The Ordinary Ponies

Chapter 9 Dungeons & CMC-Part 3

Inside the Golden Oak Library, the ponies erupted in cheers - Scootaloo rolled a 20 in the third encounter, a great success! As a reward for this roll, Spike allowed her to customize the description of this attack. So -

Shadow Loo blew her mane and suddenly appeared from the shadows. Her large and beautiful wings were spread out, each carrying a long sword. Then she soared back and forth in the air, searching for opportunities. In that moment, she plunged straight down in the air, while her wings wrapped around herself and began to rotate. She spun her sword blade like a drill and headed straight for the strong skeleton at the head. With a loud bang, the strong skeleton immediately disintegrated.

“Awesome! I can already imagine that scene!” Exclaimed Apple Bloom.

“Yeah, really cool!” Sweetie Belle exclaimed, then her eyes dimmed and she whispered, “If only Sweetie Beck could be that cool...” Everyone was immersed in this cool finishing and didn't hear her whisper.

The ponies excitedly played the role and went deep into the mine, except for Sweetie Belle, who became increasingly absent-minded. Actually, she was very invested at the beginning, but since she added the hint of 'not good at this game' in her mind, her performance had been getting worse and worse; The worse the performance, the less confident she was, and then played totally the worst. The dice also seemed to be against her, always unable to roll the desired numbers. She didn't want to play anymore.

After the fourth encounter, the Cutie Adventures finally arrived at the gap, and the awakened undead should have emerged from here. According to the miners outside, the survivor was captured near around. With the light of Littlegun’s horn, at the gradually dim end of the light, a "cage" surrounded by stones could be vaguely seen, inside which a pony was hung upside down.

“Found him! Let's go in quickly!” Apple Bloom waved her hooves and said.

“Wait, what if there's a trap?” Said Scootaloo. “That's how storybooks are written...I'm going to sneak ahead and use my trap detection skills.”

Spike made a secret roll and then bluntly told her that Shadow Loo had not found any traps.

“Let Apple Tarry and Littlegun follow the front-line. We haven’t use both bottles of healing potions, it's okay.” Mr. Miracle suggested.

So Apple Tarry and Littlegun took the lead, with Shadow Loo and Miracle guarding the flanks, and Sweetie Beck was alert behind. They maintained a pentagonal formation and walked forward, only to find that the space that had been chiseled open was very large. In addition to the stone cage, there were also two workbenches, a bed, and a pot. There were more than 10 crumpled or damaged notes scattered on the ground.

“I need to observe the surroundings to see if there are any clues.” said Scootaloo, and then rolled the dice. But this time luck didn't seem to be on her side, she rolled a 1, a big failure!

“Sis –” Scootaloo gasp deeply.

“What a pity.” said Spike. “You didn't find anything. As a punishment for a your failure, you accidentally stepped on a stone and slipped, released from stealth, and lost 2 points of health.”

“Shoot!” Said the Scootaloo as she marked her character card.

Then came a dramatic scene, where Mr. Miracle, Apple Bloom, and Big Mac all rolled single digits and failed the test. Everyone's hope was pinned on Sweetie Belle, hoping she could find some clues.

Sweetie Belle picked up the dice, silently prayed, and finally rolled a satisfying number. A long-lost smile appeared on her face.

“Based on the existing clues, Sweetie Beck speculates that this is the studio of a certain mage.” said Spike.

“Mage?” Apple Bloom said thoughtfully. “So these papers on the ground are also from that mage, right?”

“Sweetie Beck is the only spellcaster here, she may be able to understand.” Mr. Miracle suggested.

Sweetie Beck picked up a few notes to read and found that they were all very obscure and difficult to understand, not only in terms of magic terminology and theory, but also in terms of the writer's writing and wording. Based on the tone of these papers, Sweetie Beck speculated that it was written by a crazy mage who wanted to use a magical stone to summon the undead to serve him.

“If Twilight were here, she might be able to fully understand these notes.” Mr. Miracle joked, and the other ponies laughed.

“It seems this mage is the mastermind behind the undead's invasion of the mine.” said Scootaloo. “Perhaps as long as we defeat him, the problem will be solved, isn’t it?”

“Let's rescue the survivor first.” said Apple Bloom.

The Cutie Adventures broke through the stone cage and rescued the poor miner.

“This miner looks very weak, and he's unconscious. What are you planning to do?” Asked Spike.

