Equestria Legends Online: Brothers

Chapters

Humble Beginnings (1/2)
Humble Beginnings (2/2)
The Final Boss Himself
Sacré Bleu
"Back Where You Began..."
Off With A Bang
Broke Adventurers
A Road Paved With Sidequests
Bedtime Planning
Prepping & Loading
First Encounter
Through the Woods
Everfree Graves
Nice Spot for a Grave Plot
A Short Trip to the Crypt
Before the Storm
The Undead Guardian
Who Are You Anyways?
The Daily Grind (1/2)
The Daily Grind (2/2)

Humble Beginnings (1/2)

Author's Note

So, when this story first came out, it was a side-story of Shadowflame's Equestria Legends Online. He gave me and a few other writers permission to do these side-stories and while his story is finished and done with, I've had this story on hiatus for a while.

I mentioned it in this story's bio but while I hate the anime, I actually love the premise. In fact, if you've never read the progressive light novel of SAO, it's not bad. Still has a few of the anime's problems but past that it focuses more on the world then the show.

I don't plan on this story being my main focus but whenever I'm taking breaks between a different story, I'll try visiting this one. I've always had ideas running through it.

I hope everyone enjoys them! Until next time,

Cheers,
-Zeke

Humble Beginnings (1/2)

Today was January 22nd, 2020. A Wednesday, or, a school day. It was also a day full of snow. Coating not only everyone's yards but the streets as well. The kind of snow that scared the schools around me into closing for the day.

Whenever someone has the day off from school like this, they could be doing anything. As a high school student, one could have an even bigger list of options. Meet with friends, hang out with family, or just about anything else within reason. Sometimes beyond that.

For me though? There's one thing I do every morning I have off.

Sleep.

I hated mornings. With a passion. So much so that I'm pretty sure 'morning people' are aliens. I mean, they can't be human, right? Their heads will fly off a god-gifted pillow and they're ready for the day in like three minutes. They even drink this alien bean liquid that they call 'coffee.'

It's witchcraft is what it is.

Or at least that's my interpretation. An accurate one, if I do say so myself.

“Alex? Alex, come on, wake UP!”

Exhibit A: My kid brother.

This was Joey. Ever since kindergarten his head pops off that pillow like a reversed magnet. That was only a few years ago. Now, at eight years old, soon to be nine, he's been a shining example of a morning person. It terrifies me to my core.

Long have I wanted to learn the mystical secrets of his kind. To adopt the culture of the aliens that have inhabited our planet. However...

“Ugh," I groaned. "Joey, go back to bed.”

To escape his demented morning brain, I retreated further into the covers of my own bed coating myself in layers of warm, sun-blocking armor. And as the final lock to seal my impregnable defenses, I turned away from him.

Joey broke through all of it.

With a heavy thud, all of Joey's weight landed on top of my blanket cocoon forcing my elbow into my own side and hip. All at once, my brother snapped me out of my daze and kept hitting the blankets until I finally sat up and threw my blankets, and him, off of me.

"Joey," I glared at his laughing form. "It is way too early for this. Outta my room!"

“Really." Joey's laughter faded in an instant as he turned to look at me. "11:50’s too early?” He asked in this know-it-all look on his face.

“Oh, yeah, cause I'm buying that again!" Last week, he did the same trick to me. Since I had a date that day, he hid all the clocks in my room, and told me it was already two in the afternoon. Needless to say, he tricked me and I ended up waiting outside of the movies. For three hours.

In the rain.

To tell the truth though, it was the best prank that he had ever pulled on me. I wasn't up for a do-over.

Slowly, I spoke. "I'm going. Back. To bed." I laid back on my pillow and close my eyes. Blanket or not, my room was warm enough to pass out.

Still, Joey didn't give up. "You know..." I felt him jump back off the bed and turn towards me. "I didn't want it to come to this."

The sound of something dragging along the carpet came from below my bed.

"Oh please," I grunted. After adjusting my blanket again I turned my back towards Joey once more. "What are you gonna do?"

"Send your blankets to the laundry room."

Laundry room? My eyes crept open and turned my head. "What's that supposed to—"

In one motion, Joey wrenched the blankets away from me from one hand and then turned over a plastic pale in the other. My arms instinctively pulled the blanket back over my head. But not before the snow dumped out of the bucket and all over my upper chest and face.

"GAAAAA—" When I pulled the blanket over my head by complete reaction, Joey grabbed the edge of the blanket and held it in place. With every second I flailed, the snow got colder. Not only that but the blankets and bed sheets now just had snow caught up in the threads.

"JOEY!" I cried out for mercy. "FINE, I'M UP! LET ME OUT!"

When I finally managed to throw off the blankets and dive off the bed, I stared at Joey with a malicious gaze and plotted my revenge.

"Joey..." He looked up as he 'innocently' chewed on a small clump of snow in his hand. It was probably to keep him from flat out laughing at me. "What....Was that for...?"

"Why, what do you mean dear brother?" To complete his ‘innocent’ look, he tilted his head to the side as he watched in suppressed glee as I kept shaking from the snow. I swear, Joey was like a male version of Sweetie Belle in how he used his 'innocence.' Except, if that was the case, what did that make me?

However, when my scowl refused to leave my face, he dropped the act and giggled the tension away. "I'm telling the truth. Look."

I turned to the clock he was standing near and gave a small grunt. 11:50, like he said. Well, 11:52 now but same difference.

"Fine," I admitted. "It's almost noon. Who cares?"

Joey groaned in a whiny tone as he flicked his wrist, letting whatever snow was still on his hand fall onto my carpet. Then he pointed at the opened box on my desk. "The Nervegears?"

"Nervege—"

I immediately remembered the last two weeks. Us waiting in line in the freezing wind. Joey begging dad to let him play the same time as me. The boxes arriving. Creating accounts and going through the sensory tests.

Then the message of school getting cancelled last night.

I spent all of last night looking up videos or early reviews and beta testers talking about the game. I even tried searching if anyone found a trick to jump into the game early. Yeah it would have been hacking or whatever but I didn't care. My county almost never closed school for snow days, so what kind of asteroid pushed the last planet into line for that?

"I am so sorry." I rushed for my closet to get a towel and dry shirt. "Don't worry, I'll be ready in a few minutes."

"Good! Dad already got mine set up, so I'm done." Joey walked over to the bed and started shoveling whatever snow was still on my bed back into the pale before dragging the blanket off the bed and into the laundry basket.

As I finished with the towel, I tossed it to Joey before throwing my shirt on. With all the times I woke up to water and ice, I stockpiled towels. Looks like they were more useful today than usual.

Joey finished laying the towel on the bed and ran for his room. But not before glancing at the clock on the way out. He wanted to log in first second he got.

The clock read less than five minutes. My Nervegear was set to go. All I had to do was put it on.

Then a thought leapt into my brain.

"Joey, quick," I shouted. "What are you gonna look like?"

He poked his head out of his room that was beside mine. "Small, blue, and unicorn." There was a pause. "Four minutes! What about you?"

"Not sure yet." Making sure there was no leftover snow, I got my Nervergear. It was connected to the console but the cords were plenty long enough to reach my bed. "I know I'll be a Pegasus at least."

The three of us in our family, myself, Joey, and dad, were all obsessed with video games. And Dad and I knew how MMOs worked, especially day 1 release. We had Joey memorize my username and me his, but just in case we would explain what our avatar would look like.

"Something about lightning, right?" Joey's voice had a laugh behind it. Though to tell the truth it wasn't a hard thing to guess. Lightning was a favorite power of mine to have. If ever there was a time you could have lightning powers, I would do everything to claim it.

"Probably." I rolled my eyes. "The game lets you customize your Cutie Mark so I'm gonna make something with it."

"Hey."

I looked to my door and saw our dad leaning against the wall where both Joey and I could see him. He was sitting there with a strained smile on his face.

Dad wanted to jump into the game along with us just like any other new game. Except, despite the lifestyle we did have we weren't well enough off to afford three Nervegears. That meant one of us had to stay behind. Dad made the sacrifice for us.

"You two be careful in there, alright?" He then turned fully toward me. "And no renegade."

"Come on, like I'd play renegade," I defended innocently. "I'm the prime example of etiquette."

"No you're not," Joey snarked.

"You don't even know what renegade means!" I told him. I turned back to Dad. "I won't go player-hunting, promise. Not day 1 at least."

"Good," Dad nodded. "Because I'm playing tomorrow and we both know I'm hunting all those ponies."

"They're called Bronies Dad," Joey corrected.

Joey was the Brony of the family. I think he was born the same time as the show but that didn't stop him from finding the show on Netflix a little while back. As for me, I didn't hate the show. Honestly, it was better than a lot of other cartoons going on. Just not my thing.

Although, when Hasbro of all companies became linked up with top notch developers for the first Nervegear game to release, everyone jumped on the My Little Pony bandwagon. Even people that hated the show wanted a piece of this hardware. That's more where I fell in.

"And Joey, no bad talking other players." Dad's attention went fully to Joey next. "The last time you did that your brother had to go renegade."

Ah yes. Operation: Glitch Fixer.

Joey messed with a group in an MMO being that typical, whiny-child screaming through their mic. So put his avatar in a glitch where he couldn't move. And since the game didn't let you despawn, Joey was stuck until I came and blew up part of that group's base to save him. Too bad that server reset from an update. I had a good foothold base to farm boss loot.

Joey blew off the warning and had dad help him with the Nervegear. Only a minute until noon.

With a breath, I placed the helmet on my head and laid down on the towel on my bed. "Time to start," I said aloud.

I closed my eyes and listened as the Nervegear hummed to life with its curious boot-up whoosh sound. The creators never said what the sound was supposed to be; only that you had to guess.

Online forums accepted that challenge. Plenty of people thought it was a gust of air. Others thought it was a billowing cape. A few even thought it was an arrow whizzing past your ear. It was one of those sounds that, when someone points it out, that's all you can hear.

But I was lucky. I heard the sound before the forums got to my head. So I heard something that only a handful of posts actually claimed to hear.

Flying.

Thirty seconds. The visor had a time stamp on it. Seconds included. They knew what they were doing with that.

Twenty five seconds.

Twenty seconds.

Eighteen.

"Be back by seven!" I heard Dad call out. "Last thing we need is one of you becoming steamed broccoli!"

"We know!" Both of us called in unison.

"Good. Have fun then!" He started to chuckle. "And be ready to tell me about it! I'm goin' in at night."

"We will!" Again, unison. We knew the song and dance.

I watched as the seconds ticked away. It was less than ten.

Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five...

"Alright," I hummed, a smile growing on my face. The Nervegear took a voice activation to let you log in. And as dumb as it sounded, I always thought that it sounded a little too much like some movie or anime. To say the key word out loud like you're announcing a fighting move.

And then I found out that you can personalize the voice activation. You can imagine the fun I had coming up with something dumber than 'Link Start.'

The clock on the visor changed to 12:00:00. It was time.

As Joey started crying out 'Link Start' several times, I grinned.

"Sink L'tart!" I cried in a dumb accent.

Bars of colors and distant sounds traveled past my eyes and ears as every part of my room faded away. The sights, Joey's cheering, and soon enough the rest of my senses faded away as my mind loaded into the Nervegear.

And then, five circular text bubbles appeared.

Sight: OK
Hearing: OK
Smell: OK
Taste: OK
Touch: OK

Each one shrunk until it ceased to exist, quickly replaced by a long block of text I had no hope of recognizing as it scrolled by at blinding speeds until more boxes showed up.

Language: English
Username: E1ectric_B1itz
Password: ********

Those boxes faded just as before, leaving the screen void. The silence and lack of response made me sit there with held breath. Almost as though I was left in Limbo.

Right as I was about to start calling out for something, three letters appeared in big bold letters. Soon after, the rest of the words faded into being.

Equestria
Legends
Online

Behind the title, a rolling landscape of blue text transformed into tranquil hills and peaceful forest. Not far in the distance was a cozy looking village familiar to fans of the show. In mean, it was always in the intro. Only now instead of main characters or heavy clouds I saw hundreds of different ponies all running in different directions.

I couldn't stop myself from staring in awe. "Is that all the players?"

The game seemed to react to my voice and had the view fade away, leaving only a small spotlight basking down on me as more text appeared in front of me.

Now you must choose your avatar. Select which pony race you would like:

Forming with shimmering aura were three touchpad-like buttons. They surrounded me like a triangle with a name and decorated symbol on each of them with all of them drawing my attention.

The first one read "Earth Pony," with a hoof striking the earth below it. Whenever I looked at it dust would kick up as if the hoof just stomped.

The next read "Pegasus" with two wings sprouting from the upper corners of the word. As I watched, the wings began flapping a couple of times.

And finally there was "Unicorn." Rather than have a horn like I expected, the letters shifted around as though levitated with magic.

Just as the game advertised, the only three races were the different ponies from the show. Some were angry that there was no griffons or dragons, or other mythical creatures. Hell, dad was hoping there would be a minotaur option to choose. They all probably wanted something that wasn't a candy colored pony which, I couldn't blame them. I personally wanted to be a griffon.

Already knowing my answer, I clicked "Pegasus" and watched as the other two boxes faded away. Then, as the "Pegasus" box lit up with a bright glow, a new box opened.

What would you like your avatar to be?

-Ponified Self
-OC

For the sake of curiosity, I pressed "Ponified Self."

Please hold still…

Before I could even think of doing otherwise, a blue heavenly light shined down upon me. Whether by fear or the game forcing me to keep still, my body refused to move.

After a few more seconds the light gave one last flash that snapped me out of my daze. However, rather than look back up at prompt telling me to be held against my will, I looked up at the dumbest thing I could possibly think of.

"That....That's not funny." With little care for this abomination, I clicked "Go Back" the second it showed up. My hair might have been red but the last thing it was, was a perm.

Would you like to edit your avatar?

-Edit
-New Base
-Upload OC

"Would I like to edit the avatar, YES I would like to!" With a frown, I pressed the edit button and watched as several customize options showed up. To summarize it, the menus were standard but there were dozens of options with an 'advanced' feature.

Sticking to basics, I changed the colors to a dark gray and resized the wings a little. Next, I tossed the freckles away, made the mane and tail spikey rather than frizzy and changed the color to a dull yellow. Finally, a darkened the green of my eyes.

"Okay..." I leaned back and looked over the picture one last time, rotating the image just to make sure that there was nothing else that needed to be done. "Done. Already leaps better than Carrot Top."

A new text box appeared beside the creation.

Please make your Cutie Mark.

"Annnnd here's where it all falls apart."

I chuckled as a new set of options came up beside a blank canvas. It was like art-making software and I had no experience there.

Luckily there were pre-made icons vague enough to expand on. So, running down the list, I spotted something that gave me an idea. Not a master artist's idea mind you, but still a good one.

It took me a couple minutes but after finding the right symbols and colors I gave the symbol a once over and felt proud enough with it. It was a light gray cloud with simple, blue jagged lines emitting outward.

It was simple and got the point across: "Lighting iz cul."

After accepting the design, everything disappeared and left me standing there in complete darkness again.

“Now that you have chosen your pony, you may now enter Equestria.”

A bright light began to envelop me and force me to close my eyes as it kept getting brighter.

“Good luck.”

I blew a raspberry and spouted a sarcastic "thanks, I'll need it," as the light fully blinded me.

As it subsided, I peeked one eye open to look around. The blurriness of it all left me as the sun shined overhead. I began to feel the heat from it too as I realized I was standing on what felt like rocks. And from every direction I heard the sound of dozens of peop...Err, ponies, going about their day.

As each sense faded in I was taken aback. Everything felt...different but similar. Mostly with how my body felt. The edges of my vision had strands of dull yellow hair sticking loose. Then, between my eyes, I saw a dark gray muzzle jutting out from my face.

I looked down at the rest of me and gawked. Rather than a two-legged human, I was on four legs and had no feeling of the fingers and toes I was missing. Not a numb feeling but as if they were never there.

On a similar note, I could felt the wings now folded along my sides. It was as though my nerves were attached to a jacket or something.

But the weirdest part about it all? I didn't mind. Oh, don't get me wrong. It was real freaky to look at my body and see something very different. Since the game monitors your body right down to your nerves, maybe it was doing something to help.

Or maybe I'm just crazy and don't care that I became a pony in the flash of a light.

Became a pony...

My eyes slowly turned toward the wings still folded along my sides. Again, like a jacket.

Not pony. Pegasus, I corrected.

My wings were a dark gray, like my coat. The feathers on them had a nice, almost gloss-like shine to them. It reminded me of those holographic pictures you would shift side-to-side in your hand.

I took a second to focus on them. I imagined that they were like my fingers and tried curling them into fists. Sure enough, the tips of my wings responded and I both saw and felt the tips of my wings curl inwards. As I pictured myself straightening out my elbows, my wings slowly unfurled and span outwards from me.

It would take some getting used to but the dumb smile on my face told me, and everyone around me, that I did NOT mind at all!

"E1ectric_B1itz? Why would somepony want numbers in their name?"

I looked to my left to see a unicorn colt walking over with a big smile. He was less than half my size as his coat was light blue in color as his mane and tail were slicked back with a few locks pointed forward.

But I recognized him from his username, Light_Chill. Joey was lucky enough to get a username that didn't look half algebra.

I couldn't contain a stray snicker from slipping. "Somepony?" I questioned. "I was hoping I could go the day without hearing that."

"Well, duh," Joey started, his chipper voice showing through easily. "We're ponies now, Electric Blitz. Which means we need to talk like them too." He gave a sharp nod that matched his matter-of-fact tone. It was clear he had been thinking about this for a while.

I rolled my eyes and played along. "Alright, I’ll talk like somepony when we’re in Equestria, okay Joe-ow!” I instinctively took a step back, only to land on my haunches.

I held up a hoof to my poor schnoz. It was a stiff reminder that animal noses are much more sensitive, even in the video game world. So after shaking the feeling away, I looked at my pony brother who struggled to keep a serious face.

“Why did you flick me in the nose?” I asked sternly.

“Because that’s not my name,” He answered simply.

I frowned at him. “My God, you’re tak-Ow!” He flicked his hoof into my muzzle with more force than before, basically smacking it with his hoof. “Really Joe-Gah!” And that time, he really did smack my nose with my hoof.

“You’re nose is gonna be as red as Santa Hooves’ with this,” He warned me calmly. “Joey’s not my name here. And in Equestria, you say ‘my Celestia.’” He informed me.

I gave him a frown. “Uh...Yeah, I think some pe-” Seeing him wind up his hoof again, I quickly fixed myself. “P-ponies. I think some ponies would disagree with you on that last part.”

Setting his hoof down, he thought it over. “Huh...Okay, you got me there Electric Blitz. I’ll forget that part.”

“You can just call me ‘Blitz,’ Joey-” “I’m not Joey anymore, Blitz!” he cut me off. Although thankfully it didn't include smacking me in the nose this time.

“I am..." He paused. For dramatic effect probably.

...

Although the pause was a little too long.

"Light Chill.” He looked off into the distance, trying to act cool. And ironically enough, I think I heard two girls' voices ‘awe’ing behind me at his attempt.

“Uh-huh." I nodded curtly. "Was that supposed to be an impression or something?"

"It's from this old YouTube video I found a few weeks ago," he told me. "But I think it would have been better with a fake mustache."

"Right," I rolled my eyes. "I'm sure we can buy one of those at the shop."

"You really think so?!" He gave me this huge grin.

I tried to stare him down, biting the inside of my cheek to keep from bust out into laughing as Joey kept that dumb grin plastered on his face.

It took two more second for both of us to die laughing in the street like two idiots. Some players walked by with odd looks on their faces but we didn't care.

After a little time, the laughter ran its course and I started to think over our next move.

"Now that I think about it," I started. "I think we should save our money for something else. How's about we find a weapon shop?”

“Oh, right," he cheered. "I saw some signs with weapons on them over there. Come on, let’s hurry!”

Without a second thought, Joey took off running as fast as he could. He looked shaky but aside from that he wasn’t doing bad moving around.

I sighed contently at his luck. “Of course it’s easy for him. Why wouldn't it be?" I looked down at my own legs. Moving each one carefully to test out how it felt.

“Let's see if I can keep up. Front left and back right,” I moved those two hooves carefully to keep my balance. “Then back left and front right.” My first few steps went smoothly enough.

“Blitz! Come on! You're taking forever!” Light Chill yelled out, already at the next street that led to the stores.

“Coming!” I yelled in response. “Eventually…” I said, slowly repeating the rhythm that I memorized as I made my way over to him.

Right before falling flat on my face in the middle of the town center where everypony around saw me front and center.

And I feel their silent judging already, I thought, picking myself back up to do it again.

As we finally made our way to the market, me ignoring my brother’s hysterical laughter at my expense, we spotted several places selling supplies. Everywhere was teeming with players that crowded every visible storefront.

However, every vendor that stood behind the stands seemed completely unphased by the massive amount of customers swarming them. In fact, several of them seemed to be eating the attention as they were wasting no time up-selling their wares.

Some even started shouting discounts or package deals that attracted the more frugal players. Which, in turn, convinced a few of the rival vendors to shout their own discounts to draw the customers back.

It was an entire virtual economy running and updating itself. Even if I didn't know the first thing about even my own economy I could tell something like this took a lot of attention to make.

And then from a nearby store I heard shouting.

All of a sudden, a bright orange colored Earth Pony with an orange mane and the Player ID reading Orange was practically thrown from one of the larger tents and into the streets where two armored pony guards stood in wait. Mr. Orange began to stand as he shouted every profanity I did and did not know.

Before anyone could react, a third guard walked out of the tent and began to speak to the player in a regular tone; meaning I couldn't hear him from here. Orange tried responding by charging the guards but they easily subdued him and began forcing him in the direction opposite of us.

As I slowly started to move my hooves away from Joey's ears I gave out a low huff. Asshole, I thought. He was probably trying to steal something from 'dumb AI' and got caught.

Oh well, I thought as I glanced around the marketplace once more. Only now I saw several ponies with Player IDs above their head all pulling up their menus and doing the same thing. Reporting the idiot.

Maybe that'll teach him not to cry about getting caught.

I ended up doing the same thing too. If you're playing an MMO at least have some respect. After a few more buttons pressed, I put away the menu and was now left with a mildly unimpressed Joey.

"What?" I asked with a shrug.

Joey gave me the most sass-filled head roll. "You don't have to cover my ears ya know."

"Are you kidding?" I rose an eyebrow. "The last thing I need is you asking Mom or Dad what any of those words are."

"I'm not stupid," Joey countered. "I wouldn't ask them what those words are. I'd use the computer."

I used my wing to hide my face as I groaned in frustration. "Not what I meant," I mumbled through feathers. Joey was still gonna get caught if he did that. The poor kid had no idea what search history was or how to delete it.

"Oh, look!" Joey pulled the wing off my face and pointed out towards a small wooden stand squished between two nice looking tents. It had only a few ponies at it while the other two tents were stuffed with players.

"Huh. Weird placement." Regardless, both of us walked up and looked the stand over. Aside from its 'better than thou' neighbors beside it, the stand looked in good condition. It had a nice deep blue cloth draped over the counter and two sizable bookshelves behind the vendor, packed with different kinds of weapons all on display.

The only issue was that all the weapons were wooden. Including the swords.

The three players ahead of us, only one of them looking satisfied, walked off before the vendor turned to us. After a quick moment, he broke into a warm smile.

Store AI, I noted. He had a noticeable pause to begin but then quickly came to life with a warm personality and voice.

"Welcome, Sirs, to Carved Combat," The somewhat aged stallion gave a slight nod of respect. "How might I help you?"

"Erm, we are here to buy weapons," I said stiffly. Each vendor we kept passing had players only saying the minimal toget what they needed. I figured it was a voice command thing. Still, it was hard to say two word sentences to what seemed like a responsive ~~per~~ pony.

"Well, I'd be happy to help." the stallion didn't miss a beat. "What you see behind me are all the weapons I have in stock. I also have a few Simple Wooden Bucklers for sale too."

The name of the shield had the faintest hint of monotone to it but it was otherwise unnoticeable if you weren't listening. The synthesized voices were really good.

"I can do custom make weapons for you but it'll take some time," he continued. "A few hours or so, really."

Joey had to stand on his hind legs with his hooves on the counter so he could look at the wares better. From what we saw, nearly every weapon had 'Simple,' 'Wooden,' or 'Handcarved' in the title. And the cost and quality of the weapons were in that same order with Simple being the cheapest and Handcarved being the most expensive.

While looking for a stand we managed to check our stats in the menu. We also figured out that we both had 200 'bits' to start. And by the look of it, that was more than enough for a basic weapon and some armor.

"Oh! That," Joey, or Light Chill if you were to believe the Player ID, shouted as he pointed to the top shelf. "I'll buy that!"

Without looking, the Earth Pony grinned. "Ah, the Handcarved Wand. A perfect choice for a unicorn such as yourself."

The pony dragged the stepladder under the wand and began to climb. Sadly...

"It's not a wand, it's a staff," Joey corrected. This made the owner pause as his code spun its gears.

"Oh. My mistake." The pony stepped down from the ladder and turned towards one of the quarterstaffs standing in a barrel. "You wanted the Simple Quarterstaff?"

"What? No! Not that staff." Joey pointed back at the wand. "That staff!"

The NPC's eye started to twitch in what was probably confusion. The poor AI was trying so hard to follow this child's logic. I, meanwhile, just facepalmed. Well facehoofed. Which if anyone wanted to know, hurts. A lot.

"I'm. Sorry. Sirs." The NPC's voice started to slow and become more robotic, as though he was breaking. It was like seeing an animatronic at a theme park die in front of you; terrifying and awkward.

"I only. Have one. Kind of Staff for sale," he concluded.

"Light Chill," I said in a clear tone. "Will purchase the Handcrafted Wand." I watched as the NPC stopped looking confused and went for the wand again.

"It's not a wand," Joey gladly reminded me.

“Maybe not in your case," I said through my gritted teeth. "But that’s what it’s called. If you confuse the NPCs we'll be here all day.” That or watch an adult pony AI break down in tears.

She stallion came back down the stepladder with Joey's new wand, I flashed him a smile and went on as though nothing happened. “I’ll take the Wooden Tonfa, a Wooden Warclub, and two Wooden Bucklers.”

"Tonfa huh?" The stallion pushed the ladder aside and reached for the pair of weapons as they were at eye level. "You know, you're the first customer all day who's taken an interest in that."

In the back of my mind, I wasn't surprised. I only knew what tonfa were from an old PlayStation game. Since this game was full VR, people were probably gonna try picking swords, bows, and weapons that anyone could learn quickly. Tonfas were not only confusing, they weren't that popular either.

As the vendor put my weapon and the shields on the table, text boxes appeared in front of me and Joey.

Wooden Tonfas, Wooden Buckler (x2), Simple Warclub

Will you purchase these items for 150 Bits?

-Yes
-No

Sighing, I tapped yes and watched as my brother only paid 50 bits for his wand. The total of 200 bits all appeared on the counter as the vendor collected it all in one sweep of his hoof.

I was now down more than half my starting gold as I silently passed the second buckler to Joey and watched him smile. "Thanks Blitz." He wasted no time equipping his buckler and ~~wand~~ 'staff,' with both fitting securely on either foreleg. The buckler on the left and wand in a small sheath that appeared on the right.

The part that was interesting; the buckler resized itself as Joey equipped it. If it had stayed oversized then it might've just been a regular shield for him, meaning he would get more out of it than a normal player would.

It was minor but it helped keep people from exploiting the game by just playing as smaller avatars.

Then there was my stuff. The tonfa stayed sheathed along my back, crossing each other just behind my wings. At the same time the buckler rested against my shoulder out of the way as the warclub rested in a belt that materialized on me.

Already I knew the buckler wasn't gonna see much use. The tonfa were a pair of baton-like weapons that allowed you to move around without restriction; the kind of thing a Pegasus would benefit from. Not to mention tonfa could be used to block attacks, making the buckler even more useless.

The warclub and buckler were a backup. If I can't figure out how to use tonfa, I would need a weapon I knew I could figure out. That, and weapon durability was a thing in the game.

It was one of the bigger things that they advertised. They wanted everything to be as realistic as it could be without it being annoying. The way they showed it off was hilarious too.

I remember watching the video demonstrating it. He said "imagine a rare drop you get after hours of work. Now imagine someone getting it, first try. Next." the demonstrator, as if to prove a point, pulled out a blade that looked like it had been made out of the night sky with stars dotted across it. "Picture them banging it against a rock to rub it in."

When the demonstrator swung at the same rock repeatedly. On the fifth try, the sword burst into code and vanished. "Anything can break if you're careless. No materials from it either."

I couldn't think of anyone who would smack their sword on a rock but then again my friends didn't play RPGs often.

Joey tapped my shoulder and regained my attention.

"Come on Blitz, let's go!" He hopped in place a little bit. "Let's go fight something!"

"Right." I shifted my shoulders and turned to follow Joey as he was practically jumping around with how excited he was.

"Oh." Loud enough to catch our attention, the vendor cleared his throat. "Excuse me, Sirs?"

The stallion's eyes suddenly seemed guilty as though he were still making up his mind on what to do next.

Curious, I squared back up to the store. "What'd you need?"

"W-Well..." The stallion sighed in defeat. Whatever he was debating himself against, something won out. "You purchased a hefty amount of equipment from my humble shop. I take it that you are a bit more well-trained than usual customers, yes?"

I narrowed my eyes in confusion. “Uh...Sure. I guess so.” There wasn’t a point in explaining why I bought so much from only him. It was all automated anyway.

“I thought as much.” Some determination returned to him. “Perhaps I should introduce myself. My name is Oaken Handle. Some ponies simply call me Oak." As he introduced himself his voice and appearance started to remind me of Geppetto from the Disney movie. I wonder if that was on purpose?

"Um, I know you’re probably busy," Oak went on. "But I was wondering if you could help me with a small task of mine.” He kept acting as if I was some big shot adventurer.

“...Is this a side-mission?” Light Chill blurted out loud, but the vendor gave no answer. He was probably only programmed to talk to whoever activated the event, meaning that he only saw me talking to him right now.

I leaned towards Joe and whispered. “Probably. But..." An idea flashed through my mind, as did a smile. "Watch this.”

I looked towards Oak with a serious look on my face. If this was an RPG I might as well play along with it. “Alright, Oaken Handle, your task has enraptured my attention. I shall gladly hear you out.” I told him, acting important for the role as I deepened my voice slightly. “What is it that you require of me?”

After a few brief moments, and a couple of odd blinks, Oak went on still acting very humble. “Well, you see, my supplier goes out towards the outskirts of Everfree Forest and collects materials for me. Sadly, as he was out collecting some Timberwolf Lumber and such the other day, his cart was damaged. By the time he had returned, he lost nearly half of the supplies.”

I took in a slow breath, going over what all he said while in my mind thinking: Please no escort quest. Please no escort quest. Please no escort quest....

I cleared my throat. "I see. To lack your supplies during such a busy time of year for travelers passing by is...Quite an unlucky situation. My condolences for your misfortune." As I nodded along, talking a mile a minute, I could hear Joey and some other player waiting in line behind me trying not to snicker.

After another two blinks, the NPC nodded. "I know! Sadly, it's also left me behind on a few orders and I need somepony's help getting me back on track." His reply seemed vague but I guess there were only so many responses you can give each NPC.

"M-My supplier's already demanded I pay him in full for the small amount of supplies," Oak said with a glare towards the ground. "If I were to send him out again to get the rest of what I needed, he said he'll only do it for full price."

“And let me guess," I began with a small smile. "You want an experienced adventurer such as myself to go out and collect these supplies for an even lower price then what you would pay your supplier?” I asked with a raised eyebrow, ignoring Chill as he started causing a scene with his giggle-fit.

Another blink or three later and Oak was looking guilty. “Well, um,” He sighed. “Ye-Yes. Usually, I pay my supplier three-hundred bits for his work. But I’m afraid the few supplies I still need will never earn me that much. I do not mean to insult you by asking of your services for a lower pri—

I chuckled to myself as I kept my voice deep-ish. “You needn’t worry, humble shopkeep. I understand your unfortunate position quite well.” I nodded along. “I simply longed for a mere jest." When I realized that the game designers probably didn't program responses for 'Ye Olde Speak' I loosened up a bit. "I would be happy to assist you in however I can, big reward or not.”

More blinking. “You....” He chuckled in disbelief. “You mean that?"

"Why of course! What model adventurer would I be to these ponies," I gestured to Joey, who was still laughing, and the few ponies behind me either entertained or slightly impatient for me to get out of the way. "if I do not show the proper respect to our weaponsmiths?"

Oak took in everything I said and instantly bowed his head to me. "Your generosity meets no boundaries, sir."

“I try.” I smirked, knowing that he wasn't listening to that part.

"Wow, look at 'Rarity' over here." I heard one of the players behind me scoff.

I know enough about that character to know that was a jab. You be shush, ya fool! Of course, I couldn't say that. I wouldn't give them the satisfaction of breaking character.

“Well." My attention was back on Oak as he spoke. "While I can’t offer three-hundred bits, far from it I’m afraid,” He said regretfully. “I would be willing to reward you half of what you had just spent a-and, and," Oak paused to rack his brain for an idea. "I can get you an upgraded version of that Wooden Tonfa you purchased.”

As soon as he finished his deal, a text box opened up.

New Quest

Shop Up Some Wood

Reward: 100 bits and Ironwood Tonfa (+EXP)

Conditions: Bring in supplies before 9 PM (EST), Jan. 22nd, 2020

-Accept Quest
-Decline Quest

Seeing that it said 100 bits, I realized that it was also counting what Joey spent. That in mind, getting all of our starting supplies for half price would be amazing. Not to mention we'd need some direction on where to go once we were done messing around with weak mobs.

I tapped the ‘Accept Quest’ button and saw that Oak was 'paused' again. So I cleared my throat. “I would be happy to assist an honest shopkeep such as yourself, Oaken Handle. Consider your supplies retrieved and delivered.”

“Thank you, Sir! You have no idea just how helpful you are by doing this,” The NPC bowed his head towards me one last time before pulling out a paper from under the counter. “Here’s the list of the supplies my supplier had failed to retrieve. They should be fairly easy to find for somepony such as yourself.”

I took the list in my hoof, somehow able to hold it still without fingers, and watched as it disappeared into my inventory. Making a note to read it before actually getting to the forest itself, I gave a determined grin to the NPC.

“Thank you! I shall get them. Post haste!” I turned around to see my brother, who had partially recovered from his laughing fit, and the other players who were now interested in the fact that I just got a quest after my ham-acting.

“Come co-adventurer," I shouted in my stage voice. "Let us be off! To find victory, honor...” Deciding I might as well get it out now, I reopened the menu, found my inventory, and brought out the list. “...And three Shedded Scales! Come, Light Chill, the future of Carved Combat and its proprietor depends on it!”

“Right it does, Electric Blitz!” Light Chill joined in, earning a couple of snickers and yet another 'awe's from a nearby player. Even the more annoyed players seemed to be enjoying the show now.

“Light Chill, awaaaaaay!” He yelled out, taking off running.

In the wrong direction.

I dropped my head as one of the players burst out in laughter. “Other way, 'Chilly,'” I deadpanned, slowly making my way in the correct direction towards Everfree.

“Light Chill now running this a-way!” Joey ran past me, resulting in a few more laughs before the players moved to the shop.

“Have a nice day,” Oak called out casually, seemingly forgetting our entire conversation as he turned towards the next pony in line.

“Yeah, sure...” I nodded dismissively, watching as Joey kept running forwards happily. “One of us will anyway.”

I gave myself a sad smile and picked up the pace. Our first quest had officially begun.

Humble Beginnings (2/2)

Like a sack of bricks, we tumbled out of the brush and into a clearing. Over the past several minutes we were running for our virtual lives with our health and resources teetering on empty. Despite being horses built for running, we only had the stamina of two nerds running laps in gym class.

I struggled to keep my balance as Joey simply didn't try.

thud

About five feet away from me, Joey feigned collapsing onto the ground. He was breathing heavily just as bad as I was and through the breathing, he was trying to say something. But all that came out was Joey's tongue lolling onto the grass.

"Couldn't agree more," I spoke through breathes. "That could...Not have gone...Better!" Through my rasping breath, my sarcasm still fired like silver bullets.

When we went through Everfree Forest we saw plenty of players all trying to fight the most common monster. The Timberwolf.

From what I saw, whenever there were a lot of players in one place, the game spawned more enemies to fight. So, of course, all the MMO experts were hunting down Timberwolf nests and wrecking house. Once the nest was cleared, the small army of players tracked down the next one.

As we watched a few defeated players burst into puffs of blue code, we decided to try going alone.

We traveled deeper into the forest to look around for supplies. The side quest from the vendor needed Timberwolf Lumber mostly but there were other supplies that didn't require fighting. So we started by getting those and filling in our maps of the forest.

A few hours, and a small hoard of supplies, later and we decided to start trying to hunt some wolves. When we were out looking for a place to fight without getting in someone's way, we eventually came across a small pack.

I don't know how we pulled it off, but somehow three Timberwolves didn't see, hear, or smell any sign of us. Instead, they went around to trees, ripping the bark off and eating it. Weird but not unreasonable. I guess they had to replace the wood on themselves someway or another.

Still, they were distracted. We had the element of surprise and they were the first enemies of the game. It should have been an easy fight, right? Just run in, take one out immediately, and have it be a 2v2 fight. With the experience we earned from collecting stuff that would get us both to level 2.

There was only one problem. It wasn't a 2v2 fight. And it wasn't the 2v3 fight that I thought was the worst case scenario.

It was 1v4. Me against everything else.

When we left Ponyville the end of Joey's ~~wand~~ 'staff,' as he called it, glowed with a faint blue aura. The game probably released a restriction on Joey's weapon like turning the safety off.

When Joey saw this he tested it out. Every time Joey made a flicking motion, the wand would fire a small, light-blue pulse of magic. The rate of which it fired was like an average pistol, which meant that it was probably faster than a bow albeit weaker too.

Our surprise attack was simple; I had tonfa which made me the go-to DPS. This meant that I could easily draw in the aggro while Joey fired from a distance. Even Joey, who had no prior MMO experience before today, completely understood the plan.

However, these fool-proof plans almost never account for the worst. Sadly, Joey could not aim. Each time Joey held up the 'staff' with his hoof, he'd start shaking to keep his balance on three legs. Even when he had a shot so clear a glass of water would be offended, he'd fire off magic blasts at everything except the wolves.

Including me, I recalled.

Long story short, we barely managed to kill two Timberwolves before having to run away. My health was flashing red and Joey apparently had only so many magical blasts before he had to regain his magic. We booked it for who knows how long, aggroing every Timberwolf along the way.

And thus ends the frustrating story that has led us to this moment. From what I could tell we managed to get away from all of them and not a moment too soon. Joey was struck by a few stray claws and had his health bar read 49/79. The color looked something between green and yellow.

Then there was my health. 19/75. The darker orange color that partially filled the bar made me grimace. From what I saw from the enemy farmers from before, players slowly gained a couple of hit points little by little until you were back to full health. Except, it only went up whenever you weren't close to an enemy.

20/75.

From seeing everyone's hit points in the town, everyone started with 75 HP. Except for Earth Ponies who had a clean 100 HP at level one. Of course, with Timberwolves able to do somewhere around 10 damage per claw, 75 or 100 HP starts to feel low when you fight off a pack of them.

Still, we survived. And even if we didn't beat all three of the wolves, Joey still managed a level up. Apparently, there was a bonus amount of EXP whenever you dealt the finishing blow which Joey got for both the wolves we beat. I would've been ticked off about that if it wasn’t for the fact that it was safer that Joey got leveled up quicker. This was still his first MMO, after all.

"Alex?"

"Yeah?" I looked away from my health bar.

"...Sorry," Joey said as he tried forcing himself from breathing so deeply. "I didn't...mean to hit you."

"..." A small grin started to grow on my face. "Joey?"

"Yeah?" Joey's chest rose and fell without halted rhythm.

"Keep breathing," I informed him. "Holding your breath isn't gonna do ya...any favors."

Joey's lungs answered for him, forcing him to breathe rather than talk. For the next minute, I sat in silence, watching both our hit points rise. By the time Joey was up and speaking our HP bars read 37/75 and 66/79.

"So," I spoke up. "You good?"

Joey hummed and nodded with a smile. "Yeah. Sorry I wasn't good before."

"Oh come on." I rolled my eyes. "It was our first actual fight without other players around. It makes sense that we didn't get it our first try."

"I know, but," Joey persisted, still staring at the ground. "I could've tried reading the magic book or something."

"Come on Joe, magic books aren't just gonna..." For a second my brained seemed to reboot itself. "Magic book?"

"Yeah." Joey glanced away. "The game gives unicorns magic books. I saw some others reading them."

"..."

I felt my eyelid twitch.

"Where do you have it?" The forgiving look on my face turned a placid neutral line.

To answer me, Joey flicked his wrist down and summoned his menu. A few button presses later and a small deep purple book formed on the ground beneath him. And, as if unsure I saw it, Joey closed the menu and proceeded to hold it up.

"...How long have you had that?"

"The whole time," He answered.

“...”

"...”

“...”

"...”

"Joey?"

"Yes?"

"Whyyyyyyyy?" I said in a strained breath.

"You said that no one ever reads instruction books." His answer was simple. Innocent even. As though nothing in the world could harm his line of thought. If it wasn't for the fact that his innocence and blind trust in me was the reason that I almost got killed by him, I would have lost it.

Instead, I slid onto my haunches in defeat.

"Joey?"

"Yes?"

"Read it."

"You got it."

And so he did.

"Ugh..." My hoof sharply connected with my face for a second time today. And just like before with the NPC, it hurt. Immensely.

"OW...!" I recoiled in pain and carefully nursed the sore spot on my face. Only, as I did I glanced over at my health bar and felt even worse.

The facehoof had dealt 2 HP.

I huffed. Thankfully the entire event went unnoticed as Joey was flipping a page in his book. He seemed deep in thought apparently.

Well at least I don't have to worry about him holding that stunt against me, I thought.

As I had some time to myself I decided to check through my inventory real quick. Disappointingly enough, I didn't have any 'magic books' like Joey did. So instead, I went to the 'Tutorial' tab in the menu and was rewarded with an incredibly long list of tips and subjects with a search bar at the top.

Already figuring out the song and dance, I clicked the search bar and typed 'Flying' on the projected keyboard that appeared. Funnily enough, only two results came up.

Pegasi Flying
Flying Airships

I felt my brain shatter on the second line. AIRSHIPS?

It took a good ten seconds for me to staple my jaw back to my head before hesitantly clicking the 'Pegasi Flying' button. Flying in this game was one thing, flying in this game on what could become my own private pirate ship was a life goal.

The Pegasi Flying tutorial didn't have much. It did its best to explain that moving the wings were a lot like moving your arms but I already figured that out earlier. Despite that my front legs were what replaced my arms, my wings were what felt like arms.

Aside from the explanation, the tutorial basically told the player you had to figure it out yourself. Which seemed fair. Odd as it was, magic seemed like it wouldn't vary from person to person as much as flying would. Magic seemed like a mental exercise but flying was something physical.

I dismissed the menu and looked to my left wing as I unfurled it. As the tutorial said, it felt like my left arm. As did the right wing. And over the next few seconds of me rotating them back and forth, I crossed them in front of my body as though crossing my arms.

It was so weird how natural they felt. Even when I let my wings go lax, they just folded back along my sides lazily. When I moved to bring my wings outward as though making a T-pose, they unfolded flat in either direction and made me seem much bigger than I really was.

I glanced at the sky above me. Even when there was a thick canopy surrounding our small clearing, I could still spot the sunset's orange and violet colors streaking across the sky, peeking through the leaves. The idea of a video game sky box didn't cross my mind. Instead, I looked as the thin clouds seemed to skid across the vibrant colors and imagined what it would look like to stare down from them.

Would there be a breeze up there? How strong would that breeze be? How far could I see? How do I describe that view to my friends?

"How do I get up there?" I heard my voice mutter.

I looked back towards the ground and checked my footing—or maybe it's called it 'hoofing.' When I was sure that I wasn't just gonna fly sideways or something I rose up both wings as high as I could get them. When they got as high as they could go it was as though I were stretching my arms after waking up for the morning.

“Alright,” I let out a breath of fresh air and smirked. “Here we go.” Not wasting any time, I pulled both wings down as fast as I co—”WOOOOOAAAHHH!”

Before I could register what the hell just happened, I was twenty feet up in the air. The ground had gone down under me so fast it was as if being on the receiving end of a Roadrunner cartoon.

As I reached the peak of my 'jump' I felt myself start to fall right back down like a sack of bricks. Desperate, I threw both my wings up and back down just as quickly as before, now sending me another fifteen feet up.

Before I realized that I could flap my wings without using all possible strength, I had to be a good hundred feet in the air. Although the clouds were still much higher. Thankfully, I was too high up for Joey to hear me freaking the hell out and make fun of me.

Unfortunately, I was also too high up for Joey to hear me freaking the hell out to help me. So instead, I did the most terrifying thing I could think of.

Rather than flap my wings like a madman to keep going up, I snapped my wings tight along my body and proceeded to dive bomb toward the ground like a skydiver. The sudden G-force made me question whether the tears forming from my eyes were from the wind in my face or the fact that I suddenly remembered that I had never gone skydiving.

Regardless of the answer, when I decided to flap my wings again. All at once I felt my body lurch downward as it went against the gravity. Like a drop tower you found in amusement parks or carnivals. I flapped my wings again and now I found myself about twenty feet off the ground.

I only stayed up for so long. When I started to bring my wings up again I could instantly feel the strain from every muscle. My wings were entirely numb out of nowhere and I found myself unable to flap them fast enough.

So instead, I fell down.

boom

With something resembling a three-point landing, I slammed into the ground. That numb feeling in my wings stayed there and even as I tried to fold them back I could feel that numbness seizing through them uncomfortably. On top of numb wings, I was nearly out of breath after holding it for so long.

Flying Rank Up: Rank 2!

Ranks? I let myself sit down as I tried to work the numbness out of my wing with my hoof. What's a rank supposed to mean?

The small notification was just above my HP bar. Nothing else happened along with it though. Instead, I watched it fade. The game works off of players getting levels from experience, I reasoned. But the forums never talked about ranks. There was crafting for weapons and proficiencies for fighting styles and powers, but ranks?

When the prompt was gone it didn't change anything. What did ranking up do? Was it a scoring system or a level system? I didn't feel any better at flying. I still felt terrible at it, really.

After trying to figure it out I rolled my shoulders and unfurled my wings again. They were still sore from the frantic take off but that didn't mean that they were unusable. So instead, rather than go straight vertical I went for a different approach.

Once my wings were perpendicular to the rest of me I broke out into a run toward the other end of the clearing, lightly flapping my wings as I went. Sure enough, by the third flap, I was off the ground and gliding the rest of the way across the clearing and keeping my wings completely straight.

"It...It's working..." A grin spread across my face. "Hey Joey, are you see. Ing. This..."

"Bum bum buda-da-da bum bum bunna! Bum bum buda-da-da bum bum bunna! Bum bum, nuh-nuh, bum bum, nuh-nuh~!"

My little brother "Light Chill" was in the middle of the clearing, humming to himself as he threw four books high into the air in a juggling pattern with his magic. Right as each one started to come down, a light blue aura would catch it and practically trampoline it back into the sky about twenty feet into the air.

The words "Telepathy Rank Up: Rank 2!" showed up near his HP bar.

"...Huh," I hummed.

Looking ahead of me I noticed that the edge of the clearing was closing in quickly. So as I got closer, I tried leaning to the left and watched as my direction changed effortlessly. With my left wing only a couple feet above the ground, I banked left and was now flying parallel to the forest. Although the achievement felt much less gratifying as Joey kept repeating his song.

After about another minute of flying laps around the clearing, I skidding to a halt as though I were an airplane, only now with a very botched attempt of "Flight of the Bumblebees" being 'sung' behind me.

"Bun-n-n-n-n-n-n-na-na-na-na, Bunna dun-dun-dun-dunna nada done, done do—" As Joey began headbanging into a completely different number, he turned around and found me sitting there, trying not to laugh at his classical, heavy metal performance.

Joey's horn stopped glowing and all the books tumbled to the ground one at a time. He took a moment to glance at them before slowing turning back to me with a quiet look on his face.

"Uhhhh," he hummed. "I, um. I was doin' magic."

Huh, I smiled. His cheeks are turning red. Didn't know that was a feature. "I saw. Had a whole one-man-band thing going on."

"Y-Yeah." He slowly reached for the closest book and scooped it up in his hoof. "So, uh...Did you figure out how to fly yet?"

I bit the inside of my cheek and watched as Joey started to levitate the other three books above him. "Not really," I answered. You know, like a liar. "Haven't tried yet. I thought it'd be a better idea if I didn't fly in a forest filled with pointy branches,"

Actually, I should've thought that from minute one. With how low my HP was, I'm surprised I didn't get smacked by a tree and hit 0 HP right then and there.

r.st.e

"Well, you should try it!" Joey stacked all the books beside him before hopping around. "Maybe we can find Rainbow Dash in the game and you can race her!"

