Chapter 39: Introductions
At the Inn of the Prancing Pony
Chapter 39: Introductions
The latest part of the adventure was in fact much choppier than may have been evident from reading the prior chapter. In fact, every time the adventurers had crossed within the boundary of the “hexagon”, M.J. had raced over to the Apple II computer to see if they would bump into any other groups playing the game at that exact moment (causing Ellen to have Midnight do certain things specifically to make M.J. run back and forth for her amusement). And now that moment had finally arrived.
Mary Jo Powell quickly walked the young woman over to the Founder’s Table. “Gentlemen and ladies,” she said, addressing the audience as much as the others at the table. “This is Alexia, from the Young Woman’s Team. As you may or may not have guessed, her group has been playing the exact same adventure that we are. Now that we have reached the high point of both sessions, I thought it would be expedient to combine our two groups.” She turned to the young woman, who looked understandably nervous, not only at being found out and being taken over to the Founder’s Team table, but also because it looked like she might be losing her role as Pony Handler as a result. “Now if you sit next to me,” M.J. said, “we can alternate rooms. How do you like that?”
“Oh!” said a surprised Alexia. “Yes, that would be fine.”
“Now I’ll be controlling my NPC’s the whole time, and you’ll be controlling yours. OK?” M.J. looked over at her sister and winked, hoping that this strategy might avoid any future mental breakdowns in poor Alexia’s future.
“Oh, of course!” Alexia nodded quickly, staring down at her notes, and biting her lip, before showing a page of particular importance to the next part of the story. It was a list of edits to the final rooms, incorporating a steam powered pumping system that she had thought up, to pump the water back up to the top floor, and adding a few steam and water based traps in doing so. “I figure this bit will have to be reverted...right?”
M.J. laughed out loud. “No, we should definitely use it,” she said. Take that, Celestia! she thought. I just found a replacement for your stupid sponge. “So, how many players do you have left?”
“Well, they’re rather split up at the moment—they decided it would be a good idea to go through four doors at once.”
This gave M.J. another reason to laugh.
“As far as this group goes, there’s just Chestnut, Ameri and Glittering Gem. Plus one of mine.”
“Have their players come over with their chairs. We ought to be able to fit three more in what with…” M.J. looked over at her husband. “Gary, it’s been an hour in game time. Do you try to take over Burnished Lore again?”
Gary started to walk over, but stopped with a mental image of the free Uncle Bernie embracing his lost niece. “Ah, you know what?” he asked. “I am going to strategically choose to withhold my takeover attempt until the appropriate moment.” He finished walking over, to gather his things together so that a girl or two could sit in his place.
Erica sat in his place, bouncing slightly and smiling as she locked onto Mary Jo like a laser beam, going so far as to arrange her seat to face her directly instead of the center of the table. Alexia rolled her eyes and mumbled to her fellow PH out of the corner of her mouth. “Ignore everything Erica says about dragons.”
M.J. rolled her eyes, knowing that that particular request was going to be impossible to enforce.
Sally was seated between Ellen and Luke, and Brittany was seated between Luke and Alexia. The other three girls moved their chairs over so they could watch.
# # #
Brian’s team tried to do their best to ignore what was going on. They had pretty much finished their adventure, and were now busy assaying and splitting up the treasure of the Cult of Assassins they had just taken down. Little did they know that at least half of that treasure was cursed, which would be an adventure in and of itself.
# # #
“Alright then, let us describe our groups to each other,” said M.J. “Girls, before you are a team of ten adventurers. In the lead is a white earth pony stallion with blond hair. Behind him is a white pegasus mare with a brown mane, a dark blue unicorn mare with a white mane, an elderly gray pegasus stallion, a light blue unicorn mare with a white mane, a white pegasus mare (rather shy), a tan earth pony mare with a pink mane, a small pink pegasus mare with blue-and-red mane and weird eyes...oh, and a baby blue adorably cute breezie, and Chossos the Gorgimera. I believe you met an alternate-universe version of him already.”
“Kill it with acid!” Erica cheered aggressively.
The audience wasn’t entirely sure if the killing injunction was against the gorgimera...or the too-cute-to-live breezie.
“The odd-looking pegasus shares a look with the dragon head of the creature, causing them to both chuckle a little,” reported M.J. “Alright, now tell my group what you look like.”
Alexia sat up a bit to read off her party’s description.
“Approaching the group, there are four adventurers. Leading the group is a unicorn mare that is colored in swirls of brown and green, wearing a scale-themed cloak and leering hungrily at the more exotic creatures of your party.”
Alexia shot a look at Erica, and the player bowed a little, sheepishly looking to her papers.
