Author's Note

Sorry this is mainly an Info Dump chapter. Hopefully there will not be many of these.

The Session Begins with a Tutorial

I stop flash stepping when I reached a strange area. I was slightly tired but not as much as I thought I should be, what with all the chain steps I just did.

The place was a kind of swamp, that was on fire. It was all foggy and the dirt and well everything was tinted red. Not only that, every so often a jet of flame would shoot up from what I thought were puddles. As I was looking around this strange place a voice spoke up from behind me.

“I would stay where you are.”

I turn around and come face to face will a full fledged four headed chimera.

“This is the only safe place around” Says the Lion head

“Well not from us anyway” Says the goat head

“What? Can you all speak up? I can’t hear anything back here” Says the snake head

“Quiet you! We are in the middle of getting dinner” Says the dragon head

“Yes, as you might guess, my brothers and I cannot ever seem to agree on what to eat, so we take turns” Says the lion head. “It’s my turn today, and I choose you!”

While they were doing that, I was thinking over the new powers I had discovered and there was one I was dying to try.

[Bloody Cross] I say as I removed my glove and pointed my palm at them, just as they pounced.

The effect was instantaneous. The middle head, the lion, was just gone, as was most of the body. The goat got hit by one of the edges and lost the upper half his face. The dragon had his neck up high enough that he was only decapitated. The snake also seemed to go flying off, though most of it’s ‘body’ was still intact.

I however only caught a glimpse of this as I had dropped to my knees clutching my hand.

Shit, now I know why Akabane had those scars on his hands. I think shaking a bit from the completely unexpected pain. So, some of Akabane’s powers are a double edged sword. Gotta keep an eye out for those and never try an untested ability in the middle of combat again.

I inspect the new cross scar on my hand, front and back. I get up and look around for that carcass. I find it a few feet behind me. Well what's left of it at least. I guess it went right over my head.

I walked over to the severed dragon’s head. It was obviously dead. I picked it up by one of it’s horns and look at it.

“I am so going to mount you to my wall!” I said smiling

I decided to give my Sylladex a try and captchalogue it. From what I learned all I need to do is pick something up with the intent of storing it.

Sure enough a card with a red border appears around the head. The once blank face of the card now shows the severed head. I watch as the card turns to a red liquid and begins to slither to my new scar and into my bloodstream.

What the what? Is my fetch modi blood? If not I am so calling it that.

I turn to leave but remember why I was here in the first place.

‘Hey, You guys there?’ I send to my darklings.

‘Sorta boss. You’re really far ahead of us, it seems you can use that flash step much faster and more often then we can shadow jump.’ my friend said.

‘Ok, few things; One, just because I would like to be able to call you by name, I hereby declare that you shall be called Umbra. Call it a human thing if you want. Two, where the hell am I? Three, where were those ruins you were telling me this morning?’

‘No idea where you are but in a second you will feel one of us pulling on our link to you. Just follow that and you will find the ruins. By the way it’s infested with those imps we fought yesterday.’ Umbra responds

Sure enough I feel a sort of tug in my mind. I turn so it is straight in front of me and begin to flash step once more. After a few minutes I reach the ruins.

Wow father time really took a bat to this place I think as I look at the ruins. Though they are ruins so I guess it’s to be expected.

Just as Umbra said, the place was lousy with imps. As I walk in, destroying imps as they try to attack me, I see two banners hanging down from what’s left of the ceiling. One was yellow with sun motifs on it, the other was blue with moon motifs on it. The ground was also covered in rubble. Overall, it was what you think when you think ‘Castle Ruins’.

Time to go exploring, and treasure hunting... and imp slaying. Not sure which I am more excited about.

Within ten minutes the majority of the imps on the foyer are gone. I decide that this is as good a place as any to make my base and decide to try deploying my gear. With all the things I am sure to find I can also go on an alchemizing spree.

If I remember correctly to open the interface I need to think of the a menu screen and swipe my index and middle down directly in front of me.

Instead of an interface opening, Gandalf the Fucking Gray appears in front of me.

“Greetings” he says in the voice of Morgan Freeman.

