Tales of Arcania

Chapter 3: Learning the ropes

New Game
Continue
Load Game
Options
Credits
Extras

Cutscene 3: Already tomorrow?

Retro wakes up to Blaze nudging him. Blaze is caught off guard when Retro is now swinging violently at him. Blaze runs to the door to evade his attacks and starts to shout for Retro to get up. From under his blankets, Retro feels around for something to throw. His hoof finds a lamp. He throws it at Blaze and it clangs off the wall behind where Blazes head had previously been. Blaze yells out that hes making breakfast. Retro's ears perk up.

Play

Breakfast?

I yell out as I get out of bed quickly and gallop to the kitchen. "There better not be syrup on it, or so help you Purity!"

To my surprise, there is no breakfast at all, just Blaze talking to Spender... "And plenty of water?" Blaze asks.

"At least three bottles sir." Blaze salutes to Spender, and Spender salutes back as he disapates.

I say "You lied to me Blaze" as I get into a charging stance.

He slowly starts to back away "Now Retro, its ok, I only bent the truth a little."

I charge him when he flings open the front door and gallops out. I gallop after him of course.

By the time we reach Varo's hole, I catch up to, and tackle him on top of it. I start to pin him down when the trap door opens, catching me off guard. We drop and tumble down the stairs. Blaze recovers faster than I do and continues into the main chamber.

When I catch up to him moments later, I notice that Varo had laid out an apple for him... But some kind of pill for me.

"Oh c'mon Varo. Im hungry too!" I say, disappointed

Varo, looking at me like an Idiot tells me to spit on it.

I give him a questioning look "ummm."

With a hint of frustration in his voice, he tells me to "Just do it."

I shrug and, without further hesitation, proceed to spit on it. Almost instantly it poofs into an apple of my own...

I would probably 'pomf' if I had wings right now.

Varo clears his throat after I ate my apple to get our attention. Using a long stick, he points towards the hologram of a map of our local area.

Blaze is giving Varo his undivided attention while I am looking at Blazes apple. I already finished mine and his was looking delicious. Positive he wont mind if I take it, I focus my magic on the apple.

My horn starts sparking in an attempt to do magic that it had previously lost. It was hard work, But my efforts weren't in vain! After about five minutes of trying, I was able to lift the apple, and after I did so I was able to keep it in the air with ease. I may have re-learned my simple levitation spell, but the real prize was the apple!

Update:
New spell learned- Telekinesis: You can pick up objects that are in sight with your magic.

"Retro" Varo said calmly, breaking my attention with the apple, Making it drop to the ground. "Have you heard a single word Ive said thus far?"

The guilty expression on my face made it clear that I had'nt.

Varo said "I thought as much, Blaze could you plea-"

An idea popped into my head, and that idea was to make it up as I go so I interrupted as quickly as the idea came up "Wait! You said that um... You were going to give us some more of those apple sugar pills. And that we were supposed to go in the woods and-"

Varo, clearly annoyed at the interruption but also pleased to think I had been listening to him said "Ah, so you have been listening, good. No need to have your brother explain it to you then. Now please, get to work."

Varo tells a strange plasma looking pony-like creature to give us the apple pills. It hands Blaze his and makes its way over to me.

Once it reaches me, it says in a voice not so different than a normal mare's "Here you go sir."

Now, I might have been fine with the mares voice... If the creature had a mouth to say it with, rather than a dissembodied voice.

Whoa, no, no, no, this is creepy. Walking away now, dont look back Retro.

Once we leave, Blaze tells me that what I did back there was rude.

"I know Blaze, but if I tried to talk, I may have panicked and yelled at it." I say

"Her" he corrects.

"What" I asked.

"It is a her, Retro." he says again.

Feeling bad, I keep quiet and remember that I have no idea what we're doing. "Hey Blaze, what did Varo say we were suppose to be doing?"

He looks at me, and asks me if Im serious, to which I smile and nod. He calls me an idiot, shakes his head in disapointment, and trots a few feet ahead of me...

We've been walking for a good amount of time now and he still hasn't told me what we're doing nor have we reached our supposed destination. We stop when we reach a clearing in the woods.

He says "Retro, Ill set up the tents I-"

I interrupt "You brought tents?"

He continues, ignoring my outburst. "So could you please go and find some firewood?"

I say "Of course." and happily trot off into the woods to do as he asked.

Fast forward

I tell myself, "Dang, this is some difficult work" as I look at the three sticks I've collected.... When I go to pick up a fourth stick, my ears perk up as I hear the faint sound of... A bird? No, birds have been constantly chirping, that sounds nothing like a bird, why would I think that.

I decide to investigate the strange sound. As I approach its range, I hear its a cry for help... not a bird...

I start full on galloping towards the sound. What I see is three earth ponies chasing a whoa... is that thing a demon? Why in purity's name would somepony chase a demon, that's just stupid! I start to back away when I notice the demon cowering away from the three, and one of them looks over at me.

"This is our lucky day guys, we've got ourselves another meat sheath" The middle one, that saw me, says as he turns to face and walk towards me. "Hey there little mare, how kind of you to just deliver yourself to us." he continues.

Mare? Thats gotta be an insult. They dont really think im a mare, do they? Oh wait, No time to think about that now, he's charging me. I lower my head and try to concentrate on levitating a rock nearby when I'm almost knocked to the ground by the brunt force of him against my head. I struggle, but I catch myself after a short stumble...

Did the dumbass just impale himself on my horn? I feel a warm wetness as his blood runs down from my horn and drips off from my snout. Oh fuck... he did...

I look forward, surprised, dumbfounded at what I had just done...

I just... did I just kill him? I did that... I just stopped another ponies life.

