Author's Note

Just a heads up: If you are utterly unfamiliar with pen & paper, some parts of the following chapter might confuse you.

Day 591: Make-Believe

I was calm, I was collected, I was prepared. And if I repeated that enough, maybe I would at some point start believing it, too. I instead sat at the solid wooden table in the living room, occupied one of five chairs and poured over my notes.

I loved preparation. It was a form of organization and organizing stuff always instilled a strange sense of satisfaction within me. In a way, it even helped me calm down a little, but as soon as I stopped reading notes and numbers alike, the nervousness returned with force. Just the usual pre-stage fright, nothing new so far. And nothing I should worry about, really. It was just a nice afternoon and evening I would be spending with a couple of friends. It would be fun. I knew that. But knowing that helped little, as usual.

“An armor class of… twenty six? Sweet Celestia, what was I thinking,” I mumbled to myself, took my pencil in my magic and erased some numbers, replacing them with something less ridiculous.

“That’s pretty high, yeah,” a suddenly intruding voice made me jump out of my skin.

My pencil flew… somewhere. Luckily, both the door and all windows were currently closed, so it was still within this room… somewhere. With a hoof over my rapidly, violently beating heart, I stared at Spike. “Dude, don’t… you almost killed me,” I wheezed.

The little dragon only chuckled and shook his head. “Nah, you’re fine.” He took another look at my notes and furrowed his brow, scratching along the scales of his neck in thought. “Oof… that’s gonna be rough. You sure you want to send that in? Sure they can handle it?”

After taking another deep breath to steady myself, I turned my attention to the bestiary sheet he was looking over. A foreboding grin tugged at my lips. “Oh, that. Honestly, I have no idea. The encounter is heavily skewed against them, but they are smart. I don’t expect them to engage all of that at once. That’d be stupid, and stupidity gets you killed. Everypony knows that.”

Spike laughed for a brief moment. “Big Mac charged a fully grown silver dragon last session.”

I could not help but laugh as well, given that revelation. “Really? Wow. What was he thinking? And… hm… did he survive?”

Spike grinned and nodded. “’Sir Belethor the Unyielding’ did, sure. His pride, however… the dragon found his bravery quite entertaining and decided to let him live.”

“What a generous creature. Then again, silver dragons are the paladins, aren’t they?” I asked with a smirk before I furrowed my brow. “Actually makes me think why he charged that thing in the first place.”

“Just a big misunderstanding,” Spike half-explained with a chuckle. “He was supposed to be a vital clue-giver, but for some reason, Big Mac thought he might be part of the entire conspiracy, being mind-controlled by Yadralak the Hideous.”

I did not know all that much about Spikes Ogres & Oubliettes-campaign. He was leading his own group and constructed his own storyline. Big Mac, as far as I could tell, was more or less the only regular player, with three more slots filled by various ponies. Braeburn had tried at one point, but while he did enjoy the game, it was just too much of a hassle to travel here from Appleloosa every time for ‘just a game’. Applejack had tried as well, but that quickly turned into a scheduling nightmare. Which was funny in its own way, seeing how Big Mac managed to do it, but his sister did not.

I had tried joining Spikes’ campaign as well, of course. But we quickly realized that this was not going to work out in our favor and we split amicably. Spike's campaign was heavily skewed towards combat. Thrilling combat encounters with carefully balanced creatures to defeat. Long, arduous dungeon crawls. He cherished grueling survival aspects as well, house-ruling a lot of the usual low effort convenience spells out of existence.

My own campaign put a lot more emphasis on player choice. I did not plan encounters of any sort with a determined solution in mind. Instead I constructed difficult situations without wasting so much as a single thought about the solution first, and then started to think about how they might solve this. A small change with a large impact. It allowed my players a lot more freedom in how they engaged with situations.

“You know,” I started to wonder with a smirk. “It would be so inconvenient if baddies wouldn’t choose names like that, wouldn’t it? Just imagine he calls himself ‘Yadralak the Glorious’. Or ‘Yadralak the Beautiful’.”

“But he really is hideous,” Spike objected with a chuckle. “All tentacle-y and slimy and with way too many maws and eyes.”

I smiled and shrugged. “Yeah, sure, but… with that description, he’s an aberration, isn’t he? They have alien mindsets. So… having eaten thousands of innocents could actually be something he considers ‘glorious’. Or maybe his species, if such a thing exists, values a large amount of tentacles as a surefire sign of sexual prowess, and thus, he deems himself ‘beautiful’? Because it sounds less cringe-y than ‘Yadralak the Desirable’.”

I chuckled as I saw him grimace at that last sentiment. But at the same time, he once again rubbed his claws along his scales and gave the input some thought. “I might steal that,” he finally concluded with a grin.

“You’re welcome,” I simply replied with a genuine smile and ruffled his head fin. “You’re prepared for tonight then?”

“Wasn’t much to do, honestly,” he answered with a shrug. “I mean, I’m not… you know… you. I don’t go all Twilinanas for each session. I have some fun stuff planned for the guys, and as for the rest… I can just wing that. You might wanna look over that gorgimeras breath weapon DC again though. Looks surprisingly high.”

I grimaced and took the offending sheet in my magic. “Thanks. Well, good luck with your party then,” I bid him farewell.

“Same to you. We’ll talk later?” After I nodded, Spike looked me over once more and seemed quite satisfied, finally leaving me to my own devices again. It was funny. I wanted to thank him again. For some reason, we had started this as a routine. I got nervous before each and every session, no matter what. He showed up and just talked to me. He sometimes just spewed his admiration for Rarity all over the place. Other times we talked about our dinner plans. And occasionally we talked about our campaigns, comparing our players, our monsters, our storylines, spit-balling funny ideas.

Because of the aforementioned scheduling nightmares, we currently had the luxury of game mastering parallel to each other. He occupied the dining hall, because he cherished the grandeur of the room and the slight echo it gave off whenever he used his rumbling villain voices, and I used the living room, because I loved the smell of books that permeated every piece of furniture in here. It made it feel cozy and comfortable.

We obviously both wanted our players to have fun. We just took distinctively different paths leading there. He wanted his group on the edge of their seats for most of the time. Every hit counting, every win only a hair’s width away from failure. I just wanted my group to relax and have a good time. To feel smart and accomplished. And to have a good laugh, if I actually managed to construct something funny.

“Yadralak doesn’t sound half-bad,” I pondered aloud. “Maybe I could ask him to lend me his villain…” I started to scan the sheet for any mistakes Spike might have found and tried to bridge those remaining minutes until my players would arrive.

A knock on the living room door signaled their arrival. For a fraction of a second, my heart thumped in my chest with wild abandon, before settling down again. I unfolded my game master screen and divided the table somewhat, with all my notes and pencils and dice vanishing behind it. “Come in.”

Just now did I realize the soft murmur of voices, even before the door cracked open. They must have been waiting in the hallway for a couple of minutes by now, talking among themselves? “Are you sure it’s okay for us to come in?” Fluttershy asked as soon as half her head was stuck inside the room.

