Dungeons and Dazzles

Chapters

Chapter 2: The Quest To Do... Something!
Chapter 3: Balance Issues
Chapter 4: Adventure Tactics
Chapter 5: Learning Curve
Chapter 6: Orcs Are Basically Green Cavemen, Right?
Chapter 7: And Now For Something Wacky
Chapter 9: Meeting The Boss
Chapter 1: Catching Up
Chapter 8: The Most Valuable of Treasures

Chapter 2: The Quest To Do... Something!

The group found themselves standing in a cave corridor lit with torches along the walls. In one direction waited a big, wooden door, and in the other, a large opening that showed only the blinding, white light of purgatory. None of them noticed this right away, however, because the first thing anyone caught sight of was their outfits.

"Oh, wow," Sunset thought aloud, blushing a little as she looked herself over. She was wearing (for lack of better words) a tight, black little dress, more like a shiny evening gown with a slightly tattered miniskirt and holes torn in the outfit in seemingly random places, though it luckily preserved her modesty... mostly. Kind of. Legally speaking, she probably wouldn't get arrested for indecent exposure, but she was showing more midriff than she was comfortable with and the thin, black straps running all over her arms and legs didn't make her feel much less naked. Nor the black feathers tucked into the straps on her wrists, ankles, and shoulders, least of all the ones that formed tiny wings extruding from her jet-black high heels.

"What the Hell?!" Aria stood in a suit of tight, black leather, hugging her curves even without the help of the many, many belts wantonly strapped to her body. While none of them were needed to hold her pants up, some may have been keeping the small arsenal of knives on her arms, legs, hips, and torso in place. To her, the most perplexing detail was the dark hood and long scarf that hung down to her waist, though at least she'd have no trouble keeping warm.

This went double for Sonata, who found herself in a heavy, white robe with red trims. It was just slightly too big for her, as the hood nearly fell over her eyes and the sleeves were just a little longer than her arms, meaning she had to pull them back to hold her big, wooden staff in both hands. "Glad we're not robbin' banks dressed like this!"

"Indeed..."

Noting the distinct lack of confidence in Adagio's voice, all three turned to find her standing with her arms crossed and one foot tapping in fuzzy, bear-pelt boots, a thin loincloth that covered only a little more than Sunset's miniskirt, metal bracers on her wrists, and another pelt wrapped around her chest to (mostly) preserve her modesty. Despite the added security of the fortified, metal spikes on the steel version of her usual hairband (AC +4!), she was blushing even before Sunset snickered.

"Well now! You're dressed like a barbarian, and I've seen you toting a gun, so I guess that makes you-"

"SHUT. UP."

"Hey," offered Aria, gesturing to herself, "at least you don't look like a gimp with a cutting fetish."

Doing what she could to block out that image, Sunset decided it was best to clear things up as quickly as possible. "No, no, you're a rogue." By the confused looks she got, it was apparent that the Dazzlings didn't spend a lot of their spare time dungeon-crawling. Unlike her, for a while there. "It's like a sneaky, creep-around-and-stab-things-in-the-back class, it-"

"Class?!" exclaimed Sonata in horror, "I haven't studied! Dagi, what's the rhyme for this one?!"

"'Class' is like a job," continued Sunset, "what you're good at in the game. Judging by your equipment, Sonata, you're probably a white mage, which is like a magic doctor."

Sonata glanced down at herself, her face uncertain. "'Kay."

"Aria, most of those knives of yours are probably for throwing, and the bigger ones hanging from your waist are for melee purposes." She offered a smile, pretty sure Aria would like this next part. "You've probably got lockpicks, too."

Grinning widely, Aria rubbed her hands together. "Sweeeeet!"

"Adagio, it looks like you're a warrior class, which pretty much boils down to running in and going berserk." Literally, if that fur came from a bear.

"Yes," Adagio huffed disbelievingly while tugging on her loincloth, "because this will prove adequate protection in a direct assault."

Knowing how Adagio felt about the prospect of being brutalized, Sunset offered a sympathetic smile. "You should have enough health, or endurance, or something, to make up the difference," she pointed to a long, wooden pole sticking out of Adagio's hair, "and that should help you out a bit too."

Glancing over her shoulder, Adagio found the thing with a hint of surprise, grabbing and pulling it out of her barbarian locks to reveal a battleaxe. "...Hm. Alright," she said while turning back toward Sunset, "and what exactly are you in this exercise?"

"Umm..." She needed a second to examine herself again, but catching sight of a thin, black stick with a pink crystal on the end hanging from her belt gave her a clue. She smiled. "I... I think I'm a black mage!" She drew the wand and gave it an experimental twirl, grinning even wider as arcane energy crackled in the air before her. "It's the polar opposite of what Sonata does; all offense and destruction, blowing stuff up and-"

And then Sunset remembered she was talking to the sirens. Whose dark, gemstone-focused magic was gone now. Because of her. She slowly, sheepishly looked back at them to find three unamused stares, which left her voice a tiny squeak of contrition. "I'm sorry." The stares persisted, but just as Sunset was halfway finished choosing her words for a more elaborate apology, Adagio shrugged.

"I won't say none of us ever miss being able to sway people with a spell, but it's not like you have real magic again, so I won't begrudge you for winning a short-term, virtual lottery." She glanced at her cohorts for their feelings on the matter.

Aria shrugged too. "Go nuts. I didn't get to use my knife in the last game at all, so I've been wanting to stab things anyway."

Not sure she wanted to dwell on that line of thinking, Sunset looked at Sonata to see her wearing an uncertain little smile.

"Well, hey, I got some kinda magic too, right? Fixy-spells and junk? How do we cast spells without singing, by the way?"

"Uhh..."

Hesitantly pointing her wand at a wall, Sunset thought about a big, angry fireball searing the cave walls. Nothing happened. "I don't know," she muttered, "there's no buttons or menus or anything in VR, sooo...?" It seemed so simple back when she had her horn. How did humans even concieve of magic without them? She searched her memories for 'fantasy' media she'd witnessed since coming to this world. Magic words?

She straightened the arm pointing her wand. "Fire!"

Just like that, a stream of flames spouted from the tip of Sunset's wand. The power felt good! Making note of the small, blue bar that grew just a little shorter in the corner of her vision, she looked to the sirens with a smile.

"Just say what you want to happen, I guess. In your case, Sonata, things like 'Heal,' 'Cure,' 'Remedy,' and possibly 'Protect' are the sort of spells a white mage might have."

Gripping her staff in both hands, Sonata beamed. "Cool! What spell do I use to get half-naked like you?"

Sunset did her best to school her features in front of the sirens, as it was possible that all three of them thought she wasn't fazed by nudity. She dreaded the teasing if they figured out she was, and what she had on now was a little spicier than she was comfortable with.

Careful what you wish for, huh?

"Uh, well," she said with a pretty casual smile, "that's more a matter of equipment drops, actually. We're bound to find better gear as we go, so keep an eye out for anything similar to what you've got now." She couldn't see anything like stats or tiers on anything right now, so she'd have to assume whatever they got would be better than what they had before. Standard leveling, really.

"Robbery was rather cut and dry," said Adagio while glancing around, "but what are we supposed to do here? The one overseeing this project rambled about gold and treasure, but I couldn't understand what he was saying. Are we still thieves?"

Something about the clueless expression on her face just tickled Sunset, but she tried not to outright laugh. "If I had to guess, I'd say we have to slay a boss, probably some big, ugly monster."

Chuckling, Aria glanced at Sonata. "If only it were that simple at work..." She smiled a little wider as Sonata blinked, then broke into a contagious gigglefit. When they'd all stopped laughing, Sunset went on.

"Couldn't hurt to pick up coins and treasure along the way, but we'll probably win the game by killing the boss. Any other questions?"

Adagio looked around again. "Mmm... One: Which way do we go?"

Sunset smiled. "Just follow me!"

They went through the door that Aria was just slightly disappointed to find had been unlocked, Sunset explaining the tropes involved with RPG progress; deeper, darker, and scarier usually means you're going the right way, unless mountains or high towers were involved, then it was the higher the better.

And so the party began their quest; Find and Kill a Big Thing in the Dungeons! Getting rich on plunder along the way was always a fun side-quest, one Sunset was just about done explaining when they encountered a squad of eight short, ugly green men. With the way they raised their swords, spears, and bows, Sunset didn't have to explain what was going to happen next.

Aria drew a knife from one of her arm-belts and threw it... missing entirely. She got three stares for this, which she responded to with an angry pout, blushing and crossing her arms. "What? Not like I practice throwing knives in the day job. Much as that would liven things up."

The goblins had taken notice as well, two readying spears for throwing and two aiming their bows as the other four charged forward with their swords. Pointing at the last group, Sunset looked to their barbarian.

"Adagio, you're up!"

She watched as Adagio charged past her, straight toward the goblins, swinging her axe before she'd even gotten close to them. She was actually swinging a little too high to hit any of them anyway, but she'd at least managed to instill the kind of fear that made the four little swordsmen turn and run back to the others. Seeing the spearmen take aim at the encroaching, fluffy berserker, wildly swinging her weapon with every step, Sunset raised her wand at one.

"Lightning!"

The kickback alone was immensely satisfying, but watching a brilliant, blue bolt instantly stretch across the cave and fry the (imaginary) little bastard made Sunset grin wickedly as she inflicted the same fate on the other spear-holding goblin. She looked to the archers to find both of them firing at Sonata, who frantically dodged out of the way by doing an erratic dance of panic. Having to constantly adjust her hood to keep it from falling over her eyes again probably wasn't helping.

"Ah!Eep!Ohgaw-Eek!Tooclosetooclose-Ah! ARIA, THROW BETTER!!"

"Shuddup, I'm trying!"

She managed to sink a knife into one archer's leg with the next throw, the one after going into its chest cavity. Her first shot at the other one missed, but she got it in the heart with the one after. The three of them smiled at each other, then looked to Adagio, whose curls still swung with wild abandon as she continued to dice empty air with her axe, the four goblin swordsmen lying in pieces at her feet.

"Uh, Adagio," Sunset called out, "I think you can stop now. Adagio? Hey!!" Even from a distance, Sunset felt a shiver run up her spine as Adagio turned to her with the axe raised, her eyes wide and panicked.

"...Huh?"

Smiling in what she hoped was a calming manner, Sunset gingerly upheld the palms of both hands. "Fight's over. It's oookay now."

Crossing her arms, Aria tilted her head. "Were you just swinging with your eyes closed? I know she said to go berserk, but most of your attacks didn't even come close."

Her eyebrows furrowed, Adagio paced back toward them, which made it easier to see the little cuts and scratches she'd taken from the goblins. "Yes, is that why I didn't see you in melee range?"

"Uh-" Aria averted her eyes, raising her chin somewhat haughtily. "I-I needed to get some practice with these knives."

"So I see," Adagio responded with a little smirk, "if the fact that you're missing most of them is any indication. Or were you fighting with your eyes closed too?"

As much as she'd have loved to rub it in with comments about lousy aim and clearly not even saving ammo, Sunset confined herself to a small, but very smug smile when Aria looked at her. Giggling as Aria turned red, grumbled, and stomped away to collect her knives, Sunset noted that Adagio had come a long way in restraining her revenge.

She smiled wider when Sonata skipped over to Adagio, twirled her staff once, and pointed it at her small, but numerous wounds while sing-songing 'Heal!' The grateful little grin Adagio gave her for this just warmed Sunset's heart all the more. That in mind, they probably wouldn't get far with their primary damage sponge being scared of combat (Re: Adagio vs. being brutalized), so she opted to try something.

"Hey Adagio," Sunset said while jogging over to grab one of the goblins' swords, "can you hold your weapon up for a minute? Do it like you mean to deflect a blow." Even if it was done with a slightly perplexed face, Sunset was again tickled to find that Adagio had followed this instruction by the time she'd retrieved a sword and turned around.

"Alright... Why am I doing this?" The concern regarding Sunset quickly pacing toward her with a sword in her hand must have shown in her face, because Sunset answered with a gentle tone.

"Don't worry, just going to test something. Hold that position." She raised the sword and tapped Adagio's shoulder with it. "Did that hurt?"

"No. I didn't really feel the actual attacks all that much either, so-EEK!" She flinched as Sunset swung at her much faster, but didn't drop the stance... or feel the blade biting into her skin. Not even a pinch! Opening one eye, she found Sunset smiling at her.

"This game has a blocking mechanic. Just take up a defensive position and you shouldn't take any damage. Simple!" She demonstrated with a few more harmless whacks as Adagio held her pose, then tossed the sword aside and stepped around to rest an arm across Adagio's shoulders. "See? Nothing to it." Without thinking, she took a step back and closed the statement with a sharp smack to Adagio's posterior, which she learned was not protected by the block technique when Adagio yelped and hopped forward.

Time slowed down for Sunset as Adagio addressed her rear with one hand while quickly turning around, hair shifting in the air to reveal an outright murderous glare on her crimson face. Whether the glow was more from embarrassment or rage, Sunset couldn't say as she took a few hasty steps backward, an awkward, sheepish smile plastered on her face.

"N-now hang on a sec-"

"Sunseeeeet..."

She spared a quick glance at Aria and Sonata for help. Their It-was-nice-knowing-you looks as they backed away had her sweating bullets, not helped by Adagio pacing closer. "I-I was just t-testing the block, I thought it would work from algl-a-all angles, b-because that's how it works in some games, but, uh, a-at least we know now, right? Right?!"

Stopping just inches away, Adagio held Sunset's eyes with her own, locking her in place with a stare as intense as the really angry one Fluttershy made that one time, if not more! It was just as Sunset was about to ask permission to breathe that there was an outcry from Sonata.

"Ouch!"

Two heads turned to see the group's priest delicately massaging her hindquarters as Aria snickered. "Yep," she said with a satisfied smirk, "doesn't work from the back."

Sonata found it less amusing. "I wasn't blocking, you dumb-head!"

"So block."

"Huh? Um..." Sonata hesitantly held her staff in front of her. "Like thi-OW!" She scowled at the rogue who'd stepped around to kick her again, but Aria just smiled and turned to Adagio, making a thumbs-up signal.

"Her story checks out, Adagio!"

"Yes," muttered Adagio while looking at a still-nervous, though more apologetic Sunset, "I suppose it does..."

"Sorry."

"Hmph..." Sighing, Adagio glanced over her shoulder at the downed goblins. "Well," she muttered with a blush, "the blocking mechanic should at least make it easier to fight half-naked."

Smiling sympathetically, Sunset tentatively decided against resting a hand on her shoulder. "Could be worse, right? You could have been stuck in a chainmail bikini."

"Nope," replied Sonata, who had knelt down to lift Adagio's loincloth for a peek, "that's in there too. And it's super shiny!" The resulting death-glare shooed her away, but knowing that she had healy magic had her feeling a little braver than usual.

"So," Aria asked while idly inspecting one of her knives, "what's next?"

"We press on," answered Sunset, "kill more things, steal their stuff, look for the biggest thing so we can kill it and steal its stuff."

"Y'know," Aria said with a grin, "I think I'm starting to like being a hero!"

Knowing that there was a world of difference between what she and her friends did and what RPG heroes did, Sunset chose to ignore that remark. The dungeon so far was pretty linear, so finding the way to go was pretty straightforward. Literally. It gave Sunset a bit of time to think as they strode forth into the adventure.

So... She was right. Firm muscle. Hell, that might be why she got the Barbarian role. She mainly gets her workouts from running all over town and dancing in karaoke, right? I should join them sometime...

Author's Note

I never really got all that much use out of Fus Ro Dah. Or Thu'ums in general. With that recharge time and how little damage they generally did, I was better off just sticking to my primary form of attack; either swinging like a madman or playing peek-a-boo with a bow and arrow while exploiting the stealth system. And thus was forged the legend of YARGLEHARGLEDARGLE The Silent!

I'm going to be referencing Skyrim a bunch, but not quite enough to validate the already-loose way I use crossover tags.

Chapter 3: Balance Issues

After they'd cleared the next room of goblins, Sunset explained the importance of looting bodies as well as treasure chests, if they found any. Adagio and Sonata were hesitant to touch the virtual corpses, but Aria was happy to oblige. By the third room, they had gotten into a neat rhythm of Adagio charging in and taking up a defensive stance, Aria and Sonata moving in to back-stab/head-bonk everything that attacked her up close, and Sunset blasting everything that stayed at a range.

"We're getting a lotta these potions," Aria thought aloud while going over the latest batch of dead goblins, "but we're sorta running out of inventory space."

"I'm no blacksmith," Adagio said while pacing over for a closer look, "but the goblins' weapons look like trash. We should probably start throwing those out to make room for more valuable objects."

"Potions are almost definitely worth more," Sunset called out, "even the lousy ones." This won her three perplexed looks. She blushed. "...I've played RPGs before, remember?"

Fortunately for her dignity, the sirens didn't probe further, Aria and Adagio instead focusing on weeding out the least valuable items in their inventory. In doing so, the latter gave the party's slap-happy black mage a wary glance before positioning herself so as not to turn her back on her.

Sunset scowled a little.

I thought it'd be blocked, dammit! It was an accident! Not like I could touch you from over here if I wanted to anyway.

The giggles from her side told her that Sonata knew what she was thinking, reinforced by her mischievous smile.

"I think she's onto you now."

"Very funny," Sunset deadpanned. From the way she kept giggling, Sonata seemed to think so too.

"Hey, be glad that's all she's doing. The old Dagi would have totally killed you."

"...The old Dagi?"

Sonata shrugged. "You didn't know her before, but she's-... well, actually, I guess all three of us have gotten pretty mellow. I don't know if it's that we don't suck up rage anymore or that life is just... calmer now." She smiled. "But yea, she'd have probably blasted you through a wall for that."

"Blasted?"

"We used to be able to blow stuff away by screaming at it. Not as useful as you might think."

"Huh."

"Okay," they heard Aria say, "why don't you hold the potions, then? I don't know if it's barbarian strength or hair-storage, but you've got more room in your inventory than the rest of us."

Adagio huffed at the hair remark before looking through her inventory again. "Unlimited room for gold, only so much for everything else..." She briefly tried to stuff a goblin sword into the coin pouch, but it repeatedly ting'd against some tiny, invisible wall. She shrugged. "Well, suppose we can just stop picking up every rusted goblin weapon we see."

Sunset briefly outlined the basics of Potion Duty and they continued on, making their way through the dim, narrow caverns to a big, suddenly-volcanic one.

It was a single, massive room, the sheer height of which made it hard to discern any kind of ceiling, even if smoke and fumes hadn't clouded the area above. The doorway through which they entered was connected to a central, metallic platform with a long, stone walkway, built like a wall rising up from the bubbling lava below. There was nowhere else to go but back the way they came, so they followed the path out to the platform. On it was a massive checkerboard with a bunch of random, runic symbols (nothing Sunset recognized, which she took to mean they were all made up) on each square, the spaces in question about a square meter each. It seemed like an odd choice of decoration for a volcano, but a plain, wooden sign next to a lever cleared things up.

This puzzle is not finished yet. Sorry 'bout that. Please pull the lever to proceed.

RPG Trap Senses tingling, Sunset looked around for any sign of a threat that might descend on them if they tried to take such an obvious solution, but lacking any other means to progress, she settled for keeping her guard up as Adagio pulled the lever. Another stone walkway rose from the lava, cooling off and becoming walkable in ways that only made sense in video games to connect them to the next area. Sunset felt just a little silly. The walkway brought them to a spiraling, stone path that wound upward around a massive column, growing narrower with height. Aria made conversation as they headed toward the top.

"So, what was that supposed to be? Why are there giant board games or slidey-block puzzles or whatever in a... whatever this is?"

"Puzzles are kind of a thing in fantasy games," answered Sunset, a hint of pride in her voice as she said "but don't worry, I'm pretty sure I can solve anything we come across."

Sonata glanced over her shoulder at the defunct puzzle that would never be solved. "But like, if the game's not done, why are we in it?"

"We're beta-testers, Sonata," Adagio said with a hint of fatigue, as though she'd had to deliver this explanation a few too many times, "our job is to see if this thing works overall, even if every facet isn't completely ready yet. Having spoken to the man in charge, I suspect he prizes instant gratification, like combat and looting, above brain-teasers."

Sunset had to ask. "Who is this guy, any-WOAH!!"

As they neared the top of the stone spiral, a fiery bat-creature swooped down at the group, revealing itself to be one of many that swarmed in (and likely contributed to) the smoke near the top of the area. As the rest were rapidly closing in and the only path other than going back down was a rope-bridge leading from the top of the spiral to a stone doorway, the group charged in that direction. With the burning bats swooping in to chip away at their health, they found themselves wishing they had their weapons from the heist simulation as all but one of the party frantically tried to ward off their infernal attackers.

