//------------------------------//
// About Reality 
// Story: Let's Play: Equestria Online! 
// by Jakinbandw 
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Taking A Moment To Talk About Real Life Once Again


So what has being going on these last few days on Earth? Well every night Quick Search has been making bringing me supper, and we have been talking. I'm afraid that she is feeling guilty about what happened and is trying to make up for it. She says she isn't, but I'm not used to people doing stuff like this for me. It's disconcerting.

That said I do enjoy spending time with her. I find that we share quite a few interests and talking with her is fairly easy. If I wasn't worrying about her doing this out of guilt I would probably find out time together incredibly relaxing. 

On the other hand after a lot of talk and discussion we decided that we would just be friends for now. I brought up the idea and Quick Search agreed that it would be better to start off as friends, and see if anything grew naturally. This has also taken a lot of stress of of me, because until we agreed to this I had been losing sleep trying to figure out the ethics and morality of polyamory.

I talked about it with Forest Trails afterwards and she got this exasperated look and told me that she would support me. However she also stated that she thought that I was making things more difficult than they needed to be. I apologized, and told her that I was doing my best, but a lifetime of ethics is not so easily changed. She told me to stop apologizing. 

Of course the only response to that was to apologize. Trails swatted Treasure Island playfully for that. 

Another big piece of news is that my parents finally arrived up here to visit me in the hospital. They live a fair distance away, and only got in yesterday, so they visited last night, and then they also hung around a bit today.  They do know that I play Equestria Online and write about it. They think it is strange, but try to encourage me anyway. 

They are going to be staying around till after thanksgiving. I'm kind of glad because the doctors said that I can go home on Saturday, and I don't think I'd be in shape to make the drive down south to visit them. I might not get anything written up during thanksgiving because it has traditionally been a family time, and I don't think I'll be able to get off on my own to do my writing. 

One final thing I'm going to mention is not to expect any writing from Forest Trails until we get back from our journey. She told me that she is quite happy to let me document our travels. She also confessed that she hasn't written much before, despite doing a lot of reading, so she is a little unsure of her skills.


Enough Of What Is Happening On Earth, What Happened In Equestria?


Nothing.

Nothing at all. We just took off and started flying back towards Canterlot.

Yup. Nothing at all.

We certainly didn't enter that Japanese style temple. We definitely didn't get caught in a strange trap trying to get in. No matter what anyone tells you we did not meet another very famous take on Celestia, that involving things that I both find highly amusing, and highly inappropriate for posting on the internet. 

Nope, didn't happen. Trails and I just got on Young Jim Hawkins and flew away from the island as fast as possible. Err, I mean at a nice, normal, reasonable speed. 

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Stick around till the end – Forest Trails


Huh, I Have A Lot Of Extra Space On This Paper; Time To Talk About Reality!


So one of the things I have been thinking about is reality. This has been on my mind quite a bit recently as I keep finding myself thinking of my day to day life (which involves lying in a hospital bed) as reality. I was feeling guilty over this, but I think I finally figured out why I think of Earth as reality.

The answer is actually fairly simple. What happens here effects me. In Equestria Online if Treasure Island dies, or gets hurt I am still fine, there are no consequences for my actions. On Earth if I do something dumb I could die, or end up disabled for the rest of my life. This means that there is a level of disconnect and safety when I do things in Equestria that there isn't on Earth.

I shouldn't say there are no consequences, if Forest Trails did something hurtful to me it could cause me pain emotionally. However the key difference is that any lasting damage that Equestria could do to me is all determined by how much I let it effect me. If I decide that Equestria doesn't matter, I can walk away with no consequence to myself.

The same isn't true for reality, no matter how much I want to ignore the fact I got stabbed, I'm still feeling the pain, and lying here on this stupid hospital bed. No amount of denial can change that. 

However I don't think this is the really interesting thing; The really interesting thing is that for the SIs in Equestria Online the situation is reversed. They can talk to us, and we can tell them about what is going on over here, but it can't effect them. For them it is Equestria Online that is real. Equestria is the place where if they get hurt it sticks, and the place where pain can last. 

I however suspect that there might be one exception to this rule; Celestia. If she is indeed the SI that controls all of the shards of Equestria Online, she must be aware of her physical form here on earth, as well as the fact that if something happens to it, it sticks around like getting injured does to us. In fact I would suspect it might even be worse. If she is the equivalent to a god in Equestria Online and created all of the other SIs, than having her physical form on earth damaged could very well lead to the permanent death of her children.

I just realized that turning off Equestria Online at this point would be the equivalent moral action as committing mass genocide. I don't think that ever sunk in before. When people talk about having a fallback plan in case Celestia gets bored and attacks us, they are essentially talking about being ready to commit mass genocide in case a war should ever start. 

I wonder how many SIs inhabit Equestria Online? Destroying Equestria Online could possibly be the single largest destruction of Intelligent life ever seriously considered.

Looking at it like that I kind of feel like a jerk for even thinking about the possibility.


Forest Trails Addendum


So My Treasure didn't describe what happened today at all. I think he was embarrassed, but that doesn't mean that he should skip out on filling everypony in on what happened. You ponies better take him to task for this. I'm going to chastise him when he shows up tomorrow. I managed to grab something from the temple as we fled. 

So I'm going to sit down and let everyone know what really happened. I'm not used to doing this, but really, how hard can it be?

After My Treasure showed up this morning we packed up the camp, and started up the path to the temple. The air smelled heavenly with the scent of Dianthus and Oriental Lily in the air. The gravel path weaved through the fields of flowers, eventually leading to a set of steps going up towards the temple. 

We had made it this far the day before when we had decided to turn around and camp because the sun had been starting to go down. Despite the insanity of the trail that we had been blazing yesterday, from here on up it was actually a fairly simple, no more twisted space. In fact the entire top of the mountain seemed suspiciously free of twisted space.

Eventually we reached the top of the steps and beheld the temple. It was in the traditional neighponese style, and even had cherry trees in full bloom on both sides of the entrance gate. A gust of wind brushed against us as we stepped forward bringing a wave of cherry petals swirling down. We both were looking at them when the ground gave way beneath us dropping us down into the dark.

We landed on something soft, and far above me I could see a trapdoor swing shut. My Treasure and I struggled to our feet, trying to keep our balance on the very soft ground. It felt a bit like fabric, and I was just telling My Treasure that when the lights in the room came on and we found ourselves on a giant bed shaped like a heart. It had red sheets, red covers, and red pillows, and looked like something from some of the more risque shards I had heard about. 

My Treasure and I struggled to the edge and made our way to the door out. It quickly turned out to be locked. We started to search the room for a way to open the door, but our search didn't turn up any keys or anything that could be used to break down the door. We did consider kicking it, or just folding through it, but I started to send out my power I felt like it was being tenderly fondled in a completely inappropriate way.

I don't know what My Treasure saw, but he refused to tell me, and we both agreed not to try to circumvent what was obviously a puzzle. 

I'd better finish this tomorrow. My Treasure is starting to get suspicious.
-Forest Trails