22 January 2020
I hurried through the door and quickly closed it behind me, stomping the snow and ice off my boots as the wind continued to howl outside. Setting the groceries on the counter and shaking still more snow from my hat and gloves, I turned and checked the clock in the kitchen.
11:30. I've still got a half-hour to kill before I can go in.
"That didn't take you very long." My mom rounded the corner into the kitchen and surveyed the small mound of groceries on the counter. "You didn't leave anything out, did you?"
"Milk, cheese, bread, meat, snacks." I rattled off the list she had given me as she went through the bags and we started putting everything away. "The only thing I couldn't get were eggs. I guess one of the stock carts fell onto the shelves and made a big mess. They should be cleaned up and restocked by tonight, though."
My mom sighed in frustration. "Could you go back and get some tonight then? I can't make breakfast tomorrow without them."
I nodded. "Yeah, sure. I picked up my new game on my way home and it comes online in about twenty minutes, so I'll play that for a few hours and then get some eggs once I log out. I promise, you'll have them before you go to bed."
She gave me a sidelong glance. "I'm going to hold you to that."
I just chuckled and stacked another box of cereal in the cabinet. No sooner had we finished unloading the groceries than a knock sounded at the front door. One of my sisters opened the door before shouting into the kitchen.
"Bryce! It's for you!"
"Coming!" I called back.
I headed back into the living room and was met with the sight of a rather large man setting his boots next to mine. He stood a little over six feet tall with short blonde hair and a hulking build.
"I'm here to tell you," he started in a gruff, but friendly voice. "I'm ready for all this wind to stop now."
"Hey Noah. And come on, it's not nature's fault you want to brave the Alaskan winter in a hoodie and a ball cap."
Noah let out a deep laugh. "Whatever. You got everything ready?"
I nodded. "Just about. The rig's all set up, and I just got the game."
"Alright." He hung his head in defeat, as if he had been hoping that something would go wrong at the last minute to save him from his fate. "Let's get this over with."
I laughed as I led him out to my bedroom in the garage. Most people probably wouldn't enjoy living in the garage, but I actually found it to be pretty cozy. The concrete floor was both heated and covered with several rugs, I had a full size bed with a desk placed at its end on one side of the room and a small entertainment center on the other with a couch taking up the space in front of the garage door. With several well-placed lamps, it became quite the living space. Right now, however, a large part of that space was taken up by a twin mattress laying in the middle of the floor.
Game in hand, I sat on the edge of my bed and began to unwrap it as Noah lowered himself onto the mattress on the floor. Between him and me, a small disc reader and two bulky helmets rested on the floor. You see, a few weeks ago, a bunch of my friends and I were all playing PVP together on a console game when someone decided it would be fun to raise the stakes of the game with a bet. We would all participate in a battle royale, and whoever won got to choose an activity that the rest of the group would then have to participate in. I won the battle, and there was a VRMMO coming out soon that me and one other guy had on preorder, so I decided that we would all play it together on opening day. When I informed the rest of the group as to my decision, most of them had complained, but begrudgingly agreed to hold up their end of the deal. Why? Because I’m a proud brony, and the game I chose was none other than the brand-new Equestria Legends Online.
“Which one of these is mine?” Noah asked, gesturing to the NerveGear full-dive helmets on the floor.
“You can use that one.” I pointed to the one closest to the mattress. “It’s my dad’s, but he doesn’t ever use it. He says it makes him feel sick afterwards.”
Noah grabbed his headset and started putting it on as another figure burst into the room.
“Let’s go be PONIES!!!”
“Hey Braden!” I laughed as I put my own helmet on. Given his initial reaction, Braden was in a surprisingly good mood. I guess he’d decided to make the best of it and have some fun.
“What’s going on brother? I brought my NerveGear.” He sat down on the couch and set a box down at his feet.
“Oh good.” I said as he hooked his NerveGear up into one of the two remaining interface ports in the system. I checked the clock on my headset’s internal display.
11:58
“Alright guys, it’s time. Once you spawn, wait for me and we’ll find the others together.”
“Alright.” Noah sighed.
“Let’s do this!” Braden shouted.
I took a deep breath as the clock struck noon and three voices exclaimed together.
“Link start!”
My vision was instantly overwhelmed as a series of colors and system checks flashed across my vision. The system checked all of my senses and my interface connection before taking me to the black void of the game’s login chamber. I quickly entered my login info and the keyboard in front of me disappeared before being replaced by the welcome banner, which was quickly followed by a small line of text and three selection boxes.
Now you must choose your avatar. Select which pony race you would like.
I looked at the images before me as I mulled over my options. Looks like it’s just the basic races. That’s understandable. Alicorns are too OP, and other races will probably come along in later updates. I tapped the unicorn option. I had already thought about what my options would be beforehand, and decided that magic would be the most useful skill for my playstyle. Once that was done, another text box appeared.
What would you like your avatar to be?
-Ponified Self
-OC
I hit the button to ponify myself. If I didn’t like it, I could just fall back on my OC. A scan light swept over me from somewhere in the darkness above before an avatar shimmered into existence in front of me. The pony had a brown coat, shaggy blonde mane, and blue eyes. It was good, but it wasn’t really what I was going for, so when the system asked if it was acceptable, I hit no and was returned to the previous selection, this time choosing to use my OC. A blank unicorn base appeared in place of the previous pony, along with several other windows and toolbars for me to use to design an avatar. Ignoring most of them, I found a button in one of the toolbars labeled “Upload File.” My NerveGear rig was synced with my personal laptop, so I was able to scroll through the images I had saved there until I found one of my OC.
