Zombies And RPGs

Chapters

Pre-game Preparations
Unconventional Tutorial
Slapping Zombies Into Everything
Mission Pantying

Pre-game Preparations

“Day-ah-nin?”

“No Tomes, it’s pronounced ‘deyunin’ but spelled as ‘Daennin.’ It doesn’t really work verbally, does it?”

Tomes shook his head in agreement, his shaggy brown mane swayed as he did so.

“Anyway, it’s the best game in the entire world! Well, not really. I’m just biased...really biased. But still, if you try this game, then you’ll know what I’m talking about! And yes, it is that good!”

“Whoa, whoa, calm down there, Spooky.” Tomes said while raising a tan hoof in an attempt to dial down the mare’s enthusiastic attitude. “Before you tell me about how great this game is, I want you to answer this question first. What’s a Daennin?”

“They’re creatures, magical creatures that power a lot of things in the Broken World of Alluna. And all Ruined Kingdoms want them. And-Ugh!” Spooky groaned, interrupting herself. “No, no, no, what am I doing? Show don’t tell, Spooky!” She waved an ashen hoof firmly forward. “Show don’t tell!”

Spooky quickly turned her head to face Tomes, her dark obsidian mane covered her right eye in the process.

“You know what? Buy the game and find out for yourself.”

This is the predicament that Tome Seeker has found himself having. It all started this morning, when he happily declared to his friend and next door neighbour, Spooky Shades that his parents have just bought him a top of the line virtual reality console, the Second Life Engine.

It was an innocent thought at first, telling her that he has one since she has one too. Maybe they’ll have something to talk about it in school. But he never pegged the mare to be an avid gamer. And that’s where the problem began. All day she kept on pestering him to buy an MMO called ‘The Daennin Wars,’ claiming that it was the best game ever.

He never heard any other detail about the game from her, save for a couple vague lines about its quality like ‘it’s so good, or ’it’s the best,’ or ‘it’s the most fun you can have online.’ He only got a few tidbits about the game when he asked her directly. But Spooky still insisted on being unclear about the game’s premise, as if that would help her sell the game to him.

But still, it’s not like he’s going to buy that game anyway. His mind was already set in buying one game and one game only. And that game was called Psychedelic Lilac. It’s a pretty simple game. You get to play as a single petal in the beginning, and as you travel through different kaleidoscopic worlds, you’ll get more and more petals. The game’s main purpose is to help the player relax while playing it. Others claim that that it also relieves stress off of its players, and that’s what got Tomes interested in it.

He was trotting towards the store to buy the game when he came across Spooky, who was so obviously not waiting for him so that she could ambush and persuade him into buying Daennin Wars. And that’s where he was right now, on the way to the game store with a mare in tow who’s dead set in convincing him to buy a game that he’s no idea about.

“I don’t know, Spooky.” Tomes scratched his head, a look of uncertainty on his face. “MMOs are great, but my mind is already set in buying Psychedelic Lilac for the Second Life Engine.”

“Second Life Engine?” Spooky scoffed. “Who says the full term anymore? Just shorten it to ‘SLE,’ it’ll save you the trouble of pronouncing its full name every time. Seriously, Second Life Engine here, Second Life Engine there, it’s a real waste of spit.”

“So anyway, what was I saying again?” The mare’s brows furrowed slightly but were immediately replaced with a bright look once the thought came back to her.

“Oh yeah, would you rather spend a perfectly great VR console playing a dainty gliding petal or would you rather be somepony who has the power to change the fate of an entire world? You can save it, you can crush it, you can even leave it alone and just let things work out themselves, be it for better or worse! The possibilities are almost endless! I’m telling you, Tomes, you won’t regret spending every second in it!”

Tomes almost had the urge to clap sarcastically, but chose not to. “Love the spirited speech.” He nodded his head repeatedly. “I really do, but doctor coin purse here diagnoses a terminally high cost of bits when buying that game. Sixty bits Spooky, sixty bits.”

“So? You have a hundred bits in your coin purse.”

“Wait, how’d yo-”

“And Lilac only costs like, ten bits. Even if you buy the two, you’d still have enough coins to make your purse go jingle jangle jingle.”

Tomes hummed introspectively, carefully scaling the metaphorical weight of the two games in his mind. “Fly in hallucinogenic worlds as a petal or be a warrior whose actions could potentially shape the fate of an entire world?”

Spooky quickly responded. “Why not both?”

Tomes could only give a sigh in response.

Tome’s House

“Okay.” Spooky said while hooking up the game in the console. Tomes was already lying in bed with the console’s sleek, futuristic helmet tightly latched on his head. He’s now all geared up for full sensory immersion, all that’s the left to do now is for Spooky to crank up the game.

“So the intro for this game will be like any run-of-the-mill RPG. Character creation should only take a couple of minutes to finish. And when you’re done, you’ll be automatically spawned in the outskirts of Eubby Town.”

“Newbie Town? That’s a little demeaning.”

“It’s pronounced as ‘newbie’ but it’s spelled as ‘Eubby.’” Spooky tilted her head. ”It doesn’t really work verbally, does it?”

Tomes shook his head in agreement.

“Anyway, once you’ve spawned go to the giant tree that’s standing outside of town. I’ll be waiting for you there. And don’t worry about getting lost. It’s the only tree that’s standing in the outskirts, you can’t miss it.”

“Gotcha.” Tomes replied stiffly. “Anything else you wanna add?”

“Oh yeah. Don’t get killed on your way there. The game prides itself for its permadeath feature. You don’t wanna go through character creation twice in a row now, do you?”

“Wait, what?”

“See ya!”

Those were the last words that Tomes have heard in the real world before he was abruptly warped down to its simulated counterpart. He felt like a meteor falling from the sky, travelling at ridiculous speeds. For a second, he was just lying on his bed and in the next, it’s like he’s skydiving without a parachute.

His ears were ringing. And not those ringing sounds you hear from those old timey alarm clocks with metal bells on top. No. They sound like stretched out tinging sounds, resonating both in and out of his head. It sounded like the spaceships from science fiction when travelling through hyperspace, a thick, echoing beam of tinging hums that feels overwhelming to listen to.

Before, all his body could feel was the comforting sensation of his sheets and pillows. Now, all he could feel was a huge relentless blast of air hurling in front of him. It’s like standing in front of a giant fan. He swore he could feel his open mouth wobble in all directions, like what happens when you shout out loud in a roller coaster that’s rapidly descending from a high arc.

Those were the sensations that welcomed him upon entering the world of virtual reality.

And all of that only happened in a couple of seconds.

He came to a complete stop. And just like that, everything went back to normal, if normal meant standing alone in a place that might as well be called ‘complete and utter darkness.’ At least it’s better than that freaky warp thing from before. Tomes thought.

A small glow suddenly appeared in front of Tomes. From that particular spot, small blocks of light started popping up in large numbers. The glowing cubes began melding with each other, slowly creating something. And not a moment later, the cubes have finally taken a distinct shape.

It was the game’s title, it read ‘Daennin Wars’ in brightly colored characters that are as big as a pony’s head. It was like a shining billboard, getting everypony’s attention like flies to a gas lamp. Below the title were words in white written inside a red rectangular button that said ‘start.’

With a shrug, Tomes pressed the red button. After doing so, the darkness that has once surrounded him dismantled itself like playing a puzzle piece in reverse, replacing the dark emptiness with a barren field of white.

A couple of paces before him appeared a full body mirror. The mirror was not sticking itself on a wall for support nor does it have a stand. It’s just there, floating silently in the empty whiteness. Tomes slowly trotted towards the mirror to inspect it. Upon closer observation, he can tell that the mirror was finely crafted based on its delicately hoof carved wooden frame. Above the mirror were the words ‘Mirror of Reincarnation.’

So this must be the character generator that Spooky was talking about. Tomes silently told himself. But how am I going to use this, though?

And as if by response, a thought suddenly struck Tomes. It’s like the game itself uploaded the instructions regarding character generation directly into his brain. And with that, he was now well informed on how to use the tool in front of him.

“So it’s just that easy, huh?” He thought out loud. “I just have to imagine what my ideal avatar would look like and the mirror will instantly generate it and show it to me as my reflection? Cool.” Tomes closed his eyes while thinking of a vivid image of his avatar in his mind.

After a brief moment of picturing his ideal self, Tomes opened his eyes once more to look at the mirror’s reflection. The image in front of him was exactly what he had in mind. Standing before him was a tall stallion with silver mane. Its light tan fur perfectly complimented his toned body. The stallion’s features were graced with deep green eyes, protruding cheek bones, and a sharp jaw line.

Tomes can’t help but let out a girly ‘squee’ at the sight before him. His avatar was so good looking that it might as well be carved by angels, if angels do exist in this fictional world. Nevertheless, it’s the look that he wanted and it’s the look that he got.

He was still ogling his character when a set of words enclosed in a box appeared on the mirror, asking if he wishes to make any changes on his character before proceeding on the next part of the process. The choices ‘yes’ and ‘no’ appeared beneath the question, also enclosed in a box.

Tomes pressed ‘no’ and his avatar was replaced with a keyboard and a blank space above it. “Okay, for the name...” Tomes said as he used a single hoof type in his username. “Tome_Raider76, nothing beats the classic.” The game asked him if his username was final, along with the corresponding choices. He chose yes and the mirror transitioned into another window.

“Now for the stats.” He said while looking at his character’s unset stats chart. He was a bit disappointed upon seeing the display. “Only strength, agility, and intelligence...are they really using the SAI system here? Either the devs are just too lazy to implement more attributes to the game or they’re dumbing their content down to appeal to the mainstream.”

Tomes shrugged it off and proceeded to input the spare points into the chart. There were already five preset points in each attribute. The chart asked him which one of those three he was going to pick as his main attribute. He chose intelligence, and the stat was raised up to ten points. So now his stats has twenty points set, five in strength and agility, ten in intelligence. And he still has five more to spare.

He added a single point to his strength and added two to agility, the remaining points he put it all to his intelligence. So now he has six points in strength, seven in agility, and twelve in intelligence. Twenty-five points overall. The game asked him if this was final, he chose yes. And the mirror transitioned once more into another window.