I shakily push him off of my horn and look at the body, and back up to his friends when I notice that the other two have turned their attention towards me.

"Ooo, this one has some fight in her. That should make this more fun." the second one says as he starts walking towards me.

Some of the last ponies blood trickled into my eye, distracting me as the two approach.

I quickly resort back to picking that rock up with my levitation and panic-kingly hitting the second one in the face with it repeatedly. Its a good sized rock, so it stops him on the first hit, and the hits after bring him down quickly. The third one watches me beat his friend momentarily and then charges me. I bring the rock down on his head for the last time as the third one overtakes me and starts to beat me mercilessly.

Everything starts to fade to black...

I wake up to the demon... not eating me? I was honestly surprised to find that it wasn't.

"Im sorry to leave you in this condition ma'am, but um, I have to go." It... Wait no, he says to me before trotting away.

I shout to him "Wait. I'm not a mare! I'm a stallion!" As I shout that, he stops, turns towards me, cocks his head, and gives me a confused look.

Well fuck, I guess I actually do look like a mare... "Yeah, I just... I have a unique body structure. Thats all"

When I finish my sentence, he turns around and starts coming towards me.

He says "Oh, well, um. I uh, I think I have some time to spare if you still needed help." as he sits down in front of me and his face turns a light shade of red as he gives me a sheepish smile.

I see his horn glow, and before I can say anything, he envelopes me in his aqua colored magical aura. Now, normally I would say something to be modest and try to stop him, but this spell just feels sooo good after getting decked in the face and ribs a by a crazy douche pony.

He must be embarrassed by the confusion, and is trying to make up for it by helping me relax.

I let out an extremely pleased sound of satisfaction, to which he gives me a nervous smile and his face gets a more noticeable shade of red.

After he was done treating me to a very nice... whatever that was, he asks my name. I answer proudly with "Retro, Son of existence! What about you little demon?"
Poor choice of words

"Demon?" he questions.

"Yeah, your a demon right?" I respond.

"No... Im a bat pony." He says with a tint of agitation in his voice.

Quickly thinking, I tell him that he had mistaken me for a mare so now we're even. He seemed like he considered that a fair trade. I called him a demon, he called me a mare; even enough I think.

After we get that settled out, he asks me if I'll help him with something. I agreed of course, though I realized that I hadnt actually observed him very well. So I took a bit of time to look him over.

He's pretty small, maybe four and a half feet, I'm at least five feet... well five-ish... but who cares anyways? Hes got a grey coat with some darker spots under the coat, white hair with black tips, I really like that look. Oh, and his eyes are aqua... Wow, those eyes really pull the whole color thing together nicely. His wings arent like normal pegasi wings, they're leathery and similar looking to that of a bat, or dragon. His horn really looks nice. The base of it is the same color as his coat, but as it reaches the tip the color of it ends up being black, kind of like his hair. Oh, and another thing about his horn, it curves! Really! Like a rhino horn, but you know, not on the nose, on the head, where normal unicorn horns go.

I'm brought back to attention when I notice him waving at me and pointing to something behind me. My eyes widen, and without hesitation, I turn around quickly swinging my hoof around with a goal to bluntly hit whatever it is.

My hoof collides with Blaze's face... Whoops. "Oh Blaze! Im sorry."

Apparently, in the time I fought those crazy ponies, got knocked out, and got healed, I had been gone for a few hours. Blaze got worried and came looking for me. Guess that was a slight mistake on his end.

He quickly gets back up, shakes it off, and says "I dont care. Who were these ponies? Why are they dead?"

I explain the situation to him and when I finish, he yells at me. "This Retro, is exactly why you need to listen more! Those ponies were griders! They are extremely dangerous and irrational. They are ponies who have spent a little too much time in stagnant magic, it screwed with their minds, Varo explained these guys while you were off having fantasies with my apple. They could have killed you, or worse! Next time Varo gives us details on a mission, PAY ATTENTION!"

I look away from my brother as he shouts at me. I guess I deserve this.

"And what is that hell spawn?" He asks angrily.

The bat pony raises a hoof, as if to block himself from the insult, and looks offended again when Blaze asks that question.

I answer him angrily, in defense of the bat "That Blaze, is a bat pony. Now stop insulting him with your rude accusations."

"Bat ponies do not have horns! That is some type of abomination, get away from it. We still have a mission to do, and since its obviously not safe enough to sleep in this forest, we're going to have to push through the night." He says scoldingly.

"No..." I say "He asked me to help him with something, and I agreed. Varo's mission can wait, my new friend can't." I then turn and walk away from Blaze to follow my new companion. I hear nothing more from Blaze except for the sound of him walking in the opposite direction of me.

As we walk to our destination, I feel guilty for leaving Blaze alone to do the mission.

The bat turns his attention towards me to ask me a question. "Did you mean that Retro?"

Confused by his question, I ask him what he means by that.

"You said that I was your new friend. Did you mean it?" He asked nervously

"Of course I did... um... Whats your name?" I asked. He got my name, I thought I should get his.

He didn't seem bothered that I took this long to ask. He actually seemed pretty happy that I had asked.

"My name is Dirge" He responded with a smile.

I explain "Of course we're friends Dirge. I saved your life, you saved mine, and you gave me an amazing feel-good spell session. That sounds like we're friends to me."

He smiles and after giving it some thought. He tells me that if I'm tired, that I can go to sleep, and that he'll keep watch over me if I do. I accept his offer and he makes a bed out of leaves for my comfort.

This guy is just full of kindness, first a massage, and now a bed. I should keep him around, I like him.

Pause

Save? ---Yes--- No
Load
Missions
Inventory
Logbook
Options