“Just behind her are two more mares. One is plainly a fighter, armed with a blade and heavy armor, her mocha brown nose and coppery mane are all that can be seen of her, and she does not attempt to approach you. Then there is Gem. You can tell the earth pony is named Gem, because she has an iron crown with ‘GEM’ inlaid into it in copper. Her pastel blue coat and similarly light pink mane are only obscured with a harness to hold her bow and arrows, and a light chainmail shirt. Lastly behind them all is a deep brown and black colored griffon, holding two daggers and wearing a black shimmering cloak that is hard to focus on.”
The P.H. stopped and looked to M.J. hopefully to see what she thought of her description.
The elder Handler nodded in approval.
“I take advantage of the intimidation factor of heading the larger group,” said Susan. “The white earth pony stallion says, ‘Halt! Who are you, and what are you doing in these caverns?’ Pretty standard, yes, but somepony had to say it.”
Erica rotated to face Susan, before crossing her arms and sitting up a bit taller. “’Your job, by the looks of it! Tell me, why is that thing allowed to prowl around your group, risking its attack at any time? I would advise you let us take it into custody.’” The girl’s demeanor changed swiftly as she grinned and turned back to M.J. “‘I’m sure we would get along swimmingly.’ Ameri says enticingly to the dragon head of the creature.” Erica smiled, acknowledging her character’s quirk as a joke, and hoping she wouldn’t be punished for it.
“‘Hey!’” Ellen barked. “‘I’m trying to convince the poor dear to come to the side of good—you don’t get to foalnap Chossy!’”
The two playfully tossed chips at each other for a bit.
“I am GEM, the mighty warrior!” announced Brittany. “Look on, ye mighty, and despair!” Nobody noticed her.
“‘Let’s see, I’ll make this quick,’ says the light blue unicorn,” said M.J. “The breezie is Bumble, my shy friend here is Itty Bitty—no laughing—the combination creature is Choss, the midnight-colored unicorn is the Lady Midnight Sparkle, the white-and-blonde pegasus is Torn Deck, the white-and-brown pegasus is Carry On, the pink pegasus is Firebelle—.’ ‘Sophia,’ the just-named pegasus interrupts. ‘But she prefers the name Sophia, as I was about to say,’ the unicorn from earlier continues. ‘I am Facet, and our respected elder is the famous Burnished Lore. Oh right, and the tan pony in the back is Hope Springs. You’re pretty good at making yourself invisible, you know that?’ Hope declines to respond.”
Alexia turned to M.J. and took on a frown. “The griffon in the back scowls at Hope and Midnight, and shrouds himself in his cloak to vanish from sight for the most part.”
Erica quickly rolled a die, and Alexia shook her head. “‘Every time, I try to spot that grumpy b... Anyway! My name is Ameri Valerie Camori, founder of the draconic researcher’s guild, and mage of transformation and conjuration. This is Gem, as she stated. Gem are you still conscious or did Mound of Horace kill you?’” Erica looked over to Brittany.
“I still survive,” Brittany announced in a haughty manner. If she had a cloak, she would have thrown it dramatically over one shoulder.
“‘Do you perform your “research” upon the living or the dead?’ the pegasus known as Sophia asks Ameri cautiously. ‘I have known those willing to do both.’”
Erica gasped. “Ameri shudders in revulsion. ‘To kill a creature so majestic and pure as a dragon...truly it is the most horrifying of acts!’”
“Oh, this is going to be great,” Ellen chuckled, giving M.J. a knowing look.
“Sophia puts on a close-lipped smile. ‘Very well,’ she says mysteriously.”
“Chestnut says, ‘We’re...we’re here to stop...to stop bad ponies from getting artifacts,’” Sally said, playing out her character Chestnut’s speech impediment.
“‘Oh, that’s good,’ said Itty Bitty. ‘That’s what we’re doing, too. That’s why we were asking you before. We wanted to make sure that you weren’t with the Earth Pony Army.’”
“Oh, that’s right!” exclaimed Susan. “Whatever happened to those guys? Weren’t they, like a day behind us or something? Even after Midnight’s trick, you’d think they would have made it in by now.”
Four hours earlier...
“My followers,” proclaimed Stride Eater, General and self-proclaimed “Greatest Being of the Past, Present, or Future”. “We are at the brink of an historic moment. Behind me is the entrance to the Lost Caverns of Soap Caverns, source of the power that will propel me to living god of this world. Before we are finished, the unicorns and pegasi, griffons and dragons, will all be wiped from the face of Planet Stride Eater, and the earth ponies will be...supreme!”
He was answered by a weak cheer from the several dozen ponies still following him. After weeks of his growing mania—and a three hour pre-victory speech—they had just about reached the end of their collective rope.
“Death to the unbelievers!” Stride Eater shouted. “Death to any who dare to put the salt on their vegetables, before the pepper!”
# # #
Several hundred pony heights above them, a flight of dragons were circling.