"Adagio," Sunset cried out after blasting as many as she could line up with a lightning spell, "these things are trying to kill us! Why aren't you even swinging at them?!"

"The bridge is made of ropes, you dolt!" She took minimal damage by smacking one away with her metal-covered wrist. "What happens with one wrong swipe of a battle axe?!"

"Uh-"

Adagio's fears were confirmed when one of Aria's daggers accidentally sliced through one of the ropes holding the bridge up. That alone didn't instantly destroy the bridge, but the planks on which they ran rapidly lost stability as the effects were felt, made worse by four adventurers running on it at full speed. The bridge wobbled badly as they neared the other side, a few more ropes snapping due to the stress of their continued charge or just more careless cutting, and while Aria, Sunset, and Adagio set foot on the solid, stone ground on the opposite side, Sonata Accident Prone Dusk lost her footing (she would later blame it on her hood falling over her eyes), slipped, and fell to one side as the undulations of the bridge offset her pace, barely catching herself on a snapped line less than a meter from the safety (give or take the remaining fire-bat swarm) of solid ground. Her grip was weak and she started to slip, but Aria, clutching one of the posts that held the bridge up, seized Sonata's wrist in her opposite hand.

"I've got you, just hold on!!"

For once, Sonata didn't say anything, watching Sunset and Adagio fend off the remaining bats with a combination of fast-flying ice-spikes and axe-swings, but none of that was helping her grip with these long sleeves! She felt herself giving way, her eyes welling up as she glanced at the bubbling lava far below. "Riaaaa?"

Her scared, pitiful, pleading tone tugged at something in Aria's chest as she tried to pull Sonata up. "Just hold on, I've got you!"

"I'm slippi-"

"No you're not!!"

She was. "Ria, I j-just want you to know I always-"

Aria was tearing up too. "Don't talk like that!! I swear you're gonna get out of this, and when you do, I'll, uh, get you ice cream! As much as you can stuff your face with!"

Sonata stared up at her with wide, watery eyes. "Ria..."

Unfortunately, a rogue's modest Strength stat and a cleric's smooth robes did them no favors as Sonata continued to slip. "Don't let go, don't let-NO!!"

The last of the bats fled or were slain just as Sonata's scream seized the attention of the two that had been keeping them away from her and Aria, now looking on in horror as Aria screamed the name of the plummeting party member.

And then, before Aria was even finished screaming her name, Sonata shot back up to rejoin the rest of them on solid ground, smoke trailing from her rear as she ran around crying "OWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOW!!"

Dumbstruck, the other three adventurers could only watch in perplexed silence as she continued to run around slapping at her own behind in a vain effort of putting out the fire. Sunset noticed Aria and Adagio looking to her for answers, so she drew on what she remembered from other games.

"Uhh... Well," she said with a thoughtful hand on her chin, "I guess this game goes with the soft penalty for falling down instant-death pits, which are common hazards. It'd kind of suck if you lost everything because of one false step, so some games either make it impossible to fall off ledges or only inflict minor penalties if you do." She chuckled as her eyes followed the smoking Cleric that sprinted past her. "Like a burning status effect that'll probably wear off in a sec. So, at least we know where this game stands now, huh?"

"Indeed," sighed Adagio, "I had forgotten this was just a simulation."

She looked a little embarrassed to admit it, but not nearly as much as Aria, who stood with her head down and a burning status effect of her own on her face. From the way Sunset and Adagio looked at her, they overheard her little moment while Sonata was dangling over the pit, but at least neither of them were saying anything about it. Their attention was collectively seized when Sonata (whose burning effect had worn off) stomped over, looking considerably annoyed.

"How long were you guys gonna let me run around with my ass on fire?!"

Sunset counted off on her fingers. "One: I think all three of us were sorta shocked that you survived at all. Two:-" She smirked. "It was kinda funny." An annoyed growl was cut off by her next point. "Three: What would we have used to put the fire out? Do you see any water or anything we could have used to smother the flames around here?"

Sonata's mouth hung open as Adagio rummaged through the potion satchel. "Would one of these have worked? They're supposed to fix wounds too, right?"

Adagio's naivete on the subject tickled Sunset, reminding her of a foal trying to cast a spell for the first time. "The minor healing potions we picked up from the goblins will restore health," she said with a little smile, "but won't undo status effects. Actually, we should probably use a few after that little caper."

Sunset and Adagio walked together as the former explained RPG potion use (Adagio was initially confused by the idea of healing allies by throwing little bottles at them), Aria and Sonata trailing behind them. Just trying not to make eye-contact with anyone, Aria kept her head down, but she could still hear the way Sonata was grinning at her.

"Sooo, am I still getting that ice cream?" She grinned wider at the way Aria blushed, but to her surprise, Aria responded with something other than embarrassed grumbling.

"...After we get paid."

Blinking twice, Sonata waited for some kind of punchline or a "Not!" at her expense, but when Aria didn't change or add anything to the statement, she beamed, wrapping her soft, robe-covered arms around her in a hug.

Moving at a cautious pace through the long, thin, corridor, the group kept as close together as possible. The height of the ceiling and claustrophobic atmosphere were worrying enough, but the decor of long, black, obsidian spikes lining the tunnel like the ribcage of a massive snake had all of them expecting the worst. When they opened the door on the other end, a waft of hot air and smoke billowed through to blind the group, but thankfully not induce coughing fits. This was, perhaps, beyond the scope of virtual reality for the time being.

The smoke eventually gave way, allowing them to see the bigger, wider room that awaited them; similar to the previous room, but instead of long walkways and spiraling paths leading up to fire-bats, it was a big, wide, circular area of volcanic rock in the middle of a pool of lava, a staircase leading up a cavern walkway at the far end.

"Be careful," Sunset said while shooting wary looks around the room, "the layout of this place says 'boss fight.'"

"We're at the end?" Adagio sounded almost relieved. "Well, that was fast!"

"Maybe, maybe not. Boss fights are kind of a big, exciting event in these things, so there's usually more than one. We might just be in for a mini-boss."

"Mini-boss?" Sonata looked around too. "Is that like a tinier version of the big boss that sits on their lap and punches people in the junk?"

"No," Sunset answered with a chuckle, "they're more like-"

A massive, flaming boar dropped from the ceiling, crashing down on the rocky ground with a roar as a veritable waterfall of flame cascaded down its back over pitch-black (it may have indeed been pitch) fur, save for a gleaming, golden mask covering its face and enormous, jutting tusks, fiery eyes staring down the party as it snorted acrid clouds of black smoke and scraped one hoof against the ground, preparing to charge.

Eyes wide, Sonata pointed at it. "HOLY SH-"

Instantly, a brilliant beam of white light erupted from her hand, illuminating the whole of the arena for a few seconds. When it cleared, the flaming boar was missing its entire top half, the lifeless legs and underbelly crumpling to the ground. In the silence that followed, the sirens looked to Sunset for answers.

"Uh... Okay, um... Lemme think here... Oh, I've got it! 'Holy!' Sonata must have cast a really high-level light spell." She glanced at the remains of the boar. "...OP, please nerf. That might be the only offensive spell you have, but it probably drains a lot of mana."

Huffing, Aria crossed her arms. "Freakin' anticlimactic, too. A big, stupid light-show instantly solving everything? Snore."

For some reason, Sunset felt just a few feet shorter, but Adagio shook her head. "If you wanted the experience of fighting that thing, you're more than welcome to set yourself on fire, sit on a stalagmite, and spin. I, however, will take this freebie for all it's worth."

And she marched towards the stairs, casting only a cursory glance over the lootless remains (they probably couldn't have carried more than a tusk of that giant, golden mask anyway) of the boar as she strode past it.

The other three stood in silence until Sonata smiled at Aria. "She told you."

"Shut up."

Giggling, Sunset moved to follow Adagio, and not just because her pace slowed considerably the further she went into the dungeon by herself.

Heh, I bet if Adagio were a pony, one of the noble daughters at Celestia's school, she'd have been one of those prissy, but fearful types. The ones that insisted they be escorted by armed guards any time they so much as went outside.

She could just picture it; a little pony Adagio, her fluffy mane and tail all immaculately groomed as she stood huffing by a doorway, making petulant faces until someone was free to keep her safe, no matter how small the actual chances of danger in the nicer districts of Canterlot she'd be liable to visit, then strutting around with her snout held high when she actually got going. She'd seen young mares like that before; low self-esteem, but high expectations on them, taught all kinds of magic, but never so much as encouraged to get any live practice, in self-defense especially. Of course, thinking about it, Sunset probably wouldn't have gotten along with such a pony, as she didn't really get along with much of anyp-

The sound of breaking glass snapped Sunset back to (virtual) reality, where she saw a blue mist enveloping Sonata before dissipating.

"Man," she remarked, "those potion things work like glassy water-balloons, huh?"

"I suppose," nodded Adagio, "did it restore your magic gauge?"

"Yep! But I should prolly let you guys handle most of the killing stuff anyway?"

"Smart girl. We'll do what we can, but you're our heavy artillery."

Brows furrowed, Sonata rested her hands on her hips. "Whaddya mean 'heavy'?!"

Adagio rolled her eyes, letting them come to rest on Aria, who knelt by the treasure chest the group had stopped to open. She knew better than to ask how it was coming along, but in another moment, Aria made a triumphant sound and the lid popped open.

"Ooooh, this looks nice... Hey, Shimmer, you mentioned us getting better stuff later, right?"

Sunset stepped closer to examine the contents of the chest. "Um, yes?"

"I'm thinkin' it's later! Check it out!"

Along with a pile of gold coins, the chest yielded equipment for the whole party. Sunset, picking up and examining each item, felt like she was given gift-duty on Hearths Warming!

...Which was something else she never really got into bef-

Whatever, gift 'em!

"Sonata, I think this staff is yours."

She took it. "More bonking power?"

"Hehe! Yea, but it probably ups your magic strength, too."

"Groovy!"

"And this object is a... circlet, I think. Black, thorny in design, and has a gemstone in it, so it's probably mine." She put it on her head and smiled at the others. "How do I look?"

Analyzing the aesthetics of the thing, Adagio brushed a thoughtful hand along her chin. "Do you want the long or short version?"

Remembering that Adagio had been working with Rarity, Sunset immediately raised both hands in defense, smiling sheepishly. "Forget I asked! Mercy!" The sirens just giggled, so she turned to grab the next item. "This looks like... armor, I think. Most likely for you, Adagio."

She accepted the metal pieces with a hint of discomfort. "Do I, er... Is there a changing room, or-"

Aria shook her head. "You can probably just equip armor instantly."

Before Sunset could ask how she knew that, Adagio poofed into a shiny, new outfit. In place of her bracers, fur boots, chestwrap, and loincloth were platemail boots and much shinier bracers, the most literal interpretation of a PG-13 breastplate, thin pauldrons, and a chainmail miniskirt. The AC had to be higher, but from the look on her flushed face, she didn't feel any safer.

"Er... Y-you know, one thing I could say for the barbarian furs was that they would at least keep me warm..."

"Uhh," Sunset looked back at the treasure chest, "and last is... Huh. I don't see anything here for a rogue."

Aria wore a proud smirk. "That's because like a rogue, I already swiped it." She gestured to herself. "See?"

Looking Aria over, she didn't see any difference. "Um... No."

"New leather armor."

"...?"

"The old one was ultra-dark brown, this one is ultra-dark blue. Duh."

The other two sirens nodding affirmatively made Sunset's eye twitch. She'd have argued that they were both just black, but if Adagio had scarily-good eyesight, maybe it applied to all three of them? That or they were just screwing with her. "Right, so... If we're still getting gear, I don't think the adventure is over yet. Let's keep going!"

Continuing on through the narrow tunnels, they eventually emerged into the daylight to find themselves on a mountain path, greeted with an awe-inspiring view of the valley below. Grass and tree branches visibly blew in the wind, various kinds of (hopefully non-hostile) wildlife could be seen roaming around the ground level while colorful, fantasy avians drifted through the sky above.

"Well, that's pretty," Aria remarked dryly, "but where do we go now?"

Sunset scanned the area for anything that all but said 'Hey, over here!' to prospective dungeon-crawlers, smiling when she spotted a tall, obsidian spire in the middle of the valley, just between them and a slightly ominous mountain range. "First guess? Right over there."

They started down the path, practically sight-seeing with the lack of anything that might attack them as they made their way down to the valley. Just before they reached the grassy area, there was a little market stand that wouldn't have been out of place in a bazaar, but felt just a little incongruous in the middle of Adventure Country. Still, Sunset recognized a merchant when she saw one, and the bags of wares around the man in loose-fitting robes (which might have made more sense in a desert, but maybe the model was a placeholder) all but confirming her suspicions. She smiled to the others.

"Time to sell some loot!"

"So," Aria mused as they continued down the path, "I may not know much about this fantasy stuff," Sunset politely chose not to address the irony, "but I'm pretty sure that guy was ripping us off. He offered us like twelve gold for a healing potion, but charged fifty for one of the same kind of-"

"I know," sighed Sunset, "that's just how it works in RPGs."

"That's crap! If we sold one of those guys something that really was valuable, I'd bet Adagio's metal panties-" there was an indignant, flustered noise from her, "that they'd sell us the exact same item for five times the price if we wanted it back. We should just kill 'em and take their stuff, hawk it at the next merchant."

"But then we'd be carrying all that crap the whole way, and have no room for the rest of what we'd pick up."

Sonata pouted. "So, what, we've just gotta let them rip us off?"

Adagio glanced over her shoulder at the market stand behind them. "I don't like it either, but if we attack one trader, who's to say the rest don't bar us from their shops? This way, we at least get more gold than if we only held what we could carry, even if we carefully managed our inventory to fit only the most valuable items."

Sunset smiled, looking at Adagio to congratulate her for figuring out the Adventurer trade, but she caught sight of something in Adagio's expression. She couldn't place it, but some subtle quirk in her facial muscles or a faint glimmer in her eyes signaled something... dark. Was she bitter about not being able to persuade that guy at all? It wasn't like it was her fault, the merchant having been doing the standard NPC thing of staring into space until addressed, then unwaveringly offering his set, completely unfair prices. They probably hadn't implemented a haggling system into this game yet, but that wouldn't make it any less frustrating for someone as used to being able to sway people as Adagio. Sunset shifted her thoughts to offer some comforting sentiment, but Adagio turned her head, made eye-contact, and quickly turned away again.

Crap, Sunset thought as she looked away too, staring! It's impolite to stare! Even when you're just worried about someone!

Well, she'd find time to check on Adagio a little later, if only for the chance to show her that she could talk about any problem with her friends, no matter how small!

Though, how long can I play the dependable, friend-able ear and/or shoulder to all three of them, if they need it? Maybe I could use some help...

Author's Note

You might be wondering why the fiery bats didn't burn the rope bridge. If not, just skip down to the next green Bananas. The reason is that any sensible dev knows it's not great design to punish players for things that aren't their fault, such as a rope bridge having been built in a dangerous lava-land area with fiery bats.

The idea was that the player would be able to have a dramatic charge across the bridge without fear of it burning away and plunging them into the lava before they could get across if they didn't want to fight the bats at all, rather than being stuck just before the bridge until every last bat was dead. A sneaky player could have snuck across and sniped the bats to clear them for a peaceful passage for the rest of the party, or anything else they could think of, but carelessness on the player's part could destroy the bridge, forcing them to use another path that opens up if the bridge falls and most likely have to fight the bat swarm to proceed.

And those are my extended thoughts on this non-existent bit of level design.

Bananas

I've mentioned before that there is no (deliberate) AriaNata shipping in this series. Unfortunately, this remains true, because while they might be adorable together, ~~they're more like bickering sisters~~ they are bickering sisters in this rendition. No actual attraction, or they'd have gotten closer by now.

Adagio (whom you may remember from Fluff and Kidnapping is the romantic type) remains unconvinced, but won't encourage them either way for fear of pushing them apart or encouraging incest. :trixieshiftright:
Would you believe them being siblings was the last reason not to ship them that I remembered?

Chapter 4: Adventure Tactics

Nothing of interest really happened on their way to the spire in the center of the valley, just a lot of walking through grassy plains and distant creatures that, whether they looked capable of self-defense or not, were content to stay where they were, even if the sirens gave them wary glances. Sunset's first guess was that this was cooldown time set after what was supposed to be a panicky, hectic boss fight with that fiery boar, but maybe they just hadn't put anything hostile in the area yet. When they reached the spire, Sunset leaned in to read the little plaque stuck to the front of it.

"Ooh, okay, looks like this is the main quest here! It talks about an artifact of something-or-other being kept in a mountain fortress-" she stopped to point to the opposite side of the valley from which they'd approached, "-probably that one, how it's been there since some great war centuries ago and- well, whether we actually have to go get it or not, we'll probably get paid handsomely if nothing else."

"Cool," nodded Sonata, looking towards the mountain in question, "so, we just go there, nab the thing, and kill everything that tries to stop us?"

"Yep!"

And off they went!

The walk along the valley path was uneventful, at least until they drew close enough to the mountain to see what was waiting for them at the top of the long, rocky ramp leading up to the entrance. Not yet alerted to their presence was a huge, black dragon, curled up and apparently asleep at the doorway to the mountain fortress.

Aria looked at Sunset. "Mini-boss time?"

"Probably, but at least here, we've got more room to maneuver, and aren't surrounded by lava. Adagio, you go up and whack it, we'll hang back and-"

"I beg your pardon?!" Visibly stressed already, Adagio pointed to the dragon. "You want me to just run right up to that thing, by myself, and get its full attention by waking it up?!"

"It's a game," Aria said while lightly pushing Adagio forward, "quit being such a wuss. We can just block whatever damage it does, right?"

Adagio's eyes narrowed. "Then why don't you wake it up?"

"Uh... b-because," She quickly glanced at Sunset. "it's, part of her strategy!"

The sirens looking to her for answers was something Sunset was starting to enjoy a little too much, but she restrained her reaction to a smile. "The plan is that Adagio, being stuck with melee range, can get in close and use healing potions if necessary while the rest of us, with our shorter health bars if all of the dragon's attacks aren't from the front or it gets a cheap shot in, shoot at it from a distance. Sonata can buff us and probably heal you from back here, a classic tank-and-spank!" The three searching looks made her blush. "Not what it sounds like, promise! So," she said while looking at Adagio, "think you're up to it?"

Her expression at the moment said 'No, this is scary, and I hate you, but I don't really have any other ideas, so here goes,' backed up by her tentatively stepping forward.

When she started on the narrow, rocky pathway leading up to the dragon, cliffs she was smart enough not to gaze over on both sides, she raised her weapon in a blocking stance, getting closer at a steady pace. Sunset and Aria readied themselves to offer support fire in case the dragon woke up before Adagio reached it, Sonata getting ready with the short list of buffing spells Sunset had told her about during the walk over here. The only sounds were the blowing wind and Adagio's boots meeting the stone as she drew closer and closer. She stopped just a few feet away from the dragon.

Aria leaned closer to Sunset. "What's she doing?"

"You're asking me?"

"You're the tactician here!"

"That doesn't mean I know everything you guys are thin-"

The three of them saw Adagio's axe slooowly being raised over her head, then quickly and repeatedly come down on the dragon's massive neck, accompanied by the sounds of Adagio's frantic screams.

The dragon quickly rose, letting out a bellowing roar as it wildly swung a scaly arm at its screaming, murderous alarm clock. The blow caught her in the stomach, sending her rolling backward as Sunset and Aria let loose with lightning bolts and thrown knives. Aria had to throw pretty hard to make that distance, but it looked like the knives that hit were still dealing damage. Sonata cast her damage buffs as the dragon spread its wings and took to the air, quickly closing in on the other three adventurers. Sunset saw it suck in a breath of air.

"Scatter, quick!!"

They ran in different directions, narrowly avoiding damage from the dragon's fire breath as it scorched the ground behind them. Using a minor potion to mend her wounds from the first hit, Adagio again raised her axe and charged back down the stone walkway. Sunset wasn't sure what it was about that sight that made her smile, but adrenaline always did weird things to her brain. Luckily, it wasn't anything detrimental this time as she thought to fire ice-spikes into the dragon's wing. Only a few hit, but it was difficult to say whether or not that was the reason it landed... right next to Aria.

"CRAP!!"

Aria herself uttered a much more vile string of words as she frantically swung her daggers at the beast, stumbling and falling backward as its jaws snapped at her. Looking up at it, she could swear it was smiling as it sucked in another breath, losing it by suddenly jerking its mouth upward and ejecting another stream of flames straight at the sky. Behind the dragon, Sonata could see Adagio doing to the dragon's tail what she had been doing to its neck just a moment before. She was on the fence between running closer to see if she could heal anyone and just casting Holy again when the dragon took to the air for the second time, flying around in no particular pattern before disappearing over a hill, Adagio, axe raised, in hot pursuit.

