives both instances, but becomes locked in a perpetual state of Bloodwrath and has frequent bouts of memory loss.
- Tear Jerker: An audience member has been cited as to having cried reading Tooley's death post.
- There Are No Police: Averted with the Hearth Marshalls. The Waverunners also act as a sort of policing force.
- Throw 'Em to the Wolves: Torin is thrown to his past slaves to be dealt with. He doesn't last long.
- Tired of Running: Vera. Averted with Swiftpaw in the epilogues, who is tired of fighting.
- Torches and Pitchforks: The mongooses after they capture the 'striped demon'
- True Companions: Vera and Hylan. Chak and Reedox. Robert and Plink. Plink and Gordon. Robert and Chak. Crue and Tooley.
- Tsun Dere: Plink
- Villainous Breakdown: Captain Blade does this when it's clear he's lost
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What Could Have Been: Literally the intent behind Tooley's author's "Finishing the Weasel's Tale' thread. - Wham Line: "Oh, poor Atlas, the world's a beast of a burden isn't it? But don't worry. I can take it off your shoulders."
- Wicked Weasel: averted with Tooley, who is one of the most noble members of the cast.
- Word of God: the existence of the forums.
- Would Hurt a Child: Blade. Ciera tortures Figgins for information in her application. Atlas kills Figgins. Julia uses Plink as her own personal shield in her confrontation with Greyjaw.