"Or, we can find Trixie and let the two of you show off." That was Joey's favorite character. And the only one I really knew of out of second-hand. As Joey started to laugh, my smile grew wider. "Seriously, that was amazing! How'd you do all that?!"

"Well, the book just said to look at something and think about where you want it to be. So I thought that I wanted the book up and it went up! And when I stopped thinking about it, I let go of the books and started throwing them really high in the air! So I started juggling 'em!"

The fact that Joey didn't overthink the magic too much probably helped. If anything, him not overthinking things probably give him an edge.

rustle

"Wait," I pulled my attention to the side. "Joey? Where'd yo—" "Light Chill." "...Right, Light Chill. Where'd you get those other three books?"

"Oh, these?" Joey's attention went to the pile of books as well. "Well, while we were looking for stuff for the store pony, I kept finding tutorial books on the ground. I thought they would be good but I think they're the same as my book."

"Probably from other players," I thought aloud. "After they figured out their magic, they probably ditched 'em."

"Why though?" Joey asked. "The game said they were each worth seven bits."

Yeah, but the game had its own virtual economy, I thought to myself. Economics was going a bit far for Joey. Still, it was a given that if every unicorn had this book then there would be a surplus of them. Seven bits may be the average but all the players probably killed the worth already.

"Seven bits still aren't worth selling it back. Not when you get money off of monsters anyway."

At that note, I glanced up at our respective health bars again. Joey's HP was thankfully filled up at 79/79 which I was glad for. Meanwhile my HP was now 69/75. Not full, but at least it was back into the green. So by the time we went out looking for another fight, we'd more or less be back to where we started.

Wow. That sounded more depressing than I thought it would.

...rustle...rustle...

"Speaking of selling stuff." Joey tapped his hoof to the pile of books and they faded into code as they went into his inventory. "What's left on that list for the store pony?"

“Right.” Swinging down my hoof I opened the menu and looked around. Before you clicked on any tabs, the date, time, and your stats were what showed up first.

“Well, it’s 6:25 now, so we still have some time. But I don’t think we’re gonna need it.”

Moving through the inventory quickly, I took out the list. It automatically, or “magically” as Joey said, checked each item off whenever we got it. Most of the stuff was easy collectibles like Stone, Shedded Scales, and Wilted Poison Joke Petals (I ignored the question of why since it was just a stupid fetch quest). We wanted those first before we fought things.

Then the Timberwolves had the last two items we needed. Timberwolf Leaves and Timberwolf Lumber. The two Timberwolves we fought only dropped the lumber, and since Joey finished them off, he had most of it. So I assumed that the leaves were harder to obtain.

“Looks like we only need one more thing and we're done.” I smiled at him.

Rustle…

“Okay, great! Then we can give the stuff to the pony and sign out for dinner!” Joey concluded, earning a look of determination. “What's the last thing?!” He leaned down as if looking ready to start running.

“Only two—” Tkkkkk “Huh?” I blinked.

It was faint but I was sure I heard the sound of something snapping.

“What is it, Blitz?” Light Chill looked at me confusedly. To him, he probably thought I was looking above him.

We were closer to the side of the clearing rather than the middle. So I doubt it was my imagination. But then again, we had been messing around in this area for like five minutes, what would've made anything...

...When I went up in the air.

I wasn't thinking about it at the time but going 100 feet into the air and flailing my wings like a madman had to be a beacon for anything that had good hearing or eyesight for anything in a 50-yard radius.

"What are you looking at?"

Joey turned around and looked in the direction of the brush. And while I wasn't sure where it was, I could hear the foliage shifting and the light growl of something. Joey didn't see any of these signs. Instead, he started approaching the treeline to get a better view. All without even reaching for his wand.

That's when the creature made itself known. From the shadows, looming a good head and shoulders above Joey were these two dimly lit lights peering from the shadows. They seemed masked by a thin veil of some sort but the lively green aura leaking from the dark was hard to miss.

As Joey got one step too close, I saw the dim light turn thin and then vanish. Like blinking.

And then it snarled.

"Joey!" As Joey blinked a Timberwolf lunged from the bushes and was on a direct course for the little unicorn with its claws freshly brandished.

In an instant, the Timberwolf had raked its claws across Joey's spine. What would've been blood was replaced by blue code as it flicked off Joey's back and faded away.

Joey was knocked away and rolled several feet from a Timberwolf larger than the three that we had attacked earlier. Well, larger than two of them. The third of those three were the same size as it. In fact, it shared a lot if not all of the same features as the one before it. Even the same amount of HP. 54/54.

It followed us?! I glanced at Joey and saw his HP bar above him. 65/79. Thirteen points from a single claw attack. And from personal experience, its bite was stronger.

I glanced up at my own HP out of habit. 69/75. That's what it was after I stopped flying. How long had it watched us?

The wolf didn't move to lunge at Joey again. Instead, it began to circle him slowly as it gave another vicious snarl. It toyed with him. Waiting to see if Joey had any kind of tricks.

At no point did it think to look at me either. Since Joey was a 'higher level' and had been the ones to finish off the other Timberwolves earlier, Joey was the bigger threat. If I had to guess, it probably thought that if it could take on Joey than I would be even easier.

With a flap of my wings, I flung myself at the Timberwolf faster than it could turn its head. Before it could register what happened, I clocked the wolf with one of my tonfas and watched as the number 54 vanished and left me watching the bar roll down by a tenth.

I wasn't done. With my second tonfa, I drove it forward as though I were punching with it. The result was its HP bar falling again as it quickly ducked back into the shadows of the trees and the rustling of bushes became frantic.

I let the Timberwolf hide and looked to my brother. "Joey, are you okay?"

"Y-ye-yeah," Joey grunted as he stood up to his feet. "I'm fine, but...Where'd he go?"

My attention went back to the forest and any shifting bushes. Despite real wolves being stealthy these things were pretty easy to hear coming. Seeing them was the problem.

About ten seconds of Joey and I standing side-by-side, looking everywhere, I heard snapping twigs and a deep growl. When I spotted the glowing eyes once again, I nodded.

"I see it!"

"There!"

Both of us shouted in unison.

Pointing in opposite directions.

Two of them?! My health was still 69 and Joey's was 65. I can't keep both of them off Joey. We're flanked.

As though to prove that fact, the one Joey spotted quickly rushed out first and readied itself to pounce at Joey. By the time I turned around, the wolf was closing in and Joey was screaming as his horn lit up.

Wait, horn?

While within striking distance, the Timberwolf's claw swung where Joey's face was, only catching some hair.

In return, Joey grabbed the one book he left out with his magic and smacked it into its branchy maw, driving it to the ground with the sound of branches snapping.

The wolf's health went from displaying a full 46 to the number vanishing and dropping the bar by a sliver.

Joey then began to smack the wolf repeatedly with the book to only small amounts of damage. After the third smack to the face, the book shattered into code and the Timberwolf had an opening. With one of its back claws, he kicked out Joey's legs and sent him to the ground beside the wolf.

I brought down a tonfa and missed as the Timberwolf rolled away and leapt back. Meanwhile, Joey scuttled back to his hooves and started opening his menu.

"Joey, what are you doing?" I didn't tear my gaze off the Timberwolf. I didn't leave it an opening.

Joey ignored me and made quick work of his menu, making the other three books fall out beside him. With a twitch of his head, another book was floating beside him.

With a second growl, Joey finally spotted the glowing green aura from within the shadows. The bigger Timberwolf was watching our fight unfold.

Before Joey could throw the book at him, I smacked it out of the air and watched it flop onto the ground. "Wha—Alex?!"

"Don't use the books!" I tensed up when the Timberwolf in front of us started to lower its head to pounce again.

"Well, what am I supposed to do?!"

"You have a wand! and magic!" I shouted exasperatedly. As the Timberwolf barked I feinted towards him and made him flinch back. "Use them!"

"W-wand?" Joey looked down at the wand stowed on his foreleg. "Oh yeah!"

"RARRFF!"

I twisted back to the fight just fast enough to block the wolf's first claw but not the second. Instead, the second claw wrenched across my face and nearly threw me off my hooves.

Through the floating code dashing across my eyes, I could see that my HP dwindled further.

"Flick and..." I saw Joey sharply nod his head and immediately heard the whistle of a magical blast behind me. Moments later, the big Timberwolf hiding in the trees yelped in pain.

"Good shot!" I threw off the Timberwolf's first claw and brought an uppercut directly to its jaw and followed with another blow to the temple. "Can you keep him distracted?!"

"Uh...distra—" "Good enough!"

Taking a chance, I brought up both tonfa in front of my face like a boxer putting up his gloves and moved. Using my wings for momentum, I slammed into the Timberwolf's muzzle and forced him back several feet.

In retaliation, the wolf dug its claw into the dirt to anchor itself and then proceeded to bite down on the tonfa. In the process of almost unhinging its jaw, some of its teeth sank into my leg.

As my health bar dipped further into the yellow, the wolf shook violently as if to rip my front leg off. With each shake, I saw my health drip away point by point.

When my HP finally dipped past half, I gave up my grip and watched the wolf toss the tonfa away from us before looking back to me. My forelegs were riddled with blue holes as I pulled out my buckler.

The next several seconds were spent with the wolf lunging at me and me either ducking away or catching a claw with the shield. Every couple of swipes at me were responded with me swinging back with an occasional tonfa strike. By the fifth hit against him, he was nearing the red and I was now at 32/75.

Maybe I should've taken a sword after all. I scolded myself for the dumb exotic weapons and ducked away from the next swing, now able to see Joey's fight.

He was fairing better than I was. The wolf was trying to stay hidden in the brush or take cover from Joey's blind onslaught of magic blasts. There weren't any more yelps of pain from him, but the wolf hadn't quite pounced yet. It was waiting for an opening.

The wolf I was dealing with was now between me and Joey. I didn't know how well this thing's AI was, but the closer it got to Joey the more sure I was that it was about to turn around and make a swing for him. Joey had his back turned to it.

He wasn't at risk of falling to 0 HP from this dumb wolf. Even if it dug both claws and teeth into Joey it would do maybe 40 damage to his 68. The real problem was the lurking wolf in the brush. If Joey was getting mauled by one, the second would finish him off.

The wolf pounced for me again. Only this time, after I deflected his claw it retreated a few steps. It was so close to Joey it was stepping on his books.

"Come on, mutt!" I goaded. As it growled, I tossed my other tonfa at its face and pulled out the warclub. "I know chihuahuas worse than you!"

Almost like it was intent on proving me wrong, the wolf pounced for me once again. But rather than dodge the attack I brought up my front leg, the one with the shield on it, and jammed it down the wolf's throat.

"Ow, Ow, OW. OW! OW!" Through the blue code that flew out from my arm, I watched my HP sink again.

The shield helped to keep most of its teeth from cutting my leg but the thrashing around kept making it worse. So, whether by panic or anger, I brought up the warclub and started smashing it into the side of the Timberwolf's head again and again with each hit taking out a tenth.

My health kept falling.

When the wolf's HP was a few points from zero, it tried pulling back.

The only problem was that now its teeth were stuck and I had twisted the buckler in its mouth. I wasn't letting go.

The pain got worse as I screamed, bringing the warclub down on it one last time. The wolf tried bringing up a leg to block but it did nothing. Instead, the warclub crashed through it and struck the wolf in the temple, turning both skull and leg into blue code before the rest of it followed.

In a grunt, my leg was now free from the jagged teeth and I looked it over. All over were thin lines of blue that code pouring out. My entire leg was numb.

I looked at my HP bar. 5/75. That was a dumb idea.

"Alex!" Joey, hearing my Timberwolf breaking into code, turned away from the Timberwolf still in the bush and ran behind me. "I can't hit hiiiii—what happened to your arm?!"

I slowly brought my leg down only to realize that the pain had already vanished. Right. A game, I reminded myself. They wouldn't have real pain inside a game.

Ahead of us, the Timberwolf found the closest spot from the treeline to us. By this point we were in the middle of the clearing and Joey got at least gotten two good hits in on the bigger Timberwolf. Not to mention the Timberwolf saw what it believed was the weaker of the two of us, me, take down the other wolf single-handedly.

"You gonna be okay?" Joey asked, firing another blast of magic towards the glowing eyes. The eyes simply shifted to the side as the blast passed by.

"Yeah. It's already fading." Even as I said that the blue cuts sealed back up and now the numbness in my leg was entirely gone. "I don't think I can play meat shield anymore."

Slowly, the Timberwolf began to step out from the treeline. Without the foliage to block its health bar, I saw that it was somewhere around two thirds full. That was still more than enough to rush at us, take me out, and then maul Joey.

As it took a few more steps at us, I stepped to the right and slowly picked up a tonfa. Since this Timberwolf was bigger, hitting it with a warclub might not have been the best idea. Using my speed was a smarter plan.

"Joey," I put the buckler away and had the tonfa on one leg and the warclub in the other. "When I say now, I want you to wait until the wolf finishes moving to the side and then fire at it. Okay?"

"Uh. Okay," He said slowly, not looking away from the wolf. "Why's the wolf gonna move sideways?"

"Don't worry about that." I walked past Joey slowly and started moving closer to the second tonfa. It was too far away for me to walk to it. If I strayed too far from Joey the Timberwolf would lunge. "Just keep watching the wolf. You'll see when it moves. Just blast it while he's moving to the side. Okay?"

The Timberwolf took another step closer to us. Its patience was waning.

"Okay." Joey nodded. "When?"

"Right..." I stopped walking and turned to the wolf, warclub raised high in my foreleg.

"Now."

I threw my warclub straight for the Timberwolf's head and made a run for the second tonfa.

I couldn't see what happened next. Instead, I listened as the Timberwolf let out a growl and heard the lack of a warclub hitting something. Then, as I told him to, I heard the pulse blast from Joey's wand.

As I was diving for the tonfa I heard two more distinct sounds. Wood cracking, a wolf's yelp, and the sound of magic impacting something.

Scooping the tonfa in my now free hoof, I quickly turned to charge right back into the fight. However, when I got my wings ready the only thing I saw was—

Level Up!

Lv. 1 → Lv. 2

"...Wha..." Shaking myself from the confusion, I leaned away from the text box and looked on toward Joey and the Timberwolf. Or rather, Joey and a bunch of code fluttering away.

"It. It's gone!" Joey cheered. "Alex, it worked! I killed the wolf!"

"You-you did?" I started to glance around the clearing. That's not right. How's it already dead?

The only damage it took before was me hitting it twice. And, level 2 or no, Joey's magic still wasn't stronger than two strikes. And there was no critical hit chance in the game. That's what the beta testers said on forums at least.

Enemies Defeated
2 Timberwolves

Team Rewards
Bits Obtained: 6
(1) Timberwolf Lumber
(2) Timberwolf Leaves
50 XP

Your Share
Bits Obtained: 2
(1) Timberwolf Lumber
22 XP

Quest Update: Shop Up Some Wood
All materials have been collected! Return to Oaken Handle to turn in the supplies.

When we were running away from the big Timberwolf earlier, I remember a similar pop up with the rewards on it from the two wolves we did manage to kill.

I guess Joey did it, I admitted. Maybe Joey being level 2 was strong enough? Or maybe Joey hit it more than two times? Are there intsa-kill tricks?

"Woohoo!" Joey cheered with a small hop. "Mission done!"

Through all of my thoughts I watched Joey bound across the clearing like a fool. He let his wand just sit nearby on the ground as he just kept bouncing around.

"This game is so cool!" He continued shouting. "Do you think I'll get to shoot anything else from my staff when I get more levels?!"

I let myself smile a little. "Wh-Who knows. You might just get the power of lasers or something."

Joey gasped. "Magic lasers..." He ran back over to his wand and picked it up in his magic, waving it all over the place like crazy. "We need to fight more wolves. Right now! I want my lasers!"

To demonstrate, Joey started making laser sounds as he fired regular pulse blasts at the trees around us. Some of them made their mark and other just sailed off for who knew how long.

A good twelve or so 'lasers' from his 'staff' later and Joey's magic depleted. Joey paused to stare at his wand before boredly sheathing it and walking back over to me.

As he did, I saw his gaze shift above me where my health bar floated. Right now it read 32/87. My max was a little higher than Joey's now. Probably due to me taking more damage than he did at level 1.

However, as he stared up at my health and then looked over his, which was already back to a full 82/82, he seemed to calm down a little; almost as though he was a little upset.

"So, um, what should we do now?"

"Well." Turning to my HUD in the corner I saw that the clock had read 6:29. "We should probably log out for a little bit. No doubt Dad's chomping at the bit to hear about how everything's been. And if there's no 'Breaking News' then Mom should be home already too. I bet she'll want to hear all about Joey the Wolf Slayer."

"That's Light Chill the Wolf Slayer, thank you!" Despite the 'anger' in his voice, Joey was smiling with glee. "And I think you're right. I'm getting kind of hungry anyways."

I already knew that the hunger was part of the game but Joey had a point. Our real selves were probably hungry too. Especially since I didn't even eat anything before going into the Nervegear.

"Yeah, let's go home for now." Joey started to open his menu. "Besides, Dad said that he wanted to play the game too. He wanted to see how real everything wa—

In a column of light, Joey was gone.

"Wha. What?" I straightened up and started looking around. "Joey? Joey?!"

I ran over to where he was standing and tried reaching around with my hoof. Nothing.

"Joey!" I turned around and started looking in every direction before throwing my wings down to go skyward. But as I got about ten feet off the ground—

Another column of light appeared and I was swallowed whole.

Author's Note

Something that I thought I should bring up is that in these author notes, I'm going to answer any questions people may have. So if you guys want to ask anything in the comments or give any criticism, please do so. It all helps and means a lot!

One thing I wanted to clarify is the chapter names. Every chapter is going to have a day in it. For example, these first five-ish will all have (Jan. 22) because that is what day it is in the story.

The story won't follow for each day, there will be time skips ranging from a few days to even a few weeks. The chapter titles will help give a good timeline.

With that said, I hope you all enjoyed!

Cheers,
-Zeke

The Final Boss Himself

As fast as the light blinded me, it vanished. I went from taking off into the air to standing plainly on the ground in the middle of town. My wings were folded along my back as I was set to a default pose.

All around me, columns of light dotted the plaza and players were left standing around. Like me, all of them stood plainly so no one was mid-attack or flying in the air. Although a few of them let out war cries or fearful screaming when they appeared.

I ignored the lights and looked around. It didn't take long to spot the landmarks and realize we were all being summoned to the starting area. Everyone around me were confused or angry but I didn't recognize any of them.

Before the town center filled to capacity, I tried running around, calling out Joey's name every several seconds; I checked each nametag and the small gems that hung above our heads. Players had regular green gems above them. But for players you befriended, you could customize the color of the gem to recognize it. Joey's gem would be blue.

After another minute of running like a madman, I begrudgingly accepted that Joey was somewhere else and probably looking for me too. With all the players, it was too packed for me to walk. But for Joey he could squirm around faster.

"Gamers and Players!"

A loud voice suddenly boomed through the crowd like a yelling megaphone. "May we have your attention please!"

Gamers and Players, I reviewed with a snicker. Aren't those two the same thing?

The ambient noise of the crowd grew silent as we spotted a group of four alicorns flying above us. I don't think they were character from the show as the lead alicorn wore a bright red coat and long white mane. Imagine a pony version of 'Fabio' and you'd be right.

The lead alicorn, which I have now elected to call Princess Fabio, waited until the crowd was good and quiet before continuing.

"Everyone. We are the administrators of Equestria Legends Online. We are in charge of analyzing the system and keeping it running in top condition."

I felt my body relax. Oh good, I thought. It's the admins. This was probably some introduction to the game; maybe even an announcement that they were about to have a day 1 patch. They probably wanted to have everyone logging out so they can get it over with.

"However," the head admin began. "Right now we are experiencing several technical difficulties in the system." My guess wasn't far off. "One of which, as some of you might have noticed, was the absence of the logout button in your player menus."

Oh. The logout's malfunctioning. I rolled my eyes with an instinctive snicker. Not a problem. Accounts and social media sites have those issues all the time. We'll just force quit the game and...

And...

Wait, WHAT?!

I quickly summoned my menu as he spoke, as did a good dozen other players around me and—oh shit—he was right. No logout prompt. Not even a box for it.

Blank.

"This is a major problem—" YA THINK?! "—since there is no other way for anyone to leave the game. We do not know the cause for this malfunction—" Oh, great. News is getting better... "—but please bear with us as we try to fix this problem. While we try to find what's causing this, for your own safety, please remain in the Ponyville Square for the time being."

My hoof started shaking violently as I continued staring at the lack of the logout button. I wasn't the only one either. Several reactions poured out from the crowd. Some people shouted questions blended with strings of profanity from others. On the other end, players kept tapping their menus for a workaround. The hackers or tech-savvy kind had no clue what to do either.

As all this went on, players shifted through the crowds. Some walked, others shoved, and a couple of pegasi players flew to avoid the crowds. In the moving and panic, I heard people begin to snap at both admin and player alike.

"Woah."

"Hey, watch it."

"Calm down!"

"So that's how these work!"

"Whoop. Sorry!"

Among the chaos, one of the pegasi players, a mare in darker colors, flew up halfway to the admins. As the crowd's attention was on her, she took the moment to ask the big, blazing question.

"What do you mean you don't know what the problem is?!" The lady's shout held no fear. If anything, she was probably making herself seem angrier just to get the point across.

Princess Fabio—yes, I was still going to call him that—remained stern in his expression as he watched the Pegasus. "This problem isn't from a lack in the system. So we don't know where the problem might have originated."

It took me a second to realize that he didn't answer the question. Not really. Whether it was the system or not, the problem was in the game that They created. If something bad happened then they should already have plans in place to figure out what caused it.

The fact that they were instead here, doing damage control, meant that they were biding for time. That, or they were just as confused as us.

And that's when the flipping Sun turned off.

The crowd's silence shattered once more as panic spread. Except, now when people shambled around, they were running into each other. In the first couple of seconds, a few players ran into me despite standing still. After the fourth player struck me they let out a sharp gasp.

"Alex?!" A young voice called out. "Alex is this you?!"

"Joey?!" I immediately turned around and tried looking for anything. But with the sun still gone and the gems above us all not actually lightning anything, I only saw the blue gem hanging in the air next to me.

"Alex!" I felt someone close by walk past and then, nothing.

"Hey, get off!"

To my left, I heard another voice shout before Joey's blue gem got forced back a couple of feet.

"Joey?" I called out to him again and reached for the blue gem before lowering my hoof. As it tapped a small-sized unicorn's head, I quickly pulled him in.

The next few seconds were chaos before the two of us finally got our bearings in the darkness. As we did, I had Joey climb up on my back so that we wouldn't get separated. Since he was less than half my size in-game, him standing on my back wasn't a problem.

"Alex." Once Joey got his balance, he spoke again. "What's going on? Who were the ponies in the sky?"

He had no idea what was going on because he wasn't paying attention. He spent all this time trying to track me down rather than listen to MMO jargon he didn't understand.

Before I could explain anything, a dark and menacing chuckle echoed across the square. The laughter's audio was perfect and clear. It felt as though we were all listening with headphones.

Worried, Joey wrapped his forelegs around my neck. He was afraid that if he let go the maniacal voice would find him in the darkness. I wasn't doing any better though. I was stiff with nervousness as I kept telling myself that I was in a game. Just a game. In a town where you couldn't be hurt.

Honestly, I wasn't sure if that rule still applied or not. The sun turned into a lightless mass and we couldn't leave a video game. Dinosaurs could be bursting from the ground right now and that wouldn't be unexpected.

"Oh," A sadistic voice hummed happily, the chuckling trailing off in an echo. "I think that I might know what the problem is."

That voice. Not only was it sadistic but it seemed grim at the same time. Like, the more we were scared, the more entertained it became.

The other thing that coupled the tone was that the voice was familiar to me. Even if I didn't watch the show I definitely knew enough about this voice. Joey knew it too. It belonged to his favorite character.

“Wait, is that...?!” On queue, Joey's attitude shifted dramatically. He let go of my neck and I could feel him trying not to jump for joy from my back. He probably had a huge grin on his face right now.

A flash of lightning lit up the entire square and then stopped moving. The lightning bolt was frozen in place as if time broke with the sun. The crowd grew quiet again as floating above everything was the silhouette of a creature with an impossible body baring down upon us.

Discord.

“That would be me,” he answered. Wait, answered?

Not everyone seemed to notice him lounging on the frozen lightning right away. The only thing visible past his silhouette was the eyes that seemed to give off a faint yellow glow.

Then, a second bolt of lightning flashed across the sky, freezing in place like the first one. Now as both bolts traced the sky it gave off enough light to fill a stadium. Every player could now spot the amalgamation that was Discord.

His design was always particularly kooky. As if a four-year-old pieced him together. But now? Seeing him in person felt more ominous. Especially if he had even a fraction of the powers from the show.

That was the thought going through my head as Discord flashed an enthusiastic smile at us all. And despite the smile and 'upbeat' attitude he displayed, no one felt happy to see him.

Well. Almost no one.

"Oh, that's what this is!" Joey cheered from my back. "This is part of the game too!"

An all orange-colored earth pony, a smaller red earth pony with dark greenish hair, some heavyset looking purple earth pony, as well as a few other players all turned to stare at Joey and me with differing levels of confusion. I had no choice but to take it.

However, the only response Discord gave was laughter towards all of our shock and fear.

"Hello, My Little Bronies!" His voice stemmed from him and yet it felt as though it were echoing behind our brains. "And hello to you, my good administrators."

Discord gave a mock bow towards them as he flashed an evil grin.

"Hello!" Joey called out, making us an even bigger target of idiots.

Stop talking! I demanded in my mind.

The admins had none of his shenanigans. Without fear, the lead alicorn stared Discord down. "How can you be the cause of the problem? You are a program in the system we designed ourselves. You may have partial control of Equestria, but you don't have the power to change the layout of the system completely.”

He has partial control? Of a system they designed...They designed. But, they're in said system. And if they're in the same system Discord's a part of then...

And if they're now in the system Discord can control, if even partially, that means that their activities can be controlled by Discord. And if Discord can control the admin's activities then...

Oh no.

"The admins control Equestria," I said blankly.

"Huh?" Joey stopped shifting around. "What was that?"

"The admins control Equestria. They're inside Equestria."

"...Okay?" Joey didn't sound like he understood.

"So?" That purple earth pony from before looked to me now.

"So," I turned to him. "Discord can mess with parts of the system. They just said it. But admins have the keys to mess with the entire system. A system they're inside of. So if Discord can screw with anyone inside..." I trailed off.

The purple earth pony's attention snapped back to the admins and Discord. "Oh shit."

The standoff between the leader and Discord was between one's glare and the other's relaxed smile. Although, as Discord rested his chin in his paw, his eagle talon casually snapped its fingers.

In one bright flash of light, Discord vanished altogether and reappeared behind the alicorn, walking away from him as though he were on solid ground.

Joey giggled along to this, earning another disturbed look from the same earth pony, whose user ID I saw was doomviper. In response, I just gave him the same worried look that I was giving this situation. Truthfully, I didn't know what to do.

“Oh, but you already know the answer to that,” Discord started, looking over his shoulder. “You designed me to be exactly like the 'me' in your television show, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.”

He disappeared again before popping into existence besides a random unicorn player; causing him to practically fly skyward in shock. “That really is a terrible name for a show, don't you think?” That time, his voice didn't echo. It had actually come from him.

Joey's laughter turned to a small gasp before he gave a somewhat dejected look. He was sad Discord didn't jump us. He really doesn't get what's going on. But is that even a bad thing? What happens if he realizes this is real?

Before overstaying his welcome, Discord teleported right back to the red alicorn, this time on his back as though riding a trusty steed. “You see, you gave me control over reality in Equestria. But with this power, I hacked into the rest of the system, giving me power over the entire program,”

So my idea had a chance. He could’ve tricked the admins into pressing the wrong buttons or something. If he could warp reality, who’s to say he didn’t warp their vision or trick them or something? Maybe there was some kind of brainwashing. Didn't he do that in the show?

“Oh. And to make sure I stay in power.” He gave them a sinister grin as he snapped his fingers towards them. Four bright flashes of light then surrounded the four alicorns and watched their wings and horns disappear.

All of them plummeted to the ground below. However, rather than crash into the audience, they all fell into the fountain that was in the center of the square. None of their health bars looked lower from the painful crash. Not even the one admin who's head impacted the marble of the fountain.

Joey's giggling suddenly faltered. We were towards the front of the crowd and in clear view of the crash; Joey especially since he was on my back.

Joey tried looking to me to figure out what I thought of this. Rather than let that happen, I kept looking down until Discord inevitably talked again. Joey didn't need to see me freaking out.

Discord rose higher into the air, laughing like a madman as the still frozen lightning began to move once again. But rather than dash across the sky with a thunderous boom behind it, the bolts instead slithered and coiled in the air like snakes.

“Now the admins are just plain earth ponies. And, I've also taken power over their admin codes. They won't be able to do a thing to change my world,” His world? What does he mean his 'World'?

“As for all of you, I will let you keep your wings and horns while you play in a game of mine.” He waved his eagle claw in a shooing motion as if he were waving a smell away from him.

It took about three seconds before the crowd voiced their anger. Many of the players shouted profanity and complaints at the floating god in the sky with the confidence of death row.

Meanwhile, other players that towards the front were rushing to the aid of the admins to help them. Unfortunately, one of them were did the opposite as he shoved an admin back to the fountain.

The players and admins tried breaking up the fight but it wasn't working. As this went on, more players tried waking up the admin who struck the marble. That one admin, by the way, had not been moving all too much since the impact.

From everywhere else we watched some Pegasi players debating whether to fly into the sky to make their voices heard. However, other players instead settled for shouting louder. This purple doomviper guy was a great example of that as he had been shouting with the crowd. The mixture of choice words spewing from this guy made Joey even more uncomfortable than before.

“Alex,” Joey half shouted. I couldn't hear him otherwise. “Why's everyone so angry?”

I lowered myself from the ground and had Joey step off of my back. Him getting a view of the crowd was a bad idea. Especially as the riot at the fountain kept escalating.

I did my best to ignore it all and gave Joey the best smile I could. Then I did the only thing I could think of. Lie.

I wasn't a perfect liar; not like our mom at least. Still, Joey had never called me on my lies before. So, ignoring the chaos around us, I looked Joey straight in the eyes.

“Don't listen to them Joey," I spoke evenly. "This is all still part of the game, remember? Everyone's just getting really into it."

“I..." Joey flinched at the next line of complaints coming from the purple pony. Some of his words were, unfortunately, familiar to Joey, others were more exotic. Some too exotic for me to know. "I don't think so. They sound really ang—”

ZZIIIIP

A chorus of zippers shutting spread across the square.

Then silence.

Not a single player in the entire area said anything as they, as well as Joey and I, stood there each with zippers forcibly attached to our mouths.

No, I corrected myself. I tried running my tongue along the inside of my lips and instead felt the cold metal of the zipper's teeth. Not attached. Our lips are zippers. We have two rows of teeth!

Joey didn't wait for an explanation. He started screaming. Or rather, he tried to scream. It was muffled behind the zipper and barely louder than the jingling of the tab as Joey was thrashing his head in every direction.

He leaped back onto my back and clung for life like a koala. As he did, I and every player I saw tried unzipping their mouths as we all lost our courage. No matter what we did, the zippers never gave an inch. They were jammed shut. To make matters worse, whenever I tried to pry the zipper open it felt like I was trying to pry a tooth out of my gums. Even after a let go the pain stayed.

Pain? I thought. I feel...Pain?

“My, I haven't even told you what the game is, and you're already anxious to get started. The game that I have in mind is a bit of a scavenger hunt.”

“a avan-er un?!” Joey tried talking, but that was all that he managed to get through the zipper.

“I have taken the Elements of Harmony and placed them all in secret hiding places; inside and outside of Equestria. Your job is to find the Elements and use them to reach me. There, we will have a fight to the death. If you manage to retrieve the elements and defeat me, then I will allow everyone to log out,” Discord concluded.

Discord lowered his head towards the crowd. “But it won't be as easy as you think. You see, I've added a few features to the game. In the original system, if you died in the game, you would instantly respawn in the last town you were in. But that's too boring for me.

“So I re-wrote the system so, when anyone died, their avatar would be lost," Discord continued, "And their Nervegear Helmet in the real world will fry their brains.”

What?!

The crowd stiffened up as Discord leaned down towards us.

“In shorter words; if you die in the game, you will die in the real world.”

The entire crowd gasped from under their zippers. So did both of us as Joey finally decided to fear Frankenstein's Zoo Monster.

Discord's response was uncontrolled laughter as he took in our expressions. Then, for whatever reason, Discord traced a line across his neck with his talon and had us watch as his head fell off.

The head rolled down his arm and into his lion's paw; causing Joey to trip and fall off my back entirely. The crowd had similar reactions but Discord didn't seem to care. His head just continued a mad cackle as it sat in his paw.

“No need to lose your head over it,” He joked. Discord then allowed our zippers to unzip and disappear all at once. They weren't needed anymore. No one felt like speaking.

“And, also," Discord's head melted in his paw before he pulled a new head back out of his vacant neck. "If there is any tampering with the helmet in the outside world, the helmet will kill the player instantly. Actually, quite a few players have already died this way.”

“...He’s lying," Joey muttered. "He’s lying! Ruh-Right Alex?!” Joey glanced over at me at the wrong time as I looked more terrified than he was. "Alex?"

So much for trying to tell him myself, I cringed. I tried looking straight up at Discord so Joey still couldn't see my face. Though his silence forced me to say something.

“I...Uh. Joe. Dis. Discord doesn't—” Before I could even come up with something, a player to our right, a dusty-gold coated unicorn mare, turned to blue code and dissipated in seconds. A dark brown Pegasus behind her looked even more terrified than I did.

A lump fell in the back of my throat. “oh no...”

I looked toward Joey whose eyes were as wide as mine. He hadn't seen the evaporating person; thank god for that. What he, instead, saw were the different sized clouds now appearing around Discord.

In these pink and blue clouds, cotton candy, I noticed, there were images and videos on each of them. They were all of news broadcasts showing that people on the outside were already reporting was going on about the game.

Some were interviews from people, probably other moderators, and some were images of the game itself with text from national networks. However, one 'news cloud' caught our attention.

The cloud, like all the others, had a title floating above it reading “Channel 8: Breaking News!”. Projecting from that cloud was a single reporter talking outside the newsroom; a reporter we recognized instantly.

“...Alex." Joey's voice was a tremble. And with a shaky hoof, he pointed at the same cloud I saw. "That’s Mom.”

In that moment, I remembered back at the forest what I had told my brother.

“...And if there's no 'Breaking News' then Mom should be home already too. I bet she'll want to hear all about Joey the Wolf Slayer."

Mom was a news reporter for a local network. If there wasn’t an emergency going on she was home before six. Now it was 6:30 and underneath her, in the box, it read 'INCREASING INCIDENTS FROM VR GAME'.

There was no audio for the broadcast. Not that we could hear it anyways. However, while the cloud passed by, we got a good look at Mom as she spoke.

Something about Mom was that she had the toughest poker. She wore the best fake smile and even after growing up in the same house as her there were times where I still couldn't tell if she was genuine or faking it. It all stemmed from how well she did at her job.

Only, as I watched her report on news that had something to do with her children, her tough poker face wasn't only cracking.

Mom was losing all the chips.

She couldn't hide the tears welling up as she stifled to keep everything under control. To her credit, it didn't look like she had stopped talking. She kept reporting.

“Now, in this game, there are a few rules,” As everyone’s attention went back to him, all the clouds faded away instantly. Including Channel 8.

“NOO—” Joey tried screaming in desperation, but I held his mouth closed. Not now. Not now was I about to let Joey become a target of Discord. Not when I found out that the god could fry us whenever.

“First," he began. "You cannot receive help from the outside world. That is if you can even manage that. If I catch anypony communicating to the outside world, all of you will die. Second, any tampering with the system from inside the game, the rule-breaker will die instantly.”

Joey started thrashing until I let him go and was rewarded with a glare.

“And just so you know, I have a couple of monster friends who want to go out of their designated areas, so I'm letting them roam a bit. Maybe you'll meet them when you go out of town, but they won't follow you into a city or town. They hate crowded places.”

Discord drummed up more maniacal laughter. “But a few of you might have thought, 'There's only six elements, so this will be easy.” I might’ve been thinking of a ton of things right now but that was not one of them. Discord could bet his snaggle-tooth on that.

Joey backed away at this point. I was thinking the same thing. We were closer to the front than I'd like to be. But rather than keep an eye on him, I kept a focus on Discord's explanation.

“Well, I'm sorry to burst your bubble.” He started to belch out a bubble that soon enough expanded to become bigger than his own size. “But I thought that only six elements would be boring. So I added four new elements,” he popped the giant bubble with his eagle talon and it popped into ten smaller bubbles. Each one showing a different artifact-like object.

“They will be hidden all over Equestria, but they will be guarded by my favorite kinds of monsters, just like a boss of each element. If you find the element and defeat its guardian in a boss battle, then you may walk away with it in hoof. But I must warn you, my guardians are no pushovers.”

One of the sluggish lightning bolts suddenly began acting as normal and flashed behind Discord, somehow lacking the thunderous boom that was supposed to follow. “Well, there you have it! So just remember, your lives are on the line, not mine.”

He started laughing in our faces as the second bolt of lightning struck behind him silently before both bolts went back to slowly slithering like snakes.

“So, My Little Bronies…” He drew in a breath for dramatic effect as the rest of us simply continued to glare at him. “Let the games..."

"BEGIN!”

Both bolts of lightning ran wild once more and an echo of thunder rang out across the square, startling everyone. The sound and light forced many of us to shut our eyes and flinch. And at that moment, Discord was gone.

But the laughter remained.

Even when the thunder and lightning faded. Even when the setting sun turned back on, Discord's laughter didn't stop. For the next minute, it was the only noise against the silence.

Everyone patiently waited until the laughter faded. Everyone was too busy processing. A few players tried and failed to break the immortal ice while others simply walked off. They wanted out of this plaza.

And I couldn't agree more. So I turned to Joey to tell him where we...

He was gone.

"Joey?" I started looking around. He wasn't next to me.

“Joey?!” I shouted. But he wasn't there.

"Hey."

I looked over at doomviper pointing towards one of the streets leading out. "I saw him run in that direction."

Following where his hoof pointed, I spotted the road immediately. It was smaller and not too many other players went that way.

"Thank you," I shouted before using my wings to push into the air and searched for any sign of my brother.

Author's Note

I mentioned before that this was a side-story to the original ELO story. As a result, this chapter follows along with the last 1/3 of the original's chapter since every player is brought here.

This won't happen too often. Especially as the original story skips to mid February. This story will be at a slower pace at first, bouncing around late January for its first 'arc' I guess you could call it.

Other than that, I'm going to be doing my best to have this story stay canon to the original story.

I hope you all enjoyed the chapter! Until next time!

Cheers,
-Zeke

Sacré Bleu

Joey's POV

I reached the edge of the plaza just as Discord's laughing finally stopped. Good, it was kind of freaking me out with how it sounded so close all the time.

No one else seemed to be leaving the plaza yet. Good, I thought. Maybe that meant I was the first one to leave. If I was right, that just made me feel even better.

I came to a stop when the road split into several different directions. It's a good thing that there were street signs at almost every turn. They pointed to all of the places that were in the show. Including the one I was looking for.

"There," I shouted joyfully, following the sign.

I was almost sure I wasn't the first one to think of it but I still wanted to try being the first one to get there. Everything back in that big open place was definitely pretty scary. Especially when everyone started getting angry at the game. But come on. How was a video game supposed to be dangerous?

Mom and Dad always said that some games were really violent but they didn't hurt people. Actually, Alex told me that's why some games were really violent in the first place. Like whenever people walk away and scream at a wall or something.

They all explained it better when they told me, but all I needed to remember was games didn't hurt people. So this game wasn't dangerous.

So why was everyone being so stupid and upset? That whole thing with Discord and the alicorns was probably acting or something like that. So after people calm down or do what I do and get the elements, then the game makers will let us go home.

I mean, it was Discord. In the show, he said that rhyme and the ponies just had to find them 'where they began'. Simple.

I looked stopped running for a second and looked behind me. Still no one following. No pony in the air either. Awesome! Maybe I really was the first to start looking. I think I'm doing pretty good on this MMO thing after all. Maybe I'll have something to tell Dad when we get home.

Or Mom.

A small shiver went down my spine. Why did they show Mom on those clouds? And why was she so sad? I was sure that she was talking about the game but, I mean, why? If everyone was trapped inside then how did anyone outside the game know we were trapped?

And, well, the part Discord said about...dying, was weird but there's no way that was real. Alex did say it was weird for a My Little Pony game to be T. But Discord talking about dying sounds like something a T game would have.

I shook my head and refocused. It didn't matter. After we get home then I can ask Mom why she was so upset about the game while Dad has his turn doing that 'renegade' thing with Alex.

...Oh no, Alex!

I turned back towards the main area with all the players. I can't believe I ran off without telling him anything. Oh, he's going to be mad...

I took a moment to cringe while I pictured his angry shouting. Him and Dad both.

"Maybe I should hurry," I mumbled to myself, spinning around before running through an alley for a shortcut. "If Alex catches me before I get there, he'll force me to stay away for making him worr—"

"Atten—!" "WHA—"

??? POV

Before I could even get a word out, the small figure running into the alley rammed into me at top speed. I wasn't responsive enough to try dodging in time and so both of us were sent crashing onto the cobblestone path.

The figure, a child by the sound of it, let out a painful groan. It looked like when they fell, their head thumped against the aluminum can set up in the alley.

I did my best to turn so I was laying on my stomach at least. I was in the game long enough to get some semblance of being a pony but it was still odd at moments. Not to mention I had next to no experience playing any kind of game, much less VR. Everything felt alien to me.

It didn’t take long for the child to recover. He slowly got up on all four hooves and shook his head to clear his mind. Once I saw that with him standing and me still somewhat taller, I was sure it was a child. Possibly a boy too.

Then again, a lot of these ponies seemed shorter than me thanks to my legs being longer than most others.

"That didn't feel good..." He mumbled something to himself before finally noticing me. Or, well tried to. The alley had no light so he couldn't see me well. But as I stood up, he took a few steps back.

"O-Oh. Uh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to do that." He seemed really upset as he spoke. Then a thought seemed to come to his mind. "Uh. You weren't going towards the...The, um..."

I watched him awkwardly, trying to figure out what he wanted.

"...Uh, f-forget it. I'm sorry. Gotta go, bye!"

And like that, he ran past me and back out of the alley where I had come in from without anything else.

I waited for a few seconds to see if he was coming back but then I quickly realized his running was getting further away from me, I turned to follow him.

"Erm, attendez," I shouted after him. "S'il vous plaît, attendez!"

Before I could reach the alley's exit, I felt my leg step on something and nearly slide out from under me. I stopped to catch my balance and as I looked down, I found myself standing on a small, disc-like object that wasn't there before.

Curious, I used my magenta colored magic to levitate the disc in front of my face. As I did so, I quickly figured out it was a some sort of shield. But it was so small compared to all the others I noticed in the marketplace. I would sooner call it a toy than a real shield.

Unless it was the child's, I surmised.

I opened my mouth to call out to him but it was a waste of time. Wherever he was going, it was already too far to hear me. So instead I clicked my tongue frustratingly.

Well, now what do I do?

I started walking through the alley again, stepping out the side the child had entered from. Why was he in such a hurry? I thought everyone was at the plaza. Well, everyone but me obviously.

I left as soon as that goat monster appeared from the sky. It looked so uninviting, to say the least. That wasn't all either. Many of the people around me gave me these odd stares.

I had no idea who any of them were either. I came into the game entirely on my own. And I was almost positive that I would not find any of my friends either. To tell the truth, that was the real reason I left. The flying goat was simply a second reason.

There wasn't anything keeping anyone from leaving either. The pathways were open. Some of those people tried to say something to me but that didn't matter. Then, as if the game was telling me not to leave, the sunlight vanished and I was forced to follow the street lamps.

But the last straw was when my mouth literally turned into a zipper. A zipper which, by the way, would not open regardless of what I did. These hooves wouldn't work and using my magic just made my jaw feel sore.

By the time I debated whether or not to use the dagger I had bought I realized this was ridiculous and went to the menu to 'Log Out' like my cousin told me.

Except there was one more problem. The 'Log Out' button was nowhere in that annoying menu. I read every option it gave me, while my mouth was still a zipper and the sun was missing, and I had no idea how to get out of this creepy game. And while I was in that menu, I wandered aimlessly until—Poof! Here I was, lost in an alley.

I frowned at the little shield in my grip and sighed. I wish Cateline was with me. I have no idea what I'm supposed to do without her and I just want to go home.

"Joey? Come on, are you there?" A voice called out from above.

Oh now what? I looked around for the origin of whoever was talking.

Alex's POV

I called out for him each time I flew over an alley or whenever the road turned as I felt myself getting more winded by the second. With all of the sporadic flying I was doing, my flying ranked up to 3 but that was all the progress I made on anything.

I figured that I needed to take a breath or else I was going to collapse before I ever found him. So slowly I got myself closer to the ground before letting myself fall the last 7 or so feet.

The guy said he ran this way, but I've already passed ten different roads. He could be anywhere by now. How do I track him down?

I started pulling up my menu. Joey and I never formed a group since we stayed close in the forest. Besides, all making a group would do is let me see Joey's HP bar under mine. It wouldn't tell me where he is anyways.

"Maybe I can send him a message," I muttered under my breath as I found his name in my friends list. The idea died before I even clicked the PM button. "No, it'd take too long. And would it even tell him if he got a message?"

"Um...'Xcuse-moi?"

I blinked and closed my menu. Down the road about twenty feet from me was a figure walking over towards me from down the lane. From the username and gem floating above them I already knew it was a player.

"Erm, yes?" I squinted my eyes but thankfully the player took the hint and walked into the light where I could see them. More specifically a her.

Their coat, or at least the coat around their head, was a pure white with a pinkish mane to match. Then, poking out from under their mane was an obvious horn and light-purple eyes with eye shadow added on top of it all.

As if that wasn't enough, the player was a whole head above me and most other players I saw in height. The avatar was so different from the base form that I almost questioned whether or not this was actually a player and not an NPC. If it wasn't for the green gem above her, I wouldn't be shocked either way.

"You're not Joey," I said with half sarcasm and half disappointment.

"Jo...Joey?" She repeated, trying carefully to pronounce the name. "Euh, non monsieur. Mon nom n'est pas Joey." She spoke in a quiet tone. As if she wasn't sure talking was the right choice. However, from that alone I knew her accent matched the language.

"French?" I narrowed my eyes. "Are you speaking French?"

She slowly nodded along, some hope coming to her eyes. "Tu parles français?"

Suddenly, I regretted not putting as much effort into French class as I could have.

"Erm..." I sucked in air through my teeth, knowing I was going to be wrong. "Je...parle petite français?"

I saw her eyes light up as she giggled at my attempt.. Then she started nodded. "Eh, oui—non. Yes. Yes. Français!" She looked like she was going to applaud if not for the tiny Frisbee thing in her hoof.

Now I feel like she's taking pity on me. As this girl tried to find the next thing to say to me, a new set of questions were going through my head. The Nervegears weren't restricted to only America but ELO was.

Interviews and articles said that for a player base to work for something like the Nervegear the servers needed to stay national at most. If the server had a weak connection, the game wouldn't let you login in the first place. France and other European countries were still setting up servers with their own game. But they're release was set for next month. So how did she get in?

"Pouvez...you, m'aider?" She spoke slow so I could follow along.

"Aidez? Aidez is...help? You need help?" I gave her a tense expression. "With what?"

"L-Log out?" She said, pulling up her menu as I cringed.

She didn't understand the admins, I thought. She has no idea what's going on, does she?

When she looked up from the menu she saw me trying looking visibly unnerved and her excitement stalled. "Log. Out?"

"...non," I let out tensely. "Nous." which meant we. "ne logout pas." Which meant we can't log out.

She gave me a long look. "Nous ne pouvons pa? Que voulez-vous dire?"

Don't know what that meant, I cringed again. "Désolé." An apology was all I gave her.

She turned back to her menu and kept poking around for a moment before closing it with a very confused look on her face.

I can't stay here forever, I thought. I need to find Joey.

"Rachelle," I started, regaining her attention. "Tu...see," I said, mimicking the action. "vu mon frère?" Which meant my brother.

"Votre frère?" She glanced behind her for a moment before returning to me. "Était ton frère...unicorn? Petit, bleu at jeunes?"

Small, blue, and young, that's him! "Yes! ye—oui. Oui, Joey est bleu et jeune!" Her excitement picked up again when she saw mine.

"Okay," I mumbled to myself. "What's French for where? What's quoi, why's pourquoi...When's quand? So where is—"

"Ici." She cut in. "Votre frère a laissé tomber ça."