“I think giving him a bottle of healing potion might wake him up.” Mr. Miracle said. Big Mac also agreed with him.

“But we only have two bottles in total. What if we use them for him so that we can't defeat that mage?” Said Apple Bloom anxiously.

Scootaloo said with shining eyes, “We will indeed lose a bottle of potion, but he may wake up and fight alongside us!”

“Uh, I mainly wanted to ask for some additional information from him...but you're right, it’s possible.” Mr. Miracle said.

Sweetie Belle also agreed, but she hadn't thought too much about it. She just felt this pony needed help.

The Cutie Adventures fed precious healing potion to this unconscious pony. In no time, the pony slowly woke up and saw five unfamiliar ponies around him. At first, he was a bit panicked, but after introducing each other, he let out a sigh of relief and recounted what had happened in the mine.

More than 10 days ago, this mage suddenly appeared and asked the miners not to continue digging downwards. The miners thought he was talking nonsense and didn't listen. They continued digging, but he kept demanding. It wasn't until later when he dug up a gemstone with mysterious magic that the mage revealed his true plan - it turned out that he had lived underground a long time ago to obtain this magical gemstone; But the progress of the miners was faster than he had imagined, and he was afraid that the miners would get the gems first, so he repeatedly demanded; When the miners really got it first, he wanted to use coercion and temptation again. But after discussion, the miners decided to hand over the gemstone to Lord Celestia, which caused dissatisfaction from the mage.

Finally, the rise of the undead event occurred, and the miner, who was the pony guarding the gems, became the direct target and was kidnapped. He woke up now, and the gem was nowhere to be found. It must had been stolen by the mage.

“‘You must stop him quickly, maybe he will do something bad with that gem.’” said Spike as the miner.

“So let's get started quickly!” The three were already eager.

“Don't worry,” Mr. Miracle said to the miner, and turned to his companions. “We can take a long rest. I have a premonition that this final battle will be difficult. We can restore health, and Sweetie Beck can also restore spell slots.”

The three and Big Mac thought for a moment and all agreed. Then they took turns playing the role of night watcher, doing nothing overnight. The miner also regained some health and could join the battle at the time.

Before the start, Big Mac suddenly thought of something, slapped his hooves to catch everyone's attention, and then pointed to the character card of Sweetie Belle.

As a skilled riddler, Spike became a translator. “Do you want to talk about Sweetie Belle's spells? Magic missiles? Shield magic? You want to talk about both? Oh -”

He dragged on his voice, suddenly realizing, and then told the other ponies, “What he meant was that since the last mastermind behind all of these is a mage, he will definitely use magic missiles; and shield spell not only increases defense levels, but also has the effect of immune magic missiles. You can ask Sweetie Beck to cast a shield spell for herself and actively block the mage’s magic missiles.”

“Yep.” Big Mac nodded in agreement.

“Oh~~” The three also suddenly realized and nodded happily.

“Sweetie Belle, no, 'Sweetie Beck, just do as he says!'” said Apple Bloom.

Sweetie Belle nodded excitedly, feeling that it was the moment she was showing off, but after looking at the card in the corner of her eyes, she became worried again, as if she was about to cry.

“What's wrong? Sweetie Belle?” Miracle asked with concern, not caring about whether to “roll out” or not.

“I changed the spell that I plan to prepare before taking the long rest!” She said sadly. “What I have prepared now are two magic missiles...I can't cast shield magic.”

“Ah?” The other two asked in surprise. “Why did you change?”

“Because...because my crossbow attack missed many times before, I just want to prepare one more magic missile so that…”

“Our attacks also have missed many times!”

“Sorry...” Sweetie Belle said with her head down.

Mr. Miracle noticed her mood was very low and quickly comforted her, “It's okay without shield spell. That mage's level may not be very high, and he can’t have many spell slots. At most, he can only cast magic missiles once or twice.”

“But if he cast shield spell, my magic missile will be useless.” Sweetie Belle said. “I... I'm really not good at this game!”

After speaking, she left her seat and rushed out the house. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo didn't even have a chance to speak, and they wanted to comfort her.

“What's wrong with her? It's just a game!” Said Spike in shock.

“She may not think so.” Mr. Miracle also jumped out of his seat, ready to chase after her. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo also wanted to follow, but he stopped them and said, “You stay here for now, or else I may need to find you after finding her.”

After he finished speaking, he chased after Sweetie Belle, leaving behind only concerned Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, Spike, and Big Mac.