“Come on, Fluttershy, he already said it’s okay!” Derpy insisted with a giggle and pushed the yellow pegasus into the room.

Both were closely followed by Twilight, the only one currently not smiling, because she was way too focused on studying her character sheet and the several floating books accompanying her. In a way, she was the best player I could ever ask for. She always came prepared, she knew all her spells and how they worked, all her class abilities, and she always had a plan and a fountain of creative ideas for each problem they encountered. However, it was not all sunshine and rainbows and the fact that I saw her levitate a bestiary again made me sigh for a moment. Sure, it was closed. Now.

I stood up from my chair and made my way over to them, meeting them near the table. “It’s so nice to see you again,” I greeted and hugged Fluttershy first, then Derpy and finally Twilight. The latter seemed to be surprised for a moment. It was enough of an interruption that she quickly scanned her surroundings and realized that she had drifted off into her own world again. She closed those books, smiled and hugged me again, all proper this time.

My gaze drifted over the three mares and my brow furrowed. “Is that lazy-flank running late again?” I asked nopony in particular.

“O-Oh, no, she isn’t,” Fluttershy timidly replied. “I met Rainbow on my way over. She said there was some sort of minor accident at the weather factory and she was called in to help out cleaning up. I don’t think she will be able to make it today. She said we can play without her though.”

“Oh,” I replied and tried – and failed – to hide my disappointment. I honestly did not like playing without everypony present very much. It was either the full crew, or none. But that was easier said than done, with real life constantly intervening. And I had been forced to learn how to compromise. “Well… the Tag Team of Tremendous Trouble won’t be gracing the front lines today, then,” I tried to joke about it.

Derpy grinned wickedly. “That only means I need to be twice as angry!”

“Hooo boy,” I replied with a chuckle.

“What?” Twilight suddenly exclaimed in disbelief.

“What? What is it?” I turned to look at her and grumbled internally as I saw her standing aside from my chair, staring at my notes. I quickly grabbed my GM-screen in my magic and laid it flat on top of those. “Twilight! Come on! You’re not supposed to read these!” I complained.

“I was just… I just wanted to give the bestiary back,” she explained with a shaky smile and levitated the book up for emphasis. “You know we can’t beat that, right?” she asked with a worried side glance at my now hidden notes.

I chuckled, took over her levitation of the book and set it on the table to the side. “You’re impossible,” I chided her.

Unsurprisingly, she grinned a little too wide. “Thank you!”

“That… was not a compliment, for once,” I insisted with a smile of my own and a head shake. I walked over and hugged her tight. “You’ll be fine,” I whispered into her ear before retreating. “And now get your shapely rump out of my area!” Twilight was the kind of player that got really invested into her character. To a degree that apparently, occasionally glancing at my notes — which was totally not cheating, according to her — was okay.

“We haven’t even sat down yet and they’re already back to flirting,” Derpy faux-complained with a wide grin, prodding Fluttershy in her side. The latter just blushed a little and nodded, but judging by her smile, she did not mind all that much.

“Right, good point,” I picked up. “Everypony, settle down.”

We usually had a specific seating arrangement. Rainbow and Fluttershy on one side, Twilight and Derpy on the other side. We had learned this was for the better since Twilight and Rainbow, given the chance, would constantly argue about stuff and at some point, Rainbow would start messing with Twilight, and everything became more distracting from there. So we just put them on opposing sides. Divide and conquer, or something like that.

Seeing how Rainbow was not present today, and none of them wanted to be seated on the other side all alone, we rearranged the chairs a little. I was now sitting opposite all three of them as I put my screen up again. “Right, everypony got their character sheets?”

“Yes!” Twilight enthusiastically replied, levitating a couple of sheets up. Because her character was a wizard – of course it was – and she actually needed all those extra sheets for all her spells.

“Everypony got their dice?” I continued to walk us through our usual pre-game-routine.

“Yes!” Twilight replied again, levitating a large dice bag before Fluttershy, who was currently sitting in the middle of them. That way, they could all use Twilight's dice bag. Because being quite enthusiastic and absolutely thorough, she had immediately gone overboard and bought something like twenty sets or so. Enough that both Fluttershy and Derpy decided that they did not quite need to buy their own dice, as Twilight was quite satisfied with sharing hers.

“Everypony got their pencils?” I asked in amusement and before they could answer, I levitated a small stack over the screen and put it next to the dice bag. They all armed themselves.

“Everypony got snacks?” I asked with a raised eyebrow and a grin. Because so far, the table sported dice and pencils and sheets of paper and some books, but not a single snack. And that would not do. That was basically a crime.

“Yes!” Twilight once again answered, sporting a smug grin this time, and with a pop and a fizzle, several small teleportation spells put onto the table what she had prepared in the kitchen. Or really, what she had asked Spike to prepare. I could not tell.

A small bowl filled with nuts, one filled with an assortment of seeds which immediately attracted both Owlicious and White Tip, a larger bowl filled with little chocolate chunks and… the largest bowl was filled with salad. Four small bowls, currently stacked, and four forks sat beside the large salad bowl.

I furrowed my brow in confusion. “Salad?”

Twilight just continued to grin. “Well… yes. I thought it would be a nice change of pace. And it is most certainly healthier than the junk food Rainbow constantly insists on.”

Well, yeah, because O&O and junk food go hoof in hoof, Twi… it’s tradition…

But I voiced none of that. First of all, she had this hopeful look in her eyes that I did not want to diminish. And secondly, the salad really did look tasty.

“I already miss Rainbow,” Derpy pouted and despite my efforts, that just… got me. I could not hold back and laughed. I even heard Fluttershy giggle a little.

As soon as I recomposed myself a smidge, I rubbed a hoof across my muzzle and focused my gaze on Twilight. She pouted. “Aw, don’t worry. We’ll eat the salad. And it does look delicious.” Twilight tended to play devil’s advocate when it came to healthy food and our game sessions. Fluttershy did not mind either way, but both Derpy and Rainbow – and me – were firmly convinced of greasy, unhealthy, heart-attack inducing goodness.

“Maybe we can offer carrot sticks or something next time,” I tried as a peace offering. “Something small that doesn’t take much effort to put together but stays fresh for a couple of hours. And I promise I will stand by your side defending it once Rainbow inevitably starts discussing its non-existent right to be on that table.”

“You promise?” Twilight asked, again with that spark of hope.

How was I supposed to make a joke now? Or to deny her? It was impossible, really. “Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.” With the motion done as well, she seemed rather content. “Alright, girls. I believe we’re ready to go then, yes?”

“Waaaiiit!” Derpy suddenly half-yelled, which made Fluttershy flinch away from her.

Derpy leaned down, almost vanishing below the table, and rummaged through her saddlebag. A couple of seconds later, she reemerged and put her little costume helmet on top of her head. I was not sure what exactly it was made out of. She had painted it in a metallic gray and the hemisphere sported two impressive ‘horns’ protruding upwards. I grinned and nodded in appreciation and quickly looked over. I had not seen any sign of her usual teleportation spell, but Twilight was suddenly wearing her Starswirl the Bearded-hat.

