The Enchanted Library 100%
Pony Games Done Quick: an event where speedrunners gather to show off their skills with the best My Little Pony games, raising money for charity. People gathered in the convention hall to watch it live and they chattered amongst themselves. Even with the pedigree of games there, the one coming next stood out, and everyone eagerly anticipated its playthrough.
The announcer’s microphone was unmuted, and before she even said anything, the crowd quieted down. Liz had covered these events for years, and knew how to build up anticipation with even simple announcements.
After breathless moments, she finally said, “And without further ado, we have The Enchanted Library, one hundred percent, played by RariTwi27.”
The crowd cheered as the start screen for the game appeared on the display. A smaller view of speedrunner came up next to it, holding the controller and steeling themself for the difficult speedrun ahead. As the clapping died down, they explained, “I’m RariTwi27, and I’m going to be running one hundred percent for The Enchanted Library today, which means all the books, all the inventions, every key item. Pretty self-explanatory.”
They made their way through the starting menus, and stopped at the last screen.
“We’re good on time?” Some off-camera chatter confirmed this. “Alright, and—” RariTwi27 pressed start “—start time.”
On the display, the screen turned black, and the first words of the game appeared in white text.
Once upon a time, in Equestria’s distant past, there were four princesses, not just one.
“OK, our first speedrunning trick happens right here.”
The scene faded in to show a book, and the young filly reading it, Sweetie Belle. The game was presented with 2D style characters in a 3D world, rendered in a simplistic yet gorgeous style, reminiscent of the Paper Mario games. As Sweetie Belle continued her story, the camera zoomed out further to show Fluttershy, then traveled up the stairs and into the room of our heroine, Rarity. She listened to her sister, smiled, and came downstairs.
Or so it was supposed to go. The room instead was empty, leading to clapping from the audience members.
“Right when the Boutique is loading in, you can move Rarity before her graphics can load in. Position yourself to the left, where a cabinet will appear and push Rarity out the window.”
From off camera on the screen, Rarity scoffed. “Honestly, my grand debut and this is how I’m treated? Shunted out the window where nopony can see me? I expect clapping when I actually appear!”
Liz made a noise, paused, then a second later said, “Did Rarity just respond to you?”
RariTwi27 waved their hand then quickly returned it to their controller. “Yeah, don’t worry about it. Anyway, while we’re out here, we’ll pick up a flower.” They pressed a button and a display appeared showing a flower added to the inventory. “Rarity will still follow her movements from this opening cutscene.”
At the moment where Rarity was supposed to come down the stairs to listen to Sweetie, the camera panned down, and now Rarity herself was visible in front of the Carousel Boutique. The audience clapped, and the unicorn nodded in approval.
As the cutscene went on, Rarity spoke her dialogue and Sweetie and Fluttershy responded, despite the latter two being inside the building. She kept going further to the right and eventually stopped in front of a light pink unicorn wearing a crown, auroral wig, and yellow cape: Spring Showers. Having not been prepared to interact with Rarity at this point, she stood there unresponsive.
“Normally, you don’t have access to the menu or anything right now, but since you have exactly one item equipped, you can use it on Spring Showers.”
With a button press, Rarity gave Spring the flower and she promptly ate it with a gulp. Rarity smiled with her eyes closed and tilted her head.
“And with that interaction, we have full control.”
As everyone in game kept talking, Rarity leapt onto a Seeking Night lantern hanging from the Boutique and then up onto the sloped lower roof, making her way to the left side.
“Normally, you can get through dialogue more quickly by holding B, but we don’t want to do that here. Pinkie Pie won’t load until the conversation ends, and we want to avoid meeting her because that leads to the rest of Chapter 1 loading. In fact, if all goes well, we won’t be meeting her for a long time.”
Rarity sighed. “I can’t help but feel sorry for Ms. Pie.”
From somewhere off camera, Pinkie responded. “Oh don’t worry! I’m having a lot of fun watching you. All you speedrunning fans will enjoy this next trick!” she said with an audible wink.
In response, Liz said, “OK, now I really have to ask what’s going on.”
RariTwi27 responded, “This is normal, so there’s nothing to worry about. Like Pinkie said, we have an important trick coming up.”
Rarity jumped to her left from a crouch, yelling, “Yahoo!” but returned to the place she started. Then she did this again, with a shorter leap leftward, then shorter, then shorter, until she was saying nothing more than, “Y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y.”
RariTwi27 continued, “You can backwards long jump against the sloped roof, which you can only access like this with Rarity alone during Seeking Night, and then”—the cycle was broken and Rarity rocketed to the right—”you go past the loading zones straight into the Everfree Forest.
The screen turned black and displayed one sentence of the myth of the four princesses as the next area finished loading. It faded in to show Rarity in a gloomy forest.
“But it’s a bit spooky, so we’ll leave right away.”
Rarity moved to the left and the screen faded to black again, loading Ponyville more quickly than it did the Everfree Forest. Rarity made her way to the left, making a pirouette then jumping repeatedly.
“There’s no fast way back to the Boutique from here, so we’ll just spin and then jump to cancel the cool down animation, which is faster than running.”
Rarity added, “It’s far more elegant, too.”
As opposed to the twilight setting when Rarity left, it was now night, and moreover, the Seeking Night decorations were gone.
RariTwi27 said, “Right now, the game isn’t quite sure where we are in the story. However, if we safely make our way back to our bed without interacting with anything else, then it defaults to something interesting.”
Rarity pointedly avoided Sweetie Belle and Fluttershy as she walked into the Boutique and went up to her room.
“The game allows us to sleep now.” A prompt to do so indeed appeared when Rarity approached the bed. They selected yes and Rarity comfortably and snugly got under her covers and closed her eyes. The screen faded to black, and then text appeared.
Rarity dreamt of a unicorn mare called Amethyst Wind.