Sunset jogged over. "Everyone okay?"

"Yea," Aria said as she got to her feet, "still got all my limbs. Pretty sure I lost some health just from that thing biting near me, though."

Pointing her staff, Sonata sing-songed. "He-eal~!"

"...Thanks."

Sunset knew exactly why she smiled at Aria's begrudging little grin, but remembered that Adagio was quite possibly taking on a dragon by herself by now, and immediately ran in the direction she and the beast had gone. She and others found Adagio standing idly just on the other side of the hill, looking down into the grassy plain below.

"Um," Sunset asked, "Adagio? Where's the dragon?"

Adagio pointed to a towering humanoid, easily three meters tall, carrying a giant bone-club as it casually ambled away from the body of the dragon and its now-flattened head.

"Man," Sonata said with a raised eyebrow, "this game is kinda broken. That's two bosses in a row that we barely had to do anything for."

Aria, her face twisting with rage, pointed at the giant. "FREAKIN' KILL-STEALER!!"

The giant looked over his shoulder at her, causing her to squeak and duck behind Adagio. The ensuing stares she got from the others made her shrink down a little more as she tried to cover her face with her hood, but at least the giant had moved on.

"Uh. I'll just, go see if that dragon had anything on him..."

The others stood guard as Aria cut open the dragon to secure a few hundred coins, one of its ribs, reclaim some of her throwing knives, and a little of her own dignity.

Meanwhile, Sunset chuckled. "Y'know, Spike was actually a dragon too. Kinda wondering how he'd feel about his simulated kin getting flattened by a giant cave-man." Silence. She looked at Adagio and Sonata to find them giving her blank looks. "Spike? Twilight's purple and green puppy?"

Sonata scratched her head. "There was a puppy...?"

"Oh," Adagio said while smacking the side of a balled fist into her palm, "Rarity mentioned this; he was the one that went and got Vinyl!"

"Who?"

Adagio chose to move right along. "That was supposed to be a dragon?"

"Well," Sunset uncertainly answered, "I don't really get it either, but in Equestria, yea, he was a dragon. Just a baby one, but still." Neither of them said anything, but the two sirens sharing a look made her curious. "...What?"

"A dragon turned into a puppy. Even as an infant, that's a reptilian creature turning into a mammal." Adagio looked down at her own hands. "We, hippocampi born of insect-like changelings and Discord itself, came out the same-" she pointed at Sunset, "-as a pony, apparently missing our scales."

Sonata reached back into her hood to brush her fingers through her ponytail. "But like, if a dragon turns into a dog and their scales are just fur over here...?"

Sunset felt her brain twisting to match the implications. "What, you think your hair... is your scales?"

"Given our lineage," Adagio answered while scrutinizing a long lock of her own hair, "it wouldn't surprise me if whatever magic handles the translation just didn't know how to process us. Our hair isn't uniformly the same color as our scales were, but I don't have any better explanation." There was probably something to be said for how tough their scales were in relation to how hard Adagio's hair could be to manage, but Rarity had made a lot of progress over these last few months.

Interested though she was in the theory, Sunset held off on thinking about what exactly would be needed to test it. The sirens were behaving themselves over here, and she wanted to think they'd continue to do so if allowed back into Equestria (nevermind how they might feel about only being permitted access to their own home world to act as guinea pigs...), but who knew what would happen if they went back without their gems?

She'd message Twilight later, and maybe some day, they'd come up with something if the sirens were interested.

When they got back to the path the dragon had been blocking, they proceeded ahead far enough to reach the base of the mountain/fortress/citadel place. Here, they stopped for different reasons.

"Uh, Sunset?" Sonata pointed at the two diverging tunnels ahead of them. "How do we know which one to go through?"

"Unless there are two different final bosses and two different resolutions set up to this thing, they probably lead to the same place eventually. Even if not, we can just backtrack a little if we hit a dead end, so either way should be fine." She started toward the path on the left just because she was standing a little closer to it at the time, but Aria stopped her.

"Wait a minute..." She looked back and forth between the two paths, a thoughtful hand on her chin. "You said they either lead to the same place, or one's a dead end, right? So, if it's the first one, we could be missing half the loot for this place by the time we get to the end."

"Yeaaa...?"

"We get paid in the real world based on how much stuff we swipe, so if we split up and nab it all, we might get double the money."

"True," remarked Adagio as she glanced over her shoulder, "and not that I'm complaining, but things have been a little on the easy side so far. Still, if we do that, we should be careful; have a healer in both teams. Aria got hurt in the last sim when we split up and it would have been a problem had I not come looking for you two at the time." There were no objections. "Seeing as how I'm already on potion duty and sending the two mages together could backfire badly if they run out of mana or Aria and I end up needing magic for something, you two-" she indicated Aria and Sonata, "-go together and I'll stick with Sunset. If we come across any intersections with another path leading to the way forward, we should mark it in some way to indicate to the other group that we've been there if we don't see any other sign of each other."

Smiling, Sunset silently noted Adagio's affinity for recognizing and coordinating the aptitudes of those following her. "Even if one path's a dead end, the group that hits it first should be able to catch up to the other if the path on that side is pretty much clear. I'll probably burn a circle on a door or doorway or something for our group's mark."

Aria nodded. "I'll carve an 'X' on 'em, unless we find stickynotes around here somewhere. We all set?"

Tightly gripping her rod, Sonata beamed. "Let's get adventurin'!"

As the two pairs split up to make their ways through the separate tunnels, Adagio smiled.

Sunset and Adagio wandered through the stone tunnels, which quickly proved just wide enough to walk side by side with comfortable elbow room.

"So, not that I'm complaining," Adagio said quietly, as if testing the waters, "but I don't see any light sources that would feasibly light up the whole cave, and yet...?"

"I know it doesn't make a whole lot of sense that we can see where we're going without much trouble, but that's probably because it'd be annoying to have to fiddle with torches any time you weren't standing outside during the day."

"Fair enough. And, where do the giant webs come in?"

Sunset stopped walking. "Webs?"

Nodding, Adagio pointed far ahead, where impossibly huge thickets of spiderweb adorned the cave walls, leading to a dead end where the webs blocked the path completely.

"Ah," Sunset said a little louder than was strictly called for as a chill ran up her spine, "well, I g-guess that's to let us know that we can't go this way, level must not be done yet, so let's head back and-"

"Wait," Adagio said with a raised eyebrow, approaching the web-wall, "it's just spider webs, right? Maybe we can just break through it, I'll use my axe and-"

"Uh, we-" Thinkthinkthinkthink! "we should, uh, we should probably just head back, catch up with the others as soon as possible and-"

"It'll only take a minute to try," she called over her shoulder, raising the axe as she drew closer and closer to the barrier of webbing, "and I'd rather not tell Aria that we skipped out on loot if it turns out this stuff is destructible."

Crapcrapcrapcrapcrap!!

Rooted in place, Sunset frantically looked around for anything she could use to stop Adagio from unleashing doomsday, but there was nothing but rocky wall around them and the only other path was backward! She knew the tropes, she knew what was coming, that giant webs always meant giant spiders, whether it made any kind of sense or not. Unfortunately, the most compelling argument she could think of to stop was 'don't go that way, there might be monsters behind that wall,' but as this was a fantasy RPG, that was going to be true no matter where they went!

She could see Adagio raising the axe and readying her first swing, after which swarms of scuttling spiders would pour out of the gash, flow over the two of them in freakish, many-legged, many-eyed horror, countless bites melting their insides to drain through their eyeballs, their shriveled husks a warning to-

Whish!

Adagio had cut through the webs. Nothing happened, so she peered through the opening like a foal checking under their bed before going to sleep. She smiled over her shoulder. "The path continues from here, let's go!"

"Yay..."

In some weird way, Sunset was gratified to see that Adagio wasn't utterly fearless in the face of imminent spiders, but her slightly anxious face and guarded stance may have indicated fear in general of the dim, narrow corridor. If she hadn't noticed the tiny, skittering shapes moving among the webs (probably spider babies), Sunset wasn't sure pointing them out would be the best idea right now, and tempted though she was to just burn every inch of the corridor as they went, her mana wasn't infinite and she'd need it for the real threat. That threat came when they approached a relatively large, web-adorned dome that again gave Sunset mini-boss vibes, particularly the nightmarish sight of the huge, easily-two-meters-across spider busying itself with a large, web-covered pod in the center of the room.

Gaming habit kicking in, she glanced up before she could stop herself and felt her blood turn to ice-water as she found the ceiling to be crawling with giant spiders. There were only about a dozen big ones, but swarms of the little, scuttling ones. Sunset dared hope that the tiny spiders were just scripted set-dressing, because while the bigger ones might have made for a hairy encounter all by themselves, the little ones might make for a quick death by a thousand cuts.

Immediately looking for an escape route, Sunset spotted another webbed doorway, then whispered to Adagio. "Hey, I think if we move fast and keep quiet, we can get through that exit without alerting these things. You cut the web, I'll be ready to Fireball anything that looks at us funny, and the second the way is clear, we can both-... Adagio?"

"Oh you are so precious!"

Sunset looked around to find that Adagio wasn't next to her, but next to the spider in the middle of the room, her weapon sheathed, and hugging the thing. Sunset could have sworn she even heard-

"-wookit you with an' your widdle eyes, I see you! Yesh I do!"

-baby talk. The spider was flailing its long, freakish limbs and biting into Adagio's shoulder with its dripping, nightmarish fangs, and she was babbling at it in baby talk.

"Adagio," Sunset loud-whispered, forcing herself to focus on Adagio's barbarian mane and not the horror it barely concealed, "what the Hell are you doing?!" She shivered when Adagio turned to face her, inadvertently bringing the spider around to where Sunset could see it better.

"I love these creatures, especially the fuzzy ones! I know those don't make the silk structures, but-"

Sunset barely reminded herself in time not to shout so loud as to alert the nightmares still clinging to the ceiling. "They bite people!"

"So do cats and dogs."

"That one is biting you right now!"

"Hmph. I think you're jealous that he likes me better."

"It's biting you!!"

"They're love-bites! See how softly he's doing it?"

It was, somehow, true; the spider was slowing down its assault into a kind of hesitant teething, as though it were having second thoughts about this meal. After another moment, it quit biting altogether, letting go of Adagio with its forearms as she gently stroked its... back? Its head? Sunset didn't know or care when Adagio stepped away from the creature.

"So, you said something about an exit?"

"Yes," she quickly answered while moving toward the web-covered corridor, "this way, let's go!"

Adagio strode along at a relaxed pace, Sunset just hoping the rest of the spiders were programmed to be triggered by the first one taking damage, not the party nearing the escape tunnel. With a quick swipe of the axe, they were free to go, the spider in the middle of the room having returned to its task of... eating unborn children or something.

Once they were a good distance from the spider room, she dared ask. "So... how did you know that thing wouldn't just keep attacking you?" She got a baffled stare.

"Why would I think it would?"

"Uh... b-because it's a monster in an RPG...?"

Adagio raised an eyebrow. "Those birds and deer outside didn't attack us, nor the giant when he saw us."

"Well, that, y-yea, but...!"

And then she remembered: The sirens didn't normally play games, possibly didn't watch a lot of TV, and probably didn't know the convention to these things, wouldn't know at first glance what was going to try to kill them and what wasn't. Was that why they gave the ambient critters outside those looks? The three of them probably didn't have the same, primordial fear of arachnids that a lot of land-walking species did, but whether that was due to their changeling heritage or Discord's, she wasn't sure.

Probably Discord. There's gotta be giant spiders that catch changelings in their webs, right?

Sunset shook her head. "Didn't it hurt when the thing bit you?"

"They were love-bites, I barely even felt them."

"Did you feel it when those goblins hit you?"

"I-..." Adagio's eyes went wide as she trailed off, visibly making connections in her head. "Their attacks, their weapons, they felt... about the same..." Then she looked hurt. In the emotional sense. "He was trying to kill me!"

Facepalming, Sunset didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

Author's Note

Late update, because I forgot about this one! :pinkiegasp:

Sorry about that, but this'll be the last of the weekly updates, I think.

Fun fact: Deer get more people killed than sharks, bears, wolves, and crocodiles combined. It's not that they attack people, I think, just that they tend to run out into the road with bad timing, which still makes them more dangerous.

Chapter 5: Learning Curve

The system of caverns following the spider lair was dark, dank, narrow, and a little crowded with giant, poison-spitting lizards. Despite normally being mostly in favor of such solutions, Sunset strongly recommended against hugging them in an ill-advised attempt to win their friendship. Thinking on her first experience, Adagio wasn't in a hurry to try, and not just because these creatures lunged at her right away. The spider had stopped biting after a minute or so, but they agreed that they didn't have the potions to do that for every enemy.

"I'm surprised you barely felt the bites, but I guess you've got extra endurance, which is good for a tank class. So, if things get hectic, you can probably take a lot more damage than that!"

Adagio made a face. "That doesn't mean I want to!"

"Okay, okay," Sunset giggled through a placating smile, "just saying, you probably don't need to be afraid in here."

"Maybe not, but I don't want to get used to thinking I'm stronger or more resilient than I actually am."

"Heh, fair enough."

"Thank you." Adagio raised an eyebrow. "Come to think of it, is that why you looked so frightened? Are you more vulnerable as a mage than in the real world?"

"Well, no just... spiders, y'know?"

"I wouldn't have guessed you were an arachnophobe."

"It's a primordial fear," Sunset countered as her cheeks colored, "like fire or the dark!"

"You didn't seem too bothered about the darkness in Fatbear's and I could have sworn you once mentioned being particularly capable with fire spells back in Equestria. Which you've demonstrated a few times in this game, come to think of it."

"Yea, but, it-...!" Sunset sighed. "I don't know, I guess it's more of a land-dwelling species thing; we had to live in fear of the little monsters pretty much since before recorded history."

Adagio chuckled. "It might not be that. I don't know if this makes sense for someone with changeling lineage (though if it doesn't, I'm sure it does for the Discord lineage), but Sonata compulsively shrieks and attacks pretty much any insect she sees. Or arachnid, they're all apparently the same thing to her."

Sunset smiled a little. "Does Aria?"

"She mostly just laughs at Sonata's freak-outs. At least until the time a fly landed on her nose."

"I'm guessing that ended in tears."

"Surprisingly, no. Sonata actually apologized and the two of them hugged." Chuckling, Adagio wore a tiny smirk. "Remind me to show you the picture some time." Her grin quirked toward genuine mirth. "They've been pranking each other less and less in the last so many weeks, by the way, but hurting one another on accident is something they've always apologized for."

Warm, Friendship-Is-Magic™ tingles in her chest, Sunset smiled brightly too. "Rarity hates bugs and bug-like things too, where Rainbow just hates ants. I don't know about Pinkie, and I think Applejack's gotten used to bugs from living on a farm, but I know Fluttershy wouldn't even squish a mosquito if it landed on her."

"And you're arachnophobic."

"Y-yea, but..." Smiling somewhat sheepishly, Sunset briefly held a finger in front of her lips in a hushing motion. "Don't go spreading it around, please? On the topic of pranks, I kind of kicked Rainbow's butt in a friendly prank-war back when we were getting to know each other (she started it, but tensions had been high and the shouting match it led to helped us get over some of our issues with each other), and she'd probably leave realistic-looking rubber spiders all over the place if she found out." For a worrying moment, Sunset thought Adagio was honestly considering it as she thoughtfully hummed to herself.

"...Would it help if I shared one of my own fears?"

"Huh?!"

Adagio shrugged, nonchalant. "It's only fair, right? You exploit mine and I'll exploit yours, so we're even."

Sunset had trouble making words for a moment. "I, it, you don't-... You're sure you're okay with letting me know something like that?"

There was a pause, but to Sunset's surprise, Adagio didn't back down. "I am. There's a considerable difference between knowing someone isn't the bravest person in general and knowing what specifically rattles them."

Part of Sunset felt like she should contest the aspersion cast on the bravery of someone who hugged a giant spider, but Adagio's word choice was light enough that she didn't quite feel compelled to do so, instead focusing on the proposal. "Well..." She smiled. "Okay then! Is it killer animatronics? Because I think anyone in their right mind would find those pretty scary."

Adagio chuckled. "No. It's... slime, I suppose? Any thick, gooey, sticky substance."

"Hair problems?"

"Oddly enough, no, just can't stand having these things touching my skin." Her brow furrowed. "It's frustrating, because intellectually, I know most things aren't going to cause any damage even if they aren't frantically washed or wiped off, but when I-" she shivered, her jaw tightening a little as her face tinted green, "feel some kind of ooze, I just-"

Sunset was worried Adagio might throw up in her VR pod when she actually gagged, but she steadied herself with a shaky breath while briefly rubbing her own arms. Sunset very gently reached out to pat Adagio's shoulder. "You okay?"

"Yes, fine, just... do not like. I learned to make an exception for shampoo because it comes in a bottle with controllable output, smells nice, and can immediately be washed off in the only reasonable place one would use it, but in general? Can't stand getting goop and sludge on me."

"Do Aria and Sonata know?"

There came a small, tamer version of a familiar smirk. "Yes, but I know more than enough about their weaknesses."

Sunset chuckled, remembering keenly that those two had always left Adagio out of their prank wars. Apparently with good cause. "Glad to hear that, I guess." She stopped walking, giving Adagio a wide, sincere grin when she stopped to look back at her. "Thank you for trusting me with this, Adagio." The immediate reward was another lovely Friendship-Is-Magic™ tingle when Adagio smiled back, idly twirling a lock of hair around a fingertip.

"...You're welcome. Um..." Her mouth opened as she looked Sunset in the eye, but she immediately whirled around to face the cave path again. "We should keep moving," she said quickly, "still have to reach the end of this thing."

And she marched off, Sunset nodding once as she moved to follow. Before long, the path took them to a narrow series of tunnels Sunset determined to be a catacomb, which clued her in to what exactly those low, distant moaning sounds were.

"What the Hell is wrong with these people?!"

"They're called zombies, pretty much just dead guys who-"

"No, I mean, they're corpses! Rotting, mutilated corpses!! Who even gets the idea to put something like that in a game?!"

"Uhh..." Sunset got a brief chance to cherish Adagio's apprehensive expression.

"...I'm afraid to ask, but I get the feeling I'll need to know."

"Undead are actually pretty common video game enemies, Adagio. Like, ridiculously so."

"You're joking."

The two stood in the middle of a ring of vanquished, withered soldiers and unfortunate adventurers, Sunset idly kicking one of the re-fallen. "Afraid not. They make for easy targets, I guess; no guilt for killing what's already dead, right?"

"That doesn't change the fact that they're decaying bodies! I can even see shriveled organs and broken bones in some of them! Aren't there supposed to be censorship laws or something?"

"Dead people just aren't considered all that graphic, I guess."

"Nor our having to... dismantle them even further, it seems."

"Don't worry," she replied cheerfully, "you'll get desensitized to it in no time!"

"This world is horrifying."

Smiling, Sunset made sure to keep her voice gentle as she placed a hand on Adagio's shoulder. "Are they as bad as the goop?"

Folding her arms, Adagio averted her eyes, though Sunset could still see a faint blush. "...The goop is much worse."

"Hehe, okay then! C'mon, let's keep moving."

The only noteworthy loot they seized from the catacombs was a sleek, black witch hat, which Sunset promptly equipped in place of her circlet. It made her feel a little silly (and self-conscious, knowing that her biggest, most concealing article of clothing was her hat), but from the way Adagio smiled at her, she was sure it looked good on her anyway.

The pair was discussing how to compose little songs to help remember school lessons (mostly just Adagio giving pointers on the process) when they came to an increasingly dim, claustrophobic, and mostly flooded area, which Sunset took to mean they were in the inevitable Sewer Level.

"What?"

"Pretty much every video game will take the player to a sewer sooner or later, probably because it makes for an easy explanation as to why you have to navigate a pretty simple series of corridors that happen to be away from the public eye. Suspension of disbelief, y'know?"

Thankfully, the area here was much, much cleaner than any realistic sewer would be, which made wading through the waist-high, if murky water a lot easier on the nose.

"I suppose I could kind of see that reasoning for something set in modern times, like the heist game, but we just got here through a cave that fit the same description and actual dungeons before that."

"Which brings us to the second use for sewer levels: Keep an eye out while we're in here, because water is a likely hiding spot for aquatic enemies to lie in wait."

"What?!"

Drinking in Adagio's terrified expression, Sunset giggled. And then she had an idea. "Don't worry too much, this is probably just a prelude to a water boss or something."