The next thing that appeared in the mirror’s reflection was the words ‘Choose an element.’ And beneath those words were four crystal orbs of red, blue, green, and white color. “Okay, now for the elements. Elements, elements, elements.” Tomes said while scratching his chin with a hoof. “What element should I pick? Fire beats air, air beats earth, earth beats water, and water beats fire. Damagewise, both fire and air are quick but light, while water and earth are slow but deals heavy damage. Eh, I’ll pick water.”

Once he had chosen his desired element, the game asked again if his choice was final. After he pressed ‘yes’ the mirror changed its display once more. This time, it’s asking what his starting class will be. He was offered with three options: warrior, mage, and archer. Basically, it’s the holy trinity of RPGs. “I think it’s pretty obvious on what class I’m going to pick here.” Tomes said to nopony. He pressed the ‘mage’ button and again, the game confirmed if his selection was final. After pressing ‘yes,’ the mirror switched screens once more.

Next up is selecting the subclass. Tomes had to drag his hoof down the mirror’s surface to scroll through the plethora of subclasses he could choose. There’s a wide variety of subclasses available in the game. Among these include merchant, scholar, builder, and many others. Since most subclasses were geared towards non-combat situations, Tomes had something different in mind. He wanted something that he could use both in and out of combat, so he chose healer. After selecting his desired class, the mirror asked again to confirm if his choice was final. He chose yes and moved on to the next and last stage of character creation.

The final part of character creation was adding a peculiarity to the player’s avatar. This part was completely optional. Players could just skip this part and head on through the game while others would tend to make use of this part to spice up the gaming experience. Tomes belonged to the latter so he took a look at the limited selection before him.

There are only three peculiarities available, and each one of them was specifically designed to upgrade an attribute while also giving it a bit of a challenge to make it more interesting. The first one on the list was the ‘Grunt’ peculiarity. Choosing it would give the player a ten percent bonus in health while losing ten percent in speed. The second one was the ‘Erudite’ peculiarity, this one gives a bonus of ten percent in mana but the player loses ten percent of their health. The last one on the list was the ‘Spaz’ peculiarity. This one would give a bonus of ten percent in speed but also takes away a good ten percent in defense.

Tomes chose the ‘Erudite’ peculiarity to match his character’s persona. After selecting said peculiarity, the game asked him if his decision was final. He went with yes and the mirror transitioned into a full character card that showed every detail of his in-game character, asking him to review it first before finalizing the process.

He pressed the ‘done’ button below the enclosed question to make his character final. After doing so, the mirror flew several meters up the air and enlarged itself tenfold. From where Tomes was standing sprouted large boulders that were quickly rising from the ground, forcing the startled stallion to immediately back off. The boulders met up with the now gigantic mirror and wrapped around its sides like a huge earthen frame. The other boulders who did not wrap themselves around the mirror clumped themselves beneath it, creating a small hill made of rocks. The mirror’s glass suddenly shattered itself to reveal a large portal, another world can be seen from its other side. The hill of boulders created a staircase that was headed straight to the portal, as if inviting Tomes to come up and see it.

Tomes slowly trotted up newly made staircase of the hill. He ceased his trotting upon reaching the top. He held a hoof into the portal, touching its surface. Like a leaf falling down a calm pond, the portal rippled to his touch.

“New world, here I come.” Were the last words Tomes said before entering the Broken World of Alluna.

Author's Note

I apologize for all the references.

Unconventional Tutorial

Tomes rubbed the back of his head gently with a hoof. He didn’t expect to be dropped several meters off the ground upon entering the world. That surprised him. And as a result, his reflexes didn’t catch up with the situation at hoof and ended up with his head landing first.

Who came up with this? He thought while continuing to rub the bruised part of his head. At least the pain was slowly leaving. But still, he can’t help but be impressed at the game’s eye for detail though. They even added pain receptors to make the experience even more real. Other players would probably hate this feature but he doesn’t. He thought that this would be great at reminding players not to act harshly in this world, with the permadeath and all that.

He got up from the ground and took a look at his surroundings. The area looked like your average starting location in an RPG, a vast field of grass surrounded with mountain ranges. And in the middle, a small and peaceful town or village with citizens that matches the town’s quaint personality.

But something seemed off.

The atmosphere felt thick and heavy, not to mention grim. The sky was red like blood, and the grass that was usually tinted green was now trying to emulate the colors of the surface above. The whole place looked as if it was ravaged by war.

Tomes was tempted to explore the area but he was supposed to meet with Spooky Shades first under some lone tree that’s located around here somewhere. It didn’t take him long to find said tree. From afar, he can see the large towering plant standing alone in the empty field.

As he slowly approached it, he saw a silhouette of a pony standing underneath its shade. From where he was, he can already see the username that was floating above the pony’s head, along its level, health, and mana bars.

“50Shades?” Tomes grinned as he read the pony’s username in a soft whisper. Yeah, that’s Spooky alright. He thought while increasing the speed of his trotting. Spooky saw the approaching stallion and waved at him.

“You’re late.” Spooky jokingly called out.

Tomes was about to respond in kind but went silent when he saw Spooky’s avatar. Her character was clad in full body knight armor, it shimmered a low crimson glow, reflecting the grim color of the blood red sky. The folded wings on her side were covered in armor as well, although the metal protecting them looked lighter and thinner compared to her body. He took a glance at the feathers and saw that each of them had a metallic covering. From afar, they look like closely hung knives around her barrel.

He looked at her level that was located beside her health and mana bars. She already got a cool looking armor at level twenty-five? He must get stronger, and fast. He proceeded to look at her helmet, which was equally fine crafted as the armor she’s wearing. Like the metal it’s made from, the helmet looked cold, hard, and expressionless. You can’t even see the wearer’s eyes, only two dark slits of numb oblivion staring back at you. But what bothered Tomes the most about Spooky’s helmet was the horn on her forehead. Spooky was a pegasus so she has no use for a horn compartment on her helmet. But maybe it’s just for decoration, to make herself look like an alicorn, he thought.

“Tome_Raider76?” Spooky scoffed, pulling Tomes out from his thoughts.

“What? What’s wrong it?”

“It suits you.”

Tomes shook his head rolled his eyes. He thought his name had offended her or something.

“So this is the world you’re talking about, huh?” He said while turning his back to look around the surroundings. “Kinda depressing, don’t you think?”

“No.” Spooky replied, standing beside Tomes. “It’s not usually like this. The skies are much bluer compared to now. And the grass...well, much greener.”

Tomes turned to look at Spooky. “So what sparked this change?”

“I dunno, probably another major event. Let’s head over to town, maybe we’ll find the answers there.”

The two trotted quietly into town. Their hooves created soft ‘smooshing’ sounds with every step they took on the reddening grass. Spooky’s armor clinked as metal hits metal with each and every sway of her body. The grassland breeze would occasionally blow soft howling sounds inside their ears, creating a feeling of unease that complimented well with the eerie atmosphere of the world.

“Do these things usually happen? Sudden events?” Tomes asked, breaking the silence.

“From time to time, yeah.” Spooky said, stroking her armor clad chin. “It’s their way of having the players level up quickly. But they’d announce it on the boards before dropping it on us.”

Spooky swiped a hoof at the air. A large black transparent screen appeared in front of her. One by one, several symbols popped out on the screen such as an image of a sword, a potion, and a scroll. She pressed on the image that looked like a bulletin word with notes attached on it. A small black transparent screen overlapped the first one, above it was the word ‘Announcement’ written in a vibrant gold shade. But other than that, nothing popped out of it.

“Huh.” Spooky said as she continued poking the empty screen. There are no announcements about this event, weird...pretty weird.”

“Whoa!” Tomes cried out in amazement. “How’d you do that? That looks awesome.”

“Oh it’s simple.” Spooky pressed the red ‘X’ that was located on the upper right corner of the screens, closing the windows. She then gestured at Tomes’ right hoof. “All you have to do is to swi-AAH!!!”

Unbeknownst to the two, a zombified pony was already rushing its way behind them. When it’s only a couple of hooves away from the unsuspecting adventurers, it leapt into the air and dove straight into Spooky.

“Spooky!” Tomes screamed in panic. His friend was struggling from an undead attacker and he doesn’t know what to do in his frightened state.

“It’s alright, it’s alright.” Spooky said in between grunts as she fended herself from the rabid zombie. She was using both of her hooves to subdue the monster’s flailing forelegs while using an armoured limb to shield her from its relentless bites.

“I’m just being pounced by a zombie, that’s all.” She said it in the calmest voice she could muster.

“Omigosh! What do I do? What do I do?” Tomes was standing on two hooves now, both his forelegs were gripping tightly on his silver mane.

The zombie’s rapidly biting maw was now inches away from Spooky’s face. She banged a foreleg at its chin in an attempt to keep its salivating orifice away from her, and also to knock the zombie off of her body. Unfortunately, she only succeeded doing the former.

“First, you equip your weapon.” She grunted.

“How do I do that!?” Tomes asked loudly while pulling the zombie away from Spooky.

As the rabid corpse was nearing her face again, Spooky once more banged its face with her armoured limb. “Don’t bother pulling the zombie off of me, it’s not going to work anyway. Just do exactly what I tell you to.”

Tomes immediately let go of the undead. “Okay! Okay! Why am I the only nervous pony here?”

“That’s because I’m already used to this.” Spooky replied firmly.

“Getting pounced on by stallions?”

Spooky turned to look at Tomes. Even with the helmet on, he can tell that she was annoyed by his latest quip. “No, dummy! Mauled by zombies! Now open that inventory of yours and help me with this.”

Tomes let out a long sigh to calm himself. “Okay, okay. How do I do that again?”

Spooky was now kicking her hind legs at the zombie’s barrel. Her new effort to get the rabid beast off of her ended up as another futile attempt. She just stopped kicking and focused all her strength on her forelegs.

“Simply swipe at the air, and think about opening the game menu. It doesn’t matter which direction you’re swiping. It could be up or down, left or right and it’d still open as long as you’re swiping.” Spooky smiled under her helmet. “So, what do you think about that tip? No, what do you think about me?”