Analyzing. Please Wait.
After a few seconds, several of the settings in the toolbars changed and the blank base morphed into a night blue pony with a short but shaggy white and silver mane and tail, white hooves, and crimson eyes. Another box popped up asking for my cutie mark. I once again uploaded a photo from my computer, and the mark of a white crescent moon and pair of black clouds in a red outline appeared on the avatar’s flanks. Satisfied with the design, I clicked the accept button and waited as my surroundings disappeared and the game loaded my spawn point.
When I finally spawned, I looked around to see that I was in the Ponyville town square, right next to town hall. I whistled under my breath at how good everything looked and started to walk forward. Unfortunately, I was used to two legs, not four, so when I moved my back legs forward, I didn’t think to move my front ones as well and ended up falling flat on my face with my tail in the air. I groaned in embarrassment until I noticed that several others were doing the same thing, which made me feel better. Picking myself back up, I tentatively tried taking a few steps before I kind of got the hang of it. It almost felt like crawling in my human body; if I started by moving one foreleg and the opposite hindleg, I could almost slip into a rhythm of sorts. Okay, I could get used to this.
With that out of the way, I remembered that my friends were waiting for me. Standing up on my hindlegs, which was now significantly more uncomfortable than it had been before, I scanned the players around me, but couldn’t find them. I dropped back to all fours and was about to take off through the crowd when a hoof tapped me from behind. I turned around to see two earth pony stallions smiling at me.
The one on the right I guessed to be Noah. He had an ocean grey coat, gold eyes, and a short blonde mane pulled back into a small ponytail. He stood at least a full head taller than me, excluding my horn. His cutie mark was a depiction of a raven sitting on a branch. His gamertag read aknoah.
The second stallion was a bit more…exotic-looking. Braden had obviously gone with the character creation engine, and it looked like he’d had a hayday while doing so. He had a deep purple coat, orange eyes, a wild red mane with streaks of blue running through it, in contrast to his blue tail with red highlights, and topped it all off with yellow hooves and a lime green compass cutie mark. His gamertag was GO0b3r.
“Holy crap, Goober. You look like you took a bath in a freaking rainbow!”
“I know, right! It’s awesome!” He started jumping up and down in jubilation before he tripped and fell.
Noah chuckled at the sight before looking back at me uncomfortably. “We’re still getting used to the whole ‘four legs’ thing.”
“Yeah,” I nodded. “I had some trouble myself. By the way, Noah, you know you could have come up with a more creative handle. Most people avoid playing under their real name for security reasons. Plus, it’s cool to go by a different name every once in a while.”
He just shrugged. “Eh. Noah works just fine. Not like I plan on ever coming back here after I hold up my end of the bet, anyway. What’d you go with?”
I smirked at his naivety and simply pointed a hoof above my head, where I figured my tag would probably be.
“MoonGuard97?”
“Yep!” I beamed. “Now come on! We still have to find the others and buy some gear before we can start exploring.”
“Don’t bother trying to find us!” A shout sounded from a little ways away before the clop-clop of trotting hooves came up to us from the edge of the square. I looked and saw four ponies approaching us. Dang, how did they get the hang of walking so quickly?
The one in the lead was yet another earth pony stallion who, while not to the same extent as Goober, also looked a bit strange. He sported a reddish brown coat, but towards his flanks it became speckled with brown splotches over a black undercoat, with black hooves and a black diamond on his forehead to match. His two-toned purple mane and tail had a smooth, well-groomed of look to them, and his brown eyes smiled behind a pair of green-framed spectacles, which was actually the only way I could tell that he was smiling, since most of his muzzle was shrouded in a bushy moustache. His cutie mark, which was slightly difficult to see because of his patterned flanks, was a burning quill. The tag above his head said SirGrammar101, though I knew from past experience that he would likely go by Grammar Quill.
Peeking out from behind him was a small, timid-looking unicorn mare who’s tag was just Mary. She had a cherry pink coat and wine-purple mane, her cutie mark showing a simple cherry blossom design. Her eyes sparkled bright blue from where she hid behind Grammar, adding a nice contrast and seeming to tie the whole color scheme together. She seemed to be trying to hide her face behind her mane, but it wasn’t long enough.
The last two looked like negative images of each other. They were a pair of pegasus mares named Shadowkat02 and Pale_Mist. Pale Mist’s color pattern was mostly blue, similar to Mary’s pinks. Her powder-blue coat matched the blue of her winged heart cutie mark, and her breezy mane was a shade of blue so light, it almost was almost as bright as mine. Her violet eyes twinkled with some kind of underlying humor.
In contrast to this, Shadowkat boasted a pure white coat, but her mane, tail, and eyes were the same blue as Pale Mist’s coat. Her mane and tail were styled in gentle curls and she had a spray of freckles across her cheeks. Her cutie mark, which also matched her mane, was a swirling vortex. She hovered in the air rather than standing on the ground with the rest of us.
“Sup Grammar.” I greeted, holding a hoof out for a hoof bump. “Looks like you found the rest of the group.”
