PAO: Pony Art Online

Clink

The ringing of iron and stone in the mines struck Phoenix's ears as she walked deeper.

Clank

Her ears twitched with the sharp sounds. Most players grinding ores on floor forty-two likely never even noticed the subtle movement added to the game, only feeling their normal human ears as stand in place on their heads. Even Rainbow Dash, who had experienced the feeling of pony ears when she battled with Equestria's magic in Canterlot High, barely felt the movements.

Clang!

But to Phoenix, there was no difference between her real ears and the game's motions. Every character model and movement had been based off of her, utilizing her familiarity with human and pony bodies. While ear flapping was just an animation for other players, Phoenix felt them as if there was no discrepancy between the virtual world and the real world. Her mind still remembered what it was like to be in Equestria.

"Do you really think your contacts can help us?" Phoenix asked Rainbow Dash. They were headed for a small town in the southern end of the map. Being completely underground, floor forty-two's small towns were nothing more than a single cavern with rickety wood structures built into the walls. Not a lot of players frequented them for anything more than basic food and water.

"Trust me, if anyone can find out what goes on in the black market, its them," Rainbow replied. Her answer still didn't give Phoenix a lot of confidence. They continued down the mine, passing another player gathering shadow iron ore from a large vein.

Crack! went the ore as the pegasus swung the pick into the ore node. It shattered into hundred of light fragments, leaving behind a chunk of raw shadow iron ore.

Unconvinced, Phoenix pressed Rainbow Dash further. "Not to be rude, but how are a few... damn, what did you call them -oh, Role Players, that's it- how are Role Players going to help us find the murder guild?"

"Not just any regular Role Players, Sunset," Rainbow Dash explained, "they're the Trotting Prancers, the greatest acting troupe in the game!"

"Actors? We're getting actors?"

RD nodded. "Most of the Trotting Prancers were members from the Acting and Improv Club in Canterlot High."

"Better be worth it," Phoenix replied, "I'm not about to run around with some acting troupe, doing some kind of spaz errand looking for clues. I want to find these murderers."

"So do I," Rainbow said back, her voice filled with genuine concern, "I mean, fourteen dead, that's not something any of us can take lightly, but really think the Trotting Prancers have the answers we need. They've been all around PAO, shaken hooves with a lot of players, and if there's anyone they don't know, they have friends that can help make the connection."

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Glow Hole was a bustling center of absolutely nothing. On one side of the cavern a small pub built into the stone walls and its NPC owner waited eagerly for any customer. Stretching up, wooden scaffolds built up to tunnels burrowing into the hard rock, exposing nodes of inherently magical glow metals.

But what drew players wasn't the town's simple lifestyle. In the center of the cavern, a small crowd, no more than a dozen players, circled around the cavern's center, watching a group of actors perform a complicated for of theater. The dreaded Shakespeare.

..."No place indeed should murder sanctuarize. Revenge should have no bounds. But, good Laertes, will you do this, keep close within your chamber. Hamlet returned shall know you are come home. We’ll put on those shall praise your excellence and set a double varnish on the fame the Frenchman gave you, bring you in fine together and wager on your heads. He, being remiss, most generous and free from all contriving, will not peruse the foils; so that, with ease,or with a little shuffling, you may choose a sword unbated, and in a pass of practice requite him for your father."

Phoenix stared at the burly stallion portraying the plotting king, impressed at his memorization of words that was nearly meaningless in modern times. Even his armor, while completely lacking in a practical armor value, matched the scene well enough to look as if it was made specifically for the play.

"Well, they're talented, I'll give them that," she said to Rainbow Dash. Theater was never her passion, but she could respect those who could put themselves in front of a crowd and be someone they weren't, saying words they didn't mean.

Rainbow Dashed walked around the crowd and headed toward the pub. She whispered to Phoenix, beckoning her to follow. "We should wait 'till the end, their performance is pretty awesome in the last act."

She didn't want to wait, but she supposed there was no point in rushing the investigation. The killers were deeply rooted in the community, and if she made too much of a fuss about it, they'd undoubtedly find out and hide themselves even more. With a sigh, she resigned herself to drink with Rainbow Dash.

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For a small crowd, the Trotting Prancers got a lot of applause. Then again, hooves were a lot louder when clapping.