“Swiping right.” Tomes said while doing so. A black transparent screen similar to Spooky’s earlier appeared in front of him.

“Okay got it!” After all the symbols popped up, he pressed an image of a sword. Another screen overlapped the other one, this one had the word ‘Equipment’ written above it in the same golden color from before. Aside from a single item named ‘Basic Staff,’ the screen was mostly empty.

“I just opened the inventory...” He pressed on the weapon’s name. “Equipping Basic Staff. After pressing said item, small glowing cubes of light began materializing in front of Tomes, and not a second later, the cubes formed themselves into a simple wooden staff with a red gem lodged at its tip.

What’s this?” After selecting the staff, a short description about the weapon appeared on top of the screen, just below the word ‘Equipment.’

Tomes read the description quickly, as he still needed to save his friend. “An old branch from a dead tree fused with low-tier magic?” He grimaced at what he had read. “This is so demeaning.”

Again, Spooky banged the zombie’s face to a safe distance. “I think they just put that there to motivate novices in getting stronger quicker. So what’s your first skill? Swipe while thinking about skill slots.”

Tomes quickly obliged and swiped at the air with the hoof that’s carrying the staff. After doing so a small black screen that was divided into several square slots appeared just inches away from his hoof. Like the equipment screen, the slots were almost empty save for the one spell that was placed on the upper right corner of the screen.

“Oh there it is.” He took a closer inspection on his single spell. It looked like a sharp piece of ice that was travelling at high speeds on a blue background. Gusts of air surrounded the ice to imply at how fast it was going. Tomes hovered a hoof on the spell, and small black window popped out above it that indicated its name and effect.

“The spell is called ‘Ice Shard’ and it’s supposed to inflict a damage of seventy-five HP on its target and also slowing it for three seconds.” He looked at the struggling Spooky who was now slamming the zombie’s face left and right with her metal elbows. “Will it help?”

Spooky ceased her futile slamming. “Water type huh?” She hummed. ”That’ll do. Okay, so here’s what you’re gonna do next. In order to cast the spell, you have to select your target first. It’s simple, just aim at the zombie and think about targeting it. Once you’ve got a lock on, the target’s body will then be highlighted green. Then press the spell’s icon to activate it. Did you get all of that?”

“Yup.” Tomes said as he aimed his staff at the zombie and thought about targeting it. Spooky was right. There’s a bright green light highlighting the zombie’s body. And in addition, a health bar appeared above its head. He pointed his staff at Spooky and it was her body’s turn to be highlighted green. Tomes giggled at his discovery and shifted his aim back at the pawing undead.

As Tomes pressed the spell, a strong recoil shook the hoof that was carrying his staff. A large ice fragment emerged from the gem of his staff and quickly made its way on the zombie. As the shard hit the monster’s body, it exploded into several tiny pieces, knocking the zombie off the armoured mare.

A large glowing number seventy-five appeared out of the zombie’s reanimated body, and faded as quickly as it appeared. A third of its health bar turned to black. And its body has changed into a chilly shade of blue. The zombie attempted to get up on the ground but seemed to have a hard time doing so as it moved like it was in slow motion.

Tomes took this as an opportunity and helped Spooky get on her hooves. “I can’t believe it Spooky, I did it!”

Once Spooky was standing upright, she quickly opened up her inventory and equipped a weapon called ‘Hot Rods.’ She stared at the zombie who was just recovering from its three-second slow and turned to look at the celebrating Tomes.

“Not bad, not bad.” Spooky said as two sheathed swords materialized on both her sides. The handle of the swords had a polished jet black shade that shone red when reflecting the crimson sky. And the scabbards had several holes poked into it that made them look like exhaust pipes of some sort.

Using her wings, the Knight Mare pulled the swords including scabbards off her body. She swung the two blades sideways, a loud swishing sound accompanied her actions. Once the swords were pointed away from her, her wings pushed a small button that was carefully placed on the tip of the handles. Strong streams of fire blazed through the scabbards’ holes. Tomes has now realized that those weren’t scabbards at all. The flames were acting as the sword’s sharp, sizzling blades. She turned to look at Tomes, a hint of smugness can be felt emanating from that expressionless headgear of hers. “Now it’s my turn.”

Spooky swiped a hoof sideways at the air. A small black screen with at least a dozen of its square slots filled up with skills appeared just inches away from her hoof. She pressed the one that looked like a fiery ring with an infernal background. She then turned to look at the zombie who was once more, charging towards her.

“Ring of Fire!” She cried at the top of her voice while raising her both of her burning swords upwards and swinging them down with heavy force. The fires of the dual swords burned brighter and hotter as they were swung down into the ground. Two large waves of flames blazed their way out of the twin weapons and flew their way into the charging zombie, all the while quickly forming into a fiery ring of infernal damnation.

As the rings of fire made contact with the zombie, they spared no time engulfing every inch of its rotting body in flames of blazing punishment. It only took a matter of seconds for its flesh to turn crisp and black like charcoal. The zombie’s well done body crumbled piece by piece as it continued to struggle its futile attempt to escape its hellish situation.

The zombie let out a long pained howl before completely turning into ash. The health bar above it rapidly turned to black, and a large number seven hundred fifty appeared from the black dust. The spot from where the zombie once stood was now nothing but a pile incinerated remains. And from those remains emerged a stack of golden coins and the line ‘100 Exp.’

As Spooky sheathed both her swords back, the stack of coins lifted their selves up and flew towards the two adventurers. Both Tomes and Spooky opened their game menu and noticed that each of them earned fifty drops.

Spooky turned to look at Tomes and proceeded to let out a relieved giggle. “Not bad for a weapons and skill tutorial, huh?” She giggled once more.

Tomes let go of his staff and sat on his haunches. He looked at his forelegs and saw that they were shivering. He then looked at Spooky who was following his actions and was also sitting on the ground. She realized that her swords caused slight discomfort when she was sitting on her flanks so she opened the equipment window and unequipped the weapons.

“That was terrifying, Spooky!” Tomes cried out, he didn’t know why he was panting like he was out of breath. “You almost scared me to death!”

“Hah. You just used three words related to fear in one line.”

Realizing that sitting alone was not enough to calm him down, Tomes decided to lie on the ground, his body spread wide like five-petaled flower. He was amazed at how the grass made his skin a bit itchy. He placed a hoof at his chest, he can feel his heart beating like a drum.

“I think I need a break.”

“Maybe later.” Spooky said, looking at a distance. She quickly got up, opened her inventory and equipped the Hot Rods once more. Her wings unsheathed the swords and pressed the handles’ buttons to fire them up again. “We still have things to do.”

Tomes got up from his relaxed position. “Like what?”

Using her burning sword, Spooky pointed at the undead horde that was charging hungrily at them.

Tomes let out a deep sigh while rubbing his head with a hoof to emphasize that he’s not really in the mood to deal with things such as this. “This really makes me want to log out.”

“And miss one of Madam Spooky’s very educational tutorials about grinding?” She jokingly dared him. “I promise you. When we’re done with this, you’ll definitely reach up to level one hundred. Did I say definitely? I’m sorry. What I meant was literally. You’ll definitely literally reach the level of one hundred.”

“That’s impossible.” Tomes scoffed. “There’s no wa-”

Spooky ignored Tome’s pessimistic view on their situation and suddenly charged towards the horde before he can finish his sentence.

“LEVEL ONE HUNDRED!!!”

Slapping Zombies Into Everything

“Wait, we’re all Alicorns here?” Tomes asked Spooky as they walked towards the town’s southern entrance. “I thought the horn in your helmet was just for decoration.”

“Yep.” Spooky replied. “That way, any player can play their desired classes regardless of race. But I gotta admit, having an Earth Pony’s strength and a Unicorn’s magic takes a while to get used to.”

Tomes hummed in agreement. He didn’t want Spooky to know this but he’s currently cherishing this moment. Being able to walk in peace in this newly corrupted world might just become a luxury that he’d rarely enjoy. The corpses of zombified NPCs scattered down the path might ruin the moment a bit, but it’s still better than fighting all the time.

Combat in this game was not like the other ones he played. In a PC or in a console, the only things that the game requires of you when doing combat were your wits and quick hooves. All you had to do was to employ a swift tactic to defeat your foes and hope that your hooves were quick enough to execute them.

But in a VR game, everything’s different. It involves all the player’s senses to do even just the simplest of things like walking. Before, all you had to do make your character move was to press a couple of buttons in a keyboard or a controller. But now, you literally had to use your entire body to move your character because you are the character. And to be honest, it’s pretty taxing. Tomes had just fought two battles today: the first one happened just a couple of minutes after his spawning and the second one occurred just moments away after the first battle ended.

But it’s not all bad though. At least his character was now at level three. And he learned a new spell called ‘Frostbite.’ When used, the spell will stun the target for three seconds while also dealing one hundred damage to it. Spooky told him that starting from now, he’ll get a new spell every two levels, which means that he’ll get a new one once he’s reached level four.

“That’s awesome. So anyway, back to topic. Tell me more about this ‘cling’ skill.”

“Oh yeah.” Spooky said, stroking her armor clad chin. “That’s the reason why the zombies in this game are super annoying. It doesn’t matter how high your level is, in the rotten eyes of the undead, everypony’s fair game. And once they got ya, they got ya. Never letting go, unless attacked by a third party combatant or something.”

She looked at Tomes before continuing. “Here’s some useful tip in the future, never wander in a graveyard alone.”

“Noted.” Tomes said as he slowly approached field of corn that stood quietly beside the road. As Tomes walked closer, he noticed that the cornstalks were twice his size when it comes to height. And when grouped together, they look like a towering wall of green, silently looming over to anypony who passes by.

Another thing that caught Tomes’ attention was that each stalk was filled to the tip with ears of corn. If he hadn’t known any better, he might as well think that these stalks might collapse due to the sheer weight that they’re carrying. Tomes reached out a hoof to touch one of the corn’s ears. As his hoof made contact, the piece of corn let out a soft snapping sound, as if it may come off from its stalk.