The audience clapped as RariTwi27 said, “And now we’re having dreams from the Curse Arc.”
The game faded in to show the young unicorn, Amethyst, sitting in Rarity’s Boutique while the heroine, now an old mare, read a book from another chair. However, before anyone could say anything, the pause menu appeared.
“Now, we save and quit—” they did so, going back to the title screen “—and when we load again…”
The game faded in to show Rarity in her bed, now in the morning. She no longer had the happy expression she wore to bed, but had sad eyes. She quickly snapped on a cloak before the player could see her back legs.
“The game now thinks we’re in the Curse Arc itself.”
Rarity sighed theatrically and put a leg to her forehead. “I haven’t even met Twilight, yet I miss her dearly.”
“But that’s not all. If you go into the party member screen—” RariTwi27 went to it and quickly selected a character before anyone could visually process it “—you now have Amethyst Wind in your party!”
The young mare appeared behind Rarity and the heroine put on a polite smile—forced, but still polite. “Oh, hello darling. Surprised to see you… here.”
Amethyst smiled and tilted her head, seemingly not noticing Rarity’s tone. “It’s a pleasure to see you when you were so young, Rarity! I’m even more shocked Twilight talked about you so little, with how beautiful you are. But I guess maybe you just weren’t her type.” She giggled, clearly meaning no offense.
Rarity maintained her smile, but rather than respond, she went right back to bed.
As RariTwi27 explained such and such about the mechanics behind sleeping in the game and how the Curse Arc affects it, Rarity had another dream where she was an old mare. Quickly going through the dialogue, Rarity drank tea, looked at the last book needed to free Twilight Sparkle, then watched as Amethyst walked in, wearing the necklace and taking the book in her hooves.
Rarity smiled weakly. “Do you mind cutting away before Twilight sees me through Amethyst’s eyes? I’m not exactly looking forward to that moment.”
Obliging, the speedrunner saved and quit as soon as the book was shown being added to Amethyst’s inventory. Rarity nodded in thanks as the game faded to the title screen.
RariTwi27 spoke as they resumed the game. “When we get back to the waking world, we won’t have that particular book in our inventory, but the game will still act like we collected a book, which is important for later.”
Fading back into gameplay, Rarity woke up with the same animation as before. Amethyst, not having a waking up animation, stood there awkwardly and stared at her mentor. Immediately, Rarity ran out the bedroom door, the young mare following behind.
“Unfortunately, you can’t really do a one hundred percent run if you’re starting from the Curse Arc, since you’re skipping all the story items, so it’s time to find Twilight and get things back on track.”
The mares made their way outside. As the speedrunner explained that the odd way Amethyst has been loaded allows for unusual interactions, Rarity jumped onto Amethyst’s back and landed as though she were a platform. Rarity then jumped onto the sloped roof of the Carousel Boutique again.
“Applejack’s over to the right and really wants to talk, but we don’t want to do that, so we’ll backwards long jump over her.”
Since “yahoo” wasn’t an appropriate thing for Rarity to say during the Curse Arc, she instead mournfully called out for Twilight as she long jumped. Then she said, “Tw-tw-tw-tw-tw-tw-tw,” and launched into the air over Applejack.
Applejack sighed. “Didn’t even say howdy.”
Rarity found herself in the Everfree Forest again, though now accompanied by Amethyst.
“Ironically, it’s quicker to get to the library while the curse is active than without it.”
Rarity jumped backwards against a slanted tree until she launched past the normally repeating woods. After a loading screen, the two heroines then appeared in front of Twilight’s library, leading to applause from the audience. The large tree was enveloped in light shining down from the forest canopy, giving it a magical and, of course, enchanted appearance.
Rarity happily walked into the tree’s cellar doors to greet her love for the first time, only for the cutscene to start and, to her dismay, Amethyst took the lead.
“Since Amethyst is in our party, it’s going to play a sequence of her freeing Twilight with the last book and then adding her to her party.”
Rarity frowned and grumbled as she watched the two lovebirds interact, acting like she wasn’t even there. She stood against rows of books, and then as soon as the text indicating that Twilight joined Amethyst’s party appeared, she hit herself against the bookcase.
The game glitched out and the camera had trouble figuring out what to focus on, but eventually it settled on a cloakless and unscarred Rarity under a pile of books. A confused and angry princess stood before her and said, “Why aren’t you defending yourself? Is this another trick?”
The audience cheered and applauded as RariTwi27 explained, “We’re back to the first meeting with Twilight! Well, with a few differences.”
Indeed, watching the cutscene play out were Amethyst Wind and another Twilight, who frowned at the way her old self acted.
“Dialogue’s going to continue as normal, but right as Rarity goes outside, if you press the magic attack button at the right time, an energy blast will load right on top of Rarity and it’ll shock her into being controllable during the Book Bringer cutscene.”
“Ouch!” Rarity exclaimed right as the speedrunner went through with this. Accompanying her were Amethyst and Twilight Sparkle, who left the library quite easily this way. As Rarity rubbed her flank, Book Bringer appeared from the woods.
Twilight narrowed her eyes. “Discord.”
The princess proceeded to fire magic blasts at the disguised draconequus.
RariTwi27 explained, “You can switch to Twilight and attack Book Bringer during this. He won’t react to it, but during Twilight’s fight with him at the end of the game, this will actually result in opening attack triggers piling up and hurting him right at the start, so that fight will go more quickly.”
As Book Bringer, or Discord, went through with his dialogue faithfully despite all the attacks, Pinkie Pie hummed from somewhere off camera. “Weird, I thought Discord of all creatures would be talking sass like us, but he isn’t doing anything.”
“Yeah, it’s a bit unexpected, but that’s just how it is,” responded the speedrunner.
After having kept silent for a while, Liz spoke up. “Now you’re talking to them. Great.”
“The rest of this section is just going to be normal dialogue, so you can read donations now.”
