Twilight Sparkle has some !!FUN!!
Twilight plays Dwarf Fortress
Twilight Sparkle was known for a few things.
She was the personal student of Princess Celestia, she was the bearer of the Element of Magic, she had ascended to alicornhood after fixing one of Starswirl the Bearded’s long lost spells, she loved books and checklists.
And she was inquisitive.
Twilight had recently decided to return to the world of humans for a small research project, and her friend, Sunset Shimmer, had given her access to a computer. On this computer Twilight had installed the focus of her research project.
A video game called ‘Dwarf Fortress.’
She decided to look up as little as possible on the game, and only used a few simple addons to allow some more minute control over the game, which she simply knew as a management simulator.
After a short while of world generation, embarkment searching and preparation, she was finally able to strike the earth.
Only time would tell how badly things went.
“Okay, let’s get started” Twilight mumbled to herself, quickly getting herself acclimated to the keyboard controls.
Twilight quickly had a few things set up for her dwarves to start. She had set an area for her miners to dig out, she designated trees and plants for her grower and woodcutter to harvest and finally, her fisher and hunter were automatically set to do their jobs.
“This seems easy enough” Twilight said, gaining confidence as she watched her dwarves start to carve their way through the soft soils of the surface and the small amount of rock within the mountain she had decided to call home.
Not long after, Twilight had a few basic necessities set up; A large field growing the plump helmet mushrooms that her dwarves would soon distill into wine, a small area on the surface for the butcher and fishery workstations, as well as preliminary carpenter and mason workshops in order to get a head start on beds and doors for the inside of her fort.
Things were looking up, and they were quickly getting only better.
A few years had passed in her game, and Twilight had finally finished setting up enough bedrooms for her fifty and growing dwarves, she had even had a grand dining hall fully furnished.
But Twilight had yet to see more than honey badgers, elephants, kobold thieves and a logging accident, which had hospitalised three dwarves with mangled right arms.
However, Dwarf Fortress had a few things lingering up it’s sleeves.
Another simple month of carpentry, masonry, cooking, brewing and the like quickly turned into a horror show.
“What’s this? A Giantess? I hope she’s friendly” Twilight mumbled to herself, but Dwarf Fortress had other plans in mind.
As quickly as it had arrived, the Giant had claimed the lives of three fishermen, before being punched to death by five civilians, including the dwarf she had set as her Manager.
“That was… weird.” Twilight mumbled once more, thanking herself for setting up burial chambers during the few quiet years she had.
But again, Armok was naught but a cruel master.
Not long after the Giant had been killed, Twilight finally hit the cavern level while digging down, looking for more than the copper and silver bearing Tetrahedrite. Her dwarves her happy however, finally being able to gather spider webs down in the cavern level in order to supply the fort with an influx of silk.
But with the Caverns comes great horrors.
“A huge feathered crab, with a trunk that undulates rhythmically that also has noxious secretions? Okay” Twilight said, slightly perturbed at the mental imagery of such a creature.
The crab thankfully wandered hither and thither for a short while, allowing Twilight to quickly rally her newfound militia.
But again, Armok is anything but cruel.
A pair of unknowing weavers decided to trek down to the caverns for some fresh web, and came face to face with the undulating horror crab lurking down below.
Before she had time to react, the giant crab decapitated one weaver and had decided to start kicking the other, swiftly ending his existence before making a beeline for the stairway to her fortress.
Her militia met it halfway down, coming down upon the horror crab with their copper battleaxes and crossbows.
Again, a giant beastie fell to the supreme bullshit of dwarves as the forgotten beast was slain by a whack to the head by the butt of a crossbow.
And as the militia headed back upstairs to stow their gear, a butcher started making his way down to haul the remains of the horror crab.
Twilight’s dwarves would be eating crab for some time.
But not in their legendary dining hall.
No, soon they would be feasting in hell.
The prosperity of Twilight’s fortress had not gone unnoticed, the high quality of the badger bone amulets and pond turtle shell crowns she had exported in order to obtain more materials for her growing industry had drawn the attention of the local kobolds.
Barely a season past the slaying of the crustacean horror beast, a siege arrived. Around thirty kobolds, armed to the teeth, had set up a camp outside the gate of her fortress, slaying any dwarf that tried to leave for a task, whether it be hunting, fishing or plant cutting.
Twilight rallied her militia, she would break this siege if it was the last thing she did.
It turned out to be the last thing she did.
Twilight HAD managed to break the kobold siege, but not without casualties. A LOT of them.
Her last ten dwarves had barely made a dent in the ferrying of the dead to the catacombs before descending into a tantrum spiral. Their own tantrums sending their fellow survivors into their own tantrums.
And then the children started having tantrums, so badly that the young adolescent dwarves had torn the adults to shreds within a month.
Twilight’s ‘perfect’ fort had been ended by kids going crazy.
“I don’t understand! I had three full squads of dwarves trained for combat, and I still lost all of them to the kobolds! How is that possible!? They punch a giant to death, and turn a giant undulating CRAB into dinner by whacking it with their crossbows. But a Kobold siege? They all die… all thirty of my militia, killing about ten of them. A swarm of sixty untrained dwarves, using their bare fists only BARELY finished the kobolds off, with only about ten of them surviving! How do you beat a game like that!?” Twilight ranted, with Sunset Shimmer and Rainbow Dash as her involuntary audience, laughing their heads off.
“Sounds like you had a rough day yesterday, Twi,” Rainbow said, wiping away the tears that had formed due to her laughter, Sunset having more trouble in stopping her laughter.
“That’s kinda the point of Dwarf Fortress though, Twilight, seeing how insane or weird things get when everything goes awry, and how glorious a death you give to your dwarves in the end,” Sunset managed to choke out.
“What!? What kind of masochist enjoys that kind of game?” Twilight exclaimed. Sunset just laughed harder.
“You’d be surprised Twilight, you’d be surprised,” Rainbow sighed.
Fluttershy watched as her fort was decimated by a forgotten beast.
It was unfortunately a losing battle from the beginning, as the creature produced a cloud of dust that killed the majority of the dwarves that charged into the battle.
“Oh dear. I guess it’s time to start again,” Fluttershy moaned as she looked over to her pet rabbit, Angel.
“I think I’m going to start in an evil biome this time. How does that sound Angel Bunny?”
Author's Note
I had an idea to write this the other day after starting good ole Dwarf Fortress again the other day.
Although, needless to say, the part with Fluttershy was thrown in on a whim at then end. 