“Whoa.” Tomes said, quickly pulling his hoof back in surprise. “That piece of corn almost got off of its stalk when I touched it.”

Spooky snickered. “Of course, silly. Anything in this world can be interacted with.”

Tomes let out a pondering hum. He reached his hoof back up again. This time he picked the corn for real. The piece of produce emitted a satisfying snap as it detached itself from its stalk. As he gripped the corn with his hoof, the phrase ‘You lost karma’ suddenly popped out from it and disappeared just as quickly as it came.

“What the!” Tomes cried out, immediately dropping the corn. He turned to look at Spooky, confused and a bit annoyed. “They implemented a karma system here?”

“Oh yeah.” Spooky said while scratching metallic part of her head. “I forgot to tell you that they have that, my bad.”

Tome sighed. “Dang it. I know games would sometimes tend to avoid spoon-feeding their players with instructions but this goes a little bit too far. It’s a freaking RPG, and it has a lot complex things that one just can’t figure out without reading a manual or going through a tutorial. Can’t they just provide us with a set of instructions upon starting or at least download it directly to our minds like they did before in the character creation stage?”

“Actually, they do.” Spooky walked around the pile of dead bodies lying on the road, looking for something. Once she’s found what she was looking for, she gestured Tomes to come and stand beside her.

“See this?” She said while pointing her hoof at th e corpse of a pony wearing a maid’s outfit. “This is a waymaid, or was a waymaid. It’s an NPC that would welcome new players as they enter the town of Eubby. Once the player’s are inside, these waymaids will go and offer them two choices on how to learn the basics of the game. The first choice was to directly download it to their minds, like you said earlier. While the second one is to have you go through a tutorial stage that involves a quick tour around town while also gaining some exp along the way.”

“Unfortunately, due to whatever this is...” She paused to wave at the chaotic environment that surrounded them. “You didn’t get to enjoy the full waymaid experience.”

Tomes continued to stare at the waymaid’s corpse. “A shame indeed. Even when zombified, this waymaid is still good-looking. Are they uniform in design or do they differ from one another?”

“Nah. They all look the same everywhere you go.”

“I can live with that.” Tomes trotted towards the part of the corn field where he dropped that ear of corn. He picked it up and showed it to Spooky. “I’m keeping this.”

“Cool.”

Tomes looked down at the corn and looked back at Spooky. “How do I put this in my inventory?”

“Oh. You just hold it and think about putting it in a bag or something, it’s that simple.”

Tomes gripped the piece of corn tightly in his hoof. He formed a thought in his mind about putting the ear in his virtual inventory. Not a second later, the corn disintegrated into a cluster of small, glowing existence cubes and flew directly into the stallion’s chest.

Tomes gestured to Spooky. “Shall we?”

As the two entered the town’s southern gate, they were welcomed by a sudden body falling in front of them. It made a squishy thudding sound as it fell on the corpses that were already lying on the ground. The adventurers stared in horror at the horrific sight in front of them.

Tomes inspected who it was before the character turned into a series of existence cubes rapidly fading in the wind. She’s a level one warrior named ‘Swift22.’ And judging from the weapon the mare was wielding, she was a warrior. While Tomes continued to nervously stare at the disappearing avatar, Spooky quickly spied the surrounding area for the one that caused the player’s demise.

Spooky quickly pulled her swords with her wings, their blades instantly ignited as she pressed the handles’ buttons. She was expecting to fight another zombie, but she was dead wrong. Standing before her was another player character, a level one warrior named ‘2hongs.’ He looked weary and beaten up. His health bar looked like it was just one hit away from zeroing out. His mana isn’t faring well either. More than half of it was already spent casting skills, or skill.

And instead of equipping the sword in his wings, this stallion was wielding it using his unicorn magic. That’s one way to tell if the pony playing behind the character was a unicorn or a pegasus, from the way they wield their weapons. Like her, a pegasus would usually equip their swords in their wings since its one if not the most flexible appendage in their body while unicorns as with any object they’d come across, carry it with their magic.

Before 2hongs decided to swing his sword at Spooky, he abruptly stopped. He took a quick glance at his opponent. Just from the way she looked he can already tell that she’s no novice. And if the full metal suit of armor doesn’t give it away, her level that was located beside her health and mana bars stated that she’s at level twenty-five. To be put simply, this character’s twenty-five times stronger than him.

And not to mention that she has an ally, although this mage was only level three, he can’t deny the fact that currently they outnumber and overpower him. Killing another newbie is one thing, but killing these two? It’s on a whole other level.

So instead of facing these two like some bloodthirsty mad stallion, he picked the more rational choice and ran away from them. But before he could get a good distance between him and the newcomers, he was suddenly hacked to death by another player. And before his murderer could get away, he was ganged up by a crowd of novices and was beaten to death. And once their foe was defeated, this crowd turned against each other, leaving a single novice that’s on the brink of death. And the single survivor was nabbed by a rampant zombie, killing her instantly.

Spooky sheathed her swords back to her body, its blades sizzled as it touched her armoured barrel. She couldn’t believe what she had just seen. Players killing players, not minding all the karma they lost. And the remaining survivors were getting picked off one by one by the rampaging undead.

And not to mention the current state the town was in. The town was in shambles. Every building she laid her eyes on was ablaze. The structures from afar created a bleak image of a burning silhouette that looked like towering charcoals slowly turning into embers. She can barely see the sky in the town due to the huge of amount of smoke coming from the scorched structures. It was also accompanied by a dense bunch of existence cubes rapidly floating above due to the mass killings happening in the ground.

Spooky’s ears were filled with all kinds of screams. Some of them were from fear, others sounded like whimpering misery, but what troubled her most was the screams that sounded like delighted madness. Most of those screams came from the ones who thoroughly enjoyed this abysmal scenario. They were the ones who embraced the anarchy happening in town with open hooves. The ones who mindlessly slaughter every player they found, the ones who burned the buildings to the ground, and then loot whatever’s left of that scorched place.

“Holy Celestia. This place is a mess.” Tomes said, speaking Spooky’s mind. “It’s like Tartarus came on Equis.”

Spooky snickered. “Came on Equis. In all seriousness though, this is pretty bad. I can only imagine what’s going on in other places that are bigger than Eubby.”

“It gets much worse, I guess. If a town as small as this is capable of such carnage, then bigger locations would do more...a heck of a lot more.”

“This was supposed to be a no kill zone. There shouldn’t be killings happening in here. This is supposed to be a safe haven for beginners to gather around and g-”

Spooky watched another player gets killed in front of her. She cringed under her helmet.

“What has this game world come to?”

Tomes looked at Spooky who was shaking her head disapprovingly at the murder fest happening in front of them. “Didn’t you say we’d find some answers here? How are we going to find anything with all this chaos running around?”

“I do not know.” She replied. But before she could continue, Spooky spotted something unusual from afar. It was a coffee shop, an undamaged coffee shop. On a normal basis, this sight would be pretty mundane. But given the current circumstances, the building stuck out like a sore thumb.

Upon further inspection, Spooky saw three ponies idly sitting on one of the shop’s coffee tables. All three of them were wearing from what Spooky can tell, were Cerberean armor sets. These suits of armor can only be worn by players who have reached the level of forty or above.

The armor features a dark, triple horned helmet, as if comparing itself to the three-headed mythical hound. Every metal plate covering the body was pronounced, especially the pauldrons, making its wearer appear bulkier than normal. Its shoulders, chest and legs were encrusted with brightly colored gems. And the gems’ colors differ depending on what element the character’s using, and so is the armor’s paint job. (The ones that were sitting on the table were wearing blue, red, and green painted armor.) And to finalize the look, a thick looking cape that reached down the hind legs perched heavily on its wearer’s shoulders.

The name of the red one was ‘10thBBox,’ while the blue one was named ‘XxDEXMACHINAXx,’ and the green one ‘Hejira101.’ Their levels were 45, 43, and 42 respectively. Below the red mage’s name was another name that said ‘Us Heirs.’ And beside it was the word ‘Leader’ written inside a parenthesis. The other two members had the name as well, minus the ‘Leader’ part that is.

Standing near them was a fiery being in a jet black, metallic cuirass. Whenever a zombie would charge at the resting group, this burning entity would incinerate it to ashes.

The experience points would then be earned by 10thBBox, who was holding up a staff that looked like molten magma shaped into a long rod with his wing, raising it up and summoning another flaming creature in jet black armor. Spooky eyed the fire type mage and trotted closer towards him.

“Maybe I do.” She said to Tomes without ceasing her steps. “Quick, follow me.”

The red mage looked at the approaching ponies that were walking towards his group. He doesn’t know who the blue mage was but he knew the red warrior pretty well. As the burning entity was about to engage the approaching players, he ordered it to stand down and look the other way. He gave the two a short wave as if to acknowledge their presence.

“Well, well, well.” He began, looking at Spooky’s character. “If it isn’t 50shades Peed. Is this how you’re going to leave your quote unquote legacy in this game? By picking on low levs in Eubby?”

“As if I would do that you retardis!” Spooky shot back. “That same fucking question also applies to you. And it’d be a whole lot more pathetic, considering your high fucking level!”

Tomes was surprised at his friend’s sudden outburst. Did she just insult the leader of a clan that has members who were twice as strong as her? He gritted his teeth thinking of how this will turn out. So before things could get out of hoof, he immediately dragged the irritated Spooky away from the high level party.

Tomes placed both of his forelegs on Spooky’s shoulders.

“****, girl. What the **** are you doing?”

“Wait.” Tomes had to let go of Spooky to touch his lips with a hoof. He was horrified at what just happened. He doesn’t know why, but his curses were suddenly bleeped out when he spoke. He looked at Spooky, confusion and surprise etched on his face.

“What was that?”

Tomes could tell that Spooky rolled her eyes underneath her helmet. “Your profanity filter is on. Turn it off in your settings if you want to hear your curse words clearly.”