I am totally OK with this

“Who are you?” I ask

“I am a wizard and I am here to help you get set up and begin the game”

“Oh, I actually know what I’m doing, so can I skip you?” I ask

“You can, but I should warn you that this game is a modified version of the game you know and as such as slightly different rules and when we are finished you will receive five Captcha cards, two Strife cards, and the Array fetch modus as a reward.”

“Wait. How do you know that I know about how the game is played?”

“Apologies, I am a Virtual Intelligence with a set amount of responses to a set amount of questions, you have asked something that I do not have the answer too. Please ask something else.” It responds

I glare at the wizard “OK Mr. Wizard, what’s first”

“First, Open your interface like you did before” Mr. Wizard begins

I do so and this time I get the actual interface with seven buttons.The first six are equal size and the one on the very bottom one starts blood red on one side and fades to solid Green on the other, it’s also twice the size of the others. There are also two orbs to the bottom left and right, Red and Blue respectively, going with the assumption that those are my Health and Mana, I appear to be missing a tenth of my HP.

“So as you can see there are seven options for you to choose from here. Echeladder, Magic, Map, Minions, Stats, Quests and Sylladex. Lets go through each.”

I sigh This is going to take a while

“First on the list is the Echeladder, which opens the Achievement Rungs. For each Rung you go up you will receive a boost to a single stat and an increase to all stat limits.”

I open the echeladder and see that I already moved up by 8 rungs. Going from ‘Noob Gingrich’ to ‘Wascally Wabbit’.

I have instant dislike of these naming conventions

“Lets move on to Magic, this is a repository of all the spells you have currently learned. You do not need to actually go to this page to use the spell, simply think of what you want to happen and if you have the mana, it will be cast.”

I open Magic and see a screen with a lot of tabs going down the left side. Things like All, Aeromancy, Cryomancy, Electromancy, Enchanting, Geomancy, Pyromancy, Psychomancy and a few others.

Currently I only have Telekinesis and Arcane Bolt unlocked but I do see others simply grayed out. I assumed there were ways for me to discover or even make new spells.

“How do I unlock new magic or create my own?” I ask

“Two ways, The first is that the game construct will assign you some spells and allow you to unlock them in different ways. The other way is available to you right now but it is both the hardest to use but allows for the most robust useage of spells. The other way is… ” He pauses for dramatic effect I assume “Learn it like everyone else on this planet.”

Of course

“Next is the Map. This is a Three Dimensional Map of where you have already visited” He continues before I have a chance to ask anything else.

I open the Map and see 3D map. Most of it is black but there are paths going through it. It seems to start in the middle of the forest and heads SouthWest, before turning and heading due North to a village then heading SouthWest to a swamp and finally directly East to the ruins I am now standing in.

Well that’s super useful

“After that, we have Minions. This will open the stats page of your minions as well as their unlocked mutations and their current level.”

I open it to see that there seems to be two tabs one says ‘Boss’ and the other says ‘Underlings’.

“Please note that for minions, there are two interfaces here, one for the oldest minion or the boss minion and one for all of the others. The boss minion is always the oldest, strongest and separate from the other minions in terms of stats and mutation.”

Well that answers that

“The stats of the minions goes by the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. system. Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility and Luck. With every level they gain, you will be able to allocate points to each attribute at your discretion. It’s up to you to figure out what each does, though most are self explanatory. Every 4th level a minion will gain a mutation point. These points can unlock mutations that improve a minions abilities or give them special abilities.”

I see that Umbra gained a level and the minions gained three, I decide to allocate those later. I also notice that the attributes are not the same as fallout as perception is currently at 15.

“Next we have Stats, there are two tabs on this page, ‘Statistics’ and ‘Perks’. Statistics are your personal statistics which show how powerful you are on a numeric scale. There are seven attributes; Strength, Dexterity, Agility, Endurance, Wisdom, Intelligence, and Charisma. Each attribute is not as cut and dry as you might think. An example is that Strength and Dexterity both influence how much damage you do to enemies. As well as much more subtle ways. There is really nothing to do on this page but look at what your stats currently are and how your perks influence them.” He pauses, I assume for me to ask questions. I have none so I waited for him to continue.

“The other tab shows what perks you can, as well as, have unlocked.” He continues “This tab has most of the perks available to you and most perks have prerequisites that must be met before they can be unlocked. Also not all perks are here, some perks can be awarded in different ways. As a little hint, when your stats hit and exceed a certain value a perk will be unlocked that is specific to the stat that unlocked it.”