"Hold on, I don't know that. Much..." I watched as she levitated a small shield in front of me.

"That's Joey's," I told myself.

"Est-ce à votre frère?" She blinked.

"Eh, oui. Ce est Joey's...buckler." I was pretty sure buckler was a French word at least.

"C'était donc Joey," She muttered before looking back to me. "Je peux vous...guider où Joey allait.” She nodded with a small smile.

Où is French for where, I remembered. Wait, guider? Guide. "Oui, merci. Guider. Uh, s'il vous plaît! Guide moi à Joey!" I took a breath of relief, glad to finally get catch a break.

Should probably introduce myself, I thought. "Uh, je m'appelle est Alex, ou...Aussi E1ectric_B1itz." I pointed up where my ID was. "Comment vous appelez-vous?"

She let out a soft chuckle before mimicking me. "Je m'appelle est Rachelle, ou...Aussi F1eur_de_7is."

The name seems a little on the nose, doesn't it? I bit back that question for now and gave her a small smile. "Salut Rachelle. So...guider?"

"Oui Alex." she nodded. "Suivez moi."

She turned and started off down the road with me running behind her. Not too long after, she turned and led me down a short alley as it led out onto another road.

Wherever you are, I'm coming Joey.

Author's Note

So, this chapter is much smaller than the others as you all probably noticed. That's because while the other chapters were written a long time ago, this one was rewritten.

Nowadays, I write chapters about this size. I think it makes it a better read since you're not forced to either read a daunting chapter in one go or take breaks just to get through one.

Also, second note: F1eur_de_7 looks exactly like her name suggests: Fleur de Lis. Rachelle's story will be told later but because her appearance won't be fully explained; she didn't make her avatar. Someone else did.

I hope you all enjoyed the story so far! I don't have a schedule in mind but I plan to have another chapter before the end of the year. So until next time,

Cheers,
-Zeke

"Back Where You Began..."

Joey's POV

I pushed the bottom half of the door open and flinched when it let out a dry squeak. Bu after a few seconds of no answer, I poked my head inside the building.

"Hello?" I called out, glancing around the dark room. The curtains were all closed so none of the sunset's light helped to brighten the space. "Is anyone already here?"

I took a couple of steps into the entrance and waited. Still no answer.

A smile came to my face. "I'm really the first one? I thought other people would already get here. Awesome!"

I closed the door behind me and proceeded to push a nearby chair up against the door and leaned it so the back of it was wedged underneath the doorknob. Like in some of the older cartoons I saw.

"I can't believe I'm actually the first one to get here," I cheered. "I'm gonna help win the MMO game!"

I saved any actual celebrating for later. As I looked around the room, I saw shelves and shelves of plain looking books. None of which looked like the one I was looking for.

Although I guess that did make sense. After all, this was Golden Oaks Library. The place that Twilight and Spike lived in the first part of the show.

I didn't really read anything online or watch any videos about the game like Alex did. But one of the things I did know was that the game makers were building Equestria to look like what it did at the start of the show. So the tree castle wasn't here and the library still was.

I was kind of disappointed in that. I wanted to see what Ponyville looked like from the top of that weird looking tree. But now that this whole Discord thing was happening, I get why they did it now. We had to get the Elements just like the characters did in the older episodes.

It even worked right down to what Discord's rhyme was in the episode. Find the Elements back where you began. The library!

Well, back in the town Discord said he hid them all over Equestria but, I mean, this was where he hid them in the show. So there had to be at least one of them here.

I just had to find the right book...

I walked up to the center table and spotted my first victim; a book laying open towards the door. I used my magic to drag it off the table and watched both it and a few supplies crash to the floor in front of me.

"Okay, not the right book," I announced to no one. The first hint was that the book didn't have a secret hole inside of it to hide the necklaces. The book was all in one piece and had what looked like a list instead of a story. I could probably read it too if it wasn't for lack of light in here.

Actually. I blinked. I might want some light if I'm gonna find that book in here.

I opened up one or two of the windows and let the sunlight in. It wouldn't stay there for long though. It was already getting darker.

So I spent the next minute or so looking around for a light switch or something. And while I did find some candles, there wasn't anything to light them with. And those tutorial books I had didn't say anything about how to make fire.

"Wait, the books," I called out, opening my menu and pulling out the three books I still had. The fourth one was gone when I smashed it over the Timberwolf's head.

I chuckled at the memory of that before I opened the book beside the window. It didn't have any fire magic but it had a few things. Levitating and moving stuff, which is what I was doing with the book, bringing out stuff from the menu without using it, which I didn't read yet, and then there was one more useful thing.

Light.

It wasn't a long read, just like the levitating. Mostly it told you to imagine making a ball of something and then think imagine there being a light bulb inside of it.

It was a pretty easy thing to do, actually. And since I was thinking of a light bulb, I thought about flipping a light switch and—

To my side, a glowing ball of light flickered to life, lighting up the entire room in a bright light. I had to shield my eyes from it though since the light showed up right next to my face.

"Too bright. Too bright." I levitated the orb upwards into the ceiling so it lit up the whole room. As far as the book said, as long as I put more magic in the orb every minute it would stay like that.

With the light, I closed the big book I pulled down and glanced at the front.

"Library Book Records," I read aloud. And under that was a note that read 'If you remove a book, do not put it book. All books will be returned by the librarian.'

I glanced around with a neutral look. "What librarian?"

"You called?"

"Wagh!" I jumped a good three feet in the air and scuttled away from the sudden pony that was standing right beside me. "Who are you?!"

"Why. I'm the librarian," he said chuckling. "How can I help?"

I looked him over for a second. He was a unicorn with a gray coat and black mane that looked kind of spiky but otherwise a regular horse's mane. He had these red pants on too so I couldn't see a Cutie Mark.

"W-Well," I started. "I'm looking for a book."

"Well good news, we have plenty of them," he told me as he moved his hoof in a sweeping motion towards all the shelves.

"Well, I need a specific book," I went on. "It's kinda big and the middle of it's probably cut out, I think."

"My that sounds like a terrible book. Probably a quick read though." He chuckled at himself again. "Would you like to be more blunt?"

"What was that?"

"I said more specific," he told me with a grin. "I mean, a lot of our books are very big."

"Well..." I glanced back at the front door and windows. No one here yet. But this librarian might let them in if they try opening the door.

"I-I don't know." I shrugged. "Um, the one from the show? At the beginning?"

He hummed with weakened smile. "You're not one for playing along much, are you?"

"Well, I gotta get an Element before everyone else gets them first," I admitted. "I mean, Discord made more of them but there's still only ten."

"Oh right. I heard about that," he mused before turning around to walk towards the shelves. "Big news at the square, new rules, yada yada yada. Something like that, right?"

"Yeah, I think so." I nodded. "It's kind of weird for a game about MLP though. I mean, the zipper thing was pretty cool thinking back on it and the lightning looked awesome when it went all slow but it got scary when everyone started screaming at Discord like that."

"Thank you," he told me as he reached the first shelves, pulling a few books down with his levitation. "A lot of them were taking it too far, weren't they?"

"Yeah!" I agreed. "It's just a game anyways."

"Exactly," he went on. "That's what Discord said at least."

I smiled. "Yeah, he did. He said it was going to be a big scavenger hunt." The librarian lowered the books in front of me. None of them were like the one from the show.

What did the one from the show look like again?

Either way, I took them in my own magic and tapped them to send them to my menu. I didn't know if saying no would be rude or not.

...Wait.

"Were you there when Discord showed up?"

"Of course I was," he said with a grin. "You didn't see me?"

I frowned. "I don't think so. It was dark for a while and there were a lot of ponies there."

He shrugged. "Fair enough." He went back to the shelves and started taking more books off the shelves and passing them to me. I didn't really know why though.

"Hmm. Interesting."

"What?" I watched him.

"I already knew that I wasn't going to get the chance to talk to any of you but I didn't expect it to be so...pleasant." He said that last word like he didn't like the way it sounded. It was the first time he frowned since he showed up too.

I didn't really get what he meant. "Talk to who?"

"Oh, forget I said anything."

After what was probably 20 or so books now in my menu, he stopped walking and pulled out one more book. "Ah, here's what you wanted. The Reference Guide to the Elements of Harmony. Right?"

Holding it up, I instantly recognized it. A huge brown book with a gold horse head on it. It was...a lot more plain than I remember it being.

"Yeah, that's it," I beamed. "That's mister library pony guy."

"Oh no. Thank you." He kept chuckling as he tossed the book to me. Right at the same time the orb of light I made went out.

"Hu—" the book crashed into my face and was left clutching my long nose as I cried out in pain. "Why did you throw that?"

Through the pain, I used my magic to make the orb all over again and let it float a few inches above me. Meanwhile, that librarian was again nowhere to be found.

"He-Hello?" I called out but there wasn't an answer.

"That hurt, ya know!" I shouted anyways. Creepy librarian.

Either way, I had the book. And after I picked it up in my magic I used my hooves to throw open the cover and first half of the pages to the open compartment.

Revealing a tiny Discord sitting in an armchair and his face in a newspaper.

"Wha...What?" I blinked.

"Hm?" Discord lowered the paper, showing he had no face since it was still in the newspaper. "Oh. Why Light Chill. I haven't seen you for...how long has it been, ten seconds?"

I backed away from the book. By now I stopped using magic to levitate it but that didn't matter. The book was floating on its own now.

And it was growing in size.

It grew in size until the book was as big as the wall and Discord was regular sized. Then he simply stepped out, tossing the paper past his head in a way where it looked like his face reappeared. Even if it had a few ink stains.

Heh.

"I expected one of you to try the whole 'it was in the show' idea but I didn't expect it so soon." He vanished in a snap just as the floorboards beneath me tore free from the ground, lifting me in the air like a platform.

"They, they weren't here?" Normally Discord looked really cool from the show but now that he was walking around with me it felt wrong.

"I did say that each Element would be guarded. But then again, you did leave before I could finish telling everyone, didn't you?"

I felt my ears flatten against my head. "You saw that?"

His chuckle sounded just like the librarian. "I should. After all."

My light orb went out again. But only for a moment as ahead of me the wall was illuminated by two yellow, oval-shaped lights that were Discord's eyes. But rather than see his pupils, it was dozens of screens all acting like cameras that were watching the players of the game.

"I see everything."

"Oh," was all I could say. His voice didn't sound like Discord. Not really. In the show it always sounded like he was playing a joke. But now the fun part sounded fake. Like this wasn't just all some kind of joke.

"So. Um..." I glanced at the edge of the floating platform. "...I was kind of hoping the Element would be here so that my brother and I could go home."

The projector eyes blinked and all the screens were replaced by yellow discs with red misshaped dots. "Just like that?"

That time the fun part of his voice was back like back in town but now I noticed it wasn't right either. Like it was a different kind of 'fun'.

"Y-yeah. I mean, the game makers can't really keep everyone here. We're gonna go home once this part of the game's done right?" One of the projector eyes curved inward. Like Discord was trying to figure out what I meant. "Those are called cut scenes. That's what the town meeting was, right?"

"You really don't understand what's going on, do you?"

I feel like my answer should be a no. But I said nothing.

"...Well in that case, I guess my little show wasn't as good as you were telling me it was."

Suddenly the lights in the library all turned on at once and the floorboards lowered me back to the ground before they and several others started floating over to the windows and door. Blocking them.

"Or, on the other hoof." I turned to my left to see Discord set up in one of those gamer chairs with a huge screen in front of him. He had on a soda hat and was typing out something with newfound energy.

"Perhaps an encore is in order?" He looked to me with a mean smirk before he went on typing.

"What's that supposed to mean?" I slowly walked towards him.

"You mentioned you had a brother, right? Let's just say, I'd hate for him to miss what's about to happen next." After a few more buttons pressed, he took the monitor and crumpled it up like a towel, wringing it as a bunch of blue code spilled out onto the floor.

Then with a flick, Discord unfurled the monitor letting it fan out into the size of a blanket and left it suspending in mid-air where an image formed on it like a flat screen.

My curiosity got the better of me. "What's about to happen?"

"Simple." He snapped his fingers and suddenly I was sitting in a plush recliner with a bucket of popcorn and a big drink on either side of me, facing the blanket TV.

Then Discord, who was seated in a second recliner beside me, snapped his finger again. And in a bright flash, every piece of furniture and book in the library was now replaced with an equal amount of red sticks of dynamite.

Enough TNT to make this library and every building near us reach space.

Discord got comfy, putting on a pair of 3D glasses. "Your death."

Author's Note

We have about 2 more chapters following the first day. Let's hope they're not all that explosive, shall we?

I don't really have too much to say here. I didn't expect to write this chapter so soon after the last one. All I can really add is that I hope everyone is finding the story interesting.

So, until next time,

Cheers,
-Zeke

Off With A Bang

Alex's POV

Come on, where are you...

I stood on the top of the tallest building on the street. Aside from a red warning popping up in my face for 'trespassing' I didn't see anything new.

It had been more than 10 minutes since Discord left and players were slowly petering out of the plaza off in the distance. It mostly meant that other Pegasi players were flying off towards other parts of town for their own reasons but other players were bound to flood the streets too.

It didn't help that NPCs were slowly reappearing out of their houses too. I guess when the admins called that meeting, they reset the AI too. That only complicated things.

"Alex?" From street level, Rachelle called out to me. "Tu vois ton frère?"

"Non," I returned. "Don't see him..."

I leapt off the house and flew back down onto the street, ignoring the AI shouting at me from her window. "Where would he go? The forest is in the other direction. And he wouldn't run off without having a reason."

"Joey se cache-t-il?" Rachelle asked.

"Huh?" I gave her a sad frown. "Répéter?" I said that whenever I didn't understand what she meant. Thankfully, she caught onto that.

So to help, she repeated 'Cacher' as she covered her eyes. Eventually, I got the word.

"Cacher. Hiding," I said aloud, to which she nodded. "Non. Joey ne cache pas. Joey...stay close," I explained, mimicking Joey standing beside me. If ever something happened, Joey would stick near me or our parents. Running and hiding wasn't his MO.

Just then, an envelope symbol with an orange '!' popped up in my vision. It was in the opposite corner of my HP bar.

Confused, I opened up my menu and saw that I apparently had a message. From Joey.

I started tapping buttons like a madman until the message opened.

From Light_ChiII:

Hey Blitz! I got to the library before anyone else did! Hurry before someone gets here! We're getting the Elements first!

"Library?" My brow furrowed. "What library?"

As if to answer my question, another pop up came to my menu. This time it was a gift from Joey instead of a message.

Light_ChiII sends a gift!

Updated Map

Do you accept?

-Yes
-No

"You can send gifts from a distance?" I hit yes and watched my map open for me. Joey's map fading in and filled in more blank space within Ponyville.

So he never left town. I gave a small sigh of relief. He was safe. Still lost, but safe.

Thanks to Joey's map, I saw the route he took getting from the plaza to the library he mentioned. And at the end of the path the map went the extra mile to show the library on the map itself, shown as a giant circle with the name of said library written beside it.

Actually.

Seeing where we were on the map, I flew back up onto the house's rooftop.

WARNING: You are trespassing.

It popped up the same time that stupid NPC yelled from her window again. I didn't care.

Looking in the direction from the map, I could see the library towering above the other nearby buildings; a giant lived-in tree like something out of a fairy tale. There was a large space between the library and any other buildings as well.

It was maybe a twenty-second flight from here.

"Rachelle!" I looked down to her. "I fou—!"

From behind me, a flash of light illuminated the town. Then, a heavy rumble echoed outwards in every direction almost shaking me off of the rooftop.

Rachelle jumped onto the floor, holding her head in what she assumed were bombs. She wasn't wrong.

Before my mind told me what was going on, my body spun around to look back at the library. Instead what my body and I saw was a massive cloud of smoke and timber as the library had blown to smithereens. From my vantage point, I could already see the massive black scar of soot and ash spreading out from where the library was just standing.

The burst of hot air brushing past me is what made me finally react.

"JOEY!" I shrieked, still staring as the dust continued to clear.

I cleared the map and the warning out of my display and made quick work of the menu, resummoning my tonfa and taking into the sky while my voice was getting raw from screaming.

"Alex!" Rachelle yelled. "Je ne peux pas voler!" Her voice got dimmer the further I flew after the library's cloud.

The twenty seconds I thought it would take me became twelve as I perched on the building whose side was charred black from the explosion.

By now, most of the debris had fallen away and dust was the only thing in the air. It made everything difficult to see from above.

Realizing this, I glided down and broke out into a run as smoothly as I could towards the library. As I got closer it only now started to dawn on me that I was running towards an explosion rather than away from it. That made me slow down and watch my step.

"Joey? Are you there?" I asked. I hesitated to say anything by this point. As if talking would make another explosion.

For the next minute I kept looking around, walking up to piles of rubble or random odds and ends that somehow survived being inside the library when it exploded. Mostly books.

Although every book was now a varying level of destroyed and the game was calling each one 'Ruined Book'. I guess the game had a separate design for ruined books so those that were too damaged got changed.

Then, as the dust settled enough to let sun rays through, I noticed a reflection. Towards the center of the wreckage there was a large green glass box where dust was resting on the top of it.

But inside was the kind of reclining chair you'd find at a movie theatre but with a crazy design printed on it. And resting inside was a cowering little unicorn.

"Joey!"

I ran over, nearly tripping over pieces of broken wood and books in the process and planted my front hooves on the glass. "Joey, are you okay?!"

"Al...Alex?" Joey stopped hiding his face in his hooves and looked up. "Is that you? Where are you?"

"I'm right here! Can you see me?!" I started knocking on the glass which only made Joey flinch further into the chair.

"I...I'm." He shivered. "I'm sorry..."

"No, it's okay Joey. It's fine. You're okay. I'm okay. We're all okay, alright?"

"Well, I wouldn't quite say that."

Joey's shaking went still as a new, familiar voice claimed from behind me.

I turned around and suddenly there was a doorknob suspended in air up against the dust cloud. It turned and suddenly a part of the dust cloud opened like a door with Discord walking out of it with a potted fern in one arm and a smug grin on his face.

With his free hand, Discord turned to the smoke and took a big whiff, vacuuming up most of the dust in the process before letting out a satisfied breath.

"Ah, you can just smell the chaos in the air! Do you like what I've done with the place?" Discord asked me.

He tossed the fern towards me and let it smash halfway, revealing that the fern was actually a spider with leaves for legs. It landed, looked at me with its red beady eyes and hissed before crawling away.

"Although," Discord lamented, tapping a talon to his chin. "We might need more than a rug to tie the room back together."

"W-What are you doing here?" I slowly reached a hoof towards the tonfa on my back.

"Why, I was invited," he told me. "After all, this was supposed to be my real introduction."

I furrowed my brow and said nothing.

"You mean, you didn't know?" He mocked surprise as he opened part of his body like a coat, reaching inside and pulling out an old leathery book. "The 'game makers' as your brother likes calling them put this book in the library as a reference to that little show of yours. Whoever opened it would be able to meet yours truly.

"But since this game all of these quests that lead you to this library to find this book, I had to do something," he said with a dramatic tone. "After all, now that I'm in charge of, well, everything."

As he said that, every object in a hundred foot radius suddenly grew a mouth to say that one word in sync.

"I, unfortunately, will have to cancel this little meet and greet." He blew at the book as though it were a candle and it as well as whatever dust was still remaining vanished. "There. Now, every quest that leads to this library is cancelled. Your brother was lucky enough to be my first and last customer."

"Discord," Joey breathed.

"Oh, and there's the lucky lad himself. Now what are you doing in that box?" With an amused tone, Discord floated over and smashed his lion's paw through the top of the case.

Joey, now able to see something, watched as Discord lion's paw started reaching and grabbing around for Joey as Discord looked away with his tongue stuck out. Like he was reaching into a raffle.

"Now come on," Discord come. "There's no need to be afraid of dear old m—GAAAH!" Discord flinched as Joey sank his teeth into the paw, forcing Discord to pull away.

Funnily enough, Discord's health bar showed up. Joey's bite probably did one point out of thousands but it was something.

Sadly, Discord was not so pleased. "Why you putrid little." His tone lost all joy as he let out an agitated growl. "Get out here!"

Discord's eagle talon started glowing with a dusty gold glow and with one sweeping motion, the glass case went flying and Joey, along with the chair, went airborne until the case proceeded to shatter against a large section of wall.

Joey was freed from the box as he fell to the ground with a groan. Before I could try to running at him, Discord teleported in front of Joey and levitated him upwards so he was at eye level with him squirming to get free.

"L-Lemme go!" It sounded somewhere between a plea and demand but he wasn't stopping.

Discord gave a dark chuckle. "If you say so." Discord bent down and traced a finger in a circle underneath Joey. Then, with a knock, the piece of floor fell revealing a deep pit that glowed with a sinister red color.

"AH! No, wait. I changed my mind. Don't drop me, don't drop me!" He was trying to grab at the golden aura to stay held up but all he caught was air.

Discord clicked his tongue like a disappointed mother. "There's just no pleasing you, is there?" He turned back to me.

"Is this how all of you players act? Because if so, I might be doing the admins a favor. Regardless." He turned back to Joey and lifted him just that much higher in the air. "Have a great fall, kid. It was nice kno—"

Joey fell out of his grip the same time that the pit vanished, meaning that he landed on dust and soot-covered floorboards. Meanwhile, his neck grew out a little, allowing him to turn and look to me while his body stayed unnaturally still.

As for me, I was mid-air at the moment with tonfa in both hooves. More specifically, one tonfa at my side and the other held forward where Discord's head was when I smacked it.

Discord took a moment to stare me down with an incredulous look on his face. One that made me slowly realize what I just did; attack the final boss of an MMO at level 2.

Slowly, Discord's body turned so it was realigned with his body. It was like watching a snake. Then he started to snicker. "I'm morbidly curious. What exactly was your plan here?"

"U-Um...Uh, I, erm," I stammered for a second. "I wanted to—" My voice was cut off by a lion paw crushing my throat. Rather than use magic to hold me, Discord settled for choking me.

"Alex!" Joey stood up himself and instantly backed down when Discord looked back at him.

"Ah, so this is the infamous 'Alex' you've told me so much about."

"Liar," both of us said in unison. Joey didn't talk about anyone behind their back. He preferred poking fun at people to their face.

Discord snorted. "I should have expected. I suppose brotherly bonds can never be broken." He wiped away a tear in the shape of a crocodile with his other hand.

Then an arrow struck Discord in the torso.

Discord glanced down at it like it was a minor inconvenience. "What an interesting way to say hello."

With another snap of his fingers, my body went stiff as a board as a lightning bolt symbol appeared under my HP bar. Paralysis.

Then, Discord picked me up by the leg and was suddenly wearing a baseball player's uniform. Then he held me behind him like a bat.

“Hey batter! Hey batter-batter, hey batter, hey batter, hey batter—SUH-WING-A~!” I was swung with the velocity of a jet as my head smacked into two more arrows, knocking them away like balls. As they flew back to the archer, they transformed into nets.

My HP didn't go down but I still felt the impact of those arrows as Discord tossed me aside, letting the paralysis fade from me. At the same time, the nets were already returning with Rachelle and her bow captured.

"Well, looks like the gangs all here." Discord said, teleporting a few feet away, sans uniform. "I must say, for two level twos and a level three player, this was more fun than I thought."

Rachelle kept fighting against the net as I slowly started to sit up from being tossed away. At the same time, Joey was trying to decide whether running or staying put was a good option.

"I'll tell you what." The three of us looked back to him. "As payment for keeping me entertained, I'm going to give you three rewards."

"Oh, like what?" his stare shut me up real quick.

"First," he began, holding up a finger. "I won't kill you. Tonight at least. That should be more than enough, but I’m feeling generous today.”

“You don’t look like Rarity to me,” Joey spat in revolt, trying to mimic me. And despite my place, I found myself chuckling right in this god's face.

Discord, however, accepted the challenge. He waved a hand past his face and suddenly his head had morphed into a white unicorn with swirly deep purple hair. But under the heavy mascara, he batted his still yellow and red eyes.

“How about now?” His voice was no different either.

“Eww…” Joey summed it all up right there. Sadly, Discord kept Rarity’s face just to spite us.

“Wish two,” He snapped his fingers and a notification popped up. It was about the quest I accepted earlier.

Mission Update!

Shop Up Some Wood

Conditions: Bring in supplies before *12 PM (MST), Jan. 23rd, 2020*

That notification only showed up for me but it mattered so little right now that I didn't even try to focus on it.

"...And." I took a moment to stand up. "What's the third thing?"

"Actually, this is more a reward for your brother. He is the one who got to the book first. And he so excited about that, too."

Joey went white as a sheet when he heard that. Although Discord didn't react as he teleported right up in my face. The only good side was that the Rarity face was now gone.

"That said, I would hate for you and the miss over there to feel left out. So for her." He scooped up a nearby book and brushed it a little, transforming it into a different book before tossing it to her. "A script of everything I said at the plaza. I'd hate for her not to enjoy the game from a language barrier.

"And as for you." His mouth curled up into an evil grin. "Have a nice flight."

"A nice fli—" The only thing I heard was one last snap from his fingers and suddenly I was standing on a tiny cloud. About a mile in the air. And I was paralyzed again.

I couldn't even talk. All I could do was watch as the cloud proceeded to get smaller and smaller, revealing more of Ponyville below me. And while I was paralyzed, I noticed that I couldn't even close my eyes let alone open my wings.

So, when the cloud finally got too small, I fell.

Author's Note

Admittedly, this chapter and the two before it are total rewrites from the original. But what took a 9k+ chapter and a 3k+ chapter are 3 shorter chapters that get to the point.

I had a problem where I took way too many words to say one thing. Probably still a problem but less so I hope.

Also, Discord's not going to be a main character. Instead, he's the mastermind in the background. The reason he showed up at the library, as mentioned in the story, was that there was an event where you'd be introduced to Discord as the antagonist.

He even played along with that event before his big reveal. You can imagine the players that saw the event before and are now rightly terrified.

Thank you for reading the story so far. This will the last chapter for the first day in the game. The next chapter will take place days later in the story.

Cheers,
-Zeke

Broke Adventurers

Alex/E1ectric_B1itz's POV

History Rank Up: Rank 4!

That was the text box that got in my face as I tried finishing this book. It was the third in the series called Equestrian Landmarks. It was boring but it added location names to my map. It didn't fill any of it in but, hey, it was something.

By the time the message finally vanished I tried picking up the book to finish the last page only for another pop up to get in my way.

Level Up!

Lv. 2 → Lv. 3

I watched my HP raise ever so slightly and saw a notification telling me to check my new stats in the menu.

"Huh," I huh'd. "Didn't realize it was that close."

I let that pop up fade away and finally finished up the book before tossing it into my inventory. Ever since I fell from the sky I forced myself to lay around at this scorch mark that was the library.

To make matters worse, have you ever had a moment where you pulled a muscle and you to stop and wait for the pain to pass? Well imagine that across your entire body for...How many days has it been again? Oh right. Six days.

The game had this system where any damage you took was weakened. So being stabbed with a sword felt like a friend poking you with a sharp pencil. Hurts, but whatever, right?

However, if you take so much unimaginable pain, the game can't nullify all of it. I don't know how it works but I assumed what the game was doing was taking all the pain of smashing into hard rock from 5000ft and giving it to me in bursts.

So for now I couldn't go out to fight mobs or go into town without seizing in pain. It took real effort to walk into the marketplace and turn in that quest while I fought the urge to collapse every five minutes.

Thankfully, Rachelle had stayed with us. Since I was the only one she knew that could sort of understand her, she was running errands so we would all stay fed.

In fact, that's what Rachelle and Joey were doing right now. I had Joey go with her this time since he always looked guilty whenever he saw me. I figured it would be good for Joey to be distracted. A grocery run seemed like the safest way.

Not to mention it let me deal with something else.

I stood up and stretched for a moment. Even in the game your muscles could get a little sore. Bonus points for realism I guess. And at the same time I did, I spotted a lone blue friend crystal walking towards me without a player underneath it.

The moment that the crystal passed over the wooden floor that was the library site, a gray mare with a dark gray cloak appeared under the gem and stopped in place as she did, glancing at me awkwardly.

"..." From under the cloak she locked eyes with me. "...You can see me, can't you?"

"Uh-huh." I nodded, holding back a smile. "You don't have that ability thing down yet, do you?"

She took a moment to mourn her pride and sat down in place. "Not exactly. I keep forgetting there's a timer that pops up on my HUD."

"Hmm," I hummed. "You should probably use that."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm aware." She tried her best to ignore the embarrassment as her attention was drawn to something else. "You're level 3 now?"

"Just happened. I noticed a couple days back that ranking up your skills gives experience. Doesn't boost your stats much though."

On top of these 'geology' books I read, there were books with tips on weapons skills, recipes for crafting and even tips on fighting monsters which brought up weak points. Each of those books helped raise my skills.

Add to the fact that the first 7 levels need barely any experience and these skill ranks were the safest way to climb. But since everyone that went training was already level 7 or higher, it was slower.

"Speaking of those skills, can I buy those books from you now?" She pressed. "I need to start selling those before the players realize there's a bigger library in that capital city."

"Canterlot," I informed her. It was in one of the geology books. "And you do realize that I could just as easily sell them, right?"

"You said you wouldn't, Alex." She frowned. "And I said I'd buy them from you first."

"Relax Gwen," I sighed, letting myself smirk. "I was kidding. Here, I'll start a trade."

We opened up our menus and eventually a trading tab opened up. It was something only players who were friends could do since it meant that we could see each other's inventory. Cash count included.

Gwen was one of a few players who came by the ruined library. After the initial explosion and me falling from the sky, most everyone left us alone the first day. Then a few of them tried asking questions.

Once people found out it was Discord's handy work, beta testers and admins were pretty quick to point out almost every side quest led to meeting him here. That's when everyone assumed we were the idiots that set off a trap. So they took pity and kept their distance.

Gwen was one of the few players that tried to reach out. She sent me a friend request and once she learned that we had over fifty books that survived the explosion, she wanted to buy them to resell in this bizarre black market startup.

I call it scummy but if she was trying to be nice about it then I guess there was a silver lining.

Gwen glanced up at me. "So did any of those books mention where those artifact things might be?"

"The Elements," I corrected. Like me, Gwen didn't watch the show either. "And no. Not anything obvious at least. But it did mention some secret locations."

"Oh?" I could hear exactly how much she wanted to hide her excitement. "And which books are those?"

I dragged the two books into the trading tab which Gwen traded with 60 bits. "Pretty sure they're not gonna help. A few of them talk about some dungeons though. Even a secret level for the Ruined Castle."

"Wait. Ruined Castle?" She blinked. "Even the beta-testers admitted said there's only three floors."

"Books say there's a fourth." I shrugged. "One book talked about a lost vault. Written as if it was a thief's journal."

Gwen didn't hide the smile on her face anymore as I watched the cogs turn in her head. "You're telling me that the Ruined Castle, Baby's First Dungeon, has an entire level devoted to stuffing gold in it? That no one knows about yet?"

"Something tells me the admins know about it." I frowned. "And if they're not telling the players than that means it's not important enough to bring it up."

"Maybe for them." She rolled her eyes. "They're admins. Word is they own that giant castle looming over us." She pointed up towards the mountain where, indeed, there was a castle big enough to see from here. "Of course they're not gonna care about getting money!"

"Do you hear yourself right now? You sound like every money-grubbing asshole that's ever graced a cartoon."

"Can ya blame me?" She asked. "I don't want to risk my life fighting monsters for artifacts that, let's face it, I'll never be strong or lucky enough to help get. I would much rather get to the capital, save money for a shop or something, and stay out of the way of the players who can actually win."

"And, what, you just wanna stay in the game?"

"Of course not." she diffused my glare with an eye roll. "But I know I'm not a fighter. I want to live. Don't you?"

I groaned. "Don't rope me into your get-rich schemes."

"Why not?" She shrugged. "You told me you have a brother, right? You can't just live in this crater the whole time. And the more you train and fight, the more danger you're in. If we get this treasure vault, we can all settle in inside Canterlot nice and safe."

"Why do you want my help to get in a vault you just now heard about?"

"I can't solo a dungeon," she laid out for me. "And I don't have a party."

"Don't you have 'clients?'" I asked with air quotes from my hooves.

"Sure, I have 'clients,'" she mimicked me. "But I don't know there whole parties. And whose to say they don't backstab me and take it all?"

"Whose to say I won't do that?"

"Your brother." She smirked. "Just from meeting you two I know you won't do it. You're easy to trust."

"It's getting harder to say the same for you," I lamented.

"Come on," She pleaded. "You. Me. French girl. Maybe one other person," she danced around saying his name. "We'd have a balanced team, not too many hands in the pie, and you and I both play video games constantly. Said so yourself. And it's a secret treasure floor in the first dungeon of the game. This is our lane."

"Uh. Alex?"

Both Gwen and I, who only now realized how much we looked ready to bust out our weapons, broke out and looked over to see Joey and Rachelle standing there with small bags of groceries.

"Salut," Rachelle spoke to Gwen. "S'est-on déjà rencontrés?"

"Uh..." Gwen turned to me. "Translation?"

"Déjà is already," I worked. "And recontrés...Reconter. Recont...She's asking if you met," I figured out.

"Oh. Um." She cleared her throat. "Yes. We met...Days ago," she tried to mime out the last part.

"Ah." Rachelle proceeded to walk over and set the bags on the makeshift table, giving a nod to Gwen as she past.

"Um...Hi," Joey said weakly. "We got apples. And, um." Joey looked miserable. "I found a quest in the town that had us go from tent to tent. I didn't leave the town though."

I tried to put on a smile. "That's great Joey! Did you get anything out of it?"

"Uh, yeah." He nodded. "It was a food pony. He gave us a discount and some chocolate bars."

"Chocolate bars?" She blinked. "Do they actually taste like chocolate?"

"Yeah. It's pretty good actua..." He paused when he looked back at me then instantly got guilty. "I-I only wanted to eat a piece of it but then the food was going to go away if I didn't finish it. I'm sorry."

"Joey, it's fine." I told him. "It was your reward from your quest. Besides, we can buy more food."

"Euh." Rachelle caught my attention. "Nous...n'avons pas de Bits."

"No more Bits," Joey translated. The one time I didn't want him to.

"No more Bits?" Gwen echoed in mock surprise. "That's terrible~. Alex, what do you want to say about that?"

I tried to melt her face with my glare. It didn't work. But since Rachelle still understood Gwen's tone, she looked wary.

I sighed. "We don't have to worry about the money for now. I bought some stuff from this pony." I turned to Rachelle and, in a few words tried to repeat what I said.

"Please don't call me pony," Gwen asked with no enthusiasm.

"Really? Th-Thank you." Joey smiled softly.

"No problem." She took a second to return the smile only to pause. "Say, look at you kid. You're the same level I am."

"What?" Joey froze for a second. "Oh. Uh. Well. I-I don't really have much to do so I kinda look at the books we have. Alex said they help level us up so I guess I just read a lot of them. Or something."

I watched as Joey debated between watching for my reaction or watching the floor. When he realized how awkward he looked, Joey instead summoned three chocolate bars with his magic.

Without his menu.

"Chocolate bars?" He offered.

I watched him for a moment as a chill ran down his spine.

"Joey," I started. "How did you just do—" "Do what?" He cut in quickly.

"You just summoned chocolate bars." "No I didn't," he spoke fast again.

Unlike Mom or myself, Joey got his lying skills from Dad. That meant he had none. But with Dad, he knew he was a terrible liar so he tried to work on it. Joey had no such experience.

"I heard about Summoning," Gwen told me. "Apparently, Unicorns with a Magic skill at 10 or higher can summon items from their inventory."

"No-we-can't." Joey just kept digging himself deeper.

I took a breath. I read about skills in those books. Unicorns got unique skills but the Magic skill was not one of them. In fact, everyone had a magic skill. Joey's levitation boosted his Telepathy Skill.

"Hey Gwen?" I started, knowing that Joey would just deny everything I asked. "Humor me for a second. How does one boost their Magic skill?"

"Why, by using magical weapons like staves and wands," She explained, spotting the wand stowed against his leg. Joey then used his magic to stow the wand in his inventory.

"Really?" I clicked my tongue. "But weapons don't do anything inside of town."

"Not inside of town, no." Gwen shook her head. "Joey? Where have you been?"

"Nowhere." He was looking between both of us. "I go nowhere. I'm always here."

"...Send me your map." I told him.

"What?" He blinked.

"Send me your map as a gift," I repeated, still completely calm. "When I ran to the library, I got your updated map. So if you've been out of town since then, I'll see it. Send me your map."

Joey looked between me and Gwen and even to Rachelle who was walking up beside us. She didn't know what exactly was happening but the words magic and Unicorn she knew in English. Rachelle was probably connecting the dots.

With all three of us waiting for Joey to tell us the truth, he slumped his shoulders. "I'm really sorry Alex."

I took a breath and gathered my thoughts. "Joey. When and why were you going out of town?"

"I...I go out at night." He squeaked, making the three of us have varying levels of worry on our faces. "I don't go into the forest or anything. I just go outside and practice shooting magic with my staff. I don't go into the forest or anything though. And when I shoot at monsters, I run back into town before they get too close."

"You're fighting monsters on your own?" I felt my eye twitch.

"O-Only when they're by themselves," he defended. "And there's usually other people shooting at them too."

"You should not be near them," Gwen cut in, catching me off guard. "You shouldn't hang around those people."

"What? Why?" Joey asked.

"Yeah. Why?" I parroted.

"Just..." She tried to choose her words very carefully. "Some players are starting to get a little...too into this game. Know what I mean?" That last part she directed to me.

It didn't take me long to figure what she meant. So in a quite voice I asked, "Player killers?"

"Rumors."

"Well, they don't seem too bad," Joey argued. "And, this is supposed to be a game. "We can't stay level one forever, right?"

"We..." I didn't know what to say to that. "Well. That's...Not the problem," I struggled to say. It's going to be later though. "You can't go out on your own like that."

"W-Well...Rachelle comes too!" He pointed directly at her with his hoof.

"Non!" She flinched. "Non je ne! Alex. I. Do. Not."

"She even taught me how to aim far away." Joey said that and much more as Rachelle struggled to deny any of it thanks to the language barrier. It eventually broke down to her trying to say sorry and no louder than Joey could accuse her.

I put up with it for another ten seconds before I flew into the air by a few feet.

"Alright, that's enough!" I shouted, demanding everyone's attention.

"Rachelle. Tu ne...M'as pas parlé de Joey." I didn't know what the story was but I knew she was with Joey and didn't tell me. And when I pointed that out, she deflated. She knew it was on her at that point.

"Joey, the monsters are worse at night. If you wanted target practice, you could've asked and we would've gone in the day."

"You wouldn't have let me go," he accused.

"I would if I came with you," I told him which made him go back to looking guilty.

"Even with that pain problem you've been having?" Gwen challenged.

"Have you seen it since you got here?" I asked her, still flying in place. "It's only come up twice today and I can fight through them. By tomorrow I'll be fine. I think."

"And what do we do then?" Joey asked. "Even if this pony lady—" "Stop calling me a pony. Either Gwen or Gray," Gwen cut in.

Joey built his courage back up. "Even if Gray gave us money, it's not enough. Those apples cost 5 bits each. We'll run out again. And...I don't wanna be stuck here. There's no walls and whenever Rachelle and me come back, there's people watching you sleep."

"I know this place isn't..." My eyes went wide. "People are watching me sleep?"

"Yeah." Joey nodded. "The last two nights there were people watching. The pony guards keep passing by the library though so they don't come too close."

I suddenly felt very paranoid. It took me a minute to realize that looking around us would only make Joey more concerned. "Alright. I wish you told me this morning. Or yesterday."

"If I did you might've asked why I was up at night."

"That." I paused. "Is very true. You're right. Still, I wish ya told me."

"If I had to guess," Gwen started. "Those are probably players who are eyeballing the library. Even if all the quests that lead here are gone, the NPCs still give out rumors. Some of them say that the library has books to help adventurers. Another reason why I want to sell these books."

We can't stay here anymore, I thought. But the inns are expensive. We'd have to go hunting for mobs everyday to afford it.

I mulled over the options before finally turning to Joey. "Joey, you have inventory space, right?" When he nodded, I went on. "Start packing up all the books and anything else in this library. We're moving."

"O-Okay." He nodded. "Where are we going?"

"I'll get to that. Just take everything, alright?"

When Joey went off, I turned to Rachelle and asked the same, sending her off as well. This library had some supplies survive the blast too. It's about time we used them.

"Gwen?" I turned to her last. "I want an advance."

"Advance?" She rose an eyebrow. "I'm an info dealer, not a loan shark."

"I mean I want to be paid in advance," I clarified. "You said you needed a party, right?"

She blinked. "Wait. You're serious?"

"Yep." I nodded. "Ruined Castle is the first dungeon of the game. The four of us make a full team and there's some story quests that lead to the Ruined Castle. We use those as a leaping point for the early levels, then stock up on supplies and head out afterwards."

"And the treasure vault?" She pressed.

"I still have the journal," I told her. "And I have more MMO knowledge than you. We only look for it after we clear the dungeon."

"Deal." She held out her hoof.

I didn't do the same. "One more condition."

She winced but kept focus. "What?"

"The advance," I brought it up again. "You need to pay for room, board and supplies. That money and ours are pulled together. Deal?"

This time I held up my hoof as she pulled back a little.

"That's more than one condition."

"And the treasure floor has more than one room," I fired back.

She bit her lip, running all these imaginary numbers in her head. Then, with a reluctant nod, she shook hooves. "Fine. But I choose the inn."

"I choose the supplies," I told her. "And I need your stats. If we're taking on an MMO dungeon with four players all level 6 and under, I need everything."

She watched my expression for a moment. "How many MMO's do you play?"

I grinned. "My family plays a lot of them."

Author's Note

And so the first Arc begins!

The Ruined Castle is, like the characters said, the first dungeon in the game. It's the Castle of the Two Sisters from the center of Everfree Forest. The forest itself is surrounded by Timberwolves and other monsters but the castle is a safe haven with some players actually camping inside of it so they can farm the dungeon underneath it.

Also, every now and them I'm going to post the characters' levels in the notes. I won't have full stats or skill ranks but I will post whatever updates there are.
...
E1ectric_B1itz (A.K.A. Alex)
-Level 3
-Pegasus
-Ability: N/A
...
Light_Chill (A.K.A. Joey)
-Level 5
-Unicorn
-Ability: ???
...
F1eur_de_7is (A.K.A. Rachelle)
-Level 6
-Unicorn
-Ability ???
...
GrayMatt3rsxxx (A.K.A. Gwen)
-Level 5
-Earth Pony
-Ability Dark Blend: Allows player to turn blend into their surroundings. It is stronger at night or in dark areas.

A Road Paved With Sidequests

It had been three hours since we left the library. The sun was starting to set and all of us were gathered up in the same town plaza where everything had begun.

By this time of day, players were either coming back from the forest, heading out, or bunking down for the night. Aside from a few stray groups like us, and some NPCs on their routines, we had the place to ourselves.

The others stood ahead of me with Joey looking confused and Rachelle reading the long message I sent her. Since she wasn’t going to understand our meeting, I sent her every detail I could think of ahead of time. Thankfully, messages were automatically translated to your chosen language.

Finally, there was our newest...I’m not sure if friend was the right word so let’s say ally. Our ally, Gwen, was leaning against a wall looking like she got clocked in the gut.

“240 Bits...” She muttered in a hollow tone. “I spent 240 Bits for that rip-off hotel. And that was the cheap end. That’s about a fifth of my money...”

I rolled my eyes. “Quit crying ya big baby. We’re about to earn it back anyways.”

“It’s still expensive.” She glared. “And if you say we need a third night in those beds, that’s another 120 Bits.”

“Uh. Alex?” Joey raised his hoof like we were in school.

“Yes?”

“Why are we here?”

“Good question,” I told him, moving on from Gwen’s sad crisis. “Now that we have rooms for the night, we’re going to track down some quests. Gwen says the quest we found were first-come, first-serve. Not to mention, on top of possibly being full quest lines, they might give us some good drops.”

“Drops?” Joey blinked.

“We’re gonna get strong stuff out of them,” I broke it down for him. “My weapon shop quest will hopefully get us better equipped. Meanwhile, your food stall might give us some unique, stat-boosting items.”

“But that’s not enough,” Gwen cut in. “The dungeon has a boss floating around it. It’s probably not as strong as whatever that iguana-god monster has guarding the Elements, but there’s been rumors. We'll need more.”

“Which is why we’re out here,” I told them. “Rachelle’s made our grocery runs and talked to the NPC’s. And Gwen trades or accepts gifts from different players thanks to her info scheme.”

“Business,” Gwen corrected. “I have clients and meetings. It’s a business.”

“Whatever.” I rolled my eyes. “Point is, the girls have higher Persuasion skills than Joey or I do. Even if we don’t have the prerequisites, they might still trigger it.”

“Pre-what?” Joey frowned.

“Ah,” Gwen hummed, quickly connecting the dots. “But you need us to play the field to push it out of them,” Gwen summarized, catching on to my plan.

“Play the field?” Joey was so lost.

“We pretend like they’re actual people,” Gwen explained. “We butter them up or pretend to care and they’ll give us work.”

“Oh!” Joey snapped at attention. “You mean acting?”

“Exactly.” Gwen nodded. “If we track down any quests we don’t want, I can turn that around for a profit and sell it to the players. Which means more money for better gear.”

Rachelle giggled when she saw the devious grin on Gwen’s face.

“It’ll be 5 PM soon,” I told them, pulling up my menu to point it out. “Shops close at seven and business will be slow. No lines or problem players to get in the way.”

“Works for me.” Gwen shrugged. “Less people to figure out what we’re doing too. If we can hit dozens of shops, we’re bound to get something. And if he's in his usual spot, I know someone who'll want in on this. He won't tell anyone either.”

“I don’t know.” Joey slumped a little. “It sounds kind of like a lot.”

“It’s okay Joey. The girls got this,” I told him. “We’ll just be there to look cool.”

“Speaking of, we’ll need to split up for this. We have too many shops to cover.” Gwen took a moment to study each of us. “I’m thinking Joey with me and you with Rachelle.”

“I was thinking the same. Actually.” I said, feeling a little awkward as Joey turned to me.

“I’m not going with you?” Joey questioned.

“Only if that’s okay with you Joey.” I gave him my full attention as I said it with a simple smile. “You going with Gwen makes it easier for her. But only if you’re comfortable with it.”

“...And I can’t go with Rachelle?” Joey tried.

Gwen gave a mocking pout. “That’s a hit to my ego,” she muttered jokingly.

“I’m the only one that knows some French. If Rachelle needs to ask something I should be nearby.”

Joey turned the idea over in his head for a little bit and we were fine with letting him decide how this would go. And I kept up a patient smile.

But behind my expression I was getting worried. Joey wasn’t the type to get nervous like this. He was never shy around new people either. I suppose the circumstances were different here.

“...I’ll be okay.” He tried to give me this brave look. “I mean, it’s only two hours, right?”

“Uh-huh. You’ll be fine. Light Chill.” I smiled.

Joey giggled for a moment. A sad smile spreading across his face. “Thanks. Blitz.”

I looked at the full group. “We’ll meet up back at the inn sometime after the shops close. Then we’ll go over what we found and start early tomorrow. Everyone got it?”

Gwen and Joey nodded along and when I asked Rachelle if she was ready, she closed the message and smiled.

Without much else to say, we split off in two directions with Rachelle and I heading towards the high-end shops while Joey and Gwen went to the vendors.

With Light Chill/Gray Matters

Joey’s POV

After reaching the market, Gray had us walk for a few minutes to try and spot some good shops to talk to. After we came up with a few good ideas, Gwen had us practice talking to the shops that we didn’t think would work.

At first it seemed sort of weird talking to the ponies. We would start talking and then just start asking the kinds of questions that people wouldn't just tell you right away. But the ponies didn't seem to mind answering.

After it started to sound a little more normal, Gray had me practice a few times myself. It made me nervous but when none of the ponies seemed to get too upset at anything, it got easier to ask them the same questions Gray had. Some of them even answered like they were telling me secrets. That made it feel like I was like a detective.

But while I was starting to have some fun, Gray was listening really carefully. Whenever I talked to a pony, Gray would stare really intensely at the ponies. Then, whenever it was her turn, her voice sounded completely different. Almost like Mom's voice when she was on the news.

As we walked away from the last shop pony, something popped up in front of me.

Persuasion Rank Up: Rank 3!

I let out a “Huh,” and shut away the message.

“So just talking to them boosts up the skill. Good to know.” Gray started to guide us in a different direction. “I think we’re ready to try for real now.”

“Wait. Before that, what’s with that voice you’re doing?” I asked her bluntly. “If these ponies aren’t really...real, then why talk like that?”

She thought it over for a moment before she spoke. “Well, at first, I thought they’d pick up on our tone,” she told me. “But apparently they’re not that smart. So...Force of habit, I guess?”

“Habit from what?”

She let out this low single chuckle. “Well. They probably fired me for not coming in, so, I guess I should say I was a waitress? It doesn’t really matter. But that's what makes me fall into the customer service voice I always used.”