“Ready,” both Twilight and Derpy spoke in unison after sharing a look and a giggle.

“Fluttershy? Are you alright?” I asked, just to make sure.

The question alone made her smile. “I’m fine, thank you. I was just… surprised.”

Twilight rubbed her back a little. “I’m sorry.”

“Me too,” Derpy chimed in.

“Okay, with that all out of the way, let’s start,” I addressed the three of them. “Last session, you successfully stopped Lord Duas Facies from besieging the free city of Fetlock’s Rim and managed to negotiate a peace treaty between him and the city officials. It is an uneasy alliance for now, and you rightfully fear that, with so much weaponry and animosity on both sides, it might not hold for all that long – but you have signed on with the day guard for one month of servitude instead of going to the dungeons, so as soon as your commanding officer mentions a new order, you don’t have much choice. You are supposed to travel to White Blaze and you’re explicitly told to look out – and clear out, if possible – for any trouble along the dirt road. Given the urgency in his voice, you depart immediately and—“

“Uhm, there was no urgency,” Twilight interrupted with a furrowed brow.

I sighed, but smiled anyway. “I know. But with Rainbow not being here, we need to retcon a little bit. If there was no urgency, you guys wouldn’t depart without her. This way, we can just say she was partying hard and you have no idea where she slept last night. You can leave her a note, telling her the new order and direction and that she’s supposed to catch up to you.”

Twilight thought it through and nodded. “That would work. Sorry for interrupting.”

I chuckled. “Don’t worry, it’s fine. Are you two alright with that as well?” After both gave an affirmative nod, I continued. “With the prospect of six days of overland travel ahead of you, do you have any plans?”

“Boooooriiiing,” Derpy bemoaned her fate. But her wide smile told me that it was merely her character getting bored, as ‘travel without incident’ did not quite sound all that thrilling for an adrenaline junky like her barbarian.

I acknowledged her opinion on the matter with a grin before looking over at Fluttershy. “I would like to communicate with the birds,” she replied. “If we are to look out for trouble, surely they can help us out.”

I considered if this was an opportunity to feed them a couple of first hints, but quickly decided against it. Birds were basically everywhere, especially in a lightly wooded area as the one they were currently traveling through, but: They were not quite smart enough to discern unusual behavior of ponies. Then again, there was something I could bring up without spoiling anything. “I assume you talk to them in the morning, when meditating to strengthen your connection to the land?” She nodded with a rather dreamy smile. Fluttershy the druid was just Fluttershy with extra steps. “Alright. They can tell you of a couple of predators in the vicinity. Nothing you actually have to fear. There’s apparently a pack of wolves somewhere in the region. Actual, normal wolves though, no timberwolves. They know of a bear somewhere around here, but he tends to keep away from the street. And they tell you of a foreign structure, made of stone and with a wooden top that sometimes spews smoke and many different smells. On occasion, it’s the smell of burning flesh, which causes most of them to stay clear of the area.”

Twilight excitedly clopped her hooves together. “Uhhh, tavern! It’s such a classic…!” I chuckled a little. Fluttershy grimaced once the ‘burning flesh’ was mentioned, but as soon as Twilight concluded what that meant, she too made the connection to regular old cooking. “Any follow-ups?” I asked Fluttershy. She considered the information given for a moment, but ultimately shook her head. “Does Vortex have any plans?” I shifted my attention to Twilight, knowing full well that she obviously would have a small list of things in mind.

“Actually, yes,” she immediately replied. “The surrounding flora and fauna is not exactly the most exciting stuff I have ever seen, buuut… I was hoping that I could maybe search for something special anyway?”

Something special, huh? Twilight was nothing if not resourceful. I constantly had to keep that in mind, because whatever I gave her, she would find thrice as many possible applications for it than I had initially foreseen. In addition to that, at this point, it had to be something that was not unusual to birds. Otherwise I would disadvantage Fluttershy.

Vortex was a wizard. She had gotten into trouble with the guard because she endlessly researched old, decrepit ruins, often accidentally awakening slumbering old evils, and she was reckless in her studies. She made no distinction between different kinds of magic, which had led to her possessing some dark magic spells. Or some dark magic spells possessing her, that was still up for debate.

She had recently tried to stick her nose into alchemy though. Fetlock’s Rim had been a prime opportunity, having a decent number of Zebras among its populace. She had spent a considerable part of her current wealth on books, tools and ingredients.

“Make me a knowledge nature check,” I asked.

Twilight immediately grimaced. “Why nature? Can’t I make a regular arcana check?”

“Nope. You’re not trying to brew something quite yet, you’re hunting for ingredients,” I explained with a smirk. The last level up had been a while ago and in preparation for her new venture, she had put one rank into nature knowledge. One. That was perfectly fine for a beginner. For someone who just recently started out having an interest in a specific topic. But it was more satisfying to roll a dice and add higher numbers than lower ones. I could understand that perfectly well. But in a way, I tried to teach her something. Because despite her numerous qualities as a player, Twilight had one glaring weakness.

She metagamed the heck out of it at times.

I had obviously talked to her about it. Several times. And she had gotten considerably better. But it was a surprisingly slow progress, considering how fast she usually learned. Maybe this was such a chore for her because this time, she needed to learn not to fall back on her vast knowledge in the first place. Twilight Sparkle knew what plants were to be found in an environment like this, and thanks to a certain Zecora, she knew what those were useful for. Vortex the Gray, however, was a novice alchemist and had barely any clue yet.

She picked up her dice, rolled and grimaced. “Sixteen?”

Two impulses were clearly audible in her voice. Hope that this was enough to get at least something, and a sense of defeat because her other numbers, on other rolls, were a lot higher.

But that was the beauty of game mastering. There was no chart with set numbers. Well, maybe there was. Ogres & Oubliettes had, like, a dozen or so books full of rules. Maybe there was a chart somewhere. Game mastering was not about memorizing each and every line and page, knowing every rule and number by heart. Quite frankly: Most of the time, it was about illusions. I needed to look steadfast. They needed to believe that I knew what I was talking about. And as long as I could keep that up, everything was fine.

And if I could not, well… we were a closely knit circle of friends. It would be fine either way.

I knew that her current knowledge nature bonus was around plus five, so her roll had been average. However, they were traveling in one of the most common environments of Equestria, which gave me a perfect excuse to go with a considerably lower number.

It was biased, of course. I wanted to see her smile. And I knew that succeeding despite an average roll was more enjoyable than getting denied at this point. “In those first three days of travel, Vortex studies her new tomes carefully and continuously inspects her surroundings, trying to match the illustrations with what she is surrounded by. With time, it becomes easier for her to recognize simpler weeds and herbs, most of which would be a waste to gather and carry, as they are so commonly found in marketplaces all over Equestria.” Her shoulders sagged a little and with my smile widening, I struck. “However. At the end of the third day, when your group makes camp, you notice a beautiful blossom growing from the vines constricting a nearby tree. As you inspect it, with your books at hoof, you quickly find the right page and realize that you found a specimen of the noxious choking vine. Depending on your chosen method of preparation, it could be used to produce a suffocation powder, hindering breathing and speech, or as an inhaled sleeping agent. Only the blossom is useful for this process.”

