So I'm a nutjob. Or at least, that's what people call me. I'm a brony too. All I've got is an RV. It's got one bed with no privacy from the rest, a bathroom, a kitchen, but what's good is the special stuff I did to it. First of all, it has extra storage space where I could put it. A built in sensor set-up, thermal, night vision, black light, you name it, I've even got extras. More electrical power storage. Instead of having extendable sides it has special cotton sheets that extend out, catch water, then filter it. It works with fog or water vapor as well, and adds water to the main storage. It has a state of the art computer system, with an autopiloting mechanism. It can run entierly on the electricity it generates, even with the electric motors having to go up to ninety sometimes. It has heat-based generators. It has photovoltaic paint. It's appliances use as little energy as possible.
It's pretty sweet.
It is chock full of survival equipment and food, not to mention extra stored water. I could probably survive for months without doing anything but having the cotton sheets extended and having it in a hot or sunny place. Or both. And it is set up to let me cultivate more food if I need to.
All of this cost a fortune, costing me most of my pre-existing money, my house, and the convenient house and money I inherited from some old great-uncle I never met. All of my money I make now is from having most of my computers dedicated to mining and, when the time is right, converting bitcoin. It makes me only barely enough to buy food and internet because of how slow even my parallel dedicated network can calculate, and how bitcoin is split, even with the conversion rates between BTC and USD.
But I live without working at all, and since all of my heating is electrical, my electricity comes from the sun, and how much water my collectors produce, I only have to pay for food. My RV has been modified so that if I started it, I could grow something on the roof, though.
But that's enough about that.
Let me tell you the tale of reality's sick day.
I was browsing FiMFiction for something to read, having no idea what to write on one of my stories. I had found nothing interesting for a few hours, when I recieved an email. No subject, no sender, no recipient. I cursed Gmail's idiocy, but while trying to delete it, I opened it.
The text was brightly decorated, lavish even, somehow.
You are bored, yes? Tired of nothing?
I quirked an eyebrow, interested.
Yes. Who are you.
Where do you want to be?
I paused, thinking. Equestria, while mostly safe, still had more than it's fair share of dangers.
Fun.
Equestria.
You can bring one item with you. If it is large, it will become a small rubber ball you can unpack at your discretion. You must own it.
I thought of all that I owned. Obviously, there was a catch-all, but I wanted to ask something first.
Are there any balancing factors, and do the things already on me count towards that?
The more useful or large the object, the worse the starting location. The things on you do not count towards the total.
I frowned, and shrugged my shoulders.
My van.
Very well. You starting position will not be favorable, however.
"Wait, wher-" I began.
Time stood still and all went black. For a moment, there was serenity. It was absolute nirvana. No outside input at all. It might as well have been eternity for all I could tell.
Suddenly, I snapped back into reality- but a different one.
I wasn't where I left off, I was in a massive cavern. I could feel warmth radiating from behind me. I saw more caves and some large tunnels.
"What is this place..." I began walking forward.
I kept on walking through the thick tunnels, following the heat. It had risen from the slight warmth, keeping temperature warmer than the cold it would have been, but it was steadily rising, having gone from freezing to the heat of a warm summer day to a sweltering 104 degrees fahrenheit. There was an iris-like gate, constructed of stone and steel, scaled to fit the tunnels. In a nearby chest, made of stone, was a simple bronze key, about 7 centimeters long. I inserted the key into a lock, and turned, and pulled on a nearby lever, activating one counterweight while locking the other. The gate spiraled open, revealing a long shaft of stone and rising the temperature to 120 degrees. I stepped onto the wide stone ledge and looked up, eyes following stone stairs up.
I looked down.
Below was a magma pit, but with the temperature, I'd guess it's dormant and cooling slowly.
I was in a volcano.
"Incredible." I spoke softly, wondering of this place's origin.
"With it being where it is I would have guessed dragons, but with all the tunnels, maybe it's some sort of diamond dog?"
I took some beef jerky from my pocket and nibbled on it half-heartedly.
I started heading back in. I twisted the key back, pushed the level, and with a massive thump the gate closed.