I notice I have a few perks unlocked and after a very quick skim through, I can’t help but notice that more than a few of these perk names are the same as in fallout. I decide to play with that later..

Another thing to look into later

“Next comes the Quests. As you gain quests, as well as quests that have been automatically assigned to you, they will appear here. Complete quests and return here for special rewards. Don’t forget the harder the quest the better the rewards.”

I see that I already have one quest completed called Kill 100 Imps with a green button with Reward written on it. I notice that most of my automatic quests revolve around killing monsters, alchemizing a specific amount of things, deploying machines, etc… I also notice that most of the monster names are just question marks. Guess I will need to meet one first before I know how much I need to kill for the quests.

I click Reward and get a thousand Build, Shale and Chalk Grist and a Modus Control Deck.

“Finally we have the Sylladex, this is your inventory system, which is broken up into the Captchalogue Deck and the Strife Deck.” He continues, not even letting me ask any questions.

Finally, almost done

“Lets open your Strife Deck first. This is the type of weapons or Kind Abstractus, called Strife Specibus, that you have the ability to use in battle. The Strife deck holds your Strife Specibi or collectively called the Strife Portfolio. Currently you only have one Kind Abstratus but you can have others added”

I open it to see that, apparently, I use knifekind. This isn’t surprising at all as I had been using scalpels as knives this entire time.

“Simple enough” I say

“Lets move to the Captchalogue Deck. This is where items are stored for later use. This is only limited by how many captchalogue cards you have in the deck and more can be added by captchaloguing new captchalogue cards. Anything that is captchalogued has no weight or physical size and is stored in a personal hammerspace that only you can access.”

I open the Captchalogue Deck to see that my new Modus Control Deck is there, along with the severed dragon head.

“Altogether this makes up your client interface, now if you swipe down again you will be brought to your server interface” Mr. Wizard continues

Oh my god there’s still more

I swipe down. Consigned to my fate.

Suddenly I see myself standing in the middle of the foyer, alone, from a 3rd person viewpoint. I also notice that there seems to be absolutely no imps around.

How nice of them to give me a break before resuming the slaughter

“Let’s get started” Mr. Wizard says “As you can see, you currently have a third person view of your own environment. Let’s start with using the viewscreen to look around your surroundings. We are going to be focusing on the upper left hand corner. By clicking on the arrows you can move your view however there is a limit to how far from you the view can go. Clicking the center of the arrows will cause the view to center on you. Clicking the turn arrows will rotate your screen to the left or right depending on which you clicked. The magnifying glass will change how zoomed into the player you are.”

“Easy enough” I say

“Next are the options you can choose from. These are the tabs that are directly above the viewscreen. From left to right, they are: Select, Revise, Deploy, Phernalia Registry, Grist Cache, Atheneum, and Alchemy Excursus.”

“Ok”

“Now; 'Select' allows you to select an object and move it around. 'Revise' allows you to change the environments dimensions, making more floor space, walls, copy and paste environmental objects, etc. The 'Phernalia Registry' holds machines such as the Cruxtruder and Alchemiter. We will talk more about those soon. 'Deploy' will allow you to drop an item from the Phernalia Registry into your environment. The 'Grist Cache' displays how much Grist you currently have available to you. Grist being a resource that is expended when Revise, Deploy, or the Alchemiter are used. The 'Atheneum' lists all the known configurations of totems made from cruxite dowels and the corresponding item for each totem. The final option the Alchemy Excursus is an index documenting all the known results for punch card alchemy combinations, this will be useful later.”

I already knew all of this but I guess it’s good to review everything since it seriously matters now.

“Ok, to begin you need to deploy the machines from the Phernalia Registry. Currently your registry will only have a few machines in it, but it will gain additional and expensive new machines over time. So open your Phernalia Registry, and then Deploy the Cruxtruder, Totem Lathe and Alchemiter. “

I open the registry and select the Cruxtruder with the deploy option, a faint outline of the machine appears on the display, I look up but cannot see it myself. I move the outline so it is a few feet in front of me and deploy it. I look up again, this time seeing a machine with a tall cylinder rising out of a large square base materializing out of thin air. I do this for the Totem Lathe and Alchemiter, making sure to avoid any exits and cluster them close together. I notice that while it says I have the Grist, the Punch Designix is still grayed out. I also noticed that there seemed to be no Pre-Punched card in the Registry.