“That has a name?” I looked up at her. “I thought waiter’s just wanted to be really nice for money.”

She started laughing. “I like you. You’re smart.” She had this genuine smile for a moment. “But yeah, that’s what the voice is for. You go from bum to Harvard student in a switch.”

When she was done laughing, she pointed over towards one of the biggest tents in the market ahead of us. “Okay. So. See that place?” I nodded. “That’s the best shop in town. It’s a clothing store with boots, capes, hoods and all that. Some players have been saving money just to buy the better gear in there.”

“Yeah. I saw a lot of pony players go in there this morning.” Some of them had to wait outside cause it got so full at one point. “But what if someone’s already found the quest?”

“That’s just it. They haven’t,” she told me. “You already know I’m an Info Dealer, right?”

“Yeah. I heard that when you argued with my brother earlier.” I frowned a little.

“Oh. R-Right.” She slumped her shoulders in return. “Well, I’m not the only one. A few beta testers and forum lurkers have been selling what they know to the other players. Some of them have even tried pooling some of us together. Hasn't gone far though.”

“Okay?” Where was she going with this?

“One of the bigger Dealers always meets with players in this tent,” she went on. “If players ever try to scare him, the guards show up because it's a shop. But the whole time he's been here, he's never seen a quest from the store.”

“Wait.” I thought over everything she told me. “Alex talked about testers before. They played the game before everyone else. Couldn’t we just ask him where the quests are and be done?”

“First, Info Dealer,” she reminded me. “He would only tell us if we bought it. Or at least, he would if he knew where the quests were. No one knows how to get the special quests we're hunting for. And the lucky few that have bumped into them, like you and your brother, are the only reason people know they exist.”

I blinked. “I don’t think I was that lucky. The food pony I met today just talked about candy and I talked back to him until he the quest came up.”

“Exactly. And Alex and I think it's not luck.” Gray grinned. “You just need to say the right thing and eventually strike gold. But with a crowd of players buying things the same time as you, how could you talk up the busiest shop in town?”

I took in a breath. “You can't," I realized. "Everyone would just buy stuff and leave.”

Gray hummed approvingly. “You can ask NPCs about gossip. I've tried it. But it always sounded like fluff dialogue and useless gossip to me. Until you try to use that gossip against the NPCs. Use the right gossip and suddenly that fluff dialogue becomes important.”

I nodded along, pretending like I knew what she was talking about. Truthfully, I had no idea what a fluff dialogue was.

“So then. Is that why we're here? Because there's gossip?”

“Rumor has it,” Gray began, sitting down and facing me. “That the owner of this store, with this stupid name, Good Fit, is a mother. Her son, Tight Fit, is a thug who hates working here. They bicker all the time. But recently, Tight Fit’s not working here anymore. I wonder what happened~” Gray ended, reciting the rumor like it was a storybook.

Then she smirked. “I might not know MMOs like your brother, but I know a plot hook. This is gonna be the first one we check out.”

I played the story over in my head. Good Fit. Tight Fit. Doesn't work here. “And that’ll give us a quest?”

She shrugged. “It’s as good a start as any. Do you want to try?”

“Me?” I tensed up. “Alex said you were supposed to talk to them.”

“I am. But if you go first, I can see how she acts and give us a second chance if you can't get it. That okay with you?”

“Uh...” I took in a breath and all of a sudden felt really nervous. Still, after practicing on the other ponies, this didn't sound too different. “O-Okay. I’ll try.”

“Good. I’ll be in the store close by. So you’re not alone...Light Chill,” she said, glancing up at my name for a second.

I tried not to laugh. "Okay, Business Pony.”

Gray let out a huff. "Alright, I deserve that one." She stood up from her place, walking past me and through the tent flaps. From outside I heard a woman’s voice welcome her.

I stood up next. “Okay. Just another shop pony. Let’s do this,” I said, psyching myself up before I trotted into the tent next.

As I did, the warm colored lanterns illuminated the inside of the tent, making it look as if there was a permanent sunset inside. Then, across the space were racks, shelves, hangers and pony mannequins set up with all kinds of different clothes for sale.

As I glanced at the nearby items, small holographic boxes with names and information flashed beside them. The stuff closest to the entrance seemed more expensive than other things.

“Good afternoon sir,” a warm lady’s voice called out.

Not too far was an Earth Pony adjusting a hood on one of the mannequins. She was a bigger pony with an orange mane tied up in a bun and a light brown coat. She wore an apron with measuring tape and other supplies sticking out of the pockets.

“Um. Hello.” I shuffled in place, suddenly having no idea what I was supposed to do. So instead, I looked around the room some more, spotting two other ponies beside Gray and myself.

The first one was a Pegasus with simple metal armor and a deep purple, spiky mane. He sat against the edge of the tent and watched as Gray walked over to him. The name Freethe0ct0pus as well as a player crystal hung above him.

Then on the opposing side of the tent was another player with the name SKYLIGHTMAX_417 swinging back and forth as she was looking between two cloaks. She was a mare with platinum blonde hair and a sky blue coat without armor.

“Hey Oct,” Gray greeted as she reached the guy.

“Hey," he replied. "I got your message. What'd you want to show me?”

“A presentation,” Gray answered, sitting beside him. Then she looked at me and gave me a lazy salute.

“O-Oh. Uh.” I quickly returned it, making her facehoof.

“...Is that a kid?” Octopus asked her.

“Uh-huh. We’re trying something out. You see...” From there on, Gray and Octopus got quieter, both keeping tabs on me.

Okay. That’s kinda weird, I thought, trying to ignore them.

I took one more breath and walked up to the red-maned pony who didn’t have a player crystal. Above her head read the name Good Fit. From Gray's story.

“Uh...Hello? Miss?” I started.

Good Fit turned around and gave me a sweet smile. “How might I help you?”

“Uh...I wanted. To see if you had a job-quest?” I bit my cheek.

She giggled. “That’s very sweet of you honey, but, unfortunately, I don’t have anything exciting going on right now.”

“...Are you sure?” I asked again, trying to be nosy like we practiced. “I heard you did.”

This time, she didn’t answer right away. Instead, she began to blink a few times in the same odd way the weapon shop and food cart ponies did.

When the blinking stopped, her expression tensed but she tried to keep her smile. “Now wherever did you hear that?”

That's when Octopus perked up from the corner of my eye. He turned over to Gray and asked something to which she didn't answer. Instead, she gave me a big grin and a motion to keep going.

“Um. From somepony," I said vaguely. "They said that there was something going on." My brain ran on overdrive for a second before I remembered the story. "W-With your son. Tight Fit."

Again, Good Fit didn't answer. She just started blinking a few more times as she seemed more concerned. "They had talked about him? Do you know where he is?"

"Where he." I paused for a second. "Woah. I-Is he missing?"

A couple more blinks and Good Fit nodded along. "Yes. He hasn't shown up at home or the store for a couple of days. After he went..."

Fit bit her lip, glancing around the store and locking eyes with the other players who were now watching the pony as if it grew a second head.

“...Not. Here,” she whispered. “I’m sorry but...N-Now’s not the right time to talk about this. Not when there’s customers.”

“But Gray said there are always customers,” I said aloud, making Gray flinch slightly.

Another blink. "I know." Good Fit thought for a moment to herself. “This might be sudden, but...could we speak after I close shop? I...I need to tell somepony but...The guards can't know about this.”

“The guards?” Octopus repeated aloud, getting no response. Meanwhile, Gray had this huge grin spreading across her face.

New Quest

A Loose Thread

Reward: N/A (+EXP)

Conditions: Speak to Good Fit between 7:30 PM & 2 AM

-Accept Quest
-Decline Quest

"Yes!"

From the side, Gray almost started to dance in place as Octopus and the other player stared in awe.

I guess I should say yes.

I reached out to the text box and pressed accept, which made it fade away and let me stare up at the pony who was waiting for me to say something. Just like the last quests.

“Yeah, I can talk then,” I told her. “Can I bring my friends? They want to, um. Help too?”

Good Fit had one more blinking fit before calming down and giving me a slight nod. “I think that would be great. The more help the merrier, I suppose. When all of you are ready to talk, please come meet me at my house. I’ll go over everything there.”

Up in the corner of my vision, the words ‘Map Updated’ showed up. I guessed it would show where her house was going to be.

“Okay. We’ll come later then,” I told her.

“Thank you. Thank you so much.” She took a few steps back and took a breath before she turned around and started to ease back into just being the shopkeeper again, adjusting the same hood from before.

I took that as a chance to walk over to Gray but not before the Skylight player to her chance to approach Good Fit next.

“Excuse me,” she started, earning Fit’s attention. “Do you have any work for me?”

Fit gave the girl a sweet smile and shook her head. “Sorry miss. I can’t really think of anything.”

The girl looked over to me for a second. “Are you sure? I heard you did.” She copied what I said.

But this time, Good Fit just shrugged without any blinking. “Perhaps it was somepony else dear. My apologies.”

Good Fit turned back to her work as the lady tried to come up with something else to say.

“Might as well give it up,” Octopus told her, standing up from his spot along with Gray. “That was a one-time only quest. Kid got lucky.”

He gave me a wink as the female player groaned and trudged back to the two cloaks.

“So. Oct,” Gray started, walking over next to me. “What do you think? How much would these quests sell for?”

Oct closed his eyes, looking more stoic than his mane and armor suggested. Then, he opened them and smirked. “Not sure yet. I’ll need to see some for myself. I'll come by tonight.”

With that, Octopus hurried out of the tent, leaving us on our own.

“Good job Chill. Now we just gotta hope this is a quest line.”

I smiled back. “So that means we do the job then?”

“Oh yeah.” She nodded. “Even if it’s not armor, this is one of the best shops in town. We’ll get something out of this."

"Good." I let out a breath. "I really hope the Tight Fit kid's okay."

"Huh? Oh, sure." She brushed it off. "Now come on. We need to hit more stores before Oct finds them.”

“Definitely.”

The two of us hurried out of the tent and I followed Gray as we ran after the next rumor.

Author's Note

With the sidequests, as far as my headcannon goes, there are general ones and the special ones like this quest.
In the story, the original plan was that when all special quests would be discovered, the admins would reload them for different players to find.
Now that Discord has the admin codes, those special quests are limited. And only a few players know about it. Meaning they will either hoard that information or sell it to the highest bidder. Whoops.

I hope you're enjoying the story! As always, any criticism or questions will always help. I'll probably be writing two or three more chapters before I switch back to my other story. So until then,

Happy Holidays!
-Zeke

Bedtime Planning

A Couple Hours Later
At the Inn
Gwen/GrayMatt3rsxxx’s POV

With a satisfied sigh I fell onto a nice, firm mattress before suddenly realizing just how exhausted I felt from all the tension of the last couple of days. Everything up until now had definitely taken its toll on me.

Meanwhile, on the second bed in the room, the kid followed my example. Thanks to how short he was as a pony, he had to jump to reach the bed which took a couple of tries. But when he got it, he instantly rolled onto his side and went lax against the pillows. He must have really missed beds considering his group was sleeping on the floor of a blown up library until now.

Something we have in common, I noted. The whole time I’ve been in this game, I slept in an alley to save on money. The game’s town guard would keep pestering you if you slept in the roads but they didn’t care about alleys. Really gave the game that “realistic” feel.

“Hey Gray?” The kid called out with his face half buried in pillows.

“Yeah?” I didn’t bother turning my head to look at him.

“...I don’t think I can get up.”

“Mood,” was all I answered with. “But you’re going to have to. I paid two rooms for a reason. You’re going to the guy’s room when we’re done here.”

“But I don’t wanna move,” he complained the only way a whiny child could.

“No. None of that,” I scolded him. “If you and your brother sleep here then that means I have to move.”

“...And?”

“I paid for the rooms. I control the rooms. Period,” I decreed. All while not moving an inch.

“Fine,” he backed off. “But I’m not moving if they want to sit on the bed.”

I shrugged. “Fair.” Then, as I heard steps getting closer, I smirked. “Too bad you're going to get up to answer the door.”

“Hmm?” Answering his groan was someone knocking on our door, which only made him scoff.

“I get up for no door,” he declared. Which was enough to make me turn my head to look at him.

“Look you. Someone’s gonna have to—” but he proved me wrong. Without moving a single muscle, Chill’s horn glowed with a powder blue aura. While he stuck his tongue out, the door was unlocked and pulled open with his magic.

“...Show off,” I muttered, I should have chosen a unicorn.

From my peripheral, I watched as two figures slunk their way into the room and shut the door behind them.

“I see you two are getting along,” Alex told us.

“Can’t we wait, like, twenty minutes?” I begged lazily.

“What she said,” Chill added with a moan.

“Vous êtes pathétique,” the French girl spoke.

“Watch it.” I forced myself to sit up so I could stare her down. “Pathetic’s said the same way here, ya know.”

“Oh, look at that. You’re up now,” Alex said sarcastically, making me swear vengeance on the French girl. “Let’s make this quick, get some dinner and then you can pass out. Sound good?”

“Yeah, sure.” I waved him off, pulling the blanket around me so I could at least stay somewhat comfortable.

“I’ll do the pass out part first,” Chill called out with his face still half embedded in the pillows. “I don’t need to say words. I’m eight.”

“That’s not a reason.” Alex held his face in his hoof. “Okay. Fine. Sure, see ya tomorrow.”

"But go to your room first." I glared at him but he let out this fake yawn and got more comfortable. And then stuck his tongue out at me again while the others weren't looking.

Devious little brat, I cursed. I'm older than all of them. I shouldn't have to put up with this.

I took a moment to get over it before opening my menu and scrolling down the inventory. Then I took out an item marked ‘quest journal.’ The game lets you buy empty books to type messages as you wanted. I picked one up.

“So starting with the bad news.” I opened the journal and got into business mode. “Your brother’s food cart job is a bust. We doubled back before they closed and saw that they had a part two and it was active. But all we got were three of these.”

With my menu still open, I took out another inventory item. An apple dipped in caramel.

“It seems all that quest does is make you taste test the guy’s desserts. No bonuses either.” I paused to take a bite out of the dessert. “Shtill preddy good dough,” I said through my chewing.

Alex frowned. “Alright, well, what else do we got?”

I swallowed my food and started flipping to the right page. Then I held it out to the girl so she could read what I would say. “In total? Seven quests.”

“Wha-seven?” He blinked “That’s great! I thought we’d have to get desperate.”

“Don’t get too excited.” I frowned. “Not all of them are quest lines. Probably just two. I’ll be selling the others.”

That didn’t seem to phase him. “That’s fine. We can work with that. Are they useful?”

I took a moment to eat another piece of apple before going on. “The first one’s a fletcher named Long Shot. From how the quest went, he was an apprentice that got kicked out by his master. Not because he was bad, but because of...‘crea’dive differenshesh’.” I bit into the apple and held it with my teeth so I could use air quotes.

“What kind of creative differences?” Alex raised an eyebrow.

“Apparently, the master was old fashioned but Long Shot liked to experiment. He wanted to make specialty arrows. The quest is that Long Shot wants you to try his work in a real fight.”

The journal the girl was reading had more detail to it and she was getting excited as she kept reading it.

“Definitely a contender,” Alex pointed out. “And the second one?”

“It was the first one we got. Sleeping Beauty over there unlocked and accepted it.” I reached over and flipped the page for the girl so she could read the next quest along with us.

“A clothing tent owner hasn’t seen her adult son for days. Said son, according to rumors, is headstrong and argued with his mom before he stopped working there. Chill talked to the lady and she said the guards can’t know what happened. Part one has Joey and us meeting the lady at her house so she can tell us her story in full.”

“If the first quest is talking to her then it’s definitely a whole quest line.” Alex smiled. “Works for me.”

“Intrigue,” The French girl said with a smile, reading over some more.

I finished off the last of the caramel apple and tossed the stick over towards the window, watching as it burst into blue code. “The quest wants us to meet with her before two in the morning but it didn’t have a due date.”

“Then it probably means that we can start that quest whenever.” Alex opened his menu and looked at his completed quests. “The quest I got day one said specifically that I had one day to turn it in. Well, then it got changed, but...”

He looked back at me and my curious face before shrugging to himself.

“Not important,” he wrote off. “Take away is if it doesn’t have a due date we can probably do it whenever.”

“Yay,” Chill cheered drowsily.

For the best, I figured. We can’t do all the quests in a day. Spacing them out is smarter.

With my report finished, I laid down on my bed with my hooves folded in front of me. “So that’s our side of the job. You get anything?”

Alex’s expression dropped as he tapped around his menu. “Not particularly. There were a few times it looked like we had something but then they said something along the lines that we weren't strong enough. I think there’s a level requirement.”

I huffed. “So nothing then.”

“I’m getting there.” He smiled a little. “We found one place.”

Alex opened a different completed quest and showed it to me so I could read the details.

“It’s from a jewelry store,” he explained as I read on. “The jeweler’s been getting less business since adventuring's become the newest trend. He asked if we could—” “Modèles!”

I watched the girl beam in glee as I finished reading. “He wanted you two to be models?” I took a moment to size up Alex before shrugging. “I don’t see it.”

“Har har,” he deadpanned. “He had us equip different sets of armor along with his jewelry so he could see what worked. Only problem is that none of his jewelry has bonuses. It’s all cosmetic.”

I smirked. “Isn’t that the point of jewelry?”

“Not in a video game,” he countered. “But when I pointed it out, he reacted. Maybe the next quest will have something useful.

“And then there’s the weapon shop,” he went on. “We couldn’t get there in time because Rachelle really wanted to be a pretend model.”

Rachelle saw the attention aimed at her when he said that and got somewhat embarrassed.

“But when we got there a few days ago, he said he’d want to ask for our help again,” he concluded.

“That makes four quests.” I took my journal back from Rachelle and opened up the edit option so I could write into it. “All of them split their experience among all the players that help out. So we’ll plan who does what.”

“Well, if no one’s against it I think I should be on most, if not, all of them,” Alex suggested. “I’m the lowest leveled so I need the boost. Especially if I’m the only front line fighter.”

I considered the idea for a moment but it wasn't too good an idea. “I think we might want to hold off on that. We need to get these quests done as fast as we can."

He nodded in a so-so fashion. "Well then what if I take on a quest solo? If I can manage it, all the experience goes to me and it doesn't slow us down."

"That might work better, yeah. Besides, we're pooling the loot anyways so the rewards don't matter much. I say take on the jeweler job. It seems the safest."

When he didn't have any objections, I marked it down in the journal. "While you do that, the rest of us can take care of the fletcher job. On top of the quest, whatever we fight will give out EXP too. Rachelle and Chill said they know a good mob hunting spot earlier.”

"As long as you don't go into Everfree itself, it'll be safe," he reasoned. Although it sounded like he was convincing himself instead of me. “Finally, all of us should probably group up for whatever the weapon vendor has. Last time, he sent us on a fetch quest. If we all do it, it’ll be done in no time.”

I had no objections. Even if we would take two or three days, I wanted it finished as soon as possible. These rooms weren't cheap. “If that's the case, after we talk to the lady, Chill and I might want to do the rest of that quest on our own so long as it's simple.”

He smiled. “Sounds like a plan. You good with that Joey?” Alex looked over.

However, the younger brother didn’t answer. Instead, he was quietly snoring while he started to drool into the pillow.

Rachelle giggled into her hoof at the scene, which made me feel even better with what I was about to do.

“Hey, Rachelle.” I waited until I got her attention. “Your. Bed,” I spoke slowly, pointing to her then the furniture.

It didn’t take long for the gears to turn in her head and she scrambled to pull away the rest of the pillows before they were ruined too. At the same time, Alex carefully scooped Joey onto his back so he could take him to their room.

Ha ha! I laughed inwardly. Who’s pathetic now you bunch of brats?!

Author's Note

Originally this chapter and the next one we're all going to be one but I decided to split them so I could actually give the quests their spotlights. The next chapter will be out before Christmas.

Inns in ELO are meant to be expensive because they give minor bonuses to players who pay for them. That's mostly because the game was designed to let you log out when you got tired and have your character sleep/wait until you logged back in. They didn't think players would actually sleep in the game though. So cheaper 2-bed rooms in Ponyville cost 120 Bits a night and Gwen paid for 2 rooms.
The bigger problem is that there are more players than rooms in Ponyville because the game designers didn't plan for everyone to get stuck. That's why some players left Ponyville immediately, so that there weren't too many players taking everything up first.

I hope you enjoyed the chapter! It's more light-hearted then the next ones will be...

Happy Holidays!
-Zeke

Prepping & Loading

Early Morning, Jan. 29th
Rachelle/F1eur_de_7is’s POV

As everyone began waking up for the morning, I spent the morning re-reading the message Alex had given me about what we would do over a cup of juice and what was the largest breakfast I’ve ever had in my life.

After passing the last two-thirds of it over to Joey, who was as early a riser as me I found out, I sent him a message asking if he could tell the others that I went out to start my quest as the instructions said.

When he gave me a nod and a wave, I headed out as I finished the last of my toast and jam.

The trip to the market itself was simple. I equipped my bow and quiver of arrows, slinging them over my back to help look the part as I passed by a handful of players and fake ponies alike.

There was still the occasional odd look from some of the players, which I still didn’t understand, but it was starting to become easier to ignore.

Finding the fletcher was easier than I thought it’d be. When I asked the computer ponies, they kindly pointed me in the right direction as though they were all guides.

Some would try promoting their wares but I had to save what I had. I needed to make sure I had enough arrows and a good bow before anything else.

It wasn’t long afterward that I found him. Set up between a fabric merchant and someone selling pieces of armor was a brown unicorn with a dusty black mane swept away from his face. He rested on a stool with his hind legs propped up on the table and his forelegs folded behind his head.

Littering the table were arrows and bolts either alone or tied up in bundles of 5 and 10. As I looked between them, text boxes with prices and short descriptions appeared.

But at the center of the table, there was both an arrow and a bolt with the arrowheads glowing a warm orange hue. The boxes above them read ‘Fire Arrow’ and ‘Fire Bolt’ both costing 30 Bits and 40 Bits respectively.

Gray and Alex said to stare at these arrows, I recalled. If I do then the fletcher, Long Shot, will react. That’s what’s supposed to happen.

I didn’t have to wait long. From the corner of my vision, Long Shot’s hooves moved off of the table as he sat up to face me.

“Interested in buyin’ ‘em, miss?” He asked with a young but gruff voice. Like the other vendors, he spoke in French whenever I heard him.

“Yes,” I replied. “But I’m a little disappointed, I must admit. I was told you had something else?”

As I looked up and watched him blink unnaturally. There. I narrowed my eyes with a grin. That’s the tell.

Long Shot matched my grin with a wider one. “Aye, I’ve heard them rumors floatin’ around. A few folks ‘ave come by wantin’ ta buy them before,” he explained. “What’s yer poison?”

I took in a breath and started, going off script for a moment. “Acid arrows.”

This time he blinked but not robotically. More like I caught him off guard. “I’m sorry, what now?”

“Acid arrows.” I kept my grin. “Acid doesn’t spread as unpredictably as fire, you see. And you can’t put it out as easily either.”

Shot let his mind wander for a moment, nodding to himself with admiration. “Have to admit, that ain’t a type ponies tend ta bring up. Not one I’ve tried either,” he admitted.

I feigned disinterest. “Ah. I was afraid you’d say that.”

“Now, now, I didn’t quite say no, did I?” His smile returned. “I’m always willin’ ta try something once. That said, Ah know there ain’t anypony else ‘round here that can make something like that.”

“So you would do a special order for me then?” I gave him a sweet smile.

He blinked again and nodded along. “Ah think Ah could try fillin’ that order. be willin’ ta try it free of charge. That is if I could ask fer your services in advance.”

There we go. My grin settled into a smirk. But before I answered, I glanced behind me. There was already another player getting in line.

I need to make this quick, I figured. Looking back to Shot, I rested my arm on the counter and spoke quieter. “What did you have in mind?”

“Well, Ah’m hopin’ ta start sellin’ a couple of other special arrows I got recipes for. Problem is, Ah need a seasoned archer ta test ‘em out for me. And you look like just the right archer.”

I gave a small nod. “I try.”

And with that, this is the box that appeared ahead of me.

Nouvelle Quête

Sur le Mar(que/ché)

Récompense: 3 (Glace / Bombe / Gourdin) Flèches (+ EXP)

Conditions: Tir d'essai 3 flèches de spécialité.

-Accepter la Quête
-Déclin Quête

I quickly hit ‘Accepter’ before the player behind me realized I wasn’t buying anything.

“I’d be happy to,” I told him. I could hear the player behind me trying to walk to the side so he could try finding out why I was talking in something other than English.

“Perfect,” the fletcher said, reaching under his desk. Then, one by one, Long Shot pulled out six arrows.

The first two didn’t have normal arrowheads and instead ended with metal orbs. The next two had arrowheads glowing blue similar to the fire arrows. Then the last one’s Long Shot handled very carefully.

“In order,” he told me. “These are Bludgeon Arrows. They have more durability and a better punch but lack range. So, when the fight’s done you can scoop ‘em back up and use them a few more times.”

He levitated them to me, which I took in my own magic and sent them to inventory.

“The Ice Arrows speak for themselves,” he went on. “Rather than burn a target, they’ll inflict freeze on them, which slows down a monster’s movements.” Again, he passed them to me and I stored them away.

“And for the finale; Bomb Arrows.”

“Bomb?!” “Bombe?” The player behind me and I questioned in unison. Other players heard the shop ponies speak English even while I heard French.

“I was hopin’ that’d catch your attention.” He smirked. “And by the way, I’m given’ ya two of each just in case ya miss.” Shot used his magic to levitate the bombs between us, making me lean back out of instinct.

“For the Bomb Arrows,” he went on. “It’s better to aim low with these because the moment they strike something. Boom.”

“B-Boom?” I had a chill go down my horizontal spine.

“Anything close by will get struck so make sure your allies ain’t close. Oh, and there’s a fuse the moment ya notch the arrow. It’s got about five seconds. Flimsier bows might break and it’ll do a lot of damage if it explodes in your face so...Don’t let that happen.”

I took my sweet time carefully taking them in my own magic. Thankfully, the player understood why I was taking so much time.

When I finally built the nerve, I reached out and tapped the first arrow. Then the next. Even when they were in my inventory I was so nervous.

I barely remembered to buy some regular arrows too before waddling away as quick as I could. But not before the player behind me slowly stepped up to the vendor and cleared his throat.

“Um...20 not explosive arrows, please?”

Later
Other Side of Ponyville
Alex/E1ectric_B1itz’s POV

I was the last one to wake up, which was normal. So by the time I made it down to the inn’s taproom for breakfast, Rachelle was already gone and Gwen was with a random player for her side hustle. Which left Joey with nothing to do except ask if he could tag along.

With him in tow, we made our way through the streets towards the higher-end stores. There were plenty of shops that a player would be more interested like a blacksmith or carpenter but ours was interesting for a different reason.

Among the other brick, thatch-roofed buildings, the jeweler’s looked unnaturally modern. The building itself was painted cobalt blue with a large display with pictures of jewelry painted onto it. The name “Formal’s Design” was set between the sign and main door.

Flanking the entrance were two windows that let anyone passing by get a good view of the jewelry displayed. Upon glancing at them, the names and descriptions appeared as they did when I was here yesterday. Except with bonuses this time.

Most were passive and uninteresting but the two that stood out were ‘Fire Resist 2’ and ‘+2 to Damage’.

‘Fire Resist 2’ meant that for any source of fire damage you took, you negated 2 points of damage. So if you ran through a campfire and took 14 damage, you would instead take 12.

The ‘+2 to Damage’ was more useful to me. With each attack you made, you would deal an additional 2 damage with this bonus. While my weapons did 8-13 damage, the bonus would make that 10-15 instead.

Although, I had tonfa; weapons made for hitting an enemy repeatedly. So adding two damage to each hit would make that bonus so much better.

Too bad that bonus is on a tiara, I lamented, staring at the accessory in contempt.

Joey tapped my shoulder and pointed to the door as it opened. From it, three players were walking out; two with large weapons, one with a crossbow, and all three with some sort of jewelry on their person.

“I thought you said no one came here,” Joey said.

“Yeah.” I watched as they walked away, talking about how they would head out into the Everfree today. “This is different.”

Joey used his magic to catch the door before it could shut and we moved inside. From above, a comforting gust of air welcomed you whenever you stepped inside.

Aside from the distinct lack of technology, it felt like a modern jewelry store. Glass cases held dozens of pieces of jewelry on display with plenty of variety.

Then, behind the counter was the jeweler I met yesterday who was in much brighter spirits. And when he recognized me, his smile fell on me.

His name, displayed above him, was Formal Attire. Attire was a unicorn with a cobalt blue coat and a deep purple mane a matching deep purple-striped suit jacket.

He was, in short, a friendly snob. Apparently, he admired Rachelle and me because we seemed less ‘brutish’ than most other adventurers. Go figure.

“Good morning Blitz,” he greeted. Blitz was the name I introduced myself with. I was surprised he remembered.

“Is this another member of your group?” He asked, looking towards Joey.

“Why yes,” I said in a ‘sophisticated’ manner. Mostly to make Joey smile. “This is my kind brother, Light Chill. He also goes by Chill, I believe. Isn’t that right, dear brother?”

I gave him a wink and watched as he groaned but couldn’t hide the sad smile growing on his face.

“Why...You are right. Dear brother,” he joined with tired effort. “That is what I, Chill, go by.”

“Well, it is a pleasure, Mr. Chill,” Attire gave him a firm nod.

I turned to Joey. “Chill, this is Formal Attire. Fleur and I had come by, looking about his wares and he had supposedly seen something in us that we could help with.”

From the corner of my eye, Attire’s eyes fluttered statically for a moment before smiling at Joey. “Incredibly so, as well! Blitz and Madam Fleur had acted as my models to help me find what I was missing. And, by Celestia’s Rays, I believe I have found it.”

“We noticed on the way in,” I told him. “Those adventurers seemed pretty well off.”

Another blink and he watched the door for a second before speaking softly. “Perhaps but, between us, I think it’ll take me some time to grow accustomed to those more...rugged ponies.”

He waved off the subject with a hoof. “Anyways. If you’re not terribly busy today, I wanted to know if you could assist me yet again.”

“I would be delighted to,” I told him in a strong tone, making Chill giggle quietly. “By all means, what is your request?”

One more blink later. “As I had discovered,” Attire began. “While I worked on adding these enchantments to my pieces, I recalled that a nearby friend of mine is a retired craftspony that had a set of enchantment tools. Out of curiosity, I went to see if I might purchase them.

“Unfortunately.” his tone dropped as he became more frustrated. “He told me that a thief accosted his home several days ago. He believes he knows exactly who was daft enough to steal from him but the guards won’t act without proof. On top of that, my friend tells me the thief is too squirrely to fight but just squirrely enough to get away. Somepony needs to catch him.”

“And that somepony would be, say, us?” And as if to prove it:

New Quest

The Startup Thief

Reward: 200 Bits and ??? (+ EXP)

Conditions: Capture the thief and deliver the tools
to Formal Attire.

-Accept Quest
-Decline Quest

I let out a whistle at the sight of all the Bits that reward has. That’s the amount you started the game with. Getting that all over again would make stocking up on supplies much easier.

“What’s the question marks supposed to mean?” Joey asked.

“No idea but we’re taking it.” I reached up and accepted the quest and watched as Attire blinked again. “Attire, I would be happy to find this thief for you.”

“Terrific,” He cheered. “With those tools, I can place a much wider array of enchantments on my pieces. I would also be willing to make something that would benefit you more directly.”

He started to make his way back behind the counter. “You may want to check with my craftsman friend first. He can help you find some leads.”

Out of the corner of my eye the words ‘Map Updated’ lit up before slowly fading away.

Simple enough.

“Well, Light Chill,” I started, turning towards him. “Arst thou ready to quest?”

“I, erm, art-st,” he told me, trying to keep up.

“Very well! Come along, dear brother.” I snickered as I headed for the door.

“Uh, yes. Along,” Chill added, trying to follow my ridiculousness as I proceeded to leave the store like a true gentleman.

And the second the door closed behind us, we were laughing down the street.

Twenty Minutes Later
Gwen/GrayMatt3rsxxx’s POV
Ponyville Market

“Bomb Arrows?” I questioned.

“Oui.” Fleur nodded frantically. “Two.”

I turned to look to my left where Alex and his brother were walking beside me. “Is that normal in these games?”

“Depends on the setting.” Alex shrugged. Then he looked at his little brother. “Joey, I’m assuming bombs don’t exist in that show of yours, yeah?”

“I don’t think so.” Chill shrugged in return. “Bomb arrows sound pretty cool though.”

“Not if you’re holding them,” I reminded him as Fleur got increasingly uncomfortable the more they kept saying that word. “Moving on. Alex, where’s that vendor?”

“He is...over there.” Alex pointed over ahead of us to a plain-looking booth wedged between two nicer tents. Two bookshelves acted as his back wall and wooden weapons of all kinds were set up.

“Huh. The sign’s new,” Alex remarked, pointing up at the wooden sign that dangled above the table. It was hand-carved and had the image of a wood carving tool set into it.

“I think I remember reading something about dynamic shops on the forums,” I explained. “If players use one shop often, it’ll get bigger and better. Same goes for the reverse too.”

“Which means if we level that shop up enough, they’ll have better equipment to sell.” Alex thought it over as we approached. “Alright. Let’s get this done.”

“Hold on,” Chill jumped in. “Alex, can you do the voice here too?”

“The voice?” I stared back at Alex.

“Oh, yeah. I guess I could.” He shrugged. “Stand back guys. It’s time...for action,” he said in the dumbest, most dramatic way I’ve ever heard.

“Why do I regret meeting you all of a sud—” “Why helloooo, my dear friend!” Alex shouted in a deep, spirited tone.

I leaned towards Chill who was already giggling. “He’s going to talk like that the whole time, isn’t he?”

Chill nodded happily and I secretly wished for that Frankenstein’s Monster of a god to smite me where I was.

“Oaken Handle,” Alex went on in the ‘adventuring tone’, arriving in front of the booth where an older Earth pony was standing. “I’ve not seen you in a fortnight. Tell me, chum, how goes business?”

‘Oaken Handle’ blinked nonstop for a moment before an equally excited smile spread across his face. “Ah, Sir Blitz. It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Business is going on pace. Thanks to you, my custom orders have all been completed.”

“Well that is terrific,” Alex complimented. “Although, if it is alright by you, I had brought along my compatriots to see if they could look at your wares themselves. These lovely ladies are Madam Gray and Madam Fleur. And, of course, you’ve already met my brother.”

He motioned for us to step forward and instantly Handle started looking between each of us. Once the AI was done memorizing us, he straightened out. “So many! Well, any friends of Sir Blitz are friends of mine.

“And Sir Joey,” he added, nodding towards Chill. “An honor to meet you again.”

Joey? I thought. They must have introduced him to the shopkeep by his real name. That’s the only way that would have happened.

All of us started looking over what was for sale but I quickly ducked out. I was going for a rogue build, which meant daggers. Unless I wanted to give someone a splinter, this shop was useless to me.

The others had much better luck though. Going back and forth, they all bought better gear and sold their older equipment while I watched.

A whole week of being stuck in here and only now are they selling their starting gear. And this is the group I teamed up with, I reminded myself.

“Do you have a better staff,” Chill asked.

“Well, Sir Joey,” Handle began, pulling over a nicely polished quarterstaff. “This is the finest staff I have in stock for now.”

“Not that kind of.” Chill stopped talking when Alex placed a hoof over his mouth.

“Sir Joey would like to see your best wand too,” he explained shortly.

“Oh.” Handle looked upset. “Unfortunately, the Handcarved Wand is still the best one I have. I’m afraid I lack the means to make a better one than that. I’m so sorry Sir Joey.”

“That’s okay. Thanks anyway,” Joey said, equipping the new buckler he had gotten.

When they were finished, Alex cleared his throat and put the stupid act on again. “Say, Oak. I wanted to ask if you had any more work for us. Our band happens to be available at the moment and I thought I should extend our services to friends first.”

Handle blinked again before he had this thoughtful look on his face. “Actually, I think I might have something. Are you familiar with a pony known as Smooth Grain?”

“I’m not, actually.” Alex looked back at me. “Say, Madam Gray, have you heard anything?”

He and Joey looked at me with goofy smiles hoping I would join in the roleplaying.

I wasn’t.

“As far as I’ve heard, no,” I said like a normal person. “There aren’t any vendors with that name.”

“Oh. She isn’t local,” Handle informed me. “She is...was, a bigger name in Canterlot. She was said to have crafted incredible shields sturdier than most metals. Collectors crave her work.”

“We can’t go clear to Canterlot for one job.” I frowned. “That’s a whole different problem.”

Handle blinked again and shook his head. “You wouldn’t need to go that far. In fact, about a month ago, I heard of somepony with one of her very shields here in Ponyville. They only stayed in town for a day or two before going out to the Everfree. Something about a hero’s tomb, I believe.”

“Tomb?” My eyes widened. “Wait. Was that tomb in a graveyard?”

“Where else would it be?” Handle questioned.

“Do you know where that is?” Alex asked, dropping the voice.

“Oh yeah.” I nodded along, grinning. “It’s one of the spots where beta testers farmed for EXP. They talked about it over the forums. I’ve been selling it to players. I know it well.”

“The adventurer had left into the forest to find that tomb. Why, they never explained,” Handle went on. “However, no pony ever saw them come back.”

“We’ll take the job,” I answered before the pony could say anything else.

“Wait, hold—” Alex was cut out when a familiar message popped up in front of me.

New Quest

Of Shield’s Past

Reward: 90 Bits and Polished (weapon of choice) (+ EXP)

Conditions: Discover what happened to the
adventurer & their shield.

-Accept Quest
-Decline Quest

The reward was pathetic but that didn’t matter. I slammed my hoof into the ‘Accept’ button and was met with Alex giving me a confused look.

“Why’re you jumping on it?”

“Told you, I know this place. I know the route, the traps, and the monsters. This is a walk,” I told him. “But it’s already noon. If we go now, we’ll make it back with enough time for the other jobs.”

“Wait.” Alex stopped me. “Are we sure we should do this now? The four of us haven’t fought together yet. I’m level three. And if something gets past me, you’re all exposed.”

“We’ll have fights on the way,” I told him. “It’s the forest. Timberwolves are all over the place. And we’ve all fought them solo. If we practice with them, Fleur can use the specialty arrows, you get another level, and we’ll be set. But we have to go right now.”

“Why now?” Chill questioned.

“Well, it’s a graveyard,” I told him. “What kind of monsters would you fight in a graveyard?”

“Ghosts?” The kid guessed.

“Zombies and undead,” Alex answered.

“Zombies?” Fleur straightened out. Guess zombies are still zombies in France.

I clicked my tongue. “Bingo. And in every horror movie, what time of day are the undead a problem?”

“...At night,” Alex connected.

“Specifically, starting at sunset,” I clarified. “We have a little more than five hours. If we go now we’ll be able to leave the graveyard before sunset.”

“It’s a five-hour walk?” Chill looked devastated.

“With fighting monsters, it is.”

On hearing that, Alex looked back at his brother. Then he froze.

After a few seconds, Alex started opening and closing his mouth like some kind of fish. His face suddenly stretching into fear.

No...

I stepped back and closed my eyes, feeling this urge of guilt well up in the back of my mind as a thought crossed my mind.

He forgot this isn’t a game anymore. Did he never realize he was sending his little brother to fight to the death?

That’s when I acted out of instinct. Before I realized it, my mind forced me to stare down at the younger brother who was watching his brother start to break down. Then that guilty feeling became a pit in my stomach.

At the same time, Rachelle saw the expression on Alex’s face and began to understand the situation. Then the same fear washed across her face, copying Alex.

No. That’s what I AM doing. I’m bringing all of them to fight to the death for me.

I’m the only adult here, I recognized, resting my head in a virtual hoof. Both of them are just teenagers. And then the kid...

I bit my lip. I’m guilt-tripping these kids into helping me make virtual money. I’m almost a decade older than any of them. What the hell am I doing?!

U-Uh...Are. Are you guys okay?” Joey asked in a mousy voice. “...Are zombies supposed to be that scary?”

Alex let out a shaky breath. “No, Joey. It. It’s not that. It’s—”

“Then what are you so scared of?” Joey asked, the pitch of his voice spiking for a moment. “Zombies only walk anyway. And. And Fleur and I have been shooting the Timberwolves the last few days. Plus she’s got bombs. And Gray said this is easy. So why are you freaking out?”

“It’s...It’s not that easy,” Alex tried explaining. “Joey, this is dangerous. And...I-I’m not sure that we—” “We’ll be fine!”

Joey sat there with a big grin on his face and his eyes tightly closed. “You and Dad play these kinds of games all the time. And whenever I play those games, you and him keep me from dy...losing,” he caught himself. “And now there’s four of us.”

...What is this brat doing? I stared at him. He’s pretending to sound happy. He’s...He’s trying to copy my customer service voice, I thought weakly. He’s trying not to cry. I can even hear it.

“It’ll be fine, Blitz,” he said, his voice cracking again. “We’ll be fine!”

“...” Alex stared at him, trying to keep himself from shaking. But every time he opened his mouth to speak, he just let out another sad breath.

So when he realized he couldn’t open his mouth long enough to say anything, he didn’t. Instead, he settled for hugging his brother.

From where Rachelle and I were standing, we saw Joey’s jaw quivering as he used his magic to wipe his eyes.

“...Still...Terrible liar,” Alex said through shaking breaths.

“You too Blitz,” Joe…’Light Chill’ tossed back.

Rachelle and I let them have their moment a little longer, having enough wits to glare daggers at any player that dared pass by laughing.

“So…” The two broke out of their hug and Light Chill looked at me. “Zombies?”

“...” I took a deep breath, watching the kid now threatening his smile towards me.

His older brother looked to me for an answer. As did Rachelle.

“...Zombies,” I repeated, pulling my cloak’s hood over my eyes so no one could see me. “...Let’s go.”

Author's Note

Oof. This one was a little longer than I intended.
I didn't want to set up quests and have that last scene take place the same time as the group fighting monsters. That wouldn't have mixed well. So this chapter needed to be a little long as a result.

I don't really have any bonus thing to add to this chapter. So instead I'd like to ask something directly. What do you think of the four party members? Are there any character that you think I should work on a little better or possibly a character that seems believable?

At the risk of sounding a little demanding, it'd be a great holiday gift. :twilightsmile:

That said, I hope you all have a Happy Holidays. Until next chapter,
-Zeke

First Encounter

Everfree Trail
3rd Person POV

The four players walked in silence as they traveled through the Everfree. The forest had many roads that spidered out towards key landmarks and unique areas, most of which Gray knew from passing knowledge and Blitz had on his map thanks to the in-game books he read. Although, many of these places were public knowledge already.

Ever since they had been trapped in the game, dozens of players had worked together to map out the forest for any signs of the first Element of Harmony. Since a week had now passed, the pathways and unique areas were the first things explored. This meant that the party wouldn't run into other players unless they were heading to or from the graveyard as well. Which was unlikely.

However, the path they had to take was thin, flanked by thick treelines that walled the group in tighter. Maybe three ponies could walk from shoulder to shoulder if they wanted but the group held a tighter formation.

Gray was at the front of the group, leading the way with her hood off so she could keep an eye out. She had to keep her daggers sheathed under her cloak so she could walk freely, or run, if necessary. Behind her was Fleur and Chill as they walked together.

Chill was able to keep his wand drawn and levitating beside him but the same could not be said of Fleur and her bow. Her telepathy skill wasn’t high enough to carry something for the entire trip so it stayed slung across her back so she too could walk freely.

Finally, in the back of the group was Blitz. He was the weakest in terms of levels and HP but he was the only melee fighter the group had. He was set up in the back because Timberwolves preferred to ambush their prey. Although Blitz could stop anything that came from behind with the tonfa and warclub resting on his back.

Or at least, that was the plan.

The day before, Blitz had the others give him their stats and skills to go over. He and his father played MMOs before, with his father even managing raiding parties and guilds. However, Blitz never did any of those things himself. He only watched. But even then, that was all on paper or a computer screen. Even if this was a game, it was real enough. After Blitz and Gray combined what they knew about Timberwolves, from how they fought to any kind of weaknesses they had, this wasn't a matter of numbers.

Blitz, as well as the others, all had this feeling of dread looming above them. In any of his other games, you would lose, die, then respawn and try again. But trial and error was out of the question. It was only ‘git gud’ and ‘don’t die.’

Die...

Don’t. Die. Even if Blitz tried to count up numbers or think of some sort of trick to help in a fight, his mind kept repeating: Don't. Die. It was a mantra. He would want to come up with a distraction but then realize he can't distract himself because he needed to keep watching like the others. And in that silent focus, Don't. Die. would come back. And then get louder, and faster, and harder to ignore as the mantra forced his mind to imagine just what could go wrong either to him or the others or Joey or—

“Stop.”

The group stopped. So did the mantra.

Then the group turned to the one who spoke; Fleur. Last night, Blitz and Fleur had another language lesson. But that time, he went over a handful of words she needed to know for a fight.

Fleur didn’t take her eyes off the trees near her as she carefully took out her bow.

“Back,” Blitz called out. As one, the group began backing away from the left side of the path.

...rustle-rustle...

“Stop.” Not a moment later, they stopped moving as, from the opposite wall of trees, Blitz heard more movement.

“Close.”

The group tightened their formation further in the direct center of the path, forming a shell.

“It’s a pack,” Gray pointed out, drawing an Iron Dagger from her cloak. She had five equipped on her, ready to throw or stab when needed.

Blitz kept watching the trees where he heard movement. “How long does Dark Blend stay active?”

Gray looked to the sky. “Still daylight. Twelve seconds. Twenty second cooldown.”

Then Blitz looked to Fleur and Chill. Chill’s wand was pulled back, ready to fire and Fleur was slowly pulling a specialty arrow from the quiver. Before she could, Blitz put a hoof on her shoulder, nearly making her jump as high as the trees.

“No,” he told her. “Normal. Arrow.”

Fleur took a second to calm down and try to understnad what Blitz said. After a moment, she nodded and put the bomb arrow back, pulling out a regular one instead and setting it in the bow. Blitz assumed that when that arrow hit the wolf, the explosion would hit the group too. He would have been right.

“I see one,” Chill announced. He didn’t realize how loud he was until a chorus of shushing and wolf growling made him tremble.

“...I see one,” he retried in a stage whisper, pointing out a third one that was stepping out from the treeline back down the path.

There were now three. Two from within the brush on either side were closest to Chill and Fleur and the third behind them was a small distance but closest to Blitz.

“Is that all of them?” Chill asked, still stage whispering.

“...Yeah.” Gray nodded.

Blitz took a second to steady his breathing and looked at the health bars in his vision.

E1ectric_B1itz: 89/89
Light_Chill: 90/90 *
F1eur_de_7is: 114/114 *
GrayMatt3rsxxx: 130/130 *

Then Blitz looked to the only exposed one. A Timberwolf’s HP could range between 40-70. That wolf’s HP bar read 50/50.

“Gray. One behind us. Chill? On her.” Blitz commanded.

Chill readied his wand towards that wolf as Gray placed the dagger’s hilt between her teeth, freeing her hooves to run.

“Fleur? Ready.” Fleur notched the arrow and drew it back, her magic dealing with the strain.

Blitz drew his tonfa and took one last breath. “Now.”

“Dark Blend,” Gray called out, vanishing in an instant. Only her teammates saw her outline rush past them and towards the wolf behind.

When the wolves saw her disappear, they took that as a challenge and broke cover for a pincer attack. One on Fleur. One on Chill.

“FIRE!” As Blitz shouted. The three acted.

Blitz used his wings to fly up, giving Chill a clear shot of the wolf charging from behind as Fleur aimed her arrow. Simultaneously, they fired.

Fleur’s arrow struck the wolf directly in the eye, making it rear back as the numbers 62/62 vanished along with a third of his HP bar.

Chill’s magic bolt sailed down the path, bending like a curveball as it struck the wolf’s face. The HP bar dropped to a third as well.

The wolf lunging at Chill from the trees failed. From his side, Blitz collided against it from midair and they tumbled across the trail.

Looking up at his HP bar, Blitz was chipped to 86/89 while the wolf only had a sliver of health gone.

Finally, Gray closed in on the wolf Chill shot. As the wolf brushed off the blast, Gray leapt and, taking the dagger in her hoof, carved the wolf’s stomach open.

The wolf let out a painful bark as his blue code escaped his stomach, HP tanking until it was nearing the red.

Out of desperation, it swung wildly at Gray as she became visible but the claws met air. Gray had already jumped away, placing another dagger in her teeth as she readied the one in her hoof.

“We’re. We’re doing it!” Now more confident, Joey started to laugh. “We’re doing it!”

Blitz jumped back on two hooves, using his wings to balance himself as he took up a fighting pose. “Joey! Cheer later,” he shouted.

“R-Right.” Chill quickly noticed the two wolves surrounding them and got serious.