I tried to show some restraint and I thought I managed decently well, but internally, I was laughing my ass off. Twilight was grinning and constantly shifted on her chair, scribbled some notes down and pondered… probably dozens of things at the same time. It was a gift well-received, and she looked so gosh darn adorable.

“Only the blossoms?” she asked for confirmation.

“Yepp,” I nodded. As soon as I had answered, a feeling of foreboding crept up my spine. I noticed how that mischievous sparkle took over her eyes and she slowly turned to Fluttershy.

“Buttercup, deary, would you mind helping me out over here?” Twilight perfectly intoned the haughty voice of Vortex.

“Well, at least she got my name right for once,” Fluttershy huffed quietly, making Derpy giggle. “Coming.”

I was astounded time and again to see Fluttershy act. She was a natural. Taking on other personas was in fact so easy for her that it might actually have contributed to the entire ‘new Fluttershy’-debacle a couple of years ago. And I distinctly remembered her telling me at one point that it usually made it easier for her to fight baddies — be it changelings or diamond dogs or whatever else was threatening Equestria and-or her friends this time — if she imagined that it was not Fluttershy fighting them at all, but instead some brave adventurer or hero or whatever.

I liked Buttercup. She had a certain, motherly quality to her, without being overbearing or infinitely patient. Of course I now knew what would come next and while Twilight explained the nature of her discovery, I had to ask myself: Did I really want Twilight to have a theoretically infinite supply of this?

The upside was easy enough to see: She would have more options at her disposal.

The downsides were easy to see as well: The more she already had, the less interesting new loot would become. The harder it would get to think of something fancy to hoof out to them. Not to mention the difficulties it provided for future encounter design.

Then again, with enough creativity, there was always a way around obstacles like these.

“… so, can I carefully separate a part of the vines from the tree?” Fluttershy asked.

“You can,” I admitted. “But: Since only the blossom is useful for alchemical purposes, you have a single dose to work with right now. You already know that these vines are a little peckish. They don’t bloom unless their requirements are fulfilled. While they don’t necessarily require you to lug around a tree for them to feed off of, they are quite sensitive to sunlight, preferring dim light and shadow. They don’t deal well with too much heat or cold, and they need a lot of water with a tad of acidity.”

Twilight stared at me as if I had rattled down the list of warnings for an unexpected pet. Once again, it was rather adorable to see and I chuckled a bit. “Sorry, Twi, but if you really want that infinite supply, you're going to work for it.”

She grimaced, but nodded anyway. “I will think about it. I have it for now, and if it turns out it is too much of a hassle, I can still discard it.”

“Sure you can,” I agreed. I looked over to Derpy. “You still fine?”

“Don’t worry, I’m having a blast. I don’t mind,” she reassured me.

I knew that Spike would have used those three days to let his players roll on the random encounter table. Just as much as I knew that my group would not enjoy this – and neither did I. The problem was not that Fluttershy would most certainly refuse to fight a bear or a pack of wolves or that she would maybe be upset with Twilight and Derpy for doing so without her. The problem was not that a bear or a pack of wolves posed little threat for an accomplished wizard such as Vortex the Gray or a dangerous, unstable warrior such as Ulfred One-Swing.

The problem was suspension of disbelief.

Random encounter tables usually had ten entries. Some even sported twenty. On a superficial level, this was done for ‘variety’. Because it was boring to fight a pack of wolves five days in a row, each day. In addition, at that point, even the most immersed player would probably start asking themselves, if not everypony else: That’s a lot of wolves… why’s there so many wolves here?

Now, don’t get me wrong, that could obviously lead to more interesting roleplay opportunities. A creative game master could make something up and actually answer that in a satisfactory way. And despite my insecurities, I deemed myself accomplished enough to be perfectly capable of doing just that. Maybe there was a rogue nature spirit fostering the unnaturally fast reproduction of wolves. Maybe some ancient ruin dedicated to a wolf god laid just a stone brick’s throw away, off to the side of the street.

The problem reared its ugly head due to this ‘variety’. So they encountered a cockatrice. And a bear. And a pack of wolves. And a timberwolf. And a manticore. And a hydra. And another timberwolf. And a deranged forest spirit. And—

It obviously begged the question how all these creatures lived there in the first place. How were so many creatures, such dangerous ones at that, living in such close proximity to each other without turning the place into a battlefield on a daily basis? Without slaughtering each other until only the most dangerous, most vile predator remained? How was it that all these dangers were only triggered when the player characters ventured through this territory?

It just was a stretch too far for my imagination. And I liked to believe I had a rather good one.

And if I started asking that myself, there was no doubt in my mind that Fluttershy did as well. And Twilight, too. The former might not voice her doubts, but the latter had no qualms about that. And there were only so many ancient wolf god ruins I could pull out of my hat before they became an annoying nuisance instead of a reason to get excited. Because no amount of loot could plaster over the boredom of too much repetition. So I let them travel for a couple of days instead, describing the landscape passing by and barely changing, except for the trees slowly growing denser, into the offshoots of an actual forest.

And after three days out of six, they reached the tavern Twilight had been looking forward to. None of them minded the light time skip. Twilight was certainly not all that much into the survival aspect of the roleplay, she usually just stated a bunch of spells she would use to keep it easy and simple. Need fresh drinking water? Create water. Need food? Goodberry. Need shelter from insects and smaller nocturnal predators? Campfire wall. There certainly was a reason her character sheets were this numerous.

Derpy enjoyed just being present, observing, spending time, sure. But I knew that, in a sense, she was waiting for her time to shine and I always tried to make a conscious effort to present a prime opportunity for each and every character to shine at least once per session.

And Fluttershy just filled in whatever gap my narration left with whatever her imagination deemed fitting.

The tavern however quickly turned out to be less of a place of civilization and recuperation. Instead, Fluttershy succeeded at a perception roll and noticed several shady looking figures standing guard at the windows of the tavern's ground floor. Some windows were not guarded – those with the curtain firmly drawn shut.

It was easy enough for Buttercup, being a pegasus, to fly up to the second story and take a look there. No guards were to be seen, but all the guest rooms appeared to be empty, some showing signs of fighting. All, except one.

“As you end your round by cautiously flying up to the last second story window, you notice a pair of strawberry-red eyes peek out from under the bed. Somepony is there, and they clearly saw you,” I explained.

“But I rolled so high to sneak!” Fluttershy meekly protested.

I just smiled. “I know, and you did really well, but that was one heck of an attentive young colt.”

“A-hah!” Twilight chimed in. “A colt. He is probably not in cahoots with these crooks downstairs!”

I chuckled and shook my head. “Twilight, please.” I turned my attention back to Fluttershy. “She’s right, though. These ponies seemed to be the grisled, battlewise type and the gap between bed and floor is only high enough for a very young pony. That is, if it’s a pony at all – so far, you just see eyes watching you.”

“I cautiously tap on the window and gesture for him to come closer,” Fluttershy explained. “A-And I want to, uhm, smile and make myself look as non-threatening as possible.”