Tomes did as he was told. He swiped a hoof in the air, the game menu appeared. He pressed the gear icon on the menu and a small window popped out over the other, overlapping it. With his hoof, he scrolled down through all the different options in the window until he saw what he was looking for, the profanity filter. He pressed the switch beside it and its status was changed from ‘On’ to ‘Off.’ Once the game menu was closed, he placed his forelegs on Spooky’s shoulders again.

“Shit, girl! What the fuck are you doing?”

He removed his legs off the armoured mare, all the while giving out a sigh of relief and also wiping off an imaginary sweat on his forehead. “That’s better.”

He looked at Spooky like she had just grown another head. “That’s a fucking clan leader right there! Do you really want him and his gang too unleash Tartarus upon us?”

“Wait, that voice.” The red mage said, directing the Tomes and Spooky’s attention to him. “That voice sounds familiar. And the name too.” He leaned his head forward before proceeding.

“Tomes? Tomes is that you?”

Tomes narrowed his eyes. “Gloomy? Gloomy Shades?”

“Bruva?”

Bruva!

At the cost of everypony’s discomfort, specifically Spooky, The two mages exploded into a huge embrace. Like two friends who haven’t seen each other, they both shared the tightest bear hug they could muster. Their hug was so tight that existence cubes popped right out their bodies like disassembling puzzle pieces. Both of them lost one HP. After they had their fill their fill of brotherly compassion, they loosen their holds on each other and eventually let go.

“Whassup Bruh?” Gloomy greeted, his normal accent dissolving into a strange sounding one.

“Nevuh be uh Bruh!” Tomes replied, speaking in the same manner as Gloomy’s.

“Same, Bruh! You back in the game now, Bruh?”

“Nah, Bruh. Your sister just forced me into playing this.”

“Hey!” Spooky interjected. “I didn’t force you to play this game!”

Her words got her a knowing look from Tomes.

“What? I’m just a great convincer, that’s all. And will you please stop with the fabricated masculinity. You guys just looked like pathetic try hards...and also gay.”

The two mages just hoofbumped each other while snickering like idiots. From the way they looked, it seemed like making others uncomfortable, particularly Spooky, was their intention all along. And this made the mare angrier than ever.

And in order to avoid pissing off Spooky even further, Tomes ceased his snickering. And so did Gloomy. They cleared their throats, a gesture that they’re now getting serious.

“Oh and by the way, what are you doing here, Gloomy? On a beginner’s town, that is.”

“My boys and I were the exploring towns and cities in the Seventh Region to see if they too are experiencing the same pandemic.” He gestured to his two allies who were standing behind him and were silent during the whole exchange. The two gave Tomes and Spooky a short wave.

“And?”

“It’s everywhere, dude. Bakeland, Erricade, Axoun, they’re all under attack by an unknown undead army who seemed to have just sprouted out of thin air. But at least they were faring well against the zombie infestation, considering the large number of high levs spawning there.”

He paused to look at the chaotic sight which is Eubby Town. “Eubby on the other hoof, needed our help in dealing with these things so we eventually chose to stay.”

“You call sitting in front of a coffee shop helping?” Spooky retorted.

“We’re taking a short break! We’ve been fighting for almost an hour now!” Gloomy showed Spooky his staff. He opened a skill slot with his right hoof and pressed the image that resembled the walking suit of armor standing guard. Upon activating the spell, he pointed the staff on an empty area so that no character or object would impede his summoning.

Gloomy’s magma staff glowed red and launched a magical energy to the spot he was pointing his staff on. Existence cubes began materializing out of thin air and quickly formed themselves into the same jet black armor that the creature was wearing.

The insides of the armor started heating up. The gradual increase in temperature quickly lit the inside of the armor with a hot, yellow glow. Powerful streams of fire quickly surged out of the armor’s holes, like a rocket’s thrusters. The fires in the bottom hole continued its concentrated surging while the left and right holes took the form of a fiery arm. The fire stream in the head area slowed its burning into a dancing flame, it looked like a long orange mane getting blown in the wind.

“See that?” Gloomy said as he commanded the newly summoned creature to walk away from them. “I’m spawning five of those things around town to help the noobs who are constantly dying in this place!”

“Is that an elemental?” Tomes asked Gloomy, a strong hint of awe filled his voice. “Can water type mages summon it too?”

“Of course, Bro. Any mage can summon an elemental that’s based on their respective element. You’ll learn that spell at level ten, though.”

“Yeesh.” Tomes winced. He never thought a spell like that would take so long to learn. “That far, huh?”

“Yep. That far.”

“There are burning buildings everywhere and you kept on summoning fire elementals.” Spooky said in a conspiratorial manner. “Am I sensing a connection here?”

“Hey, don’t just assume shit out of nowhere.” Gloomy quickly defended. “We didn’t start the fire. It was always burning since the world’s been...” He paused to clear his throat. “Gone to shit. And speaking of shit, let me just summon another elemental to clean it up.”

Gloomy swiped his hoof in the air again to open up his skill slot. He pressed the elemental spell again, only to find out that he can’t make a new one anymore.

“Huh, would you look at that.”

“What? What is it?”Tomes stood behind Gloomy to look at his skill slots. Above the fire elemental icon were the words ‘Maximum Limit Reached.’

“I just reached my summoning limit of five.” Gloomy turned to look at Tomes. “I can’t summon elementals anymore. If I can’t summon them anymore, that means they’re no longer dying. If they’re no longer dying, that means no one is attacking them anymore. If no one is attacking them anymore, that means-”

“Oh for the love of...” Spooky growled. “Just get to the point already!”

“There are no more zombies attacking my elementals! Not anymore!” Gloomy cried back. But in his haste to reply his voice made a cracking whispery sound. “There, happy!? Kids today, no respect for foreplay.” He sighed.

“Turd.”

“I’m sorry, what was that?” Gloomy leaned in closer to Spooky as he spoke. He placed a hoof at the tip of his ear to further emphasize the fact that he didn’t hear Spooky’s insult.

“Can you speak up? I can’t hear you. Your voice is as low as your level.”

Tomes would like to react to the burn that Gloomy has laid on his sister. But something strange was happening to the town. The fire has suddenly died down, the buildings built themselves back up, and the NPCs were revived and then reverted back to their normal selves.

“Umm, guys?” He called out to the Spooky, Gloomy, and the gang. They seemed to ignore him as their attention was focused on the two siblings who were at the brink of starting a fight.

“Why don’t we head down to Axoun for a quick match? I’ll show you what this low level can do.” Spooky dared.

Gloomy scoffed at the thought. “Girl, I’d wipe you.”

“Tough talk coming from somepony who always hides behind his allies during combat, why don’t you ditch your warrior and archer friends and let’s just settle things between the two of us. Just one on one style, classic stuff.”

“Guys.”

“First of all, I’m a mage. That’s what mages do. We’re a support a class. Our role in combat is to rain down all kinds of spells on our opponents while you, the warrior, must protect us from getting attacked. And secondly, I am not a coward. I can handle myself in a fight. I am not a pony who would hide behind my friends just because I’m afraid to get my HP scraped. I’m just playing the way my character’s supposed to be played.”

Spooky grinned underneath her helmet. “So how about it, turd? One round should be enough.”

“Guys.”

“As you wish. Just don’t beg me for a rematch once you’ve lost...horribly.”

“Ooh, dramatic pauses. I’m so intimidated right now. Hey check this out, I can do it too. You are...a turd.”

“Guys!”

“Not now Tomes, the adults are talking.”

Tomes raised his wings halfway upwards, as if he’s surrendering. “Oh sure, fine, chat away. While the town here is miraculously rebuilding itself, I’ll just stand over there wondering why. But don’t let me stop you from your spit fight. Please, banter more.”

“What?” The siblings cried out in unison. All attention was now on Tomes, and the peculiar sight behind him.

The skies that once glowed crimson, as if the heaven has bled red was now back to its clear and calming blue state. The buildings that earlier looked like giant piles of ash and burnt charcoal has now returned to their rustic forms, quietly standing over the town, casting cool shades for its citizens to shield themselves from the hot sun. The citizens, who before were rabid bloodthirsty zombies who thought of nothing but finding their next victim has now changed back to their hospitable looking selves, as if nothing bad has ever happened to them.

Before anything of these could absorb into their minds, the group found themselves slowly disintegrating into existence cubes. The feeling felt eerie, kind of numbing to be honest, Tomes recognized this strange sensation. He felt this before, when he was about to enter the gate that lead to the World of Alluna. A sudden thought struck him. He’s going to be teleported, again.

“Ah shit.”

Once all their virtual bodies have been completely disintegrated into glowing cubes, these cubes compressed themselves into a surging beam of light and were shot into the sky. Upon reaching the clouds, the beams curved themselves downwards, aiming directly at the town square. Dozens and dozens of beams flew towards the square at the same time. When there’s only meters left before they came in contact with solid ground, the beams once more turned into existence cubes and these cubes compressed themselves again to resemble the players’ virtual forms.

Those who already knew how the game’s teleportation system works, mainly Spooky, Gloomy, and the rest of the high levels, stuck their hooves up into the ground, landing safely, unfortunately for those who don’t, like Tomes, landed with their faces upon hitting the ground.

“Ow.” Tomes caressed the bruised part of his face with a hoof. It’s a good thing that pain was quickly fading. Although he did wonder if it’s possible to turn the pain receptors off in the game’s settings. Tomes stood back up and dusted himself off. He knew that it’s impossible to get dust on your clothing in this game but old habits die hard. He turned to look around to see crowds of novices standing with him in the town square. All of them were looking upwards in the same direction, muttering indistinctly about some kind of mysterious hooded figure? He doesn’t know, so he just followed the direction on where they’re looking at and there it was.

It’s a large image of somepony projecting themselves on the sky. It’s wearing a polished black suit armor covered in purple robes. The robes were trimmed with golden sashes, giving its appearance a somehow sacred look. The helmet it was wearing looked like a gas mask crafted from the future. Its eye holes were covered in dark tinted glass that made its face look more lifeless than it already was.

Tomes had to swallow hard at the image projected in front of him. It’s not scary, but it is indeed creepy. It somehow emitted an aura that it’s not somepony you should be messing with. But what can you do if this pony was the one messing with you? This whole experience was making Tomes uneasy. And to make matters worse, the pony spoke.

