Ogres, Oubliettes, and Hoo Knows What Else?
Ogres, Oubliettes, and Hoo Knows What Else?
By TheTeaTurtle
The afternoon rays of Celestia’s sun pierced through the windows of the Golden Oaks library like spears through wet paper, illuminating the wooden interior of the treehouse evenly and beautifully.
Spike, ever an appreciator of beauty and serenity, blew a raspberry that fizzled out from lack of effort as he stared into the sunlit streets of Ponyville. Ponies passed by without stopping to peruse the countless titles the little dragon had finished organizing an hour ago, which was nothing new.
He couldn’t recall the last time somepony who wasn’t Twilight pulled a book from the shelf.
His mind was wracked with the fog of boredom, a phenomenon that made any idea seem even more boring than the last, causing him to smack his head down on the center table of the foyer with a long, drawn-out groan.
“‘Stay at the library Spike, it’s too dangerous for you!’” Spike mocked Twilight’s tone before groaning again “Guess she didn’t realize boredom kills dragons quicker than hydras.”
Ah yes, yet another region level threat that demanded the service of the Elements of Harmony. Like every other Tuesday, these incidents blurred together in the young dragon’s mind. What was it last week? A horde of bugbears? Or was it the flowers that drove Ponyville’s cattle into a feeding frenzy?
Either way, Spike had been excluded from all of those events. Life threatening or not, at least they would add spice to his day after a long morning of reorganizing the library for the tenth time that week.
His eyes idley perused the many shelves before him. Maybe he could read a book?
Nah.
His eyes went to the door. Perhaps a stroll about town?
Nope, too active.
“Hoo?” Spike jumped and whirled around to see a familiar, small eyed owl staring down at him from the top of the stair railing.
“Oh, hey. Forgot this is when you usually wake up, Owlowiscious.” He exhaled, his little heart finally slowing down after a few moments.
The flame of animosity between owl and dragon had mostly died down, with Spike coming to appreciate the help the nocturnal bird had provided over the few months he had been at the library. Even if he didn’t love the little guy like Twilight did, he was still a welcome break in the boredom he was swimming through at the moment.
“Hey Owlowiscious, what do you usually do when you’re bored?”
“Hoo.”
“Ah, right.”
Might as well have asked the wall.
With a huff, Spike leapt down from his seat and looked around again, desperately trying to find something to do other than nap the day away as per usual.
Then his eyes wandered to a particular shelf.
In the game section, which was a spot so rarely touched that it never needed reorganizing, there rested several games of the board and boring variety. From such classics as: checkers, chess, Betrayal at the Ranch in the Haunted Fields, Granny’s Cooking Card Game, and, the best of all, Surgery!
Spike’s heavy eyes scanned the games, like he was browsing for the best cardboard to put on his wheat toast, the temptation to nap becoming ever more powerful. Maybe he would dream about being Rarity’s loyal knight again, slaying countless monsters for his lovely mare in waiting?
He just hoped he didn’t dream about those scale eating cupcakes again.
Before he gave up entirely, he spotted something peculiar on the shelf: something he didn’t recognize.
A large box inscribed with gothic style text, proudly declaring the game it was inscribed upon to be: ‘Ogres and Oubliettes’.
Blinking, he stepped closer “Huh? What the hay is this?”
“Hoo?”
“Not ‘who’, what! Why did- ” Spike stopped himself and exhaled through his nostrils.
Pulling the game from the shelf and blowing the dust off, he examined it closely, his green eyes growing wider as he beheld the art on the front of the box. The cover depicted a frozen moment from an epic story, a battle between a large, horrible looking two legged creature with a deformed face, big sharp teeth, and a humongous club in its left hand, and a group of pony adventurers with various weapons and armor fleeing into a trap door that lead into a torch lit labyrinth, the darkness beyond the firelight beckoning imagination as to what lie deeper within.
“Woah.” Was all the little dragon could muster as a smile grew on his face “This looks awesome!”
Without wasting another second, Spike brought the game over to the center table and gently opened the aged box, its corners having lost their color. What was inside was…not what he expected.
Inside were several sheets of paper piled on top of each other, some blank, some filled out, along with little figurines of ponies and other creatures, and some odd looking dice.
“Woah, this looks lame.” Spike grimaced, pulling out one of the sheets to look it over “Vilgar the Slayer? Who’s that?”
“Hoo?”
“Maybe he’s on the box?”
The pony that was expertly drawn in the bottom right corner of this so labeled “character sheet” was indeed on the cover, being one of the ponies standing steadfast against the incoming beast. There were several other details about him as well on the sheet, such as his class of Barbarian, his level of five, and all the equipment he had on hand, the main of which being the large greataxe he held in his teeth. The oddest of which was his “alignment”, whatever that was, which was filled in as “Chaotic Neutral”.
It was then that something clicked in the little dragon’s mind, a memory long buried beneath the passage of time.
“Oh! This is that game Shining Armor used to play!” He exclaimed, taking a renewed interest in the box and its contents.
Owlowiscious landed on the table and looked over the game himself, tilting his head at Spike.
“Hoo?”