"A what?!"

"Oh, y'know," she answered while trying to keep her laughter down, "some kind of huge, half-submerged super monster, probably a giant octopus or something with tentacles that can grab you by the ankle and drag you under in a heartbe-"

She immediately sunk into the water, keeping as low as possible so as to sell the illusion that she had just been seized by something and dragged under, just as she'd outlined to Adagio. It was a good thing that she was able to see even while submerged, because she turned to see Adagio's long, nearly bare legs in a fearful, knees-inward stance. Sunset beamed in delight at the thought of the look on Adagio's face just then, but before she got up again, noticed a small, blue bar at the bottom of her vision, slowly getting shorter.

Oh, a breath meter! I guess they can't exactly simulate water torture in their virtual reality games, so...

She took a breath while still under water, finding that it had no effect on the meter or her lungs. Then she had another idea. She lightly pushed off the floor and let herself float up, coming to the surface face-down as though she'd drowned. When her ears were mostly out of the water, she could hear Adagio's voice.

"-et?! Sunset, ca-"

The rapid sloshing of water as Adagio came closer made it hard to hear her, but she still got plenty.

"-ease, get up! Are-" SLOSH "-rt?! Do you need a po-" SLOSH "-ill hurting you?! Pleasepleaseplease don't leave me alone here, I-"

When Adagio started to pull her up by the shoulders, Sunset sprung to life, raising her arms and shouting "BOO!" with a big smile. Adagio, a priceless expression of wide-eyed fright on her face, shrieked and fell backward, Sunset doubling over in laughter as the other girl frantically splashed about in the water.

"Y-you shuh, you should see your fa-hay-haace, hahahahaha!"

She laughed a little longer, but when she looked up, Adagio hadn't joined her. Standing perfectly still with her clenched into fists at her sides, she actually looked kind of-

In a blink, Adagio grabbed Sunset, picked her up, painfully folded her into a ball-

"Ack!!"

-and chucked her several meters back through the tunnel. Sunset met the water with a loud splash, sputtering for several seconds before untangling her limbs to stand up.

"Oww, jeez! That kinda hurt, Adag-"

Adagio was already leaving, large splashes in the water suggesting that she was stomping her way down the tunnel. An all-too-familiar tug in Sunset's chest told her she'd made a mistake, spurring her to follow.

"Uh, h-hey, Adagio?"

Adagio just kept walking, Sunset jogging along to catch up.

"Are you mad at-"

"Aquatic enemies."

"What?"

A sudden, forceful impact just above Sunset's foot threw her off balance, immediately making her fall face-first into the water again. For a moment, she thought there really were some kind of sewer monsters, but looking around and seeing nothing but the water, walls, and Adagio walking away from her again, she was pretty sure Adagio had just tripped her.

A sharp spike of indignation flared up in her gut, but it cooled off and sunk down again when she remembered most of her interactions with Adagio today. Yes, Adagio was definitely mad at her, but she had experience in people being mad at her, and she could fix this!

Okay, she thought as she got to her feet, following just a little behind Adagio without a word, think: What did you do that time Fluttershy lost her temper with you?

She had been doing a little too much teasing then, too, but she thought Fluttershy being comfortable with her meant-

Well, that didn't matter now. The first thing had been giving her some space, letting her cool down, which she hoped was what Adagio was doing right now instead of compiling the day's offences and letting them fester and boil inside her until she was a mad, raging torrent of heartache and fury.

Pestering her for a straight answer and insisting that she talk to me will only make it worse, so onto part 2.

That would be composing her apology in line with what she had specifically done to upset the offended party, then proceeding to part 3: Delivering the apology without sticking her foot in her mouth. As she was getting the words together in her head, they came to the end of the tunnel.

Stepping out of the pipe rewarded the two of them with a gorgeous vista even more colorful and detailed than what they had seen from the mountaintop. In front of them was a long, cobblestone path of dirt and smooth, faintly shining rocks leading upwards in a gentle slope, lush grass and flowers on both sides of the path leading downward into distant, glittering pools of water, both of which stretched out of sight through a cool mist. Looking up to see where the path led, Sunset couldn't find an answer, but did find a beautiful, starry sky of probably unrealistic color and detail, complete with aurora borealis floating and fluttering high above.

It was what she imagined a staircase would look like if it were crafted by forest sprites or something.

Are we outside? Why would a sewer lead to a place like this?

...Did we die? Blunder into some giant boss monster or deadly trap and this is the loading screen for respawn?

She tried to guage Adagio's non-angry-at-you-now thoughts and couldn't hold back a little smile at the sight of the siren's wide-eyed look of wonder, taking in the scenery as though it were a fireworks display. It was so easy to read this girl when she wasn't consciously masking her thoughts, and the myriad of expressions never failed to tickle Sunset.

"So, yes, the three of us, most of all myself, don't exactly have much going for us."

"Maybe your face."

"What?!"

It was said without thinking, and the reward was yet more priceless expressions to heartily enjoy, but that was what led to her current problem. Still, Adagio was probably as calm now as she was going to get, and if there were no enemies in this area, she might not get a better chance to apologize.

"Hey, Adagio, I-"

She was startled by Adagio quickly seizing her wrist, that ever-expressive face now wearing a frightening smirk.

"Hey, Sunset," she said with an evil glint in her eye, "we know that I have high endurance in this game, but we don't really know about yours, do we?"

"Well, I'm uh, I'm a mage, so-"

Adagio pointed up the path with her free hand. "Let's test it!"

And off she ran, taking Sunset with her. She didn't have trouble keeping up at first, and the first minute or so of running along the pretty path together was actually kind of fun, but when she started to run out of breath, Adagio didn't slow down.

"Uh," panted Sunset as the struggle to keep pace crept up on her, "A-Adagio? I think I'm nearing my limit! Endurance test done!"

Adagio just giggled, not slowing in the slightest as she dragged Sunset along. The path proved to be even longer than it first looked, because while they ran and ran and ran, there was still no end in sight. The increasingly painful strain in her legs kept Sunset from thinking too much about why such a segment would exist in a game like this, if it wasn't just unfinished and there was supposed to be something else here. When she started to really struggle to stay on her feet, she swore they were going faster now, making it even harder to keep up and avoid falling on her fa-

Oh, I get it now...

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry for dragging you around this morning! And slapping you earlier! And the water thing! And, everything else!!"

To Sunset's great relief, they stopped, Adagio letting go of her wrist and allowing her to catch her breath. There was no one else around at the time, but Sunset's pride demanded that she at least remain standing, not collapse into the soft, welcoming (and tasty?) grass nearby. She hadn't quite gotten to share the more eloquently-worded apology she had in mind, but considering that Adagio looked more annoyed than furious, she took it as a good sign for now.

"Not fun, is it?"

It hurt a little that Sunset wasn't sure if she meant being dragged, or the way she'd been borderline bullying Adagio in general. "I'm sorry. Really. I don't mean to keep picking on you, and I really do think of you as a friend, just, it's like I can't help myself when- a-and I know this sounds like I'm just making excuses, but like, I bullied everyone at CHS for years just because I could get away with it, not just for the sense of power over other people, but because I couldn't get enough of their reactions, and, um... I-I kind of forget where I was going with- I don't hate you, don't think of you as a 'sub-friend' that it's okay to kick around or whatever, I just-"

"Alright," Adagio softly said while raising one hand, a very faint smile on her lips, "I think I get it." Sunset wasn't smiling back at her, but that sad, anxious face was difficult to stay mad at. She could practically taste how badly Sunset wanted them to stay on good terms (a heavy, almost sickly sour flavor that melted into a lingering sweetness, if one was curious), and in that, knew that the sentiment was sincere.

Frustrating though it could be to deal with this girl, Adagio blamed herself for not quashing what she'd felt that morning in Fatbear's Pizza. Even so, it was because of those same feelings that she found herself with the capacity to tolerate things that, from anyone else, would have earned them ruinous revenge when Adagio had the time and capability.

"Come on," she said while turning back towards the path, "we have a bit of a walk ahead of us."

The antsy, heart-prickling feeling hadn't quite left Sunset yet, but for now, she settled on being glad Adagio didn't utterly despise her as they walked up the path together. Even with how far they'd run, she still couldn't remotely see where the cobblestone was taking them, if only due to the ethereal, otherworldly mist in the air. Glancing back, she couldn't see the sewer tunnel at all either, which made the experience a little extra eerie.

She tried to picture what this area could be used for, from a fast-paced, aerial battle as they rode flying mounts in pursuit of a target (whether it was just as a chase or a thing shooting back at them Bullet Hell style), to a puzzle section that wouldn't let them get through the fog until they'd found the solution, to a massive boss they had to either climb/ride atop in a weak-spot search-and-destroy mission or flee from as it rained projectiles down on them, or even just a cool-down period between more exciting things. Maybe it was that last one and maybe this area just wasn't done yet, but either way, she was excited by the prospects of this segm-

"I took your advice."

Blinking twice, Sunset was internally delighted that Adagio wasn't giving her the silent treatment for the rest of the day. "Huh?"

Adagio turned her head just enough to make eye-contact. "About Fluttershy? I kept calm, refrained from anything resembling a menacing look, and..." She smiled. "There were some worried stares, but for the most part, she hardly seemed to mind my presence."

Sunset beamed. "So the spa visit went okay?"

"I think so." Looking away again, she idly brushed a hand over her neck. "Of course, I didn't know that we were going to the same spa from which I learned my massage techniques."

Connecting the dots, Sunset kept herself from laughing out loud, but couldn't restrain a smile. "I'm guessing that got a little awkward?"

"Yes. When I practiced on those girls, they reacted rather... strongly? Which told me that despite their profession, they don't get a lot of TLC themselves, but more importantly, when they saw me again with two of their regulars, it, er-"

"I think I can imagine. What happened next?"

"Rarity defused the situation by asking Lotus and Aloe to join us in the mudbaths (they very professionally refused) and acting as though nothing were the least bit out of place and we continued normally from there." She glanced at Sunset. "Did anything like that happen on your group spa trip, or-"

"Nah," she answered with a playful smile, "but I never brought the masseuses halfway to climax."

Adagio quickly turned her head away, muttering with an audible scowl and possibly a warm blush. "It wasn't on purpose. I never even touched anywhere indecent!"

You actually did that?!

By some miracle, Sunset didn't shout her thoughts out loud, but they buzzed in her head just the same. Maybe it was for the best that she hadn't taken Adagio's offer when she was sick, or things might have gotten... awkward.

"Anyway," sighed Adagio, "you were right about Rarity's reason for bringing us both, too; she later told me that it was to help Fluttershy get used to me. Would you believe she considered me the most intimidating of the three of us?"

"Yea."

Adagio turned to look at her in shock. "What?!"

A tentative look on her face, Sunset shrugged. "Well, just like Fluttershy, ironically, you are kind of scary when you're really mad. Remember our talk on Rarity's birthday? How even Aria and Sonata used to be terrified of you?"

"...Oh," she replied passively, "I, suppose that makes sense. Intimidation isn't really my go-to for getting what I want, but, I suppose, if it's public knowledge that Aria and Sonata obeyed me rather than another arrangement, it must have logically followed that I was more powerful than either of them, and therefore-"

"Kinda scary," Sunset finished for her, "especially when the three of you are together. You know you behave a lot differently when you're by yourself versus when you're near them?"

"And you don't?"

"Huh?"

Adagio shrugged. "Maybe it's just the changeling in me talking, but doesn't everyone adjust their persona to best suit whoever they're immediately dealing with? Rainbow Dash is brash and cocky in general, doubly so in her sporting clubs from what I hear, but would you say she doesn't ease up a little when spending time with just Fluttershy or Rarity?"

"Uhh..."

"Do you wear the exact same face around Pinkie Pie that you do Vice Principal Luna?"

"I... don't know, but... if you don't mind me saying? Pointing out stuff like this-" and stuff like everyone ultimately being selfish at heart, even if Sunset had found a bright side to that one, "-pushes you a little more towards 'scary.'" She was happy to hear Adagio snort with amusement at this, even if it earned her a wry smile.

"I see. At any rate, if Fluttershy can stand being around me, then I'm sure she can tolerate the others, and if she can, the rest of your friends shouldn't be an issue, as I would guess was Rarity's plan."

"I'm a little surprised that you sound like you're okay with that. I-I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm glad, but I've been feeling like there was a wall between groups that I could barely put a dent in, much less a door."

"Yes," chuckled Adagio, "we did hate all of you for a while, and I doubt any of your friends, or even you, were in a hurry to have us back before..." her cheeks faintly colored as she continued with a genuine little smile, "certain incidents. At this point, I doubt even Aria really still bears a grudge, and with how many names we confirmed didn't belong on the enemy list, I think we can consider all tomahawks buried."

"Hatchets."

"Hm?"

"The term is 'burying the hatchet.'"

"Is there a practical difference?"

"...Uhh-"

"I have to ask, because I'm not an axe-wielding barbarian, either."

Sunset took a moment to look at the weapon on Adagio's back, then at her face, finding a playful grin that told her that Adagio very much did that on purpose. They giggled like dolts for the next minute and a half.

"Oh, hey," Sunset said cheerfully as she pointed ahead, "there we go! Exit-ville!"

Before them stood a tall, gleaming, golden double-door of ornate design, wide enough to block off the path entirely with the way the descending slopes at each side had come up to form a flat walkway. Big, fancy doors being a minor favorite in Sunset's virtual adventures, she wasted no time, running up to grab the handle and pull.

Then she found out that her Strength stat was lacking, but working together, she and Adagio were able to slowly get it open.

"Now," Sunset said with a smile as they stepped through, "let's see what-..."

Somehow, after all that walking, Sunset had expected some kind of prize, like an important-looking piece of jewelry on a pedestal or a room full of riches, or at least a really great view since it was a (gradually) uphill climb, but the shift of environments was every bit as jarring as the sewer leading to where they were now. In front of them was a rocky gorge full of crudely-built battlements; scrap metal and massive bones held together with bent, broken, and inconsistently-sized wooden planks to form what Sunset immediately recognized to be an orc fortress. Sure enough, she even saw a few large, green, hide-and-bone-clad warriors with jagged weapons patrolling at random. In the distance stood the ominous mountain range she remembered from before; much closer now and with grey, stone watchtowers and castle architecture much plainer to see. She was pretty sure she knew what this meant; they had to fight their way through the orcs to reach the main objective, where Aria and Sonata's path was most likely leading them.

And Sunset smiled.

While she very much appreciated that rush of joy and accomplishment upon seizing valuable loot, even in the Skinner-box kind of way it was sometimes used, two more of her favorite adventuring pastimes were taking down giant monsters and clearing out enemy camps. At least she knew she'd get to do one of those things before this was over.

"I don't see any signs of Aria and Sonata," Adagio said while scanning for evidence of senseless destruction and general mayhem, or even X's carved into things like they'd agreed, "do you think those green people have seen them?"

Shaking her head a little, Sunset chuckled.

Ohh, Dagi.

"Have you ever seen an orc before?"

"A what?"

It promised to be a fun level.

Author's Note

I hadn't intended to have Sunset give Adagio a crash course in how video games work, but that's sort of what happened. However, as I'm reasonably certain that not the entire brony population (and even random strays from across the net! Hello there! We welcome you! :pinkiesmile: ) are avid gamers, some of this stuff might warrant a bit of explanation/idle commentary.

Join us next time (whenever that is) for Sunset and Adagio vs. Orcs!

Chapter 6: Orcs Are Basically Green Cavemen, Right?

"WHY-"

CHOP!

"WON'T-"

HACK!

"YOU-"

THUK!

"STAY-"

CRUNCH!

"DOWN?!"

WUMP!

And off came the head of the last orc in the outpost, following an effective show of Barbarian Berserking. Or maybe Adagio's panic just bubbled over into a blind, frantic rage? Sunset did tell her that orcs were like tougher versions of goblins, and not just because they were three times as tall and had much more health. Maybe she could have spent a little mana to cast some kind of crowd control magic, like Slow or Poison if she had them, to make things a little easier on Adagio, but at least she made sure they weren't hassled by archers from the other side of the battlements.

Luckily, she had an idea of how to bring Adagio's focus to something less stressful. "Also similar to goblins, orcs' equipment isn't worth much."

Resting the blades of her battleaxe against the ground and using the hilt to prop herself up, Adagio huffed. "Thought as much, their weapons look shoddy and their armor is just a mess of bone and rough leather."

Sunset smiled. "Is that your developing adventurer's instinct, or do you just critique others' fashion choices by default?"

Adagio snorted with amusement. "I was looking for weaknesses to exploit and couldn't help noticing a few details. Most of them had their sides and necks unarmored, but it was difficult to get a swing in with their arms raised. Their knees are usually completely uncovered, though, so I can at least floor a few for a moment to fend off the rest."

Sunset blinked in surprise.

She was... taking in that kind of info and making tactical decisions while wildly flailing her weapon? Does she use most of her brainpower on scheming by default?

And then Sunset remembered that this was the girl who quite possibly composed and enacted her plan to take over CHS on the fly, the only time it didn't work being when her enemies were bailed out by dumb luck.

Would she have made for a more effective black mage if she'd been given spells, not strength? I'd have had to tell her about the kinds of spells available, but if-

"Hehe," exclaimed a giddy Adagio, now kneeling by a dead orc and holding up an ornate vial of bright, blue liquid, "just as I'd hoped; these 'orc' creatures carry potions too, and they look much more valuable than the ones we found on the goblins!"

Brushing off unwanted thoughts, Sunset smiled again. "Let's look for a treasure chest, too, they're bound to have had at least one stash around here."

They did, but without Aria to pick the lock, Adagio had to hack a hole in the box and pry the wood apart to get at the contents. Something about seeing a smart girl like Adagio reduced to brute force methods and the general, violent spectacle of the thing entertained Sunset far more than she felt was justified. That Adagio was wearing a chainmail miniskirt might have helped.

Their score was a half-dozen new potions, some gold, and a particularly shiny broadsword. As she was just getting used to the axe, Adagio opted to bag the sword and sell it later.

Continuing on the path from the outpost, they made their way toward the mouth of a canyon, the road leading downward into a cave.

"This is an ambush."

Sunset smiled. "Probably, but what makes you say so?"

"There are big, orc-sized holes in the walls leading down this ramp and I can see more of them standing on ledges along the sides of the canyon."

Glancing up, Sunset saw that she was right. Most likely archers, because most of them wouldn't survive if they jumped from where they were. "Huh, good spot check."

"What?"

"Hehe, nothin'! I'll take out the ones up high, you chop up any that get in close?"

"I-If they come from the caves and the path behind us for a pincer attack-"

"I'll be right here next to you," Sunset assured her with a soft smile, "okay?"

Adagio took a slow breath, then tightly gripped her axe, a determined look on her face. "Okay."

Patting her head or hugging her probably would have undermined the feeling of the moment, so Sunset settled for blasting the first orc she could see.

And the fight was on!

Almost instantly, orcs charged out of the caverns, as anticipated, but a glance over the shoulder showed that none were charging in from the back, at least not yet. Archers took aim, but the adventurers' blocking spared them any damage, at least while the melee orcs were out of range. Sunset carefully aimed to fry each one with lightning until the others got close, then resorted to blasting the rest off the walls with explosive fireballs. By the time the last screaming, burning orc smashed against the floor of the canyon, Adagio was sinking her axe into the neck of the first melee orc.

With some frantic swinging and careful use of icicle projectiles, the two dispatched the mob, looked around, looked at each other, smiled, and performed a high-five.

They quickly looted the orcs at their feet, Sunset was given some mana potions, then they carried on, but when they were halfway down the canyon, many heavy, hurried footsteps were heard. It only took a glance to see more archers above and even more beady eyes in the caverns at their sides, rapidly getting closer.

Adagio was particularly distressed. "W-Why did they come back?!"

"Second wave, Dagi!"

"'Second'?!"

"No time, here we go!"

Once more, Sunset started with the archers, but with the difference in angle due to where they were standing now, she couldn't hit them with lightning as easily. Luckily, well-aimed fireballs could still reach around corners, and even blow away the rocky outcroppings on which the archers stood! She scored a free double-whammy attack when the stone and burnt orcs came sailing down to crush more orcs, though some did so worryingly close to her and Adagio. She didn't catch any sass for this over the sounds of snarling berserkers and clashing blades, so maybe her partner didn't even notice in the chaos.

Even when the archers were all gone, the orcs from the caves just kept coming, so she tried firing more explosive blasts into the caves in the hope of collapsing the tunnels. This worked for a few caves, but before Sunset knew it, she was out of mana.

"Dagi, can I get a magic poti-ack!!"