"Hey, Sophisticata, over here!"

Rainbow waved to the olive mare coordinating the actors and helping clean up the props. The set pieces were player made, and if they weren't returned to a player's inventory they'd despawn pretty soon.

She came over and took a seat next to Rainbow, undoing her bun and letting her brown mane drop down. "Glad you could make it," she said. Her green coat was groomed and clean, and her face kept an upbeat look -easily done since the game kept the characters' faces in their unchanging prime- but her voice betrayed her, and it was evident that Sophisticata was exhausted.

"That was an awesome performance Sophi," RD complimented as she passed a glass of cider over, "I loved how you pulled off the drowning scene with just a bathtub, it was so fun to watch."

She let out a breath of relief. "That part was stressful, I didn't think we'd be able to make it work." She looked past Rainbow Dash and noticed Phoenix quietly sitting, looking through her menu screen. There was a weird green effect on the menu that caught Sophi's eye.

"You didn't mention you'd bring a friend RD." Sophisticata reached out and shook hooves with Phoenix. "It's nice to meet you, I'm Sophisiticata, if RD forgot to mention, but you can call me Sophi, it's shorter."

Phoenix nodded, closing her menu before fully shifting her attention to Sophi. "Rainbow didn't mention you by name, but she says you're the best there is, and you have connections that could help us with our problem."

She understood the issue at hoof. "I heard about it, but I never got to really ask. Was it as bad as they say?"

Phoenix scowled, thinking on it. "We weren't there ourselves, but our friends were pretty shaken from it."

Rainbow Dash had talked to Iceblood as soon as he left the Crusaders' guild keep. "Iceblood was there in person, and said fourteen of his own troops died in front of him. It was a brutal attack."

"Jeez," Sophi awed, staring into her cup. "sounds like things aren't always getting better. But the Trotting Prancers are ready to give any help you need," she paused, holding up a hoof, "as soon as you help us with a small dilemma."

Rainbow Dash stared at her. "Look, Sophi, if it's not as important, can't it wait?"

Sophi simply turned and pointed to a party talking with the Trotting Prancers. They were just kids, the oldest no more than fourteen years old. "They're leader, the Damage with a blue coat, is only level twenty seven. The rest of them are even lower, not even level twenty-five."

Phoenix and Rainbow Dash's eyes both widened. "What are they doing here?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"Spoke to them before the play," Sophi replied, "and I asked the same thing. Their leader said that they were looking for a brother of their friend, the level twenty-three beastmaster in the green cloak. His brother's apparently joined the Sleeping Giants to train to become a Clearing Group member, but when all that stuff happened with the Knights, they wanted to make sure he was safe with the SGK."

One thing still didn't add up. "Even if they were conceited enough to come up to here, how'd they get stuck in a small town in the middle of nowhere, instead of the central city?" Phoenix asked.

Sophi answered grimly. "Apparently, there was a mercenary guild in the central city offering protection for exploring, so those kids agreed to a half first and half later deal. The mercenaries led them here to find the SGK training camp, the one that's on the west side of the map, instead not here. The mercenary officer told the kids that they went the wrong way and would need more payment to make the long trip over to the camp."

"Let me guess," Rainbow interjected, her face flustered with irritation, "they took the payment and left those kids here, where there's no way for them to leave without dying, and went back to central."

Sohpi only nodded.

"Has no one even tried to help them yet?" Phoenix remarked angrily.

"No one's even looked their way," she replied, shaking her head. "They paid the mercenaries every last coin. For the past week they've been selling pieces of their gear just to buy food and water from this store. Even if there was a generous soul on this floor to save them, this town's empty almost all the time."

"Accept for when you're here," Rainbow Dash said.

Sophi smiled slightly. "We actually came here because I heard of them through one of my contacts. I thought we could bring enough traffic to find a strong enough player to escort them back. Even if no one came, I was sure we've got enough actors to run then back to central ourselves, even if we're not that high level."

RD patted Sophi on the shoulder. "Well you don't have to worry about that now, me and Phoenix can handle them, you just get in touch with your contacts and see if you can pick up anything involving the murderers."

"Message us as soon as you find a lead," Phoenix added, "we want to stay as close to their trail as possible, before they fade away."