I considered her course of action and was about to say something when Derpy cut in. “Are you sure you wanna do that?” she asked. “The way Dream had described the building, only the ground floor walls are made of stone and everything else is wood. And the building looks… what was it? ‘Well-maintained, but old’. I mean, we’ve seen signs of struggle all over the upper story. Seems to me like they missed him somehow, and if he moves now, there’s a risk of him stepping on a squeaky floorboard.”

I grinned and gave an appreciative as well as encouraging nod. She had done my job, and I really did not mind – she had done a good job as well. “That’s true.”

Fluttershy took that in for a moment and made her decision. “I put my hoof to the window and cast plant growth. I want tiny ranks to crawl over the glass and write something. I-If that’s okay?”

That obviously was not what the spell was meant for, but why would I ever discourage my player’s creativity in how they used the tools at their disposal? “Sure, go ahead. Remember that you need to speak to cast though.”

“No I don’t,” Fluttershy disagreed. “I took that feat last time we leveled up… you said it was okay.”

I smacked my forehead with a hoof, just for emphasis, and grinned. “Right, right. Sorry, I forgot. Sure, go ahead. What do you want to write?”

“The duration of the spell is ‘instantaneous’… that means I can only write one thing, right?” she asked. I knew the answer perfectly well, but I glanced to the side anyway. Twilight quickly answered, confirming her assumption, and looked rather satisfied with herself. “Then I’m going to write: Hello, little one. Fear not, for I am a friend. Are you hurt? Are these ponies downstairs bad ponies?”

“That’s a lot of text,” I stated. It was not so much a rejection as a mere observation. It made me think if the young colt would be able to read that in its entirety, from his position under the bed no less. “Well, he was rather observant before. Let’s give him another shot,” I decided and rolled for his perception again. As soon as I saw that twenty, I whistled a little. “Hooo boy, that young mister will be going places someday.” Fluttershy smiled happily. She always seemed so utterly invested in my NPCs, it was quite endearing. And it filled me with pride, to a certain degree, as I apparently presented her with personalities she wanted to invest in. Truth be told, that part was easiest with Fluttershy anyway, as she found it incredibly easy to care about just about anycreature. But it still felt nice, even with that knowledge in the back of my head trying to detract from it. “The glowing eyes remain still for a moment before they first wobble to the sides, and then up and down.”

“Not hurt, bad guys,” Twilight translated with a giggle, “I like him. I hope his parents are okay.”

“You’ll find out, I’m sure,” I replied with a grin.

The next half an hour or so, they retreated from the tavern to share information and plot their approach. Due to some incredibly good rolls, Fluttershy knew that the backdoor was surprisingly sturdy – and locked. The open windows were guarded and smashing one of the curtained windows would most likely alarm the baddies all over the place. They had taken notice of the large, massive chimney, but Ulfred refused to use that as a point of entrance, as his enormous battleaxe would not fit in there and he was quite offended by Vortex’ offer to make him smaller. The ensuing argument over the usage of magic was quickly shut down by a surprisingly assertive Buttercup. But then again, Buttercup was not Fluttershy.

“What weapons do they have?” Twilight asked, scanning over her list of spells in search for a magic solution.

“You don’t know,” I replied.

“We… what? We don’t? How?” she seemed baffled.

“Well… I described that you see these shady looking ponies guarding near the windows, but you never took a closer look at them,” I continued. “Partially because you rightfully feared that that might carry a risk of them seeing you in turn.”

“Oh. Uhm. Hm. Flutter- I mean, Buttercup? Could you?” she asked and Fluttershy nodded.

“Another stealth check, please,” I asked Fluttershy with a grin. She had to fail at some point. And I was looking forward to that. Because quite honestly, dealing with mistakes and failures was part of the fun. If everything went smoothly all the time, it would become stale and predictable and boring. I obviously did not play against my group. The entire ‘game master versus players’-mentality was highly toxic and a guaranteed ruin for every game. But I appreciated the occasional hiccup. I wanted them to succeed, sure, but I wanted to challenge them as well.

And Fluttershy rolled another bafflingly high number. “Oof, that mare is on fire today,” I stated with a furrowed brow, but still smiled. She blushed a little and I was glad that she did not apologize. Having luck with dice was a thing, after all. And I was not about to let distrust get a hoofhold in my mind. If she said she was rolling high, then she was rolling high.

It was just harder to believe sometimes. Especially for me. She had rolled incredibly well most of the time today. But Fluttershy would not cheat, I told myself and forcefully shifted my focus back to the scene. I had made my couple of secret rolls to determine how many guards she could foil before one spotted her and at this point, the unsurprising answer was: All of them.

“Okaaay, let me give you the rundown,” I started and picked up a pencil in my magic. I laid a large sheet of paper in the middle and started to draw the layout of the tavern's ground floor. Entrance, backdoor, windows, tables, counter, guards, stairs up, stairs down – everything Buttercup could spot through the windows. “So in total, you’re looking at two unarmored pegasi armed with wingblades, two heavily armored unicorns without obvious weaponry, an earth pony with light armor and switchblades strapped to his hooves and this guy.”

I proudly presented a miniature figurine to them and put it on the floor plan. Spike had helped me craft it for the last week or so, and we had a lot of fun painting it.

“That… that is a gorgimera,” Twilight whispered with wide eyes. “And if that is proportionate to the layout, than that thing is huge, and gorgimeras are not supposed to be huge, they are supposed to be large, and that means this thing has a bestiary template involved, maybe the dire-template, and that is so not okay, Dreamwalker! How are we supposed to deal with that? That is a challenge rating way above our power level!”

I could not help but laugh for a moment. “Twilight, careful,” I warned her, “your metagamer is showing again.” She snapped her mouth shut after huffing a little, crossed her forelegs in front of her chest and leaned back. It was adorable. “While you know what a gorgimera is, and what it’s supposed to look like, and what it can and cannot do, and what power level it has… I fail to remember Vortex the Gray making any knowledge checks yet. Maybe because Buttercup has not even returned from her recon mission yet. Maybe. And there’s other possibilities aside from the ‘dire’-template. Could be the ‘giant’-template as well. Or maybe I advanced it in racial hit dice? Or maybe I built a custom monster from scratch that just looks like a regular old gorgimera? You’ll find out soon enough. And believe you me, this thing has earned being this large.”

I giggled a little bit more as I saw how concerned that last statement made her, and how she regarded the miniature as if glaring at it would scrape it from existence.

With Twilight's little metagaming relapse under control, we continued playing. Buttercup returned to the group to once again share her findings, and they continued to plot their approach. I knew that, in some groups, this phase annoyed both players and game masters alike. Not so much for our group, though. I cherished those planning phases. While Ulfred One-Swing was not much of a thinker and rarely if ever contributed to the planning stage, Derpy did so with gusto. She always had some whacky, hilarious ideas. Twilight was usually responsible for reigning that in and testing said ideas for viability, eventually adapting them – or parts of them – into something actually usable, while Fluttershy played straight to her own nature and contributed her fears of all the small and not so small things that might go wrong, always veering on the side of caution. It had kept them alive on several occasions.