Fleur’s wolf recovered first, clawing at the arrow to get it out of its eye socket. As it did, it spotted Fleur nocking a new arrow despite the proximity.

Before she could draw the arrow back, the wolf went for the offensive. Fleur ended up ditched the bow and ducked to the right. But the wolf was too close.

It’s first claw missed, swiping her mane, but the second claw reached further and caught her hind leg, ripping into it and knocking her over.

Fleur eyed her HP but the wolf wasn't done. It noticed Blitz on the defensive against his wolf, dodging and parrying claws. However, his back was exposed.

Distracted, the wolf trampled over the archer, dealing more damage, and lunged for the pegasus.

“ALEX!” Chill screamed, distracting Gray at the wrong moment as the wolf cut its claws against her neck, followed by another one down her foreleg.

Blitz tried to look back at his brother only for Fleur’s wolf to smash into his back and sink its splintered teeth into the nape of his neck while its claws pierced his shoulders.

As Blitz screeched in pain, the wolf he attacked took its chance and raked a claw across his stomach.

Blitz was brought to the ground as the two wolves continued mauling him.

In Chill’s display, this was everyone’s HP bars:

Light_Chill: 90/90 *
E1ectric_B1itz: 46/89
F1eur_de_7is: 87/114 *
GrayMatt3rsxxx: 104/130

“Fleur! Chill!” From down the road, Gray shook her hoof to help with the pain. “Your abilities! A-bil-i-ty!”

“A-bil-i..." Fleur took a moment before she stood up and with her magic drew the shortsword she had at her hip. Then let out a sharp whistle.

The wolf that crushed, unwedged its teeth from Blitz’s neck and turned to see Fleur charging at it, sword raised by levitation.

“Amour Maladie,” she shouted, her blade glowing with a dark pink hue.

“Ice Age,” Chill cried simultaneously, the dirt and grass around him coated in a sudden sheet of frost.

Like Gray, Chill and Fleur had gained their abilities when they leveled up. Fleur’s ability was Amour Maladie, which was the game’s translation for Love Sickness. The ability was something Fleur could put into her attacks.

Before the wolf could springboard off of Blitz, the sword thrust forward and stabbed into its shoulder blade, letting the dark pink aura spread across the wolf’s body like a virus.

Fleur kept her eyes intently locked on the creature as its glowing eye sockets turned bright pink. When Fleur noticed this, she began slowly backing away with the wolf following in a heavy trance.

Then it was Chill’s turn.

Like Amour Maladie, Ice Age made the magic around the wand grow in intensity as frost formed at the end. Chill wound the wand back, firing three concentrated blasts of magical ice in rapid fire.

The blasts were twice the size of his regular attacks and they traveled slower as the air around them became visible from the cold.

But even with the close proximity, the wolf was fast enough to react and jumped for the trees to avoid them. Or rather, it would have if Blitz wasn’t holding its forelegs in a bear hug.

The wolf glanced down at the pegasus for a moment, whose body had gash marks with blue code evaporating from them. But even then, Blitz grinned evily at the creature.

All three blasts shattered across the wolf, encasing it more and more ice until the last blast reduced it to 0 HP.

But rather than burst into code like normal, the Timberwolf was encased in ice, becoming a sculpture in the middle of the road.

“Nice,” Blitz complimented, standing up and turning around to the pink glowing wolf that gazed at Fleur in a daze.

Rolling his shoulder to dispel the pain, Blitz took up his tonfa and flew upwards about a dozen feet before diving into the center of the wolf’s back, smashing both weapons into it as Blitz pinned it to the ground.

The moment its HP bar went down, the pink aura popped like a bubble and the wolf looked ready to go into a frenzy against Fleur who simply returned a cocky smile.

But before the wolf could make good on its threat Blitz started to pummel the creature, slamming tonfa into the back of its wooden skull repeatedly until, by the fourth slam, the wolf erupted into a sea of blue code.

Through the blue, Blitz watched a message box appear.

Enemies Defeated
3 Timberwolves

Team Rewards
15 Bits
75 XP

Your Share
Bits Obtained: 4
20 XP

“Okay,” Blitz breathed. “Then. That means…?"

He, Fleur, and Chill, who was still surrounded by frost, turned to spot Gray sitting there and giving a polite applause.

“Very impressive,” she said through the dagger still between her teeth. She had new bite marks on her front leg but aside from that she was fine.

Blitz glanced up at the HP bars in his sight once again.

Light_Chill: 90/90 9 sec(s)
E1ectric_B1itz: 38/89
F1eur_de_7is: 87/114
GrayMatt3rsxxx: 87/130

“We...We’re okay.” Alex nearly slumped to the ground as he started breathing again.

“We did it,” Joey cheered, amplifying what Alex felt. “We took down the wolves. We won!”

Gwen watched as the three children ahead of her congratulated themselves. As they did, Gwen shook the bittersweet feeling from her mind and tried to be more subdued. “You all did great. Really,” she started. “But remember, we’re only twenty minutes out of town.”

Rachelle and Alex dialed it back but the smiles were still there. Joey on the other hand, all of them could hear his heart crack. “Twenty? But. But we used everything on these wolves!”

As if to emphasize this, the timer beside Joey’s HP bar hit 0, meaning Ice Age finished. The frost around him melted away and the frozen Timberwolf statue broke apart, becoming a melted puddle in the middle of the road.

“Which only means we need to get a little more used to it,” Alex told them. “Timberwolves travel in packs of 3-5. This was the smallest pack there was.”

“So it gets harder?” Joey’s face fell even further.

“The further we get from town, yeah,” Alex confirmed. “That’s a video game for ya.”

Joey groaned, sliding onto the ground in frustration.

“I don’t know why you’re complaining, we’re the ones who got attacked,” Gwen pointed out. “By the way. Alex, do you have a potion?”

“No.” He shook his head. “Most of our money went to upgrading the weapons. Which, glad we did.” He nodded to Rachelle who took a second to watch her sword spin thanks to her magic before sheathing it like an action movie star.

“Besides, we heal gradually as long as we’re not in a fight.” Alex pointed up at his health bar as it read 41/89.

42/89.

“See?” He smiled weakly.

Then a message popped up in front of him.

GrayMatt3rsxxx sends a gift!

(2 Weak Healing Potions)

Do you accept?

-Yes
-No

“They heal 50 HP,” she explained. “I have two more. Take ‘em.”

“Don’t these cost, like, 100 Bits each?” Alex still pressed the ‘Yes’ button.

“Yes. Or, information I sell about the tomb costs 1 potion. However you want to look at that.” Gray shrugged, glancing at her 95/130 HP and the little * appearing beside it.

Gwen’s ability was ready again and Rachelle’s had less than a minute. Although Joey’s ability would take another half hour to recharge.

The team took a few minutes to let their HP come back as they brainstormed more ideas for how to clean up their fighting. When Alex’s HP was almost full. The group fell back into formation and started down the road again with a little more confidence than before.

Author's Note

I wanted to go over abilities in this Auther Note for anyone interested.

Every player in the game has a unique ability created for them when they make their avatar. These abilities can then be split into three categories; elemental, physical, and other.

Joey's ability, Ice Age, is an Elemental ability where he controls fire...Alright, fine, it's ice. Just testing you. These elemental abilities can do a handful of things, but it's up to the player to experiment with them to find out all its benefits. Normally, players first find out they can deal elemental damage but it's not so limited.

With Gwen, we have Dark Blend. A Physical ability. Physical abilities are something that alter or enhance only the player, not anyone else. These abilities can boost strength or speed, make someone invisible, make someone grow in size or shrink. Basically superpowers. They typically have a standard mode and an amplified mode as well.

Finally, with Rachelle, she has Amour Maladie (Love Poison). This is an Other ability where it's not based around an element and either effects something other than herself OR does something that can interact with other things. However, whereas Elemental requires the user to experiment and Physical has an amplified mode, Other abilities grow with the player and shape themselves depending on how the player will use them. Sometimes changing drastically.

As for Alex...Well, players don't start out with an ability. They gain their abilities anywhere between from lvl 4 to lvl 7. Alex is only level 3 so his ability isn't there yet.

I know this is a really long author's note but since abilities are only now coming up, I wanted to explain them in better detail here. It's not important to know all of this but I figured, meh. It's in my brain and maybe some people are interested to know them.

That said, I've been wanting to write a fight scene for a while and this was more to get back into writing them. And it won't be the only one. We got a whole graveyard to mess with. And then a dungeon not too far away.

I hope you're all enjoying the story! I've been finding more inspiration to keep writing chapters and I've wanted to keep them short like this so I can focus on each scene as I need.

If anyone has any criticism, I always love reading comments!

Happy Holidays everyone,
-Zeke

Through the Woods

Several Hours Later
Everfree Trail
3rd Person POV

An arrow struck the wolf’s chest, dropping its weakened HP down to red as it dodged a wide swing from Blitz’s warclub. As Blitz flew skyward, away from the creature, it turned its fury on Fleur and started to chase towards the archer.

However, before it could get anywhere close, Blitz was diving back down at the creature, using the momentum to smash his club into its spine. The wolf began snapping in two before it broke into a pile of blue programming.

Elsewhere, Gray was jumping and dodging around another wolf’s sea of frantic claws and lunges as she looked for an opening. Every so on, she’d bring a hoof forward and cut into the wolf’s paws with her dagger. All while multiple bolts of magic sailed past them and towards another wolf even further away as it sprinted directly for Chill.

Then, as though sharing the same mind, Gray’s wolf leaned down and acted as a platform, letting Chill’s wolf jump on and leap off its back like a spring in an effort to close the distance quicker. Blitz and Fleur readied themselves to help the others but were stopped as two more Timberwolves emerged from the trees and growled. It was a pack of five minus what Blitz already destroyed.

“Ice Age,” Chill shouted. Frost coated the ground around him and left a trail as he began to back up. Simultaniously, he started to release a wild barrage of ice blasts from his wand, all in the direction of the wolf intent on shredding him. The wolf tucked its head in, ducking and weaving past the slow moving attacks without losing speed.

But with what the magic ice lacked in speed it covered in quantity. The wolf was in the center of this bullet hell scenario and was forced to decide; stop running towards Chill and focus on dodging, or take a few hits and sink teeth into prey.

In the end, the wolf’s programmed instincts won out. After seeing no way to keep running without its losing speed, the wolf doubled down and ran faster to power through.

Two shots smashed against the Timberwolf’s bark skin, one skirting the edge of its jaw while the second shattered against its shoulder. Its HP bar, unharmed until now, was knocked down until its bar was slightly above the halfway mark. However, as the wolf attempted to duck under a third attack, it was suddenly too slow.

Its shoulder, now caked with frost, didn’t cooperate. It only managed to keep the ice from striking it in the center of its face as instead it carved against the scalp. It didn’t take much damage but now another patch of frost threatened to block its eyes.

The wolf used whatever energy it still had to bank left, avoiding the last of the ice magic to avoid getting destroyed. As it examined its body, there were patches of frost where each blast hit. The frost around its jaw made it difficult to even open its mouth.

“Dark Blend.”

Gray vanished right as her wolf dove to bite into her. Somehow, she was already somewhere else as the wolf clamped its teeth together, sliding to a halt. In a frenzy, it swung claws and chomped around it, hoping it only missed its prey by mere inches.

Instead, like before with the now frost-bit Timberwolf, Gray's wolf was suddenly hindered. It shifted back and forth to throw the phantom off but to no avail. Rather, it let out an intense yelp as two daggers sunk behind both shoulder blades. The knives quickly faded into reality along with the entire Earth pony wielding them in each forehoof.

The wolf’s hit points tanked into zero and became a wash of blue code as Gray dropped back onto the ground, sheathing one dagger and turning to observe the rest of the fight.

Chill stood away from the others, heaving and gasping from exhaustion as the counter for Ice Age went down. Even if he didn’t have to move to fire his magic, it took energy. So firing dozens of shots in a flurry wore him out.

“Chill. You good?” Gray called out, readying her dagger against the wolf that was trying to shake away the frost clinging to its body.

“Ye...Yep!” He called back, trying to force himself to stop breathing so heavily as he pulled back the wand in his magic. His ability had twelve more seconds. In an effort to finish the job, Joey threw his wand in every direction and made the wolf dance for him again.

Even when the wolf was focused on dodging every blast that came at him, the frost building up on it held back its speed. Another bolt struck his hind leg and halved what HP the wolf had left. Now with more frost covering its body, it took all its strength to jump away from the next blast. Only to be hit with another strikes that reduced it to a sliver of health.

The wolf couldn’t even stand up before the next three bursts hit him in unison, cementing the rest of the creature into a pitiful ice sculpture. And as Ice Age’s timer came to an end, the wolf melted into a puddle.

Legs shaking, Chill turned around and watched Blitz let out a warcry as he swung his warclub, catching the Timberwolf’s claw and reducing it to mulch before the rest of the wolf shattered along with it into code.

Simultaneously, Fleur drew an Ice Arrow and fired at the last wolf who sat there, staring back at Fleur with a dark pink aura dancing around it. As the arrow sunk into its chest, frost erupted across the body, permanently turning the wolf into a sculpture before bursting into code. Neither wolf nor puddle was left behind.

Enemies Defeated
4 Timberwolves

Team Rewards
14 Bits
100 XP

That was something they had gotten used to seeing each time they fought these wolves. Although it didn’t matter as much as the next message Blitz got.

Level Up!
Lv. 3 → Lv. 4

“Woo~!” Alex cheered, throwing a hoof to the air as his health went from 67/89 to 86/108. “Triple digits! Finally!”

“Took ya long enough,” Gwen teased as she helped walk Joey over to them.

“Way’ta go,” Joey complimented, leaning away from Gwen as he tried not to fall over. His breathing was heavy.

“Joey, you need to think of something other than a barrage like that,” his brother told him. “What if there’s more than one wolf? You’ll be too tired to fight.”

“Then...Then I’ll just fire more magic,” he lazily offered.

Alex watched his brother try, and fail, to act tough and shook his head. “Guys, let’s take a break.” Alex sat down where he was. “We’ve been walking a while now. We can’t be too far.”

“No. We’re not.” Gwen and the others joined him. “It’s maybe another ten minutes before we come up on the graveyard.”

“Oh yeah. The zombies,” Chill told himself between breaths. “Is that going to be hard?”

“Not if we’re smart.” Gwen started to open her inventory. “There’s a lot of zombies but they’re very slow. As long as you pay attention, they can’t catch you.”

“You sure I shouldn’t just, ya know, fly in?” Alex offered, showing off his wings. “I can’t imagine zombies can fly.”

“Zombies volants?!” Rachelle froze, misunderstanding him.

“Non, non,” Alex quickly tried to calm Rachelle down in her language.

“It’s a dumb idea anyway,” Gwen shot down. “If we all go, there’s a better chance the place drops rare armor and weapons. Stuff we’ll need for that dungeon.”

Joey nodded along, pretending to listen until he thought over what Gwen said as something seemed to dawn on him.

“Ohhh,” Joey called out in wonder. “That’s why they’re called drops.”

“Really?” Gwen stared back with a bored look. “Your brother never explained that?”

As the four players continued sitting back, from deeper in the forest they began to hear this guttural growl bellowed from within. All at once they stopped talking and turned around. They didn’t see anything yet.

“Must be further in.” Blitz stood up and backed away from the treeline, readying his tonfa.

“Already?” Joey half-whined as he and the rest of the group followed suit. “But we just fought wolves.”

“We’re deeper in the forest now,” Gwen said, setting a dagger between her teeth. “Ish gonna geh’ ‘ougher.”

Each of them eyed their health for a moment, noticing it stopped regenerating when the threat was too close.

E1ectric_B1itz: 107/108
Light_Chill: 90/90
F1eur_de_7is: 114/114 *
GrayMatt3rsxxx: 109/130 *

Another growl came, this time closer and with the sound of heavy footfalls pairing with it, but still no sign of wolves. And as Fleur listened, the noise seemed different than usual.

She looked to Blitz. “Est-ce un loup?”

“Loup...Lou— wolf,” Blitz translated, “I mean, yes? Wolves are the only thing in Everfree. Right Gray?”

“Around here, yeah,” she confirmed. “There shouldn’t be anything else.”

However, Gray started to notice trees poking out of the canopy suddenly shift and shake as something slammed into them. Each time, the group heard the sound of whatever caused it.

Grrrrrrraaaaaagh!

Another growl, louder this time, had become a complete roar.

Fleur drew back her arrow, shaking her head as her eyes grew wide. “Pas un loup. Not. Wolf.”

“Is. Is it a zombie?” Chill guessed, his wand pulling back slowly. Somehow, even within the aura, the wand trembled.

Then it began to dawn on Gray. It wasn’t a wolf. It was worse. “Run.”

“What?” Blitz looked over his shoulder and Chill just turned around entirely. “What? What’s com—”

“I sh’aid run,” she repeated, taking the dagger out of her mouth. As soon as her dagger was back in its place, she moved. “It’s gonna charge. We need to go.”

Alex didn’t question it further. He locked eyes with Fleur and pointed towards Gray, sending her in the same direction. Then he put his weapons back and turned to his brother.

“Joey, come on.”

But Chill hesitated. Instead, he looked between them and the forest as the ground shaking sounds closed in. “I don’t get it. Why aren’t we fighting? Aren’t we getting better?”

“We’re going,” Gwen answered before Alex could. “Remember when Discord said he was letting monsters roam?”

That caught Alex’s attention. “Joey. Now.” He started to pull his brother along, not giving Chill the chance to process why. In his mind, they haven’t run away before. Why now?

But as Chill finally put his wand back, another roar, loud enough to shake each of them, made everyone freeze in fear. More trees were shoved aside, some threatening to break from the unknown force.

Finally, as the group spotted something moving in the brush, it stood still. From within, triple the height of the ponies, was this large misshapen figure who slowly brought out one of its tree-sized legs and scraped it across the ground with a horrible ripping sound.

The leg then slammed against the forest floor and a cloud of blue code kicked up like dust, illuminating this greenish, rocky skin that coated the monster. It’s snout protruded with massive teeth jutting out of the sides; most of them the size of a leg. Even as the darkness returned, the dull glow of its yellow eyes pierced the shadows, observing the four snacks ahead of it.

And then it charged.

At an alien speed, it came at them in an instant, crawling over bushes and rocks as its massive tail swung like a wrecking ball into the trees beside it. Gray and Fleur were far enough where they were safe although the monster paid them no mind. Instead, it erupted from the forest and like a spear, its massive jaw opening and snapping shut against the only pony foolish enough to stand in its way; Light Chill.

Jagged stone teeth skewered Chill’s torso and ripped him from Blitz’s grip without issue. The young brother’s screams were blocked out by the sound of this reptile’s stone body scraping against the ground as its left over momentum pushed it into the road past Blitz, almost knocking him over in the process.

Chill’s HP went into freefall.

90.

78.

62.

46.

40.

37.

32/90.

Everyone’s attention wasn’t on the numbers but Chill himself. They watched in terror, praying he wouldn’t explode into numbers at any moment. Even as the monster's boulder of a tail threatened to take Blitz’s head off, he didn’t react.

Chill’s screaming persisted as the monster stood back up and shook him as if he was a dog’s chew toy. And when the creature was done, it flicked its head to the side and threw the snack away. Chill went ragdolling through the air until he slammed against the trunk of a tree, his screaming gone silent.

11/90.

Chill plopped to the ground lifelessly while blue holes had code spilling out. The child slowly tried to put his front hooves under him and debated whether to scream again or find out where he landed. In the end, screaming won out but all that came was this strained groan. It proved he was still conscious at least.

The monster turned to observe the other three. Gray was trying not to hyperventilate, Blitz was slack-jawed by what he just witnessed and Fleur was trying to remember how her magic worked through her fear.

Looming above them was the proud HP bar and name of the creature before them.

Cragadile
HP: 261/261

When neither of the girls seemed like a threat, the beast lowered its head to stare down at Blitz with a singular yellow eye. Blitz stared back, barely remembering to breathe so that he stayed conscious. Next, Blitz’s mind went into overdrive, replaying everything his brother just went through. He managed to tear his gaze away from the beast and at the crumpled unicorn dangerously close to getting smashed by a heavy tail. When he saw this, Blitz finally had a reaction.

Screaming.

It could have been called a warcry but that would imply Blitz did it on purpose. Instead, he flew into the monster’s face with his warclub in his hooves. Before the monster could open its jaw to grant the pegasus a quicker death, Blitz swung with everything and smashed it in the nose.

The cagadile reeled back from the sudden pain, shaking its head as the HP bar dropped maybe five percent. As Blitz readied himself to swing for its rocky face again, the cragadile turned its body an alarming speed, driving its tail forward like a bat.

Blitz was too frenzied to think of blocking but it hardly mattered. The tail crashed into him with the strength of a small car, throwing Blitz far off into the woods and out of the monster’s face. As he was entirely out of sight, Gray and Fleur were now staring up at the irate beast, free to eat whoever it wanted.

While Blitz’s warclub clanked against the ground lifelessly, Gray glanced at the health bars.

GrayMatt3rsxxx: 109/130 *
E1ectric_B1itz: 81/108
Light_Chill: 11/90
F1eur_de_7is: 114/114 *

With Blitz too far away to matter, the creature turned back to finish off the unicorn who was peeling himself up off the ground. The entire time Fleur, who finally found her wits, started firing off arrows but to little effect. Only by the fourth arrow did the HP bar even go down a notch.

Gray grabbed the next arrow before Fleur could nock it. “No! Not. Working,” She exclaimed. “We need bludgeoning weapons! Blud-geon,” she spoke loudly, smacking one hoof into the other like a child playing with action figures.

Without nothing important distracting it, the cragadile leered over Chill, letting the programmed stench of its breath waft over its meal. However, rather than cower or run like the monster had hoped, Chill stared back. Then, when the two were done sharing this odd moment of silence, Chill suddenly let out this nervous, uncontrolled giggling.

The laughter was the only noise there was and it made Gray and Fleur turn around in time to see the clear terror in Chill’s eyes. They also noticed magic flowing from his horn as, in a flourish, Chill’s wand was drawn and flung in one move.

The magic bolt rammed into the monster’s snout, making it flinch and twist away in a daze. Unfortunately, Chill was too broken to consider running at this point as his shaky laughter continued. So like a mad maestro, Chill had enough sense to fling the wand back and forth in his magic, shooting pulses like a gatling gun and pelting the beast’s rock-covered body.

After a dozen shots, most of them hitting the large target, the beast’s health didn’t drop nearly as far as it should have. Chill’s laughter was exchanged for heavy breathing as he wore himself out and almost collapsed in front of the now furious beast.

Fsssssssssssssss...

As it readied itself to smash Chill into paste with a single foot, Gray’s attention wandered to Fleur as she drew her new arrow back. One with a fuse burning on the side that forced the archer to swallow her fear and aim as carefully as she could.

Gray realized that at some point in Chill’s laughing fit, Fleur backed up enough that she wouldn’t be caught in her own blast radius.

Not bothering to ask if she was too close herself, Gray broke out into a run to the side, listening as the sound of the fuse became a sharp whistle that swept down the trail and directly into the—

A bright light and thunderous boom forced Gray to dive for cover in a shriek. Even as the flash of the explosion hung in the air, Gray felt the beast struggle to keep its footing as it stomped around in place.

She cracked open an eye, ears ringing loudly and her heart in her throat from how close that blast was. As she tried to find her wits, she noticed Blitz’s warclub roll up against her hoof. Without thinking, she took it in her forelegs and had an idea.

“Dark Blend,” she muttered, turning invisible as all life around her went deathly silent. Including the ringing in her ears, thankfully.

By now the monster’s rage was obvious. From its perspective, it was battered by bright lights and then a loud boom nearly took it off of its feet. So, instead of eating the mage that was too tired to fight back, it turned its back on Chill to kill whatever tried to blow it up.

Meanwhile Blitz, now fully back in his own mind, rocketed out from the trees, clocking the cragadile in the face with one tonfa before spinning in mid air and using the speed to strike withe the second one. The monster tried to snap its jaw around the pest but Blitz was ready, ducking away and landing on the center of its back. He then proceeded to bash into it as well as he could.

By the third hit, the reptile was done. Its health, now down to only a fifth, made it decide to take down something permanently. Rather than throw off Blitz, it charged with the same crazed speed it had in the beginning and, as she was readied a Bludgeon Arrow, bit into Fleur with its stony teeth and crunched. She screamed in pain and panic as Blitz watched in shock from atop the monster as he held on for dear life.

But it wasn’t done. It spiked Fleur on the ground like a football before slamming its rocky body on top of her. Not a second later it went into a death roll, throwing Blitz underneath it at the same time as it grinded the two ponies with every jagged rock that made up its back. When it was done, instead of getting up, the beast laid on top of them, deciding to let them suffocate in the darkness.

The only thing either of them could see was the health bars.

E1ectric_B1itz: 40/108
Light_Chill: 11/90
F1eur_de_7is: 4/114 *
GrayMatt3rsxxx: 109/130 4 sec(s)

The beast felt three more shots of magic strike him from behind but that was all Chill could force before he leaned on the tree for support. And when the beast didn’t feel anything else, it decided to finish the job.

The monster pulled its legs back under itself and stood up again, revealing two disheveled ponies lying pressed into the ground. Blitz tried picking himself back up while Fleur only managed to left her head to spot the looming shadow above them. Neither were in any condition to escape.

So they didn’t.

Instead, they as the reptile’s legs fell out from under it again, letting itself crush and envelope them in darkness for a second time. All they could manage was to close their eyes out of instinct.

But even through their eyelids, they watched a sea of blue wash over them as they suddenly felt nothing.

Before the monster could impact the ground, its body melted into a tsunami of blue 1s and 0s that poured across the road. Blitz and Fleur suddenly felt no resistance as they laid there in shock and confusion as code danced around all of them.

Appearing beside them was Gray, swinging the warclub over her shoulder like a baseball bat as she had a relieved, if not hollowed, look on her face.

“This,” She declared with a huge breath. “Is the most terrifying day of my life. And I’m the only one that didn’t get hit.”

As she said this, a familiar message flashed in front of her face.

Enemies Defeated
1 Cragadile

Team Rewards
70 Bits
1000 XP
Crag Dagger
Crag Plate Armor

Your Share
Bits Obtained: 32
374 XP
Crag Dagger
Crag Plate Armor

“Huh,” Gwen hummed. “I got the—” Another message came up, this time only for Gwen and Joey.

Level Up!
Lv. 5 → Lv. 6

E1ectric_B1itz: 41/108
Light_Chill: 23/101
F1eur_de_7is: 5/114 *
GrayMatt3rsxxx: 120/140

Gwen took a moment to admire her luck before she noticed Joey fall to his knees, or whatever pony knees are called, Gwen imagined before hurrying over to help move him back to the others.

“Pou. Pouvons-nous reposer? S'il vous plaît,” Rachelle asked pathetically. The pain of being eaten and crushed had already faded thanks to the game but the stress of it all was exhausting.

“Joey,” Alex said tiredly, forcing himself to stand back up. “Are you alright? How do you feel?”

“I. I. I..." Joey let Gwen walk him over to the others while he had this far off look on his face.

“Joey, it’s okay. It’s gone now,” Alex told him, meeting him halfway as he took Joey in his arms. “Look. Do you want to go back to town? That’s perfectly fine. We still have the hotel and we can just be done. Okay? We can stop now.”

But Joey didn’t listen. Instead, the same nervous laughter from before caught in his throat as his distant expression focused. “I...I got eaten by an alligator. Ahehehe. Heh...”

“...What?” Alex furrowed his brow.

“An alligator ate me and then I bopped it in the nose. Hehe,” Joey explained, slowly letting himself sit back down. “It was...so cool...You think Dad’s gonna believe us?”

“Alex,” Gwen slowly interjected. “I think your brother should rest for a while. It’s been a day.” She watched as Joey sat there, supposedly not scared or worried like the rest of the group expected.

Again, because the game made pain much less intense than it was, being chewed by the cragadile hurt in the moment, but not at all as painful as it should have been. Even being trapped in the game didn’t make that worse. So once the pain was gone, the only thing left behind was the memory.

But Joey had reached his limit. From Discord scaring everyone and then trapping Joey inside a library as it blew up. Joey watching his brother be teleported away and a minute later splatter on the ground neck-first followed by convulsing in pain every hour for days. To sneak away at night with strangers to fire magic from a stick rather than sleep in the rubble of the same library he blamed himself for having been destroyed. To talk with random piles of code rather than living people and then be given chocolate bars and caramel apples as if nothing was wrong.

And now, after being chewed up and spat out by a monster the size of a cement truck, he, his brother, and two strangers he barely knew were willingly walking to a graveyard full of zombies.

All while Joey was stuck in the body of a pony half his height. The eight year old had been through a lot in one week. And because he didn’t want to make his brother, or this Gray woman, or the Rachelle girl worry about him because he was the youngest, he had one option.

Grit his teeth and smile.

“Aw come on, we’re gonna be fine,” Joey mock-whined, standing up and putting on the best smile he could muster. “Alex just said it’s okay now, right? And you said you tell ponies about the graveyard all the time. Those guys can’t be too much stronger than we are. I mean, we’re pretty awesome!”

Joey felt a hoof on his shoulder.

“Joey. It’s oka—”

Joey’s hoof bopped Alex in the nose just strong enough to push him on his flank.

“Not my name Blitz,” Joey(?) called out with a smile.

“...What?”

“My name’s Light Chill. Remember?” ~~Joey~~ Light Chill reminded him. “That’s what you called me when we talked in the plaza yesterday. Then at the jewelry store. When we started the game, we said we would talk like ponies.”

Alex glanced up at Gwen for some hope of advice but all he got was her ears flattening against her skull. She had no idea how to respond.

So Alex stood back up, put his hooves on Light Chill’s shoulders and looked him dead in the eyes. “Joey. Joey. Vaughn. Don’t do this, okay? We’re here for you. Please. Don’t need to pretend like you’re not afraid of anything. Everything is terrible. I’m not going to lie and say it isn’t. But you can’t do this, alright? You’re not a pony. You’re my brother.”

“...I know.”

The younger brother looked up at the older, trying to keep up his smile while his eyes misted over. “I know I’m your brother. But...Joey’s not good at this.” His voice cracked.

“Joey’s a third grader. Joey watches Mom on TV. He listens to Dad talk about blog stuff he doesn't know anything about. Joey chases our dog in the backyard and never throws the toy far enough for her to care. And. And Joey doesn’t fight wolves. Or alligators. Or zombies or Discord. Joey’s a human.

“But Light Chill,” Chill went on, sniffling. “Light Chill’s a pony. Light Chill’s a wizard with a staff that fights monsters with his big brother. He can get eaten by a monster and then stand right back up and blast it in the face. Fake robot ponies ask him for help because they’re not smart enough to do anything other than sell him things. Joey can’t do any of that.”

Alex watched as his little brother wiped his eyes for a second and tried to smile again. “We can’t go home. And if we stay in town, we won’t get better. Everyone else will get stronger and we’ll be stuck back on that library floor again. I mean, we have to fight eventually. Right?”

“We...No. No, w-we don’t,” Alex tried to deny it but both of them knew that was a lie.

So Chill kept smiling. “Joey can’t do stuff. Light Chill can. So I’m gonna be Light Chill for a while. Okay?”

Alex didn’t say anything. Instead, he just pulled his brother in for a hug and held him there as long as his brother would let him, keeping himself from tearing up. All the while, Gwen sat there, completely unsure how to take this.

“Okay,” Alex eventually said. “Fine. If it helps; be Light Chill. But if something’s bothering you.” Alex pulled Chill back so he could look him in the eye again. “If you’re upset or something’s really scaring you, say it. Okay?”

Light Chill gave his brother a big smile. “I will. Promise.”

“Good.”

Light Chill took one more breath, wiped the tears from his eyes, and stood back up. “So...Let’s go fight zombies!”

“No,” Gwen demanded, holding a hoof out just in time to keep Chill from walking off. “We are tired. And we’re low on health. So we’re taking a lunch break. And I think I need to have a talk with your brother.”

Chill’s expression flashed into one of relief for a moment before he pretended to be upset about it, even giving out a mock groan. “Fine. I guess that’s good too.”

Chill summoned two chocolate bars from his inventory, levitating one over to Rachelle who took it as a sign that they were stopping for now. Something she was greatly happy for.

So as they sat down, Gwen brought Alex a few feet away so that Chill couldn’t over hear them. Although he didn’t have to. Light Chill already assumed he knew what Gwen was worried about.

But that didn’t matter right now. Instead, all Light Chill was interested in was eating his chocolate bar in peace.

Author's Note

So...This was a different chapter. I don't know how people may react to it but it's something I've been struggling to approach for a while now.

I wanted to write a story that didn't have perfect, unstoppable heroes. I wanted these characters to be people who fight simply to survive. And at a price. After all, the way this game world works is that there's only ten elements. And the main story already has the ten players that get them. Any other player is merely fighting to make it out the other side.

For those that read up until this point; thank you. I know this wasn't a happier chapter like others have been up until this point. Even though that's normally how I write. But I know that I needed to write something more serious eventually. And I don't know if it worked or not.

I might have the next chapter before the new year, but in the case that I don't, I want to say it just in case:

Happy New Year everyone! May it be better than this one,
-Zeke

Everfree Graves

Alex/E1ectric_B1itz’s POV
A Half Hour After the Cragadile

While we calmed our nerves on the side of the road Gwen started to go over everything she knew about the cemetery we were headed towards. To start, it was one of a good dozen areas that operated differently than the rest of the games and it was called Everfree Graves.

Everfree Graves, and all of these other areas, reset themselves at midnight. This meant that every trap, unique monster, and most importantly chance for treasure, would never run out. However the bigger rewards like rare armor and weapons would only work as one per customer. Once you got the useful stuff the area wouldn’t let you farm it multiple times.

Before the group headed out again, I exchanged messages with Rachelle. She was on edge thanks to the crocodile but was still hanging in there. Apparently, she was attacked so fast that she barely registered what happened until it was already over. If anything, she was more concerned about Joey.

Which, on that note, Jo...Yeah, Joey was, oddly, fine.

He wasn’t smiling and skipping along like everything was the best day ever. Joey was still in the right mind as he stayed subdued and took everything seriously. But since declaring himself Light Chill, any sense of nervousness was largely reduced. As if he was actively fooling himself.

As we walked, the scenery began to shift around us dramatically. The wide dirt road shriveled up into this thin path of dead grass and rocks that meandered rather than cut through the forest. Then, the walls of healthy trees and bushes gradually replaced themselves with ditches and dry brambles. And to finish off the look, the further we walked the more this new fog seemed to thicken.

It wasn’t much longer until we found our first cluster of tombstones. They were fenced off by this short rusted fence and the grave closest to us was dug up. Because of course it was.

“Don’t jump the fence. Don’t look in the grave,” Gwen explained with the same enthusiasm you’d read a checklist with. “There’s two zombies in there. They’ll jump out if you do.”

That fact alone almost made me curious enough to do exactly that but I forced my eyes to stay forward. If Gwen said it was trapped then it was trapped.

The reason Gwen knew about this place was her info selling scam. From day one she drew up an entire walkthrough of this area and sold it to whoever was willing to listen. Then Gwen promised that if the players wrote down where all the traps and treasure were, she would pay them back.

Then the players did exactly that. They’d tell her what they found out, thinking it was an easy way to earn back their money. Little did the players know Gwen would take that info, update what she learned, then sell it all over again at a higher price each time.

Now that we were walking through the very place Gwen conned people into scouting for her, she had an explanation for everything. She riddled off every trap, searched every hiding place and walked us around every would-be trap there was.

At one point she even took this convoluted scenic route just to avoid crossing this mundane five-foot bridge. The only explanation she gave was that “The bridge is evil.”

Any semblance of adventure or concern about Everfree Graves was, pun incoming, dead on arrival. Gwen had no fear. As though she was the one who set every trap in this place. The best way I could describe it was like watching someone speedrun real life.

As Gwen slowed to a stop at the top of the hill, she motioned for us to walk up next to her. When we did we saw exactly what we were dealing with.

The Graves had a large center area in the center of a valley with dozens of tombstones and mausoleums blanketed by fog. There were trees and other flora that was probably once meant to make the place more inviting but had now backfired as most of the plant life was composed of dead husks.

Stemming out from this central hub was eight winding paths. One of the paths was the one we were currently standing on while the others trailed deep into the fog. But Gwen already told us what was ahead of those seven remaining paths.

Finally, covering every inch of the Graves was a sea of rotten green pony corpses shambling around mindlessly. Loitering at the bottom of our hill had to be upwards of fifty zombies with dozens more scattered everywhere else.

“That’s a lot of zombies,” Joey noted, his voice cracking for a moment.

“Yep.” Gwen nodded. “Just stick to what I told you and we’ll be fine. The tough part’s over with.”

I felt my body relax from those words. After getting to the center without so much as a single threat, I was inclined to believe her.

“Alex.” Gwen turned to me. “Equip that armor we got earlier. Flying’s useless here anyways.”

I nodded and opened my inventory, scrolling down my pathetically small pile of items until I found it: Crag Plate Armor. I tapped the name and a new box came up.

Crag Plate Armor
Body Armor (heavy)

+70 Max HP
Slashing Resist 3
Piercing Resist 3

-Equip
-Cancel

I tapped ‘Equip’ and a flash of blue light enveloped my body. Large chiseled plates of greenish rock secured themselves around me in an instant. Right away I felt exactly how heavy plate mail made out of stone was supposed to be. The only good news was that a shirt wrapped around underneath the plate, making it more comfortable than I expected.

I looked up in the corner of my eye towards all the health bars. Mine had gone from 108/108 to 178/178. I had the best HP in the group now.

“Cool,” Joey gushed. Then he looked at Gwen. “What’s that rock dagger like?”

Gwen reached into her cloak and pulled out this cultist-like dagger made of green stone and spun it in her hoof. “It’s twice as strong as my normal ones. Too heavy to throw though.”

I shrugged, the armor making it more difficult. “Doesn’t really matter. You never throw them anyways.”

“I haven’t had to yet,” Gwen retorted, tucking the dagger away. “Come on. We don’t have long until it’s 5:30.”

And away we went.

? ? ? POV

The four of us walked in our standard formation. I was in front, Siren and Kal were on our sides and King was in the back. Over the last few days, that was the set up we found worked the best given the type of weapons we used. Although today we weren’t trying to map out the forest or level up like normal. This time, King was telling us where to go.

Apparently, he overheard someone talking about this random area deep in the woods that had plenty of good loot that respawned day by day. So King hounded them, demanding they tell him about it. All with his typical short fuse.

I didn’t trust it. The news sounded too good to be true given that it’s only been a week in this hell. Not to mention, those players decided that they would only tell King about the place if he paid for it. To which King instantly spent half the group’s funds.

But still, now we had lost money on King’s gamble and we were all level 9 at this point so...what did we have to lose? The timberwolves weren’t a risk to us anymore so it’s not like we were in danger by seeing whether or not King was lied to or not.

My username is Sardinexx. I chose the Earth short-horse race and went for a warrior-build; my way of saying I’m using heavy armor and a heavier greataxe. I had only ever used an axe in real life to chop wood so getting used to this thing was a chore in and of itself. Still, I was getting better at it now and it’s what I used in other MMOs so...meh.

Siren, or Siren_t@le as her username went, was the only pegasus in our group. She was our ranged attacker with an upgraded crossbow in her arms as she kept airborne by a few feet off the ground. She always wore this scowl on her face but she wasn’t as rude as that made her seem. She was a no nonsense kind of girl. The kind of person that I tended to get along with. After meeting her, and realizing we had a mutual hatred for this game’s short-horse setting, we formed a team.

The next was Kal. He was a unicorn going for a mage-build with a spell tome that helped keep enemies back. Although he had the unfortunate luck of being stuck with a username he made as a joke only to be stuck with; Ballzdeep69. I was one of the few who didn’t laugh at his misery and because of it I actually got to know the guy. When I learned he was a functional human being I invited him onto the squad.

And finally there was King. This fool was another unicorn that had a spear and shield cobmo. His username was KingDingBing and not only did he have the shortest fuse on a guy I had ever met but he was incredibly childish. And it was starting to get on the rest of our nerves.

“You still haven’t told us everything about this place, King.” Siren spun around to stare King down. “What’s the catch about this place?”

“I keep telling you,” King shouted. His default sound setting. “There isn’t a catch! All that’s inside this graveyard are slow moving zombies and a bunch of stuff! Why don’t you believe me?!”

“Maybe because this is the third time you’ve nearly screwed us over,” Kal tossed out.

“Stop saying that! We haven’t even gotten there, why are you already saying I screwed us?!”

“Dial it down King,” I spoke, not looking behind me. “If you keep shouting you’ll just attract more timberwolves.”

“Bu. But th-they. Yeah. Well...!” His stuttering devolved into growling before he blew out a puff of hot air. “Tell that to them.”

“We already know you like screaming,” Siren deadpanned. “Almost everything about this game has a catch. This place has to have one too. Either you know it and you’re not telling us or you don’t know it and you won’t admit it.”

At that, King went unusually quiet.

That means she’s right, I figured. “Which is it?”

“...Fine,” he spat. “This place has seven tombs. Three of the tombs have the treasure and another three have traps.”

“And the seventh one?” Kal asked.

“Bigger trap,” King admitted. “And no one knows which tomb has which ‘cause the place resets every day. Which is why I know there’s gonna be treasure there.”

“How’s come you didn’t just say that earlier?” I could feel Siren glaring at King without even looking.

“Because why does it matter?! We’re all level nine and the two players I heard this from were level seven. We can already handle it!”

“Unless this graveyard scales with the player,” Kal argued.

“Not even the dungeon we did does that. So why are you fighting me on this?!”

Kal sighed. “We’re coming, aren’t we?”

“Here’s something I want to know.” I stopped and turned around, gaining everyone’s attention. “You said there’s only zombies. We didn’t even find zombies at the Ruined Castle. What do you know about them?”

“That they’re not important,” King wrote off.

“...Humor me.” My frown deepened.

King shrunk back. I was the only one he didn’t argue with because he knew I was the only one keeping him in this group. And it wasn’t because of his personality.

“They said the zombies are the slowest things in the game,” he relented. “You could kill them before they ever manage to swing at you. There’s just a lot of them and. And they aren’t worth anything.”

“Not even experience?” Kal slumped.

“No,” King said shortly. “But the place isn’t for grinding levels, it’s for looting.”

“That sounds like a waste of time.” Siren crossed her arms.

“It sounds like a gimmick,” I spoke before King started shouting again. “A gimmick we’ve bet 400 Bits on.”

“Well those guys said they made triple what I paid them,” King excused. “So we can make it back.”

“Somehow I doubt that,” I told him. Making that much money from an area near the starting town sounds completely unbalanced. And say what you want about this terrible game, the game designers were better than that. I should know, a few of them were my friends.

“So are we still going?” Kal looked to me for an final answer, as did Siren and King.

I took a second to breathe, thinking about this calmly. There’s gotta be more King’s not telling us. Then again, Siren called it. He probably doesn’t know and is too proud to admit it.

“We’re going,” I decided, watching as King visibly lit up as if I just proved he was in the right.

“But if this turns out to be a waste of time,” I started, staring at King specifically. “Then you’re out King. Got it?”

“That’s perfectly fine,” he said with strained enthusiasm. “I know it’ll work. I just wish you guys would take me seriously!”

From the corner of my eye I saw Siren staring a hole into my head. She had no patience on this clown from the start.

I turned and matched her gaze for a moment before turning back to the road. It was time to see how bad this gamble would turn out.

3rd Person POV

Gwen and the team walked down the first of the seven trails without issue. Every zombie that noticed them along the way had been following but they were still one hundred feet behind them. The party wouldn’t have to even acknowledge the threat for another few minutes. So instead, they looked around.

At the end of the trail was a large yard with a iron fence wrapped around to keep out trespassers. Little good that did though considering the gates were entirely gone with the hinges torn to shreds. That allowed the party to wander in and study the ten or so tombstones as well as a large, gnarled tree with rotten apples growing from it in the center of the yard.

Then, beyond that tree, was the only thing of importance. A tomb. It was twice the side of a shed and made entirely out of stone with a large slab acting as the door. There was something inscribed above this entrance although it had been eroded into illegible writing long ago. All that remained now were the vines and creepers attempting to consume the building.

Alex and Gwen got to work pulling the slab open, ripping away the plants in the process. Inside was a set of stairs that descended down into the darkness with no light to show what awaited the party.

“Alright. Here’s how this works.” Gwen started opening her inventory, summoning a torch in her grip. The end of it lit itself on fire, shining light across the group from within the fog. “Some of us need to stay outside in case the zombies get too close. As long as we’re here, they’ll keep coming. And the last thing we need is them crowding the entrance and blocking us off.”

“Um...I can stay out,” Light Chill offered, holding up a hoof. “I can keep shooting the zombies when they get close.”

“And if he paces himself, he’ll never run out of magic either,” Gwen added. “He’s actually the perfect choice. Is that okay with you, Alex?”

Alex took a second to think it over. The zombies were too slow to dodge Chill’s magic bolts and they went down in two or three hits. Rachelle would eventually run out of arrows and Alex and Gwen would have to get in melee. Light Chill was the smart option.

“Okay. But Jo...Light Chill,” Alex corrected. “If the zombies get too close, I want you to call for us. Promise?”

“I promise! I can do it.” Light Chill’s expression lit up for a moment before he ran over to the destroyed entrance, drawing his wand and keeping his eyes on the very slow moving horde.

Hesitantly, Alex turned back and followed Rachelle and Gwen into the tomb. With the torch light, plus Rachelle’s light spell from her horn, the tomb was well lit as they descended the stairs.

As they reached the bottom, Gwen lit the sconces set up on either side of the archway and they looked around the first room. This main chamber was a circular room about thirty feet in diameter. Rather than a stone floor like they expected, the floor was instead made up of aged and cracked floorboards.

The stone walls were painted to make it seem as though you were standing within a pleasant forest. However, the paint was chipped and worn, and the bright colors were dulled. The welcoming forest was now simply unsettling.

Finally, in the center of the room was a large stone column in the center beautifully carved to resemble a massive oak tree that stretched to the ceiling. But like the rest of the tomb, it too was ruined as a massive crater was smashed into the center of the stonework, ruining the illusion.

As the party spotted three doors in the room, one on the left, the right, and one directly across from the staircase, two skeleton unicorns walked out from behind the column, brandishing rusty swords in their magic.

Alex pulled out his warclub as Rachelle drew her sword. There wasn’t enough distance to bother with her bow. “So it’s a dud then.”

“Not exactly.” Gwen dismissed her torch and drew her new Crag Dagger. “Every tomb has enemies, trapped or not.”

“Joy,” Alex muttered.

Thankfully, skeletons were as useless as zombies and in a matter of seconds, this was the message the players got.

Enemies Defeated
2 Skeleton Unicorns

Team Rewards
1 Bits
20 XP

“One Bits,” Alex read aloud. “Wow. We’re rolling in it.”

“What’d you expect? They go down in one hit.” Gwen put away the dagger and walked over to get the torch.

“Well some good grammar would be a start,” he joked, ignoring the odd look Gwen shot him in return.

Rachelle let out a weak chuckle and sheathed her sword. She was the one who got the ‘Bits.’

Gwen pointed over towards the door on the right. “You two check that. I’ll clear the left. Whatever you do, don’t open the last room’s coffin.”

The three quickly got to work doing a sweep of the place. Gwen’s room had two more zombies and a skeleton but thanks to Dark Blend, she took out the skeleton and made quick work of the slow zombies. Unfortunately, her room had only a handful of Bits to show for it.

Alex and Rachelle’s room faired better. After the two destroyed a lone skeleton, they ransacked the room for a little over twenty Bits and some light armor which Alex made sure to store.

Within a minute, the three were already gathered up in the final room. It was rectangular in shape with a large sarcophagus on the opposite end of the room. Along the walls to the left and right the floorboards were replaced with top soil as well as a built in aqueduct system to filter freshwater into this underground room.

However, none of that seemed to matter now. The aqueduct was entirely dried up and any plants that grew from the soil were not only dead but also glowing with a sinister purple aura.

As the trio observed the plants, they suddenly heard a loud angry shout coming from within the sarcophagus.

“Welp,” Gwen deadpanned. “It’s a trap.”

“Is that right?” Alex matched her enthusiasm as Rachelle let out a tired groan.

Behind them, a heavy boom of stone falling on stone rang out as the staircase was now sealed off by a stone slab.

“Nous devons tuer le monstre pour partir, non?” Rachelle pulled out her sword as she watched the coffin’s stone lid begin to shift, the angry shouting become clearer.

“Uh, Alex?” Gwen looked over.

“She said, uh...We. Have to...something, the monster to leave, no?” Alex pieced together, pulling out his club and shield.

“Tuer. Tuer,” Rachelle repeated, making stabbing motions with her sword.

“I believe ‘two-eh’ means kill,” Gwen assumed, pulling out her dagger. “In which case, oui oui, madame. Two-eh away.”