“Yeah, it wasn’t too hard since we all spawned together.” He chuckled for a second, pointing at my mane. “Wasn’t too hard to find you, either, with that bright of a mane. Why am I not surprised you went with your OC?” This got me to chuckle as well. Grammar and Shadowkat were the only other bronies (and pegasister) in the group, and he and I were constantly making fun of the other’s OC.
“You’re one to talk.” I shot back. “You’re the only one here with a speckled rump.”
“Tousche.”
I looked around at the rest of the group. Three earth ponies, two unicorns, and two pegasi; a pretty well-rounded group, if I do say so myself.
“Alright guys, we’ve only got a few hours before the bet is up, so let’s make the most of it!”
A chorus of cheers, groans, and one squeak rose as we all trotted out of the square and down a side alley, where several merchant stalls could be seen. A few of us, myself included, stumbled once or twice as we adjusted to walking on four legs, though Shadowkat avoided this by simply flying over our heads, which was admittedly funny whenever she fell. Upon reaching the alley, our group spread out between the various weapon, armor, and supply stalls. Noah was admiring a large axe while Goober was browsing through one vendor’s map collection and Mary…just stood awkwardly in the middle of the street. She looked pretty uncomfortable and didn’t seem to know what to do. I took a step to help her before Mist beat me to it.
I browsed through some of the weapons somewhat disinterestedly, not really knowing what I wanted to use before an idea struck me. I quickly closed out the dialogue with the merchant and opened up my player menu. Scrolling through the windows, I found what I was looking for and brought a small book out of my inventory, placing it on the ground in front of me and opening it to the table of contents.
“What’s that Moon Guard?” Goober was looking over my shoulder while I read.
“It’s a manual.” I responded. “One that only unicorn players get. It’s got information on how to perform magic.” As I flipped through the pages, I found the telekinesis spell, which actually looked really simple, and levitated the book off the ground in an aura of crimson magic before continuing to flip through the pages.
Mary’s eyes went wide and she pulled out her own manual, laying down on the stones and reading through the various spells. Noah let out a low whistle, watching as I continued to flip through the book.
“That’s pretty impressive.”
I laughed, my eyes never leaving the pages. “You ain’t seen nothing yet! Levitation is literally the most basic spell in this book.” I continued to scan the contents, searching. Oh, please be here, please be here…yes! Conjuration spells! I scanned through the spells until I found what I was looking for. I set the book back on the ground, charged my horn, and focused on what I wanted. The air in front of me shimmered as a wisp of red magic wafted from my horn and solidified into a simple double-edged sword. I opened my eyes and smiled. The sword was small, only about two feet long, but it was a start.
After the others commented on how impressive my magic was, I went back to the merchants, now completely ignoring the weapons vendors. The amount of MP needed to conjure a weapon wasn’t all that much, and it took nothing to sustain, so I wouldn’t really need a physical weapon. Instead, I could save my bits for better armor and other supplies. Before long, I was clad in a simple black breastplate with some food and a potion or two in my inventory. I looked around and saw that the others were also suited up for battle. It was time for the fun to begin.
CRUNCH!
The timberwolf let out a howl of pain as Goober’s hammer smashed into its side, leaving a large scar of red code. Without missing a beat, Grammar Quill leapt forward, slashing a pair of Assassin’s Creed-type knives across the wolf’s exposed throat. The creature stumbled backward before baring its fangs in a wicked snarl and charging the offending earth pony. Right as it was about to crunch down on him, Grammar rolled to the side and Noah took his place, swinging his axe upward in a powerful strike that brought the timberwolf’s health bar down to the red zone. A pair of crossbow bolts sprouted from the creatures side, courtesy of Mary and Shadowkat, before Pale Mist swooped down with her lance, knocking the creature on its side, where it was promptly impaled by a glowing red sword, depleting the last of its HP. I smiled as everyone in the party put their weapons away and my sword faded.
“Good work everypony.” I congratulated them as notification windows popped up in front of everyone, letting us know we had all reached level four, with the exception of Mary, who was still working on getting to level three. True, leveling was slower for us, since the XP was split seven ways, but with such a large group, we were able to take on larger groups of monsters at once and deal with individual monsters pretty quickly, enabling us to get more hunting done than parties with only two or three players.
“Hey Moon,” Shadowkat landed next to me, showing me the clock in her player menu, which showed that it was past six. “Time’s up.”
I nodded before turning back to the others. “Alright guys, time’s up and the bet’s over. Anypony who still wants to play with us is more than welcome to, but if you want to leave, then by all means, please feel free to do so.”
“I’ll probably stick around a bit longer.” Goober piped up. “I bought a whole bunch of maps from those guys back in town, and I kind of want to explore them.” Well, that explains why he could only afford the hammer.
“I’ll probably jump in every now and then as well.” Mist spoke softly. “With the wedding coming up, coming here and killing things would be a good way to relieve stress.”
Everypony chuckled nervously at that.
“Well I’m out of here.” Noah rumbled. “Sorry, but I held up my end of the deal, and I’m done with the whole pony thing now.”
“Me too!” Mary’s voice was surprisingly loud, seeming to defy her timid attitude. “Things have been trying to kill me for the past five hours, and I can’t handle it!” Yeah, she didn’t usually handle stress well IRL either.