Suddenly remembering that’s what she was here to do, she quickly looked through the donations and cheerfully said, “Monostan97454 donates fifty dollars and says, ‘Love me some TEL slash TEK. Hoping we reach the secret ending incentive!’”
Rarity humphed. “Excuse me, you’re speaking over some very good dialogue here!”
Liz paused. “Uh, should I continue?”
RariTwi27 waved dismissively. “Yeah, keep going.”
Rarity grumbled as more donations were read out. Her talk with Twilight continued at hyper speed until she left with the Library Card key item and the game transitioned to the next morning.
Rather than starting the day in her bed, Rarity was instead talking to Fluttershy, convincing her to come with to the Everfree Forest. Gameplay started and Rarity stood with her new party of Fluttershy and Twilight.
“Since Fluttershy is the first intended party member, she’ll override whoever’s in the first slot. That means Amethyst Wind is gone forever now.”
Fluttershy’s face flushed. “Oh my! I’m really sorry about that.”
Rarity was less concerned, examining her hoof with a smile. “It’s fine, she was merely a figment of my grief-stricken imagination.” She looked to her darling princess behind Fluttershy. “As for you, my dear, I’m happy to have you along to help rescue you!”
Twilight fluffed her wings and blushed lightly. “I’m not too happy about the implications all this has on our reality, but I’m glad to be with you too.”
As the game’s intended cutscene played, RariTwi27 said, “Since the game thinks you have one book, that unlocks the ability to collect every item in Ponyville. The day-night cycle won’t actually start until Rarity goes back to the library, so that means we can collect most of it now without having to go to sleep. We could also glitch the Apple Family book from Granny Smith, but this run will go through the sleepover sequence, so we’ll get the book from Applejack then anyway.”
Applejack, who was on screen at this point, snorted. “That better not be the only reason you ain’t glitching my family’s book away.”
Rarity waved her hoof. “Oh Applejack, darling, it’s all in good fun. Plus, if glitching away your family heirloom would have helped free Twilight sooner, it can only be a good thing.”
The farmer glared at the princess, who nervously waved. “But she’s already free!”
Rarity shook her head. “You’re clearly not getting it. You see… Twilight, explain to our friend Applejack."
Twilight stammered.
Applejack interrupted, “You know, technically I’m not even supposed to believe you exist yet. And maybe you don’t exist; last I checked, that Amethyst Wind girl was made up and she was still flying through the air with Rarity.”
Fluttershy raised a hoof. “Actually, I think all that happened later. Or something.”
Before the conversation could continue, Rarity started jumping around the town, rushing into buildings, grabbing items and leaving before she could even tell what she picked up, and at points even phasing through locked doors. The other two ponies in her party were along for the ride.
Fluttershy smiled. “Wow, Rarity, you’ve gotten really agile.”
Rarity flipped her hair. “Why thank you, Fluttershy. Daily yoga does wonders.”
To demonstrate, Rarity jumped three times in a row. “Dah! Darling! Daaaaaarling!” With the third jump, she broke into a pony’s second story window, and Applejack could only shake her head.
RariTwi27 explained, “There are twenty modern inventions that you can collect in Ponyville. For one, you need to teleport. Normally you need to go to Heart’s Haven to learn that, but since Twilight’s in your party, you can just have her do it.”
Control switched to Twilight, who teleported the group past a wall. She said, perfectly innocently, “Rarity, even with this sequence breaking, I still expect you to learn how to teleport.”
Rarity loudly scoffed. “Honestly, Twilight, you’re really going to do this now?”
The speedrunner continued, “Normally you’d give Twilight an invention in the library and a cutscene would play, but she’s right here, so we can just give her inventions now. The cutscenes fail to load, and for some reason, Twilight’s eating animation plays instead.”
Rarity gave Twilight a Daring Do book and Twilight happily chewed and swallowed it. She licked her lips and said, “That was surprisingly tasty!”
The seamstress playfully sighed and rolled her eyes. “How in the world did I fall in love with somepony like this?”
RariTwi27 said, “Now, let’s go get Spring Showers’ three books.”
Rarity twirled and leapt to the mare in question, who talked to the heroine like nothing strange was going on.
After a set of dialogue that was impossible to read with the speed at which it flew by, Rarity and the gang were off to Froggy Bottom Bog. Several enemies were visible, but Rarity just twirled and leapt past all of them.
She sighed. “Honestly, I have no recollection of any of this. I wish the speedrunner would just let me see what’s happening.”
After some time, Rarity reached the end of the path and saw a book. Instead of picking it up, she made several short hops toward it.
RariTwi27 explained, “The Hydra boss fight starts once you pick up the book, but with loading zone storage caching all these jumps, we can skip it.”
Rarity finally picked up the book and proceeded to fall through the floor. The Hydra failed to load and the gang instead appeared in Spring Showers’ house, where they spoke at an unreadable speed.
Fluttershy shook her head. “I have a headache. How did we get back here?”
From off screen, Pinkie responded, “It’s a scene cut, Fluttershy! I can do one right now, if you want.”
Fluttershy’s eyes widened. “Oh, no. I’d prefer not.”
“I’ll show you later, then.”
The speedrunner said, “Normally you’d pick up Spring Showers’ first book by going into her house, but getting the second book sends you inside anyway, so this saves a couple seconds,” then had Rarity pick up the first book, bringing the total book count to two. “Now, for book three, we have to be at a certain level to get into her basement normally—thirty, I think—but there’s a difficult trick to skip past all that.”
Rarity walked between the house’s owner and a wall and started hopping. After eight hops, Spring Showers yawned and sat down. At that exact moment, Rarity pulled out a wrap of cloth and snapped it like a whip, then proceeded to fall through the floor. The audience cheered and RariTwi27 exclaimed, “Frame perfect!”