Rachelle jokingly rolled her eyes before they all watched the lid finally get pulled far enough to flip off the coffin, revealing a large earth pony zombie lumbering out of its bed before it pulled out a rusted greataxe.

Above it was a health bar and name.

Berserk Zombie Pony
HP: 79/79

“That’s...Not too bad,” Blitz said, readying his tiny buckler in preparation for the massive axe to come.

“Forgot to mention,” Gray started, putting the Crag Dagger in her mouth. “Health don’ rege’erate in Graveshh.”

“Oh,” was all Blitz responded with.

The heavyset zombie bellowed out a loud scream, making Fleur rethink her sword plan as she backed out into the previous room to pull out her bow.

“Good luck,” Gray tossed him.

“What?” Blitz turned to Gray. “What do you mean good lu—”

“Dark Blend.” And like that, Gwen had vanished into the shadows, leaving Blitz alone in the room with the hulking undead.

“Uh..." Blitz slowly stepped backwards as the zombie’s crimson eyes settled on the pegasus with armor too heavy to fly in. “...Have a nice nap?”

The zombie’s roar mixed with the pegasus’s screams as it charged, axe raised to behead the lone player.

Author's Note

Smaller fights like against the skeletons or zombies aren't really worth playing out like the last two chapters. Like Gwen said, they go down in one hit anyway.

Something else I wanted to bring up, I think I brought it up in a previous chapter but that was before I started writing much faster than expected. After the group finishes with the graveyard, I'll be taking a hiatus from this story. Or at the very least, slowing down with chapters for a while.

I'll be working on another story called Harmony's Thieves that's also on this site. It's a mystery rather than an adventure fic like this story and it follows a group of characters from the show after they wake up as humans and no memory of what has happened to them or Ponyville. Act 1 is already written and I plan on writing Act 2 over the next couple of months. I hope you'll check it out!

That all said, I hope you all have enjoyed the story so far and I will see you at the end of next chapter!

Hope you had a great New Years,
-Zeke

Nice Spot for a Grave Plot

Sardinexx’s POV

The group kept walking onwards, watching as the scenery gradually changed to a bleaker setting exactly like any other groups that arrived at Everfree Graves. And as the path got too thin for the group to keep their formation, they switched it up.

Siren flew above the others, keeping her crossbow armed as she kept watch in all directions. The fog made it difficult, but staying airborne was a better idea then walking off road where she was exposed to a surprise attack.

That left Kal, myself and King all in a triangle pattern with myself and Kal in the back. Kal was also a ranged attacker with that magic firing tome while I was close range. Although if we were going to fight a horde of zombies, I wasn’t sure how well an axe would do against an army but it’s what I had.

That left King taking point at the front. His spear made him a good choice for taking on an attack but that wasn’t why he wanted the front. In fact, he kept swearing up and down he needed to be in front so that he could find all the traps and hidden treasure that he was told this area has.

Although to his credit, King was able to find the traps. I would even go as far as to say that he found all of them.

With his face.

On this one trail alone, even before we found any of these tombs King was talking about, we had to have run into about ten traps already. Most of them was something that hit King but there was the occasional fight that broke out from zombies and skeletons that had come out of nowhere. The zombies were pathetic but the skeletons had their weapons.

As it stood now, our health was somewhat weathered.

Sardinexx: 239/286 *
Ballzdeep69: 128/145 *
KingDingBing: 129/195 *
Siren_t@le: 113/147 *

Unfortunately, King checking everything we passed by didn’t do much in terms of finding anything valuable. We had set off more than two traps and in return all we got was something under 40 Bits. Considering we earned more than that fighting off wolves just to get here it was nothing.

So after this most recent attack, King turned back towards us and pointed up at his health bar. “Hey guys, can one of you give me a potion?”

“No,” I huffed.

“Why not?” King’s voice picked up in a whine. “It heals fifty points. I’m more than fifty down!”

“Then fall back and let Sarge take the lead,” Kal offered, gesturing to me. “He has all that HP for a reason.”

“Would that even matter?” Siren asked from above us. “King’s setting everything off anyways.”

“Well how else are we going to find everything?!”

“We’re not finding anything,” I reminded him. “King, this place is like the dungeon; we don’t heal outside of battles. If you run around setting everything off, we won’t be able to handle an actual threat.”

“But you’re the one who’s upset that I paid to find out about this place,” King shouted back. “How am I supposed to show you we can make that money back if we don’t look for it?!”

“Stop. Shouting.” I watched until his attitude was back in check. “A potion costs 100 Bits. Every potion we use is another hundred wasted. If you want to use yours, fine. Use it whenever you want.”

“But all of you have more than one!” He made a sweeping motion with his spear, which I caught when he tried to point it at me.

“No. We don’t.” I shoved his spear away from me. “We rationed them. We only have one each. So we’re saving them for when it’s necessary. If you think you’re too low on health, either drink a potion or give up on the small piles of money. They’re not worth it anyways.

“Besides,” I went on, not dropping my tone as King closed his mouth again. “You said the real treasure’s in the tombs. So we’re going to the tombs. If we can manage to break even, we call it a day and leave.”

King opened his mouth several times but nothing came out other than stuttering and groaning. All that proved was that talking to him was as meaningful as talking to a fish. So when he watched me stare him down without regret he turned to Kal and Siren for backup. To which he realized very quickly that no one was on his side.

So instead, he screamed at the sky, turning around and stomping off down the trail as his screaming faded into grumbling.

“We’d already have our money if people just listened to me...!”

“Everyone’s fault but his,” Siren lulled. “Does he really think this place is worth 400?”

“Probably,” Kal muttered. They both kept quiet enough so King couldn’t hear them over his own complaining. “I don’t get why though.”

“People like him can’t admit they’re wrong,” I told them. “Even if we don’t get enough, he’ll find something to blame it on.”

“We cannot keep putting up with this.” Siren landed next to us. “Ever since he joined, he’s had problems. And it’s going to keep happening.”

“We picked him up at the castle because we thought he was stressed about being trapped here,” Kal explained. “Maybe he still is, but...Sarge?”

I held this stupid hoof up against my temple and thought it over, just like the last two times. The first day he was with us, he proved he could fight but he kept wasting potions every time he got hit. It’s why we now kept potions in personal inventories. In one day, he used five potions. That’s 500 Bits wasted. But it was day one so we let him off with a warning.

Then he wanted to learn how to use a crossbow like Siren so everyone had a ranged option. Siren and King with crossbows, Kal had magic, and I had throwing axes. However, that backfired too when, at some point, he used all the fire bolts we stocked up on during practice. They’re expensive and you only could get so many a day. Warning two.

Now this crazy scheme. Even if it paid off, we couldn’t keep doing this. This was only day three. And I wasn’t about to pick one volatile person over two good teammates.

“We finish up today,” I told them. “We finish, give him most of whatever we get, then cut him.”

“Most?” I could see Siren’s eye twitching past the fog.

“Are you guys coming or not?!”

From ahead, King glared at the three of us, tapping his hoof. He was more irritable now. “We need to keep going!”

Siren let out a low growl before she flew a few feet off the ground. Then, without looking at me, I heard her mutter, “Fine. Most, then we’re done with him.”

She flew over while Kal and I followed behind. One more and we’re done, I told myself.

One more.

Alex/E1ectric_B1itz’s POV

I stood outside against the fence of our third tomb, massaging my neck. Even if it was twenty minutes ago, that giant zombie hit like a truck with that axe.

E1ectric_B1itz: 139/178
Light_Chill: 101/101 *
F1eur_de_7is: 114/114 *
GrayMatt3rsxxx: 166/166 *

Like Gwen mentioned right before the zombie chopped me, health didn’t regenerate outside of battle. Probably because the zombies were always walking after you. If that was the case, maybe that’s why my neck still felt sore. Still, I’d rather a sore neck than a beheading from that axe.

Since this was the third tomb, I decided to stand watch outside this time. Joey did well standing guard but there’s only so many times I can walk off and hope nothing happens to him before I lose my head. Hehe.

Now that I was on lookout, maybe this was the safest place for him to be though. If Joey ended up in a bad tomb, it might end up badly fo—

I shook my head and kept my eyes on the path. About seventeen zombies were walking towards the tomb. None of them anywhere close enough for me to care.

Don’t think like that, I told myself. He’ll be fine. He’s with Rachelle and Gwen. They won’t let anything happen to him.

I glanced back at the health bars for the tenth time now. Still nothing. All of their abilities were ready too. They didn’t have to use them.

Maybe it’s a treasure tomb, I thought. The second tomb we went into ended up being treasure. There was an enchanted warhammer, a unique set of light armor Gwen took, which was why her health was almost as good as mine again, a few health potions, and plenty of Bits.

Then there was the Rusted Greataxe we got from the zombie that wanted my head but it was pretty much worthless. My warclub was stronger and apparently ‘Rusted’ weapons were worth nothing when sold. So, to the back of my inventory it went.

I leaned on the iron fence and started thinking about what came next. This was the toughest side quest out of the pile and so far it was a cakewalk. The only difficulty we had was the Craga…

I felt a chill run down my spine. Back up, Alex, I told myself. You can’t just write that off. That was a random enemy and three of us almost...Stop taking things for granted.

I sat down, staring at the zombies as another part of my brain got angry. Don’t write it off. It’s not like you can just hide forever. Even Joey’s not doing that.

...What is Joey thinking?

Before my mind could start a shouting match with itself, I heard something running up the stairs of the tomb’s entrance.

“Alex! Alex!”

I turned around to watch Joey breach the outdoors and run at me with a huge smile spread across his face. As Joey ran, this thin stick floated behind him like he was pulling a balloon with him. “Treasure,” he cheered. “We got treasure! And look what I got!”

He slide to a stop in front of me and brought the stick forward in his magic, waving it in my face until I finally snatched it into my hooves.

This stick was made up of two pieces of wood coiled around together. One piece was a solid white and the other solid black. It gave the object this ying-yang aesthetic.

It didn’t take much longer for me to realize exactly what it was; a wand.

“Alright Joey,” I cheered, holding it out in front of me as if looking down the sights.

“Light Chill,” he corrected, his happiness more subdued for a moment. “And yeah! I thought I’d be stuck with that first staff for a while. This one is so much cooler looking though!”

“Just as long as you remember who found it, yeah?”

Rachelle and Gwen walked up the stairs at a much more relaxed pace, both looking much different then when they entered.

Rachelle had a brass bracelet around one of her front legs with a blue gem set into it. At the same time she was now wearing this set of leather armor that, after glancing at the health bars, her HP was a little higher now. She must have just put it on.

Then there was Gwen. Aside from the dark leather armor that she got from the last treasure tomb, she had on a new cloak that seemed to almost blend into her surroundings, making her even harder to spot from within the fog.

I chuckled. “Better haul than last round I take it?”

“Yeah. It’s working out well too.” Gwen took a second to admire her cloak. “Rachlle’s bracelet boosts ranged attacks and the cloak reduces aggro from dumber enemies. Like zombies. Oh. And here’s something for you.”

She tapped around on her menu for a second before summoning a large blue crystal which she then tossed over to me. I had to toss Joey’s wand back to him in order to catch it in time.

“It’s called an Experience Crystal,” she explained. “Whoever crushes it gets a boost in XP. Figured the weakest of us oughta get it.”

“Yeah. The weakest,” Joey parroted, trying to hold back his laughter.

I knew I should’ve felt upset about that but just seeing the group taking a second to smile made me relax. “Yeah, yeah, whatever. Thanks guys.”

Wasting no time, I smashed it into my hooves and watched the glowing dust fly into my username and HP bar before vanishing entirely. I’m sure if I checked my menu, I’d have more experience but it wasn’t enough to level me up yet. I couldn’t have been far though.

“So. Where does that put us now?”

“Well, axe wielding maniac tomb had thirty-four Bits,” Gwen counted out. “Plus the previous tomb’s 179...Then this timb which...wishing I had fingers..." Gwen muttered aloud. “...Over 300 Bits.”

“And still one treasure tomb to go. Nice.” I smiled. “Any luck on the shield quest yet?”

“Nope,” Joey answered. “It’s fine though. This place is way easier than I thought it’d be. The zombies aren’t even that scary. Maybe we should even try out that seventh cr—”

“No,” Gwen cut him off.

“But. B-But why not?” Joey’s bravado was down like a brick.

“It’s not worth it. At all,” Gwen told him. “That seventh tomb is the area’s boss. It’s entirely optional and way overpowered.”

“Actually, I’ve been thinking about that,” I butted in. “You brought it up on the way here. Do you think that boss might be holding one of those Elements?”

“No. It’s not even a real boss,” Gwen dismissed. “Apparently, it’s just a high level monster from another part of the game reskinned for this place.”

“Does it have any treasure?” Joey tried to ask.

“Don’t even think about it, Chill.” Gwen gave him a look that would shoot down any child’s excitement. “We’re not going.”

“Then let’s go ahead and hit the other tombs we can go to,” I told them. “And let’s hurry. The zombies are finally getting close.”

I pointed as the first couple of zombies started to wander near the gate as some of the zombies further back were...suddenly turning around?

Huh? I blinked. I thought Gwen said they never stop following you.

“I’ll do it,” Joey cheered, arming himself with his new wand.

Before anyone could stop him, Joey flicked the wand back and forth, throwing another barrage of bolts that riddled the zombies to pieces in mere seconds. Well, the magic that hit. Most of the blasts sailed past the stationary zombies since Joey wasn’t aiming and flew off into the sky. They faded out a few meters later.

When the job was done, Joey let out a heavy breath and turned around. He was a little dizzy but less than he was using a barrage with the old wand.

“I could. I can do that again,” he said through his breathing.

“Hopefully you won’t have to.” Gwen started walking. “Come on. We’re halfway done. Sooner we finish this, the sooner we get back.”

No one had any arguments. Instead, we fell back in line and started down the trail to head towards the next tomb.

Sardinexx’s POV

It took about five more minutes before the path spilled out into a large valley covered in fog, tombstones, and the most unimposing zombie horde I had ever seen. The sheer number of them would have been concerning had it not been for the fact that they move as slow as possible.

What did make me concerned was the sudden shift in King’s attitude. On the way here, he stayed at the front of the group with his head low as he grumbled and complained about everything. He wasn’t checking every rock we passed by anymore but I could still see him turn to look at a suspicious rock or tree only to remember we were all right behind him.

But once he walked up on the scene with the zombies, he stopped. He stopped moping, he stopped grumbling. He even stopped standing. He instead sat down as he looked over the field of zombies, watching them all.

Curious, I tried to look out where he was staring. The zombies were all over the place but most of them were moving in two directions; some towards one of the trails leading out of the area and others towards us.

I looked at King, watching as he drank his potion. His health went from 129/195 to 179/195.

“This would have been so much easier if you all just listened to me,” he complained in that same furious voice. Except his face didn’t seem to match. His face was uncharacteristically calm.

“Nooo,” Siren began as she and Kal walked up next to us. “If we listened to you, we’d be down more hit points and probably forced to use our potions like you.”

King gave a slow nod. “...Yeah. That was kind of the point.”

King turned around to face her and, using his magic, ran his spear through Kal’s neck.

Through Kal’s screaming and twisting, King shook his head. “Had you listened to me, this would have been easier.”

Siren leveled her crossbow, firing point blank as King raised his shield to block the bolt. Then, as I brought down my greataxe to cleave him in half, he leapt away, pulling the spear along with him and giving Kal a chance to back away.

“You son of a—” I tore my axe free from the dirt and rested it over my shoulder, ready to charge.

But King didn’t answer. Instead, he gave out a low whistle.

From the sides of the road, one behind a tree and the other from a ditch, flew out two Pegasi that were waiting. Before we realized what was happening, they fired crossbows, both on me.

One struck my shoulder and the other wedged itself in my spine before both erupted in a burst of fire, cooking me and my hit points alive.

“Siren’s Wail,” Siren muttered, taking in a deep breath before—

Alex/E1ectric_B1itz’s POV

wooooaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH~!

We were almost back out into the main area when suddenly this heavy screeching, almost loud enough to make us cover our ears, made us all stop moving.

Everyone took out their weapons, looking around as all the zombies suddenly turned to look towards the loudest noise possible. It helped to figure out where it had come from.

“Là bas!” Rachelle declared, pointing back at the entrance path. From atop the hill we saw a visible burst of air firing into the sky, passing over two pegasi that were flying above. We could all see the obvious player gems gleaming above their heads.

“Alex?” Joey looked up at me.

“We need to hide,” I told them, looking to Gwen.

Her eyes started to dart back and forth. “If they’re here, another Seller probably told them. We shouldn’t hide in the tom...ugh...come on.”

She put her daggers back and took a sharp turn, heading towards the only path she told us not to go earlier.

I walked after her. “That's the seventh to—”

“Yes. I know. Everyone that sells this place tells everyone not to go there. Which is exactly why it’s the best place to hide. Now hurry up before they see us.”

We didn’t have time to argue. We put away our weapons and started running.

Sardinexx’s POV

Siren’s scream forced the pegasi to cover their ears as their hit points dropped slowly. At the same time, it took all that they had to start flying apart from each other.

“Quiet,” King spoke, bringing the spear forward to puncture Siren’s jaw.

I ran between the two and let the spear embed itself in my torso. Then, clenching my jaw, I brought my axe down in return. King used his magic to bring up his shield, catching most of the impact before the axe cut somewhat into his shoulder. In the corner of my eye, King’s HP only drop thirteen points from where it went up.

Sardinexx: 96/286 *
Ballzdeep69: 99/145 *
KingDingBing: 166/195 *
Siren_t@le: 113/147

King took a few steps back and took his spear with him as he eyed the space. Kal had already recovered and was now firing magic blasts at the pegasi in the air, focusing on the same one Siren was still screaming at. Meanwhile, the second one had already loaded his next fire bolt and was about to return fire on Kal as he flew to flank the group from behind.

Then King turned to me. The fire along my back was finally dying out and the hole in my chest was still there but the pain had faded. But rather than charge at him and let him poke me again, I stood up on my hindlegs and wound back my axe like a lumberjack.

“Grand Strike!”

“King’s Men!”

I swung my axe ahead of me and watched as a lime green slash appeared where I had swung. It then closed the distance on King, attempting to cut him in two.

But at the same time three glowing ponies, all dressed as royal guards, faded into reality. They stood at attention in front of King and acted as a human shield, letting the magic strike cut them to pieces and dispel. They were gone as fast as they appeared and took the Grand Strike with them.

At the same time, Siren’s screaming stopped and she was forced to take a breath. Everyone could hear one another again.

“Fire the leader,” King commanded.

And they did. The archer that was aiming at Kal instead turned the crossbow to me. Before I could turn to see where he had flown, I found another bolt in my back and I was on fire once again.

44/286 was my health after the bolt. Then the burn damage.

42/286.

40.

38.

As it counted down, Kal and Siren fired magic and bolt respectively, both of them hitting the guy who just pinned me with the next arrow. Both hit their target and the pegasi’s health dropped down to two-thirds. The same as the other archer.

36.

34.

“Let’s talk. Sarge.” King sat back down and watched me slowly burning alive. His face was eerily calm. It never changed since the start of this. No trace of that short-fuse he had before.

“Fuck you,” Kal shouted, firing another magic missile at the pegasi as they lazily drifted above us. The one that didn’t shoot me had his next bolt aimed at me.

“They won’t live,” King told me. As if I didn't already know that.

“Stop.” I demanded, turning back towards the others. “We surrender. That what you want?”

“Partly.” King shrugged. When Kal and Siren saw the last of the fire leave my body, my health read 32 HP all the way from the 239 I started this with. King had more than any of us and I spotted the potions on the archer’s belts. They were prepared.

“Those were our fire bolts,” Siren accused, dropping her crossbow as I dropped my axe. Kal settled for closing the spell tome.

“Were,” King focused on. “So were the potions. And money. And everything else you have on you right now.”

“You’re. You’re mugging us?” Kal blinked a few times, watching as the two pegasi were landing to the side of us. Both of them had their crossbows trained on me. One shot was enough to kill me.

King nodded a few times, glancing at his two friends before nodding some more at him. “Yeah. Yeah that’s about it.”

“So you’re gonna kill us regardless then,” Siren argued. “Because if we walk away from this, we’re telling everyone to stay away from you.”

“Not exactly. You see these crystals above our heads?” King pointed up at the player gem that hung above him. It was still blue since he was still our ‘friend.’ “If you kill another player, this small mark shows up saying you did it. Even if we just have one of us finish you all off, people will see us in the same group. So, I figured, it’d be in everyone’s best interest if we gave you a chance.”

“We’re not working for you,” I shot that idea down.

“Trust me, I know.”

King stood up and walked over to me, plucking the axe up off the ground and into his arms. I couldn’t use my ability without a weapon and he knew it. Because I told him that when Kal and I invited him.

“You know how I said one of the tombs was a bigger trap? I wasn’t lying about it. In fact, that’s something I hoped you’d ask about a little more, but, oh well.” He moved over to Siren next, staring right back at her narrowed eyes as he tossed her crossbow over to one of his buddies.

“We’re going to all walk over there nice and quietly,” he explained, still watching Siren as he pointedly said that last word. “And me and the boys are going to give you a nice escort too. I mean, we don’t want you dying to the zombies on the way there. Especially since you don’t have anything to fight with. Which, speaking of. Ballzdeep? If you’d be so kind.”

King held out his hoof, matching Kal’s furious gaze with a calm smirk. This was a completely different person. When Kal saw one of the crossbowmen aiming at him, he caved and levitated the tome into King’s hoof.

“Thank you,” he dripped. Then he walked over to reclaim his seat in front of us all. “So. The rest of your things please. Money, armor, supplies. The faster you do this, the faster we leave you alone.”

We had no choice. Begrudgingly, we started turning over the rest of our inventory. Since I was wearing armor, when I unequipped it, my HP fell to a terrifying number.

Sardinexx: 1/236

When all of us were now truly defenseless, King looked at his new Bit count and smiled.

“What I tell ya Sarge? After all the things we got from you, we did make triple of that 400 Bits you thought I spent. And we haven’t even gone inside the graveyard proper yet.”

“I was right,” Siren let out.

King’s calm smile slowly curdled. “What?”

“I was right,” Siren repeated. “It was the two guys that said to give you a chance. I didn’t like you from minute one. Now I have my reason.”

“Siren,” I looked at her. “Stop. Nothing you say wi—”

“No, no. Sarge. It’s fine.” King got up, his calm demeanor stalling somewhat as he approached Siren. “Please. Keep Talking.”

Siren stared back, watching King’s eyes dilating as he tried to hold back that same fury he showed with us. I guess it wasn’t all fake.

And when Siren saw that, she smirked. “Why not? You already said you’re not gonna kill us. It’d mar your perfect record, wouldn’t it? That sounds like a positive to me.”

King let out a single breath, his anger showing up more as he started turning his head back and forth. “...Is that right? Well. You volunteering?”

Siren turned the idea around in her mind for a second, locking eyes with me as I kept shaking my head.

“I guess I am,” she decided.

I closed my eyes. You idiot...

“Okay. One fire..”

I heard the sound of a crossbow ting and a thud of the bolt sinking into its target. Then the fire ignite.

To my shock, the screams weren’t from Siren. With how many times her ability went off, we all knew what her scream sounded like. Instead it was a man’s voice.

I forced my eyes open to watch as Kal started shaking to put the fire out on his body, his health burning away.

By the time he looked back up, King was already there with my axe raised high above his head.

“NO!”

Without hesitation, King brought the axe down and cleaved straight through Kal. As the axe slammed into the ground, Kal’s hit points were down in an instant. He couldn’t even look up in time to see us before he was a pile of code spilling across the dead grass.

“You little—”

“Stop. Talking.” King tapped the ground with his other hoof as the second crossbow pegasus aimed at me. “Like I always said Siren. If you just listened to me, this would go so much better.”

“You killed him.” I stared him down. “You just killed him. He didn’t do anything.”

To prove my point, a little orange orb appeared beside his player gem, marking him a player killer.

“I wouldn’t have had to if everyone. Just. Listened! Is that too hard?!” He started breathing heavily while his two friends kept still.

“So. You gonna listen. Siren? You think we won’t do it again? You gonna listen?!”

“...” Siren said nothing. Confidence was gone.

“Right answer.” He turned around and went through this breathing exercise while we were forced to stand there.

“Now. Guys, stay above us. You two? Follow.”

He started to walk down the hill, my axe over his shoulders as he readied his spear again. Siren looked at me and I nodded along, jaw clamped.

Kal. I’m so sorry...

Author's Note

Now's probably a good time to admit this; the brothers have plot armor.

That was probably obvious considering how many times they've escaped death or come close only to squeak by on a few points, but yes. I do not plan on killing the brothers. Everyone else, however, is fair game.

No one, not even Rachelle or Gwen, have the same plot armor that the brothers do. This is a game of life and death after all.

Bleak note aside, I'll try and have the next two chapters out soon. They'll be shorter than this one I believe. So there's that.

Until next time.
Cheers,
-Zeke

A Short Trip to the Crypt

Sardinexx’s POV

The five of us, myself and Siren along with King and his friends, traversed across the cemetery. King’s crossbowmen were the only ones flying and they were taking shots at whatever zombie was getting close by while King simply stabbed any zombie in our way.

Because of his threat, I silently reminded Siren to stay calm. The entire time she looked ready to take King’s head off, probably in a literal sense, but this wasn’t an argument anymore. We had to take what he said seriously. King proved as such when he went after Kal.

Where King’s head was in all of this didn’t matter. He was mad enough to kill Kal in cold-blood. Although while we walked King hadn’t said a word. Instead he was using a deep breathing exercise to calm down. Even he believed his anger went above what was acceptable.

The thugs around us I could not bother to care about. I assumed they were complicit in everything since they didn’t object. If they would have said or done something before I might have considered who they were in all of this.

After what felt like an hour, we crossed the cemetery and continued up the center of seven paths. Every monster around us was dispatched, allowing us to observe this large mausoleum overlooking the foggy landscape.

We couldn’t see any of the other tombs or paths but I had assumed every building in this grave was in disrepair. That’s what one would expect from a haunted graveyard. And the few MMOs I played before always followed that gimmick. That only made the mausoleum more ominous as a result.

Wrapped by a tall, eight foot brick wall, the building and the surrounding yard was seemingly untouched by whatever destroyed the graveyard. As we passed through these immaculate iron gates that had been left wide open, we took in everything the place offered.

The grass was no longer patchy and dead but instead plush and bright green. Large trees dotted the space with browning leaves on every branch and at the base of each of them were friendly bushes. Up against the western side of the wall was a small pond with lily pads and cattails growing along the edge.

Then standing above it all was the mausoleum; regal in its beauty. Not one sign of age or decay anywhere on the building. The carvings and designs etched into the structure were in perfect condition. Even the plants growing along the outer walls appeared full of life.

The beacon of untouched land made it seem all the more offsetting. I couldn’t tell why but I got this feeling in the pit of my stomach that something was incredibly wrong. It was like this mausoleum was a beast with an uncanny human grin begging you to come closer.

The entrance was a set of stone steps leading up to the landing where a massive archway was the only way inside. Rather than a set of doors, the archway was clear save for this magical transparent barrier that coated the entrance with swirling lights of green and silver.

Inside the building was the makings of a small church with rows of pews facing a stage with no podium. The inside was as clean as the outside.

“Here we are,” King presented, walking to the base of the steps and turning around to face us. He still looked and sounded frustrated but those breathing exercises seemed to have helped him recover from the rage he had before.

The two crossbowmen landed nearby with both of them aiming their weapons on us. I was reminded all over again how fragile my 1 HP was.

“According to the beta-testers, everyone’s supposed to avoid this place. Too risky, they say.” King took a moment to watch the aura around the entrance before looking at us.

“Get in.”

“What?” I blinked. “You can’t be—”

King cleared his throat and the crossbows were aimed more strictly on me. “We’re done talking.”

Siren started to stomp towards him with some sudden confidence but I quickly held her back. “Siren. Stop. NOW.”

She was trembling in fury as she stared back at King who was slowly finding humor in this. Before either of them said anything only we would regret, Siren shook me off and instead changed her path. She walked past King and flew over the steps to the archway.

I knew better than to try asking King what the barrier would do. So instead, I walked up the steps and joined Siren at the top of the steps.

Siren and I shared a look before she elected to go first. Carefully, she brought a hoof to the barrier and watched as instead of making contact, her leg passed straight through. It was as if she put her hoof through a ray of sunlight.

Siren looked back at me for a moment and took a deep breath before stepping through the barrier.

“Yeah. It’s fine,” she answered. Maybe she wanted to keep me from asking in the first place.

“Great,” King cheered sarcastically as he turned to me. “Now hurry up.”

I closed my eyes and gathered what nerves I had before doing exactly that. There was nothing to feel as I did. I took a few steps, opened my eyes, and I was inside.

“Alright. We’re done here.” King turned back to his friend who still had the crossbow on me. “You can put the bow down. It’s a waste of ammo.”

“Now it’s a waste of ammo?!” Siren shouted, her rage bubbling over.

“Siren, you need to—”

“No. I don’t care anymore!” She shouted. “If we’re dying anyways, let the sad baby do it! I’d rather see him get another mark on his precious crystal! At least Kal dying branded that loser for what he did!”

“Don’t say that,” I grabbed her shoulder. “Don’t talk as if Kal’s death was a good thing. You don’t price death.”

“I’m not saying Kal dying was a good thing!” she turned her anger to me for a moment. “I meant—” “I know what you meant! But I’m not letting you say that either.”

King, who watched us with a sick smile, blinked. “Wait. Wait, wait, wait, wait, waaaaaait. Are you talking about this thing?” We turned back and watched King point at the mark beside his player gem.

“You said whoever killed a player gets branded with it,” Siren retorted. “You said it stays there.”

King stared back at her, seemingly confused as he thought back for a second. “Well, yeah. It stays for. Oh. Oh. Oh, you thought I meant permanently! No, no this isn’t permanent. You think I would do that if it was permanent?”

Siren’s seething anger suddenly simmered to a lukewarm.

“W-What?”

“No, this stupid thing’s only staying for a week,” he told us. “I’ll have to wait the dumb thing off, but...Meh.” He shrugged. “Until then I’ll have my friends go shopping for me with all the money you just gave us.”

“You. So Kal...What?” Siren started to walk forward without realizing it but one step later, after reaching the barrier, she smacked into it nose first and reeled back.

“Right. One last thing. The reason beta-testers said to avoid this place isn’t the huge boss lying around somewhere in there. It’s because you can’t leave! You either die or you beat the boss.”

I walked up and put a hoof on the barrier myself. As solid as rock. “You’re not coming in, are you?”

“Are you crazy?!” King almost laughed. “No one’s beaten that thing yet! And until everyone beside the betas find out about this place, no one’s going to even think about running up here. But don’t worry.” He rolled his eyes. “At least there’s no hunger system! So as long as you sit in there and don’t scream, like, for help for example, you’ll be fine for the next couple of weeks. Maybe.”

Siren let out a scream as she started punching the barrier with all the anger she possessed. All it did was make King laugh.

“Yeah, like that. Maybe if you listened to me,” King lamented. “Crowl. Jetter. Let’s clear some tombs and get out.”

“About that,” one of his friends spoke up. “There was another group of players before you. We didn’t want to jump out and ruin the ambush but they’re still here.”

King glanced over, obviously caught off guard. “Really? How strong were they?”

“Not,” the other thug dismissed. “There’s four. Three level sixes and a four.”

“Pfft. Level four? Wow.” King chuckled. “Alright. Let’s track ‘em down. I’ll stick by the entrance. You two do a once over of the tombs. They probably got told about this place like us so if they’re smart they won’t come here.”

“And if they do?” I asked.

King shot a glare at me for an instant but quickly shrugged. “Then they find out about you, I still catch them, and we throw them in with you. Either way, be grateful. You two won’t be alone for long.”

“Screw off,” Siren spat, her voice cracking.

“That’s the plan. See ya.”

King turned around and started walking away with the two pegasi players following him. None of them bothered to look back at us. And as I watched them leave, Siren had whatever frustration spill from her as she started to trudge further inside towards one of the pews.

I stayed watching as they left. When they were through the gates, King instructed his friends to close them for good measure. Once that was done, one of the goons shoved some mud into the clasp on top of it all before they split off into the cemetery.

I waited for another ten or so seconds and then scanned the sky for any signs of the pegasi before taking a breath.

Here goes nothing, I guess.

“They’re gone now,” I spoke, making sure my voice didn’t carry out to alert the three. “Are you out there? Please, give me a sign if. You’re..."

I trailed off when my attention settled on the bushes. One of them were rustling for a second as a couple of leaves fell to the ground.

“...Hello?” I called out again.

“can we go check?” “no. wait on her.”

I looked around, desperate. The bushes stopped moving, The pond was too far away to observe and the tree had too many leaves to see anything in them. There was nothing there.

Until I watched the mud in the gate’s clasp fall away.

At first I thought the mud fell off from the idiot not trying hard enough but no. The more I watched, the more mud kept flicking away. Then I saw a small globule of it flicked away.

“Who’s there?” I tried again. I spoke quieter than before but it had to be loud enough to reach the gate.

No one said anything in return. Instead, the mud stopped moving and there was silence again.

Someone’s here. Someone’s got to be here. I turned back to look at Siren. She was lying down on a pew keeping her head out of sight. She either couldn’t hear me talking to myself or didn’t care. I let her have her peace for now.

“Come on, please,” I kept talking. “We need help. We’re trapped in here and—”

“And we heard the whole thing. You can stop.”

The voice came from somewhere ahead of me but I couldn’t see anybody. After another moment I started to hear someone climbing the steps leading up to me.

“Where are you?”

“Invisible,” the voice answered. It sounded female and uncertain. “What that guy with the spear and axe said. Did he really kill someone?”

My throat grew tight and I forced myself to keep my emotions down. “Yes. He killed one of our group. He threw us in here so he wouldn’t have to kill us. He’s not going to. To let you...”

“Leave?” She finished. She almost sounded amused. “I don’t think he’d notice.”

Right. He wouldn’t see her. I glanced around. “His friend said there were four of you. Are your friends nearby?”

“Been here the whole time,” she explained. Then there was a sigh. “And it looks like I’m about to show up.”

What does that mean?

I heard steps on the stonework for a second and then another moment of silence. “Coast’s as clear as it gets. Come out. Quietly.”

All at once, players started to show up. From the tree branches a pegasus with a black coat and dull yellow hair carefully glided in spirals down the tree with a small blue unicorn in his arms. As they landed I noticed Lv. 4 E1ectric_B1itz showing up above the pegasus and Lv. 6 Light_Chill above the small unicorn.

Then, from my right I heard steps as someone walked into view from the right. I vaguely recall seeing columns around the landing between the steps and archway and as a tall, white-coated unicorn with pink hair walked into view, I realized that was probably where she had come from. Lv. 6 F1eur_de_7is was displayed above her.

Finally, as the pegasus and small unicorn joined the white unicorn on the landing, the fourth player turned visible between the three of them. It was a gray-coated Earth pony with a long cloak that covered the top half of her face and body. The words Lv. 6 GrayMatt3rsxxx appearing above her.

“Blitz and Chill,” the woman in front of me spoke. “For now, only use our usernames, alright?”

“I already do that Gray,” ‘Chill’ said with a nod.

She sighed. “Yeah. I know.”

All of them, save for the small unicorn, had armor of some sort. The pegasus had heavy plate armor with a large club on his back, the cloaked player had black leather armor but that was all I saw on her, and the tall unicorn had regular leather armor with a longbow and quiver equipped. All the small unicorn had was a buckler and some sort of weird wand.

Only usernames. She doesn’t trust us. Smart woman, I figured.

“You guys really are trapped in there, huh?” The pegasus ‘Blitz’ asked.

“How can we help?” Chill asked, stepping closer.

“Chill, stop.” Gray pulled him away before he could get too close. “Right now we’re asking questions.”

“But you said there’s a boss monster in there. This guy only has, like, one health.”

“I do have one health,” I corrected. Then I furrowed my brow. “Hold on. Are you a child?”

Chill had it dawn on him the attention he had and he backed up further and hid behind the Blitz guy.

“All three of them are children,” Gray said. “Two teenagers but same difference.”

“Right here ya know,” Blitz shot back. “Fleur? Garde, s'il vous plaît?” He pointed out towards the gate and ‘Fleur’ nodded, pulling out her bow in her magic and walking over to position herself against the wall near the gate.

Not the best position but not a bad idea, I noted.

“Here, let me add you as a friend.” Blitz opened his menu. “After we do that, I can gift you a potion.”

I looked back up at my HP bar and let out a dry chuckle. “Yeah, that’d be great. But, before that.”

Sardinexx: 1/236 *
KingDingBing: 195/195 *
Siren_t@le: 113/147 *

That’s what I saw with my HP bar. The murderer already used one of our potions to top himself off. I decided to open up my menu as Blitz worked and quickly booted King from our group. Not only did I want nothing to do with him but if he saw me suddenly go up in HP, he would immediately know where these kids were.

I worked my way towards the friend’s list to block him too only to get a message from the man in question.

From: KingDingBing

Awww cant b n group nymor?

‘FU’ the only effort I bothered to type before shutting the friend list. As much as I hated it, if he sent any more messages he might give something away. Maybe slip out if he was coming back. Then I could warn these four.

After I accepted Blitz’s friend request, he quickly sent me another notice.

E1ectric_B1itz sends a gift!

1 Health Potion

Do you accept?

-Yes
-No

I hit ‘Yes’ and quickly got the potion out to chug it down. It was the best care package I had ever gotten.

“What was the guy’s username?” Gray asked, opening up her own menu. “I want to make sure I spell it right.”

“KingDingBing,” I recited. “Unicorn. Level nine. Primarily uses a spear and shield. He called his friends Crowl and...and I can’t remember the other one. Sorry.”

“He said Jetter,” Gray answered. “Jetter’s username was exactly that; Jetter. I think that’s enough for me to work with.” When she traversed her menu a little more I saw that she had it open to a keyboard and she started typing rapidly.

“Are you reporting him?” I blinked.

She blew a raspberry. “Like that’d do anything. Admins can’t see it even if they could do something. I’m doing much worse.”

Chill looked over her shoulder and gasped a little. “Oh, the Octopus guy! How’s he gonna help?”

“He knows a lot of the other Sellers,” Gray answered vaguely. “If he knows that player killer’s name, he'll track down whoever talked to this King guy and warn them to stay far away. Plus, he and the Sellers can spread word about the player killer. That mark on his account will be the least of his problems.”

“...Player killer, huh?” Blitz breathed. “Now I regret every game I ever did that in.”

“Listen, you four need to be careful,” I told them. “Even if she can sneak by, they’re searching for you. They have two pegasus players searching the tombs now.”

Gray paused her typing for a second and shook off what I said. “I know.”

“Can the Octopus guy come help us?” Chill looked between everyone.

“No,” Blitz answered for Gray. “They won’t come. Even if they did, they wouldn’t come here so close to nightfall.”

I frowned. “What happens at nightfall?”

“The zombies become a real threat,” Gray explained as she kept typing. “Instead of limping, they start running. They gain more HP and strength too. Still no money or experience.”

“Skeletons too,” Blitz added. “Which means those pegasus players will start getting shot at.”

“They might just leave at that point,” I offered. “That’s your best chance to get out.”

“But what about you?” Chill frowned. “Wouldn’t the zombies be a problem for you too?”

I gave the kid a brave smile. Something I had gotten good at back in the real world. “Zombies won’t get in here. The gate’s closed. We’ll be fine.”

“You’re still trapped with a boss monster in there,” Gray tossed out numbly.

I narrowed my eyes. “I was trying to cheer the kid up.”

“It wasn’t working,” Chill bluntly stated. But he was trying to give me a smile to cheer me up. “Thank you though, sir.”

That actually made me smile for real. “Good kid,” I told him.

“We don’t have much time,” Blitz informed us. “We got here thinking we’d only have to check the tombs. We can’t get out before nightfall now.”

Gray moved her hoof up and down, reading over her email a few times to be sure she wrote what she needed. “Okay. That’s all I can really tell him. Hopefully Oct will take it from there.” She hit send and closed out her menu.

“Gray? What are we doing?” Blitz looked at her. “Because you know what Jo...Chill wants to do. And...I’m kind of agreeing with him.”

“You’re not serious,” she told him. “There’s no way we can take on that boss. We’re too low leveled.”

“Are they?” Chill pointed to me and, back in the mausoleum, Siren. “He’s level nine.”

“We’re both level nine,” I told them. “I don’t know what this boss is though.”

“Two level nines, three level sixes and me,” Blitz read out. “Six players. Depending on what it is, we might be able to cheese it.”

“No. There is no cheesing this,” Gray repeated. “The only time the beta testers beat that thing is when they were level ten. Four level tens. And one of them died before dying mattered.”

“But you know what it is, right?” Blitz challenged. “You walked us through every trap and monster in this place and I got hit once by a tomb monster. Not to mention we have so much loot from the tombs we already hit. We have enough to equip them and us.”

“Blitz, listen. It is suicide,” Gray told him. “You don’t even know how hard it is.”

“I know that sneaking out of here is going to be just as hard,” he reminded her. “And I’m more scared of player killers than an undead monster. Besides, we spend all this time getting out of here and then what? More wolves? Maybe another Cragadile? We’ll be exhausted. But if we help these guys survive a boss? That’s four of us and two level nines. We stomp past the zombies, the goons will back off, and timberwolves will mean nothing.

“This is our best bet. And honestly? I can’t walk away from two people locked in a death house,” Blitz concluded. “Not after being stuck here for a week.”

“Same,” Chill added simply, raising his hoof.

Gray looked between the two kids, trying to come up with a way to shoot them down.

“Kids. You’re no—” “Don’t feel like you have to.”

From behind me, Siren slowly wandered back wearing her typical stern gaze as before. “You’re kids, right? It’s your choice. You’re not expected to jump in here after us. We’re the adults here. Sarge here is older than you two combined. We don’t want kids dying just to try keeping us alive. That’s backwards thinking if you ask me.”

I watched Chill’s expression turn more depressed the longer Siren talked. He heard the same thing in her voice I was hearing. The only thing helping her hide it was that her eyes weren’t red and puffy. The game couldn’t simulate the result of emotion on an avatar.

“...Fine then,” Blitz said. Then he shoved his way past Gray and into the barrier.

“Wha—Alex?!” Gray shouted, her entire mask shattering at once.

“Aww, I was gonna do that first,” Chill whined, walking past the stunned Gray and into the barrier after him. “Now I look like I’m only doing it ‘cause you’re doing it.”

Siren, whose jaw was loosely hanging from her face, stuttered for a second. “Kids. I said that to make you leave. You were supposed to choose to leave us here.”

“Really?” Chill leaned his head to the side. “I thought you were trying to say that so we wanted to. Not because we had to.”

“I knew what she was hinting at but it would have just made me feel scummier,” Blitz, or Alex apparently, admitted. “Either way; didn’t work lady.”

Siren glanced over at me for a second before looking back at Gray. “Is this what you’re stuck with?”

“Thank you,” Gray returned. “Day one wasn’t bad. This is day two and it’s, like, the fifth time dealing with something like this.”

Siren giggled miserably. “Oh, dear, your pain.”

I stared back at her. “Did. Did you just giggle?”

Her frown came back like flipping a switch. “Yeah. So?”

“I’ve known you since the first day,” I told her. “The best you’ve done is smirk. Now you choose to be happy?”

“Hey Rachelle,” Blitz called out, earning Fleur’s attention. Then he waved her over. “Dépêchez!”

She looked over and when she noticed that Alex and the younger kid were in here with us, she slowly walked over with a look of bewilderment on her face.

“Que faites vous tous?”

“Oh right. Rachelle only knows French,” he told us. “We’ve been trying to work on that.”

I held the top of my head as if I was trying to take off a nonexistent hat. “How have you all survived this long?”

“Hard work and determination,” Blitz said with no sincerity.

“It’s our first day out of town,” Chill explained with more bluntness.

“Oh my God, we’re going to die,” Siren realized.

“Now you know my pain,” Gray told her. She quickly held out an arm before Fleur walked through the barrier. “Alex, at least tell her what fresh hell she’s walking into before she does it.”

“Danger, oui?” Fleur spoke, letting out a low sigh. “C'est toujours un danger.”

“Oui. Always danger,” Blitz confirmed. “Tu es bon?”

Fleur watched him for a moment and I almost expected her to roll her eyes or react negatively. Instead, I saw her eyes almost light up for a moment before she strolled up to the barrier and gingerly pressed through it. “Oui. Faisons le.”

Gray stared in utter disbelief. “It wasn’t just Joey, was it? All of you have gone bat crazy.”

Blitz looked to Fleur for a moment and slowly found himself shaking his head. “No. No, I think Rachelle might be an adrenaline junkie.”

“Adrénaline...” Fleur took a moment to consider it.

“Well Gray. Don’t feel like you have to run in too,” I told her. “That invisibility of yours can get you past King and everything else. You’re the one who can walk out unscathed.”

“Are you kidding?” She looked at me. “I can’t hide from packs of timberwolves on a five hour walk home. I actually don’t have a choice anymore.”

She slowly walked in, ignoring the barrier entirely. “Congrats Alex. You chose for us. At 5:30 we need to keep quiet. If we pull that off, we have until 7 PM until the boss smashes through the floor.”

Siren immediately found herself staring at the wood and tile flooring with more concern but Gray went on. “If you have any MMO plans, start talking.”

“I can help too,” I offered. “I’ve played some MMOs but, on top of that, I know tactics beyond just video games.”

“Perfect. You’re hired,” Blitz joked. “And Gwen? Tell us everything you know about this thing. Every detail you got.”

“Like I have a choice,” she breathed, walking further into the building. We all followed, approaching the stage ahead of the pews. Then we began to plot.

Author's Note

I've always wondered, what's more unsettling? An old haunted tomb in a clean well-kept graveyard? Or a haunted graveyard with a single perfectly untouched tomb?

Either way, Gray/Gwen's already ruined the surprise; there's a monster in it's basement.

The next chapter will be some prep and then the fight itself. Although, while I'm here, I might as well bring up something about the story:

Every time you see some random looking number for health or damage, I'm not actually making them up, per say. I've mentioned that I'm a huge Dungeons & Dragons nerd and because I can't go to game groups right now (pandemic and all) I have all of these multi-sided dice just going to waste. So I figured, why not roll for everything?

For anyone who's interested, I have all of those numbers on this Google Doc. They mean nothing and I come up with them whenever they're important. But, hey, sometimes people like looking at numbers so, here they are I guess. :rainbowlaugh:

Weird number thing aside, I hope you all have enjoyed the story. I'll see you next chapter!

Cheers,
-Zeke

Before the Storm

Author's Note

So, a small spoiler about this chapter. Last time I said the next chapter would be both the planning and the fight itself. Well...

The fight is much longer than I thought it would be. Currently I'm reviewing it to see if I can shorten it down actually. It's a big 5k+ word war against what will be the boss.

I'll have that chapter out tomorrow. Promise! I'm just not sure if people would be interested in a fight that long.

Regardless, I hope you enjoy this chapter!

-Zeke

Before the Storm

Alex/E1ectric_B1itz’s POV

Gwen got to work pulling everything she learned from the forums and copying it from her book onto a single page. Unfortunately, this was an optional boss which meant it was much harder than beta testers were prepared for. She had only read about a single group that admitted to killing the monster. Everything else was only how to avoid dying quickly.

While Gwen had gone over this, I started to plan myself. Before we left for the Graves, I bought my own blank book to fill out information about all of us. Originally, this book was going to be for planning out the Ruined Castle dungeon.

Only now that we were sitting above a boss chamber, this book suddenly became much more important. So I started taking down everything I hadn't already written down and then started interviewing Sarge, Sardinexx's nickname, and Siren for their stats and abilities.

As we did our nerd thing, the others searched the mausoleum. Aside from the boss below, the mausoleum was made up of the central room with the stage and pews and four side rooms with small chests and supplies to ransack. Aside from more money and a couple of daggers, they found another health potion that went straight to Sarge.

When it came time to lay everything out, we bunkered down in one of the side rooms with a large table inside. Good thing too. Because a few minutes after 5:30, when nightfall started and the Graves became deadly, this was the message Sarge got from the player killer.

From: KingDingBing

Where u go? Cant c u

Silence cast over us all for an eternity. We sat and listened, hearing as King called from outside the building; screaming and teasing Siren and Sarge. He started asking if the four of us ever came by. What was worse is that one of those ambush players remembered our names.

“One’s of ‘em’s named Light,” King had shouted at one point. “He’s smaller than everyone else! You see ‘em?!”

When he said that, Joey stepped behind me so I was between him and the door.

Ten minutes after he stopped shouting, Gwen turned invisible before stepping into the main room. The player killers were gone. Instead the gate was now wide open and the main hall of the mausoleum had several crossbow bolts wedged in the backs of the pews. They must have thought Siren and Sarge were hiding from view.

We were safe. For now.

We all reconvened in the side room and after closing the door, Siren pushed a bookshelf up against it just in case.