I laughed at her antics. Typical Mary. “Well guys, thanks for playing with us.” I did my best to give a flashy bow. “Until we meet agai—”
I was suddenly interrupted as my vision was filled with a flash of white light. I couldn’t see or hear anything, surrounded in a cocoon of light. Then, as suddenly as it came, the light died and I found myself standing back in the Ponyville plaza. My friends appeared next to me in similar flashes of light as the same happened with an increasing number of players all across the square.
“The hell is going on?” A censorship warning showed up in front of Noah.
“Someone initiated a mass teleport.” Goober muttered.
“But why?” Mary was on the verge of panic.
Questions like these continued to fill my ears as more and more players edged closer to panic. No more lights flashed anywhere around the plaza, which must’ve meant that all of the players in the game had been accounted for, and the mass teleport was over. No sooner had I thought this than a lound voice cut through the chatter all around me.
“Gamers and players, may we have your attention please!”
Everyone looked up and was greeted with the sight of four alicorns flying over us. The one in the lead was larger than the others, with a red coat and a white, flowing mane and tail, giving off an air of authority and wisdom.
"Everyone,” the leader began, “We are the administrators of Equestria Legends Online. We are in charge of analyzing the system and keeping it running in top condition. However, right now we are experiencing several technical difficulties in the system. One of which, as some of you might have noticed, is the absence of the log out button in your player menus. This is a major problem, since there is no other way for anyone to leave the game. We do not know the cause of this malfunction, but please bear with us as we try to fix it. While we try to find what's causing this, for your own safety, please remain in the Ponyville square for the time being."
Cries and outbursts began to rise from the crowds while he was talking. Before long, the entire square was closer to panic than they had been after teleporting in as everypony talked amongst themselves in hushed tones about what this all meant and how they had to get back soon. One of the pegasus players flew above the crowd and voiced the question on everypony’s mind.
“What do you mean you don’t know what the problem is?!”
The red alicorn simply shook his head. “This problem isn’t from a lack in the system, so we don’t know where it might have originated.”
No sooner had he finished speaking than the entire town was plunged into darkness. Now, when I say darkness, I don’t mean a nighttime kind of darkness. This was a pitch blackness so deep that I couldn’t even see my hooves. Cries of alarm and further panic rose into the air as lightning flashed periodically around us and a voice chuckled in the dark.
“Oh, I think I might know what the problem is.”
My jaw went slack. This just…it couldn’t…there was no way! I knew that voice all too well—in fact, I’m pretty sure almost everypony here did. I struggled to cast an illumination spell, bathing the area around me in the red light of my horn as chills racked my spine. The spell only lit the darkness enough to see a tail’s length in any direction.
“That would be me,” the voice spoke again. Another crack of lightning flashed behind the admins, silhouetting a long, snake-like creature with mismatched limbs hovering above the four alicorns.
The god of chaos.
Discord had arrived.
The draconequus let loose a dry belly laugh that echoed off the nearby buildings as the darkness faded. “Hello, my little bronies!” Then, grinning wickedly below him. “And hello to you, my good administrators.”
The lead admin, whom I had dubbed “Big Red,” pointed an accusing hoof at Discord, "How can you be the cause of the problem? You are a program in the system that 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."
Discord vanished with a snap of his eagle talons, reappearing behind Big Red.
"Oh, but you already know the answer to that.” He stated simply. “You designed me to be exactly like the 'me' in your television show, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic." He suddenly appeared next to one of the players behind me, mumbling something about the show needing a better name, before once again snapping his claws and teleporting behind Big Red—this time sitting astride his back—and resuming his explanation.
"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. Oh, and to make sure that I stay in power…” Another snap of his claws, and the admins hovering in the air suddenly found themselves with neither horns nor wings, causing them to fall out of the sky, landing roughly on the roof of Town Hall before tumbling into the crowd below. Silver Mist and Shadowkat, being the closest pegasi, quickly took off and caught some of the falling ponies before they could get hurt any further.
Discord, still floating where he had been, laughed maniacally. "Now the admins are just plain earth ponies! Oh, and I've also taken power over their admin codes. They won't be able to do a thing to change my world. As for all of you, I will let you keep your wings and horns while you play in a game of mine."
The crowd around us, including Noah, burst into a cry of rage, some of them yelling obscenities toward the draconequus, who simply snapped his claws once more, and the crowd was instantly quieted with the sound of a thousand pairs of lips being literally zipped shut. Annoying and slightly painful, but unfortunately, quite effective. Once the crowd was quiet and the censorship warnings faded, Discord continued, laughing all the while.
"My, my, I haven't even told you what the game is, and you're already so anxious to get started! Now, the game that I have in mind is a bit of a scavenger hunt. 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.
"But,” he held up a finger on his lion's paw. “It won't be as easy as you think. You see, I've added a few new features to the game. In the original system, if you died in the game, you would instantly re-spawn in the last town you were in. But that's too boring for me, so I re-wrote the system a little bit. Now, when anyone dies, their avatar will be deleted, and their Nervegear Helmet in the real world will fry their brains. In shorter words:” His voice deepened, resonating in the ears of every player as he smiled. “If you die in the game, you will die in the real world."
A collective gasp went up from players and admins alike as our mouths were released. The menace that was Discord gave a jolly laugh and drew a line across his neck, slicing his own head off and catching it in his talons. The now disembodied head continued laughing as if nothing was wrong. “Now, now, no need to lose your head over it." He laughed harder. "And while we’re at it, if there is any tampering with the helmet in the outside world, the helmet will kill the player instantly. Actually, quite a few of players have already died this way."
