PAO: Pony Art Online

If she hadn't been distracted by Grieve Blossom's foolish idea, maybe she would have seen the dagger coming. Roseluck shook her head. She couldn't blame him for getting paralyzed, she didn't even see where the dagger came from, as if it materialized out of the air. She looked around, but it was useless. All she could see was her health bar in the corner, and the small blindness and paralysis debuffs next to it.

She could hear and feel though, and it sounded like she was being dragged through the boss dungeon. She could definitely feel the rumbling of the cavern as Sombra began to spawn. But as she was dragged along, it began to sound like she was going down a tunnel or a shaft, to another cavern perhaps.

"Hello? Who is this?" she asked her captor. There was a soft grunt from the stallion, but nothing else. She tried harder to get something out of him. "Please, you don't want to do this. Our friends will come looking for us, and they'll find you. You must be at least an orange player by now, you attacked me after all, so if they find you, you'll get arrested for sure."

If the player was listening to a word she said, he didn't seem to show it. Roseluck figured she was dragged for another minute before getting thrown into some kind of metal cage. She could hear the squeaking hinges, and the smell of rust on the floor. There was another stallion's voice, one not as rough as the disgruntled dragger.

"Ah, thank you, er...hm. Fuck, I forgot your name." the other stallion said. The dragger didn't reply. The only sound Roseluck heard from him was his hooves shuffling along the rough crystal floor.

"Well then, I supposed all that's left is to wait."

Roseluck struggled to turn her body to face the direction of the voice, but she was still paralyzed and she slumped back into an unfortable position. "Wait for what?" she asked dejectedly.

"Well for him to bring along your friend, of course!" the stallion exclaimed. "I hate doing introductions twice. It'd be better if you were both here."

"Please, let us go," Roseluck pleaded.

"But we haven't even had tea yet. You can't leave without some tea." The stallion's tone sounded genuinely disappointed. Roseluck didn't believe it until she heard glasses clicking and water boiling.

"Can you at least tell me why-"

"Introductions later, sweetheart!" the stallion interrupted.

Her heart plummeted to her stomach. What did he have planned? She dreaded to know. She didn't want to know where she was, but above her, the thunderous sounds of cracking crystals shook through the walls. The cage rattled with the noise. In the distance, down what sounded like the tunnel she was dragged through, she heard a door rumble open and hoof steps galloping toward the cavern.

Her heart skipped a beat as she hoped Grieve Blossom had found a way to save her.

She heard his voice in the distance, but it did not bring any consolation. "You fucking bastard! What happened to Roseluck? I'll make you tell me once this debuff runs out!"

"Ah, our other guest!" the stallion said gleefully.

Grieve Blossom grunted, the captor dragging him roughly into the room and slamming him into the sharp crystal wall.

The stallion seemed to ignore the aggression. "You look tired. Sombra give you a spook, big fella?"

Again, the dragger said nothing, but Roseluck could hear his breathing get louder. Whatever was between them was well understood. There wasn't a single exchange as the captor walked back out of the cavern.

"Don't mind him, young ones," the stallion said, "he's just sad because he's got a job to get back to. Poor thing."

Grieve Blossom didn't give the stallion a chance to express himself further. "Let me go, or this will get bad for you," he threatened. "The Knights of Yore won't forgive a murderer like you."

"Who, me?" the stallion gasped. "My hands, or rather, hooves -jeez that still sounds weird- are clean."

"Bullshit," spat Grieve Blossom, "we came here looking for evidence of the player who terrorized our training camp on floor forty, and here you are, kidnapping the investigators. What did you even do to Roseluck you-"

Grieve Blossom suddenly shut up, followed by a horrid gurgling. Roseluck didn't have time to wonder what happened to him, she got her answer just a few moments after.The stallion stuck some kind of potion bottle in her mouth, the contents flowing like hot lava down her throat. Her first reaction was to cough it up, but the bottle pushed deeper as the liquid tried to crawl its way back up. The seconds of agony brought tears to her eyes for the first time in the game.

"Oh I know what you're thinking," the stallion said, terrifyingly calm and stoic with what he was doing. "How can I feel pain? None of this is real, I'm not allowed to enjoy the finer things in life. So, why does it still hurt?" His hoof released the potion and Roseluck forced the glass out of her mouth with painstaking effort.