Siren looked to the rest of us. “You think he left for good?”

“Probably.” Sarge frowned. “Gray, did that friend ever write back to you?”

Gwen nodded. “Uh-huh. Oct said he’d start looking into it. He also said he’ll tell the admins. Even if they can’t do anything, people still listen to them. That, plus the rumor mill, and everyone in that town and the next will hear about those freaks.”

“Good. Then let’s hurry and get ready.” I furrowed my brow, setting my book down and shaking the feeling of dread. “So. I think I know how we’re going to do this. But we’ll need to ration out everything first. Everyone put all their inventory down on the table.”

Everyone, save for Siren and Sarge who had nothing, obeyed. After a minute, everything was laid out. From weapons, to armor, accessories, and then five potions and a caramel apple.

“Caramel apple?” I blinked. Then I looked at Joey. “What’s that for?”

“It said it heals you. And goes bad after today.”

I looked over at Gray. “You said this candy doesn’t give any bonuses.”

“It doesn’t,” Gray insisted. “It heals you by, like, twenty HP. Since we regenerate health, I wrote it off.”

I frowned. “Well now I wish we didn’t eat the candy bars before coming here. Put it with the potions.”

Joey obliged and read over my notes. More out of habit. I already knew the stock of what we had since I wrote that down earlier.

“Alright. To start, everyone’s read Gray’s page on the boss, right?” The others nodded and affirmed it. As did Rachelle after I asked the question in her language. “It’s going to be a three part fight. Because it has over 2,000 HP that means it has four full health bars; 500 per bar. Phase one will last until we do over 700 HP. As long as we pay attention and dodge the slow attacks, we’ll be fine.

“Phase two’s harder,” I went on. “It lasts for 1,000 HP. It’s attacks become faster and it starts flying and pouncing. Which means more mobile. Ranged attackers will need to make sure they have room to get away if it flies at them.”

“Phase two’s where most of the attempts against it failed from the beta-testers,” Gwen revealed.

“Probably because this isn’t a computer game,” Sarge considered. “This game has us as the fighters. It’s a good bet these testers got exhausted because they didn’t pace themselves.”

“We need to be ready for a long fight,” I deciphered. “Gray, Sarge, and I need to be ready to let the monster switch his focus between us so the others can catch their breath.”

“But what about phase three?” Siren frowned. “By the time we get there, won’t all of you be exhausted?”

“Probably,” I admitted. “But that won’t really matter. Phase three only has 500 HP. If we play it right, we can burn through that bar in a matter of seconds.”

“So your solution for the hardest part of the fight is rush it?” Siren scoffed. “That sounds fu—” “Siren? Kids,” Sarge cut in.

“...It sounds effing stupid,” Siren adapted. “That page she wrote said there were trees in that cave, yeah? Why not trap it between them and wail on it then?”

“We don’t know if that’s possible,” Gwen argued. “All the forums said was that there were trees. That could mean it’s a jungle down there or only two stupid pine trees. We can’t rely on what the place looks like.”

“Siren, I don’t think he means we dogpile the thing,” Sarge backed me up.

“No,” I confirmed. “We need to bait it. And.” I took a breath. “We do it with her.” I pointed across the table.

“What?” “Really?” “Ehh?” “Why?”

I started laying out my plan, going over what needed to happen. In truth, I only had an idea; something that looked great on paper. And if this was some regular computer game, that would probably be enough. Although it was as Sarge said. We were the fighters. We needed to all agree to this.

As I continued explaining, I admitted that it wouldn’t only be based around her setting up the trap. This would be something everyone would jump in for. Well, everyone but myself and Gray at least.

“So we are rushing at it.” That was what Siren believed after I finished.

“Would that do enough damage?” Gray wondered. “What if it reaches them?”

“If they can combine their abilities, it’ll hold the monster back,” I explained. “Long enough for them to get enough attacks in.”

“What about phase two?” Sarge brought up. “How do we start that off?”

“It wouldn’t be that hard,” Gray admitted. “At the start, the monster never runs or pounces. It only walks. It’s weird but there's going to be a grace period.”

“We catch our breath, get into position, and then we set it off like planned,” I assured. “The only hard part will be whittling down that 1000 HP gap.”

“...Okay,” Sarge signed on it. “It needs molding and we need to make sure everyone knows their steps, but...alright. I think this will work.”

Slowly the others started to agree to the plan as well, all except for the one who was the cornerstone for the endgame. Admittedly, I had a couple back up ideas but this was the one that I felt the most confident in. Still, if she didn’t want to go along with it, I would understand.

So as I asked her one last time. She put her opinions down for a moment and listened to me sincerely. Then she kept her head facing down at the table. Maybe a good idea considering our faces might have guilted her into saying yes.

While she thought about it we split the potions and caramel apple. We were going to need to heal ourselves up regardless. Then, when she was finished considering whether or not she could do it, she looked at the rest of us and gave a solemn nod.

She was in. The plan was on.

3rd Person POV

Once the plan was decided and every foreseeable detail was ironed out, the group finished splitting their supplies amongst each other and collectively readied themselves for the fight downstairs.

Sarge moved the bookshelf out from against the door and Gray went invisible one last time before checking the mausoleum’s entrance. Everything was as before. The yard was empty and the same amount of crossbow bolts were wedged in the pews.

King had left them for dead.

When the coast was clear, the party shuffled out of the room. Most of the weapons and armor were traded around in such a way where everyone seemed different. Blitz’s rock armor was now on Sarge, Gray’s armor to Fleur, Joey’s wand with Siren. Not to mention everyone now had at least one dagger on their person.

After the potions were used up, the party was looked confident with their numbers. They had held on to two more potions thanks to Sarge’s recommendation. Blitz and Gray each held one.

E1ectric_B1itz: 128/128
F1eur_de_7is: 130/130 *
GrayMatt3rsxxx: 160/160 *
Light_Chill: 101/101 *
Sardinexx: 271/306 *
Siren_t@le: 133/147 *

The party crossed the room and stopped at a small archway that led down a descending stone staircase. From what Gray explained, there were several flights of stairs and then the large cavern below. There were no candles or torchlight through the stairwell.

The group had Sarge take point with Fleur behind him casting a light spell with her magic. The others followed in a single file line with Chill in the back using the same spell so no one would trip on the steps.

As the group reached the second flight of stairs, Chill looked to his brother ahead of him. “...Alex?”

“Yeah? Joey?” Alex looked over his shoulder for a moment to spot his brother. Chill had his new wand and Gray’s cloak that reduced aggro. Though it shrunk to fit the mage’s form, it looked too big for the child.

“We’re going to be okay...Right?”

Blitz turned back so he could watch his step. Even if his brother couldn’t see him, he was smiling. “Yeah. We’re going to be okay. Promise.”

Gray listened and kept her tongue still. She complained enough today. None of which she felt she deserved. However, as she thought about it, she complained more than anyone else today.

She knew she didn’t deserve that luxury either. She wasn’t allowed to complain. But even back home, she remembered finding ten things to complain about before she could even get out of bed. The worst part was that her complaining tended to force people to let her have her way.

And it worked again. Gray pushed these kids into doing what she wanted so she could get money to get out of having to put in any work in this crazy game. They went along with it too. What, because they had nothing better to do? They might have been bumming it up in town but at least they weren’t laying down their lives for strangers.

So she promised. She’d swore that all three of those kids will make it out of this game. She’d use her dumb Karen, ‘my way or else’ powers to ensure they survived. No matter what.

Toward the front of the line, Siren looked past Fleur and at the only person she knew in this group. “Sarge?”

“Yeah?”

“If…” Siren cursed at herself. “When we get out of here. We should do something. For Kal, I mean.”

Since getting trapped in the game, Siren became more closed off. The only reason she stuck with Sarge was because they met before the incident. Even then, she never really trusted him. It was worse with Kal too. And while she was right about never trusting King, she noticed the downward spiral she was going down.

But what happened to Kal? He didn’t deserve that. And, of course, Siren blamed herself. It was her mouth that sent King over the edge. All to call a bluff. Why? Even if they actually would have died later, that’s more time to find an escape.

The worst part was that Siren realized she was one of two people Kal could trust. And yet she never thought the same in return. That’s what made her feel worse. She had to make up for that.

Sarge nodded. “We will.”

Since he was in the front of the group, no one could see the absolute hatred crawling on his face. If Siren blamed herself for not trusting one of their teammates, one could imagine how much Sarge blamed himself for trusting the wrong teammate.

He should have cut King out at the first sign of trouble. At least then no one would have had to die.

Regardless of the hate threatening to pour from his lips, his tone remained entirely neutral. “As soon as we pick ourselves back up, we’re going after King.”

Siren’s scowl, her default expression, settled in more seriously than it ever had. “Yessir.”

While walking between Siren and Sarge, Fleur couldn’t understand a word that they said. Back in town she could understand the NPCs but those weren’t real conversations. Beyond Blitz and his basic French, she couldn’t talk with anyone.

Rachelle's school required English class and students were expected to be somewhat bilingual by her age. Unfortunately, Rachelle never bothered to pay attention. She never imagined English would be important enough for her to care. So instead, she relied on friends to help with assignments in exchange for doing their homework for other classes. She'd handle Math class, they'd handle English. They all agreed.

But now? If she made it out of whatever this hell was going to be, she was going to ask Blitz to teach her English. Actual English. Not keywords to command her in a fight. Not basic English words everyone had heard of. She wanted to have an intelligent conversation with actual, real people. Not fake video game clerks. She also wanted to do it without texting them from three feet away like some airhead.

Each of the players descending these stairs had reasons to survive waiting for them at home. Most had families and for those that didn’t, there was still something they had lost. However, none of them thought about that.

So instead they worried about what they could deal with. What they could do while they were still stuck inside this game. Those were things they felt they could strive for without it feeling so far away.

Eventually, the group climbed down the last set of stairs and spotted a large stone tunnel stretched out ahead of them. At the end of it, it opened to a cavern of lush greenery and life.

The floor had dew-coated grass and mossy rocks with a stream cutting across the cave. It stemmed from a large pond to the west, fed from a waterfall pouring out where the rough stone wall became the ceiling.

Then, stretching to the top of this massively vertical cavern were colossal trees. There had to be about a dozen of these trees with each of them about two meters in diameter. Growing along their trunks were blue, luminescent mushrooms. In fact, these mushrooms dotted the entire underground garden, acting as the only light source in what would be a room shadowed in black.

Finally, opposite of the tunnel the players emerged from, was an altar. The floor of it was a large stone slab with a tombstone the size of castle doors carved into the stone wall behind it. Along the floor of this altar were chests and piles of offerings and gifts long left behind. More numerous than any treasure tomb the four adventurers had found before coming here.

Nestled within these gifts was the pile of bones that were once a pony. The only object that remained was this immaculate wooden shield, cracked in half as it leaned up against the remains.

In Blitz’s vision, a notification came up.

Quest Update: Of Shield’s Past

You’ve discovered the adventurer and shield! Collect the shield and return to Oaken Handle with what you have learned.

Blitz clicked his tongue. “Huh. Turns out we had to come down here anyway.”

“Does that make this better?” Siren asked.

“Not at all,” Gray spoke plainly. “If anything, it makes me regret pushing us here more.”

Gray took a moment to turn to the others. “Once we step on that grass, the stairs close behind us. No going back. Everyone ready?”

The other five had varying levels of worry or nervousness but no one backed away. Instead, they all took a moment to steel their nerves.

Then they stepped on the grass.

The Undead Guardian

They stepped on the grass.

The six walked into the cavern proper and heard a stone wall slam shut behind them. At the same time, they watched as in the center of the garden, the ground bulged and ripped before a rotting lion’s paw forced its way out.

Fleur stopped a few feet out from the tunnel and readied her bow as the others walked on.

A second lion’s paw tore itself free from the earth and worked alongside the first to pull the rest of the beast’s body free of its grave. It’s massive head, once encircled with a full red mane, was now patchy as its jaw hung somewhat unhinged and lulled side to side. Then, where its large eyes would rest instead were vacant and dried out.

Light Chill and Siren stopped before the stream as they drew their wands. The younger shivered from the sight of the creature.

“It’s...It’s a manticore,” he murmured.

The final three wading through the stream and pulled their weapons of choice as the beast finished crawling out its grave. From its open mouth came a low growl and by command wisps of green aura weaved from the nearby plantlife and into the hideous monster. It was like a weed feasting on this once cherished garden.

Sarge rested a large Iron Warhammer over his shoulder. He had a rusted greataxe as well but it stayed on his back for emergency only. As he eyed the corpse, Gray and Blitz circled around the beast to flank it.

Everyone witnessed the beast in full tainted glory. It was the size of a mammoth and as Chill stated, was once a manticore. But its body had decayed and bloated and its wings were stuck to the sides of its body by some sort of viscous liquid.

Above this monster was its name and five health bars; four of them full and one just shy of half the length.

Former Guardian of Everfree Graves

HP: 2237/2237

The creature’s maw opened further somehow before letting out a deafening roar. It shook bark loose from the colossal trees and for a moment the life essence the plants were giving it faded away.

It stopped roaring. The fight began.

“Dark Blend.” “Grand Strike!”

Gray vanished the same time Sarge wound his hammer back like a baseball bat. From the center of the hammer’s face, a lime green ball of energy formed before Sarge swung, rocketed it forward at blinding speeds before colliding with the Guardian’s chest and exploding.

Before the Guardian accepted his challenge, Blitz rushed in. He delivered a pepper of body blows against the side of the monster, taking to the air as a claw lazily swiped at him. The next moment, Blitz dove back down onto the center of its spine and started driving blow after blow before leaping away from the scorpion tail trying to run him through. Then he did it all over again.

The beast tried shaking his back to get Blitz off as he stared emptily at Sarge. Then, from under it, Gray plunged her dagger so deep into the creature’s abdomen that the blade was no longer visible.

Gray then pulled her initial dagger back and stabbed a second one into its rubbery hide before running out from underneath. Unaware, the monster body checked the ground and forced that dagger further through its gut as Gray was already gone.

The monster groaned as it rose to observe the three warriors preparing for their next wave. However, before it could respond, the monster watched the heavier of the three ponies raise a hoof to the sky.

“FIRE!”

From further back, an arrow plunged deep within a rotting shoulder blade before the field ahead was alight with magical orbs. Before it knew what it was observing, a cluster of light blue and magenta bullets pelted the beast before Chill and Siren began running and flying respectively to better vantage points.

The numbers above the manticore had gone and all the damage the team had inflicted, enough to kill any Cragadile or Timberwolf, was only the start. The smaller health bar was missing as the group began chewing at the first full bar.

Sarge charged forward and focused on avoiding each attack, drawing the monster’s attention as Blitz kept attacking from above. The tail would coil and strike like a viper but Blitz danced around it, getting one or two hits in each time.

Gray tried getting closer for her daggers to matter but she hesitated. Every time a stray claw or tail came into her vision, fear made her back off. The same went for Fleur as well as she struggled to find a clear shot.

Siren and Chill had no such issue. With Siren firing from the sky, she always managed to find a good shot. Meanwhile Chill was constantly making his shots as he ran from one hiding spot to the next.

Back on the first day, Chill repeatedly hit his brother by accident when they fought their first wolves. That, coupled with the library explosion, made him determined to be nothing but helpful. Whenever he would go training at night, it was always target practice.

The Guardian’s attention was spread thin as the party began falling into a groove. It would stare at Siren after her last attack before catching a hammer to the jaw. Then, while its head thrown upwards, Fleur found her shot. Which then opened Chill and Blitz to pelt the monster from both sides of its head.

Forty seconds of trading aggro and Sarge eyed the beast’s health. It’s current HP bar fell down to a third. “Alright. Switch!”

Gray and Sarge ran around the monster the same time that Blitz flew up out of reach. From there, Chill and Siren started laying out covering fire, distracting the Guardian long enough for Gray to stand before the beast.

“Gray,” Blitz called out, taking a passive role for the moment. “What’s the time on Dark Blend?”

“Uh. Tw-Twelve seconds,” Gray fumbled as she cowered away from a rotting claw threatening to take her head off.

“Sarge?” Blitz flew backwards, watching as the tail stretched out at him and went taut.

“Half a minute,” he returned, closing in until the monster gnashed his teeth towards him. An arrow missed its head by inches.

“Use it when you have it,” Blitz commanded. “Gray, Dark Blend on my mark.”

“Yeah,” she spat stiffly. When Gray realized her fears wouldn’t let her close in, she threw a dagger into the Guardian’s shin. Then another for good measure.

Blitz dived towards the creature, ducking past the slow tail and smacking the base of the tail as he glided past.

“Rachelle!” He screamed when he was back in the air. “Glace flèche! Attendez! Oui?!”

“Oui! Attendez!” Rachelle called back from her spot, nocking an ice arrow before she waited.

“Chill? Great job!” Blitz nodded where he saw Chill’s light blue magic coming from.

As if to thank him, another light blue bolt slapped the Guardian’s ankle.

“Gray, tell us whe—Gah!”

Blitz’s command fell short as the tail finally clipped his wing. Blitz went tumbling onto the manticore’s back with a thud.

“Blitz, be caref—” “Ability count!” Blitz interrupted, more frustrated than scared.

He crawled away from another tail attack and hit the back of the Guardian’s head a couple times before gliding off its back and to a safe distance.

“Twenty-three seconds,” Sarge replied.

“Um. Right! Uh, five more,” Gray obliged, refocusing her head at the monster that was trying to bite hers off.

Blitz glanced up at his health. 116/128. A scratch.

Another hit from Chill. Then from Siren followed by Sarge getting another swing from his hammer. Eventually, the health bar came dangerously low to breaking.

“Everyone! Stop,” Sarge instructed. The manticore growled at him and Gray, expecting more attacks to chip away at him. Instead it watched them walk away, forcing the manticore to skulk after them. “Siren! Up!”

Blitz shook his wing before joining Siren in the air high above the monster. At the same time, the Gray made a few feints at the manticore with her daggers, keeping its attention on her as she kept backing away.

“Alright Gray. We’re ready,” Blitz called out.

Gray ducked under a claw and pulled another plain dagger out from under her cloak before taking a few steps back. Her hindlegs began splashing in the creek.

“Here goes,” she muttered shakily. As the Guardian took one last step, Gray flicked her next dagger and watched it carve through the Guardian’s neck and watched as its back arched back unnaturally as the first health bar shattered.

The Guardian’s head raised skyward, releasing a roar loud enough to make the cavern tremor. All the soft grass dried at once, breaking from their own brittle stature. The mushrooms growing from the titanic trees shriveled up and fell like dead jellyfish.

The lack of light made the garden more sinister. With the mushrooms gone, the only thing illuminating the area was this green energy now constantly fueling the undead beast’s strength. It would never stop feeding it either.

Next, peeling from its back with a slimy mucus, were the manticore’s bat wings. They battered the ground with a heavy gale as it focused the now red sunken eyes on the only warrior standing before it; Gray.

She barely managed to cry out “Dark Blend” before the beast lunged at her with a sudden ferocity. The group had no idea where she ended up but they watched as the beast splashed into the stream before flailing its claws in every direction, furious that it missed.

As it splashed, the stream’s clear water turned cloudy and green. Before it could stand back up, Sarge took in a breath to command his team.

“FIRE!”

“Siren’s WaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII~!"

The sound of Siren’s ability rumbled the cavern louder than the monster could as her soundwave pinned the monster to the floor.

Fleur then released her ice arrow. A mist of cold trailed behind it before landing somewhere where jaw met skull. A heavy burst of ice covered its face and locked its mouth shut and blinded one of the glowing eyes.

“JOEY, BARRAGE!”

Whether Chill heard his brother over Siren’s screeching didn’t matter. As the creature fought against the sound’s pressure, a gatling gun of light blue magic rained from the darkness and sprayed the beast without mercy. The group watched as the second full HP bar began freefalling.

One. Three. A dozen. Twenty. The number of attacks grew in intensity. Some scraped the ground and others dissipated from Siren’s soundwave but enough hit to bring the health bar down past half.

As Siren’s Wail faded, Blitz and Sarge readied themselves for round two. However, before either could charge, they noticed the monster turned its gaze on Chill.

Too much aggro, Blitz realized. Terrified, he dove at the monster with weapons at the ready, ignoring Sarge’s demand to hold back.

The manticore stood up and shook the ice stuck away from its face as an arrow found a home between its ribs. Simultaneously, its back leg was painted blue with code as Gray faded back into reality, cutting through its ankle for all the damage she could.

All that did was piss it off.

Faster than expected, the scorpion’s tail drove itself through Gray’s spine and out her stomach before throwing her into Blitz. As they collided in midair, Siren moved to the side and watched them sail off into the void, hit points depleted.

When they were gone, Siren moved in to lay in more magic attacks to try getting its attention away from Chill who was too weak to change positions. Although, while a few reached their mark, the Guardian began doing something unexpected. He deflected them.

As though on autopilot, the scorpion’s tail batted away the attacks, redirecting most of them into the ground as the zombie ignored whatever actually struck him. The tail even had time to catch Fleur’s next arrow, trying to hit Siren only to miss by a yard or two.

Chill was about twelve meters away, struggling to pick himself back up. He put everything he had into that barrage and now there were spots in his vision. When he could finally see straight the manticore was already readying itself to pounce.

“Grand Strike!”

As it left the ground, a large orb of lime green clocked the monster in the side of the face. The force of the blow redirected it to the side, missing Chill and making it eat dirt.

Chill forced himself up on his hooves and tried running for the nearest tree but the manticore wasn’t done. A single claw dragged itself across Chill’s back, nails finding purchase in his digital skin. The claws pulled him off his hooves and flung him about a dozen feet away before landing head first on a rock covered in dead moss.

E1ectric_B1itz: 92/128
F1eur_de_7is: 130/130 *
GrayMatt3rsxxx: 106/160
Light_Chill: 47/101 *
Sardinexx: 271/306
Siren_t@le: 133/147

When they saw Chill’s health drop more than half, everyone acted fast. As Fleur ran to a new vantage point, Siren fired consecutive shots of magic to cover Chill as Sarge charged in.

The Guardian attempted to redirect those bolts at Sarge as it stood back up. When that didn’t work, the beast waved a stray claw to batter the man away but he was ready.

Sarge brought his hammer between himself and the claw, blocking most of the hit before maneuvering under it. The monster turned in confusion only to find the hammer slamming into its shoulder.

“Gray,” Sarge bellowed as he leapt backwards so Siren could keep firing. He also saw Chill still laying on the ground. “If you can hear me, get the kid!”

There was no response. Instead, Sarge readied himself to block the rising claw only for it to be a fake out when the tail closed in on him. Sarge watched as it hooked into his ribcage, stopping a few inches deep as the rock armor worked to keep the stinger from going any further.

Sarge used this to his advantage. Dropping his warhammer, he grappled the tail and held on for dear life. “Siren! Fleur! FIRE!”

One. Two. Five bolts slammed into the creature’s back, destroying its next health bar as two more arrows sniped the creature from the darkness. It was already down to less than 1000 HP.

The monster gave up on Chill and was now on the maniac holding its tail. Putting its weight into it, the Guardian leaned away and used the momentum to lift Sarge, rock armor and all, before suplexing him into the dried earth floor. The force made Sarge let go of the tail and freed the creature’s attention on its next target.

When the force made Sarge release, the beast spun in place in a blur before it faced up at the sky. It brought out its leathery wings, slime spilling out around it as Siren got to fire one more bullet of magic.

Immediately, the beast was in the sky, crashing through the bolt with intense speed. Ten meters became zero as Siren could only see teeth and gums before everything went black altogether. All except her hit points which she saw sink from 133 to 62 in a snap.

No one could hear her screaming from inside the monster’s mouth. All they could hear was the wet flapping of the beast’s rotting wings as it flew towards the ceiling.

Sarge picked himself back up, covered in slime, and looked where Chill was. Gray snuck over at some point and was now feeding the dizzy kid a potion.

“Blitz?!” Gray screamed manically. “He went UP!”

“On it!”

Thanks to the green aura tethered into the Guardian, Blitz took flight again and climbed altitude. The rotting monster glanced over its shoulder to show Siren’s magenta hindlegs were the only thing keeping her from being swallowed whole.

Gray started standing Chill back on his own legs and turned to Sarge. Then she furrowed her brow. “Sarge? You’re burning.”

Curious, Sarge checked for himself. The wing’s slime had coated him in a heap and wherever it landed, Sarge's skin glowed with code as smoke wisped off him. He glanced at his hit points.

185/306.

183.

182.

180.

“Acid.” Sarge started swearing as he ran back to pick up the hammer he threw away earlier. While he did, the rusted greataxe that had been on his back suddenly disintegrated into code.

“The stream,” Chill muttered, pointing out at the water that passed them. It was still green from when the manticore fell in it.

“No, the pond.” Gray pointed towards the wall of the cave where the rushing of the waterfall echoed. “Wash it off. Your armor’s covered in it!”

Sarge ran off while Gray stared up at the ceiling. “BLITZ! Watch the mucus!”

“The what?!” Blitz shouted. Already, he and the manticore were too high up to hear the others. That and the mucus landing on his face was getting in his ears.

E1ectric_B1itz: 89/128
F1eur_de_7is: 130/130 *
GrayMatt3rsxxx: 106/160
Light_Chill: 97/101 *
Sardinexx: 177/306
Siren_t@le: 62/147

Blitz ignored it and saw the Guardian finally reach the ceiling. However, when it slowed down, Blitz noticed that beyond the green aura, the monster’s face flared with a magenta color every second or so. Not only that but it’s health bar was flinching to the same rhythm.

At some point, unbeknownst to anyone else, Siren was able to fight through the pain of being eaten alive. Since the manticore had most of her in its unhinged jaw, and her wand was still in her grip, she made the most of it.

Even without much room, she started flicking the wand however she could. It was slow but being inside of its mouth meant there was no way for the manticore to dodge or deflect anything. She just kept firing.

It wasn’t until she felt the teeth force themselves out of her hips that she realized she was no longer being chewed on. Her fierce warcry became screaming again as she started tumbling only to be snatched out of the sky a second time. This time by a friendly.

“Anytime you wanna start flying,” Blitz strained as he made his wings work overtime to account for the sudden weight he was carrying.

Siren shook off her shock before flapping her own wings and kept them from plummeting any further. “Okay. Not doing that again...Are you. Melting?” She asked awkwardly.

“Huh?” Blitz flew backwards for a moment and looked at himself. Multiple parts of his body were sizzling and now glowing with blue data as his hit points ticked down.

“Oh that’s what Gray was say—” “Move!”

Siren tackled Blitz, forcing both of them out of the way as the Guardian fell past like a boulder. Both of them were now left flying far above the battlefield.

“...thanks,” Blitz mumbled. His hit points just dipped below eighty as he shook the globules of mucus off like a wet dog.

Back on the ground, the monster crashed with a heavy rumble. Chill and Gray were nearby but not enough for the slam to matter. Instead, Chill shot two bolts before they both ran the other way.

The monster was already standing by the time Blitz and Siren rejoined their allies. As they got within speaking range they went into a glide to catch their breath.

“Ability count,” Blitz screamed into the cavern.

“Eight,” from Gray.

“Twenty-four,” Siren returned.

“Fourteen!” A distant shout from Sarge who was on his way back from the pond.

“Blitz? Can I use mine now?!” Chill begged. Thanks to the earlier barrage and now running for his life, Chill sounded so tired.

“Not yet,” Blitz discouraged. Behind him, he saw the monster begin bounding after the group. Blitz dropped to the ground and turned around.

“Chill. Siren. You two get set up. It’s almost there.”

“Okay!” “Sure.”

“Fleur!” Blitz screamed out into the cave. “Préparer!”

“Oui!” Was all he heard in return.

“I’m guessing that means I stay here?” Gray turned to redraw Crag Dagger. The beast fell into a jog, the green aura trailing plugged into it. It was still in phase two so they didn’t have to worry about it sprinting. Yet.

From their left, Sarge came into view before pulling out his weapon. He was breathing heavy. “Okay. Running from one side of the cave to the other’s a little too hard in this suit.”

“Better you than me,” Blitz joked as he pulled out the team’s last potion for himself. “Gray? Ability?”

She checked. “Three. Two. O—”

The beast pounced again. Blitz, still drinking his potion, was shoved out of the way as Sarge stood and let the monster sink its fangs into his side. Blue data burst from under his armor as his hit points dropped again, though still above one hundred.

“Gray, now!” “Dark Blend,” she cried, vanishing for a third time.

With its teeth pinning Sarge in place, the beast stared at the Earth pony and growled before his wings tried to catch another gale. It was slow going due to Sarge’s weight but it began lifting off again.

Blitz picked himself back up and unsheathed a shortsword. As the Sarge fought to try pulling the manticore back to solid ground, Blitz flew up and charged from the side.

The tail swung to catch Blitz but he barreled around. When the acidic wing reached the bottom of its flap, Blitz landed on the slimy surface and started striking. One slash after another, he kept cutting at the base of the wing, ignoring all the acid damage burning at his hooves.

By the time Blitz jumped over the tail’s next stab, slicing it for good measure before landing back on the manticore’s wing, Sarge pried a dagger out and stabbed at the manticore’s rubbery jaw every chance he had.

The two kept stabbing and swinging while Gray got underneath the wing opposite of Blitz. She ignored the acid painting her face and jumped high. Despite the wind fighting to push her down, her dagger found a surface and slashed the creature’s bloated stomach open for a spray of pixels.

With so much damage, the monster didn’t care anymore. Pulling its head back, Sarge managed to get one more stab to the chin before he was spat into the filthy stream water.

Blitz didn’t last either. As he sunk the sword into the creature’s spine, the tail punctured him through the waist and tossed him far from sight; the sword left abandoned between its vertebrae.

Gray landed on the ground and drew her last iron dagger when the creature crashed onto the ground. She tried stepping back but it didn’t matter as the creature brought forward a fast moving claw.

All she could do was hold her two daggers, the iron and the Crag, to make the creature feel like it had slapped a sea urchin before Gray was tossed like a skipping stone.

E1ectric_B1itz: 50/128
F1eur_de_7is: 130/130 *
GrayMatt3rsxxx: 47/160
Light_Chill: 97/101 *
Sardinexx: 92/306 *
Siren_t@le: 62/147

When Gray pried her head off the ground she observed the creature. It was glowing more blue than green with how many injuries it sported. All the chops and cuts that went into this shambling corpse. Then Gray noticed she could feel most of her body sizzling from the acid melting away at her hit points.

The creature took a moment to leer at Sarge before turning its back to him and approaching Gray. Its eyes flashed a malevolent red as it strode within maiming range.

Gray tried tossing her last dagger. It did absolutely nothing. She instead watched as it pinned itself to the ground like a lawn dart. When she saw that, her head fell back to the ground.

“Sarge?” Gray groaned.

“Yeah.”

Sarge used his hammer to prop himself back up before flicking his dagger. It struck the base of the monster’s tail, catching its attention for just long enough of a moment for Gray to throw her body into a roll. She was still close enough for the creature to cleave her in bits but far enough away for something else.

“Fleur!” Sarge turned towards the entrance. “FIRE!”

Off somewhere in the shadows, Sarge and Gray heard this high-pitched hissing sound. Then a sharp whistle that caught the Guardian’s attention.

“Amour Maladie!”

The hissing suddenly sounded much closer as a single arrow, glowing deep pink with a lit fuse, sailed past trees and rocks before finding itself shy of landing dead center in the monster’s glowing eye socket.

The arrowhead delved beneath the green skin and the leathery bag with the fuse on the end of it scraped against the manticore’s nose.

And then a bright light.

The explosion that followed was a mixture of red fire and pink aura working to wrap the beast like a straight jacket. Gray went into a fetal position as the heat of the boom threatened to cook her alive with the acid.

The ember cloud didn’t reach Sarge either but he still had to cover his eyes from the flash. When his eyes adjusted he watched as the creature’s health bar blew up along with the arrow. It had one bar left.

It had less than 500 hit points to go. It was in phase three; the final phase.

Within the dust, Sarge saw this field of pink aura struggling to enguld the massive hide of this beast. It spread like a virus but every time it seemed like it was about to surround it, there would be holes. The beast’s face shifted unnaturally between fury and contentment in moments.

After the bomb had faded, a green aura poured from every piece of nature within the cave. Every plant becoming a lifeless husk. The trees that grew into the ceiling suddenly buckled as they cracked open, clouds of dust bursting from them like aged piñatas.

The green aura warred against the pink as the bloated corpse’s emotions flipped between endless infatuation and murderous rage.

Rather than let the scene play out any longer, another arrow flew from the same place as the bomb and struck the monster again. The pink aura, like bubblegum, let out a sharp pap as it failed.

The monster’s expression went lax for what felt like hours before, twitch by twitch, its face contorted into so much malice, so much hatred, that the rotting skin began ripping into a permanent sneer. So sinister it seemed alien.

“Siren, I don’t think he means we dogpile the thing,” Sarge backed Blitz up.

“No,” he confirmed. “We need to bait it. And. We do it with her.” Blitz then pointed across the table at Fleur.

“What?” “Really?” “Ehh?” “Why?”

“Her ability, Amour Maladie,” Blitz explained. “Causes the next target she hits to fall in love with her until they get hit.”

“You think that would work on a boss?” Siren asked incredulously. “My ability only works as intended on weaker enemies. For stronger enemies, it can only push them. I can’t imagine her ability’s different.”

“It doesn’t need to be.” Blitz let himself smirk. “After the ability wears off, or they resist it,” he muttered mockingly. “They drop everything and run straight at her. No self-preservation.”

Sarge paused before he suddenly realized the boy’s plan. “It’ll be running straight into enemy fire.”

Sarge watched as the kid’s face turned demented for a brief instant. Short enough for no one else to notice. Maybe not even Blitz himself. “We put Chill and Siren with her, use their abilities to slow it down, and keep. Firing. Even Joey’s barrage won’t be enough to make it notice.”

“So we are rushing at it.” That was Siren’s takeaway after Blitz finished. Blitz made a so-so reaction.

“Would that do enough damage?” Gray wondered. “What if it reaches them?”

“If they can combine their abilities, it’ll hold the monster back,” Blitz repeated. “Long enough for them to get enough attacks in.”

As the zombie’s jaw unhinged further than any snake, all anyone could hear was the roar shaking them to their cores.

GGGRRRAAAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRR~

The entire chasm thundered like an earthquake. The waterfall stopped flowing, the stream dried up, bushes curled in on themselves like dying spiders and the titanous trees began shriveling up so fast some of them popped open, letting clouds of dust coat the room.

Gray discarded her fetal position and crawled; her trembling hooves pulling her across the arid earth. She was so close to the roar it deafened her ears. Meanwhile Blitz, who landed too far to ever return to the fight in time, stared at the ceiling. He was catatonic from exactly how much fear he was experiencing.

Finally, as the beast turned to the fool who had desired all of this, Fleur found its crimson eyes somehow settling on her from far away. Despite the distance, she felt its intent.

However, Blitz’s plan, his Hail Mary, hit a snag. In all her terror, Fleur’s magic turned off. Her bow fell lifeless to the ground. She was defenseless. And now the Guardian was running top speed.

Sarge desperately swung his hammer but the creature already gone before the hammerhead even came forward.

“ICE AGE!” Chill cried, running ahead of Fleur and laying into another barrage. One larger than he ever made as each shot, the speed of a bowling ball, barreled towards the monster. With its new speed it could have dodged every one of them but it simply did not care.

Over half of Chill’s thirty plus attacks struck the beast head on but it just kept running. It completely disregard its only health bar crumbling away or that the ice was working to hold it back. it was determined to take Fleur down with it.

“Siren’s Wail.” Siren took a deep, shaking breath as her ability activated and screeched as loud as her voice would allow. Fleur started quaking in place as the new roar dragged her out of her shock before she fell right back into another one.

From where they lay, Gray stopped crawling and ducked for cover as Blitz slowly let himself roll to his side and close his eyes. The acid stopped burning both of them but they were now below forty HP. The monster could do upwards of sixty with one hit. They were no longer of help.

The soundwave, combined with the ice, slowed the monster dramatically but still it marched. By now, Joey was spent and fell to the floor, unconscious from the drain his body had from expending so much magic. The slower bolts kept pelting the monster.

“Grand Strike!”

Muted by the screaming, Sarge pulled back his hammer and swung like he was in the World Series. The tail tried knocking the hit back like a designated hitter but Siren’s Wail made the tail whip around like it was in a wind storm and whiff entirely. Grand Strike slammed into the base of the zombie’s hip and its hit points sunk so low that there was hardly any color left in the HP bar.

It wasn’t dead.

Siren’s voice went raw again and when she tried to keep screaming anyways, the game declined. The soundwave died and Siren was left screaming until she went into a coughing fit and fell down beside Chill.

With the sound gone and the ice blasts finished, the boss had enough power to start shattering the ice away. It regained its speed as it started at the only one left standing.

Fleur hyperventilated as she reached for the sword on her hip. Only she didn’t have one. Blitz took it for the fight and it was now still stuck in the monster’s spine.

So instead, she pulled out a dagger. Everyone had at least one for the fight. So there was that.

She noticed Sarge storming down the field after it but he wasn’t getting here in time. It was only her.

With no choice, she closed her eyes and threw this lone dagger at the Undead Manticore, Former Guardian of Everfree Graves.

It hit.

However.

It still. Wasn’t. Dead.

The monster impacted the ground, all its weight crushing Chill and Siren underneath it, and Fleur was suddenly between an unhinged jaw and pair of massive fangs as it crunched.

E1ectric_B1itz: 36/128
F1eur_de_7is: 54/130
GrayMatt3rsxxx: 31/160
Light_Chill: 46/101
Sardinexx: 92/306
Siren_t@le: 12/147

Blitz watched everyone’s hit points fall at once and forced his eyes shut. Siren stopped screaming and he couldn’t hear anyone anymore. Even with his eyes closed, the numbers were still there.

Gray had more bravery than that. When she saw the hit points fall she forced herself up and walked out to discover what had happened. All she could see was the manticore glowing green and blue like a disco light, Sarge still not close enough to care, and the beast shaking Fleur like a feral dog. Gray took a step forward before standing with vacant hope.

When the manticore finished scaring the teenager, it spiked Fleur on the ground like a football and rose up a claw to pound her into the hard dirt. The girl watched for a moment, eyes fixed in fear as something along the manticore’s back shifted slightly.

The beast gave one last growl, readied its claws...and didn’t move.

Sarge kept screaming, forcing himself further down the trail until finally the manticore and the others were in sight. One of its paws was standing on Chill’s unmoving body and the other paw was poised to tear through Fleur. But the only thing that moved was the pegasus on its back.

Siren, heaving and coughing, kept twisting her shortsword deeper and deeper into the Guardian’s back like a cork remover. Despite her voice going raw, she was still conscious. Even after the manticore stomped on her. When it began shaking Fleur, it stepped off Siren, letting her escape and act.

Siren could have stabbed the creature in the leg rather than waste time flying to its back to the same effect. But she wasn't thinking straight. In her mind, stabbing the leg wouldn't have hit anything important.

So as Siren kept twisting, Fleur kept watching the mountain of rot for as long as it remained. She believed if she blinked, she wouldn’t open her eyes again. But as the green aura shied away from the fleshy statue, it left only the blue code's glow of every injury inflicted.

Eventually, Fleur's eyes forced themselves to blink.

Then, blinking a few more times, she reached into her quiver, drew an arrow, and carefully tapped the beast in the leg.

No response.

No response except for the massive body pixelating into blue before eventually evaporating altogether.

Siren gave out a sudden yelp as she fell through the beast’s incorporeal body and smacked the ground. It wasn’t enough to hurt but by how tired she was, she didn’t bother standing back up.

It wasn’t until one message appeared in front of everyone’s faces that all of them felt the tension leave their bodies.

Champion Defeated
Former Guardian of Everfree Graves

Team Rewards
12,000 XP
Manticore Tail Spear
Grave Guardian’s Totem
512 Bits

Sarge let his hammer drop to the ground. Fleur pulled herself back on four legs and Siren elected to stay face first on the ground.

Blitz slowly opened his eyes and stared at the victory screen in his face. And then the team health bars. Everyone was alive. Better than that, no one’s hit points were going down anymore. They were going up.

E1ectric_B1itz: 38/128
F1eur_de_7is: 56/130
GrayMatt3rsxxx: 33/160
Light_Chill: 48/101
Sardinexx: 94/306
Siren_t@le: 14/147

Among all of them, the rewards were split however the game had deemed fair. Most of them also watched as they received another message saying that their level increased.

Chill was still lying unconscious near Siren and Fleur. He was snoring too. The entire fight left him drained of any life and not even if the others wanted to wake him would he want his eyes open right now.

Gray slowly made her hooves walk over towards the group. No one had any idea where Blitz landed but they imagined he was enjoying their victory just as well.

When Gray finally reached them, Fleur looked among the others who were with her. Every single one of them. The nightmare that accosted her was killed. And since Siren wouldn’t correct her, Fleur believed that she had been the one to do it.

“Nous avons gagné. La victoire,” She spoke.

“Victor-ah?” Sarge mumbled. “Victory. Y-yeah.” He nodded. “But, um...Am I the only one that feels like he needs a nap?”

“no,” Chill muttered, still, definitely, unconscious. And, after a moment, he went back to snoring like he definitely had been doing this whole time.

“We. We could all use one.” Gray stopped walking and let herself fall into a heap next to Chill and Siren. “I don’t even care that we’re in a graveyard anymore.”

Siren’s head pulled itself off the ground for a moment, worried. “Wait. That’s a good point. Aren’t those zombies gonna...?”

“Nuh-uh,” Gray answered. “According to forums, this place becomes a safe house after the boss is dead. We safe,” she concluded coolly.

“For how long?” Sarge blinked.

“Who cares?” The still certainly sleeping Chill dismissed. “Let me sleep. Ple-he-he-hease..."

“Until midnight,” Gray answered anyway. “At midnight, the area resets. Including the safe house.”

“What?!” Chill’s head sprung up. “You mean it comes back?!”

“It’s only past 7 PM,” Sarge assured him. “We’ll rest for four hours then leave. Someone can carry you if you want.”

“Not it,” Siren tossed out, lying her head back down.

“...I’ll go get the other kid.” Sarge stood up. No one stopped him.

After a few minutes, Sarge dragged the weakly smiling Blitz as everyone took a much needed break. Both their minds and bodies were exhausted. Not to mention they still had to take all the treasure from the altar and get home.

But for now, they rested. Because nothing could stop them.

Author's Note

So...This was the fight. I hope you enjoyed it!

Complete transparency, I had never written a fight scene like this before. The closest I have ever done was the Cragadile a few chapters ago. So I don't know if the action stays engaging or if small details like Blitz's plan laid out or the music links add anything or take away from the action.

That said, big fights like this won't be every chapter. Not even close. I plan on their being other large fights but they're going to be spaced out and built up. Hopefully like this one was if I wrote it correctly.

There's going to be one last chapter and then this story's unfortunately going to be on a hiatus for a bit. Or at best, put on a back burner while I work on a different story.

But until next chapter everyone!
Cheers,
-Zeke

Who Are You Anyways?

Light Chill’s POV
The Next Morning, Jan 30th
In Ponyville

After we forced ourselves awake from the boss room, we packed all the treasure it was guarding before jogging for the exit. Not including the shield Blitz picked up, there were so many Bits and cool stuff piled there that I’m pretty sure Gray was drooling from the value of it all.

The walk home was quiet since we were at full health and we had two high level players, Sarge and Siren, with us. We marched through the zombies, Gray led us around the traps, and we were back at Ponyville faster than it took to get to the Graves.

Once we started passing buildings, everyone split up to sleep for the rest of the night. We promised that we’d meet up in the restaurant underneath the hotel we stayed at. From there, we’d figure out how to relax for a while.

Except, I decided to get a head start on that. Sitting down at one of the bigger tables, to guard it from the other players, I was enjoying my third milkshake. I mean, we are swimming in Bits now.

So over the next minute, I sipped up every last drop of strawberry shake from the bottom of my glass. I didn’t even care if the sipping sound was getting on other player’s nerves. I only stopped when I was sure I got everything out of the glass before letting it clank on the table.

“I needed that,” I admitted to no one with a sigh.

“Hello. I noticed your glass is empty,” a male voice told me. “Would you like a refill?”

I glanced over my shoulder and spotted one of the waiter ponies walking over to me. He came over every time I emptied my glass. Like a hero.

“Yes please.” I beamed. When I saw him about to open his mouth I already knew what he would say. The same thing he said the last two times. “Any flavor’s fine, thank you.”

The pony blinked before closing his mouth and nodding. “Very well. I’ll add it to your bill.” With that, he walked off to bring me round four.

Another man’s voice, one deeper than the waiter, chuckled. “I see you’re enjoying yourself.”

I looked up and my smile widened. “Sarge, Siren! Hey!”

The two of them stayed at a different hotel so they were coming in through the entrance before taking a seat at my table. Good thing too. One or two players were eyeballing this table for a while.

“Gotta admit, I didn’t expect you to be the first one awake,” Siren said. She didn’t wear her usual scowl. “Then again, you did sleep the entire way here.”

“You kidding?” I raised an eyebrow. “You try sleeping on someone’s back through a forest. I had to make sure I didn’t fall off the entire time.”

“You were snoring,” Sarge told me.

“Well, duh. If Alex thought I was awake he would have made me walk.“

“...You little brat,” Siren said bore a smirk for a moment.

I stuck my tongue out and shrugged as the AI waiter dropped off my fourth milkshake and took their orders while I started slurping the shake down.

As the waiter left, the others noticed this confused look on my face. “What’s wrong kid?” Siren asked.

“It’s just. It’s tastes...different,” I told them, tapping the glass to pull up the display. Since it was just a milkshake, all that showed up was the name. “Coffee milkshake? Alex said coffee always tastes terrible.”

“That’s because it does.”

From the stairs, Alex and Gray stood at the base of the stairs with death in their eyes. Meanwhile, Fleur walked past both of them and sat at the table, as ready for the day as I was.

I frowned. “I don’t know.” I paused to sip it again and take a moment to think. “I mean, strawberry’s still better but...It’s kinda good?”

Gray skulked over to the bar to get her own coffee while Alex rubbed his eyes. “That’s because morning people like you are aliens. I will believe nothing el....” Alex tried forcing himself not to yawn, and failed, before shambling over to sit next to me.

After a few minutes, everyone got something to drink, with me getting a second coffee shake, and finally began looking more alive.

“Oh yeah.” Alex’s eyes snapped awake as if he suddenly regained consciousness. “Sarge. Was there any news on King?”

“Oh yeah. Guess we should get that outta the way,” he murmured. “Unfortunately, no. With the inn we stayed at, Siren and King each wanted their own room while Kal and I shared a third. The inns have a system where you can ask whether someone's in their assigned room or staying at that specific inn. Apparently, King checked out early.”

My eyes widened a little. “Does that mean he could be anywhere?”

“Doubt it,” Gray muttered, sipping her coffee before wiping an eye. “Oct gave me an update. Every Info Dealer and admin know about him now. Admins are holding back on telling people what really happened. So far, they’re only talking about King trying to trap us in an overleveled area. But we miraculously escaped,” she concluded with a mocking tone.

“Doesn’t that mean people are gonna find out about the Graves sooner?” Alex asked. “Isn’t that gonna hurt your bottom line?” He used air quotes around his last two words.

“On the contrary.” Gray gave a sinister smirk. “Every Dealer wants to buy what I know on that Guardian. I’ll give it to Oct for what he did to help us but it’s my info to sell now.”

“Wow. That’s...scummy,” Siren insulted.

“Eh.” Gray shrugged, dropping the smirk. “If people don’t know what to expect they’ll either go in overprepared or not at all. No maps of the place have been sold yet so the underprepared won’t know where it is.”

Sarge gave her a long look before shaking his head. “Back on topic; King’s gone. On the way back last night, he sent me another message. Sparing you his exact words, he was paranoid. He accused us of selling him out or asked how we even did that. He probably saw people looking for him.

“Which reminds me.” Sarge pulled up his menu and after a few buttons, we saw him open up a private message with a picture taken of Ponyville at night. He took it on the way back from the Graves.

To: KingDingBing

We got out.

[Picture Attached]

That was the message Sarge sent to King. After he hit ‘Send’, he took a sip of his own coffee. “If he’s already going into hiding, we may as well give him a real reason.”

“Now who’s being scummy,” Gray fired back.

Sarge said nothing. Instead, his eyes focused back on his menu before he let out some cross between a chuckle and a huff. “Well look at that. He unfriended me.”

“Maybe if we run outside we’ll see his dust cloud leaving town,” Siren proposed but she dismissed the thought in exchange for more coffee. “Then again, chasing after him won’t solve anything.”

My brow furrowed. Wait. Why not?

“You’re probably right,” Alex admitted with a frown. “He might have more than those two guys. Not to mention there’s not much you could do even if you caught him.”

“We’ll have to come up with an answer first,” Sarge admitted. “Until then, we’re going to stay inside this town for a few days. We’ve had enough excitement for a while.”