My virtual body didn’t have blood, but if it did, it would have all drained out of my face in that moment. It didn’t have a heart, either, but I could swear I felt it stop. Players had already died? This game started with a little over a thousand players. How many of them were left? How many were now lying cold in their NerveGear rigs?
Behind me, Mary screamed as she furiously rubbed her hooves against her head, as if trying to remove her rig. Shadow, who hadn’t landed since we started this game, suddenly felt her wings give out on her. Noah crumbled to his knees as his legs lost the will to support him. I simply stood, rooted to the spot, to shocked to do anything more than stand there with a dumb look on my face as my brain spun in circles.
Discord kept going. "Now, in this game, there are a few rules. First, you cannot receive help from the outside world—that is, if you can even manage that. If I catch anypony communicating with the outside world, all of you will die. Second, any tampering with the system from inside the game, and the rule-breaker will die instantly."
He chuckled, "And just so you know, I have a couple of monster friends who want to get out of their designated areas, so I'm letting them roam a bit. Maybe you'll meet them when you go outside of town, but don’t worry, they won’t follow you inside. They hate crowded places.”
The draconequus laughed again. That laugh was starting to grate on my nerves. "Oh, but a few of you might have thought, 'There's only six elements, so this will be easy.' Well, I'm sorry to burst your bubble," he suddenly belched up a bubble bigger than himself, "But I thought that only six elements would be boring. So I added four new elements." He poked the oversized bubble with a claw, causing it to burst and reform into ten smaller, multicolored bubbles. "They will be hidden all over Equestria, but they will be guarded by my favorite kinds of monsters, just like a boss for 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 push-overs."
Lighting struck again behind Discord, silhouetting his mismatched figure once more as he rose higher into the sky. "Well, there you have it. So just remember, your lives are on the line, not mine." He laughed loudly, and another bolt of lightning crashed down behind him. "So, my little bronies, let the games begin!"
With a final laugh, lightning crashed down all around the square, blinding all the players as the thunder mixed with the laughter of our new enemy. When the lighting subsided and the last thunderclap finished its call, the only thing remaining of Discord was his cold laughter, echoing across Equestria.
Author's Note
Hey everypony,
I want to make a quick disclaimer. I mentioned this in the story description, but I wanted to take a moment to mention it again here. This story is not my original idea. This is a sidefic to Shadowflame's Equestria Legends Online, which can be found here. It's a really good read, and a unique crossover with the Sword Art Online anime, and I highly reccomend reading it before you read Knight's Hall, as many of the events in this story will either allude to or take place during events from the original.
Something else of note is that my chapters aren't usually this long. The only reason this one is is because it closely mirrors the first chapter of the original work, so there was a lot that needed to get done right at the start. Future chapters will be considerably shorter.
That being said, I hope you guys enjoy! Please remember to like, comment, and let me know how I'm doing.
~Moon Guard
22 January 2020
Mrs. Hammonds was getting impatient. Her son and his friends had been playing their game since noon, and it was already six-thirty. She needed him to get her those eggs, or else she wouldn’t have a dish to bring to tomorrow’s church brunch. If he didn’t log out soon, she would simply have to take that stupid helmet off his head.
After waiting another ten minutes, she decided to do just that.
“I swear,” she muttered as she got up from her chair, “I’m going to rip the wiring out of that stupid thing.”
She opened the door to the garage and flicked on the lights. Whenever Bryce played with the NerveGear, he typically left just a small book light on so that he wouldn’t waste more electricity than necessary. She stepped around his two friends and grabbed hold of his helmet, unbuckling the chin strap and getting ready to pull the rig off his head.
“Mom wait!”
She turned around. Her daughter Sarah stood in the doorway. Mrs. Hammonds was annoyed at first; she didn’t take kindly to her kids back talking or questioning her decisions. Then she saw the tears in the girl’s eyes, and her anger dimmed.
“What’s the matter, sis?”
Apparently, something in that question was the last straw. Sarah jumped at her, latching onto her neck and breaking into heart wrenching sobs. Mrs. Hammonds was completely baffled, but did her best to comfort her daughter anyway. She looked back into the house, trying to figure out what could have possibly caused Sarah to break down like this, and saw that the TV in the living room was turned to the news channel, which was strange, since nobody in their family watched the news. Something must have caught her attention.
Without warning, the display suddenly cut to black and was replaced by a flashing red warning plaque as a series of electronic sounds played through the audio. Three short chirps, followed by a long, steady tone.
An emergency broadcast? What for?
The display changed once again, now showing an older man at a desk in a pressed suit staring into the camera with a grim look on his face. The FBI coat of arms was displayed on the wall behind him. “Citizens of the United States, we interrupt your programming this evening to deliver a message of national security. In a case of national cyber terrorism, Equestria Legends Online, a virtual reality game which launched earlier this afternoon, was tampered with by an unknown aggressor, resulting in the safety features of the players’ NerveGear helmets to be compromised.”
Equestria Legends Online? But that was the game Bryce and his friends were playing right now!
“With seemingly no pattern, NerveGear headsets across the country are disabling their safety protocols and releasing microwave signals into the brains of their wearers, killing them instantly.”