Nodding, Sophi rose from her seat, beginning to head back to actors. "I'll get right on it, I already have a list of players in mind. Just make sure those five get back to their floor safely."

Phoenix sighed as Sophi left the tiny pub. Transporting a bunch of kids wasn't exactly how she imagined herself tracking down a guild of notorious killers. If she knew, she would have remembered to stock up on extra teleport scrolls.

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They were headed strait for central. Rainbow Dash already messaged the SGK and confirmed that all training camps had been relocated after the attack the Knights faced on floor forty. The brother wasn't on this floor anymore, so the whole party agreed to go directly to the portal.

For a team of helpless low levels, the kids were pretty happy about their entire situation. They happily sat back and watched Rainbow Dash cut through the Stone Golems and Corrupted Miners, taking in every little sight they could.

"This'll be the best story to tell," their Tank said. The others agreed, messaging some of their friends to spread the news.

While Rainbow Dash shattered through the golems, Phoenix guarded the rear and watched for any monsters that hid in the walls. With Rainbow Dash leading the way, she was confident there'd be no trouble, so she took the time to analyze what remained of the data she had stored from the magical anomalies.

After the Hearths Warming Eve event, and after taking out the bandit leader on floor eighteen, she used what little free time she had finding a key to controlling PAO's magic from within the game. Whatever, more likely whoever, caused the game to trap its players was doing it through magic, and the effects were channeling through in-game data, just like the item data that made up the weapons she found.

Being next to Rainbow Dash, who kept her artifact sword even though she had long since out leveled it, made it easy to pull out more data. But nothing Phoenix did now could be completed without the artifact she gave to Sweetie Belle.

On her admin menu, or what was left of it at least, lights flashed across the display. It wouldn't have meant anything to a normal person, even a normal pony for that matter, but Phoenix had mastered reading auras during her studies with Princess Celestia.

Feels like a lifetime ago.

As she thought to herself, Phoenix played around with the auras, rearranging the energies to interfere with the interference. But whenever once frequency of magic was canceled out, another seemed to pop out from no where. Without a complete display of magic from the artifacts, Phoenix didn't think she'd be able to construct a spell from within the game to override the magical interference.

If only I had all my equipment from the real world.

Phoenix shook her head. No, it couldn't be done even in the real world, or at least the real human world. None of her old facilities from Canterlot were in the real world, and technology can only go so far with Equestrian Magic. Even Twilight, the only person in the human world to really take an interest in magic, only managed to grasp more than the rudiments of Phoenix's basic lessons.

Something tugged at Phoenix's armor.

She tore herself from her thought and saw one of the kids standing next to her, watching what she was doing. She shot her attention back to her screen and swiped the magic away, leaving just her regular menu.

"You shouldn't sneak up on people like that," she told the kid. He was the party's leader, she noted, but kept her attention off his awkward stare.

He pointed to her hooded armor. "You're wearing medium leather armor. A lot of Damage players wear chain or plate armor, especially when they use a two-handed sword like yours. Don't you think more armor is better?"

Phoenix mumbled under her breath. "Two-hooved, technically." The kid still waited for a response, not seeming to notice she said anything.

She turned her head to him. "I'm in the Clearing Group, and that's enough. No reason to ask why."

He took in the comment, thinking for a moment. Then, he smirked. "So, why are you letting your friend do all the work? Don't like fighting, Miss Clearing Group?"

He was trying to hard to be a pest, and Phoenix swallowed her urged to punch the kid in his virtual jaw. It wouldn't be wrong, since he couldn't really feel it, but she felt it would be out of place.

"She can handle this," Phoenix answered bluntly, "we've completed floor forty-seven, and most players are preparing to scout out the boss dungeon for floor forty-eight. This floor might be just six floors below the frontier, but Rainbow Dash is way beyond any of the creatures here."

The colt watched as Rainbow Dash struck the eye of an enraged miner. She backed off and let it swing its pick wildly in the air before bleeding it with a gash to its side. The strike knocked over the miner, and it despawned into bits of light after Rainbow Dash plunged her sword into its chest.

No wonder she made friends with a drama guild.

"Looks like she's a better fighter than you," the leader mused. He leaned over to Phoenix and whispered, "Think she'd go for me if we met IRL?"