Rarity and the others found themselves in a basement unexpectedly packed with books. They landed on a huge pile on the ground, taking up the background and even the foreground. The party looked around amazed. Rarity quickly turned to watch Twilight’s reaction, and was surprised to see she was annoyed.
Twilight raised a hoof. “Why didn’t you tell me Spring Showers had an underground book chamber? You could’ve shown me after I got out.”
Rarity humphed. “Well pardon me, but I don’t remember having to go into any underground book chamber besides yours.” She put on a more gentle face. “But now we know, so I’ll take you later.”
They weren’t the only ones there, as Spring Showers was somehow down there too, running back and forth in a panic. One book in particular was glowing and Rarity picked it up: it was Spring Showers’ third book.
RariTwi27 said, “If you go back to the stairs to the right, that triggers the Bookworm fight, but we can skip it using a similar method to before.”
Rarity started hopping, but Twilight’s eyes widened. “A bookworm would destroy all the books! We can’t leave one here! Rarity!”
Despite Twilight’s cries, Rarity timed a dress snap right as Spring Showers ran past her and they fell through the floor again. After flying through darkness, they found themselves back on the ground floor.
Rarity put a gentle hoof to Twilight’s face. “Oh darling, I’m sure it’ll be fine when we actually visit. Here, have a snack in the meantime.” Rarity gave Twilight a camera and she happily munched on it.
The speedrunner moved Rarity out of the house. “You get three more books from Mayor Mare’s sidequest to improve Ponyville. We actually started it earlier when we were gathering inventions. Normally, you’d handle a bunch of friendship problems around town, but we only really need to do one.”
Rarity spun to the young unicorns Snips and Snails, who appeared to be in an argument. Rarity joined in, and after some quick selections from multiple options, their dispute was resolved.
“Snips and Snails is a very simple friendship problem to resolve, and it’s actually important for an upcoming trick.”
Mayor Mare appeared from the side of the screen and after some talking, gave Rarity a book.
Twilight remarked, “Giving books for making ponies happy sounds like a great idea! I probably would have done that back when I was hiding in Ponyville. If I wasn’t, you know, hiding.”
Fluttershy tilted her head. “Isn’t that like bribing ponies to be good, though?”
Twilight paused. “I, uh, wait, let me think about this.”
RariTwi27 said, “Getting the town’s happiness up for the next two books is based on points, rather than events, so the quickest way we’ve discovered to get it up is this.”
Rarity walked into Town Hall, petted a filly standing at the entrance, left the building, then came back and did it again.
“Just keep petting the filly and town happiness points will go up without having to solve other friendship problems. Normally you can just do this once a day, but the day/night cycle hasn’t started yet. This’ll go on for a few minutes, so you can read donations.”
A new woman’s voice spoke. “Hello! This is Ramona. Sorry to say that Liz left screaming during the basement sequence earlier. We have a hundred dollar donation from LoveHater68, who says, ‘Let the RariTwi burn! Donating for the Bad End incentive.’ My, the deadline is still far ahead, but the secret ending and the bad ending are closer than they usually are.”
Rarity looked up from her filly petting. “Bad ending? Should I be worried about this?”
Fluttershy smiled. “I’m sure it’ll be fine. I am concerned about Ms. Liz, though.”
“What in the world could have upset her?” Rarity shrugged. “I suppose we’ll never know.”
The petting finished and Rarity talked to the mayor, getting two books, bringing the total up to six.
RariTwi27 said, “That’s all we can get in Ponyville right now, and to take the train, we need to finally progress the story and see Twilight again. We can use Snails to skip all the story events involving being unable to find the library.”
Outside, Snails was now standing next to a mailbox. Control switched to Twilight and she carefully positioned herself between them.
“With the Everfree Forest properly loaded, we can’t just backwards long jump to the library, since the path there is randomly generated each game, but we can use Twilight to Sparkle Spam—” Twilight started frequently teleporting in place “—and if you switch control to Rarity like this, she’ll keep teleporting. Then you move Rarity off screen—” they did so and the screen started glitching out “—and Ponyville will crash.” The screen turned black. “It loads the closest hub area in memory, and that leads us to…”
Rarity and the others appeared in the blackness and fell, screaming, into a new area, one they visited before.
“The inside of the library.”
The audience cheered as the three ponies tried to stop their brains from shaking in their skulls. Rarity moaned, and the speedrunner helpfully had her drink some coffee from her inventory.
“I really hope that’s the last time that happens,” said Fluttershy. “That was worse than a scene cut!”
“I can scene cut past the next one if you like,” said Pinkie from off screen.
“You know what? Yes. Please do that, Pinkie.”
As soon as they recovered, they left the library.
RariTwi27 explained, “Normally, we’d be forced to talk to Twilight, but due to the way we arrived, we can leave. We’ll go get Fritter Cobbler’s book from the abandoned house, and then when we talk to Twilight again, it’ll still be Rarity’s second meeting with her. This will allow us to bypass their conversation about the book.”
After doing this, Rarity returned and knocked a pile of books to the ground. A second Twilight appeared and, ignoring herself and Fluttershy, expressed her surprise at Rarity returning. Soon enough, they found themselves heading down to the book maze below.
“Aw, look at how adorably shy you used to be around me,” said Rarity to the Twilight in her party, who rolled her eyes.
“I wasn’t being shy,” the princess said, but when Rarity replied with a raised eyebrow, she blushed and added, “OK, I was a bit shy.”
Rarity nodded. “As would I, if I were the first mare I saw after hundreds of years.”
Twilight smiled. “Actually, you were the first mare I saw in a thousand years. I only got visited by stallions before you.”
The unicorn’s eyes widened. “My heavens! No wonder you were starstruck!”
Twilight giggled, declining to protest.
Inside the book maze, rather than follow Twilight, Rarity instead positioned herself under a floating bookcase. It came down on top of her and she fell through the floor, then the screen glitched out and they were outside the library. Fluttershy screamed, and turning to the fourth wall, she said, “Can you please warn us next time?”