“Yeah. I wanna break too,” I admitted. “I was almost eaten and stomped to death yesterday. I want a day where I don’t have to fight things.”

Saying that made my throat feel tight. Especially when Alex and the others stared at me without saying anything. So instead of staring back, I closed my eyes and drank my milkshake.

I probably shouldn’t have said that out loud, I thought.

“Uh. Y-Yeah. He’s right.” Alex sounded unsure. “I know we’re lower leveled than we should be but we need some time to cool our nerves before we go to Ruined Castle.”

“Wait. You still want to go there?” Gray looked at him. “Alex, if this is about what I wanted, forget it. Even after we split the loot, I’ll have more than enough to set up in Canterlot. Plus there’s all the side-quests no one’s discovered yet.”

“Joey woke up when I brought him to our room,” Alex informed her. Not my name. “We talked for a bit and...We think we’re going to go anyway. Even if you don’t want us to.”

Gray gave him a look. “Why?”

“Well, we’re both still kinda weak,” I answered for him. “Alex said everyone’s already above level seven now.”

“The leveling system,” Alex clarified. “Reaching level seven’s easy. The game asks for a low amount of XP. It’s why I leveled up twice.” As he said that, he gestured up towards the level sitting beside his name. It was level six now.

Everyone, except Sarge, had leveled up after the Guardian. Gray and I were level seven, Fleur level eight, Alex was six, Sarge nine and Siren ten. Not only that, Alex finally got his ability.

“Let me guess; that’s when the abilities show up?” Siren sat back. Alex gave her a simple nod and drank his orange juice.

“Right, there was some sort of range,” Sarge remembered. “Abilities are from level four to seven. King kept bringing it up since his ability came at seven. Said that meant it was powerful.”

“That’s what some believe,” Gray jumped in. “But there’s no proof. Some think the game gives it to you when it thinks you’ve earned it. I think it’s just random.”

“What was King’s ability?” Alex asked.

“It's called King’s Men,” Sarge stated formally. “It allows him to summon basic guards to do what he wants. Most of the time he had them take a strong hit for him. But he’d give commands every now and then too.”

“That is pretty strong,” Alex admitted. “But you’re telling me he wasted it on soaking damage?”

“Looking back on it, it seems cruel.” Sarge’s brow furrowed further. “He sacrifices them like they’re nothing, even if they look like ponies like us. It makes me wonder if it’s desensitizing him to it all.”

I saw Gray and Alex blanch from how Sarge explained it but that only made me more confused. What’s de-sin-sitting mean?

When she noticed the awkward silence threatening us, Siren tapped her hoof on the center of the table and started scowling again. It made us feel more uneasy.

“Okay. Look. Can we...not talk about that guy anymore?” She asked. “I wanted to. I wanted. To talk about...something else...um...” Her stern expression started shrinking just as she was doing in her chair.

“Oh yeah.” Gray blinked. “You were the one who wanted us to talk in the morning. So, what is it?”

“Erm. Right, well.” Siren started to stammer as her ears fell flat against her head. And on her magenta face, her cheeks started turning light pink.

Suddenly, Alex tried to keep himself from laughing. “Oh, that’s unfortunate. The game has a blushing system in it.”

“It what.” Siren went wide eyed, tapping her cheeks for a second.

“Woah. Never seen that before.” Sarge blinked. “Didn’t expect it from Siren either.”

“You. Sh-shut up.” Siren started grinding her teeth and scowled at nothing in particular. As if she were trying to scare the game into taking the blushing away. Too bad it was making it more obvious.

She let us all laugh off her misfortune before letting us go with a sigh. “Alright. Sure. It’s funny. We’re done laughing now.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Alex excused. The smile didn’t fall off any of our faces though. “Won’t happen again.”

Siren watched him for a moment, trying to figure out whether or not he was telling the truth before she took a deep breath. “Good. In that case..."

She straightened up in her seat and looked over each of us for a second. “Hello. My real name is Kaylee Depalma. I live in Texas, I’m in the Air Force, and..." She visibly swallowed her pride as her blush came back. “...I got engaged...A few weeks ago...”

“Engagée?” Fleur’s expression slowly widened to match the rest of us. “Vous êtes une fiancée?”

Siren’s blush remained as she shuffled in her chair. “Yeah. Err...Oui. I have a fiancé.”

“You never talked about that,” Sarge spoke slowly. “You never said any of that before.”

“Right, well. I am now,” she gave out shortly. “I don’t like talking about myself. I don’t hang around people either, but. Well, after yesterday...you know.”

“...What’s his name?” Gray gave her a small smile.

“Derrick.” Siren’s scowl broke into a smile. “I went to the movie’s by myself all the time. One day I went to this really bad movie and wanted to skip it but Derrick’s one of those guys who isn’t shy to rip on movies mid-showing. By the end, he was funnier than the dumpster fire I paid to sit through. And a week later when we ended up both paying for the same movie, we made it a date.”

Then she frowned. "He was a fan of cartoons and games. I thought it was weird for someone in his mid-twenties like me but, whatever.” She shrugged. “It wasn’t a bad hobby and it didn’t control his life. But then he told me about this VR game where ‘you’re the adventurer.’ After he convinced me to ignore the weird cartoon horse thing, we made matching accounts. Siren and Dragon Tale. But only one of the VR systems got delivered on time.”

When she paused, Gray frowned. “You went in first. Didn’t you?”

She looked like she was about to scowl again but it weakened into another sad smile. “He baited me into it. Asked if I would just give the game an honest to God shot. Then he said I was too uptight. He’s right, obviously, but, still, fuck that, right?” She noticed me for a second and put a hoof to her mouth. “Err, I mean, eff that.”

I gave her the neutral face of displeasure but said nothing.

“So I went in. Thought I’d play two hours and prove him wrong. But...I got hooked,” I she admitted. “Ran into Sarge not long after and found out not everyone here were huge diehards of this cartoon. We started wrecking house...Then the God monster showed up.”

We all let her have a moment of silence as she scowled at the ground. “Still...Better me than him, right?” She picked herself up and tried to wear a fake smile. “Derrick’s kind of a pansy when he’s under pressure. My one friend and his dozen say we’re a good balance.”

“You never told us that,” Sarge repeated. It was all he could say.

“Yeah? I just did,” she told him. “And...I feel...Really weird that I just said all of that to people I met yesterday. So...yep.”

At this point, the AI waiter walked up to our table. “Hello everypony,” he began as if he couldn’t feel all the tension at the table. Oh wait. “I noticed your glasses are em—”

“Yes,” I cut him off. Siren looked really uncomfortable. “We’d all like refills. All the same thing we had before. Thanks. Bye.”

The pony stared at me, opening and closing its mouth as it blinked a few times. Finally, when it was done pretending to be a fish, he nodded. “I’ll add it to your bill,” was all he said before leaving us alone.

“Thanks.” Siren gave me a small smile. I smiled in return.

Before she had to face the others, Gray put her hoof out in the middle of the table like Siren did. “Hello. My real name is Gwen Peters. Louisiana. I am...Well, was a waitress. Probably got fired since I’m stuck in here,” she joked. A few of us smirked.

“I tried streaming video games,” she went on. “I wasn’t making that much in my job and I didn’t go to college for...reasons.” She looked like she was going to stop talking but kept on. “I only had, like, two dozen subscribers. Not much. But when I found out about this new VR console, I figured I’d try being one of the first to stream it.

“I buried myself in learning as much as I could so I could hit the ground running. There wouldn’t be public recording or streaming options until a month after release so I had time to get some experience. Literally and figuratively. However.” She did a sweep motion with her hooves. “You can imagine how that panned out.”

“I heard about that.” Alex leaned back. “There’s supposed to be reviewers and a small group of players with access to stream and record their game while they play. I wonder if they’re able to send videos.”

“No,” Gray lamented. “I heard about one of those guys. It was someone who wrote reviews for a big name...GIN, I think?” GIN? Is that how that name’s spelled? “They admitted they could still record but the footage couldn’t be sent anywhere. Something about no connection.”

Sarge groaned. “That AI thought of everything, huh?”

“Kind of answered your own question,” Alex told him. “It’s an AI.” Then he moved to put his hoof in the middle of the table. “I’ll go next I guess. My name’s Alex Vaughn. I’ve finished a little over half of high school.”

Alex took a minute telling his own story like Gray and Siren did. He talked about how our Dad was a huge MMO fan with a blog. Then how Dad let both of us go first since we really wanted to play. Then he brought up our Mom being a news reporter too.

“Is she on national news?” Sarge asked.

“No. Nothing big,” Alex backed down. “But. Back on the first day, when Discord had all those TV reports floating around him? Our Mom was in one of them. She was reporting it.”

Siren went still for a moment. “You don’t think that freak actually knew that, do you?”

“I hope not.” Alex slumped. “I mean, he had dozens of broadcasts floating around him. I‘m hoping it was a really bad coincidence.”

When he felt the questions were over, Sarge brought his green hoof out. “My turn. Hello everyone. My name’s George Mendoza. Kentucky. I’m in the Army. A sergeant, specifically.”

“A sergeant?!” Alex went wide-eyed. “Why did I take charge of the boss fight then?”

A lightbulb went off in my head. “Is that why you go by Sarge?”

“Sort of.” He smirked. “When Kal asked what I did, I told him. So he started calling me Sarge. I wanted him to stop but it didn’t sit right to say my real name at the time. And Sardinexx is a mouthful so...Sarge it is.”

“What got you stuck in here?” Siren asked. “My fiancé, Gray’s money problems, Alex’s family. What’s your thing?”

He chuckled. “I know one of the programmers. She invited me to buy the game when she found out I was looking for a new hobby. I’m a little old for games like this but I used to play MMOs years ago. And she made a good argument at the time. Knowing Lindsay, she’s probably sitting out there blaming herself for all of this.”

“I can get that.” Alex frowned. “Anyone on this game’s gotta be either terrified they’ll get in trouble or blaming themselves.”

Sarge shook his head. “She had nothing to do with it. She’s a graphic’s designer. She designed plants. Aside from maybe designing those Timberwolves, she never put the players in danger.”

The group started looking towards me and Fleur to see who would go next. But Fleur quickly took her chance and threw her hoof forward. Fine by me. My fifth milkshake had just arrived.

“...Hi,” she started, instantly looking anxious. “Je...My name. Is...Rachelle Simon.” She paused as she tried thinking of what else to say. “My. Family. Louis-i-ana. Erm, Gwen home.”

“My home?” Gray blinked. “Oh. You mean like me. You live in Louisiana, like me,” she tried to connect the dots.

“Erm. Non. No. My. Home is France. Amboise.” When she saw how none of us seemed to recognize the town name, she sighed with a strained smile.

“Paris,” she said, holding her hoof up in the air. “Now. Amboise.” Next, she held her second hoof below the first and a little to the left.

“South of Paris,” Sarge deciphered. When we each realized that, Fleur giggled at our reactions.

“Why’d you say Louisiana?” Gray raised an eyebrow as the waiter came back with more drinks.

Fleur thought about it for a moment. “Cousine Frankie. El...She. Video game player. I go to America. My family...My unicorn.” She paused to gesture to herself. “Is...She?”

The group took a little longer trying to figure that one out before Alex tried. “Your cousin plays video games. You went to America because of your family. So it was your cousin that got the game. Which means..." It dawned on him. “You’re on her account.”

“Is that possible?” Gray thought about it for a second. “The headset is voice activated.”

“It wouldn’t matter,” Alex told her. “You sign in with your computer. After that, the headset checks to see if someone’s wearing it and then waits for the voice activation. It doesn’t mean you have to be wearing the headset. Just be close enough for it to hear you.”

“Then Rachelle’s cousin signed her in for her.” Siren looked over at her. “Rachelle didn’t even know what she was getting put into.”

Sarge folded his hooves together. “I’m pretty sure none of you would much care for politics, but a French kid trapped in an American game? That’s probably not going so well in reality right now.”

“Oh. Right,” Alex stressed. “The game’s servers are only in America. If Rachelle's still here, she’s still in America.”

Fleur kept glancing back and forth at every word she seemed to recognize. After Alex said her name, she started growling. “Stop,” she said.

Alex flinched. “S-Sorry. If she can’t understand us, it probably feels like we’re talking behind her back.”

Fleur turned to him and glared for a moment before taking one of his hooves in both of hers. The funny blushing thing showed up on Alex now. “Wo-Woah. Rachelle?”

“Please,” she said. “I...I...I English. I...ugh.” She growled again, trying to find something to say.

“You...Want to talk English?” Alex tested.

“Oui. Yes. Talk. I talk English. Please,” she begged. “Alex. Aider my talk English. Please.”

“Aid. You. Me teach English?” Alex looked more worried. “How would I teach English?”

“Très. Petite. Very. Little,” she spoke, somehow catching Alex’s attention. “Tu ‘très petite’ Français. Oui?”

“But...I can’t be the only one that knows some French. Right guys?” Alex tried looking around at us for help.

Siren shrugged. “I took Spanish in high school.”

“I forgot all my Spanish in high school,” Sarge admitted.

Gray frowned when he looked at her. “I admitted I didn’t go to college. What do you want from me?”

When Alex turned to me, his own eight-year old brother, I laughed in his face.

“I’m. I’m the only one.” Alex turned back to see Fleur looking at him with determination. So he sighed. “Okay. Fine. Yes. I’ll try.”

“Yes? Yes? Yes!” Fleur pulled him in for a hug before teetering in her chair, brimming in glee as Alex struggled to find the right way to say anything.

“Heh. Well, while he's putting his curriculum together.” Siren looked at me. “What about you, kid? Who are you anyways?”

Alex’s stammering went flat as he looked between me and Siren. When I locked eyes with him, he got uncomfortable.

Sorry Alex, I thought. I...I’m not.

I looked back at Siren and gave her a sad smile. “Sorry, but, I’m Light Chill right now.”

Both her and Sarge gave me these odd looks. Yeah, I thought they wouldn’t go along with that. “It’s kind of hard to explain. I don’t get it either,” I admitted. “But. When I say I’m Light Chill, everything’s just easier. Like I’m not...Well...It just helps.

“So hi,” I introduced myself, smiling a little bigger. “I’m Light Chill."

I wish I could explain that better. But I can’t. I'm sorry.

Author's Note

The group is taking some much needed time off from monster slaying. And likewise, I'll be taking a small break from this story.

Starting next week my life's going to start getting busy again and I've mentioned that there's another story I want to work on. I'll still have this story on my mind but it won't be getting the kind of fast updates I've been giving it.

Something of note though, there's going to be another time skip. The last chunk of chapters I guess you could call the first arc. The Ruined Castle will be arc two. And the next arc won't all be multiple chapters over just one or two days. It'll spread across multiple days.

I hope you all have enjoyed this chapter and the story so far! Let me know what you think in the comments. I always love reading them!

Until next time.
Cheers,
-Zeke

The Daily Grind (1/2)

The next several days had come and gone with everyone within ELO adapting as best they could. Dozens of teams scoured the Everfree Forest to map out every blank space. At the same time, everyone else left Everfree and Ponyville behind to try searching other cities.

Once where there were a couple thousands of players in Ponyville, there were now only a couple hundred at most. Some players had fallen into a rhythm to go out, fight monsters for Bits and experience, and then come back to lounge around the town. Almost as though it were a job.

Some were taking it a step further. They would save up money to buy a permanent house or even a guild hall as a more passive approach to help find the Elements. Although there were some that simply started mooching off the kindness of others.

Then there’s the six players whose daily lives had become more...unpredictable.

As she turned the corner, Gray reached out and tugged at the base of a shelving unit, knocking it over and blocking three ponies from chasing down the aisle after her.

“Why are there so many of them,” she shouted, running further down the aisle to put distance between her and her assailants.

Gray and the team were all scattered around a massive warehouse inside Ponyville. Since coming back from the Graves, Gray started finding multiple side-quests. She sold most of them for a profit but kept the useful ones for the team so they wouldn’t constantly be farming monsters from the forest.

To either side of her were massive shelving units crowded with crates and bags of useless junk, trapping her in the aisle. With the way she came in blocked and ponies trying to get around it, she only had one direction to run.

However, as she reached the end of the aisle, four more ponies stepped out, daggers and clubs poised to strike. Gray skidded to a halt and stared them down.

This would be so much easier if we were allowed to use lethal, she thought darkly. “Guess I’m wasting this...Blitz, they’re all yours.”

When the ponies realized she wasn’t moving, they took the initiative and charged.

“Dark Blend,” Gray muttered, gone from sight as the first two ponies got close enough to swing where she was, catching only air.

The four ponies started frantically looking around as their frustration traded for confusion. “Where’d she go?” One demanded.

“She wasn’t a unicorn,” another pony pointed out. “How could she have done that?” The third simply shrugged.

“Must be one a’ them adventurers,” the last one deduced. “She couldn’t have gotten far. Everypony split up. We’ll find her!”

But before they could, a sharp whistle rang out from above them. They all craned their heads up to watch as, standing on the top of a tall shelving unit, was a smiling pegasus; one with a black coat and yellow mane.

“Heya,” Blitz greeted with a wave.

“You,” one of them pointed with an accusing hoof. “Get down here and face us like a stallion!”

Blitz tapped his chin in thought. “Tempting. Very tempting.”

Standing up, Blitz reached behind his back and pulled out a long dull red spear with a scorpion’s stinger on the end of it. The Manticore Tail Spear. The weapon the group had pulled from the Guardian back at the Graves.

The ponies below him began backing away as they each felt worried about their slim chances.

Alex shrugged. “Ya know what? Sure, why not? Comin’ down!”

He leapt from the shelf; spear positioned to stab whatever stood beneath it.

The four ponies scrambled out of the way as Alex’s spear wedged itself in the ground. Before they could retort, Alex tore the stinger free from the ground and twirled it around in a whirlwind. In one move, all four of the thugs were battered to the floor.

Blitz took a second to admire his work. Each of these four ponies all had the same name displayed above each of them; Ponyville Thug. It came with laughable health bars now all in the red and the noticeable lack of a player crystal above their heads.

“Numbers aren’t much of a threat if they go down so easily,” Blitz pointed out. All he got in return was a weak groan from the enemies littering the space around him.

Through the supplies on the shelves, three aisles down, Blitz saw another three thugs chasing Fleur.

“Fleur, you okay,” Blitz asked loud enough to reach her.

“Oui! Okay,” she replied with a cocky grin. Then after a moment, Fleur glanced back at the thugs. “Bring it, losers!”

Blitz rested his face behind his hoof. “That’s the fourth time today. Who taught her that?”

When Rachelle reached the wall of the building, she twirled around and fired an arrow in one motion. Rather than an arrowhead, it had a rounded metal ball at the end.

It only managed to fly ten feet before slamming muzzle-first into the first pony. The force of the hit threw him back and he slid across the concrete, cradling his poor, programmed, broken nose.

The two remaining ponies went around their ally and kept pace. One was an Earth pony with a dagger in its mouth while the other was a unicorn levitating a club with his horn. Still no player crystal, just like Blitz’s goons.

Realizing they were too close to fire another arrow, Fleur sheathed her bow. Her cocky grin, however, stayed drawn.

“Amour Maladie,” she hummed, breaking into a run towards the ponies as her hooves started glowing dark pink.

The three closed in and the Earth pony went to slice her neck. Ready, Fleur slid underneath him and used her magic to shove his jaw in the air, keeping the dagger away from her. Then, before the unicorn could club her, she pounced and clocked him across the face with all her momentum.

The unicorn’s health took a small hit before the dark pink aura trailed from Fleur’s hooves, ensnaring the thug. While his eyes danced in multiple hues of pink, Fleur turned and drove a right hook into the other pony’s face.

Blitz watched Fleur dodge the pony’s dagger again, punching him one more time before backing up behind the lovestruck pony. “...And who taught her that?”

As he watched, the other three ponies finally dragged their way past Gray’s barricade and tried rushing Blitz while he was distracted. But before they got close enough for Blitz to acknowledge them, a crossbow bolt with a metal ball on the end dropped one of them.

Blitz looked over and saw the other two ponies staring above them where a magenta pegasus with a brown braided mane, Siren, was staring at Blitz with a bored look.

“Am I cleaning these up or you?”

Blitz chuckled and threw his spear, embedding it in the ground between the two ponies. While they tried recovering from the heart attacks their fear gave them, Blitz propelled forward, drawing his tonfa to pummel them with.

“Good,” Siren complimented. After checking over with Fleur, observing how one love-tranced thug was beating up his other as Fleur watched, Siren noticed another three thugs running to the entrance of the warehouse.

“Sarge,” Siren yelled. “Three closing on your position. Status on VIP?”

“VIP secure,” Sarge returned, readying his new broadsword as a NPC pony, with the name Tight Fit floating above him, stood behind Sarge anxiously as he glared at the thugs.

“Here they come, Sarge,” Tight Fit pointed out. “There...There’s a lot of ‘em.”

“Siren, back up Chill,” Sarge instructed. She obliged and started jumping from shelf to shelf as Fleur and Blitz met up just in time to fight five more goons.

“Uh...Sarge?” Tight Fit stared at the Earth Pony who had only drawn his sword and waited. “They’re comin’ man! Fight ‘em!”

These NPCs, Sarge thought to himself. Just real enough to be annoying.

But Sarge didn’t budge. Instead, as the enemies all closed in, weapons and warcries ready, Sarge held out his forelegs like a human shield. He let all three of them strike at once; two daggers and a shortsword producing blue code.

All the thugs’ warcries dwindled to confusion as they watched the large, armored Earth pony staring them down, blades still embedded in his body.

“...Are you done?” Sarge asked boredly.

Tight Fit watched as they lost all confidence, one of them stammering to bring out some sort of apology as his dagger was still stuck in Sarge’s neck.

With a heave, Sarge lifted all three ponies off of their hooves before slamming them onto the ground. Then, ignoring their screams and pleas, Sarge hefted his broadsword and started slamming the flat side of the blade against each of their heads like a golf club.

When the last one hit the floor, Tight Fit did enough cheering for both of them as Sarge observed Fleur and Blitz quickly finishing off the last thugs around them. “Is there an actual threat in here?”

"Over here there is," a much younger voice shouted. The sound of metal clanging against metal rang out like a symphony before magic pulses fired in return. "Little help?!"

Towards the back of the warehouse was an open space with wood pallets holding crates of metal ingots, building supplies, and blacksmithing tools. The youngest of the team, Light Chill, was hiding behind a pile of bricks from two more Ponyville Thugs and a pegasus mare with the name Thug Captain (Iron Gate) above her head.

Every time Chill wanted to poke his head out and fire, a crossbow bolt would be right there trying to take his eye out. As long as the group was inside this warehouse, the threat was as real as fighting in the forest.

“Stop hidin’,” Iron Gate shouted in a southern drawl, flying several feet off the ground to try attacking Chill from a higher vantage point. She was a gray pegasus with half her mane shaved while the other was left long, swept over her right ear and eye.

While airborne, she held a curved dagger in one hoof while using a small crossbow in the other to try pin cushioning Chill. It didn’t help that her bolts had some weak poison dripping from them.

“Let’s not make this harder now,” she tried to reason. “Come out an’ Ah’ll hit somethin’ vital. Finish ya nice an’ quick like.” Well, maybe ‘reason’ wasn’t the right word.

“...” Gate smirked. “There ya are.”

From above, a tiny bolt found its way into Chill’s shoulder blade. The shot did next to nothing in damage but Chill felt the poison wash over him, slurring his vision and movement.

117/123

115

114

112

Chill tried firing a magic bolt up in the air but it missed by a mile. Gate cackled as she took her time loading her next poisoned bolt.

Then a normal-sized crossbow bolt missed her head by an inch.

“Guuh!” “gHacK!”

“Huh?!” Gate whipped around.

Behind her, that crossbow bolt, rounded ball at the front, slammed into one thug’s face and knocked him out. Meanwhile, the second one crumpled to the floor when Gray faded back into reality. The pommel of her dagger where the thug’s neck once was.

Gray glared at the pegasus the same time another magic blast sailed past uselessly.

“Me first,” Gray taunted.

The gray pegasus leered back at the gray Earth pony. “Gladly.”

Iron Gate let her small crossbow drop to the ground below as she pulled out a shortsword and dove after Gray who drew a second dagger. In a spray of sparks, the two mares met with their blades crossed in a deadlock.

The clash quickly devolved into a knifefight, Gray and Gate hardly tagging the other as any blade that came close was parried with a blade from the other, resulting in more sparks flying past them.

Watching Gray’s attention divert for a second, Gate stepped effortlessly aside as an arrow from Fleur missed its target. Gate pulled back her shortsword for a heavy attack but halfway in its swing Siren flew in and let the sword cut into her arm.

Gray managed to get one stab into Gate’s torso before the pegasus tore her sword free and went to rend Siren in two. Siren flew back and Gate took the chance to chase after her only to catch a tonfa to the face from Blitz.

As her health bar ticked down a fraction, Gate spun at a grander speed, slicing open Blitz’s stomach with a vertical cut. After a gasp from the fighter, the two pegasi fell into a midair brawl. Steel scraped wood as the two pinballed around the open space. The others watched from below as Fleur and Siren tried to find a shot while Chill tried to shake the poison's effect off of him.

The skirmish pressed on for a full minute with both sides cutting and striking the other respectively. In one moment, Gate kicked Blitz in the chest, throwing him into a shelving unit. The resulting force made the whole unit tip over, almost causing a domino effect in the warehouse with the aisles. While Blitz recovered, Fleur, Siren, and Chill all fired at the enemy pegasus to help knock her hit points down.

Gate was ready for Fleur’s arrow, ducking under it before Siren’s crossbow bolt nailed her in the back of the shoulder. Chill’s magic almost caught her too but the blast moved through the air so slowly that she could notice and veer away from it in time. Only when the skies were clear did Blitz close in again, the process repeating with his health dwindling much faster.

Then Gray got greedy. In the midst of their combat, she chucked a dagger to catch Gate in the back. With both of them flying around so much, Gate saw it coming. She deftly danced around the dagger, letting Blitz nearly fall into it himself.

Taking the opening, Gate flew at Blitz like a cannonball, hooking her curved dagger into his arm, ripping a chunk of hit points out with it.

But she wasn’t done. As Blitz flinched, she ran his chest through with her shortsword and spun around, chucking him back towards the Earth before she shimmied past another arrow Fleur had waited to fire for so long.

“Merde,” she cried in a fit of anger.

Gate started cackling. “Wooie! Ya had me goin’ there, flyboy,” she taunted through her breath. “A pint like you really knows how ta keep up with a lady.”

“Blitz, you alright?” Sarge called from back at the entrance. The NPC he was guarding refused to go any further into the warehouse and Sarge couldn’t abandon his post. “I keep seeing your health drop!”

“F-Fine,” Blitz stammered, propping himself up off the ground with a growl. Blue glowing stab wounds littered his body including the massive gash from chest to back where the sword cut through him.

He didn’t think his health looked that bad.

84/174.

Iron Gates’s health, however, was only down a fourth. Even after two straight minutes against Gray and Blitz. The NPC sounded exhausted but she was still flying.

Chill tried firing a mini barrage at Gate in hopes to contribute anything to this fight. However, Gate was slippery. Even with over a dozen magic shots, Gate weaved around each of them, laughing all the while.

“Too fast,” Chill muttered, pulling his wand over to his side.

“Do we have to do this nonlethally? She’s an NPC.” Siren watched Gray. “This is getting ridiculous.”

“The quest’s description said there’s a bonus if we do it like this,” Gray reminded her. Although Siren could tell Gray wasn’t far from giving up herself.

“Okay. I’m good,” Blitz breathed, slowly flying back up so he was at eye level with the Bandit Captain. “Round two.”

Gate clicked her tongue, twirling the curved dagger in her hoof before smirking at the other pegasus. “Knew Ah liked you fer a reason.”

“Sure,” Blitz fired boredly. He brought his forehooves together almost like one would fold their hands. “Goodbye.”

“Bye?” Gate’s brow furrowed. “What d’ya mean b—” “Cloudscape.”

Like a smoke bomb, a large white cloud erupted from Blitz’s hooves and surrounded both him and Iron Gate in the blink of an eye.

Gate screamed out in surprise, but it was muffled from within the heavy cloud that hung in the air like a thick blob. Outside, the team listened in shock as they heard Blitz strike Gate with his tonfa repeatedly, his attacks sounding out like thunder.

They could see Blitz’s health tick down ever so slightly now and then but that was nothing compared to the number of hits they heard him dealing. The fluffy blob in the air shifted and twitched like one would picture a fight cloud in cartoons.

Finally, as the sound of fighting stopped, the center of the cloud condensed on itself for a moment before Gate was launched out the bottom. She crashed into the floor in a heap, looking as though the cloud chewed her up and spat her out.

More seconds passed and the cloud floated lazily to the ground and opened like a clam, revealing Blitz lounging there with his legs kicked up on a recliner and ottoman also made of fluffy clouds. He turned his head and opened one eye, grinning at his team.

“I have been holding off on this for way too long,” Blitz admitted as the others watched in mild amusement. “Cloudscape. Let’s me make and manipulate clouds. Cool huh?”

“So cool,” Chill gushed, rushing forward and leaping onto the cloud to enjoy the comfort.

He fell right through and ate concrete.

“Ow,” he groaned shortly. The cloud muffled his pain.

Everyone flinched, worried for him before Chill’s head popped up through the clouds like a meerkat. “Oh yeah,” Chill said to himself. “Only pegasus-es can walk on clouds.”

Hearing that, Siren carefully stepped up on the cloud. Blitz’s recliner took up most of the space but there was room enough for her to lie down on the edge and instantly sink into the fluffy base.

“Oh, I could get used to this,” she admitted with a grin. “How long do you have this thing, anyway?”

“The ability’s already over,” Blitz admitted. “The cloud just kinda lingers for...a while? Eh, whatever.” He shrugged.

As the two relaxed, the others watching somewhat enviously, the NPC Sarge was guarding, Tight Fit, walked over with Sarge following.

“You. You actually stopped them,” Tight said, stunned.

“Yep,” Blitz tossed out lazily.

Siren glanced at Gray again. “So when’s the bonus part of this quest gonna kick in?”

“...But there not going to stop for good,” Tight admitted, scratching the back of his head. “They’re gonna keep comin’ after me.”

“Doesn’t this town have NPC guards?” Sarge pointed out.

“You saw what they can do,” Tight Fit countered. “They’ll just find a way past that. As long as I’m in Ponyville, they’ll keep coming.”

Some time back, Light Chill and Gray had visited one of the busiest shops in town where an NPC named Good Fit sold cloaks and clothing apparel. When the group had finally gotten around to working on the quest, it apparently spanned a couple of days and led to skirmishes with Ponyville Thug enemies.

Tight Fit was Good Fit’s son and while he tended to have a way of getting in trouble, he meant well. Supposedly. However, he wanted to open an armorer shop rather than make clothing his whole life. He was skilled but he needed money. He ultimately took a loan from Iron Gate which ended in disaster.

“Then move,” Gray offered. Only Light Chill was interested in humoring the game’s NPCs but the fact that some of them almost behaved like regular people compelled the others to answer them.

Tight blinked a few times before glaring at the floor. “But. But if I do that, it’ll take all I got to deliver these supplies to wherever I’m going. I’ll be outta money all over again!”

Siren frowned. “Does this game, err...country,” Siren tiredly corrected. “Not have actual money lenders? Get a loan from someone who’s not a criminal.”

Tight thought about it for a moment. “The bigger towns have those kinds of ponies. Not Ponyville.”

Blitz, hearing all of this from his new cloud chair, rolled his eyes. “Well, sounds like you need to move regardless, so move to a big city. Like, I dunno, Chill? What’s the name of the capital?”

“Canterlot.”

“Yeah, go there,” Blitz dismissed with a wave. “Gotta be something there.”

Tight thought about it for a second. “Yeah...Yeah. That might actually work! And if I can get a shop there, there’s no way Iron Gate could try coming after me.”

“Yeah, great, moving up the ladder.” Gray rolled her eyes. “I believe there’s still the matter of our job though?”

Tight Fit’s eyes started blinking frantically, unnerving Sarge for a moment before the pony suddenly nodded with a sheepish grin. “Right. Yeah, ahehehe. Well, ya see, since I’ll be needing money to get all this stuff to Canterlot, I can’t really pay that much.”

Blitz, Siren, and Fleur out let out groans of frustration.

“All this for nothing?” Siren questioned.

“Ces flèches gourdin ne sont pas bon marché,” Fleur complained darkly.

“Well, I-I didn’t mean that,” Tight Fit backpedaled. “I have a way to pay you, just...not with money?”

As Tight Fit started to explain, the entire group’s expression turned from confusion to complete shock and awe.

“WHAT?!”

Later that evening, after Tight Fit was returned to his mother and the blacksmithing tools and supplies were packed up, the six players were now standing outside in the middle of the road.

Ahead of them was a quaint blacksmith’s shop. The door was closed and the forge itself, resting outside, was unlit and dim from lack of use. The place had a broken window and a few rotting pieces of wall and floorboard that could do with replacing but other than that, it was a nice place.

And according to the deed Alex was still clutching in his hoof, it was his blacksmithing shop now. That’s what Tight Fit decided since Alex was the one who dealt the finishing blow to Iron Gate.

“This was the quest bonus,” Siren, or Kaylee, said incredulously for the fifth time today. “We just...own this house now?”

“Shop,” Gwen corrected blankly. “And I think we’re the first players to own a shop.”

“Do we..." Sarge trailed off for a second. “Do we keep it as a blacksmith or what?’

“Gray, didn’t you want to open a shop?” Chill asked.

“Yeah but not here.” Gwen frowned. “Players are leaving Ponyville in droves. The actual cities have most of the players in it.”

“Faisons-nous un prêteur sur gages?” Rachelle asked.

“...Alex? Translation?” Sarge asked.

“No idea,” he shot down.

Eventually, Kaylee clicked her tongue and started walking towards the door. “Well, we’ll figure that out later. At least we’re not paying for hotel rooms anymore.”

The others watched as Kaylee walked up to the door and pushed it open. She had to use some force since the door wasn’t aligned correctly. “Shit.” She bowed her head in exhaustion.

“What?” Alex blinked.

“...” Kaylee slowly turned towards the group with a sunken expression. “Anyone have furniture?”

The group let out a heavy groan. All the money they had saved from quests and the graveyard was about to go out the window. Thankfully, one of them was broken already.

Author's Note

Admittedly, I wrote this chapter out of a spur of the moment. I just felt like writing a day between two 'arcs' in this story. Plus this was a side-quest that was mentioned in a previous chapter and I felt like that was a loose end. Figured this ties that one up.

I hope you guys enjoyed! Until next time.

Cheers,
-Zeke

The Daily Grind (2/2)

Alex/E1ectric_B1itz’s POV
Noon, Feb (5th)

Tap. Tap. Tap-tap tap. Tap.

We were given the blacksmith as a quest reward yesterday but there were a few things that were missing when we got it; more specifically, no furniture. After doing a sweep of the shop all we could find was a counter for someone to run the business and shelves along the walls. The entire building was falling apart too.

Tap-tap-tap...tap.

Since the sun was going down, and the building was too small to fit us all, we as a group decided to sleep back in the inn for one more night. Gwen was hoping we could have slept here to save money but that went out the window when she noticed the already broken window.

Tap. Tap. Bmmph!

The next day rolled around and we tried investigating. Kaylee went ahead and spent some money buying some chairs from a store in town and when she tried taking it out of her inventory, the game said no. That only the owner and whoever they allowed could place furniture.

Since I was the one the NPC gave the deed to, that meant I was the owner. Since we couldn’t find out how ‘allowing’ someone worked, Kaylee just gave me the chairs to place them. Then it worked fine. In a video game it makes sense. In practice? Dumbest thing ever.

Tap tap tap tap-tap-tap-tap-tap. Tapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapa—

“AUGH!” A demented scream echoed from inside the building. I barely made it out of the way as the front door I was tapping swung out to hit me.

From inside the building was the storefront and a very angry Kaylee glaring at me.

“Will you stop. Punching. THE DOOR?!” She screamed. “You have been doing that. For TWENTY MINUTES!”

“What she said.” “Alex, please stop,” Gwen, then Joey, added. All of them looked very unpleased.

Normally I would feel guilty or possibly scared of Kaylee’s death scowl but my frustration hit its breaking point. “Oh, I’m sorry,” I spat sarcastically. “Do any of you know how to make the menu for this place come up? Because I don’t see any of you trying!”

Like Kaylee had definitely exaggerated, I had been going around tapping the door, walls, and store counter in the hopes that I could get some kind of menu to come up.

The game’s tutorials went on and on for pages about how a store menu would have all these options to work on a shop you owned. Only problem is that it forgot to mention how you were supposed to get to this menu in the first place.

“Well obviously punching the door,” Kaylee said through gritted teeth. “Is not helping. So stop.”

I huffed. “Yeah. Got it.”

Kaylee turned and skulked back into the room, reclaiming one of the chairs as Joey teetered back and forth in the other one out of boredom. Gwen settled for lounging on the counter like a slob. Meanwhile, Sarge and Rachelle were out running errands.

Lucky them, I thought. “Look, maybe we should cut our losses,” I suggested. “We didn’t plan on getting a store anyways. Why not just pretend it doesn’t exist?”

Gwen sighed. “Yeah, maybe you’re right. I only want to keep this place so I can learn how to set up my own later. But if it's bugged? Kind of a bust.”

“Um, excuse me! Are you Blitz?” A voice quickly called out.

Curious, the others glanced out the doorway while I turned around. From not far down the road there was a random player walking over with a purpose. He was a blue Earth pony with a blond mane and the username Rextrous floating above his player crystal. When he got closer, he paused to stare at the building in confusion.

“I can’t believe it,” he muttered. “Somepony’s already received a shop? But...how?”

Somepony, I questioned with a light scoff. Who is this guy?

“Hold up.” Kaylee got out from her chair again and flew over beside me to get a good look at the player. “You’re Rex, right? What’re you doing here?”

“Rex?” I glanced back at her. “You know this guy?”

“Yeah, Sarge and I met him almost a week ago. We check in with him about King.”

I turned back to look at the guy who was starting back at me with an odd look. “Why?” I asked. “I’m sorry, I-I think I’m lost.”

Suddenly, ‘Rex’ seemed to understand what was going on. “Right. My apologies.”

He cleared his throat. “I’m one of the administrators for the game. More specifically, I’ve been assigned as the local administrator for the Ponyville area. We have been leading the effort towards finding the Elements of Harmony.”

“Wait, Admin Rex?” With a look of recognition, Gwen rolled off the counter and stood tall, dawning a formal tone. “I’ve heard about you but I don’t think we’ve met.”

“I don’t believe so.” Rex shook his head. “Out of this team, I’ve only met Siren and Sarge. Although I have heard about Fleur de Lis and her two teammates.”

“Us?” I blinked. I looked at Joey who only shrugged. “Why do you know us?”

“You were the three that were at Golden Oaks Library when it blew up,” Rex clarified. “Other admins mentioned seeing Fleur de Lis which made us first think there was some sort of NPC error before we learned otherwise.”

“Oh. Oh.” My eyes widened somewhat. I keep forgetting; Joey mentioned Rachelle looks like a character from the show.

Rex went on. “Sarge found me today to get an update about that player and he mentioned that his group acquired a shop through a quest. I came to see for myself.” Then he frowned. “But I’m confused. This is one of the shops a player gets when they complete a story-line quest. I was told those had been disabled.”

“Apparently not,” Gwen fired back before any of us could. “I was showing the kid how the gossip system worked with the NPCs and he unlocked it by accident. He did it when none of us were looking, too.”

You liar, I insulted inwardly. It sounded so real I almost nodded along. How’d you do that?

Rex noticed Joey sitting inside the shop and gave him a look of awe. “Is that true? If so, you’re pretty lucky.”

“Yeah, I know,” Joey said, beaming. Whether he knew it or not, his smugness only made Gwen’s lie more believable.

“I tried getting him to do it again but it hasn’t worked,” Gwen concluded. “But now we have no idea how to get this place running.”

“Is that right?” Rex thought on it, falling into Gwen’s trap. We were already onto the next topic before he had the chance to ask a single question. “Well, in that case, I’m glad I came by. Allow me help.”

“Thank you,” Kaylee breathed in a sigh of relief.

We brought him in and closed the door behind us before filling him in on the issue. How we got the deed, how I was the only one that could place furniture and then how we couldn’t open the menu for the place.

When we brought up that detail, Rex cringed. “Yes, I think I know what the problem is. Blitz? Could you bring that deed out for me?”

Shrugging, I obliged and started unrolling it for him.

He glanced at it for a second and nodded. “Alright. Now tap it for me.”

“What?” I paused and furrowed my brow. “I’ve already done that. That’s just going to send it back to inventory.”

“Humor me.”

Rolling my eyes, I tapped the piece of paper and— “Woah!”

Several pop up windows came up at once. From charts and status bars to multiple inventories and prices of other shops in Ponyville, there was an overload of information jumping at me. Then, at the center of all the windows was a summary of all the information kept front and center.

Tight Fit’s Right Fit Armory
(Lv 1 Blacksmith: Armorer)
Owner: E1ectric_B1itz

Requires attention: Disrepair
Stock is empty. There is nothing for sale.
There is no one currently employed.

Note: Shop will remain closed until
somepony is actively working.

What would you like to do?

Below that were multiple options leading to other menus, each of which were more detailed than the last. I studied each and every part of it with a bemused look on my face.

“What is this?” I demanded. “I’ve put this thing away four times and it never did that!”

“Near or inside the building?” Rex asked.

“Yes!”

He gave a solemn nod. “And did you keep the deed open when you tapped it?”

“Ye..." I let my mouth hang open for a second and slowly rolled the deed up in my hooves. The menus all vanished at once. “...No. No I didn’t.”

“Are you serious?” Kaylee glared at Rex. “Around the building and open? Why would that matter?”

“I’m not the one who designed it but I do understand the convolution.” He watched as I opened the menu back up. “There should be an option to remodel the structure. That should fix the building and let you choose what type of shop to run.”

I started navigating through the menus again and pressed that exact option before a mountain of choices for what kind of shop to turn this into.

“Woah. This is a lot,” I said aloud, scrolling through the options.

“It’s every type of shop the game has,” Rex explained. “The ones who designed the game’s economy figured there would be players interested in building businesses of their own. Those are premade layouts. I’m told they kept it rather open-ended.”

As I started finding some options that sounded good, I clicked on one of them and watched as it listed a number of supplies and money we needed to remodel. It wasn’t a short list either.

“Where do we get all this stuff?”

“Ah. You see, that’s why I came to help originally,” Rex assured us. “Everything you need can be bought in town. And I’ve already been granted permission from the head admin, Jupiter, to get you started.”

Joey went wide-eyed “Wait really? We don’t have to do anything?!”

Gwen seemed more skeptical. “Why?”

Rex smiled. “If players are running a shop, they can take special orders from other players. And if you sell everything cheaper than other stores, that would help everypony searching for the Elements. It’d be a benefit for everypony.”

There he goes with that dumb wordplay again, I noticed.

“Or we could sell it for someone else to deal with,” Kaylee offered.

“Or, or,” I started, reading through the menus. “We set this thing to autopilot and lower the prices. Apparently, that’s a thing.”

“Whatever you would prefer.” Rex chuckled. “I would only need a list of supplies and I can get them to you within the hour.”

“Guys, wait,” Kaylee interrupted. “Should we really be keeping this place? I mean, do any of us plan on staying in Ponyville forever?”

Gwen smirked. “Even if we don’t, it’d be nice to have something like a base. Besides, I wouldn’t mind a place where we can talk without someone trying to listen in on us.”

Joey giggled. “That sounds sketchy.”

“Good kid, you’re learning,” Kaylee snarked at Gwen’s expense. Then her scowl came back. “But you have a point. Talking at the inn’s lobby when anyone could listen over our shoulder gets kind of annoying.”

“Hey Alex? Can we make a staff shop?” Joey asked me. “I wanna get a stronger staff.”

“Okay, first? It’s a wand,” Gwen corrected him. “If you want a staff, go buy one. Second, what do you think this is, Harry Potter? We’re not making a shop just to build wands.”

“...What’s Harry Potter?” Joey asked after a few seconds.

“How do you not know what that is?” Kaylee stared at him.

Joey stared back. “Uh...Eight years old?” He shrugged.

“That’s not an excuse!”

While they kept going on about nothing important, I finally zeroed in on an option that I liked more than the rest. “Hey Rex? What do you think about this one?”

He walked over and read over the menus for a second before nodding along. “I like it. Actually, I was hoping you would choose something like that.”

“Wand shop?!”

“NO,” the rest of us fired back.

Light Chill’s POV
One Hour Later

While it might not have been the obvious best choice, Alex’s idea did sound like a good second best plan. So after the Rex guy saw it, he took down everything that he needed and set out to hunt it down for us while we got to relax for a while.

As we waited, Fleur came back with some groceries and Alex filled her in on what was happening. Then, a little while later, Siren gave up on waiting and sent a message to Sarge to fill him in too.

Not long after lunch, Sarge made it back the same time Rex did. Without too much trouble, Rex gave Alex everything he needed to fix the shop before having all of us step outside so we. So that...Um...

“Why do all of us have to stand out here?” I asked. “Couldn’t Alex do this from inside?”

“If we did the store wouldn’t update,” Alex explained. “Besides, the shop’s about to look completely different anyways. Don’t want anyone getting stuck in the wall.”

Sarge shook his head. “It’s a weird day when that sounds like an actual threat.”

“It won’t happen,” Rex reassured him with a chuckle. “There’s plenty of safety checks in place to keep it from having a mistake like that.”

Siren glanced away and muttered something I couldn’t hear. All I could tell was that Rex’s smile became a lot more sad.

When Fleur noticed the tension, she stepped up. “Alex? You...Go, please?”

“Right.” He opened up the deed and then the menu, finding the list of supplies. I watched as each progress bar filled itself in before this large text reading ‘Are you sure?’ popped up.

“Alright everyone.” Alex pressed the button.

“Everypony,” I corrected, cheering Rex up from his rut.

“Not on your life,” Alex told me with a smirk. Everypony then watched as the shop was sealed inside a dome of light, making it impossible to see.

“Family. Friends. Benefactor I‘ve known for all of one hour,” Alex listed off. “I’d like to formally thank you all for coming to the grand opening of my general weapons shop.” He spoke with a deep tone as if trying to sound professional despite the growing laughter in his voice.

“Get on with it,” Gray said with a roll of her eyes. Although she was smirking along too.

“Hey, I’m biding for time while the giant light fixture does it’s thing,” Alex admitted with a fake, unamused look. “I welcome you all to...Club Blade & Beyond!”

As if adding to effect, the light dome started shrinking down until the edges and eventually the entire building became visible, allowing us to see what the building had now become.

There was no longer a large porch with a forge on it. Instead, the building took up all the space it was allowed, looking bigger by comparison. There was now also a second story made up of a single room. Since it was the only building on this street with a second story, it looked even bigger as a result.

“The top floor is a private meeting room for plotting any kind of job or for Gray being sketchy,” Alex explained. “And downstairs is a room for storage, the showroom itself and two workshops. We can make almost any weapon except for the bigger stuff. Sorry Sarge.”

Sarge gave out a weak shrug while Rex let himself chuckle at the store’s sign. It was designed exactly like what the store’s name was based on back home.

“Club, Blade & Beyond?” Gray repeated slowly. “Are you serious?”

“It was either that or Blade Pro Shop,” Alex admitted with a grin.

“I think I would have preferred that one,” Sarge admitted.

“Ya know, Bloodbath & Beyond would have been better,” Siren told him.

“I thought so too, but somebody.” Alex glared at Rex. “Programmed it so you couldn’t have the word blood in store names!”

“Aw, come on.” Siren glared at him too. “Swearing I get; it’s a cartoon world. But blood?”

“You say that as though I made that decision,” Rex pointed out. “Again, I did not design the shops.”

“Ohmahgawd!" Gray blurted out, stopping only to fit through her chortling. "Uh, excuse me? Manager?! What’s the thread count on your cloaks~?” Gray said in this high-pitched voice that almost made Siren and me double over laughing.

“Do you sell Timberwolf-scented candles?” Sarge added with a smile.

Alex opened his mouth to answer but suddenly gasped, turning to Rex. “Please tell me we can make candles here.”

Rex, unable to answer through his laughing, just nodded.

“We do now!” Alex cheered.

All of us spent the next couple minutes joking and laughing. Probably more than any of us normally would. It was the first time in a while that any of us had been so genuine.

Author's Note

Originally, I planned on only making one of these between the arcs. But as many of you may have noticed, we got some new cover art!

Everyone go ahead and thank Mix-Up for all the help with it! It came out great.

The shop itself might get some use later on down the line but for now this is probably the most attention Club Blade & Beyond's getting.

...Huh. You know, looking back on it, maybe Blade Pro Shop is better. What do you guys think?

Either way, I'll be taking a break on this story for a bit. So until next time everyone!

Cheers,
-Zeke