The blindness debuff, with two minutes remaining on it, vanished suddenly. Seconds later, Roseluck's eyes could see enough to tell when she was blinking. Still, the after effect left her mind drowsy, and her vision blurred.

"Roseluck, is that you?" Grieve Blossom asked, struggling to rise from his paralysis.

She smiled, answering back, "I'm here Grieve Blossom, don't worry about me." She moved her eyes around, but she had been thrown in her cell facing away from where Grieve Blossom was.

"Well, now that that's all in order, we can really have some fun." The stallion walked over and knelt next to Roseluck. She finally had a the chance to take a good look at him. What she saw was just a stallion like any other. A pegasus with a light blue coat and a grey mane, nothing special. Aside from the slight wrinkles that made him look much older up close, he didn't look like the scary killer Roseluck feared he was.

"I'm not screwing around," Grieve Blossom said sternly. "You'll get what's coming to you, and it'll be worse if you don't let us go right now."

The stallion didn't seem bothered, he just smiled warmly. "Well, I can't let you leave without my full hospitality, but I can answer all those questions swimming around in your head."

"Where are we?" Roseluck responded naturally.

"Floor thirty-eight," the stallion answered back, "anything else?"

"Where on floor thirty-eight?" she clarified.

The stallion didn't miss a step in his upbeat attitude. "In a cage! In a cave! A hidden page of the boss room's story!"

"A hidden story?" Grieve Blossom asked, growing increasingly irritated at the stallion's behavior.

"Better if I show you. He'll be here any minute!" The stallion turned to face a large wooden desk on the other side of the crystal room. As he predicted, light fragments began to whirlwind around the desk, filling the shape of an elderly old unicorn.

"You won't stop me! For King Sombra!" the NPC shouted, charging up a blast of magic in its horn. The stallion drew his weapon, a steel whip made of sharp barbed chains, and lacerated the NPC back into sparkling lights.

"Evil wizard bringing back a dead king, heroes come and destroy Sombra, kill the madman, yada yada yada," he frankly explained. "Respawns every time someone triggers the boss room. Poor thing doesn't even know it's in a loop."

"You just showing us this for giggles?" Grieve Blossom asked, grunting as he continued to overcome the paralysis poison.

"Not just for giggles, no," he wagged his hoof. "A special potion can be made from a unique ingredient in this room, and this room alone. Part of the story." He stepped back and presented a chest that was lying next to the desk. "But I've been a strong believer that actions speak louder than words. Now, you shall see, my masterpiece!"

His voice rang through the small cavern and out through the tunnel, leaving the silence to hang. Nothing happened.

"Where is that damn girl?" His voice grew quickly agitated, elevating to a shout. "How can I demonstrate my masterpiece if she's not here!" His mask broke for a split second, and Roseluck saw what the stallion was hiding underneath his joyous facade.

His creepiness seemed to be all she could fear from a maniac in PAO, but his guttural anger was something else. There was more than fear, there was dread.

It all seemed like blind rage for a moment, as he gave incoherent shouts around the cavern. Roseluck glanced around, seeing what she could. The cavern was no bigger than an apartment, there was nothing for the stallion to look for. With her attention trained onto the room, she didn't notice the small vial in her cage until it rolled over and bumped into her.

We may be enemies, but you don't deserve what he'll do.

Roseluck's eyes darted around, but the female voice was formless. However, she didn't have time to think. She was paralyzed and laying on the cage floor, and the vial had rolled strait to her mouth.

Take it, it's the antidote.

"This is not what we rehearsed!" cried the stallion, now swinging his whip around the room, cracking crystal shards off the walls. "Bring it back you bitch!"

There wasn't time to have trust issues. Roseluck opened her mouth and breathed deeply, sucking in the potion until it stuck to her mouth. Slowly, she worked the cork off with her teeth.

Crack.

Roseluck clenched her teeth over the cork as the stallion's whip wrapped around a body right in front of Roseluck's cage. The female shrieked, evidently flailing and struggling to escape. Its barbed ends dug into the player, dripping pixelated blood all over the pony's form.

An invisibility potion? Roseluck thought to herself as the chains dragged the form toward the stallion. The effect, countered by taking damage, vanished and revealed a blue earth pony, about the same age as Roseluck.