“Took you long enough.” Everypony went silent after hearing the pony speak. His voice was deep, and cold. His looks were already creepy enough, the voice just added fuel to the fire. “And that was just a taste, a taste of Death. And more of it will come. Twenty-four hours. Twenty-four hours till the next...and the last. Prepare yourselves, or not. You’ll still perish either way.”

And with that, the projection faded into the wind. Bit by bit, the unsettling image of the dark figure was slowly replaced with bright blue skies. The once quiet crowd of players who were all ears to what the figure was saying just seconds ago erupted into incomprehensible chatter.

Tomes saw Spooky nervously fiddling at the small windows of her game menu like she was desperately looking for something. “Is something wrong?” He asked her.

“I’m trying to find the logout button. I have a feeling that this game may be hacked and I’ve watched plenty of shows about VRMMOs getting hacked and the first thing these hackers will do is to remove the lo-yeah nope, still there. Okay, I’m good.”

Author's Note

I made a rough character guide for this story.

https://www.deviantart.com/slockins101/art/Story-Art-767391095?ga_submit_new=10%3A1538977192

God, I never thought I'd put so much effort into something no one would read...

Mission Pantying

Tomes looked at the crowd of players before him. All of them were busy talking to one another about the sudden and overwhelming event that has been laid before them just now. Although the chattering was mostly indistinct, he can pick up a few lines here and there. And some of them he can’t help but smile at the absurdity of it.

“What is this ****?”
“Ah great, just great. This is my third time getting out of character creation and this ************* **** happened! My Friday night, IS RUINED!”

“Who’s that guy anyway?”
“I believe he’s called shut the **** up.”

"That’s a dictator. That’s a dictator you guys!"
"That’s not a dictator you dumb ****."

“What the, I can’t fast travel. Yo, check out yours to see if it’s working.”
"Same here, is it broken or something?"
"What a ****** way to start the game."

“I’m gonna start a P. Butthole cult here.”

“I heard that you can romance all the NPCs in this game.”
“Even the children?”
“Dude, that’s ****** up.”

“So I was like, ‘hey, give me a copy of the full season.’ And he was like, ‘sure, no prob.’ And yeah, so a day later, we both meet up and he was like, ‘hey, here’s the full season.’ And of course I was like, ‘cool, thanks bro.’ And I hurried home. So I headed straight to my room right? And then I plugged the drive into my pc and played the first episode. I was wondering why it’s only eight minutes long. That was the time when I realized…the ************ gave me the abridged version!”

“Can you guys shut up for a sec!? I’m getting deaf with all these bleeps!”
“************* **** **** ***** *****!”
“********* ****!”
“**** **** ***** *****!”
“Aagh!!!”

“Hey guys, check this out.” Gloomy’s voice pulled Tomes’ attention away from the crowd and back to the group.

“I was contacting a buddy of mine in another zone who knows a dude who knows a dude that knows a dude that’s also a moderator in this game, and I asked them this: Is this game hacked or is this just another event? And after a chain of long and excruciating message relays…”
Tomes, Spooky, and the others leaned close to hear what Gloomy was going to say next.

“The answer is yes!” Excluding Gloomy, all their heads tilted sideways in comical unison.

“What do you mean ‘Yes?’” Tomes asked.

“It’s a hack and an event at the same time. Bulwark itself does not even know what caused it. They’re currently investigating the matter by the way. We might get some real answers tomorrow, maybe.” Gloomy snickered. “It’s so fucking surreal.”

Their attention was directed back to the crowd when the chatters were starting to get loud. From a somewhat normal conversation discussing about the mysterious figure and the threat he’ll bring, the chattering quickly descended into a fiery word war of players cursing at each other.

Since most if not all of them had their profanity filters on, all that can be heard in the town square was a loud endless stream of bleeping sounds. The censor tune concealing the curse words did not even hinder the players from lashing out and so they bleeped away as much as they can to anypony that they could.

This brutal exchange of words was only moments away from starting another death match like the one that happened several minutes ago.

“Oh shit.” Gloomy said as he watched the players traded hot spit to one another. “Another serving of chaos is brewing.” He looked at his team before continuing. “Imma get into character and break this up before it begins.”

He trotted towards the square’s fountain, metallic boots clinked with every step on the concrete ground. As he passed by the players, some ceased their pointless quarrelling to gawk at Gloomy’s character. But the majority of the crowd ignored the bulky looking high level in Dark Cerberean armor as he trotted past them.

Upon arriving at the fountain’s pool, Gloomy stepped himself up on the on one of the dikes that prevented the water from spilling out to the ground. Even if he’s a now bit a taller than everypony else and it’s very likely that they can all see him now, they still ignored him.

With his right wing, Gloomy raised his staff up, the searing magma covered tip aimed straightly at the sky. He opened up a skill slot with his right hoof and scrolled upwards until he can see his first batch of skills, the one a player can complete upon reaching level eight.

He pressed the third skill in the slot which was named ‘Soul Scorcher.’ The image in the icon looked like a charred silhouette of a screaming pony in a hellish background. After activating the spell, blue digits came out from his body while sensing a familiar surge of power flow in his right wing and into his staff.

The energy itself was fired out of the end of the rod and took the form of a blazing stream of fire quickly rocketing itself upwards in the sky. It exploded several meters above its caster, creating a thin sheet flames above the square. It was then followed by a series of explosions that’s similar to a fireworks display but several times faster and only uses a single spectrum of color, fiery orange.

Everypony went silent as the spell was casted. All eyes were now focused on the spectacle above that lasted for over half a minute. Nothing but thundering sounds filled the town square for a long while, and everypony was completely enamored by Gloomy’s spell. Once the explosions slowly faded into silence, all ponies looked towards the fountain, to the pony in black, wielding a magma rod. Gloomy sighed, he finally has their attention.

“Alright everypony, listen up!” He cried out, raising his voice so that everypony could hear what he’s saying. “We all know the situation is pretty shitty right now, but I have a plan to deal with this. It might not be perfect, but it will guarantee to get everyone of you stronger fast and your survival at the end. All I need is your full cooperation and willingness to follow orders.”

Gloomy could see in the front that some of the player’s raised a brow at his last line, specifically the part about following orders. He’s got to do something about this.

“And don’t worry about getting exploited.” He quickly assured them. “I am not that kind of pony. All I want is to get through this hurdle and see to it that others do it too. And afterwards, I will ask nothing of you, because you’re not indebted to me. I can tell that you guys want nothing from me and just want to waddle with this by yourselves. But there are times when us gamers must unite in order to achieve a single goal. And this is one of those times. We might begin as shattered pieces, but we’ll get out of this a newly formed newly formed single working unit, capable of dealing any problem that comes our way.”

Gloomy paused, looking at the crowd from left to right.

“For those who wants to join my cause, please raise a hoof.”

Everypony was silent. They just stood there, looking at Gloomy. Although it’s not the outcome he preferred, he’s expected something like this to happen.

“Also you’ll have fun.” He flatly stated.

A single glimmering hoof was raised in the crowd. It was then followed by another, and another, and dozens have followed on. Soon everypony was raising their hooves. A hopeful look was etched on their faces. Gloomy’s warrior ally, XxDEXMACHINAXx whistled a somber tone that may or may not reference a movie while raising a hoof only to be hit by Hejira101 on his sides with her elbow.

Gloomy straightened himself up. For a few seconds after the hoof raising, he was quiet, speechless even. He didn’t expect he’d get such a positive review on his speech. The speech was pretty dumb. He thought. But who’d deny an offer from somepony whose level is forty times higher than theirs? And not to mention the fine looking armor to match. He raised a hoof in reply, and raised it back down. The crowd soon followed Gloomy’s actions.

“Okay guys, before we talk about the plan, I want you to open the Chat:POT in your game menu. It’s a small icon that looked like a smiling pot.”

Tomes was still standing in the same spot when Gloomy left for the fountain a moment ago. He was surprised that not one pony here didn’t resist his offer. But what surprised him more was Spooky’s hasty raising of her hoof. Despite the hostilities, she really does care for her brother.

Tomes looked at Spooky, his face confused. “Pot?”

“It’s an acronym for ‘Party Only Talk.’” Spooky replied, eyes still focused to the speaker on the fountain.

“After you opened it, please select the room named ‘Us Heirs.’ That’s where I’ll brief you all about the plan.” Gloomy called out. “That way, you can hear me talk without screaming all the time.”

Tomes followed Gloomy’s advice. He swiped a hoof into the air to open up his game menu. He pressed an icon of a pot with a large smile at the center. Another window overlapped the menu with the large words ‘Chat Rooms’ on its upper side. The list of rooms was empty save for the one that Gloomy recommended, the ‘Us Heirs’ room.

After pressing said room, the window changed its name from ‘Chat Rooms’ to ‘Us Heirs.’ In the small black box, Tomes could see a growing list of all players who have joined the pot, the ‘add member’ and ‘leave party’ buttons, and also the volume icon. Tomes fiddled with the volume for a bit and found out that it’s just a normal volume option, one can set on how loud the room will be or mute it out just in case the ponies inside started to get annoying.

“Just a quick tip you guys.” Tomes almost flinched when he heard that. Gloomy’s voice was loud. It’s like listening to music with headphones on. Tomes pressed on the volume icon and dragged the sounds down to a lower level to avoid any surprises like that in the future. After setting his preferences on the chat room’s loudness, he looked back to Gloomy standing on the fountain.

“If you don’t want your curses censored, you can just switch it off in your settings.”

The rest of the crowd proceeded to open up their settings and turned off their filters. Tomes didn’t have to do any of that, he already adjusted his a while ago. He continued to look at Gloomy as he chatted with his teammates while the others were still focused on their settings. He’s so far away and yet his voice sounded like his mouth was pressed against Tomes’ ears. It felt weird. It’ll take a lot of time for him to get used to this.