“Yeah!” Spike continued, his eyes lighting up “He used to tell stories about all these crazy adventures he went on. I never saw him play it though, he always went to a friend’s house when he played it.”
The little dragon did his best to recall any of the stories the colt had told him, but all he could remember was a very specific rant about how much Shining hated the ‘Chaotic Neutral’ alignment. Whatever that meant.
Owlowiscious bobbed his head, which was the closest he could manage to a nod and picked up the twenty sided die with his right foot, examining it closely before tossing it onto the table.
“Hey, what’re ya-?”
The dice clattered onto the wooden surface, rolling until it nearly careened off the edge, landing on a 20.
“Oh, hey, that’s the biggest number on the die!” Spike gasped and dug into the box, finally procuring the rulebook “Does that mean you win?”
“Hoo!”
“I dunno, I didn’t make the game!” He flipped to the front of the book and found the table of contents. It was only then that Spike realized just how long the book truly was, clocking in at over two hundred pages. “Who the hay makes a book this long for a board game?”
“Hoo?”
“Yeah, who?!”
Despite his impatience, Spike found himself easily immersed as he read further on, the library and the owl assistant melting away as he rapidly absorbed information. Maybe the boredom had finally broken his mind to the point that learning a whole new system, nay, a whole new world of board games seemed better than the alternative?
Or maybe….
No, that was probably it.
Nonetheless, the little dragon began his deep dive into the world of Ogre’s and Oubliettes….
Hoolock the Great was an owl of many talents. He could organize books, deliver letters, and perfectly understood the common tongue of Questria, despite his lack of ability to speak it. He was also one of the most learned sorcerer’s of all the land, a wielder of magic so potent that it could rival even the Princess’s powers if he kept up his studies.
But his spells were mere sparkles when compared to the might of the greatest hero in all of Questria: Spike the Slayer!
“Hoo?” Owlowicious interrupted, tilting his head with a feathered brow raised.
“Oh come on, let me finish at least!”
The two adventurer’s of great power were brought together to a dingy tavern on the north section of Onyville by a common goal: to stop a great evil.
“Hello there, little owl. Have you seen the mage that’s meant to join my party? We’re meant to go slay an evil lich Ogre! He’s threatening the very foundation of the Oubliette Kingdom of Questria!”
“Hoo!”
“What?” the tall, muscular dragon gave the owl a look of disdain “You’re the one meant to join me?”
“Hoo hoo!”
Laughter so loud and boisterous shook the walls of the tavern, the other occupants not daring to try and silence the great warrior even as their mugs of cider fell off the table.
“Oh please! You’re barely larger than my head, little owl! What makes you think you’re capable of channeling powerful magic with such a puny form?”
“Hoo.”
“What?”
The small owl pointed a wing at his character sheet before gesturing to Spike’s dice, the little dragon narrowing his eyes at the bird he read the spell being gestured to.
“Ha ha, very funny. Well, you can’t cast ‘Mute Person’ on me because uh....” Spike looked over the module that came with the game, making sure it was firmly hidden behind the thin wall of plastic guarding all his notes. The book referred to it as his ‘DM screen’, but he preferred Shining Armor’s term for it: ‘The Fortress of Secrets’.
“Ah! The tavern has an anti magic field cast on it, to prevent fires from starting and all that. So, your spell just fails.”
Owlowicious’s brow rose again at the smug look on Spike’s face, but he simply shrugged and gestured for him to continue.
Visibly relieved, the purple dragon cleared his throat before he continued with a flourish.
Suddenly, the walls of the tavern shake once more, but this time it isn’t from jovial laughter. The loud, thunderous steps outside are unmistakable as ponies inside begin to panic.
“Ogres!” Spike withdrew the large greatsword from his back without a second thought and headed toward the entrance “Come little owl, let’s see if you’re as strong as you think you are.”
“Hoo!”
The duo of adventurers ran outside, their hearts filled with courage and determination as they rushed toward the town square, screams of ponies echoing all around them. The ground shook as chunks of town hall were lobbed in their path, the adventurer’s…um.
“I think this is the part where we…” Spike quietly read the propped open rulebook and module at the same time “Yeah, we make ‘Dexterity’ checks to avoid the falling rubble! We need to roll the d20, add our Dexterity modifier, and try to beat a difficulty of fifteen…oh wait, I wasn’t supposed to say that last part.” he giggled sheepishly as he grabbed his die.
The duo rolled in sync, the plastic clattering on the wooden table syncing with the beat of the dungeon master’s heart. Owlowicious lightly preened his feathers.
“That’s a 14 plus…2, so 16! I passed!” Spike jumped for joy and visibly relaxed before he remembered he had another player at the table. His smile was tight as he checked the rolled die. “Oh, you rolled a 19 plus 3? Cool.”
The owl hooted in celebration, wiping away nonexistent sweat with his wing.
Spike cleared his throat, summoning his narrator voice once more…
The adventurer’s nimbly dodge the falling debris being tossed about, their eyes easily spotting the culprits of the mayhem rather easily. Two ogres as large and wide as the town hall itself were wreaking havoc on the square, swatting at the town guards that dared to try and stop them with their puny weapons.