That settled it, she had to get that helmet off of him now! She moved to do just that.
“Furthermore, any attempt to remove the NerveGear helmet from a player already in the game has resulted in the same microwave signal being discharged with 100% consistency. Be advised, do not attempt to remove the NerveGear helmets from an active player.” She tightened the strap under his chin. That helmet wasn’t going anywhere.
She looked back to Sarah, who was still wailing in the doorway, as sobs shook her own body. This…this couldn’t be happening!
CRACK!
A shot of pain seared through the back of my head as I was violently slammed into a wall, prompting both a slight drain on my HP, which was still low from monster hunting, and a small window on the wall above my head reading “Immortal Object.”
“What the hell did you do?” Noah screamed, ignoring the profanity warning that once again showed up in front of him.
We were in an empty side street, where we had retreated after the incident in the plaza, with only a couple of NPC merchants near us. Noah was standing on his hind legs, pinning me to the wall by the throat with one hoof while the other was pulled back as if to strike. Mary was curled up and crying on the ground against the opposite wall; Silver Mist laid an arm around her, trying to comfort her while suppressing tears of her own. Shadowkat was standing at the entrance to the street, wings drooping as she stared at the sunset with a far-off look in her eyes. Goober and Grammar Quill were trying to pull Noah off of me as I struggled to breathe, but Noah had put all his levelling points into his strength, so they weren’t having much luck.
“This is all your fault!” He roared. “It’s your fault were stuck here! We’re all going to die in here because of you!”
“Noah get off of him!” Grammar begged.
Goober grunted, pulling against Noah’s leg. “If you keep suffocating him, he’ll start losing health! What are you going to do if he dies because of you?”
That seemed to snap Noah out of his rage. His gaze softened and tears began welling up in his eyes. He dropped back to all four hooves, dropping me unceremoniously to the ground while I gasped for air. Stupid suffocation algorithm. Grammar rushed to my side, helping me up and offering me a small health potion, which I downed in one gulp. That had been way too close. He had me in the red zone. I was going to have to be more careful in the future.
With my health now safely in the green again, I turned back to Noah, who was now shaking uncontrollably and crying softly into his hooves.
“Look, you think I knew this was going to happen? You think I knew beforehand that we were all going to get stuck in here, playing some twisted game to stay alive?” I hung my head, my mane hiding my eyes. “I thought this was just going to be an easy-going game where we could just enjoy exploring a fun world as ponies, maybe kill some monsters or do some quests on the way. I didn’t think we’d get stuck here with the threat of death hanging over our heads.” I sighed and sat down with my back against his as a tear found its way to my own eye. “I’m sorry for bringing you guys in here, but this isn’t my fault.”
“No,” a voice sounded from the street, “It’s ours.”
Everyone looked up to see a group of earth ponies crowding the entrance to our little alleyway. In the lead was Big Red, his white mane and tail drooping and his eyes filled with such sorrow as to make him look a hundred years old. He, too, was crying, the tears leaving streaks in the dust on his face before falling to the stones below. The other ponies with him I recognized as the admins from earlier.
Big Red walked into the alley, straight past us, and stopped in front of Noah.
“Your friend is correct, young man. You shouldn’t blame him for getting you mixed up in all of this. Perhaps…” he let out a heavy sigh, “Perhaps if we had been more diligent, and paid more attention to Discord’s programming, all of this could have been prevented.”
“If you need to blame someone,” another of the admins approached, “Blame us, but please don’t blame each other.”
Gradually, Noah’s sniffling ceased and his tears dried. He got to his hooves, standing not quite as tall as Big Red, but looking him in the eyes none the less, anger apparent on his features and defiance in his stance.
“You know,” he seethed. “I think I’ll take you up on that suggestion.”
Without another word, he pushed past the larger pony, past the other admins, and back into the main streets of Ponyville. I don’t think he even knew where he was going, but he left anyway, leaving the rest of us standing there, his friends staring after him in shock and the admins gazing at their hooves, too ashamed to look anyone in the eye.
“Please don’t take his actions personally.” I told them. “He’s just angry right now. The only reason he’s even here is because of a bet, and now he’s stuck here in a body he hates. He’ll hold on to that anger for a while, if only to keep himself going, but he’ll come around eventually. I hope.”
Big Red just shook his head sadly, before resuming his dignified posture and setting his jaw.
“As true as your words may be, my young friend, I’m afraid that he has every right to be angry at us. However, we didn’t seek you out just to play the blame game, as it were. We’re here for a different reason.”
“Wait,” Grammar put a hoof in the air, “You were looking for us?”
Big Red nodded and turned to Silver Mist and Shadowkat. “Please, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Jupiter; I am, or rather, I was the head administrator of Equestria Legends Online. This here,” he gestured to a stallion to his right with a blue coat and blonde mane “Is my friend Rex. He and I wanted to thank these two young mares for flying to our aid when Discord removed our wings. Believe it or not, you saved our lives today.”
Silver Mist looked up, and for the first time, Shadowkat’s eyes seemed to be actually focused on what was in front of her. I guess having someone thanking her for saving their life had somewhat snapped her back to reality.
“Really?” she asked.
Rex nodded. “When Discord turned us into earth ponies, he reset our skills and stats as well. We’re all level one players now, which means that falling that far would have caused a lethal amount of damage. So, thank you.”
