“Mouskavteers Drop Opening Game in 2-1 Overtime Loss to Totally Not Dead

The Warplando Mouskavteers dropped their first game 2-1 to Totally Not Dead in a last-second overtime defeat. Warplando got its lone TD from gutter runner Rattyan Gosklin, while Totally Not Dead got TDs from blitzer Samuel Soncern and runner Sofia Candor. (Note: there is some controversy over whether Soncern is actually a wight blitzer and Candor a ghoul runner, but for now Totally Not Dead claims to be a human team, and as their name implies they are, in fact, alive … totally.)

The completely living humans opened the scoring late in the first half after a long drive that saw Candor patiently make her way up field in the midst of blizzard conditions that slowed both teams throughout the game. She broke into Mouskavteer territory easily behind some punishing blocking from Henry Perith and Olive Sorsha, two “human” blockers who sported an inordinate amount of bandages.

“I guess they must have gotten injured in a previous match,” said Mouskavteer thrower J.C. Cheezes, one of two skaven casualties on the day. “But this was a Royal Rookie Rumble, so they hadn’t played any other games before, right? Well … I guess maybe they got injured in practice. I don’t know. They definitely weren’t mummies, though, I know that.”

Warplando’s screen and column defense stalled Candor’s progress late in the half, and Totally Not Dead looked like they might be held scoreless as the halftime whistle neared. With seconds left, however, as skaven blitzer and oldest Mous-club member Rattnett Funicheezlo attempted to dodge away from Sorsha to block the path near the goal line, she tripped over one of Sorsha’s many bandages. This opened a clear route for Candor to score, putting the human and thoroughly living team up 1-0 at the half.

“They should probably have some uniform regulations about how many bandages living players are allowed to have,” said Funicheezlo after the game. “I mean, if he would have been a mummy, that would have been fine, but he was just a human, right?”

The Mouskavteers struck quickly in the second half after Gosklin took the kickoff and settled in near midfield behind a cage of linerat blockers. Totally not Dead closed in quickly, as Sorsha and Soncern pushed back one of the corners of the cage to get within reach of Gosklin. The agile gutter runner, however, easily spun away avoiding Sorsha’s flailing fists and bandages, and raced up field. With a screen of blockers between him and the Totally not Dead pursuers, Gosklin slowed to eat up some clock and then scored midway through the second half.

“Speed can be a blessing,” said Gosklin after the game, “but it can also be a curse.”

Despite trying to slow down, Gosklin left plenty of time for Totally Not Dead to try to score the winning TD. Fortunately for the Moskavteers, however, the thick coating of snow on the field aided their defense. Human (not wight) blitzer Kendall Falan scooped up the ball deep in Warplando territory following Gosklin’s desperation blitz on human (not ghoul) runner Adrian Nome, which left both the gutter runner and Nome seriously injured. But as Falan sprinted for the endzone, he slipped on a snow drift near the goal line and went down in a heap, leaving the game knotted at 1-1 as the second-half whistle blew.

Overtime saw Totally Not Dead win the coin toss, receive the kickoff, and immediately start brutalizing their rat opponents with expert blocking that KO’d or seriously injured all but four Mouskavteers by the end of the overtime period. Despite being outnumbered, the Mouskavteers almost held Totally Not Dead out of the endzone to force a penalty-kick/field-goal tiebreaker, when Funnicheezlow made a miraculous run to catch Candor just a few yards from the goal line. When she grabbed Candor by the arm, the limb, which appeared to be covered in rotting flesh, tore off from the human runner in a spray fetid black bloow, and the ball bounced away, inches from the goal line.

“I’ve never seen a living person’s arm just kind of tear off like that,” Funnicheezlow said. “I guess Candor needs to put more dairy in her diet, or maybe eat something besides that bucket labeled ‘brainz’ I saw her snacking from on the sidelines.”

With just seconds to go in the overtime period, Funnicheezlow squatted over the ball, guarding it with her paws and tail in the hopes that Totally Not Dead wouldn’t be able to scoop and score before the final whistle. But human lineman Knox Andraut blitzed in from the side (curiously staggering with arms outstretched and groaning in a rather zombie-like fashion) and pushed the skaven blazer away from the ball to clear a path for Soncern. Soncern then sprinted forward, deftly grabbed the ball from the snow, and sprinted over the goal line for the winning TD.

“It was a disappointing first game, but I think we’ve got something to build on here,” said Warplando Coach Misksav Mous, who then emitted a strange high pitched laugh and began spelling his own name while singing.
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