“There they are!” Spike yelled, his Paladin powers surging violently as he bore witness to the injustice being wrought. He gripped the handle of his greatsword and prepared to bravely charge in to deal with-
“Hoo hoo hoo!”
“What is it, owl? We have to defeat them before they hurt any more ponies!”
Owlowiscious picked up his sheet in his beak and pointed to a spell.
Spike squinted to read the artfully written, yet very small words.“The grease spell? Don’t you have fireball?”
“Hoo hoo!”
“Well, yeah I guess it would hit the guards too but come on, grease?”
A head bob and a gesture with a wing toward the Dungeon Master’s dice. Spike rolled his eyes along with the d20 behind his screen.
“Let’s see, it can only be on one of them so which would you like to hit?” Owlowiscious raised his right wing “Alright, he has a minus one to his Dexterity and he rolled...an 18, which makes it a 17.”
Letting out a sad hoot, Owlowicious gestured for him to continue. Trying to press down the newly formed knot in his chest, Spike obliged.
Suddenly, a puddle of grease magically appears underneath the ogre, his face twisting into a snarl as he briefly loses his balance, his red eyes now firmly set on the newly arrived warriors.
“Initiative time!” Spike declared, grabbing his die before his enthusiasm faltered at one simple realization “Wait, I have to roll for the ogres and the guards too, don’t I?”
“Hoo hoo.”
Spike sunk into his chair as if all his excitement had been drained from his tiny body.
“Oh brother…”
With a heavy hand, the dice fell.
***
“Wait, Ogre's have how many attacks?!”
“Hoo hoo hoo!”
“Not hoo, how?!”
***
With one last blow from Spike’s mighty blade, the final Ogre falls and…hits the ground with a thud or whatever…
Spike reclined into his chair, his mind aching from the sheer amount of calculations and stats still rattling around inside like angry bees.
He looked over the table and then out the window, his eyes shooting open when he noticed how low the sun had gotten in the sky.
“Wait a sec, how long was that fight?”
“Hoo hoo.”
Spike rubbed his eyes to verify if the orange light crawling in through the window was real or not.
“Woah. Guess we got a little carried away, huh?”
“Hoo!” Owlowicious replied, his tiny eyes showing the smile that his beak couldn’t. Spike’s chest still had the sting of guilt from earlier, but he forced it down with a chuckle.
The little dragon gave the table a once over. Miniatures of ponies were toppled over, ogre figures were knocked on their backs, and the generic plastic pieces for their characters, Spike and Hoolock, stood triumphant over their foes, the imagined visage of both characters smiling happily at their victory.
“Yeah, it was pretty fun wasn’t it?”
With no sign of Twilight and friends coming back anytime soon, Spike looked once more out the window and back to the game. If it had been one year earlier, he would have been worried sick about Twilight if she had been gone on a world saving quest this long, but he knew better than to do that. No matter what challenges came their way, be it world ending or otherwise, nothing would ever stop those ponies as long as they had each other.
He shrugged and looked to Owlowiscious “Want to grab something from the Cakes?”
“Hoo hoo?”
“You know who, come on.”
“Hoo!”
Spike laughed as the owl landed on the biggest spine on his head. “I know, I’m just messin’ around. I’m in the mood for some ruby crusted donuts tonight!”
His small owl friend hooted in agreement and the two ventured out into the evening streets of Ponyville. The glow of Celestia’s setting light colored the sky a light pink and blue as the pair passed ponies who were either going home from work or from a late hangout session.
As they passed town hall, Spike couldn’t stop his mind from conjuring the very battle he had enacted not too long ago, nor could he stop the smile from growing on his face. He envisioned other types of monsters attacking and even more brave adventurers putting a stop to them, the crowds cheering them on for saving their lives.
Casting an idle look up at the clouds placed by weather ponies early in the evening, he imagined an epic battle with a giant flying monster in a sky city like Cloudsdale. He could barely contain his excitement as he bounced with each step, thinking up more and more scenarios he could create for Owlowiscious to encounter.
But why stop at just him? Maybe he could get other ponies in on it?
The Crusaders? Nah. Even if he spun a story about them possibly getting an ogre slaying or dice rolling cutie mark, all the rules would probably bore them to tears.
Snips and Snails, maybe?
Spike felt a sudden shiver go up his spines. Nope, definitely the Crusaders first.
“Hey Owlowiscious, we’re gonna swing by Sweet Apple Acres after donuts, okay?”
“Hoo?”
“Going to see if we can get more players for Ogres and Oubliettes! I think it’d be more fun with five adventurers instead of just two.” He grinned “Maybe even more!”
The owl raised a brow “Hoo?”
“Oh, don’t give me that look! Besides, can you imagine if we roped in Big Macintosh too?” the dragon guffawed “That’d be hilarious!”
Owlowiscious’s brow raised even further, but Spike continued to fantasize even as they stepped through the swinging doors of Sugarcube Corner. For once in his life, the little dragon was grateful to have escaped the sweet temptation of a nap to discover such a grand experience.
But one question still lingered in the back of his mind…
What in Equestria was an oubliette?