She was hit hard in the back of the head, sending her face-first to the dirt. Disoriented, she managed to flip over just in time to avoid a warhammer and see the orc that clearly did not respect tanking rules!

...Or maybe Sunset had worked up a lot of aggro with all her fireballs. Hard to tell.

Either way, she still didn't have enough magic points to cast anything, again calling out as she shuffled away from the orc on her back. "Dagi, mana potion, please!!"

Looking her way, Sunset didn't get more than a panicked noise, Adagio being surrounded by at least five orcs that she desperately fended off while stepping over the ones that had big gashes on their legs. It was possible that her strategy was to knock down as many as she could and have the rest trample them with her, but either way, she was in no position to play Potion Duty.

Things were getting exciting!

"Okay," Sunset said under her breath as her heartbeat quickened, "then let's try this!"

Throwing her weight forward to get to her feet and using that momentum to ram toward the advancing orc, she thrust the pointy tip of her crystal wand forward, puncturing his hide armor and drawing a satisfying squishy noise. The orc was still moving, so she quickly ripped it out, stabbed it into his torso again, then into his eye when he doubled over.

Proud of herself though she was, she was immediately set upon by three more orcs, who didn't give her any time to gloat over her latest triumph. Stepping back to avoid their swings as best she could, Sunset took a few hits anyway, which probably hurt less than real wounds from rusty hatchets and jagged machetes, but were still painful enough to make her hiss and grit her teeth. Immediately seizing that anger, she threw it all back at them with a very literal vengeance, stabbing her wand through fleshy orc throats even as she continued to lose health, which only made her stab harder and faster.

During one particularly fierce swipe, her wand snapped, leaving her unarmed.

Glancing around, she spied a broken spear, the splintered, wooden end connecting to the blade just longer than it needed to be to work as a handle. Noting that her mana had regenerated enough for one spell, she grabbed it, pointed it at the orcs between her and Adagio, and shouted "Fireball!"

To her immediate joy, the spear-tip cast her spell, immolating and blowing apart the bulk of the remaining orcs.

"Yyyyyyes," cheered Sunset as she thrust the spear-tip into the air, "this is my wand now!"

She was startled by a little blue blur painlessly impacting her face, bursting into little shards of glass and a blueish effect. Connecting the dots between that and her mana bar now being close to full, she beamed, quickly blasting every standing orc with lightning, Adagio frantically chopping those on the floor. When the sound of orcish grunts and howls finally stopped, the two looked around, looked at each other, and smiled in relief. Sunset stepped closer, raising her hand for a high-five, to which Adagio responded by reaching into her satchel, raising her arm, and smashing a health potion against Sunset's hand.

With the added effect of glittering, glass shards and colorful effects in the air, Sunset broke into a wide grin. "Health potion high-fives might be my new favorite thing."

"Noted," she giggled while throwing a potion straight up, the healing vial coming right back down and shattering on her head to mend her own wounds, "let's see what they had on them."

It took almost ten minutes to sort through the loot of about two dozen dead orcs, especially when Adagio insisted on using her barbarian strength to move the rocks that had obscured some of the bodies (another sight Sunset could only observe in silence), but they came away with more potions than they'd used, a magic necklace of defense (which Adagio insisted Sunset have, both because she was the magic user and because her endurance stat wasn't as high), and a fat sack of gold.

When that was finally sorted out, it was onwards to the cave entrance!

"So, I don't know if it's going to matter, but most RPGs have a leveling system."

"Which is a...?"

While she was aware that, eventually, it would have to come to an end, Sunset continued to take great delight in Adagio's naivete about these things. "It's like staircase, but with power. You ascend in levels, get more abilities, higher stats, more health, all that fun stuff. I bring it up because after a fight like that, we definitely should have leveled up, but I don't think anything about us has changed."

"Hm. I suppose that could be a feature for the final game, but I assumed that our 'leveling' was based on our equipment, and there hasn't been much of that so far. I thought we'd at least come across things Aria or Sonata could use so we could give those to them later."

"Probably a smart loot system; only drops stuff those present can equip."

"Hm. Convenient."

"Convenience usually makes for better gameplay than frustrating realism."

She took a moment to think about it. "I do prefer some of what we've seen here to what would have happened were all of this real. Health potions are definitely far quicker and easier to use than first-aid kits."

Sunset beamed. "And that's why games are popular."

Smiling herself, Adagio rolled her eyes. "So, this place we're going; it's supposed to have one last boss monster, right? What kind of creature normally ends these adventures?"

"It varies. Like, a lot. Sometimes it's a big dragon, sometimes it's a flying sorcerer, sometimes it's a nightmarish Hell-beast of twisted flesh, protruding bone-spikes, exploding, acidic, pus-bubbles, bulbous eyes, chittering-"

"What the Hell is wrong with these people?!"

Sunset just laughed, but if this game really went the Dark path, they might end up having to fight something like that. Luckily, it seemed pretty light-hearted in its approach to fantasy violence, so maybe they could help Adagio build up some resistance before anything really gruesome appeared.

Come to think of it, how are Aria and Sonata with gore? Dagi was freaking out just seeing zombies.

Before she could ask, they walked into a big, wide, circular stone chamber, utterly vacant of anything but sand on the floor and torches on the distant walls. Though looking forward to the reaction, Sunset kept her voice gentle anyway.

"Big, round arena with nothing else in it. You know what that means?"

Adagio gripped her axe tighter. "Plenty of elbow-room as we walk through, unmolested?"

It was all she could do to keep herself from giggling. "N-no, it-"

A rumbling sound shook the area as a large pile of sand steadily grew taller, revealing a towering, stone golem, its joints connected with big, glowing, yellow crystals.

Still smiling, Sunset pointed to it. "Boss fi-"

The flat look on Adagio's face was priceless.

"I gathered."

Author's Note

Two chapters, for easier digestibility. The next one ended up mostly being one big, long, continuous scene. :derpyderp2:

I acknowledge that that wouldn't happen so much if I were cutting back and forth between parties, but it's Sunset and Adagio's story I'm interested in telling. We won't be seeing Aria and Sonata's side of this adventure, but they'll have a bit to say about it when we see them again.

Maybe there'll be room for Aria+Sonata Secret Adventures type thing when this series is finally finished; a collection of chapters detailing the stuff those two get up to when Sunset and Adagio are separated from them. Would not count on it, though.

I thought of having Sunset and Adagio fight back-to-back, but Adagio's hair would make that tricky. For now, it stays a cuddling thing. :derpytongue2:

Chapter 7: And Now For Something Wacky

Rocks not being super susceptible to fire and lightning, Sunset did not have an especially good time of that mini-boss, but things got easier when Adagio, screaming at the top of her lungs, managed to shatter the crystal ball things holding its arms and legs together at the knees and elbows. Sunset had thought, following standard weak-spot-boss convention, that breaking those was the key to killing it, but once it had nothing but stumps left, it just sort of started hopping around the arena after them, trying to crush them under its torso.

With no weak spots visible and no sign that whacking its stony head with an axe was getting them anywhere, Sunset thought to try 'Freeze' as opposed to 'Icicle,' and the result was a cone of sub-zero air that frosted over the golem's entire head.

Berserk axe-flailing was much more effective after that, and they collected a nice, big ruby from the shattered remains of the golem's head.

Adagio insisted on freeze-shattering all the rest of the golem's body parts after that, both to ensure that they got all the possible loot from it and so it definitely wouldn't be coming after them again, in any capacity. Sunset worried a little that they were wasting mana potions with that, but Adagio's sentiment that they couldn't hold infinite potions and were getting close to their inventory limit, along with Sunset's own Adventurer greed, convinced her to give it a whirl. Besides, she always found it a little frustrating that she seemed to end every RPG ever with a bunch of items she never got any use out of. There were no more gems, but at least they knew that for certain now.

Continuing on through the doorway on the other side of the arena (which, they realized, was open the whole time and they probably could have forsaken any potential loot and skipped the golem entirely), it wasn't long before they found themselves in beautiful, crystal-laden caverns, colorful light radiating from the smooth, sharp surfaces. There didn't seem to be any enemies here, not even bats, but the many deep, probably-bottomless pits along the winding path through the cave felt like hazard enough.

Standing near a crystal cluster, Adagio raised her axe, but Sunset put a hand on her shoulder.

"I know what you're thinking, but those crystals are most likely worthless."

"What? Why? Since when are glowing, pretty stones not valuable?"

"When there's too many of them to put much value on, and it'd be too easy to get rich if all we had to do was make trips between here and the nearest merchant. I can pretty much guarantee these are just here to be scenery."

"Aw."

Sympathizing with that feeling, Sunset giggled. "C'mon, bound to be more riches ahead, and if we're getting closer to the end, we'll most likely meet up with the others soon."

This seemed to cheer her up a little, so they proceeded with the only path this place had to offer. Sunset worried that it was going to be like the foggy hill they'd ascended earlier, but this time, the way forward visibly changed as they went, with the cave walls and ceiling getting further and further away, the dark pits getting wider and wider, and fewer and fewer crystals being placed along the the edges, leaving them cautiously pacing along a narrow, dimly-lit path surrounded by darkness.

Sunset wasn't afraid of the dark or anything, but she did not like where this was going. Luckily, Adagio seemed to be taking it in stride, either due to her borderline night-vision or just not seeing anything that might hurt her yet. Still, Sunset urged a careful pace, wary of cave lizards or something crawling up the walls to attack them.

Together, in the dark, quiet cave, they nearly walked as one, their own footsteps and breathing the only sounds to be heard. Sunset could barely see the apprehension on Adagio's face when they walked close enough to a crystal cluster, but if she had any questions for this situation, she wasn't voicing them. The quiet served to enhance the building sense of unease, and while Sunset (secretly) prided herself as a veteran of video games, she wasn't immune to jumpscares, her imagination betraying her completely as it dragged up memories of cave-dwelling horrors she'd met in other games.

Needle-mouthed, jumping worms that turn their victims into exploding meat-sacks full of their spawn.

Screeching spirits that never found their way out of the cave, and would ensure all future visitors meet the same fate.

Croaking, twitchy corpses that spasm and shuffle their way across the ground faster than most humans can run, getting right up in their victim's face before dragging them off to a fate worse than death.

Massive, lightning-quick snake-things whose mouths are just a tunnel of fangs, popping out of a hole to chomp someone in half before they can react.

Carnivorous meat-moss that absorbs unwary adventurers like quicksand, the eyes of past victims opening once more to stare in helpless silence as they watch their soon-to-be kin sink slowly to their doom.

An entire wall of hungry spid-

No, no, no, no, no, no, NO, we are NOT doing that right now!!

-spiders that all turn to look at you at the same time before they-

Brain!!

-and then the mother descends from the ceiling to-

"Sunset?"

Sunset let out a piercing shriek of terror, which startled Adagio into screaming too before quickly looking around, weapon ready. When she didn't see the cause for alarm, she looked back at Sunset, frantic.

"What, what is it?!"

While she could no longer feel her face, Sunset wondered if her own glow was helping to light the cave at all. "Uh... nothing?"

Adagio was not amused. An entire minute passed with them looking at one another in silence, one with a painfully sheepish smile and the other a dull glare, but eventually, Adagio sighed.

"Anyway... What do you make of this sign?"

"Huh?"

She indicated a simple, wooden sign, not unlike the one they saw in the volcano.

Puzzle Challenge 4: Memory March!

"Um... Well, if the sign doesn't say otherwise, I guess this one is ready. Wanna give it a go? Doing extra stuff almost always means prizes."

Grabbing the lever, Adagio shrugged. "Here's hoping."

She pulled, the end of a wooden bridge dropping onto the path not far from them, a string of floating, glowing orbs illuminating the path out to a circular, stone platform, then along two paths that ended at cave walls with huge, boarded-up holes. At the platform, another row of lights kicked on to show a long, stone path covered in colorful tiles in rows of three, designs they couldn't make out engraved on each and every tile. The tiles, about one square meter in size each, were arranged in such a way that it wouldn't be possible to get from one end to the other without stepping on at least one at a time, every so many rows of tiles broken up by thin, metal gates, which obscured what lay at the end, and taller gates around the perimeter of the long path, presumably to prevent anyone from falling off.

The two cautiously walked along the bridge to reach the platform, but before they could make sense of what was going on, a voice reverberated through the cave.

"Hello aaaaaaand welcome, to Memory March!!"

Over the sounds of a studio audience cheering and clapping, a goblin (or at least his upper body) on a little cloud floated down from the unseen ceiling, wearing a flashy blazer, sunglasses, and an afro, bearing the voice of a TV game-show host as he spoke.

"Nice to meetcha everybody, we are LIVE from the Dark Depths to bring you our favorite, frantic scramble of orcs and traps; Memory March! And here we have our lovely contestants, why don'tcha introduce yourselves?"

Stopping just in front of them, he held a little microphone in their direction. Sunset smiled.

"Uh, Sunset Shimmer." She looked to Adagio, but only received a comical 'what is this I don't even' kind of stare, all but demanding some kind of explanation. "This is definitely unconventional, but I think it's just a game-show. In a game, appropriately."

"'Game-show'?"

"People doing something wacky and winning prizes for the entertainment of strangers."

"I-I see." She raised an eyebrow at the host, who apparently wasn't programmed to proceed until he had a name from each adventurer. "...Adagio Dazzle. What is-" She jumped with a start when he suddenly, loudly resumed his duties, floating out towards the game board area.

"And today they'll be joining us for a race not against time, but against a vicious band of bloodthirsty orcs! The rules are simple: Our heroes will be given a pattern of symbols to memorize at each gate, then they must step on the tiles with the indicated symbols in that order, or else!" He floated over to the two boarded up holes at the end of the two paths leading to the central platform. "Impeding them will be an army of orcs, which will keep coming until the game ends!" He returned to the center, floating in front of Sunset and Adagio. "Should they succeed, they'll be taking home the prize available on the pedestal at the end of the gates: A Wishing Ring! Good for one reality-bending burst of magic, one that could even grant them a new car!"

Canned cheers sounded through the cave, which might have hurt Sunset's suspension of disbelief in this lovely little fantasy world, but she was already a unicorn from another dimension fighting alongside a singing mer-horse, so nuts to standard convention.

The host indicated a long pulley-chain that dropped from the unseen ceiling. "Just pull this when you're ready to begin."

"Hmm," Sunset hummed as she looked back and forth between the game board and the distant cave wall at the end of the two paths, "I'm thinking that if one of us holds off the orcs, the other can get through the puzzle without distractions. Which one do you wanna do?"

Sparing the orc tunnels a nervous glance, Adagio hesitated to answer, but given a minute to weigh her options, looked at Sunset as though she were about to volunteer to spend another night in Fatbear's. "I'd like to have you blast the orcs from a distance while I input the proper patterns, but even with all of our mana potions, I'm not sure they wouldn't reach you before I got to the other end, and if you have to fall back and they catch up to us-"

"That might get, uh, hectic," Sunset understated, remembering the very recent experience of the canyon ambush, "so... Well, I'm pretty experienced in video game puzzles anyway, so if you can just keep them off me and tank here, I-"

"I'm sorry, 'tank'?"

Sunset smiled again. "A tank is like a big, armored car with a really big gun on it. In games, it's usually shorthand for a really tough unit, you in this case, that gets the enemy's attention and fends them off while less durable units (usually with more attack power) stab them in the back."

Glancing along the paths leading to the tunnels, Adagio nodded. "The one with the most health should be used to absorb the most damage. Efficient, but I confess that I wish that wasn't me in this case." She leaned to one side in an effort to gauge the length of the game board, but couldn't quite see through the many gates. "Alright," she said while tightly gripping her axe again, "if I just, stand here and hold them off, you'll get to the end of the puzzle faster, finish the game, and if they don't go away when that happens, come back and help me?"

It was difficult resisting the urge to tease that it might take her a long time to get back to the start, but Sunset managed. "Of course."

With the plan outlined, the two took their positions; Adagio in the center of the platform and Sunset facing the first gate. Grabbing hold of the pulley-chain, she gave it a sharp tug, a horn sounded, cheerful game-show music started up and the floating, goblin host let out a shout that echoed off the cave walls.

"Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaame, BEGIN!!"

The first gate dropped through the floor, the stone line where it had stood lighting up with symbols that Sunset immediately connected to be runic representations of animals.

Wolf, snake, bird.

Seeing the colorful tiles on the floor past the line, Sunset stepped forward onto the one marked with a wolf, then moved to the one with the snake, then the bird, the next gate sinking like the last one had as a cheerful Ping! sounded to signify a solved gate.

"I-I don't see any orcs," a worried Adagio called over her shoulder, "and the holes are still boarded up!"

"Don't worry," Sunset called back as she read the next set of symbols, "it's most likely just giving us a head start."

She went over the symbols as before.

Bear, bird, rabbit, fox.

The next gate dropped, five symbols to remember this time.

Bird, dragon, bear, snake, uh... bir-

AAAANT!

The host shouted as the tile beneath her opened up-

"Muddy Mess!"

-into a shallow pit of mud, which she immediately fell into. Covered in filth and grumbling at the sounds of canned laughter, Sunset rose to her hands and knees, which stirred weird memories of romping around Castle Canterlot's gardens as a foal.

"Sunset? Are you alright?"

Standing up, she saw in the corner of her vision that she now had the short-lived 'Muddy' status effect, which didn't seem to actually do anything other than make her feel all grimy. To reassure Adagio, she smiled, looked over her shoulder, and made a thumbs-up gesture. "Peachy! How 'bout you?"

Blinking in surprise, Adagio chuckled. "I'm, fine, thank you. Still no orcs so far."

"Great!"

The previous tile was by the side of the board, meaning there were only two tiles she could have reasonably reached without a running jump. If she knew her Anti-Frustration Features™, that meant the correct tile had to be next to the one she was on (in) now; the one in the center of the lane, so she stepped over to it, which dropped the next gate.

Just as she was swelling with triumph (despite still having several gates to go), she heard another horn and the distant sounds of splintering wood. Looking back, she saw the boards over the cave doorways at the end of the two paths now broken, with orcs marching out. It wasn't an army of them, per se, just two per doorway, but four orcs at once might be a bit stressful for one adventurer, Adagio in partic-

"Keep going!!"

She jumped with a start, finding that Adagio was looking over her shoulder at her while awaiting her part. As she returned her attention to the memory puzzle, Adagio faced the incoming orcs, counting the seconds as they made their way towards her. The paths were relatively long and the orcs weren't exactly sprinting, so she estimated that it would take any given orc about thirty seconds to cross from the caves to where she was. Lacking any kind of ranged attack, that information didn't feel especially useful, but in the event that something much scarier came, she'd have some warning, and if she failed to defend the central platform, maybe she could at least use the heads-up to fall back and join Sunset with the tiles.

Maybe I could grab and throw orcs at the tiles until we hit the right ones, see if they have a weakness to mud. If there are deadlier surprises waiting, we could let the traps take care of as many as possible until-

A guttural growl alerted her to the first orc making it to the platform, its weapon raised as it set foot in the circle. Seeing a solution to him and the orc behind him, she rushed forward, raising her boot to kick the orc straight into the abyss. It worked, the first orc brushing past the second hard enough to throw him off balance, leaving him open to a leg-sweep that sent him plummeting after the first one. Unfortunately, the other two orcs continued to advance, bringing them across the platform and several feet from a ledge.

Sunset said 'soft penalty' for long falls, but those orcs aren't coming back up, so this pit must be fatal. If I fall in, she thought as she waited for the other two orcs to reach her, axe raised, I might not come back up either.

Fear prickling at the back of her mind, she swung hard at the closest orc's leg, flipping him where he stood and tripping the one that kept walking. She kicked that one hard in the ribs, angled such that he toppled off his partner and into the blackness below, doing the same to the first orc she'd hit when he was no longer weighed down by another orc.

Four enemies defeated, she scanned the paths for more, but didn't see anything until another Ping! of Sunset solving another gate echoed through the cave. This time there were six orcs in total.

If I fight near the ledge, if I throw as many as possible off, I can keep their numbers under control until this ends.

Staying right at the end of one of the paths leading from the orc tunnels, that was what she decided on as Sunset ran through the puzzle tiles.

Wolf, fish, bear, bird, fox!

Ping!

Bird, rabbit, drag-

AAAANT!

"Fire Fountain!"

In an instant, a little nozzle popped out of the tile Sunset was on, spraying flames at her hindquarters and inflicting her with a status effect exactly like the one Sonata had just after the rope bridge.

"AAAAAAIIIIEEEEE!!"

While incredibly painful, Sunset distantly noted that even with the unseen, nonexistant audience laughing at her again, she'd still prefer this over the realistic approach of burning all over as she sprinted wildly across the tiles.

