//------------------------------// // Game Start: Betrayal at House on the Hill // Story: Let's Play A Game! // by DagaYemar //------------------------------// “Come on in,” Twilight Sparkle said, stepping back and holding open the door. “You’re just in time.” “Thank you.” Fluttershy glanced around the library and smiled hesitantly. “My, it looks like the repairs are… coming along nicely.” Several brand new bookcases flanked one section of the library’s main room opposite the window. The window in question was still boarded over, as tailor-fit glass was at… something of a premium in Ponyville right now, but the sill had been freshly repaired. And you could barely see any of the scorch marks in the floorboards anymore. Twilight coughed into a hoof and gestured her friend over to the also brand new table. “We’re only waiting on Rarity. She should be here any minute.” “I think I saw her on my way here, but I’m not sure…” Fluttershy swallowed and steeled her nerves, looking around the table at each of her friends in turn. “I just wanted to apologize once more for how I acted in the game last week. I don’t know what came over me and I hope you’ll be able to forgive me for everything I said…” Rainbow Dash huffed out a breath and leaned back in her chair. “Come on, Fluttershy, you’ve apologized for that every time we’ve seen you since then! We get it, and we forgive you already!” “‘Sides, it’s not like we weren’t at fault ourselves,” Applejack put in, shooting a disapproving glance at Rainbow. “We all said things we regret that day. Don’t worry about it, sugarcube.” “Not to mention,” Pinkie chirped happily, bouncing up from behind the pegasus somehow and eliciting a squeak of surprise from her, “I said sorry to Twilight myself when I showed up and Applejack did too when she showed up after that! And now that you’ve apologized everypony has apologized to everypony else! Save for Rainbow Dash, who’s too cool for that, apparently.” She ended her little speech by zipping over behind the blue pony, staring down at her like a disapproving teacher. Rainbow shrugged and folded her hooves behind her head. “I already said I was sorry once. I’m over it,” Her eyes opened and sparkled with memory. “Besides, that fight with Princess Celestia was epic. Scary, but in an awesome way!” She blinked and noticed the way the others were looking at her and quickly tried to backpedal. “Err, not that I think it should happen again or anything…” Twilight sighed and stepping in before Rainbow could dig herself in any deeper. “It won’t happen again. Last week’s game was… a poor decision, but I still want to spend time with you all. I promise not to let myself get that competitive again.” “I’m he-ear!” Rarity exclaimed in a singsong voice, brushing the door open with her magic and striking a dramatic entrance. She had a large shopping bag floating in the air behind her. She took a moment to levitate her hat and scarf onto the coat rack by the door before joining the others at the table. “So sorry I’m late, but there was just a dreadfully long line to wait through at the store. I’m terribly sorry I made you wait.” She took a deep breath and a little more formality crept into her voice. “And I wanted to once again ask for forgiveness for my behavior last week-” “We forgive you!” all five of her friends said at the same time, with various levels of volume. They stared at each other for a half second and then all devolved into laughter. Rarity arched her eyebrow daintily and looked around, lost. “I’m… sorry, am I missing something? What’s funny?” “N-nothing,” Twilight managed to choke out as her chuckles subsided, “So, you volunteered to bring a game for us to play this time. What did you bring?” “Right. Well,” Rarity said, trying to pull some dignity back into her presentation, “There’s a bit of a story behind that. I was planning on borrowing something from Sweetie Belle but I got a little caught up designing this simply fabulous new line of hats, and I quite forgot until after she’d already gone out to play with her friends. So I stopped by the toy store down by the spa and the nice salespony recommended this game here. It’s apparently very popular.” She pulled the box out of the bag and settled it into the middle of the table. “It’s called Betrayal at House on the Hill!” There was silence around the table for a few moments and then Applejack softly cleared her throat. “Um… beg pardon?” “You bought a game where we betray each other again?!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed. Rarity levitated the game off the table before her protectively. “No, you see, I had the same reaction at first, but it’s not like that! The salespony explained that it’s an exploration game in which one of us is secretly the enemy, but we don’t find out who that pony is until the very end! Before that we all work together to explore this haunted house.” “Well sounds good enough for me!” Pinkie bubbled happily, snatching the box out of the air and yanking off the top, “Let’s pop this bad boy open and get to playing!” Applejack poked her hoof into the box and pushed aside the game board. “That’s a lot of bits and pieces.” Twilight pulled the instruction booklet – one of three, Rainbow noted with alarm – out with her magic and flipped it open to the first page. “I’ll give this a look through while you girls get everything out and set it up.” Several minutes, and plenty of “I think these black things clip onto here” and “No, those are supposed to be separate decks, not mixed together” later, the princess put down the booklet and picked up one of the pentagonal tiles. “I’ve got a good handle on how it works. It’s actually not as complicated as it looks. We each pick one of these characters, and these sliding knobs keep track of various stats like speed and sanity.” “So how do we set up the rooms?” Fluttershy asked, picking up another stack of tiles. “We don’t,” Twilight said, shaking her head, “We build the map randomly as we go. The game starts with us…”