Mist smiled sweetly and nodded, though didn’t say anything as she continued to comfort the trembling Mary. Shadow, however, blushed and stared at her hooves at the praise.
Big Red—er, Jupiter—smiled warmly and turned to leave.
“Wait, Big Red—I mean Jupiter, sir!” The stallion stopped and turned back to me. “What happens now?” I asked.
The question seemed to catch most of the administrators off guard, but Jupiter took it all in stride.
“Once the present situation calms down enough, we administrators will spread out over Equestria, taking groups of those who wish to travel with us and settling in key points and major towns across the game. We will create a network that will help us to search the entire game for the Elements of Harmony. I myself will be traveling to Canterlot, so that I may oversee the search.”
I looked at my team as he finished speaking, meeting each of their gazes. I saw many things as I looked into their eyes—fear, anger, despair—but they all seemed to be overshadowed by one thing: determination. Reflected in each of their eyes, from the wild Goober to the timid Mary, was the passion and the desire to rise above this challenge. I saw not just the will to survive, but the drive to ensure that others would make it out, too. Looking to my right, there by my side stood Grammar Quill. He met my eyes, nodding once. The message was clear.
We trust you.
Looking again, I saw it in each of their faces: the willingness to follow my lead. These friends of mine were putting their fates in my hands. Hooves, whatever. As of that moment, it was up to me to ensure their success in this world. I took a deep breath to steady myself, then stood tall and approached Jupiter.
“Jupiter, sir. We would like to accompany you to Canterlot and do what we can to help.”
Jupiter smiled, seemingly pleased with this turn of events, though there was also a hint of sadness in his face. “I would be honored if you and your team would join me.” He smirked, a playful glint coming to his eyes. “Now then, what shall I call you and your group?”
If this were a movie, an epic background track would have been playing at this point; you know, one of those “hero claims his role” moments. It this point, you would have heard the record scratch to a halt. A team name? Sure, we had all partied and formed our team already, but none of us had even thought to come up with a name.
Jupiter saw my puzzled face and burst out laughing. “Forgive me,” he chuckled, “But it seems I have caught you off-guard.” He regained his composure, though a goofy grin was still plastered on his face. “If you haven’t chosen a name yet, might I make a suggestion?” When everyone nodded he continued.
“How about,” he nodded to my cutie mark, “The Lunar Knights?”
February 5, 2020
The morning sun glared through the window, burning through my eyelids and forcing me to face the fact that it was time to get up. Groaning as I forced open my eyelids, I was greeted with the same sight I had been every morning since the game began: my room at the Everfree Stable.
Stables were Equestria Legends Online's version of inns and taverns in other games, where a player could go to rent a room and get something to eat. The food only satisfied your hunger virtually, obviously, but players did need to sleep and, while you could really sleep anywhere, sleeping in a bed was not only more comfortable, but also had greater benefits in regards to health and magic recovery.
It had been two weeks since this game of death began, and more than twenty players had fallen to Discord's schemes. As if bragging about his accomplishment, a large granite slab had showed up outside of town hall shortly after the God of Chaos made his declaration with the names of every player in the game inscribed upon its surface, each in a different font. The names of the players who had died had been struck out with bright colors.
The game had also become considerably more difficult. Safe zones were still safe, but areas outside of town were anything but. Monsters were stronger than they had been before, often wandering outside of their normal areas and packing together in greater numbers. Night time was even worse, with monsters becoming still stronger, smarter, and more numerous. As a result, not many players left their stables at night, even in the safe zones.
I groaned and rolled out of bed, landing on my hooves and stretching. I didn't really need to stretch, of course; the system ensured that even if you sleep on the ground you never wake up stiff or achy, but something about stretching your back and limbs in the morning just felt...right. Back in the real world, the first thing I would do when I got up was always to crack my back, neck, and knees to help me loosen up.
Another groan came from across the room, and I looked over to see Goober roll out of bed as well, but he got tangled in the sheets and fell off the edge, landing hogtied with his legs in the air. The two of us just looked at each other for a second before bursting out laughing.
"Morning!" Goober greeted cheerfully.
"Morning."
Yeah, we had a shared room. From what our new friend Rex had said, each stable had at least two shared rooms, varying in the number of beds depending on the quality of the stable. Due to the lack of privacy, they were cheaper per player than individual rooms, so my team had decided to rent those out first before getting individual rooms, that way the cost was minimized.
After managing to untangle Goober, we headed downstairs to the stable's small dining area. Over the past two weeks, I'd come to realize that living in a virtual world did have its benefits. For example, morning breath and other dental problems didn't exist, so you didn't need to brush your teeth. Same with bedhead. Also, you never had to go to the bathroom. Your inventory also meant that you didn't have to grab anything on your way out the door, so you could literally just get up and go.
In the real world, I was always the first one in my house to get up without fail. That hadn't changed here. Ever since our first night here, I'd been the first one up on my team every morning, so it was no surprise when we got down to the stable's main area that we were the only ones there. We sat ourselves down at a table, prompting the NPC waitress to come and take our order. We input what we wanted--an egg and cheese bagel for me and a big bowl of fruit and oatmeal for Goober--and the food appeared instantly, the appropriate number of bits being removed from our wallets automatically.
Speaking of bits...
Still chewing on my bagel, I opened up my player menu and took a look at my funds. Ever since the Lunar Knights had joined up with Jupiter and his group of Canterlot-bound players, the entire group had been working to raise the bits necessary to get a place to stay.