AAAANT!
AAAANT!
AAAANT!
AAAANT!

Sunset couldn't begin to make out exactly what the host was saying as his voice lines blurred together, but just scant centimeters behind her were flying darts, falling rocks, and a cloud of greenish smoke before she fell into another mud pit. Mercifully, the Muddy status effect ended her Burning one early. Getting up, she feared she'd have to go back across the traps again, but a cursory glance showed her that the wrong symbols she'd already stepped on had disappeared, though she did have to squint a little to read the order from the previous gate backwards.

Quickly retracing her steps, she ran back, then jogged over the correct tiles up to the next gate. Admittedly, this was a lot easier with several options eliminated.

Ping!

This time there were six symbols to remember!

Fox, snake, bear, wolf, fi-

AAAANT!

Oh, come on!!

"Orc Outbreak!"

Drawing her spear-tip wand, Sunset quickly looked around, but no orcs burst up from the ground or fell from the ceiling. That left another answer.

Adagio!

She whipped around to see Adagio swinging and kicking and throwing orcs off the ledge, but past her, could barely make out two masses of green coming out of the tunnels. She had triggered even more orcs, and it wouldn't be long before Adagio was completely overwhelmed. There were just a few more gates between her and the ending and even if she made it back to the platform in time, there was no guarantee that there'd be fewer orcs once they'd dealt with this horde. And that was if she didn't trigger more outbreaks!

That in mind, she raised her 'wand,' held it as steady as she could, and repeatedly screamed "Fireball!"

She fired until her mana bar ran dry, peppering the distant cave wall with explosive fury to take out as much of the horde as possible before turning on a (high) heel and going through the rest of the tiles as fast as she could.

Then she remembered that she'd gotten one wrong and needed to double-check the previous gate before she could go on, which she did!

Adagio, in the meantime, was startled by the sudden barrage of fireballs roaring over her head before impacting the wall at the end of the two paths, alerting her to the huge band of orcs closing in on her position. More than half of them were wiped out by what she assumed were Sunset's spells, but that still left a lot of orcs to deal with. She swung as hard and fast as she could, but the orcs from the second path reached her while she was still trying to knock several off the end of this one, forcing her to take a step back, then another and another as she frantically swung her axe.

Orcs continued to fall, but more immediately took their place, making Adagio yelp and flinch every time she was struck. It may not have hurt as much as actual wounds would, but who doesn't react when someone swings something at them?! She had been backed to the middle of the platform when an orc with a black, particularly sharp-looking battleaxe slashed at her, which hurt more than the machetes, hatchets, and polearms she'd felt so far.

"Aagh!!"

Clenching her jaw as she was staggered, she stared at the orc with eyes full of hatred, making a swift motion to bury her own axe in his shoulder before grabbing the handle of his.

"Mine!!"

With a sharp kick to his kneecap and an elbow to his throat, she yanked the black axe out of his hands, immediately feeling the difference in weight as she brought it through three more orcs.

Hurts more. Stronger.

Her guess must have been right, because the orcs were falling noticeably faster now. While unable to regain the ground she'd lost or the advantage of the path-choking, cliff-throwing method, she found herself able to hack clean through their legs most of the time now, and utilized that to focus her bubbling desperation into something useful until Sunset came through.

Ping!

One more gate, one more gate!!

She probably should have focused more on the one more pattern.

AAAANT!

"Stinger Swarm!"

The loud buzzing immediately behind her was all the incentive Sunset needed to pick up the pace, but unfortunately, this didn't help her with the symbol game at all.

AAAANT!

"Muddy Mess!"

This landed her face-first in mud again with her rear in the air, allowing the bees to catch up.

"OWOWOWOWOW!!"

The pain spurred her to her feet, a Poison status effect now slowly chipping away at her remaining health, but at least the swarm dispersed now that they'd served their purpose.

"Last gate," she repeated to herself as she trudged along, "last gate!"

When she came to the very last tile, her mind went blank. Looking back, she could see that Adagio was surrounded by the orcs now, and probably didn't have much time, so she opted to just charge through, stepping on all three of the last row of tiles if she had to!

AAAANT!

"Feather Fall!"

Down from the ceiling fell a cloud of fluffy, immaculate feathers, which stuck to the mud and gave her a new Feathered status effect. Letting out an irritable sigh at the canned laughter, she hopped to the next tile.

Ping, Ping, Ping!!

"Gooooooal!"

Joyous fanfare sounded, the orcs disappeared in flashes of white, many loud clicks were heard, all of the symbols on the board disappeared, and the traps were disarmed as the game came to an end.

"Well done, contestants! Please claim your prize and convene at the central platform to receive your titles!"

Not knowing or caring what that meant, Adagio dropped to one knee, leaning on her new axe as she struggled to catch her breath. When she heard approaching footsteps, she lolled her head to one side, then nearly choked, sputtering and snickering as she held a hand over her mouth in the effort to hide her giggles when she saw Sunset tarred and feathered.

"Yea, yea," grumbled the mare-turned-mud-chicken, "yuk it up, but we still got the prize!"

She held it out triumphantly; a ridiculously shiny ring embedded with a single, glittering jewel of many colors.

"Yes," concurred the host as he floated down to join them, "your skill and determination has rewarded you with-" a spotlight shone over them, "a single-use Wishing Ring! Simply equip the ring, speak your wish, allow for the Celestial Bureaucracy to process the request over ten to sixty business seconds, and receive your blessing! Note that even when the magic is spent, you can still look fabulous!"

Sunset smiled. Rarity would like this ring, so it was a shame it didn't really exist.

"And now for your titles!" A drumroll sounded as the host read from a little piece of parchment. "Contestant Mage, for your performance across the tiles, you have been dubbed... Accident Prone!"

"What?!"

Adagio laughed so hard that she didn't even hear her title.

"Contestant Barbarian, for your defense against the orc onslaught, you have been dubbed... They Shall Not Pass!"

He hovered for a few seconds longer as Sunset tried to work out how that was supposed to be funny.

"...Other contestants, not found. That concludes our game, seeya next time, folks!"

The bridge leading back to the narrow path from which they came dropped down again as the host returned to the darkness above.

Getting a hold of herself, Adagio stood up, reached into her satchel, and raised a health potion. Sunset smiled, connecting her hand for the health potion high-five.

Looking over Adagio, she scratched her head. "You, uh, might wanna use a couple more on yourself."

Glancing down, Adagio saw that where Sunset had white plumes, she had little cuts and gashes. "...This would be kind of horrific if I could feel them as more than a burning tingle."

"Heh, probably."

Potions administered, the fluffy barbarian was again clean and ready to be on the cover of some slightly exploitative comic book. "Now, what kind of potion cures feathers?"

"Huh? Oh, um... Well, probably nothing, but the status effect only has like six minutes left."

"Does it hurt at all?"

"Only my pride."

"I don't think we've picked up any pride potions, eith-oh, wait!" Smiling, she reached into her satchel again, needing a minute to root around for whatever she was after. "I know I saw a-aha! Bravery potion! I don't know how a digital object is supposed to influence the mind, but-"

"Th-that's okay," Sunset said through a giggle, "I think I'll be fine."

"Ah." The two stood in silence on the otherwise empty platform, the paths, distant tunnels, and game board now somewhat eerie in their lifelessness. "...I'd use the bravery potion on myself, but I keep forgetting I have it."

"Might just be placebo anyway; 'I took a potion that's supposed to make me brave, I can totally run up to this boss and smack it!'"

"Hm."

Another quiet moment. Sunset gestured to the bridge. "Soo..."

"I'd rather wait until the feathers go away, if it's all the same to you." Sunset gave her a quizzical look. "Part of it is that I'm worried you'll be more vulnerable to fire like this, part of it is the chance that some beast that otherwise wouldn't have attacked us, like those roving creatures we saw outside, will mistake you for a giant chicken or something-" she chose to ignore that Sunset nearly squawked with indignation, "-and part is that, in this dark cave, you're otherwise much more visible than you'd normally be, which might draw potential attackers straight to you rather than me."

"...Is Tactical Fashion Analysis a thing you've always done, or a trick you picked up from Rarity?"

"We've never needed to talk about the potential flammability of an outfit, believe it or not."

"So Sonata's never dropped by while you were working?" She smiled as Adagio burst into gigglefits over the next minute.

"Hehehehehe... N-no, but," she said as she again pulled herself together, "it's funny you mention her; when I saw you coming back, she was the first thing I thought of."

"Heh, I'll bet!"

"And then when the afro goblin c-called you 'accident prone,' I-I, pfft-"

Sunset kept smiling as Adagio again descended into girlish giggles.

So she wasn't necessarily laughing at me, just remembering her sometimes-goofy friends.

That moment in the dim hallway seemed so long ago now, and Sunset was pretty happy with where things were going these days. "Speaking of titles, I think I've worked out what yours means." She waited until Adagio at least had the composure to look her in the eye again. "If I'm 'Accident Prone Sunset Shimmer,' you're 'They Shall Not Pass Adagio Dazzle.' It's a complete sentence!"

"I-I see."

Looking around, Sunset didn't see anything that might mistake her for a giant, tasty chicken. "Wanna head out? The rest of the path outta here looks pretty long and uneventful and the feathers should wear off in a few more minutes."

"Mm... Alright, but, please be careful."

Making their way through the rest of the dark cave, it wasn't long before the area around them transitioned from organic stone to deliberately-placed masonry. When they happened across barrels and boxes, Sunset deduced that they were either in a dungeon (as in the type people are locked away in and left to languish), or a cellar. It proved to be the latter when they found a wooden staircase leading up to two heavy double-doors, which they stepped out of to see the interior of a dark cathedral.

Sunset whistled. "High ceilings, pointy architecture, huge pillars, statues of women holding bowls, this is a religious building all right."

"Is it the right building? The one we saw from the fields?"

"Probably, I don't see why there'd be two of 'em. This should be the last dungeon, which means Aria and Sonata are either around here somewhere, or they're heading here now."

Adagio nodded, keeping an eye out for X's carved in things as they wandered the first floor together. There were no enemies so far, living, dead, or anything in between, and she was sure that Aria and Sonata would have left very clear indication that they had come through if there had been hostiles to deal with.

Idly wandering around and pocketing some of the shinier ornaments and candlesticks, it wasn't long before they came across a large double-door, which they pried open to see led outside. In front of them was a drawbridge that stretched across a chasm, the dunes of a vast desert on the other side.

"Do we go this way, or...?"

"I, don't think so. There's most likely a staircase around here somewhere, so this is probably where Aria and Sonata's path will eventually lead them."

Adagio briefly checked both sides of both doors. "No X's, so they haven't been here yet." She clutched the wood of one door tightly enough to splinter it, growling. "Or if they have and forgot, so help me-"

"I see them!" Sunset jumped with a start as Adagio nearly ripped the door off its hinges with how quickly she whipped around, scanning the sandy hills as though she were a small child looking out a window late at night on Christmas Eve. The display tickled her, but she refrained from commenting as she looked back toward the desert, seeing a black figure with two long, purple blurs hanging from the top and a white blob next to her, both steadily getting closer.

Unsure if they could even see her yet, Sunset waved, she and Adagio opting to wait until the pair rejoined them.

Author's Note

The cave monster examples aren't actual game enemies I remember seeing, mostly, just the first few things that came to mind.

Chapter 9: Meeting The Boss

Sunset's Final Boss senses were going off even before they glimpsed the room that waited at the top of the stairs, but when they got there, she was sure this was it. Huge, round, arena-like room, extravagant decoration on every polished surface, and of course a pedestal waiting in the center, light from above shining down to bring attention to the artifact they came here for.

"...Is that a frying pan?"

Adagio cautiously drew closer, axe raised. "Sure looks like one. Do you think they use it for-"

The light dimming made her squeak and quickly look around for something to swing at, a loud, flapping noise making her look up to see what she guessed was the last encounter of the adventure. Descending into the room was a large, muscular man with four massive, feathery wings, dressed in only a golden mask and an immaculate cloth around his waist, reaching down to his feet. In his hand was an especially long, flaming greatsword, which Sunset didn't want to give him a chance to swing.

"Blizzard!"

The Archangel made no attempt to block or dodge her attack, his wings not slowing their steady beat even as he frosted over. When he was hovering just over the ground, he moved only one arm to swing his sword at Adagio, who was blocking long before he could have reached her.

The impact drew a yelp of fright and pain as she was pushed back several feet. As brave as Adagio had been through this adventure (for her, at least), Sunset didn't need to see her legs shaking to know she wasn't going to swing back just yet, so she laid into the archangel with lightning as Aria threw knives that just bounced off his muscular frame, apparently not even leaving scratches.

"Oh, I see how it is," Aria grumbled, turning to look at Sunset. "While she's got him distracted, I'll sneak around and backstab his wings off?"

Sunset nodded. "I think his attacks can cut through blocks. Hurry."

And hurry Aria did, moving in a wide arc so as not to draw the boss's attention while it continued to attack Adagio, who Sonata healed just as quickly. When she got close, Aria jumped on the Archangel, holding onto his wings with both knives before alternating stabs with both. It was working, she could see blood flowing now, but the angel stretched his wings, shot straight up to the ceiling, and smashed Aria between his back and the painted masonry above.

When he let her go, Aria fell the entire height of the boss arena, Adagio catching her before she could slam into the ground.

"Aria, are you alright?!"

"Owieee," she whimpered.

"I'll take that as a yes!" Glancing up, she saw the Archangel again drifting down, so she reached into her satchel to smash a strong healing potion against Aria, throwing mana potions at Sunset and Sonata as their rogue got to her feet again. "Any plans, Sunset?!"

"Um, h-his wings are probably his weak point, and Aria just proved we can hurt those! Do you think you can chop those off?"

"Not if he focuses on me!"

He was halfway down to them now. If nothing else, it seemed he couldn't drift down very fast. Sunset's eyes narrowed.

"Then I'll draw his fire, get ready!"

She immediately peppered the Archangel with blasts of fire, hoping the feathers would catch. They didn't, but she must have built up enough aggro to get his attention, because he was drifing toward her now. Determined to keep it for a little longer, she tried casting Poison, Slow, Blindness, and Doom (which apparently wasn't in this game) just to see if they would do anything, but as expected, bosses were immune to status effects.

When the Archangel drew close, Adagio started running for him, which was what gave Sunset the presence of mind to block anyway. He had just raised his sword when Adagio jumped at his back, screaming as she swung for a wing.

A visceral sound accompanied the Archangel's first visible sign of pain, two and a half wings falling to the ground in a mess of blood and feathers. Stunned and a little disgusted, Adagio dared hope that meant he was dead, but when he raised his sword again, she noticed that Sunset hadn't gotten out of his range yet. As she and Sunset frantically swung and cast spells at point-blank range, Aria running in to stab the open wounds on the Archangel's back in the hope of finishing it off, Sonata had a bright idea of just how to do that.

"Holy!"

Pointing at the Archangel, she fired her ultra-powerful, instant-obliteration spell, enveloping him in white light. In an instant, his wings grew back, the flames on his greatsword turned blue, his body began to glow, and golden light beamed from the eyes of his mask.

All four adventurers stared in shock before three turned their heads in unison.

"Sonata, you idiot!!"

It would seem that the newly empowered Archangel agreed (or more likely, Sonata's high-damage attack gave her even more aggro than the other three combined), because he immediately flapped his wings, shot over to Sonata-

"Oh, shi-"

-and cut her down. He then sped back to the others, pushing Adagio back with even more force than before. She was barely able to screech out "Help!" before Sunset unleashed a volley of fireballs square into his back, immaculate plumes turning black with ash.

In barely a second, he turned and cut her down, Sunset seeing her health drop to zero before she even realized she'd been hit.

Falling to the ground, Sunset felt helpless, her world slowing down as she saw the Archangel, still towering with might and divine fury, with just two new players between him and a full party wipe. She couldn't speak, couldn't give any kind of advice or instructions, was just (questionably) lucky that she fell in such a way that she could still see what was going on. It was probably the same for Sonata, or she'd have probably called out for help by now.

Time picked up again when she heard Adagio shout.

"Aria, on his back!"

"But-"

"DO IT!!"

For just an instant, Sunset saw that face again. It was the one Aria made on Rarity's birthday when asking Sunset not to tell Adagio that she'd just said they were more 'in charge' of the group than she was, that unshakable fear of Adagio that was causing so much trouble in their friendship.

Well, even I told her she's scary sometimes. Have I ever made that face at her?

Before she could search her memories, Aria obeyed the order, again getting smashed against the ceiling, and again getting caught by Adagio.

"Thanks," their barbarian commander said quickly as she set the depleted rogue down, "now sit tight."

Sunset would have laughed at the shock and disbelief in Aria's eyes if not for the current predicament. She saw Adagio jog over to her, grab her arm, and point it up toward the Archangel, whose slow descent hadn't gained any speed from Sonata's accidental power-up.

"I wish he was a pile of inanimate gold coins!"

And then, as the rainbow-colored ring on her finger lit up, Sunset understood Adagio's plan.

"Are you freakin' kidding me?!"

"Obviously not," Adagio calmly answered as she swept the remains of their adversary into her coin pouch, "and for the record, I'd say it worked out beautifully."

Even though Adagio had used potions to revive all of them before looting, Aria, who'd had some questions about the wishing ring, was less than pleased, folding her arms and pouting. "Yea, because you were the only one still standing."

Knowing where she was going with this, Sunset smiled and rolled her eyes. "It was a sound strategy, Aria. Once Sonata accidentally turbo-charged the guy-"

She stood off to the side, wishing her face-obscuring hood fit over her sweet pope hat. "How was I supposed to know angels liked light magic?"

"-we'd have probably been screwed if we tried to heal damage as fast as he was doling it out, so she used you to exploit his slow, dramatic descent thing to buy time to use the wishing ring to cheat the boss out of existence. Cheesing it a little, but at that point, I'd say it was that, or we lose, and we don't know what kind of penalty that carries."

Connecting that Sunset was talking about a possible hit to their pay for all this, she grumbled. "Yea, well..."

"I'm sorry I used you as cannon fodder," Adagio said as she got to her feet, "it wasn't very nice of me. Almost like, say, sending someone to face a dragon by themselves."

"Yea, you-" As the memory sunk in, her face grew very sheepish. "...Uhh..."

Hands on her hips, Adagio leaned forward and smirked. "But it's fine if it's part of a winning strategy, right?"

"...Maybe."

"I can't hear you, Aria."

Blushing, Aria made an especially petulant pout. "Alright, alright, fine!"

Adagio chuckled. "You're welcome." She turned to Sunset. "So, does the game just end when we nab the frying pan?"

"Um..." Deciding that the fastest way to test that was to just do it, Sunset jogged over to the pedestal and did just that. The game didn't end. "I guess we have to turn it in somewhere. Maybe there's-"

She was interrupted by an otherwise unremarkable (that is, compared to the rest of the ridiculously ornate room) wall sliding open, revealing a new path.

"Oh, okay then. Everyone ready?"

The sirens nodded an affirmative and the group moved into the stone passage way, went down some stairs, and saw a wider corridor with another merchant and his bazaar stand off to one side, and a glowing, white circle in a circle of stones on the ground at the end of the hall. Sunset smiled.

"Cullis gate. Either that's the end, or it'll lead us to the parade in which we're hailed as heroes and that will be the end."

Sonata looked at the merchant. "And this is our last chance to sell all our loot?"

"Looks like it."

And with that, the group flogged everything they'd acquired since the last merchant, including every last potion and everything they didn't have equipped. Aria was more than willing to stand naked (assuming this game would allow that) in a dungeon for a few minutes if it meant a bigger payday, but on top of the obvious reasons, Sunset wanted to hold onto their equipment just in case it carried over into some future playthrough in a fantasy game.

Besides, Adagio looked happy in her golden, shiny, bikini-armor-catsuit.

She did surprise Sunset, however, because when they had sold everything and were just about ready to leave, she smiled at the merchant.

"I'd like to buy a crossbow."

Aria and Sonata traded looks as Sunset put a hand on her shoulder. "Uh, Dagi, there's nothing left to fight here. The game is basically over."

She was still smiling, but something in her grin shot Sunset with a particularly dark bolt of deja vu. "Humor me."

Perplexed, Sunset stepped back, watching as Adagio looked through the merchant's selection before picking out her favorite. Taking it in exchange for a modest sum, she gave the merchant an especially warm smile.

"Thank you." Then she glared, pointing the weapon at his face. "Now get down on the ground!!"

Sunset's jaw dropped as the merchant, in the exact same style as the hostages in the heist game, obeyed her command. Adagio had another one for Aria and Sonata.

"Star, Punch, secure the loot."

Looking at them, Sunset saw Aria light up with glee, practically hearing a 'CHA-CHING' sound as she beamed.

