1) The Meeting

Four ponies filtered into the small, dark homestead they'd been led to. They looked around at what seemed to be a living room in the dark. A mint green member of their party flipped a switch that turned on the lights, revealing to be, in fact, a living room.

"Is this some kind of joke?" One asked, the three others shrugged.

"It is no joke, Octavia. Please step into the dining room so I can see you all." A garbled voice sounded.

The dining room connected to the living room through a single sliding door, on the other side of the small table the group could see a door leading to the kitchen, and on their left to the hallway and stairs. The room was empty save the table, decorated with a square grid and a black-screened laptop on the end. Next to the laptop the pony that led them to the house stood; A black pony with golden eyes and a brown mane.

"Octavia Philharmonic, Vinyl Scratch, Lyra Heartstrings, and Princess Luna; so you're the new players." The voice didn't come from the pony, but the laptop. A blue line appeared and jumped with each word spoken.

"Who art thou, and why don't you show us your face?" Luna questioned.

"I'm very sorry for the way I appear. I couldn't come personally due to issues that kept me home, also these new 'computer' things are incredibly hard to manage, so I could only get communications set up so far."

"Okaaay, but who are you?" Vinyl asked.

"Your old dungeon master sent for me, it turns out he couldn't make it to any more meetings, so I'll be taking over. You can call me Cloud, for Cloud Strider. Now shall we get started?"

All heads turned to the black pony as he began drawing a map on the grid. Slowly, they began taking out sheets of paper and sitting around the table. Luna opposite the laptop, Vinyl to her right, followed by an interested Lyra to the left of the computer, and Octavia hesitantly to Luna's left.