CYOA: A Day in Ponyville

You march on with your new friends, feeling ready for anything. They lead you to a nest of four rather large tatzlworms. "There they are!" The leader looks at you. "Ready?"

"For anything!" You didn't come this far to lose to a worm. Even if it did have fangs, venom, and who knows what else! You race in towards the nearest one with a war cry. That's when you notice that the worms aren't small. You keep running, but they barely come closer. They're quire a distance away, and quite large.

The unicorn swoops in on a disk of air, lashing out with a blast of magic. It hits one of the creatures.

It lets out a hiss as a bit of its scales smolder.

You end up at the center of a pitched battle between the brigands and the worms. The brigands seem to know how to fight, unlike you. You rush back and forth across the battlefield, striking at any foe that wanders into your path.

You are brave. Or at least you try to convince yourself of that.

Finally, one of the tatzlworms has enough. It roars so loud you feel your fur going flat from the noise alone. It lashes out with its tail, smacking the unicorn aside. Then it opens its maw wide, lunging forward towards you.

It takes all your strength to push yourself away from the creature, avoiding its gaping maw.

It comes down just behind you, tearing up a chunk of sand with its fangs.

You look around at the scene of the battle. There are only two worms left, and the bandits seem to be in control. "Need to get those hairs before I go." But the worms don't even look like they even could have hair! They're just scaly!

One of the worms faces you. You quickly cast around for something that might help. A rock? Something?

A stray tail lashes out from one of the battles nearby, crashing against the worm's side and leaving a bit of a scratch. It's enough of a distraction for you to already be running away before it thinks to look back.

The second battle ends shortly after that, the leader slashing at the exposed underbelly of the final tatzlworm. It lets out a dying hiss, falling still. "Alright, alright! Now what was it you needed again?"

You exhale softly. "It's for Pinkie Pie. But... I'm not sure that tatzlworm even has hairs. I was kinda expecting, well." You motion towards your own mane.

The leader prods at the unmoving form of the worm. "Well, let's get looking. If she says they have 'em, gotta be around here."

You, the unicorn, and the rest of the gang all work together to examine the tatzlworm's body, but the only thing you can find are bits of sand or rock that stick to its scales.

You prod at one of its poison stingers. "What about this?"

The leader comes over to peer at it. "Good for a quick end?" She catches herself. "Wait a second! Did that mare mean a hair like somethin' you put in a drink?!"

You consider the poison needle before you. "I mean, maybe? It could be? Let me see it." You grab the stinger and yank with all your might. It slides out with ease. "I'll take a few of these back and hope she likes it."

You exchange hoofbumps with your new friends and you all wave as you start in your different directions. "Pinkie sure has a lot of friends."

With that mystery solved, you head back towards town, buying some travel sweets to munch on the way back. At least it was an adventure.

When you get back to Ponyville proper, you rejoin the ponies already mid-party. You look for Pinkie, and soon find her bouncing around with excitement.

"Didja get it? I hope you got it! I mean, tatzlworms aren't bad. Just wily. But they can have super powerful poisons!"

You hold up a hoof for quiet. "Speaking of poisons." You produce the stingers you brought back. "Here you go. Hairs from a tatzlworm. Promise."

Pinkie cheers at that, but you know she'd probably take anything you said as truth. She bounces about, just happy to have something. She grabs all the vials up at once and rushes over to the drink table. You stare as she mixes together every single one of the poisons with a wide grin. "Drinks! Good news is this should make the party even better. Bad news is if you drank this stuff straight, you'd be in for trouble." She tosses the stingers away, the poisons already put in the drinks. "Drinks up everypony!"

"Did she just?" You stand there, aghast. But before you can say anything more, everypony cheers, rushing in for some of Pinkie's tasty new poison juice. "Should I tell them?" Unsure what to do, you just excuse yourself.

You did your part.

That was a mildly confusing day in Ponyville.

The End.