“Prince Blueblood!” Praporshchik Hanrielt cried out, flying over to be next to the co-leader of the Celestia Relief Expedition.
The unicorn leaned out of his dragon-borne carriage, a mimosa clutched in his magic. “Yes?”
“We have reached the Caverns, Sir. Also, there appears to be a small gathering of ponies below. Are they more of your forces?”
Prince Blueblood looked down, and instantly recognized the group by the the sea of checkered bandanas. “Oh, I love those guys!” he cried. “I think we should dive right down there, and surprise them.”
“Oh, I don’t think that will go over well, considering how the common pony view most dragons,” Hanrielt said.
“I suppose you’re right,” said the Prince. “Very well. Let us land out of their sight. I’ll send a group of unicorns to approach them unarmed, and then you can gauge your action by their action.”
“Sounds fair,” said Hanrielt, who flew off to bring this suggestion into practice.
Prince Blueblood squeed. “Oh, I do love having others take care of my enemies for me.”
# # #
From her post atop a nearby mountain, Nestoria watched the shifting dragon formation with great interest. “It looks like I owe Mr. Silver at the Inn a hundred bits,” she muttered to herself, before setting out for the breezie village.
“We skipped half the cave system, remember?” Ellen said, “So I think we’re safe from the Army.”
Alexia nervously passed a note to M.J. which read “The griffon is trying to figure out what class Hope is, and what equipment she has on her. He’s also casting Detect Good with a wand.”
Mary Jo smiled as she worked out her reply: “Hope’s fighter attire is so standard, she could be the model in a Warrior Smash! catalog. If he’s looking for a bag full of bits, he’d be better off with practically anypony else. As for the wand, the results are a mess, because she isn’t standing far enough away from the others. There’s intense goodness somewhere in her general direction, but also chaotic evil, which is probably from Choss, but you can’t be sure.”
Alexia nodded on reading the note and looked back up to the table, where Erica had fallen silent, deep in thought, as Ellen waited for M.J. to be done writing things down.
M.J. looked over at Alexia. “We’ll say that this room is mine, and you can have the next one.” To the players she asked, “What do you do? Do you wish to wait for your missing colleagues?”
“‘Well, they’re trying to go in through a different door. What do you think, Gem?’” Erica asked her friend.
“‘They’ll come by sooner or later. I trust Sheen to do the right thing. We could try listening at the next door we find to see if they made it in?’”
Sally nodded. “‘Agree.’”
“‘Excellent! And you people?’” Erica asked
Ellen chuckled. “We were ready to go when you got here. Though we are going through this by a puzzle method. Following the clues.”
“‘What clues?’” asked Brittany.
“‘A couple of poems,’ says Torn Deck. ‘Going south takes you southwest, and going north takes you southeast.”
“‘Southwest goes northwest,’” said Sally as Chestnut. “‘That’s what happened to us.’”
“‘It’s the doors,’” said Brittany. “They teleport you when you try to use them. There’s probably a way to prevent it, but we haven’t figured it out yet.’”
“Southwest,” said Susan, looking at her map. “You must have used the door we marked, then.”
M.J. passed Ellen a note. “You’ll love this,” it said. “Hope, who’s been spending so much time bossing you all around, is trying to keep from being noticed by the newcomers. Can’t tell if she’s scared of them, or worried about scaring them.”
Ellen nodded, before laying her note down.
“Okay. The teleporting doors can’t all teleport to other doors, so we can either go through this all one at a time, or we could use the hints. What’s the order so far, north to south...”
“‘We took the north, northeast, southeast and south doors,’” said Brittany. “‘Or, to state it by the direction we were going when we teleported, we went south, southwest, northwest and north. We only know for sure what happened to our group, the ones that went southwest. Oh, and we weren’t teleported to another door—we were sent a good distance into the caverns, and had to fight our way past an umber hulk to return to this area.’”
“Okay. So you went into the southwest door, that’s not one that we have a note for, is it?” Ellen asked, as she wrote something.
“‘No, but Wooden Bit’s group went south,’” said Brittany. “‘So they must have ended up southwest.’”
Ellen nodded, and bit the eraser on her pencil. “We might have to go through all of the right ones in the right order. Heck, each one could be a different dimension, converging on the center. So what was the first one, back near Chossy’s place?”
“‘Going south takes you southwest,’” read Susan.
“Well, let’s make a circuit of the whole thing, then try going through the north door. Going ‘South’ to go southwest. Right?” Luke asked.
“‘Alright,’” said Susan.