“Sorry,” replied the speedrunner. “Anyway, we have now enabled fast travel to and from the library. We’ll fast travel home, go to sleep, and then take the train.”
A map screen came up, depicting Ponyville and the nearby wilds. Carousel Boutique was selected and, after a loading screen, the party found themselves right outside it. After a long and unusually eventful day, it was now night.
Fluttershy sighed. “Can confirm, scene cuts are better than weird glitches.”
They went to Rarity’s bed and Fluttershy jumped in with Rarity. Twilight, not having a sleeping animation, simply stood there and frowned.
Soon, morning came and the two mares in bed yawned and stretched, then jumped out. The party quickly left the house and went to the previously unvisited train station.
RariTwi27 said, “Normally, you’re prompted to give Twilight the camera at this point, but she already ate it, so we’re good to go to Canterlot. Well, if that’s where we were going. Instead, we’re going to Tall Tale.”
As she walked inside the train, Rarity said, “Goodness, this will be my first time actually seeing it.” She added under her breath, “I hope I actually see it.”
After a loading animation of the train traveling, it arrived at Tall Tales, a city with tall thin skyscrapers. The party gazed at the buildings around them, but it was clear there was trouble up ahead.
“We can avoid the cutscene of the worried townsponies talking about their stolen dogs by just clipping behind these buildings,” said RariTwi27 as Rarity hopped toward a building and then dress-snapped behind it. Since it was meant to be inaccessible, nothing existed other than the front.
Twilight remarked, “Wow, these buildings are way thinner than I thought. Hard to believe anypony goes inside them.”
“I don’t think it’s normally like this, dear,” replied Rarity.
Going behind the buildings, they avoided a crowd of ponies running back and forth, and walked straight to the next area, then into a Diamond Dog mine.
Inside the mine, Rarity bobbed and weaved around enemy Diamond Dogs and moles, and clipped through walls. After a few minutes of travel, she bypassed the boss fight and got into the chamber where all the stolen dogs were held in cages. A cutscene played where the lead Diamond Dog came in to take control of the situation, but the screen shook and a flood of released dogs carried him and the ponies outside. After some more dialogue, Rarity was in the Tall Tale hub area in front of the buildings. Dogs now accompanied all of the relieved ponies.
“I’m happy we saved those puppies,” said Fluttershy.
The speedrunner said, “Each town has its own sort of chapter count that influences what’s going on in it. We just progressed to chapter two for Tall Tale, but if we clip behind the buildings again—” they did so “—then we can go right back into the Diamond Dog mines and rescue the dogs again.”
They did so, reaching the same cutscene of the dogs flooding out of their cages.
Then they did it two more times.
Once they were done, the city was flooded with duplicated dogs.
“This is amazing,” said Fluttershy.
“Now let’s get back to Ponyville after another long day,” said RariTwi27. The ponies rode the train back and climbed back into Rarity’s bed, minus Twilight. “When we wake up, there’s going to be a special surprise. Since completing the later Tall Tale chapters requires her…”
The ponies woke up and then RariTwi27 opened the party selection screen. After some quick clicks, they said, ”Applejack’s in our party now.”
There were cheers as Applejack appeared on screen, replacing Fluttershy in the party. She waved and said, “Howdy!”
Rarity smiled with her eyes closed. “Pleasure to have you finally join us, Applejack.”
“It’s great to be here,” she replied. “Though, uh, I’m still confused about what I’m supposed to know now. Do I think Twilight is real or not?”
Twilight shook her head. “It’s best not to think about it.”
The speedrunner said, “We’ll also just have three more books in our inventory, from completing Tall Tale’s chapters, so we’re at nine total. Now to complete Ponyville’s books, aside from the Apple Family’s, we need to go fight Rarity’s friend, Snowy Cinder.”
All the ponies paused.
“Say what now?” said Applejack.
They left the building and met up with the mare that played Princess Selene during Seeking Night. She seemed friendly at first, but then the subject of Twilight’s books came up, and how her ancestor borrowed one, so they indeed entered a battle screen—the very first one of the run.
The screen shattered then reformed to show the four ponies on a stage, complete with stage decorations that resembled the inside of Snowy Cinder’s house, and energetic fight music played. Rarity’s party was grouped together on the left while Snowy hovered in the air on the right.
“Rarity is super underleveled, but Applejack and Twilight together will be able to take out Snowy before she one-hit KOs Rarity. Applejack is supposed to join late game, so she’s at level 50, and Twilight has Discord-fighting stats.”
Rarity was assigned to defend. Applejack did a special attack where she lassoed Snowy, spun her around, then pulled her in for a strong kick. Twilight summoned a meteor that destroyed the planet, and incidentally did a fair amount of damage to Snowy. This marked her defeat and she faded away. The victorious party posed in celebration and Rarity leveled up multiple times.
Thankfully, when they returned to the non-battle world, Snowy and the planet were just fine. After some dialogue, the pegasus gave up her book, bringing the total up to ten.
“Well, that was strange,” said Applejack. “I’m glad no pony really got hurt.”
“I’m pretty sure I never learned a spell to destroy the planet,” Twilight said, rolling her eyes. Then she paused, putting a hoof to her chin. “Wait, actually…”
“I’d prefer if you didn’t finish that thought, dear,” said Rarity.
The player opened the map and quick-traveled to the library, resulting in the three ponies appearing in front of it.
“Since Applejack is in our party, we’re going to get the sequence where she first meets Twilight and then is asked to wrangle the chaotic bookcase,” said RariTwi27.
At the trapdoor entrance, Fluttershy and the Cutie Mark Crusaders suddenly appeared from inside Rarity and trotted out, making the other ponies scream. Not knowing what to scream at, Fluttershy jumped and yelped, her eyes darting everywhere.