Now that everypony had turned their filters off, they’re now eager to test it out in the chat room. Once more, the town square erupted into a slurred noise of players cursing freely in the chat room. And again, Tomes can’t help but pick out some of the ‘creative’ curses that pop out here and there that the players devised.

“Asshole fister.”

“Motherfucking cunt pisser.”

“Clitoris massacre.”

“Free DLC.”

“Golden anal shower in dog.”

“Pungent granny pussy stench.”

“Ookay guys, that’s enough.” Gloomy called out, halting the crowd’s filthy barrage of words in the room. “Before I begin with the briefing, I need to do a headcount first in order to determine how many players we’re gonna assign in each gate. Uh, it’s the current size divided by four, I guess.”Gloomy turned to look at Hejira101. “Hej, I want you to do the math once we get the results.”

The archer in green nodded.

“Okay, so let’s start with my team here so that already makes three.” Gloomy looked at the player in the farthest left end of the front line. “You there, you begin as number four.” He looked at the pony beside the player and said. “And you’re number five and so on and so forth. Now sound off!”

The head count started out slow but Gloomy sped it while gesturing a hoof in a rolling action. He counted along with the ponies while pointing his hoof at the one who’s going to shout next. This thing of his happened again and again until they’ve reached the final number of a hundred and forty-four.

“One forty-four?” Gloomy addressed to everypony, an apparent tone of surprise lingered in his voice. “There’s like a thousand players running around town a while ago. Now that’s one hell of a bloodbath, dude. But still, those players should be coming back, right?”

Somepony shouted in the crowd. “Then why aren’t they?”

“Ragequit.” Hejira firmly replied.

“Okay.”Gloomy said, looking down on the ground while rubbing the metallic back of his head with a hoof. “We can do this, we can do this…I hope.” His head sprung right back up. His body took a straightened form once more. “Now let’s do a headcount on how many warriors we have. We’ll do the same thing next with the mages, and then with the archers. All warriors, raise a hoof!”

All the ponies with the warrior class did exactly as they’re ordered. They raised their hooves up into the air while Hejira silently counted each and one of them. Once the archer was done counting, Gloomy commanded the warriors to lower their hooves and opted the mages to do the same. This also happened with archers until Gloomy ordered them to put their hooves down once Hejira was done counting.

“Okay everypony, here’s the result of the counting: we have eighty warriors, thirty-nine mages, and twenty-five archers.” He turned again to look at Hejira. “Hej, do the uh…thing.”

The archer was quick at the draw, replying not a second later after Gloomy finished speaking. “There should be twenty warriors per gate, six archers in three gates, seven in one. And as for the mages, three gates get to have ten while one gate will just have to settle with nine. It’d be preferable to have seven archers pair up with the nine mages just to preserve a semblance of balance in the defense.”

“You hear that guys?” Gloomy said. “That’s the problem with odd numbers, they’re too odd when it comes to stuff like this. You either have to go asymmetrical or chop one of your buddies evenly just to keep things balanced.” This got a soft giggle out of the crowd, even Spooky who was now failing to hide her giggles from Tomes.

“Okay. We’re gonna do another headcount again. But this time, it’s about subclasses. We’ll do a count on the ones that I think will be essential in executing my plan. So let’s tally down how many…” Gloomy scratched his metallic chin while looking up. He hummed as he quickly gathered the thoughts in his mind.

“Healers…” He looked back down before continuing. “Builders, cooks, artists, pharmacists, blacksmiths, and merchants we have here. Okay everypony, raise a hoof if I mentioned your subclass.”

One by one, Gloomy called out a subclass and a hoofful of ponies in the crowd would raise their hooves. He started calling out all the builders, then the cooks, the artists, and ended the call with the merchants. Sometimes a large group of ponies would share a single subclass. And sometimes, only one player would represent that class.

After the counting was over, Gloomy announced their findings.

“Okay, so we have eleven builders, seventeen cooks,” Gloomy turned to look at DEXMACHINA. “That’s too many cooks for you to handle Dex. Three artists, including me, nine merchants,” He paused to look at Hejira. “Not a bad amount, amirite. Hej? And thirty healers, a very, very good amount, if I do say so myself, five blacksmiths, and one pharmacist.” Gloomy took at a look at the crowd, particularly in the vicinity where the only pharmacist in the group was standing.

“Are you really sure you’re the only pharmer here, Galop?” Gloomy asked, staring directly at the player named Infernalgalop.

“Eh.” Galop replied. “I don’t blame them for not picking this class. Hell, I only chose this one because it resembles my job in the real world.”

“And that’s one too many personal information coming out from you, Galop.” Gloomy retorted quickly. “Oh, and for the players who didn’t get their subclasses mentioned earlier, please save your questions until the end of this briefing because I have a perfectly valid reason that you may or may not agree with. Moving on.”

“And now for the main course.” Everypony in the square sprung up from their idling poses, as if they were zapped in the flanks by lightning. Their faces of boredom that looked petrified several count offs ago shattered within seconds and was replaced with a look of alertness and interest.
“Let’s talk plans, fellas. Battle plans.”

Gloomy cleared his throat before starting. “So the first thing on the list is to have you guys learn Recall in the local guild. That skill is a must have when it comes to situations like this one. The next thing to do will be to raise your characters up to level ten before midnight. And once you’ve reached ten, you are now entitled to wield Eubby’s Defender Armor. But you’ll have to craft it in the town forge first. I’ll just tell you where to get the crafting materials later once we’ve began questing. Crafting the full set takes time, usually several minutes to an hour, I guess?”

Gloomy looked at the spots to where the players with the blacksmith subclass were presumably standing.

“And that’s where the blacksmiths come in. If one blacksmith would help the NPCs craft the set at the forge, the time for its completion would be reduced by one whole minute.”

The players in the crowd don’t seem to be impressed at the new info they’ve learned. The look on their faces was evident to that. Gloomy anticipated that something like this would happen, he grinned inside his black metal helmet.

“You think that won’t make any difference? His voice suddenly sounded smug, as if he was declaring to everypony subtly that he had read their minds. “Well, think again! Let’s see, uh, I’m gonna use a metaphor here. Think of a single blacksmith as a piece of stick. A single piece of stick is brittle, and weak. But if it is joined with a couple of sticks and then tied into a bundle, it will turn into a broom. And I think nopony’s gonna disagree with me that brooms are tough things to break. So to put it simply, a single blacksmith could hardly make a difference, but a group of blacksmiths? Now you’re gonna see some changes.”

Gloomy geared up for another one of his dramatic pauses.

“Big changes.”
He then turned to look at Hejira. “So uh, Hej. How many blacksmiths do we
have again?”

“Five.”

“Moving on!”
“Once we’re done with the armor, we’re gonna have to set the town on high alert next. Which means that you won’t see NPCs wandering around anymore as they will be busy hiding inside their homes. But militias will be on patrol though. And barricades are gonna be set up in every street in town. And the turrets, they’re gonna be operational.”

Some ears in the crowd suddenly perked up when they heard about the turrets, amongst those ears belonged to Tomes.

“And no, you cannot operate the turrets.” Gloomy quickly added, killing all the curious players’ hope of using whatever weapon the town’s turrets have in store. “Only the NPCs, namely the militia are allowed in there. But players can roam around the walls. In which I strongly recommend archers to do that, especially during the battle.”

“Okay so uh, what’s next, what’s next…” Gloomy tapped his chin while saying so. “Oh. We’re gonna have the builders dig up moats outside the town. Well, they’re not moats exactly as we’re not gonna fill them up with water. But instead we’re gonna put sharpened bamboo poles inside to impale any stupid undead that trips and falls there. And as for the poles, there’s a bamboo forest just south west of Eubby. And don’t worry about dragging those tall, heavy things with you back to town, you can just put them inside your inventory and trot happily away. You won’t feel a single weight, trust me. Okay, so the next thing to do is that the cooks…wait. How many cooks do we have again? Hej?”

“Seventeen.”

“That’s a good number, a really good one. So what I’m gonna have you do is to go to every food producing establishment around town and serve our defense party with a buffet’s worth of food.”

Gloomy pointed a hoof at DEXMACHINA. “Dex here will teach you how to properly use your subclass’s abilities since he’s a cook himself, and a damn good one at that. And while the others are busy doing their stuff, we, the artists, yeah, all three of us are going to paint propaganda posters and you know, stick them in every wall we find in town, specifically that great big one that surrounds it. We might also have to post these things within the town’s interior as well, in case the zombies pushes us back inwards, although I hope that’s not going to happen.”

Gloomy shrugged. “But just in case, just in case. Then at least we’ve come prepared. And one more thing, guys. I want you to stock up as many potions as you can before the battle begins. Also, check out this item called ‘tent’ in the market.”

He opened his inventory to spawn an item from his consumables window. After pressing the item named ‘tent’ in the list, a bunch of existence cubes materialized in front of him, quickly turning into a long cylindrical green bag. Gloomy reached out a hoof underneath the rapidly forming cubes to catch it as it took form. He then raised the bag up to fully show it to the crowd.

“See this? This is the tent I was talking to you about. It’s a nifty little thing that fully restores a party’s HP and MP once used. And by party, I mean only five ponies per usage. But considering that each one costs about five hundred bits, we’re gonna need the merchants’ help for these kind of purchases.”

Gloomy looked at Hejira again. “Hey Hej, you gonna take this one?”

“Why?” Hejira’s voice was firm and cold.

“Because you know, this is your subclass and al-uh, you know what? I’ll just do the talking here. Okay, so where was I? Ah yes. In case some of you guys don’t know, the merchants have a skill called ‘Haggle’ which they can convince a vendor NPC to reduce the prices of their products by a couple bits off the initial price. Just think of it as a discount coupon turned skill. Now that we’ve set that up, what I want you guys to do is to give your potion money to these merchants so that they’ll buy the items for you at a lower price.”

“Hej here,” Gloomy pointed a hoof at Hejira. “Will supervise this ‘mercantalist’ activity to avoid any merchant ripping off other players. Let me just remind you guys that we need every player here well supplied with potions and other consumables to survive the upcoming onslaught. And also, in game currency is useless if you die at the end anyway.”