"You were supposed to go appear on top of the chest!" the stallion shouted in her face, grabbing her by her lengthy mane and dragging her next to a bookshelf, kicking it over to reveal a set of chains attached to the walls.

"I thought you were sincere when you begged me not to use these anymore, but I guess I can't trust anything from you, right?" He grabbed her hooves with his wings and shackled her to the wall.

Roseluck panicked on the inside, but she remained entirely focused on the potion bottle; it was almost open.

The mare opened her mouth to speak, this time her voice unaltered by the invisibility potion. "Please," the blue mare whimpered, "I just got scared, I was confused." She looked up at him with tearing eyes. "Don't use it on me, it hurts too much to bear."

The stallion shook his head, his face remorseless. He reached into her armor, pulling out two vials of a radiant rainbow mixture. He turned halfway to talk to Grieve Blossom and Roseluck. "You know, pain in Pony Art Online is a joke. It dulls it down until it's nearly non-existent. But the senses," he paused, grabbing a bundle of the mare's mane and smelling it, "is as real as it gets."

He pulled himself away and walked over to the desk, opening a drawer. "However, there are a few ingredients have offer a combination of senses and pain. Spices for the cooking skill, for example, burn like a motherfucker when you use too much of it. Poisons that make you feel nauseous don't hold back on that gut wrenching feeling. Ah! Here it is!"

The stallion found a satchel of syringes in the back of a drawer. He took two, one for each vial of the vibrant potion, and drained the first vial completely dry. "Two doses per vial," he mumbled to himself, "but three guests. It would a shame to waste a whole dose."

He turned back around to stare at the blue mare, and Roseluck shivered as she caught a glance of his face. His face was stretched into an impossibly wide grin, threatening to tug and tear at his own flesh as he smiled.

"It looks like you need to learn your lesson young one," he spoke through his teeth as he brought the two needles up to her neck. Her eyes were wide open, but its was clear that fear had paralyzed her as much as the poison had paralyzed Grieve Blossom and Roseluck.

"You promised," she whispered, her lips trembling as she spoke, "you said you'd help us." He took his time, but eventually the mare shut her eyes closed as the stallion pricked the needles along her skin. A dead silence hung between the two, and Roseluck assumed the stallion was too engrossed in the mare's punishment to notice her open the potion.

Pop!

The potion sound, the one that the game made when any potion was opened, echoed through the crystal room. The stallion drew back, and turned his gaze to Roseluck. She recognized a flicker of realization in the stallions eyes before he spun his head back to the mare.

He slammed his hoof on her throat, pinning her tightly to the wall, and while the strike didn't hurt horribly, she could still suffocate under his shocking strength. She gasped to plea, but her voice croaked and broke under the stallion's thrashing.

"You've done it this time!" he growled. "Don't you get it? Your friends left you to me because you're useless. I thought I could mold you with my methods, but it seems you can't even be tortured right!" He peeled open her eyes with his wings acting as hands, and squished a syringe into each pupil.

Roseluck closed her own eyes, clenching her teeth on the potion bottle and drinking. She hoped the foul bitter antidote would distract her, but the mare's shrieks were like nothing Roseluck had ever heard before. It as if she truly felt the pain, despite the game's restrictions.

The stallion let the syringes despawn, leaving the mare convulsing from the shock along the wall. "A little lesson for you two," he explained while he unraveled his chain whip. "One Basilisk Eye, a piece of Everfree Moss, two Black Water Pearls, a Devil's Flower, and from this floor, a fragment of the Crystal Heart, and you'll get the full package of the senses!" The stallion grabbed his chain whip.

The mare wailed as the first strike from the chain cut clean through her armor, tearing at her coat. The barbed chains, did not whip cleanly. Her skin, and sometimes muscle, tore off in pixelated chunks, despawning before they hit the ground. It was worse the fifth and tenth time too. But there was nothing Roseluck could do. By the time she got out of the cage, the stallion could strike her down with his whip.

He shouted over the mare's cries, unwilling to stop to explain the effects of his concoction. "The Potion of Pain, which I cleverly named myself, creates a mixture of sensations that makes your body highly sensitive to anything else. Like light, smells, or pain." He brought the whip down one more time, cleaving a diagonal red streak across the mare's body, from her shoulder to her leg.