Phoenix paused, flicking her eyes to the ignorant, though admirably ambitious, child. "Not touching that with a fifty foot spear."

"Why?" he asked, "What's wrong with me?"

"Everything."

"Fuck off," he replied.

Phoenix shrugged. "True though. You're a minor, you're annoying, you're-"

"Bet you were like me when you were young," he interrupted.

Phoenix chuckled. She supposed she was stuck in a pony body too when she was young, though the circumstance was a stark contrast to what he was going through. "Trust me, I was nothing like you when I was a filly."

He walked in silence for a moment. "So you're a Role Player too?" he finally asked.

The question was a wild card, out of no where, and Pheonix didn't understand what he meant. She looked at the leader, confused, figuring out what he was thinking.

"You said 'when you were a filly,'" he explained, "like a lot of Role Players do now. I would know, I help out a lot of aspiring young Role Players on the lower floors. We make a lot of money from our shows."

Phoenix realized that she let that one slip. She hadn't used Equestrian terms for so long, she thought they were purged from her habits for good. Though a year in another body could change a lot, especially when it was her old self.

"No, I'm not a Role Player," she answered back, but she struggled for another explanation.

"Oh, I get it," the kid said back, "you're just a weird lady."

"Exactly how old are you?" Phoenix snapped. It was a bizarre question, but she had to know what kind of age could spawn such nosiness.

"Eleven, or twelve, I lost count of the months, so I don't know if my birthday passed or not," he said. Then he pointed to his party's Tank, a young teen hiding behind his shield as Rainbow Dash danced around four Stone Golems, hacking them to pieces. "The Big Guy over there's fourteen, but he acts really immature for his age."

Fucking hell, that's saying something, coming from him. Phoenix thought.

She couldn't stand the conversation much longer. She sped up her pace to speak to Rainbow Dash. "Hey, think you can stop showing off, make things about twenty-percent less cool, and just kill these golems?" She tilted her head back to the leader. "I can only take so much of this brat."

"Oh come on," Rainbow Dash chuckled, "they're just kids, they need someone to look up to and give them hope."

Phoenix stared pointedly back at Rainbow. "Well, you've inspired them so much that I think their leader wants to date you."

Rainbow Dash's face turned cold in a second, flicking her eyes over to the kid. "These golems are getting out of my way."

She focused her vision down the tunnel, aiming her blade to where the next enemy would be. Everything would have been over if she could fly, but even with her wing wielding a sword Rainbow Dash was fast. Her footwork skirted around the hit boxes of each of the golems, bringing her whole body around and around, cutting down a golem and turning to the next one before the last even dropped to zero HP.

The destruction was a blur, and as one enemy after another fell, Rainbow Dash began to outpace the others in her killing spree. Like a dancer, she spun with amazing speed and accuracy, striking the critical points and ending the golems in one fell swoop. She was in the heat of combat, distracted by its fury. She almost didn't notice the warhammer that struck her in the head.

Rainbow Dash grunted, flying back down the tunnel and into the kids.

"Small world," one of the mercenaries said. "Thought we'd never see you kids again. But looks like our patience paid off. Glad you worked as bait for some richer targets." He walked up to Rainbow Dash, dragging his mace along the ground. Around his health bar, an orange border formed, marking him as a criminal player, and the mercenary seemed perfectly fine with it.

The kids crowded around Rainbow Dash, urging her to get up. Regardless of her strength, the warhammer left a concussion debuff, leaving her vulnerable to the mercenaries' attacks.

First came the hammer guy, then the two sword Damages, an ax, and the Tank's lance. They charged for Rainbow Dash, and the kids instinctively reacted by using her as a meat shield. But the blows struck ringing metal.

Sparks of metal lit up the tunnels, blinding the mercenaries for a second. Phoenix leaped over Rainbow Dash, who was just getting up, and battered the mercenary Tank with the flat side of her Teuflisch Zweihander. It was based off her old weapon, but Scootaloo had crafted it with a lot more attributes, including two complimentary fire enchantments. The first enchantment flared up, blasting back the heavy Tank with a burning explosion. The second enchantment glowed violently, heating the blade until it glowed molten red.