“Perhaps I should make the game simpler?” Murmured Spike. “Did she get angry with that disadvantaged dice?”

Apple Bloom and Scootaloo sighed and walked to the door, watching Mr. Miracle's figure gradually fade away.

……

Although Sweetie Belle was young and had short legs, she ran inexplicably fast. Mr. Miracle finally saw her by the small river not far from the library. She sat by the river, with her head down, looking very depressed.

Mr. Miracle walked up and whispered, “Do you mind if I sit down?”

Sweetie Belle looked up and shook her head. So Mr. Miracle sat next to her and waited for a while before asking, “What's wrong? Can you tell me?”

“I just don't want to continue playing...” Sweetie Belle whispered. “Throughout the entire game, I kept making mistakes. You definitely don't want to play with me anymore.”

“Who said that?” Mr. Miracle retorted. “You're overthinking it, has anyone ever said that?”

“No... no, but I knew it.”

“Little one, every pony has a rookie period, and at the beginning of playing, we all will make mistakes.” Mr. Miracle said patiently.

“But Apple Bloom and Scootaloo played well.” Sweetie Belle said, turning her head away, obviously a little disappointed in herself. “Their characters are so...so impressive...ah, I can't even describe them. Anyway, their characters are all very powerful, while my character is so clumsy.”

“What's wrong with this? At first, Spike didn't even know how to write 'precipice', 'threshold', or 'brink'.”

“But that still doesn’t change the fact that I played the worst.”

Mr. Miracle paused for a moment and said, “I don't think that's the only reason you came here.”

Sweetie Belle sighed and said, “You're right. I'm afraid they'll look down on me and distance themselves from me because I'm not good at playing games...maybe even worse, maybe they'll get the cutie marks first, and then I'll just keep blank flank.”

“Do you really think so?” Mr. Miracle retorted. “Do you really think they would do this?”

“Well...I don't know.”

“Did they scold you when you made a mistake in the game?”

Sweetie Belle thought for a moment and shook his head. “No.”

“Were they angry with you?”

“Also...no.”

Mr. Miracle said earnestly, “True friends won't distance themselves from you just because you can't play games. Are they your true friends?”

Sweetie Belle nodded quite confidently this time.

“If it's that Apple Bloom doesn't play well or Scootaloo doesn't play well, will you be angry? You don't, so they won't either.” Mr. Miracle said, pausing for a moment before adding, “Always think positively of your friends. Always believe that true friends always consider their friends.”

“Wow, that makes perfect sense. You know so much!”

“In fact, this wasn’t spoken by me.” Mr. Miracle carefully considered his wording. “Let me just say, I was taught by a very wise filly.”

“Who is her?”

“You'll know in the future.” Mr. Miracle stood up and asked Sweetie Belle to stand up too. “Let's go back and complete the adventure.”

“Uh...I'd rather not.” Sweetie Belle shook her head.

“Why? Didn't you already believe they wouldn't dislike you?”

“But I still play that bad. Although they won't get angry, I don't want to hold them back either.”

“How could you think that?!” Two familiar voices came before Mr. Miracle spoke, and he and Sweetie Belle turned around to see that it was Apple Bloom and Scootaloo. “Why do you think you're holding us back?”

“Why are you here?” Mr. Miracle's tone was half angry, but half appreciative.

“We’re worried about Sweetie Belle...so we came along.” the two gasped for breath.

Sweetie Belle felt a little embarrassed and whispered, “Because I've been making mistakes all along. If I succeed in persuading, I can save that 1 bit. If I succeed in bargaining, I can get an extra bottle of potion. If I hit once more, Apple Tarry could suffer less damage. If I don't change my memory spell, I can cast shield spell. If I –”

“So that's what you think!” Mr. Miracle laughed. “How can this be considered a mistake? Your only mistake may be a mistake in attribute selection, that's all. The rest of these are parts of the game, and everyone will experience them. Sometimes, I even suffer much more failures than you.”

“Didn't I also make a big failure during reconnaissance?” Exclaimed Scootaloo with a smile.

“I have missed several attacks too.” said Apple Bloom. “It seems you are too focused on your bad luck and have overlooked that we also have equally bad times.”

“I have had a time before when I use Kai but comically failed to hit every times!” Said Mr. Miracle. “Success and failure complement each other. Without these failures, success wouldn’t appear so precious, and we would not be so excited when we achieve success. If the whole game goes smoothly and everything succeeds, would it be interesting?”