Hearing them plan was always an inspiration to me. Not only did I get to see them work hoof in hoof like a well-oiled machine and enjoying it, no, they provided me with additional ideas and hints as well. The gorgimera was rather massive and Twilight rightfully noted that it would not fit through any window or door. Which meant two things, first and foremost: One, they could try to keep at a distance, not engaging the gorgimera until that thing inevitably breached straight through a wall, and two, they must have had a way to get that thing inside.

In all my anticipation of actually using the miniature, I had not thought of that. How did that creature get inside? And how would it behave, being in such a confined space? While they kept plotting, I hurried to answer these questions at least in my head and came up with some hopefully enjoyable answers that would actually provide some really epic loot if they could manage to get it.

The fight started the moment Ulfred charged axe-first through the door.

“So much for keeping distance,” Vortex groaned. Though I was rather certain that it perfectly reflected Twilight's reaction as well.

Derpy just grinned sheepishly. “Sorry, but Ulfred isn’t really the ‘listening’-type, and you kind of forgot to tell him again what exactly he was supposed to do… so he just goes straight for the biggest threat.”

Twilight giggled in such a lighthearted manner that it raised all our spirits a little. “Oh don’t worry, it’s fine, we will manage somehow. We always do.”

“Alright, girls. The door is breached, the guards sport a heavy ‘what the heck?’-look on their faces and are most assuredly surprised now, the gorgimera slowly turns to face its adversary and I get a nice roll of initiative from you.” With a chuckle, I levitated my pencil over a little notepad and scribbled down what I rolled for the enemies. I quickly wrote down Twilight and Derpy as well, and looked up at Fluttershy, who had yet to say anything. "Flutters?”

“I-I… u-uhm…”

Twilight leaned over and looked at her dice, furrowing her brow. “She’s got a twenty,” she noted with a voice that was measured and carefully kept neutral. She regarded me with a look that I could read easily enough. She had taken notice of this surprising luck as well, but with how flustered Fluttershy appeared, it was unthinkable that she was intentionally cheating.

“Mind giving me that dice for a sec?” I asked and was quickly hoofed the dice by Twilight. “One of yours, right?” I asked again, took note of her nod and put it down on my hoof. I cautiously rolled it around a little, but felt nothing of note at first. I rolled it on the table a bunch to see for myself and indeed, most of the time, it rolled surprisingly high. “Hrm.” I regarded the offending dice for a moment, pondering possibilities. I finally looked up at Twilight again. “Was that dice in the bag the entire time since last session?” It was just a hunch, as Pinkie would say, but my gut sometimes knew stuff I had yet to realize.

“I think so?” Twilight replied, furrowing her brow as she tried to remember.

“N-No it wasn’t,” Fluttershy interrupted. We turned our attention to her and she shrank back a little.

I just had to glance to the side for a mere fraction of a second and Derpy understood, extending a wing and rubbing along Fluttershy’s back. “It’s alright,” she softly cooed.

“Derpy’s right,” I chimed in as well. “Whatever this is isn’t your fault and it’s not like this is the end of the world. So you took the dice with you somewhere?”

She relaxed a little. Due to Derpy's ministrations, Twilight's encouraging smile and my reassurance. “I-It’s yellow,” she squeaked at first, before clearing her throat and trying again. “It’s my favorite set.”

Twilight grinned. “I know. When I saw it, I thought: That would be perfect for Fluttershy! I just had to buy it.”

“Twi, peanut, we’re not here to discuss your out-of-control dice addiction,” I quipped and noted with a relieved chuckle how Fluttershy and Derpy giggled, while Twilight blushed – mostly due to the pet name – and grumbled something under her breath.

It seemed I had successfully broken the tension, as Fluttershy seemed to have an easier time talking now. “I borrowed them three days ago, if you remember?” she asked Twilight.

Once again, she tried to remember, but this time it was a rather brief moment. “Oh! Oh, right! You wanted to show them to Pinkie.”

Fluttershy nodded and my suspicion solidified more and more. “You didn’t happen to visit her at Sugarcube Corner, did you? In the kitchen, perhaps?”

Now Fluttershy had to rummage in her memory for a moment before nodding. “I think so. Why?”

At this point, I allowed myself a thin smile. “I think I know what’s up. Twilight, do you by any chance have any spell to test the relative density of a material? I believe you had some spell like that when researching the teleportation stone’s functionality, but I can’t remember if you actually learned that one.”

Twilight, always the brilliant one, quickly caught on. “Ah. Kitchen, heat, plastic. You think they are heavier on one side now?”

I nodded. “Exactly. It’s actually a popular method of creating somewhat unsuspicious cheating dice.” And of course Fluttershy immediately looked horrified. Which was why I raised a hoof and wordlessly bid her to wait before panicking. “I don’t think that was Pinkie's intention. Or yours. So don’t worry. As Derpy said – everything’s fine.” Twilight had scanned the dice meanwhile and sat it down again, nodding in my direction to confirm my suspicion. “Can you fix that?”

“I… hm… I think?” she replied, not exactly sounding convinced herself. “Worst case scenario, I should be able to remake them. But either way, there's nothing I can do right now, so maybe just stick to another dice set for now?”

Although she had addressed Fluttershy with that last part, I shook my head. “Nah, it’s fine. She can use it for the rest of the evening as far as I’m concerned. See it as a ‘blessing of the chaos deity Pinkius Piecus’,” I offered with a laugh and a wink in Twilight's direction. “That is, if you two are okay with that.”

“She’s on our side, so, sure,” Derpy was quick to agree.

Twilight considered it for a moment, but ultimately shrugged. “I’m fine with it.”

In a surprising demonstration of affection, Fluttershy somehow quickly grabbed both and pulled them in for a crushing bear hug. “Thank you, girls!” She became self-aware a moment later, releasing two happily grinning mares from her grasp and mumbling inaudible apologies.

“Riiight, so. Where were we?” I resumed our session. “Ah, yes. Initiative. Well, with the power of Pinkius Piecus on your side, what could go wrong, eh?”

A couple of hours later, the session had ended. Sunset came and went, night had fallen, and most snack bowls — the salad bowl included — were empty. A minute ago, I had bid my farewells to a yawning, but widely grinning Derpy and a very content Fluttershy. It would probably have been polite to bring them to the castle door, but I still had stuff to do and did not want to leave my workplace just yet.

Because at the end of the day, postprocessing was just as important as preparation.

“I had a lot of fun today,” Twilight's soft voice reached my ear. She walked around the table and… I put my screen flat on my notes again. Just to be safe. She pouted and we both shared a giggle over it.

“I’m glad to hear that,” I replied.

She stepped up to me and hugged me, and I was so glad to feel her coat against mine, to feel that light tickle as strands of her mane brushed past. Familiar warmth seeped into me and we embraced each other a lot longer than was strictly friendly. I cared little, as it just felt too nice to break apart.

She was more reasonable though. “Don’t overdo it, alright?” she asked me with a warm smile.

I looked at my hidden notes, then back to her and replied with a lopsided smile of my own. “Me? Nahhh, I would never…!”