That’s slightly ominous

“Good, you have now deployed the three most important machines, for now. They are used to perform alchemy, a process which allow you to create nearly any item. Later you will be given a machine that will allow you to make punched captchalogue cards. These punched cards are essential for performing alchemy.”

Then why are those three the most important?

“Let’s begin with practicing with something you can alchemize, Perfectly Generic Objects. First of all you will need to activate your Cruxtruder. To activate, you have to open the lid in some way, such as by dropping something heavy on it. This will release the kernelsprite, who has been banging on the lid this entire time, as well as allow you to extract cruxite dowels from the Cruxtruder.”

I go back to my select option and pick up a piece of rubble and drop the rubble onto the lid and out comes a black and red kernelsprite and a dowel of cruxite.

“Now, normally you would take the dowel to the totem lathe to have it carved using punched captchalogue cards, however for now simply take the cruxite dowel to the Alchemiter.” He continues

“Now, beside the large platform is a small pedestal for placing totems onto. Doing so will activate the machine, and it will scan the totem. Then you will be able to set the amount of items you wish to produce, and finally confirm the action to create the items. Why don’t you try making three Perfectly Generic Objects. It will cost 6 build grist but don't worry, you can restore this grist by recycling the objects back into grist.” The wizard continues

I already did so before he was halfway finished.

“Excellent! You have taken your first steps into the wonderful world of alchemy and reached the end of my help. Meaning that’s all the help you are going to get from me. Good Bye.”

The Wizard then disappears leaving five blood red cards, two green cards, and a gray card with a blue face.

It’s nice that things don't always have to be a federal fucking issue.

I go back to the Phernalia Registry and see that the Punch Designix is now deployable as well as the Jumper Block Extension, Punch Card Shunt and Holopad. Although I don’t seem to have enough Build Grist for the holopad. I turn to look at my kernelsprite.

What? Are you just floating there, doing nothi- THE CRUXTRUDER!

I look over to the Cruxtruder to see how long I have. I look all around the device but I don’t see anything. No countdown, no nothing. Just blank faces on all sides.

Well... Mr. Wizard did say I was playing a modified version… does that mean there is no medium? But that was a huge part of Sburb…

As I am pondering these things, the kernelsprite decides it has been quite long enough and begins to jitter around and make these annoying chirping noises

What? Is it time to prototype you? I look back toward the Cruxtruder and still see nothing out of the ordinary.

I look around trying to find something cool to prototype it with, I remembered that the sprite will also be able to fight with me, so long as that hasn’t changed.

Wait. I have the greatest thing right here

I open my Captchalogue and pull out my severed dragon head.

I wanted to mount you on a wall but this will be even better

I cock my arm back and threw the head into the kernelsprite. After a brief flash, a translucent black and red dragon head that is just sort of floating there.

“Awesome”

I reopen the registry again and deploy the Punch Designix, deciding to do a little alchemizing. Before that, I decided to get some codes. First the code for an empty captchalogue card, then a empty strife card, finally the array modus. After getting all of these codes I go up to the Designix and enter the code for the empty captchalogue card, I put in an empty card and leave the designix with a punched card. I go over to the Alchemiter and grab to dowel on the platform. Next I head over to the Totem Lathe, putting in the dowel and the punched card into the machine and getting a carved dowel in return. Heading back to the Alchemiter, I put the carved dowel on the smaller pad and sure enough my interface pops up asking me how many captchalogue cards I want to alchemize. I decide on 50 since I have a ton of build grist right now.

Well now I will not be running out of room in my Captchalogue deck any time soon. Ok, next, like any sane individual, it’s time to punch random things into the Designix and see what happens.

After going through the previous steps and putting the new carved dowel onto the Alchemiter and made one of my mystery item.

Is.. Is that a pack of gushers…

On the Alchemiter is a small black box with a picture of different color grist looking objects.

Well, I am kind of hungry…

I open the box and grab what I thought was a grape gusher.

What? I think, taking another look at the box, instead of saying ‘FRUIT GUSHERS’ across the top it instead says ‘GRIST LURES’.