“Yeah, it's like the cutie marks!” Said Apple Bloom. “It is precisely because we haven’t yet, that we are so eager and can anticipate how happy we will be when we truly obtain the marks.”

Mr. Miracle added, “Those ponies who quickly obtain the marks may not be as happy as you will be when you obtain the marks in the future. We always have to wind our way through failure and success - and the advantage is that we always have friends to accompany us.”

“I...I see.” Sweetie Belle turned sadness into joy.

“So, would you be willing to continue the remaining adventure with us?” Asked Scootaloo excitedly. “The mine in Crazy Pony City are waiting for our help.”

“Yes, but I'm afraid I won't play well.”

“The most important thing is ‘dedication’. I didn't even know how to run in real life, but I'm still a sword master in the game.” Mr. Miracle said. “The character you play is a heroine, and she can do much better things than yourself. You used to be too conservative, now you just need to let go of your imagination, understand?”

“Yeah, you see, I even struggle to flap my wings, but Shadow Loo can spin and attack from the air!” said Scootaloo.

“I don't have the skills of my sister to throw rope, but Apple Tarry is very good at throwing sling.” said Apple Tarry. “And Big Mac, he's so quiet and reserved, but in the game he's a knight or a retinue.”

“Okay, I'll try as you said.” Sweetie Belle finally nodded in agreement. At this moment, all the ponies heard a loud noise coming from the air and turned their heads one after another.

In the distance, it seemed like the direction of Cloud City, and a dazzling rainbow halo burst out, sweeping across half of the sky. The beautiful rainbow shockwave kept spreading outwards, blowing away all the dark clouds, and finally a bright and conspicuous rainbow appeared on the horizon.

“Wow...is that the legendary 'sonic rainboom'?” Sweetie Belle said with bright eyes.

“I think I'll never forget this scene in my lifetime.” exclaimed Apple Bloom.

“That's so cool! I'm going to dye my mane into rainbow!” Exclaimed Scootaloo, but then stopped in time when she saw her friends' funny looks and scratched her head, saying, “Uh, let's forget about it.”

“How did she do it?” The three couldn't help but amaze.

Mr. Miracle looked at the gradually expanding rainbow aperture with joy and said, “A large part is her own effort, while another part - I think it's given to her by friends. No matter how difficult problems are, friends always make them much easier.”

“Hey! Have you talked enough?” Another familiar voice came, it was Spike, urging them to hurry back. “I think that rainbow means they have almost done, we need to finish the rest of the adventure quickly.”

So the ponies quickly ran back to the Golden Oak Library, finishing their final adventure. And this time, Sweetie Belle played the heroine "Sweetie Beck" from her heart.

The dark mage behind the scenes indeed cast his shield spell and used the power of that magic gem to prepare to gather all the bones together and revive them into a giant skeleton. Fortunately, Sweetie Belle, no, it was "Sweetie Beck" who came up with a idea and cast a magic missile to blow up the magic gem, which ultimately foiled the evil mage's plan.

After the defeat of the evil mage, he was caught by the Cutie Adventures and handed over to the Crazy Pony City for trial. He was then thrown into prison to reflect on his sins; The Cutie Adventure completed the task was received and praised by Lord Celestia, which is truly a great honor! The first adventure of the Cutie Adventures had come to an end, but the struggle between the beautiful Manetria and evil Squizard was far from over. What thrilling adventures awaited them in the future?

“Yeah! ‘The Cutie Adventures’ Mine Operation’ - great success!” After collecting the board game items, the three jumped up and clapped, saying. Mr. Miracle smiled wryly, also putting hoof on it.

In no time, Twilight led Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Applejack, and Rarity back to the Golden Oak Library, still wanting more. As soon as they came in, they saw CMC, Spike, and Big Mac chatting together, creating a lively atmosphere.

“Why are you so happy? Is there anything excited?” Twilight asked.

The three exchanged a smile and exclaimed in unison, “This is our secret!”

Mr. Miracle looked at them with some emotion in his heart. Once upon a time, he thought that this "familiar" Ponyville wouldn’t bring him more surprises, nor would it teach him more; But he was wrong. As long as he was here, there might be new discoveries and insights at any time.

Perhaps he should learn from Twilight and jot down what he had learned. In this way, when he got older or at some other time, he could still use this diary to reminisce about these happy times.