She giggled again. “You are impossible.”

I furrowed my brow in faux contemplation. “Was that a compliment?”

She apparently felt quite playful. She turned around with a wink, flicked her tail across my muzzle and made her way over to the door. “Who knows,” she ominously stated while walking out. “If you need me, I’m in my study.”

I watched her leave and sighed happily. “But I always need you,” I whined into the now empty room, only to suddenly hear an “I heard that”-response from the hallway and her lighthearted giggle.

Cheeky mare.

I smiled so hard for so long that my cheeks started to ache. Despite that — and the fact that my mind really wanted me to focus on that moment her tail flicked across my muzzle —, I put my screen back up, only to fold it down and lay it aside so that I could work with as much candle light as possible, pouring over my notes and finishing up today’s session. Because a game master’s job just does not end when the players leave.

First of all, I sorted the character sheets of the baddies. One casualty, four escapees, one new pet. Given that I knew my players, this outcome was not all that surprising. I crossed out some lines on my notes. Things I had wanted to implement, but that just did not seem to fit once the moment came up. A few new remarks made here and there for stuff I had implemented on a whim. Some names for NPCs that prior to the session just had no names.

The young colt under the bed had turned out to be a bat pony colt. Equestria as a real place did not have bat ponies as a real race, but Ogres and Oubliettes sure liked to play up the superstition as fact. His name was now Lurker In Shadows, but his friends just called him Watcher. He had rolled incredibly well throughout the entire session and I would most certainly make him into a recurring NPC. Buttercup had basically adopted him on the spot, and that had been before I described him and she had truly fallen in love with the little pipsqueak. Vortex, being rather pragmatic, was against lugging a colt around, but I did not plan on him being a permanent companion on their travels. Rather, I was toying with the idea of making him show up every now and then. With such incredible perception rolls, he would probably constantly get himself into trouble, overhearing the wrong conversations, seeing the wrong ponies talk, stuff like that. I just had to be careful not to reduce him to a damsel in distress too much.

“So, how was it?” Spike's voice startled me once again. I jumped in my chair, but managed to avoid making a mess of everything.

“Sweet Celestia, how are you so sneaky,” I wheezed.

Spike just snickered. “Rolled a nat twenty.”

“I’ve seen surprisingly many of those tonight,” I replied with a smirk. “Fluttershy cheated all evening.”

“Woah… really?”

“Nah. I mean, yeah she did, but… not intentionally, at first,” I started to explain. “She took her favorite dice to show them to Pinks and apparently, they got too warm and their density was manipulated. Once we knew, we let her continue to roll with them for the evening and called it a ‘blessing from the chaos god ‘Pinkius Piecus’.”

Spiked stared at me for a moment longer before we both broke into laughter. “That’s hilarious!” he exclaimed.

“Right? I’m just a little sad about my boss encounter, they… well I wouldn’t say they ‘cheesed it’, but… well…”

He furrowed his brow and looked over the several stacks of notes and sheets, quickly giving up on trying to make sense of that. “So what happened?”

“Long story. Got a minute?” I asked with a smirk.

Just as I had anticipated — and hoped — he settled into the chair more comfortably. “Shoot.”

I nodded. “So, the gorgimera came out today, and let me tell you, it. Was. Glorious! You should have seen the look on Twilight's face. Oh, and Derpy’s face was precious, too. She was all like ‘I'm gonna get to kill that, right?’, all giddy excitement and stuff. But while they were planning their attack, they casually asked: Hey, how did that huge thing get in there, anyway? And I internally panicked, because I had not thought of that, so I came up with a solution: Figurine of wondrous power! The mercenary leader had a long, long backstory with that gorgimera, he defeated it a decade ago and one of his goons back then was a capable wizard who bound that beast into a tiny wooden figurine. Speak the right command word and it releases the beast, loyal to whoever spoke the command word. Fluttershy managed to get a hold of it. With the intention of releasing the poor beast from its servitude, of course, much to the dismay of Twilight's character. Because having a gorgimera at your command is quite a nice bonus. Anyway, since Rainbow couldn’t make it today, Derpy did not have her usual tag team partner and a single barbarian, while still fearsome, is less of a threat than two of those walking disasters. Had to wing it a little, quickly downgrading the threat those pegasi and unicorns posed. But it was fine, I think I managed decently. Point is, they managed to draw the battle out of the tavern, because they feared the continued fighting would maybe collapse the building and thereby not only risk the hostages in the cellar getting buried alive, but also the little colt they had spotted upstairs earlier. So they fight right beside the house and… haaaah…” I still had not decided what exactly I was thinking about that next part. “I’m thinking about maybe house-ruling group actions? Again?”

“That bad, huh?” Spike guessed with a snicker.

“Sort of. So they decided to take a group action that round. Vortex casts telekinesis, picks up Ulfred and flings him towards that massive chimney. Ulfred uses his powerful strike ability to smash the chimney. I actually had to look up the hardness of stone for that one. Massive damage, but not enough to destroy the thing. But I describe it cracking all over the place. And then Buttercup runs along the roof, switches from her wolf-form to a bear and rams the upper half of the chimney. Flat strength check, she obviously rolls high, because Pinkie, and the entire upper half topples. On top of my baddy. Twilight and I guesstimated the weight of that much stone, reduced it for the area that would actually hit him and let me tell you, that’s still a shitload of dice. So he’s utterly pancaked immediately, shortly after the fight even started. A couple of his goons are wounded, but nothing too severe. They see that, I roll for them freaking out and all of them do. They just run for the hills and a very confused gorgimera stands around until Buttercup picks up the figurine and the gorgimera is sucked into its wooden prison again. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it was epic. It was awesome. They were cheering from the top of their lungs! You know how Rainbow sometimes hovers mid-air because she’s just so excited? Yeah, imagine Twilight doing the same and hoof-bumping Derpy. It was ridiculous. And they had sooo much fun…”

I could see in Spike's eyes that he perfectly understood my pain. He put a claw on my shoulder as they sagged. “But you didn’t get to play him,” he stated the obvious.

I nodded in dismay. “Haaah. Yeah. I built him from scratch. Took me around three hours. I mean, I don’t want to actually defeat them, you know? Nothing to gain from that. Story would be over, that’s boring. But I wanted to show off a little. He had some really cool abilities I was looking forward to using.”

Spike furrowed his brow and mulled things over for a while. “Would a necromancer work?” he suggested.

I shook my head. “Sadly, no. The really juicy abilities are all linked to his mind and spellcasting, necromancy only animates the body without actually bringing the spirit back.”

“Well, except you have a powerful enough necromancer that doesn’t do that, but instead forms his soul into a ghost, right?” he explained further.

And that… was actually worth considering. “Huh.” My baddy becoming a ghost? Haunting the party for their audacity of killing him? A wicked grin spread on my muzzle. “You might actually be on to something. Thanks, Spike.”

He chuckled with a similar deviousness. “Always a pleasure to help torture poor players. I mean, we GMs must stick together, right? Otherwise, who knows what those insolent players would get up to!”