He waited to catch his breath. "On top of that, the game gets so overloaded trying to limit the senses that it can't cover everything. So, when it's too distracted, you get attacks delivering every ounce of agony it should have. High attack speed's the key to this whole art, really."

"You're sick," Grieve Blossom muttered, gently lifting himself up, "but you also got carried away. Time's up on the paralysis you maniac, I'm coming for you." Grieve Blossom drew his sword and swung at the cage door. To his surprise, it opened easily, but didn't take a single scratch.

"It's a part of the room, smart one," the stallion said pointedly, "you don't need to be so dramatic."

Grieve Blossom ignored him and charged at the stallion with his sword strait ahead. But he was an earth pony player, and having no wings or magic to hold his weapon gave the pegasus stallion a speed advantage. Grieve Blossom stumbled over and skidded across the rough crystal floor with a dagger in his foreleg. Once again, the dagger poisoned him and left him paralyzed.

The stallion gave Grieve Blossom little time to react. He stomped one hoof on top of his chest and pulled out another syringe, filled with the rainbow colored potion, and jammed the needle into his throat. Grieve Blossom felt like boiling water had entered his veins, pouring out onto his organs as his back arched back in the initial pain.

"Just stop already!" Roseluck cried out, rushing out of her cage with her spear in hoof. She had the advantage of surprise, but even her spear was not long enough to counter the chain whip as the stallion lashed it across the air, wrapping the barbed chains around the spear shaft, reaching up and around her foreleg.

It didn't stop her though. Roseluck twisted her body as she leaped through the air, wrenching her spear out of the whip, lunging downward onto the stallion. He rolled to the side, dragging his whip with him, and swung it back at Roseluck again. But while the stallion's weapon seemed superior, Roseluck was clearly the better fighter.

With the grace of a dancer she weaved her body through the chains, rotating over and around the whip whizzing by her ears, bringing the point of her spear up to the stallion's head. He was wise enough to move before it made its mark, but nevertheless, it struck his chest as he backed away.

He panicked once the critical hit dropped his health by twenty percent, lashing back furiously with a barrage of throwing daggers from a secondary weapon slot. Roseluck rotated her spear, bouncing each dagger back. But with her focus on the daggers, she couldn't stop the whip wrapping around her leg, toppling over.

In a moment, the stallion was on top her, running the tip of a filled syringe along her back.

"We all don't have a lifetime to spend in this world," he whispered harshly into her ear, each word shooting his hot breath into her face. "The Clearing Group might finish it, the game might kill us, or out bodies might just perish on a hospital bed. Either way, I can finally get away with some real entertainment in this world, and I won't let a moment of it go to waste."

The very tip of the needle pricked through an exposed piece of Roseluck's armor, and she could already feel the effects of the potion in the syringe. The needle stung as if it was real, as if nothing stood between the sensations of the virtual world and the real one. She clenched her teeth, but couldn't stop screaming as the potion burned in her veins.

"Most can barely stay awake their first time," the stallion breathed into her ear as she cried from the pain. He slipped his wings under her armor, tugging at it. "But I really hope you get feel every moment of this."

Roseluck pushed off the ground, trying to throwing off the stallion and grab her spear, but the sudden rush of her senses left her disoriented, and it took all her strength to keep herself from passing out. In her struggle, she barely noticed Grieve Blossom get up from the ground and strike the stallion in the back.

He stumbled off Roseluck, turning to face Grieve Blossom. Roseluck reached to grab her spear, but the burning in her body took control of her limbs, leaving her shaking on the floor.

"Get back on the ground boy, and wait your turn," the stallion said sternly. He thrashed his whip at the floor, slashing up shards of crystals off the ground. Grieve Blossom flinched and stepped back as the pieces stung his face.

The stallion laughed. "You're feeling it at a hundred percent; I'm immune to the pain. Who do you really think is going to win here?"

Grieve Blossom kept his guard up, planting himself between Roseluck and the stallion. "We'll find out when you're dead," he said grimly.

"Confident, aren't you?" the stallion chuckled and pointed to the blue mare chained to the wall. "That's what she said when she started working for me. Now look at her. Poor little Sonata, unwanted by her friends."