Another mercenary attacked from her left, swinging his cutlass at Phoenix's head, but she caught the middle of the blade, trapping it with the phoenix wing hilt, and twisted the weapon out of his hoof. The molten enchantment seemed to come alive, flooding out of Phoenix's sword and into the cutlass. It hit the ground burning, and before the mercenary could even reach his weapon, it shattered into light, despawning from excessive damage.

Rainbow Dash stood on her guard, positioning herself in front of the kids, threatening the mercenaries with just her glare. But while they were worried by of Rainbow Dash, they were mortally afraid of Phoenix. As if her sword wasn't menacing enough, she, a unicorn, wielded the two-handed weapon with one hoof.

"How the hell is this possible?" a mercenary with an ax asked.

The mercenary who lost his cutlass scowled, turning to the rest of his party. "It doesn't matter, they'll report us if they get away. Fucking kill them!"

The ax mercenary didn't give the command any thought. As the others raised their weapons to strike, he holstered his ax and fled down the tunnel, away from the fight.

The Tank raised his lance and charged, followed by the hammer and sword Damages. Phoenix effortlessly parried the lance, deflecting the Tank over to Rainbow Dash as she side stepped and evaded the hammer. The sword mercenary came around the hammer wielder and struck her shoulder, tearing a hole in her leather armor.

She ducked under his second attack and beat his sword out of the way, following up with a thrust to his abdomen. He dropped a third of his health, but the sword mercenary continued a flurry of attacks, taking Phoenix's health down as well. At close quarters, her sword was too long to block effectively and it was also stuck in his plate armor.

Her health hit sixty percent by the time Rainbow Dash shoved the Tank back into the sword mercenary. The Damage with the hammer charged into Phoenix to get in her guard before she could recover, but she spun around and bucked the player over to Rainbow Dash.

Rainbow Dash swiped her sword across the legs of the hammer Damage, sending him into the wall next to Phoenix, crippling him with a debuff.

The leader, unarmed, backed off as Phoenix pressed her attack on the Tank and sword wielder. The sword wielder barely lasted a few more moments, before fleeing for his own life once his health dropped below twenty percent. The Tank lasted far longer, deflecting blow after blow with his shield, but he could not keep up with Phoenix's strength and speed combined.

His stamina depleted rapidly, and once his shield dropped, the stallion fled to avoid taking any more damage.

Without a weapon and without backup, the leader of the whole group turned to flee for himself, but Phoenix caught up with him without any effort. She caught him by the neck and dragged his struggled body over to his crippled mercenary and dropped him next to the hammer wielder.

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"I don't know who you're talking about!" the leader shouted.

Rainbow Dash smacked him in the face again. "The ones who attacked the Knights of Yore, you've got to be connected to a shady group like that."

"We're not killers," he scowled back. "Thieves, robbers, those fit nicely, but we've never taken a life to get what we wanted."

Rainbow reached out with her wings and pinned the mercenary leader to the cave wall by the neck. "Then how'd you know we'd be here?"

"Lucky guess," he answered, struggling to breathe. "We figured someone would help those kids, so we waited along this tunnel to see who we'd find. It's nothing personal, it's just business."

Rainbow Dash turned to Phoenix. "Got anything more to ask them?" She glanced at the hammer wielder curled on the ground, staring at Phoenix with eyes full of fear.

Phoenix reciprocated, shooting daggers with her glare. Eventually, she relented. "No, let's just teleport them back to central."

"But we only have our emergency scrolls," Rainbow Dash said, "unless you remembered to bring more than one for yourself and you're only telling me this now."

Phoenix shook her head but opened her inventory anyways. "I don't trust them enough to drag their asses all the way back manually. Don't worry, we don't really need them on this floor."

Rainbow Dash scrunched her face at Phoenix's remark. "We call them emergency scrolls for a reason Phoenix. I'm not using mine, even if that means we have to take them to central the hard way."

The hammer wielder's eyes began to widen as the two talked, but his leader glared at him, telling to be quiet better than words could.

"Fine," Phoenix begrudgingly agreed, "we'll take them to town, but then it's all in the hooves of the NPC guards."

The hammer wielder shot up from the ground. Phoenix reached for her sword but stopped herself when the mercenary didn't make a move to escape. He also knew there'd be no hope of outrunning them.