Oh these must summon a monster that drops the type of grist that I ate. Shale Grist is the purple looking one. This is actually insanely useful, I need to look at what other types of grist I need.

I don’t feel like fighting a single Shale imp as I had been slaying them by the dozens not a few minutes ago.

Suddenly the world began to twist and shift. I couldn’t help but chuckle.

Said smile is wiped from my face as I see the Imp jump out of the distortion and remember what the prototyping does to the underlings.

Even though the dragon’s head came from a chimera, it seems that the game didn’t really seem to care. The imps now have definite dragon like attributes, such as their bodies becoming more defined, and covered in scales, with horns jutting out of its head, and two small wings coming out of it’s back.

WHAT! I thought only the prototyping done pre-entry to the medium causes the underlings to grow more powerful! Unless… Unless there is no medium… does this mean Tier 2 prototyping will also be carried over to the underlings?

I decide to try to finish this quickly, I flash step behind it and throw eight scalpels just to be sure. I had found that attacking from behind results in a sort of sneak bonus, though not as much as if the imp was off guard.

Thanks Darklings, learning even more from you guys.

Unfortunately it wasn’t close to enough as the scalpels barely pierce their scales. With the prototyped dragon giving them a boost, it seems they are actually formidable now.

Shit, I’m going to need to alchemize better weapons too… Unless I can improve these scalpels.

It turned to try and lunge at me. I simply flash step behind it, cutting it as I passed then threw another eight scalpels. We continue this dance for a while until the imp looks like a porcupine and finally explodes into a bunch of Build ,a lot of Shale, and some Ruby Grist.

Ok, time to have the darklings find a sword or something so I can atleast do some alchemizing with it.

‘Umbra, send some darklings to search the ruins for a nice looking sword. Or at this point, any sword really. Oh and do not get caught. I just fucked up a bit and made the imps really strong.’

‘Ya, we noticed boss, also only about a fifth of the imps changed, the rest either still look the same or only having slight changes. Also we ran across some kind of giant centipede or something in the basement of this place. We found some armor and weapons, swords too, while we were checking this place out, I’ll send a few darklings back with some of the things we found’ Umbra responds.

More non prototyped imps of different colors? Does this mean that there are other players and other kernelsprites that need prototyping?

I also remembered that I need to look into how my Blood modus works and see if the Array modus would be better, or use the modus command deck to mix the two. Well when the darklings arrive, I could test out the deck and to try out some alchemizing.

It has been a few hours since Celestia received word from Twilight about their failure to capture the creature and Luna was having trouble falling asleep. Luna remembered seeing her regal sister, just after the note arrived. Only thanks to years of knowing her sister, was she able to see past the mask, see the worry for her student and her friends.

She could see Celestia was dying to go and comfort them. But protocol dictated that they remain in Canterlot. Not to say the panic that would arise if she suddenly left Canterlot just after an attack was reported in Ponyville. Especially with that town’s track record.

We are forced to sit idle and wait for it to make it’s next move. I need a way, an excuse to go to the town and look for clues.

Luna got out of bed and strode out of her bedroom, she soon reached the balcony and looked out, toward Ponyville.

I need to go to Ponyville and find out where that poor pony is and rid them of that terrible curse. Nopony should suffer for my mistakes.

Luna once more turned around and walked back in, as she did so she turned to where her Regalia lay and picked up her Obsidian Tiara.

You are supposed to allow me to better protect our little ponies, yet when they need us most, you are a shackle, binding us and forcing us to do little.

This was not a thought that she enjoyed having, it was thoughts like that that had lead to her… episode. Especially since it seemed the chain had gotten smaller, the shackle tighter, in her absence.

How… How do I help them without causing a panic? Without breaking these inane protocols?

As she mulled that thought over and over in her mind, she heard some of the maids talking.

“So what are you going to wear during Nightmare Night?” One asked

“Or better yet, who are you spending it with?” Another said in a sly tone

Luna did not hear the second question as the first question hid the answer she was looking for.

Nightmare Night! That’s it! It would give me a viable excuse to go to Ponyville. I could pitch it to Tia as a way for me to better reconnect with our subjects and I will go to Ponyville as to have her student’s help as she is there studying the Magic of Friendship. Whatever that means. If I remember correctly it is in but a few days. It’s perfect!