A few minutes of walking through the tunnels later, I heard a rumble. A swarm of bats knocked me down, flying out as fast as they could. Strange thing was, some of them were burned.
I heard an enormous footstep, and the earth shook, the sky thundered.
I started running, but something huge was following me through the wide tunnels.
"I smell your flesh puny diamond dog. Show yourself and perhaps if you leave you shall be granted a quick and painless death!" The only way to describe the voice was if it was the mountain speaking.
Then, it all clicked. Heavy footsteps. Burned bats. Volcano lair.
I am a human. And I face a dragon.
I had no plan but one. Run faster.
I heard him catching up to me, his long and powerful strides catching up to my smaller size and weight.
I saw- and felt -a claw swipe at me.
"I am Tiamat! Fear me and my name, my legend, my titles!" she bellowed.
I ran even faster. I made it to the gate, turning the key and pulling the lever faster than I had ran.
The gate crashed open.
I sprinted up the stairs, taking five at a time, jumping over some that i didn't go over with my lengthly steps.
I outran Tiamat. I made it to the summit. I ran out, slowing down a bit each time I took a single step until I stopped. I took the transparent plastic ball in my pocket out, and I opened it. I don't know how to explain it, but it just opened.
My RV was there, powered up and ready to go. I got in, slamming the door behind me, grabbed onto the wheel, and slammed my foot onto the throttle. My RV kept speeding up, hitting sixty-eight in 1.8 seconds.
I kept on looking for civilization as I drove. For a few hours after I hit the base, nothing! But I saw a town in front of me, a few miles ahead, at just about noon, and I had started driving at 11:00. A whole hour had passed? Wow. In about two minutes I reached the edge of the city. I slowed down, then stopped. I looked at the welcome sign.
"Welcome to Trottingham, huh?"
Honestly, I don't know what I was expecting. The ponies are just... indifferent. They're just like in the show, horn glows, wings, cutie marks, bright colors, large eyes, the show was accurate to the last detail. As far as I knew.
I heard a few mutters. I probably imagined either open acceptance, or torch-and-pitchfork style mobs. Who knows.
"Oh great, another one."
I have no idea how to react to this. This could mean that there were others. Or maybe they thought I was some weird diamond dog. Who knows.
I kept on walking.
Just walking.
I had found a newspaper stand, and was about to buy a newspaper, when I realized that, of course, I had no bits.
I needed a newspaper, to find out more about Equestria, to find the date relative to the show, etc. etc.
The sound of a fleshy palm hitting an equally fleshy face is not a very common sound on Equus.
Job-hunting, commence!
Four. Freaking. Hours.
This is why I preferred bitcoin mining over actual physical jobs.
I had tried about as many jobs as the Cutie Mark Crusaders had tried talents in my mind.
Which is to say, if it weren't for the people who were hiring help knowing what they're doing, half of Trottingham would be ablaze right now.
In reality, it was one hundred jobs. If I had a twentieth of a bit for every job I tried, I would have five bits. That would be enough to buy the Equestria Daily. Jeeze.
Needless to say, I had not one bit.
"Obviously," I muttered to myself, "the only solution is to steal bits from fountains. Since they're gold, they shouldn't have degraded, right?"
Except you have to get the proper permissions, as I found out with a policeman giving me a stern talking-to. Justice in Equestria is weird.
Frustrated, I trudged back to my RV, the technicolor ponies skittishly avoiding me now. I probably would have done the same. I don't blame them. Still, though. I look slightly confounded by a problem and they back away.
I got in my RV, annoyed.
Equestria was not what I was expecting.
One night later,
I got up slowly, letting time roll by.
I got up. I got took a brisk shower and changed.
I ate and brushed my teeth.
I sat down in the driver's seat, and prepared my personal computer's music selection.
'Highway to Hell' started playing. What a wonderful boost to my confidence.
Cause I'm on the road to Canterlot.
And I don't expect Princess Celestia to spontaneously give me a place to stay and a stipend if I show my knowledge with technology.
That would be silly.