Sonata? Roseluck got a grip on herself for a moment and forced her neck to creak and turn to take a look at the mare. She felt like she had heard the name Sonata before, but nothing came to her mind immediately.

Grieve Blossom's sword clashed with the whip, getting entangled with its barbs. He yelled, the chains digging into his skin as they wrapped along his foreleg, but he didn't relent. The stallion had to back up to avoid the wild swings Grieve Blossom delivered, unraveling the chain to defend himself.

They both clashed, slashing each other until they were equaled at fifty percent health. But while the stallion still moved with similar efficiency, Grieve Blossom was feeling the effects of the potion take its toll. Wide lashes across his chest and face no longer ached, but cried out instead.

"Said I would win," the stallion mocked, striking Grieve Blossom once again with his whip. Grieve Blossom raised his sword in defense, but  couldn't keep up as the pain began to cloud his vision.

He felt a dagger pierce his armor, striking his chest. He collapsed on the floor, paralyzed again. But the effect was entirely different with the pain potion in his system. It felt like a venomous bite from a snake, paralyzing his heart and his lungs. He gasped as the pressure in his chest drained his breath away.

"Oh, so you've figured out what happens when you mix your drugs together." The stallion kicked Grieve Blossom across the room, into one of the cages. "Well, then it seems there's nothing left for you to learn here."

He raised his whip. "It's time you got out of the way, and let your friend take in some of the lessons." He brought down whip with full force, crushing one of Grieve Blossom's legs. The crippled debuff racked itself against his mind; he couldn't react to the shock as he felt his entire leg shatter into pieces, nor could he give more than a strained moan.

The paralysis poison had suddenly made everything ten times worse, forcing him to lay there and take the full extent of the suffering. Worse, his health had dropped to thirty-five percent by the second hit. The stallion meant it when he said he was done toying with him.

Twenty-five percent. He was going to die, in a cave, as Roseluck lay on the floor and watched. His eyes flicked to the other side of the room, where Roseluck lay twitching on the floor from the potion. Except, she wasn't there. Fifteen percent.

Grieve Blossom's heart suddenly sank. Roseluck must have over come the initial rush of the potion, and if the stallion was busy fighting him, then she could have left before she had to deal with the pain of the chain whip. Part of Grieve Blossom was relieved that Roseluck had gotten away safely, but another part felt alone, betrayed.

Five percent. He was already dead. Grieve Blossom closed his eyes and let go.

Click. Clank. Kachunk.

The sound of cuffs and chains rattled.

Hoof steps lightly echoed around the room.

Grieve Blossom opened his eyes and looked around. The stallion was apparently doing the same.

You never could focus on more than one thing at a time Long Glider. The voice, the female voice, echoed in the room just as it did before Grieve Blossom got captured.

The others won't be happy. But I don't think you'll have to worry about that. Thanks to that little stallion, you're the weak one now.

The stallion didn't give a moment to think, he simply reached for a health potion and swallowed the contents. His health bar climbed back up from fifty to eighty percent. Then a spear pinned his chest to the wall.

I have some help now too.

Attacking brought Roseluck out from the invisibility potion's effect as she raised her spear up and suspended the stallion at the top of the wall.

Like I said, you just can't focus on more than one thing at a time.

Roseluck let go of her spear, but it remained in place, held by the invisible player. Roseluck let the mare thrash the stallion around; she rushed over to Grieve Blossom, quickly grabbing three vials from her inventory and pouring them down his throat. Almost immediately, the pain subsided and Grieve Blossom could move again. He worried about his health for a moment, but Roseluck's potions took care of that too.

Meanwhile, the stallion's health was dropping rapidly. The blue player was merciless, dragging him around the room like a rag doll, beating him against every possible thing. But, without a dose of the rainbow colored potion, the stallion only ever felt a fraction of what he had inflicted to all of them.

"Are you done yet?" Roseluck finally asked, after two satisfying minutes. The stallion lay twisted on the floor, the blue player standing tiredly over him.

She turned to Roseluck and shook her head. "I don't think I'll ever be done. Killing him seems too merciful, but giving him what he deserves is impossible without the potion." She looked back at the stallion for a moment before talking to them further.

"I think I'm supposed to be your enemy," she stated frankly.