“And lastly.” Gloomy looked at Galop again. “I want the pharmacists,” He paused to clear his throat. “...pharmacist to whip us up some stat boosting pills to aid us in battle. I know it won’t be much since we only have a single pharmer here at the moment. But still, one’s better than having nothing at all and we need every bit of help we can get. And to the players whose subclass was not mentioned during the briefing, I want you guys to be the ones who’ll harvest the bamboo for the moats and also to distribute the propaganda posters around town.”

Gloomy tilted his head and looked at the distance, thinking if he had anymore to add in this briefing. A hoof lightly touched his lip while doing so. He let out a pondering hum.

“That’s pretty much it, I guess.” He broke away from his thinking stance and looked back to the crowd of players standing in wait. “Time for the question and answer session? I, uh, what I mean is...it’s time for the question and answer session. For those who have one, just raise a hoof.”

A single tanned hoof rose itself up from the sea of players. Gloomy recognized it to be Tomes.’ “Ah, Tome_Raider76,” He addressed Tomes in his username, for obvious privacy reasons. “What’s your question?”

“So uh, BBox,” Tomes responded in kind. “What about us healers? You didn’t mention the things we need to do despite our subclasses being mentioned in the list.”

“I thought it was self-explanatory considering your subclass is one that simply heals. Okay, to make it clear, what I want you guys to do is to heal your allies whenever you can as often as possible. You see, the upgrade system for your subclass focuses on the number of players you heal. Currently, you can only restore five HP per cast. But if you heal more players, its healing rate is gonna get higher. I think it adds a single HP every one hundred players healed.”

“One hundred?” Tomes whined. “That’ll take forever.”

“Well. Better start healing then.” Gloomy looked back to the crowd. “Anymore questions?” Another hoof raised itself at the far end of the group. It belonged to a player named ‘Conio_Apretado.’

“You there! Uh, Conio. Conio_Apretado? What’s that supposed to mean? It sounds foreign, like foreign food.”

“Oh it’s food alright.” Conio softly quipped, an apparent tone of mischief in his voice.

“Okay, so what’s your question?”

“What about the other subclasses?” Conio’s question roused up a few murmurs in the masses. Gloomy assumed those belonged to the ponies whose subclass was not mentioned in the briefing. “You said you have a valid reason for not making use of it. Mine’s a botanist and I want to know why my subclass is not useful in this situation. Not that I’m complaining for not having any work, just curious is all.”

“Well Conio,” Gloomy paused to gather his thoughts once more. He knew this question was coming and already planned the answers ahead of time. He just hoped that they will be satisfied with his replies. “And to you other players whose subclass I didn’t find useful at a time like this, how about this instead? You tell me what your subclass is and I’ll reply with a very brief explanation regarding the fact that they won’t be useful here.”

The players muttered in agreement. “Okay, good. To those whose subclass was not mentioned, please raise your hoof and I’ll answer you one by one. Once I’m done with you, you can now put down your hooves. And to those who shared the same subclass with whom I recently answered, you can put your hooves down as well. Okay. So let’s begin!”

Gloomy pointed a hoof at a mage stallion in a green cloak. “Natt9! What’s your subclass?” The mage told Gloomy what his was and the high level mage gave a quick and concise reason on why his subclass as a miner will not be useful in this event or zone due to the lack of ores and gems in the zone they were in. But Gloomy offered him a place amongst the builders in digging up the moat outside the town. Although, he’ll resort to using his subclass’ tool which is a pickaxe instead of the standard shovel a builder class player uses.

After Gloomy was done with Natt9, there were a dozen hooves in the crowd who put themselves down. Those ponies probably have the same subclass as Natt9’s, he thought. He picked another player with an unmentioned subclass and gave them a brief answer on how they’re not going to be used this time. This cycle of asking and answering has dragged on for several minutes, much to everypony’s dismay.

The subclasses that Gloomy answered to included a botanist, pathfinder, scholar, tamer, bartender, librarian, gambler, camper, and diver, and what’s worse was that these subclasses were already proven unusable even at first glance when it comes to a situation such as this. But these players didn’t think about it and just mindlessly asked Gloomy about it. Fortunately, Gloomy was patient enough to answer all of their questions, no matter how pointless that may be.

Gloomy scanned the sea of players from end to end. He was certain that the diver subclass was the last one but it doesn’t hurt to double-check.

“That’s it? That’s the last one?” He asked everypony. Even though their chattering was indistinct, Gloomy could make out that their answer was a yes. And with that he was relieved. He gave out a sigh and wiped his black metallic head to show them how he felt.

“Good, good. Let’s proceed with the actual questions then.”

One pony in the front row raised his hoof. It’s a player named ‘Puncakes18.’ Given that what he’s wearing was an orange turtle neck layered above with a red vest, one can assume that he’s a fire type warrior, the most common combination in the game.

“Yes Puncakes18, what’s your question?”

“Can we have sex in this game?” The pony said in between snickers. With the shrill tone of his voice, Gloomy thought it was safe to assume that he was talking to a child right now. And with a couple other ponies snickering in the chat room, he felt like he’s become the butt of the joke here. Gloomy laughed along with it, not because it’s funny, but because he knew what his next reply will be.

“Sure. Lie down and I’ll show you.” He replied smugly. The laughter in the room just got louder. “But seriously though.” Gloomy said while waiting for crowd’s mirth to die down. Once the room was silent again, he continued. “You can ask me anything, as long as it’s related to the plan.”

Another player raised her hoof. This time it was from an earth type mage named ‘SkydamKrieger.’ Gloomy gestured for her to speak.

“Does your fast travel button work?”

Gloomy’s ears perked up underneath his helmet. The question piqued his interest. He looked back to his two allies, who immediately opened up their game menus. He quickly followed suit and opened his as well.

“Huh, that’s strange.” He said while constantly pressing to a location that’s within another zone. Usually by now, he’d teleport to that particular area. But he didn’t. All he got was an empty beeping sound that plays when the travel button was pressed. But other than that, it does nothing. Could this be a bug? Or is this a part of the hack slash event? He doesn’t know. The only thing that he’s sure of was that he’s stuck in this place for the time being.

Gloomy looked back to his allies again. “Anypony else experiencing this?” Dex and Hejira nodded in unison. Gloomy faced the crowd once more. “How about you guys?” Every player in the town square has now opened their game menus. They all looked back to Gloomy. Their answer was unanimous, a resounding yes.

“I get the feeling that they’re trapping us in this zone.” Gloomy announced. “I may need somepony to scout the zone’s exit to get more info later. Looks like we may need to use that pathfinder class afterall, Crisp.”

Crisprat, the player who asked Gloomy about his pathfinder subclass before grinned happily.

Gloomy decided to move back in to the question and answer session. “Alright, anymore questions?” Another pony raised a hoof. “Euranas, what is it you want answered?”

“What’s a recall?”

Gloomy facehoofed himself. A light clanking sound was made as metal hit metal. “Oh shit, I forgot. You’re new here. I definitely should have expanded on this. Okay, uh...recall is the ability to teleport a dying player to a nearby inn until they recover. It’s the best and only way to counter the permadeath in this game and it can be learned at any level.”

Another pony raised a hoof. “Discordfan669, nice name.” Gloomy’s compliment sounded obviously sarcastic. “What’s your question?”

“What’s up with propaganda posters? Are they supposed to emotionally inspire the players here or something?”

“Good question, 69.” Once more, Gloomy’s reply sounded sarcastic. “You see, the propaganda posters have the same effect as any other food based consumable in the game. They provide the players with stat boosts but instead of eating or drinking them, you just have to stand near them to acquire the boost. It’s like an aura, get too far and you won’t feel the benefit it gives off. That’s why I suggested earlier having the posters be placed around town so that their effects will never wane. Okay, next question. Oh, Conio! Please, ask away.”

“Can we fly here?”

“You haven’t tried it yet? All players are allowed to fly in the game. But there’s a time limit, though. The duration varies per level. The pegasi players here will probably already get the hang of it in a cinch. But the other two races? I dunno, I think you’re gonna need a lot of practice. It’s gonna take days, probably weeks just for you to hover above the ground. So I really don’t recommend using that tactic when fleeing from the dead in the future.”

Gloomy gave Conio a complimenting wave of his hoof. “That’s a really good question, thank you for asking that. Oh, you have another one? Shoot.”

“Earlier you said that that you’re gonna have our characters reach up to level ten before midnight, how do you propose we do that?”

“Guy’s asking the real questions here!” Gloomy looked back at Dex. If he wasn’t wearing that black three-horned helmet of his, everypony would see his smiling face right now. “I’m starting to like this guy.”

“Me too.” The warrior replied. “But not in the way you might think.”

Gloomy looked back to Conio. “Don’t worry about it. I know a walkthrough that will do just that. Let’s just wait until we’re questing so that I can tell you guys all the juicy details. Okay, next question.”

This time nopony raised a hoof. “Was that it?” Gloomy asked everypony. It’s probable that all their current questions were answered or they were just eager for some action after all that talking. Either way was fine for Gloomy. Some ponies simply nodded while others muttered yeses in separate timings.

“That’s a relief.” Gloomy let out a pondering hum. “Well, there it is. Uh, let’s proceed with the plan then.”

At Gloomy’s words all players marched in a single direction. Most ponies walked quietly while other ones trotted happily. Everypony in the group talked about the event that it filled the chat room with incoherent chatter. This sudden word buzz reminded Gloomy of something.

“Oh, wait, wait, wait!” Gloomy called out, causing the crowd to stop moving and focus their attentions back at the mage. “You guys should head for the local waymaid first and go through their tutorial. Go for the uh, the second one, the scenic route that is. You’ll gain another level after finishing it if your character is still under level five. And that’s an incentive you get for not using any shortcuts in the game. And one more thing, you guys can exit the chat:POT while doing the tutorial and get back in once you’re done. Alright guys, chop-chop! We don’t have all day.”

Author's Note

This story is moving at the pace of a Trojan snail. And with me as the writer, it will surely get worse.

More art: https://www.deviantart.com/slockins101/gallery/67456141/The-Art-of-Second-Life