Actually, this was the main reason we were all still in Ponyville. Without a home or stable to sleep in at night, it was very difficult to completely regenerate your health and magic, with the process taking an entire day with beginning HP and MP levels, and that's assuming you don't take a hit or cast a spell at all. Because of this, everypony would want a place to stay once we got there. We could pay for rooms at the local stables, but according to Jupiter, they were twice the price there as in Ponyville, and since nopony knew how long they would all be in this game, it'd be a smarter move in the long run to just stay here for now, save up, and pool everyone's resources together to buy a home big enough for everyone to stay in.
Unfortunately, Jupiter had his sights set rather high. According to him, the most efficient way to accomodate all sixty-five players travelling to Canterlot would be to go for the Canterlot palace, valued at 1.5 million bits. When he first told me this, my jaw hit the floor. One and a half million was actually a pretty low price for a castle in the capitol city, but at the beginning of the game, it was absurd. Ponyville was the starting area for the entire game, so the quests around here were designed for beginners and didn't reward much. Monster grinding was the same way. All the mobs around the town were pretty basic and dropped common loot that couldn't be sold for much.
I understood Jupiter's reasoning, though. With sixty-five players in total, going for smaller homes costing an average of about 300,000 bits each and each only housing a miximum of ten players (for the most expensive ones), it was definitely cheaper overall to go for the castle, which was well defended and could house at least 150, and the number of players going meant we only had to raise about 25,000 each, so, while still difficult and annoying, it ended up not being as bad as I expected. After two hard weeks of quest and mob grinding, I was sitting at roughly 22,000.
"Hey Goobs," I said, prompting him to lift his face out of his oatmeal. "What's your bit count at right now?"
"Let me check." He wiped his mouth and opened his menu. "Looks like I'm at almost twenty-three five. You?"
"Twenty-two." I grinned, closing out of my menu. "We're almost there man!"
"Well, not everyone." Goober started as the rest of the team walked through the door. "You and I are pretty far ahead of everyone else, by at least 2K, I think. Mary's too scared to go hunting outside, so she's just been doing the in-town quests and selling whatever she can find, so she's only at around seventeen or eighteen thou. Plus, you, me, and Grammar are the only ones who have been hunting at night, so we've got a fair amount extra from that as well. I'm pretty sure everyone else is hovering between nineteen and twenty-one."
I nodded as our table suddenly found itself filled with ponies. Goober had brought up a good point. Everyone in our group had their own way of raising money. For most of them, it was a mix of hunting and questing. However, Goober got itchy feet if he stayed in town doing peaceful quests for too long, and I wanted to level up my conjuration skill, so he and I usually picked up whatever hunting quests we could find and spent our days in the field going up against whatever monsters we came across. Grammar came along as well since a party of three was safer than two. We were also the only ones who risked hunting at night, when the monsters were more rewarding.
Goober's player ability also helped considerably. You see, at the start of the game, each player is given their own powerup. The way these work is that the the system analyzes a player's race, name, and cutie mark and then chooses a special ability from a massive index of pre-prepared powers that would compliment that player's profile. For example, since my character is night-themed, I was given the Lunar Power ability, which increased my stats by 15% whenever the moon was out. Goober, an adventure-themed character, had the Treasure Hunting ability, which increased his chances of getting more and better monster drops and treasure chest contents, as well as giving him a boost in bits earned/found.
"Well," Grammar interrupted my thoughts. "No matter how you look at it, we got another day or two of grinding before we get there."
Shadowkat sat down with an omlette. "On the bright side, all this grinding has made us some of the highest ranked players around."
She was right. A lot of players had decided that leveling up quickly was the best way to survive, but with two weeks of nothing but eating, sleeping, and grinding under our belts, and a few of us fighting the night mobs, my team and I may not look like much, but we were some of the highest-level players in town. Being friends with the admins and getting tips about the best hunting spots didn't hurt either.
The rest of breakfast passed with friendly chatter between the team. Before long, we were all finished and heading out into town. Ponyville had a board outside town hall where players had been posting where to find good renewable quests, so that where we started every morning.
On the way, I took the opportunity to look around town as we walked. For only having been two weeks, Ponyville had already changed visibly. For starters, there weren't near as many players as there had been. The game had started with a little over a thousand players, but like I said earlier, we now had roughly twenty-five less thanks to the whole die here, die there thing, which pissed me off, but there was nothing I could do about that other than honor their memory by fighting. Additionally, roughly three hundred players so far had left with some of the admins as they spread out over the map. If I recall correctly, Appleloosa, Cloudsdale, and Trottingham were already settled, with another group about halfway from here to Manehattan and the group bound for Canterlot leaving in the next few days.
The streets had changed as well. After the launch, NPC shops were the only ones to be found. Now, you could see several player-owned stands popping up here and there. Even those players who had refused to take part in this death game had quickly come to realize that money didn't last forever. IF they wanted food and beds, they had to raise the money for it. Thus, the player shops: places where players could sell whatever they grew, made, or found (or stole). Most of it was common stuff, but hey, you had to start somewhere. Actually, if memory served correct, Noah had a weapon stand somewhere.
We reached town hall. No new quests had shown up, but some of the old ones had been renewed, so we added them to our quest logs and spread out, ready for another long day.