“It’s fine, Fluttershy,” said Rarity, calming her breath. “We just got startled. Now, if you please hold on, I believe I have a solo sequence with our dear princess.”
Rarity walked in and had what she thought was a very nice scene with Twilight, if not for the speedrunner zooming through and skipping as much of it as possible. After some time, the other girls came into the library, including the other Twilight. Applejack’s scene where she met Twilight arrived, but she looked around confused.
“Sorry, which Twilight am I talking to?” said the farmpony.
“Good heavens, Applejack!” exclaimed Rarity. “These are pre-scripted scenes here! How are you getting confused?”
“Look, maybe this comes natural to you theatrical ponies,” said Applejack, turning her head between the two identical princesses, “but this just ain’t normal!”
Groaning, Rarity pointed to the Twilight that was playing out her lines, despite Applejack’s flubs. Applejack thankfully got into the flow of things.
Soon, they made their way down to the maze and then came the sequence where the ponies worked together to capture the chaotic bookcase. RariTwi27 caught it far more quickly than the game intended and Twilight pulled a necklace from Rarity—one she definitely didn’t have before. She held it to the bookcase until her spell was complete and the bookcase fled. With that, Rarity was given an upgraded chaos-detecting necklace, without having ever gotten the original necklaces.
The audience clapped as RariTwi27 explained, ”And with that, we just finished a pretty huge skip. In theory, we could even head straight for the endgame now, but we still have a bunch to do for the one hundred percent run. Anyway, Applejack’s job is done for now, so we’ll switch back to Fluttershy.”
After Rarity went outside to test the necklace, RariTwi27 exchanged party members. Applejack disappeared and Fluttershy stood in her place, her lips squeezed together.
“I’m curious, Flutter-dear,” said Rarity. “What’s it like, being out of the party?”
“Oh, it’s not bad,” said Fluttershy. “I was actually watching everything with Pinkie.”
“You’re doing great!” shouted Pinkie from off screen. “Also, I’m eating your popcorn, just letting you know.”
Rarity escaped the necklace tutorial sequence and went back to the train station. She took the train to Heart’s Haven and soon arrived at the gated entrance to the town.
“We don’t have the invitation from Taffy Scratch to visit,” said RariTwi27. “However, we can glitch through the floor and—”
Before they could finish, Fluttershy’s eyes widened. She yelled, “Pinkie! Do a scene cut!”
“Okie dokie!” Pinkie responded.
“And we’ve now arrived at the sleepover,” said RariTwi27, as Rarity and the others stood inside the library. Fluttershy let out a sigh of relief.
“Wait,” said Rarity as she looked around. “The sleepover? Does that mean we skipped over the love confession?” She thought for a bit. “We did!”
Fluttershy’s eyes widened. “Oh Rarity, I’m so sorry! You were looking forward to that!”
“It’s fine dear. It isn’t your fault at all. In fact, it’s—”
At this point, Applejack arrived with a blindfolded Pinkie Pie, and Fluttershy suddenly teleported next to them with an “eep”. The audience clapped, as this was Pinkie’s first actual appearance in the run. Rarity, however, was less happy. She ran up to the mare and shook her.
“Pinkie Pie! How could you skip past my big moment with Twilight!”
Pinkie took the blindfolded shaking well. “But Rarity, there was a lot of glitching. Like, a lot a lot! Fluttershy would’ve been so scared! Besides, the speedrunner skipped over all that anyway.”
Rarity dropped Pinkie and stared at the fourth wall. “Well then! I hope you’re happy with—with your speed, and your running!”
Twilight touched her shoulder. “Rarity, it’s fine. We still have our memories, and I’m sure everyone watching right now already knows how it went, and how much we love each other.”
The audience awwed as Rarity took Twilight’s hoof and then nuzzled her. “Alright, fine. I really wanted to confess my love again, but I suppose I can do that any time I wish.”
“Plus, I’m sure someone out there is going to do a glitchless run after this,” added Pinkie.
After this, the ponies went about the first meeting of Pinkie and Twilight as expected, and then came time for the Princess Booky Look-Alike Contest. The owls came out first, then Apple Bloom with her straightforward performance. Then, when Scootaloo came out, it was time to act.
“Right as Scootaloo pretends to die, her in-battle KO animation plays,” explained RariTwi27. “Through some odd quirk, she is very briefly actually knocked out, which means…”
Rarity walked over to Scootaloo and used phoenix down, resulting in a refreshed and revitalized Scootaloo getting up and posing, and the audience clapped. She then froze in place and the Scootaloo that was still faking her death progressed with the cutscene. The still-mobile Scootaloo said, “Woah! Awesome! Can you make more, Rarity?”
“Even if I could, it’s probably for the best that I don’t,” she replied.
RariTwi27 explained, “That Scootaloo left behind there will stay there until the end of the game, and it’s useful for getting Twilight out of the library more quickly.”
Twilight’s head sank. “Oh. Right. We have to do that again, huh?”
Rarity smiled and nuzzled her. “Chin up. You and I both know we get through it all as better ponies. Besides, they said it would be quicker, and we already saw that Discord can’t interact with us outside the game script. I’m sure they’ll ‘clown on him’, as it were.”
Twilight smiled back and they both giggled. It was Sweetie Belle’s turn and the mood lightened, especially as she got caught on the duplicated Scootaloo and did her act off-center from the screen.
The speedrunner skipped past Pinkie’s scary story, to her disappointment, and then it came time for Applejack to give her book to Rarity.
“And with that,” announced RariTwi27 to a cheering audience, “we have all thirty books!”
“Wait, what?” said Applejack. “Weren’t we at ten before?”
As Rarity and Twilight counted on their hooves, Pinkie jumped in. “Oh, yeah, my bad, I kinda jumped us ahead to the end of the run. You guys missed some awesome stuff, like you ninjaing away all of Professor Meanie’s books! Or the time Fluttershy glitched into a wall and made it explode!”