I chuckled. “’Insolent’? Well, somedragon’s been eating his daily dose of dictionary.”

Spike shrugged it off with a smile. “Had to step up my game. I don’t wanna look bad compared to you.”

That made me laugh again. I lunged and hugged the little guy. “Ah don’t worry, you’re great. Speaking of. How was your session? Yadralak the Hideous any good, or is he already dead?”

I was surprised to see the little guy blush a tad. “It’s, uh, Yadralak the Ambitioned now. Because according to some dusty old texts, that’s used as a synonym to ‘strongly desired’.”

“It is? Huh. Clever wordplay, nice one,” I praised and smiled a little more as I saw the tint in his cheeks deepen.

“And yeah, he’s still alive,” he continued. “The name actually completely threw them off the trail. They were beating up bards for half of the session.”

What made him chuckle in delight made me cringe a little. “Yikes. Poor bards.”

“Oh, no, no no no. Not ‘poor bards’. They mostly work with mind-affecting spells and stuff, and my group has notoriously bad will saving throws,” he explained and there was this mischievous twinkle in his eyes that quickly made me realize that he had probably used a lot of enchantment and illusions.

“You have to be careful with that one, though,” I urged him despite my amusement. “Your group isn’t quite as accustomed to mind games like that as mine is. Don’t frustrate them too much.”

“Nah, I won’t. It was fun for one session, but I think next session, I’ll give them a couple of hints,” he agreed.

I suddenly realized something and froze. “Ugh, crap.”

“What?”

“Hints,” I replied with a sigh. “My baddy was supposed to give them some hints in all that witty banter he had no chance of engaging in, because he died too quickly. In theory, he was just a leader of a hired mercenary band, and they were supposed to get a whiff of a conspiracy. Hm. Maybe I could retcon next session that they found a note or something…”

“Nah, don’t,” Spike disagreed. “There’s downsides to being ‘too efficient’, right? They didn’t get any hints this time. And maybe they won’t next time, either. At some point, the conspiracy either does what it was supposed to do and then they suddenly think ‘oh, hey, how did we not notice any of that?’, or the conspiracy deems them enough of an annoyance to send someone after them, right?”

“Hmmmm. Maybe. I’m going to make a note of that. I feel like I should sleep about that one.” And indeed, a note was made. However, even after I put the pencil down again, I kept increasingly blankly staring at the sheets of paper, my mind drifting off to nowhere in particular. Spike remained silent for what felt like several minutes, until he softly poked his claw into my side. “Hm?”

“I was asking if you’re done now,” he snickered.

“Oh. Uhm. Think so… yeah.” I collected all the books, all the notes, the GM-screen and formed a neat little pile that, in itself, was placed on top of one of the nearby bookshelves. “Any plans for the rest of the night?”

“Sleeping, probably,” he immediately replied with a quiet laugh. “At some point anyway. I, uh, was hoping you could distract Twilight so that I could sneak out?”

I was about to tell him that he could simply ask Twilight, but he had a point. As soon as he would do that, she would naturally ask where he was going. Because Twilight liked to know, and she liked to be in control. Even if it was only little things like that. And Spike, just from studying his face right now, was about to sneak out to meet with somepony special to him, and it probably was not Rarity. “You still haven’t told me who you’re seeing,” I noted without any urgency or nosiness.

“Yeah, I, uh… haven’t… so…?”

“Hm? Oh, yeah, sure. Totally. You go, I distract her, don’t worry.”

“Thanks!”

We hugged each other again and a moment later, I stood up from my chair. Several impulses tried to drag me in different directions and following half of them at once, I stretched my legs and my neck, arched my back and listened to what probably should have amounted to a concerning amount of pops and snaps. “Ahhh, that’s the stuff,” I whispered as a shudder ran down my spine.

“Dude, that’s creepy,” I heard Spike chuckle from the sidelines.

I just shot him a not-really-serious-glare. I could not keep it up anyway because I was grinning again soon after and we left the living room. On my way out, I grabbed a random book from the fiction section, levitating it close behind me. “Give me five minutes, maybe ten, and then you’ll be free to go and make kissy faces with whoever,” I teased and chuckled as I saw him blush again. So he really was making ‘kissy faces’… interesting.

Soon enough, I opened the door to Twilight’s study. Ever since she knew this place existed — something she had learned thanks to both Spike and me —, she had arranged her ‘official business’ to take place here. Aside from that, it was a decent alternative to her bedroom if the living room was occupied. So it was no surprise to find her lying before the lit fireplace. She was already reading and that spared me the sometimes weird feeling of déjà vu of seeing her sitting at her desk in such a similar manner to Celestia.

“Hey there,” I made my presence known while closing the door.

She looked over her shoulder and smiled at me. “No peanut?” she teased with a raised eyebrow.

“Nope. I only use that when I want to annoy or tease you,” I explained in my most serious, most sincere voice. “I mean, come on, if I was being serious, I would need a better pet name, right?”

“So you are not here to annoy or tease me, then?” she continued with a hint of incredulity, but still smiling.

And just because she was such a tease, I decided to reciprocate in kind. I walked over to her and lowered my head, placing a kiss on her lower back, right above her spine. “Me? Nah, I wouldn’t dare…!” I assured her, nipping her skin a little bit higher and slowly working my way up to her mane. She seemed to quite enjoy it, as her eyes were closed, that smile still persisted and she hummed a little. I veered a little to the side, working my way up her neck to her ear. “Neverrrrrrr…!” I whispered and sat down beside her, our coats brushing against each other.

When she opened her eyes again, she practically purred for a moment. “Hmmm… that was nice.”

I grinned. “Happy to hear that.” I leaned a little more against her and she did not seem to mind at all. “What are you reading?” I still knew and remembered that certain boundaries had to be honored as best as we could. And switching up the topic seemed a decent way to do that. Instead of directly answering, she levitated the book's cover over to me, so that I could read a surprisingly long title. “Ogres & Oubliettes: A Munchkin’s Guide – Or: How to Recognize and Unashamedly Abuse Weak and Wrong Behavior in both GMs and Players.” I furrowed my brow and looked at her. “Really?”

Twilight shrugged. “I found it in the comedy-section a couple of days ago, but I did not have any time to give it a go yet.”

I looked over my shoulder and quickly discarded the book I had brought onto her study’s desk, returning my attention to her and her choice of literature. “Well then, mind if I read along?”

Her smile grew a little warmer and her wing extended over my back. “I’m glad you asked.”

In the end, we were discussing the book more than actually reading it. But that was not so bad after all. I loved those conversations. Especially when she got a little flustered whenever the book, using its dripping and burning sarcasm, pointed out some behavior she recognized from herself. Never let it be said that I was not quick to reassure her of her status as a very good player. Just… not a perfect one. But neither was I a perfect game master. Nopony was ever perfect. Nothing was ever perfect.

And in the back of my mind, a little voice happily sang away.

We're not flawless

We're a work in progress

We've got dents and we've got quirks

But it's our flaws that make us work

Yeah, we're not flawless

We're a work in progress

So tell me what flaws you got, too

'Cause I still like what's flawed about you