"No, please, don't let the guards jail me," he begged. "There are players in jail right now who would have my hide if they ever saw me again. Lock me away in something player made if you wish, but I can't face the killers in prison. They know who I am."

"Woman up," Rainbow Dash retorted, "there's no PVP in prison, and for every prisoner added, ten more guards are spawned. You're safe."

"You don't know what they can do," he insisted, "they can't hurt anyone physically, but it's their incessant shouting and howling. We may be stuck in this game for months, even years, and I know I can't stand years of being locked away with a hundred delinquent minds. They never, ever, stop talking."

Phoenix paid no mind to his problems. Only moments ago, the player was willing to smash her head in with a hammer, now he was expecting favors. She silently grabbed him by the neck and shoved him along the tunnel. "There's about ninety-nine problems to deal with right now in this game, but criminals should have to be one of them. You only have yourself to blame for where you're at."

"I'm not the one who locked us in this digital hell!" he shouted back. "It was that bitch of a game developer!"

She felt the sudden urge to lunge out at the player and tear his throat out of this neck, but thought the better of it and clenched his teeth. "If this is hell, then how does preying on the damned help you find paradise? We were once a community of level one scrubs struggling together to survive. But now it seems that when given the time, people will find something, anything, to fight over." She grabbed him by the hoof and dragged him down the tunnel.

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The walk to central took much longer than everyone would have liked. The kids were a quieter, scanning the tunnels in case more mercenaries ambushed them to rescue their own. But they took every opportunity Rainbow Dash let them have to poke and prod the mercenaries.

The entire way, the mercenary leader glared daggers at his soldier as the hammer wielder struggled and flailed the every step of the way to the central cavern. Phoenix thought he was tired out by they time they were in sight of the light from the cavern's market center, but he had one last trick that caught her off guard.

"Floor thirty-five, about two hundred and thirty-four kilometers north-east from the central city," he told her, dejection heavy in his tone of voice.  "We were supposed to meet some players there."

The mercenary leader twitched nervously, but restrained himself, knowing he could not budge while Rainbow Dash grappled him with her wings.

"Meet who?" Phoenix growled, tightening her grip on the hammer wielder's foreleg.

"Ach-" he grunted, the pressure squeezing uncomfortably into his bones. "Two players, stallions, dressed in black hooded robes. They wanted us to find you two, and when we said we didn't know how, they just gave us the plan to take advantage of the kids."

Phoenix shuddered. She knew the stallions had to be the killers that attacked the Knights, and now they were making sure to tie up lose ends. If they knew how to get to Rainbow Dash and her without even showing their hooded faces, then everyone in the investigation wasn't save. The Trotting Prancers, Roseluck, Grieve Blossom, Iceblood, and the CMC especially, could all be in danger.

The thought raced through her mind and she naturally crushed the hammer wielder's foreleg with her grip. It was about as painful as it the game allowed, but it still drew a single tear from him eyes.

"Phoenix, do you think we should check it out?" Rainbow Dash stepped in and asked, loosening Phoenix's grip slightly. "If he's lying, no harm done. But if it's the truth," she paused, waiting for Phoenix's response.

"The Crusaders can question them further, especially now that we know why this one hates prison," she said, nodding at the hammer wielder. He gulped, holding down his stress.

"Right," Rainbow Dash agreed. She turned around with the mercenary leader and spoke to the kids. "Well, the big kids gotta take care of some things, so you head into that cavern and teleport back to where it's safe."

She shoved the mercenary forward. "And say goodbye to the nice stallion, who has a lot of important things to tell us."

"Goodbye!" they shouted, sticking their tongues out at him as they ran cheerfully into the central cavern.

"We can't bring them into the main cavern, or the NPC guards will automatically arrest and teleport these two into prison," Phoenix mentioned, indecisively looking at the teleport scroll in her inventory.

Rainbow Dash furrowed her brow and threw the mercenary leader into Phoenix's inventory screen, wiping it away. "Just message Applebloom to come pick them up. She could probably use a break from raid preparations. Oh, and remind her to bring some extra teleport scrolls."

Phoenix nodded, and wrote a hasty message to Applebloom to pick up their newest leads on the killers.