“I’m glad I missed that,” said Fluttershy.
Pinkie waved her hoof dismissively. “Well, we can always just watch the parts we missed later.”
“Shouldn’t we be having a bigger reaction to this?” said Twilight. “We’re still supposed to think the books will free me at this point.”
Pinkie started to respond, but Twilight interrupted, “No wait, let me guess, there are some books you normally can’t get until after the Curse Arc.”
Pinkie nodded aggressively, and then stopped suddenly. “Oh, right, story progression.” She pulled out Luna’s letter. “Here you go!”
The story progressed as normal, except that Twilight said a bit more. “I get the feeling something important will happen when you visit Princess Denza, like it’s a point of no return. Just be careful, and maybe finish up any remaining tasks before you go there. (Many sidequests will no longer be available once you visit Princess Denza.)”
Rarity rolled her eyes. “My, they could afford to be a bit more subtle.”
They all went to sleep and when morning came, Rarity’s party, which now included Applejack and the Cutie Mark Crusaders, went to the train station and then to Canterlot.
“Seeing Cadance requires us to have visited Canterlot once before, which is why I gathered the other Canterlot books and inventions beforehand,” said RariTwi27.
Pinkie whispered, “That happened off screen.”
Rarity admired how the city was rendered in the game, but there was no time to stand around. She bypassed Rift Shield and went into the Canterlot Castle secret entrance without ever encountering Discord. Inside the princess hallway of the castle, Rarity avoided both chaos bubbles and the princess bedrooms, except for taking a quick peek inside Twilight’s to get Rarity’s Element of Generosity, the final item of the game.
Now the only thing between them and the end of the game was the story.
Rather than get the guards’ attention, Rarity clipped into the throne room itself, starting the cutscene that would normally lead to her party getting cursed.
“We have a bit of an extended cutscene before we can reach the next exploit, so it’s a good time for donations,” said RariTwi27.
Ramona said, “First of all, I’m happy to announce that Liz has calmed down and has returned to read donations.”
Liz responded, “Yes, well I’ve decided there are definitely some shenanigans going on with this game, but you know what? I don’t care anymore. We have a donation from LoveHater72, with—wow—a thousand dollar donation for the Bad End incentive. The secret ending and bad ending are officially neck and neck.”
The audience murmured. Even RariTwi27 made a grunt of confusion.
Fluttershy shook. “OK, maybe it won’t be fine.”
Twilight’s head sank. “I… think I know what the bad ending is. There’s only one thing it could be.” She turned to Rarity. “Before I escaped, Discord said he’d trap you in your boutique like he did to me. So it must be an ending where I don’t escape in time, or don’t escape at all.”
Rarity seemed a bit shaken too, but regardless, she lifted Twilight’s chin. “Darling dearest, if that were the case, then who in the world would actually want to see that ending? Plus, you heard the way the audience reacted. I’m sure we’ll be well on our way to the secret ending, whatever it may be.”
Then came the exploit. RariTwi27 explained, “OK, we have a brief moment of control here. We’ll use the necklace, which never got damaged, and contact Twilight. Then we’ll fling Celestia’s crown at Cadance and…”
The communication spell with Twilight broke. She was gone, and not just the Twilight still in the library. The Twilight that stood next to Rarity disappeared too.
Rarity looked at where her love once stood. “Oh,” she said. “Suddenly this has become a lot less fun.”
Though the Curse Arc was bypassed, the events leading to Twilight sealing herself away for two years were coming, and nothing would interrupt them. Even with the faster dialogue, Rarity still found herself facing a Twilight who was angry, a Twilight who hated herself, and ultimately, a Twilight that shut her out.
The screen went black, and showed establishing shots of the Everfree Forest, then the tree, and then the library entrance. It was covered in drawings and messages of support, and the camera focused on one special message. “For you, a thousand times over.”
It then faded in on Twilight alone in the library. After some time in silence, a voice started taunting her: Discord. He then materialized in front of her. His dialogue continued as normal, but then…
“We have another hundred dollar donation for the Bad End incentive, from LoveHater83, bringing it just past the Secret End incentive,” announced Liz.
Everyone sat in silence for a moment, until RariTwi27 simply said, “Huh.” After another moment, they added, “Well, voting will have to end soon. Once Discord gets caught on the Scootaloo copy, I either have to go for the secret ending, or commit to the bad ending.”
Twilight considered this. Did this mean more people sincerely wanted to see her fail? To see her and Rarity apart forever?
If this was really still the Twilight that locked herself in the library, she would have dwelled on this more. But there was no need. It didn’t matter that some rich losers thought she and Rarity shouldn’t be together, or if Discord trapped Rarity, and Fluttershy, and the entire world. Twilight knew she could free herself, and she knew that she and Rarity would be together.
There was no bad ending. Just one that ended early.
“Twilight!” Pinkie screamed suddenly from off screen. “We found Discord!”
Twilight scratched at her ringing ears. “Discord? What do you mean? He’s right here.”
“No, I mean, remember how I said earlier how weird it was that Discord wasn’t talking sass about the game like the rest of us? Well it turns out it’s because he wasn’t in the game! He was on the Interwebernet! Making donations!”
Twilight paused to let this sink in. “Wait, are you saying that—”
“He’s LoveHater, Twi! He’s all the LoveHaters!”
Liz said, “I have another $100 donation for the Bad End incentive, from LoveHater84, simply saying, ‘no u,’ and… I’m sorry, but is this really happening?”
Twilight considered this, and then smiled. “So that means the only creature who wants the bad ending is Discord, and I already knew that. How did you find this out?”
“Rarity thought something was up, so she asked Fluttershy, and she talked to all the little computer mice and they figured it out.”
“And I assume you thought of a way to counter him?”