"Right on, Fluffy!"

Distantly surprised that Adagio didn't even seem to care about her nickname as the two got to work bagging and dragging the wares they had just parted with, plus everything the merchant had to offer, to the cullis gate while Adagio kept her weapon trained on the merchant, Sunset managed to make words.

"Uh... Adagio? What are you doing?"

"These pricks have been robbing us for the entire game. I'd say this is perfectly justified."

Sunset opened her mouth to protest, to say heroes definitely weren't supposed to do this kind of thing, but she remembered Adagio's similar attitude back in Fatbear's Pizza.

I still wonder if it was okay to take that pizza, but this guy doesn't even really exist, so...?

Well, as long as the sirens didn't rob people in real life, Sunset decided she could live with this as Jacket got to work moving the rest of the loot.

The trip from the VR pods to the lobby was again spent disappointing Aria with the knowledge that nobody else kept track of their kills. Her mood brightened when she saw four big, burlap sacks with dollar signs on them, which she interpreted to be their payment. Before she or Sonata could reach them, however, a loud crackling sound was heard from above.

Down from some kind of circular opening in the ceiling descended a platform aided by long, metal rods, smoke and sparks of many colors spilling over the sides as it drew closer to the ground, all accompanied by a playful, yet faintly sinister tune. When the colorful effects started to die down and the platform had lowered most of the way, a man burst from the smoke, landing in front of them with a flourish.

He was dressed in mismatched shoes (a green, snakeskin boot and red clown shoe), a patchwork suit of random fabrics, colors, and patterns, two matching gloves made almost suspicious by their pristine whiteness when compared with the rest of his outfit, and a necktie that disappeared into a coat pocket, appeared to come out of another on his opposite side, and hung backward over his shoulder like the scarf of some fictional hero. The tie seemed to be some kind of tapestry, but Sunset couldn't begin to make sense of it from where she stood, nor of his discolored, heterochromic, red and yellow eyes. Next to those, his grey skin, scraggly goatee, and wild, white hair sticking up in every direction from which it stood on his balding head were perhaps the easiest features to explain.

"Well done, mighty heroes," he loudly proclaimed, arms out in a way that made Sunset worry that he was about to sweep them all up in a hug, "the dungeons are conquered, the bosses are dead, the puzzles were tested-" grinning with a hint of malice, he clenched one hand into a fist, "-and the merchants finally get a lesson in complacency!"

Sunset stared in silence, but glancing at the sirens, confirmed that they could see him too, so she knew she wasn't suffering whatever madness those VR pods were supposedly capable of inflicting. Or, all of them were having the same-

Adagio cleared her throat, explaining with a perfectly straight face. "Girls, meet our employer; Dyresius Whiskerdoodle McMuttonChops Oxford, or as he prefers-"

"Discord," he finished for her, one hand extended to the sky as though extracting some godly power from the universe itself before transitioning to a bow, "and oh so pleased to meet the rest of you!"

Things were quiet for a moment. Sonata, visibly worried, whispered to Adagio.

"Are we gonna die?"

"He's harmless," Adagio deadpanned, turning to look at the man that first called her here. "Is there something further you need today?"

Standing up straight, about as tall as Principal Celestia, he smiled. "I just wanted to congratulate you all in person for that thing at the end." He nodded to the money bags waiting on the counter. "And yes, I allowed the full, proportional payment because-" he started counting off on his fingers, "One, it was funny, shoe, I know very well the feeling of wanting to stick it to someone running a racket like in-game salesmen do (though my dev team tells me the haggling system is coming along), and three, you even used the code-names!"

So he's the one who picked those, thought Sunset.

Aria beamed, even throwing in a salute. "Pleasure doin' business!"

He chuckled, looking at her out of the corner of his eye. "You have no idea how happy I am to hear that, Aria- Can I call you Aria? I hate going all 'formal' unless it's for comic effect, but I know how some people are, so- it's fine? Okay, gravy. -because there's still a few more games with bugs to work out before we go public with these pods. I don't know which one's going to be ready first, but I'm especially excited for the one with the monster trucks and rocket cars!"

Sunset tilted her head. "Like, a racing game?"

He looked at her askance for a moment, then rubbed his chin. "Racing game... interesting..." He smiled. "Well, you girls enjoy your winnings, I've got some things to do, ta-ta!"

And he cartwheeled away, disappearing around a corner.

A quiet, uncertain moment passed, but looking around, Aria remembered those big, beautiful bags of cash. She looked at Sunset. "We'll grab three of those, so seeya at the next one'a these."

Sunset smiled hopefully. "Or maybe at school?"

Aria made a face. "Seriously?"

Adagio shrugged. "There's only a month or so left until summer vacation, and we wouldn't need as much money if the school were paying for lunch every weekday."

Aria made an especially sour face. "Okay, okay, fine." She gave Sunset an annoyed glance. "Seeya at school."

Not wanting to risk messing this up, Sunset just smiled.

I did it, Principal Celestia. And maybe when the summer break ends, they'll be joining full-time!

Grabbing one of the loot bags, Sonata smiled. "School isn't that bad, y'know. We don't even have to wear uniforms or take peoples' orders all day. Plus, I totally heard someone say that all three of us are hotter than Rarity!"

The thought made Aria smirk as she hefted her and Adagio's bags over a shoulder. "Let's get these home. Then we can go nab some ice cream."

Sonata blinked in surprise, then giggled with glee.

Meanwhile, Sunset was weirdly gratified to see Adagio still standing next to her. Maybe she wanted to talk in private too? "So, that guy, Discord, um... does he-"

"Not our father, most likely just this world's equivalent. Princess Twilight told you that she had friends identical to yours in Equestria, right?"

"Oh. I guess that sorta makes sense."

"For whatever it's worth, this one actually seems to care about other living beings, at least more than ours ever did."

"How can you tell?"

Adagio gestured in the direction of the pod room. "He's an insane billionaire with the wealth and influence to do just about anything he wants, and is going through the trouble of making something other people can enjoy."

"...Oh. Yea, I guess that'd do it." She glanced around, confirming that they were alone in the lobby. "So, um... About your last suit of armor...?"

Giggling, Adagio brushed her hair over her shoulder. "Glorious, wasn't it? I'd look for a real-world equivalent if I weren't sure that the scales would chafe mercilessly."

An inconvenient series of mental images rolling through Sunset's brain, she turned away with a cough. "Y-yea, um... I mean, I was thinking that, i-it kind of, y'know..." She glanced at Adagio to find an inquisitive, but not remotely bashful expression. "Wasn't it kind of... tight?"

"Yes," she said while absent-mindedly running a hand over her hindquarters, "which is why I'm sure that if I could have felt it on me, it'd have chafed, but at least it didn't leave me half-naked like the steel and fur."

Something bumped into something else in Sunset's head, rattling her thoughts, but fortunately making some kind of connection.

Adagio's first two armors showed a lot of skin, but the gold armor didn't.

And then she remembered that the sirens were aliens who, unlike her, didn't live so close to the ~~puny earthlings~~ normal people of this realm. Maybe they still had an alien's understanding of modesty? She opted to let the matter drop.

"Yea, I guess. So, anyway, good thinking with the wishing ring back there."

Folding her arms behind her back, Adagio wore a faintly contrite expression. "You'd have probably preferred to use it yourself, so sorry for stealing that from you."

"Heh, don't worry about it, I totally forgot we even had it." She giggled at Adagio's look of surprise. "I kind of thought that if anything, you'd have just wished for millions and millions of gold or something."

"That occurred to me, but I wasn't sure we'd get away with it, and I wouldn't want to test someone who's already been generous with us."

"Fair enough. What would you have done if we didn't use it on the angel?"

Hesitant uncertainty on her face, she shrugged. "Hope it was worth a lot?" Sunset just giggled again, so she smiled, turning toward the door. "We'll most likely see you at school or something. Take care, Sunset."

Nodding, Sunset waved a little goodbye before moving to receive her share of the payment, already looking forward to sharing regular school days with her three relatively new friends.

Of course, once summer starts, we're not gonna be seeing each other much... Maybe there's something I can do about that?

Besides, she kind of wanted to see how the sirens acted when not around her or each other. If nothing happened with her friends at school, she had about a month to think of a way to make that happen.

Author's Note

As you probably knew going in that the series wouldn't end with this story, I have no shame about this cliffhanger ending!

Where a normal person might say "Cool," someone else might say "Groovy." Where someone else might say "Groovy," Discord, in this rendition, says "Gravy." I thought that might need clearing up.

Wondering about the difficulty of the final boss, even before Sonata hit it? Common occurrence in Skyrim dungeon delving: Murder enemies without much trouble, meet absurdly powerful boss at the end. Luckily, the Dazzlings don't mind using exploits. My personal favorite "Oh, screw this" solution is to dual-wield fireball staves (usually taken from dragon priests) and just blast whatever it is into Oblivion. I'll grant that that one requires some prep time, though. And luck. And maybe soul gems.

Fun, though! :pinkiehappy:

My second favorite is for if, like me, you've played through the main quest so many times already that you want to break something's face every time you hear the words "Bleak Falls Barrow" and just load a minimalistic Main-Quest-Already-Done save file whenever you make a new character: Fus-Roh-Dah troublesome enemy, get in a few cheapshots while they're down, run away like a little girl until the shout meter clears, repeat until one of you dies.

Not effective on dragons. Or dragon priests.

I fight like a dishonorable dog in Skyrim, I guess is the takeaway from this. Feel free to share your favorite means of Difficult RPG Moment problem-solving below and we can all be practical-minded dirtbags together! :pinkiehappy:

Also, the next story is about Sunset, the sirens, and a few Rainbooms going camping, if you were curious. Not sure when I'll be ready to publish any part of it.

Chapter 1: Catching Up

For someone that once spent an extra nugget of brainpower to belittle Rarity's favorite passtime, Sunset had grown to appreciate the young fashionista's skill in her field. This might have had something to do with why she'd long ago been asked to stop apologizing. That said, there were definitely aspects to the craft that Sunset could do without, and the most irritating part was the waiting.

Her arms crossed and one leg folded over the other, Sunset sat in the living room of Rarity's house as she waited for her and Adagio to finish up their work for the day. True, Sunset could have just gone ahead to Dis-Corp's VR testing lab with Aria and Sonata, but it felt weird to make Adagio walk there alone when she didn't have to. Besides, Sunset kind of wanted to catch up with her. They hadn't really talked much since Sunset's sick day the week before, and even then, it was mainly through text messages. Adagio probably hadn't gotten the hang of texting yet, because her responses were always very slow, but the grammar, spelling, and even punctuation were always top-notch, which Sunset appreciated.

It was through such messages that Sunset knew she was in Rarity's home workshop at the time and that they'd be due to test Dis-Corp's new virtual reality game within the next hour or so. Sunset checked her phone and sighed.

"Rarity said five minutes," she muttered under her breath, "why do I keep believing her?"

Getting up, she opted to see how things were coming along in there, but when she pushed the curtain aside, no one was there.

"Rarity? Adagio? Hello?"

She paced in while casting cursory glances in every direction, but didn't see a trace of either girl until she nearly tripped over one of Adagio's spiky boots. Glancing over the array of familiar clothes spread almost in a trail to one of the changing rooms, Sunset chuckled. She'd been through enough dress-up sessions with Rarity herself to be able to piece together what went down, and the mental image of Adagio's crimson face as Rarity did her usual thing just made her smile.

Guess that means she was in a hurry before I even got here. Maybe they'll be done soon?

Casually pacing over to the changing room at which the trail of Adagio's dance outfit stopped, Sunset gently rapped her knuckles against the wall by the curtain. When there was no reply, she slid it open enough to confirm that it was empty. In the middle of the floor, beside Adagio's spiky hairband, were her pink, triangle-patterened tights.

I wonder if those are as warm as they look. Her outfit wouldn't be the same bare-legged, but how does she deal with hot weather?

Of course, if Adagio could put up with Summer under all that hair...? Stepping away from the curtain, Sunset looked around the room again, trying to work out where they could be if not here.

"Let's see," she whispered to herself while idly pacing the floor, "if I were Rarity with access to a full head of soft, wavy hair, where would I b-EEK?!"

Her arms flailed as she nearly tripped and faceplanted, but kept her balance well enough to right herself. With a quick scan of the ground, she again noticed Adagio's spiky boots. She stopped to glare at them, but they were just boots, so she felt silly after a second.

Heels... The first time I tried them on, I almost fell flat on my face.

In hindsight, she probably should have gotten used to human legs first.

Rarity had explained it to her a few weeks after they became friends; that with the way heels supported your feet, you were bound to walk a little differently whether you meant to or not, in a way that usually drew attention. It was something Adagio and Aria had used to their full advantage when they first arrived at CHS, but maybe Sonata didn't like how they fit. Or, being accident-prone, couldn't walk in them at all?

She glanced around again. Still no sign of Rarity or Adagio.

I could wear them too, if I wanted. I mean, I didn't trip just a second ago, right?

The thought of Aria mocking her for being just as clumsy as Sonata made Sunset's jaw clench.

I'll prove it!

She sat down by the boots, slipped her own off, and pulled them on. Standing upright, she looked down to find that they fit pretty well. Were she and Adagio the same shoe-size? She took a step forward. Then another. Then she walked in a short circle, getting the hang of her slightly altered leg movements almost right away. This drew a victorious little smirk.

Ha, easy!

She walked around a little longer, catching sight of the changing room she'd checked a minute ago. Adagio's clothes were still on the floor, including her tights. It occurred to Sunset that she'd never actually worn tights before. Fashion hadn't been a big concern before the Fall Formal and her friends had never suggested them to her after, but now...?

Sunset shrugged, walked over, sat down to take the boots off, and pulled the tights up, lifting her skirt where necessary. She stood, gently brushing a hand along her leg as the sensation sank in. They fit like a very tight, but soft pair of pants!

...Probably because that was what they were.

She took a few steps forward. Then a few more. She walked in another circle, smiling. It felt a little weird, but not in a way that made her think of Pinkie Pie. Except for just then. Still, she liked it, not sure she'd ever worn something that made her feel so... sexy! She was as comfortable in her human body as she was ever going to be, maybe she could stand to spice up her wardrobe a little?

The thought drew a little blush, at least until she laid eyes on Adagio's boots again. Without thinking about it, she sat down to put them on a second time. Apart from the poofy shorts of her purple jumpsuit, she was now dressed like Adagio from the waist down. She tried walking around a little more, but before she could decide how she felt about the combination, a distant voice froze her blood.

"-obably kept poor Sunset waiting long enough."

CRAP!!

Faster than she knew she was capable of moving, Sunset took off the boots and tights, glanced around in a panic as her brain caught up with itself, set the tights in the middle of the floor where she'd found them, dashed out of the changing room, put the boots back where she was pretty sure she'd almost tripped over them twice, and quickly sat down to put her own, heelless boots back on. She'd barely stood up as Rarity appeared in the doorway.

"Ah," she said with a bright smile, "there she is! Terribly sorry to have held you, Darling, but we got a little side-tracked. My fault, really."

Before Sunset could respond, Adagio stepped into the room, wearing a long, white, sleeveless dress, cinched at the middle with a thick, black sash.

"Hello, Sunset Shimmer... Are you feeling alright?" An orange eyebrow arched. "You're not coming down with another fever, are you?"

"Huh?!"

Rarity frowned. "She's right Darling, you look a little flushed. You're even perspiring!"

The fever must have been well and truly gone, because Sunset's brain actually kicked into high gear. "Yea," she said in slightly irritable tones perfect for covering how winded she was after moving so fast to hide her little dress-up session, "because we're gonna be late if we don't get moving soon!"

This drew a look of alarm from Adagio. "Oh, right! Sorry," she said while quickly gathering up her clothes and heading to the changing room, "I'll be with you in just a minute!"

Safe, thought Sunset as she let out a little sigh. She might have felt guilty about the tiny deception, but they really did need to head out soon. Rarity was saying something.

"-oped your reaction had more to do with how stunning she looked in that dress."

Blinking, Sunset turned to look at her... and caught sight of something that made her forget what little she heard in an instant. Staring at the offending object on the wall over the door that led into the room, Sunset slowly raised a hand to point at the huge, comically-oversized hairbrush, thick with strands of orange hair. The thing hung on a plaque like the trophy of a big game hunter, depriving Sunset of a proper sentence.

"Rarity... What."

Glancing over her shoulder, Rarity turned flourescant pink. "Err... Haha, that, that was, uhm... W-well, you see, back on my birthday, I may have had a little... episode..."

The two stood in silence, Sunset too scared to formally ask and Rarity smiling sheepishly until Adagio stepped out of the changing room.

"Alright, ready, wh-EEK?!"

She was immediately seized by the arm and all but dragged out of the room, out of the house, and down the street leading to the Dis-Corp building, Sunset not giving her a second to compose herself as she struggled to stay on her feet. Once again, she got flashbacks to that night at Fatbear's.

The two stopped in the lobby, both gasping for breath as Adagio did her best to glare.

"You, huff, will, huff, pay for that!"

Still practically panting herself, Sunset wore a contrite face. "S-sorry, just..." She took a deep breath. "Rarity kind of scares me sometimes, y'know?" That first makeover. The horror.

The horror.

"But, I know you don't like being dragged around like that, so, I'm sorry. However you want to get back at me for this, go ahead." Sunset had to clench her jaw to keep from laughing at Adagio's sudden, baffled expression, both because she was sincerely sorry and because laughing would probably tick her off even more.

"I, you... what?"

Sunset shrugged. "I don't wanna be jumping at shadows until you get me, so whatever you come up with, I'm just gonna take it head-on. Okay?"

Adagio's mouth hung open for a second. Even if no one saw her getting dragged around like a rag-doll, she was definitely still angry about having been transported that way again, but Sunset's expression gave her pause.

Is she just going to tease me again, or was that genuine remorse? She knows I hate being pulled around, but isn't that all the more reason to sincerely apologize?

Not sure what to make of it, she sighed, opted to just drop it for now, and stepped past Sunset toward the testing chamber. "Aria and Sonata are waiting."

Smiling a little, Sunset followed.

In the snazzy science room with the big pods, Aria was the first to call out to them. "What took you guys so long? Was Prissy brushing every hair on Adagio's head?"

Sonata beamed. "Or sewing together enough blankets to cover her big, fat butt?"

The two snickered as Adagio's cheeks tinted red, but to Sunset's surprise, Adagio was smiling a little anyway. "Yes," she replied calmly, "but at least those blankets are clean."

Aria and Sunset both laughed as Sonata went neon-pink. "S-so," she stammered, "are we just robbing a place again?"

"Not quite," Adagio answered with a hand on her hip. "When I spoke to the lead developer of this technology, -also the CEO of Discorp, he claims- he said he wanted to do more than just 'cops and robbers.' This time it's something he described as a 'fairytale hack-and-slash.'"

"An RPG!"

The sirens turned to look at Sunset, whose bright smile shifted toward self-conscious.

"Heh, heh... Uh, I might've heard of this kind of game before, though not in virtual reality."

Aria raised an eyebrow. "Just 'heard of'?"

Sunset shrugged, clasping her hands behind her back. "And... maybe sampled a few times...?" More stares. "I mean, y'know, I had a lot of time to kill once I'd taken over CHS and it was maybe a little fun imagining myself with magic again, sooo..."

In the year before Twilight arrived, she'd had a four-month obsession with a mass-multiplayer online game. It wasn't that she was embarrassed to have played at all, but the way she'd grown so entranced with the game as to skip school, meals, and showers until she finally realized what she was doing. This was a souce of shame that she hadn't even shared with her closest friends yet, and it was one she wasn't eager to elaborate on now.

New subject! She looked at Aria and Sonata. "Are you two up to this? Getting hurt in there may not cause any injury, but it still stings, so I really hope you're over your colds."

Sonata frowned. "Yea, we're fine, but-" she pointed at Adagio, "-she made us eat something with onions!"

The on-and-off nurse huffed indignantly as she crossed her arms. "I told you; they're good for your immune system." Not terrible for revenge on patients who laughed at her again, either, but that was just a bonus.

Aria shrugged. "They weren't that bad, Sonata."

"They! Were! Onions!!"

Conversation was cut off by the synthetic, female voice telling them it was time to begin the tests. While Aria and Sonata headed to their pods, Sunset stepped closer to Adagio, an inquisitive eyebrow raised.

"You didn't feed me onions when I was sick."

Adagio shrugged. "You didn't have any in your pantry."

"...Oh, yea..."