Roseluck and Grieve Blossom both looked confused. She sighed and took a moment to collected her thoughts.

"Long Glider didn't seem insane when I first met him," she explained. "My friends left me with him to help him craft all the potions we wanted. Together, my friends and I had a plan, though now I'm sure I was left out of most of it. After we got to this floor, Long Glider found this room, and used it to experiment with potions until he came across the recipe he used to make the pain potions."

"But, why'd he turn on you?" Roseluck asked.

The mare shrugged. "I think he was really insane from the start, and just needed that extra push over the edge. He even said to me, the first time he used it, that it was because we had worked so closely for so long. He legitimately thought it would help us bond."

"So, not to distract from your sad story, but, what was that thing you said, about us being enemies?" Grieve Blossom chimed in. "You kind of glossed over that part."

"I'm not sure, probably something about taking over, getting power, stuff like that. We always do stuff like that." the mare walked over to Long Glider and stared at him. He just laid on the floor, heavily breathing. It could have been so easy to pick up Roseluck's spear and kill him, he was only on one percent of his health. Still, something else stopped her.

"I don't know what role he had in our plans, but he knows where Aria and Adagio are," she said.

"So, you're one of them then," Roseluck whispered.

Both Grieve Blossom and the mare turned to Roseluck with bewilderment.

"You performed at my school once, you and your friends, until everything went down at the Battle of the Bands. That was you three, wasn't it?"

Sonata nodded. "That was a long time ago, and we can't do that kind of stuff anymore."

"Wait, what power?" Grieve Blossom asked meekly. Whatever Roseluck and Sonata had between them, Grieve Blossom was not welcome to know. The two of them kept talking as if he hadn't asked.

"I don't remember the details, but I did hear you three were using some serious power from those gems. The whole concert turned into a magic anomaly."

Grieve Blossom simply stepped away, sat on the floor, and covered his ears. "Fine, if you won't tell me, I don't want to get confused. Blah blah blah, I'll just sit in a corner and be ignored."

Sonata blinked. Of course, Roseluck might have been a student there, but she was far from being part of the conflict. She certainly wouldn't have the same feelings about her as those six would.

Even so, Roseluck seemed a bit cautious. "I don't know what you three planned to do here, but could your friends be evil enough to start a murder guild?"

"What? No!" Sonata was taken aback. "Adagio's a control freak, but not a murderer or anything like that. Aria's a bit meaner, but she'd still prefer to take over rather than fight."

Roseluck apologized. "Sorry, I didn't mean to assume, it's just that we came here looking for a murder guild, and Long Glider just seems to fit the description of someone who might be part of one."

"We weren't the only ones he worked for," Sonata said, looking at crippled the stallion with scorn, "so I wouldn't be surprised if he really was with a murder guild. But that's not us, trust me."

"Well, do you want to come with us back to floor forty-eight?" Roseluck asked. "We're heading back to clear the floor's boss with our guilds. They could help take care of Long Glider, and they'd love to help you reunite with your friends."

"You'd help me?" Sonata looked at her confusedly.

"Of course," she replied, "it's not like your plans for domination or whatever has begun, and it'd be wrong to assume the worst based on Long Glider's reputation." Grieve Blossom glanced over at Roseluck, but she glared at him, and he not to interrupt.

"I don't know," Sonata answered. "I've been here for so long... and... I just don't know what to do next."

Roseluck opened her menu. "Well, you saved my life, so how's this for starters?" A friend request popped up in front of Sonata. She looked at it as if it was completely foreign to her. She smiled and accepted the request. Her friends list popped up, showing the new addition to the list of names. There was only one name.

"Thanks," she said.

Roseluck walked behind her and lifted up Long Glider on her shoulder. "Okay, now that we've sorted that out, could one of you help me with this guy?"

"I'll kill you all," Long Glider muttered, still barely conscious from his vicious beating.

Seeing that the conversation was over, Grieve Blossom uncovered his ears and joined Roseluck. "Yeah, that seems important," Grieve Blossom said, heaving the stallion up by the legs. Together, they carried him out and escorted him back to the central city, staying in the unused alleys to make sure no guards could sense him and send him to prison. They had their own plans, and didn't want to have to tangle with NPC guards just to lock him up on floor forty-eight.