“Yup!” said Pinkie. “In fact, Rarity has something coming up, right about…”
Liz was busy staring at Discord’s donation, so Ramona took over reading the next donation. “Holy crap! We have a one hundred thousand dollar donation from SimplyRarity for the Secret End incentive, with the message ‘mwa,’ putting it way in the lead!”
The audience erupted in cheers while Liz sank in her chair and muttered, “But… they’re fictional…”
In the game, Discord got caught on Scootaloo and the screen started glitching.
“There!” RariTwi27 exclaimed. “Good end is a go!”
The player gained control of Twilight and she galloped out of the library like the barrier wasn’t even there. “All that’s left now is to run to Ponyville, defeat Discord, and then return!” said the speedrunner.
Twilight ran through the forest, avoiding all the timberwolves in her way. Soon enough, she reached Ponyville. Mayor Mare and a foal were the first to react to her, but then the princess caught sight of Fluttershy, Applejack, and the Cutie Mark Crusaders.
“Great job, Fluttershy!” exclaimed Twilight.
The pegasus blushed. “Oh, it was nothing. I didn’t even think the computer mice were alive, at first, but they responded to me scratching their backs by making some clicks and they showed me everything.”
“I still don’t think they’re alive,” said Applejack.
Scootaloo jumped up. “Ooh! Ooh! What did my zombie clone do?”
“She stopped Discord right in his tracks!” said Twilight with a smile. “Though neither calling it a zombie nor a clone seems right.”
With that, the draconequus appeared in the air, in the form of a large megaphone. He spoke of an update to the Legend of the Four Princesses, but said nothing of the events that just occurred.
“Even after all this, I guess he still can’t control his game self,” remarked Applejack.
Discord appeared in his true form and the final fight of the game started.
As promised, all the attacks Twilight hit him with while he was in the form of Book Bringer returned as the fight started, with wave after wave of energy blasts striking. In the end, Discord couldn’t respond, nor could Spike’s scripted attack happen, nor did Twilight have a chance to attack with the Element of Magic, because the final boss went down after the first round of attacks.
Back outside the battle, Discord disappeared in a huff and Twilight caught sight of Rainbow Dash pulling a chariot.
Even if it wasn’t scripted, Twilight would have run after her. She ran into the Everfree Forest, through an enemy-free path, and then came to the library.
There, she was greeted by Rainbow Dash. “Hey Twilight! Finally made my grand entrance, and—” she looked around “—wait, is this the end of the game?”
Twilight raised an eyebrow and nodded.
“Did they seriously skip over all my scenes until now?!”
“Actually, I’m not sure,” said Twilight. “There was a big chunk we missed.”
“They did!” shouted Pinkie as she came outside. “You never got added to the party, and you didn’t even appear in a cutscene until now!”
Rainbow threw her hooves up. “Oh come on! How could you not include me in a speedrun?!”
Pinkie walked up to Twilight with a smile. “I already know you’re physical and everything, but I’m going to boop you again anyway.” She then touched her hoof to Twilight’s nose, who smiled in response.
Rainbow spoke up again. “Like, you know this would have been way faster if I was the starting character. I’d just fly right up to Princess Cadance, and then—”
Twilight looked past her. “Sorry, but do you mind…?”
Rainbow sighed and waved a hoof. “Yeah, fine, fine, finish the dumb game.”
Twilight walked inside the library and both in the cutscene and in reality, she was struck by the image of Rarity standing on the bookshelf ahead of her. The effect was diminished by Discord visibly still caught on Scootaloo at the edge of the screen, but not by much. Twilight wanted to thank her for the donation, and ask how it was even possible, but she just couldn’t.
Rarity teleported down and touched Twilight’s cheek. “So, does this count as me learning teleportation, or does it being a cutscene mean it doesn’t count?”
Twilight giggled and nuzzled against her hoof. “It’s fine.”
“Now then,” Rarity said, fluttering her eyes. “How about we have our first kiss all over again?”
Twilight smiled, but then she found her legs taking her elsewhere. Toward the glitching Discord. “Normally I’d say yes, but clearly the secret ending has other plans.”
Rarity frowned. “This ending better be good.”
“As we all know,” said RariTwi27, “The Enchanted Library and The Enchanted Kingdom were intended to be one game. However, longer than expected production and a greatly expanding story meant that wasn’t possible, and TEL was split off here. However, some TEK work was still done, and remnants of it remain in the game code.”
Twilight touched Scootaloo and the screen turned black.
“Such as the ending.”
Twilight and Rarity found themselves outside, in front of a gazebo decorated in veils and flowers. Twilight wore a sharp black suit and Rarity wore a gorgeous white dress. Inside the gazebo stood Princesses Celestia, Luna, and Cadance, and around them stood all of their friends, including ones they hadn’t met yet.
“You look great, boss!” shouted Incantation.
“You did good, kid,” said North Ridge.
Every pony they met, and every changeling and several other species, was there to celebrate.
Cadence smiled, putting away the book she was holding. “How about we cut to the chase? You may now kiss the bride!”
The scene around them was overwhelming, but as Twilight and Rarity set eyes on each other, they knew this was truly the ending for them.
Their lips met and the rest of the world faded away.
“And… time!” shouted RariTwi27 as the crowd erupted in applause. They stood and bowed, and after some moments, the screen dissolved to show the remaining schedule for Pony Games Done Quick.
“Well, that has to have been our most successful donation drive yet!” exclaimed Ramona. “Don’t you think, dear?”
Liz mumbled to herself.
“Pony Games Done Quick always makes for a great show, and I think it’ll be hard to beat that. But with Injuring Eternity any percent up next, who knows what could happen!”
The applause continued, until eventually it faded into interstitial music.
Author's Note
AppleTank 08/31/2020
joke idea
if you (Rarity) clip out of the Boutique, you can skip the talk about fairy tales and start the forest search early
SigmasonicX 08/31/2020
Oh damn, speedrunning TEL could be a fun concept