Author's Note

There are a LOT of continuity nods in this series, which might make things confusing with how far apart the stories are released. For the people I've seen adding the stories to Favorites lists in rapid succession, I hope it makes for fun marathoning, at least! :pinkiehappy:

Also, I meant to have this story finished back in January so I could do what had become the tradition for these stories and release each chapter two days apart. I'm not quite sure why I ever started doing that, but as it's been over a year since the last story, I still don't have this one completely finished, and tradition for the sake of tradition is kind of silly, I figured I might as well do what I did a couple years ago; publish what I've got bit by bit (will be going for a weekly update schedule until everything I have so far is out), then finish the rest whenever.

There are some stories that, for one reason or another, I kind of feel need to be finished before publishing starts, usually due to some kind of message or something that only makes sense when you've seen the whole thing (I Can Smile was like that), but this isn't really one of those so much as what I hope will be a fun romp through a virtual fantasy dungeon or two.

So, here goes. Hope you enjoy! :pinkiehappy:

Chapter 8: The Most Valuable of Treasures

Adagio and Sunset determined that Aria and Sonata were close enough when they picked up the sounds of bickering. Not knowing or caring what it was about this time, Sunset called out to them.

"Hey!!"

She waved, smiling as their attention broke from each other and focused on her, both smiling back when they saw her and Adagio.

It was as they picked up their pace across the bridge that Sunset wished she'd made some kind of bet about getting here first, but none of them had known there'd be a specific point at which their paths met. She wasn't really sure what the stakes would have been, either.

When the two set foot in the castle/cathedral/thing, Aria was the first to say anything. "Hey, you guys got new weapons! Any other good loot?"

"Nothing worth mentioning," Adagio answered before Sunset could, "you?"

As Aria excitedly shared the details of her new armor (dark purple this time, she said, but to Sunset it was still just black) and Sonata's new heal-enhancing sash (which she wore tied around her head, Rambo-style, it apparently having occurred to her that there was no reason to keep her hood up all the time), Sunset quietly pushed together the pieces of a little puzzle in her head.

The completed image suggested to her that, despite how much closer the sirens had grown since Rarity's birthday, Adagio probably still didn't trust something as valuable as a wishing ring in Aria and Sonata's hands, opting to keep it a secret from them until it was time to use it. Probably at the very end of the adventure to wish for a mountain of gold coins or something, if that was allowed.

"And there was even a game-show," Sonata gushed with spastic arm-motions that made the long sleeves of her priest robe flap about, "with cheesy music and an audience of forest critters and everything! It was all plant trivia, and whenever we got one wrong, it-mph!"

Pulling Sonata's sash/bandana down over her mouth, a faintly rosy Aria quickly summed up for her. "It sucked, but we picked our own grand prize-" Reaching into her bag, she pulled out a big, golden crown with ornate, vine-like patterns etched into the sides and various kinds of flower sticking out of the points of the crown. "-from the giant plant guy hosting the thing."

This was when Sunset noticed something strange along the inner rim of the crown; a mysterious, green ichor and the jagged remains of some kind of plant life. Noticing where Sunset was looking, Aria shrugged.

"I figure if we rinse it off, they'll pay something for it."

"Well done," Adagio said with a nod, "but there'll be time for stories later. Let's finish this thing and get paid." With that, she again took point in the direction she hoped would lead to the end, silently gratified that she was followed right away this time.

Adagio wasn't startled when the idle suits of armor lining a corridor sprung to life and attacked, but only because Sunset had just been explaining how exactly that might happen. Blades were of limited usefulness in the ensuing melee, but Sonata's staff and a knight's dented cuirass stuck on the end of an axe made for effective clubs for those that weren't blown apart before they could get in close. Following a disappointing loot harvest and Adagio needing to scrape twisted metal off her weapon, the party ventured onward and upward through the carpeted, torch-lit stairs of the evil-aligned church.

"So Shimmer, this place looks pretty snazzy all around, right?"

"Yea?"

"How much would we get if we just started rippin' stuff off the walls and-"

"Not nearly enough to make it worth carrying."

"Damn."

Despite Aria's half-hearted scowl, Sunset giggled. That was at least two sirens getting a good Adventurer Sense developed now, so if Sonata got on board too, maybe they could all play together some time! She wasn't sure if that game was even still online, but if not, it couldn't be hard to find another one. Her hopes rose when the blunette in question spoke up.

"Speakin' of ripping stuff off, when do I get my own skimpy outfit?"

Sunset stumbled. "W-what?!"

"Like you guys," she said while pointing to the rest of the party with a plaintive pout, "half-naked or in something skin-tight! Aria's gimp suit rides halfway up to Narnia and doesn't even have pantylines!"

Annoyed, Aria folded her hands over her behind. "Quit staring at my ass, Sonata!"

Sonata ignored her. "And you guys get miniskirts and bikini tops! Why am I stuck in half a mattress? Don't healers get high heels too? They'd be like, the Heels of High-Healing and junk!"

"Maybe because you like, never wear heels?"

"That's why it's called role-playing!"

Aria rolled her eyes. "Who are you hoping to appeal to in here, anyway? Not a lot of point in being seductive if we're just killing monsters, right?"

"Maybe the merchants'll give us better deals if we show a little more skin?" She looked at Adagio. "Hey-"

"No."

"I think-" said a faintly flushed Sunset, "that it's because you're a priest, Sonata. They're kind of supposed to be chaste, religious figures in human society, that's where the light power comes from."

Sonata tilted her head. "Your friends use light magic, and I never see any of you in heavy robes."

"Yea, but-"

"You even flung off your jacket when you fought us," Aria unhelpfully added.

"Th-that was different! The rules in RPGs are that priests wear more clothes, okay?!"

Sonata raised a defiant fist in the air. "Then I wanna convert!" She briefly looked Sunset over. "What's your denomination? The God of Black Dye and Reckless Scissor Usage?"

Sunset flushed brighter even if, curiously, neither of the other two party members so much snickered at her. Then came a memory. "Why does this even bug you? I thought you picked up this world's sense of modesty."

"I don't mind revealing outfits," she said while pointing to Adagio, "just as long as the good bits are covered, y'know?"

Adagio rolled her eyes, looking away to hide a blush.

"Besides," continued Sonata, "who doesn't wanna be sexy?"

Sunset wasn't sure how to answer, because she knew that even Fluttershy had her... moments.

Well, at least she's developing an adventurer's fashion sense...

Following a long-overdue, inventory-lightening transaction with another merchant at the start of the next floor (using the same, out-of-place bazaar set-up, oddly enough), Aria was again pondering the merits of stealing more than just the fanciest candlesticks they could find.

"I'm not saying we didn't make good money from what we sold, but if the guy's right there, we-"

"We could, and we might even end up with a decent chunk of change by the end," Sunset conceded, "but it wouldn't be much fun." She was a little surprised to be backed up by Sonata.

"Yea, remember the bank-robber game? You said just moving loot without anybody shooting at you was more like helping someone move."

"Well, yea, but... um..."

Noting Aria's unusual hesitance, Adagio tilted her head a little as they walked. "Are you hoping to save up for something?"

"Nnno, but," her eyes darted about as though afraid someone were listening in, "like, I-I'm not saying, I mean, hypothetically, if we had enough to not need to work normal jobs anymore, that wouldn't be a bad thing, right?"

There was a probing arc to Adagio's tone. "Ariaaaaa...?"

"Oh, don't worry," giggled Sonata, "she wasn't fired or anything." The smile turned impish. "She just keeps getting stuck on mascot duty!"

"Screw you," Aria snarled back, "that thing gets too damn hot and I can barely see where I'm going! They should just let me work inside, where I can actually do something useful!"

Sunset smiled. "Maybe a Shooting Star would help bring in the customers?"

Aria turned to her, perplexed, then her eyes widened for a split second, followed by a nod as she faced forward. "Oh, yea, I'unno, maybe."

Sunset stared at the side of her head for a moment, confused. Looking at Adagio, she found her idly surveying the dungeon around them, possibly on the lookout for valuables, possibly just staying wary of enemies in general. An eerie sense of deja vu descended on her, but she couldn't put her finger on what felt strange about the last few minutes.

She didn't have a lot of time to think about it when ghostly moaning was heard around the corner.

"One hit," cheered a beaming Adagio when the last, ghoulish priest had crumbled into dust and tattered robes, "these things died in one hit!"

Having been hit with a Silence curse, Sunset had to wait a few minutes before she could tell Sonata about the curse-purging spell. By which point it didn't matter, but at least Aria got a laugh out of the irony of the situation.

"Anything wearing a robe is probably a spellcaster," Sunset explained, "so it fits that they wouldn't be able to stand up to an orcish battleaxe."

"Oh," the fluffy barbarian thought aloud as she looked over her weapon, "I thought it was supposed to be more... tougher enemies as we go, or something."

"It kind of is, but their spells are supposed to compensate for the lack of muscle."

"Ah. If we meet more, suppose I'll, er, t-try to hack off their arms, before they-"

"Don't feel too pressured," she giggled, "we got through it fine."

"Boy, did we," called a jubilant Aria as she held up a golden, religious symbol on a beaded necklace, "'cuz these guys were loaded!"

The ostentatious trinkets might have been more of a surprise had the rest of the cathedral not come across as suspiciously decadent for a house of worship.

"Ooh, a golden offering bowl!"

"Uh, Aria? That's brass."

"Damn."

Not quite decadent enough for Aria's tastes, however, as the others discovered when she chucked the bowl clean through a stained-glass window.

Adagio smiled. "Oh good, your throwing arm has gotten better!"

"Heh, thanks."

After wandering around for a while, another staircase led them to the next floor, which began with a big, open room full of torture devices. Some were contraptions larger than a couch, some were placed on wall-mounted, metal fixtures, and some were just random sharp objects hanging from the ceiling on long chains. Taking it all in, Sonata smiled.

"I think I like it here!"

Chuckling, Adagio casually brushed her barbarian locks backward. "As much as it tickles the imagination, I'm afraid we have to keep going."

Aria didn't say anything, but Sunset could see the fear and discomfort in her face, especially noticing the complete lack of anxiety from Adagio.

I was right; she acts differently around these two. If it were just her and me, I'm sure she'd at least be a little nervous or-

She barely heard the end of a shouted instruction as a bolt of purple fire blackened the stone tiles at her feet. Looking up, she saw the culprit; a floating, sorcerer-type-boss-looking zombie guy, arms out as he charged up another spell. What really stuck out to Sunset was his design; dark, tattered robes from the waist down, extremely tight, leather straps all over his upper body, digging into his dead, bloated skin like some kind of morbid balloon animal, and a tall, eyeless, leather mask obscuring whatever was left of his face.

Undead gimp-priest in the torture room. Oooookay, Discorp, oookay.

A jagged knife suddenly embedding itself in his chest alerted her to Adagio throwing random pieces of torture equipment at the priest, since he was floating too high to reach with her axe. Not one to be outdone, Aria aided her with knife-throwing of her own. She was kind of outdone anyway, because while more of Aria's knives hit the target, Adagio was throwing much bigger, heavier things, escalating to an entire wall-rack of various cutting implements that she ripped off a wall.

Countless metal objects stuck in her enemy's putrid flesh, Sunset saw her chance, raising her spear-tip-wand and firing off a few lightening spells. She could see the metal glowing as the priest lit up, smoking and twitching as his insides cooked and he caught fire, which she added to with a fireball spell.

Sunset apologized to her three fellow adventurers as Sonata healed the resulting shrapnel wounds, but at least the mini-boss was dealt with.

While there was nothing they could salvage from the priest, in the next room waited a big ol' treasure chest that Aria was happily unlocking within seconds. When the lid popped, she waved Sunset over for another round of that Hearths Warming gift-giving feeling.

"First up, these knives are definitely too fancy for throwing, so I'm thinking they're your new main weapons, Aria."

"Sweet!"

She happily diced the air as Sonata got her ~~gift~~ loot.

"Fittingly for the building, it's some kinda pope hat."

Sonata frowned. "No sexy nun robes?"

"Uh, n-no, sorry."

"Oh, well."

Donning the hat over her Saint Rambo bandana-sash, Sonata at least felt a little more important.

Sunset picked up the black, onyx-tipped wand with smiling malice. "This must be mine!"

Adagio rested a hand on a hip, amused. "Just leave the stabbing to Aria, alright?"

Blushing a little, Sunset rolled her eyes, but she didn't stop smiling. "Yea, yea. And the rest is-...oh, wait." Reaching into the chest, she pulled up a thin suit of golden scales. "I thought this was another pile of gold coins, but... I think it's some kinda scale mail? Probably yours, Adagio."

Donning the new armor in a blink, Adagio looked herself over and beamed. "Ohh, it's just like my old scales! Look how I glitter!"

Sunset indeed looked her over, trying to ignore the heat crawling up her neck. The armor appeared to be solid gold, though it clearly wasn't as heavy; boots and gauntlets that covered up to her knees and elbows, thick, smooth pauldrons on her shoulders, a shiny, new, armored headband, and what could only be called a skimpy, metal string-bikini barely concealed by a loincloth of thin, hanging chains. It left almost none of her exposed, however, because what would have been exposed skin was covered up to her neck with impossible, skin-tight, golden scales.

"S-so," said Sunset as she sharply looked away after Adagio's excitable twirl, "onto the next place?"

Adagio cheerfully followed along as Sonata muttered bitterly about unfairness again.

More animated suits of armor were de-animated before the group came to a needlessly large double-door that they only bothered pulling open on one side. Beyond that, they quickly deduced, was another puzzle chamber.

It was a relatively small room, give or take the height of the ceiling to allow the massive double-doors, just four stone obelisks in the middle with a tile in front of each. The tiles and faces of each obelisk were marked with various animal symbols and a stone lever waited beside them, but there were no signs to be found, so Sunset guessed it wasn't another game show.

Adagio glanced over them as she strode to the next door, giving it a sharp, violent tug, then a push just in case it was a push-door. She couldn't make it budge, sighing. "I suppose we have to match those symbols before this door will open?"

"It couldn't be that simple," Sunset mused, a hand on her chin as she studied the symbols, "let me see what these have in common. The tiles, from left to right, go bird-fox-wolf-bear, but the obelisks, as we found them, go bear-bear-bird-wolf. I'm guessing those are random. So, the order on the tiles obviously goes from smallest to biggest, and the last three are predators. Well, I mean, I guess some birds mostly eat bugs, and I know at least one type that pecks bigger creatures to drink their blood, so-hey!"

"Don't worry," assured Aria as she started turning the obelisks, "if the tiles tell us what gets eaten by what, then we just have to show the food chain. See? Bear eats wolf, wolf eats fox, fox eats bird. Chickens are birds, right?"

"Well, yea, but-"

"But nothin'," she said as she gripped the stone lever, "away we go!"

She pulled, darts immediately firing from many holes in the walls and ceiling, mainly targeted near the lever. Aria ducked, but one still found her.

"IPE!!"

She immediately fell over, perfectly still in a comical pose, one dart stuck in her behind.

Sonata snorted. "Hahaha, smarty pants turned darty pants!"

Aria grumbled at her, but didn't get up. A brief quiet fell over the group before Aria made a much more frantic noise.

"Ican'tmove!!"

Adagio rushed over, already searching her inventory. "Paralysis, I know we picked up a potion to cure that somewhere, just give me a minute and... Hm, where was it...?"

Stuck where she lay, Aria groaned. "This is why I hate needles!!"

"Because in ordinary circumstances, they afflict you with paralysis?"

"Still applies, don't it?"

"No."

While they worked that out, Sunset got back to the puzzle.

Okay, if the bird is that blood-drinker type, it could feasibly feed on any and all of these, but since the image just looks like any other bird, I'm gonna assume it isn't. Bears probably don't hunt wolves all that much, and wolves probably don't hunt foxes, so... Damn, this would be easier if Fluttershy were here. What a time to need animal trivia! Come to think of it, do any of these things have anything to do with each other? Maybe it's symbolism; the bird is swiftness, the fox is cunning, the wolf is-...

Wait. Bird, fox, bear, wolf? Weren't those the mascots in Fatbear's Pizza?

Or, no, what was the last one? A rabbit, right? There's no rabbit symbol here, so that shoots down that theory. Even if there were, that doesn't really tell me what order they'd be in. Four columns, left to right, maybe that factors into it someh-

"What's taking so damn long?!"

Scowling, Sunset looked over her shoulder to respond to Aria's impatience, but found that she was most likely addressing Adagio.

"I'm working on it," the gilded chemist responded with a huff, still rifling through her inventory, "but I never sorted these because so many sounded like vendor trash. I mean, 'Potion of Frost Resistance.' Seems like it'd be easier to just wear a coat, even if anything had thrown ice at us so far. This one is... Blacksmithing? I don't even- does it improve a skill for a limited time, or is it a potion of permanent knowledge, and how does that make sense either way? If the former, does it magically grant, and then somehow remove the information from your brain when time is up, or are you possessed by a little pygmy blacksmith until-"

"PARALYZED!"

"Oh, right. There's so much stuff in here..."

When Sunset looked back at the puzzle, she found Sonata turning the last obelisk before reaching for the lever. "S-Sonata, don't-!"

With a quick pull, the stones around them began to rumble, the door ahead slowly sliding open. Looking over the obelisks, Sunset gaped: The solution was the order displayed on the tiles, matched to each obelisk. Sonata beamed proudly.

"I found it," announced a jubilant Adagio, "the anti-paralysis potion is-"

Still grinning ear to ear, Sonata pointed at Aria with her rod. "♪Reme-dy!♫"

Aria briefly glowed, then flopped on the ground in an awkward heap. Still holding the potion, Adagio scratched her head.

"Ohh, I could have used a Remedy potion on that? I thought those were for diseases or something..."

Getting to her feet, Aria glared at their white mage. "Why didn't you do that sooner?!"

No longer smiling, Sonata shrugged. "Somebody had to figure the puzzle out."

Sunset opened her mouth, closed it again, and hung her head in shame. Giggling, Adagio put a hand on her shoulder.

"Don't worry about it too much." She turned to the newly opened doors with a confident grin. "We have an artifact to seize!" Aria and Sonata looked at her in confused silence. "The artifact mentioned on that plaque out in the field? The one this adventure is based around?"

"Ohhh!"
"Totes forgot."

"Sunset, do we know what this artifact is supposed to look like?"

"Uh..." She scratched her chin. "Well, if it's the main quest, it'll probably be something we can't miss, like a magical weapon wielded by the final boss, or something on a pedestal in the middle of a big room. Missing those, I guess we could just swipe everything valuable-looking? Like we weren't gonna do that anyway."

"Then let's finish this!"

The group proceeded through the door and up the very, very long staircase behind it, Sunset wondering if Adagio's newfound courage was related to her shiny, new scale-mail. She certainly had plenty of time to ponder that question as they made their way up the stairs, Adagio in front.

Author's Note

That thing where I think it'll just be one chapter, but then it goes long and I feel it's more digestible as two, because even with the bookmark feature, it's easier to remember any comments the reader would like to make if they read the whole chapter in one go? It happened again.

I know it sounds kind of stupid, but 'blunette' just tickles me too much to not use.

Vampire Finch -Technically, I think they just peck bigger birds, but if pressed, I wouldn't be too surprised if they did try that on a bear.

Excerpt from Skyrim's The Death of a Wanderer:
He was the one to break the silence. "You know what always bothered me?" he asked. "Why they even bothered with the symbols."
"The what?"
"The symbols, you fool, look at the claw."
I turned it over in my hand. Sure enough, etched into the face were three animals. A bear, an owl, and some kind of insect.
"What do the symbols mean, Deerkaza?"
"The sealing-doors. It's not enough to just have the claw. They're made of massive stone wheels that must align with the claw's symbols before they'll open. It's a sort of lock, I suppose. But I didn't know why they bothered with them. If you had the claw, you also had the symbols to open the door. So why..."
He was broken up by a coughing fit. It was the most I had heard him speak in months, but I could tell how much of a struggle it was. I knew his mind, though, and helped the thought along.
"Why even have a combination if you're going to write it on the key?"
"Exactly. But as I lay bleeding on that floor, I figured it out. The Draugr are relentless, but far from clever. Once I was downed, they continued shuffling about. To no aim. No direction. Bumping against one another, the walls."
"So?"
"So the symbols on the doors weren't meant to be another lock. Just a way of ensuring the person entering was actually alive and had a functioning mind."
"Then the doors..."
"Were never meant to keep people out. They were meant to keep the Draugr in."

And all this time, I just thought the old Nords were complete dumbasses! Then again, seeing as how they left their dead in tombs bigger and more elaborate than the average town (given Bethesda's approach to scale) and let homicidal zombies (who may be the very family they 'put to rest' there) run wild, on top of the fact that most of the 'doors' are only solvable for an outsider coming in and thus don't make a lick of difference in terms of complexity, maybe that's still a fair assessment.