“‘I’m no good with mind puzzles,’ says Gorgon Choss. ‘So I’ll go wherever.’ With no dissenters, the group withdraws from the long passage. As you return to the Hexagon, Bumble looks nervously around. ‘Well,’ he says, ‘you didn’t disappear, and neither did we. So I guess we’re stuck together.’ Ignoring a branch passage leading north, you continue counter-clockwise for a bit. The passage makes a sharp turn south, which means if you want to continue to go around, you’ll have to explore a bit.” M.J. looks over at Alexia, for her to take over narration.
“You, uh, keep going south,” she says, looking down at the map. “After...thirty-five ponylengths, you stop. The end of the passage is blocked by a pair of riveted iron doors, each three pony-lengths wide and eleven pony-heights tall. From the look of the hinges set into the stone, each of these great doors must be as least three hooves thick. On each door are many leering demonic visages in bronze. Weird symbols form a crabbed tracery around the border of each great iron portal. In the center of each is a plaque with the following runes inscribed in Equine:
Eggwife’s treasure rests within.
Her curse on any who disturb it.
Seek no further to steal it, nor
to free she who is prisoned here,
for a fate worse than death is
sure to come to those foals who
violate this circumscribed place.
“Seriously?” asked Susan. “Are you required to read the exact same words?”
Alexia, expert Pony Handler that she was, put on her poker face.
“It doesn’t matter, but anyway! This is the northernmost door?” Erica asked impatiently.
“Yes,” said Susan, consulting her map.
“‘Do you want me to mark it?’ Facet asks, pulling out her piece of chalk.”
“Midnight nods. ‘Mark it with a N for the northernmost door.’” Ellen explained.
“Facet does so.”
“Then I touch the door!” Erica said, as Luke looked to the others wide eyed.
“It’s a cold iron door,” said Alexia. “Nothing happens.”
“Midnight steps forward. Then she looks back to Hope. ‘Hey, any tips before I try opening this thing?’” she asked, watching Alexia and M.J.
“‘Randomly sent to find a way,’” says Mary Jo as Hope, “‘Back to a different iron door; / A seventh time and you may stay / And seek the glowing prize no more. That was the message in front of the stairs. It’s Eggswife, being thorough.’ Her voice turns bitter. ‘She went to all of that trouble to seed her little dungeons with monsters and deathtraps, and she’s not about to let you avoid them. If you want inside, if you want her treasure, then you have to open seven doors, be teleported six times, and only on the seventh will you be let in. The order doesn’t matter!’”
It occurred to Luke that although Carry On had read the poem that had been left for them at the top of the stairs, Hope never had. He decided, after thinking on it for a moment, that this was about par for the course with all the strangeness this session.
“Gotcha. So, through we go.” With that, Ellen mimed opening a door, and waited to see what happened.
“It’s too heavy for one pony alone to open,” said Alexia.
“Facet’s willing to help,” said M.J. “If you ask Choss, he could probably open it all by himself.”
Alexia raised her hand. “The griffon is standing next to Midnight, and seems ready and willing to help.”
“Midnight appraises the griffon carefully. ‘What did you say your name was?’ she asks cautiously.”
Alexia smiled cruelly. “‘I didn’t. Let us get on with this.’”
Ellen frowned, but nodded. “‘Let’s.’”
“So you heave against the door,” said Alexia. “All three of you have to succeed at an Open Doors roll.”
Mary Jo rolled a six-sided die. “Two! She succeeds.”
Ellen shook her head with a sigh, as Alexia casually rolled and showed M.J. her three.
“Failing doesn’t harm the door,” said Alexia. “It just means you have to rest a minute.”
“Okay. ‘Who can take my place?’ Midnight asks.” Ellen stared at Luke, who shrugged.
“Carry On steps up to make an attempt.”
“Torn Deck is undoubtedly the strongest in our group.”
“‘I could make a go of it,’ Hope said quietly.”
“‘It would be greatly appreciated,’” Ellen said gently.
Susan rolled a six and cursed. “That’s not fair!”
Mary Jo rolled for Hope, but didn’t bother reporting the result since Susan had failed.
Luke chuckled, looking to Mary Jo. “Well, ‘Chossy’ I think it’s your turn now that we’ve all made fools of ourselves.”
“‘Very well,’ said Lion Choss. He advances to the door, rears up on his hind legs, and grabbs hold of the doors. ‘Choss!’ the three heads say in a battle cry. The lion forelimbs pull hard, the dragon wings pull the creature back, but the gorgon’s rear legs slip at the last moment, and the door remains immobile.
“‘This is all rather ridiculous,’ remarks Burnished Lore. ‘You’re attacking that door like bipeds! I suggest you use that rope of yours to allow all of us to pull at the same time. That way, we only need three successes out of more than a dozen to get in.’”
Ellen smirked, and nodded. “Leave it to Bernie to be the voice of reason. Is there a handle or something that we’ve been pulling on?”
“Yes,” said Alexia.
“Then we tie our rope on and heave!”
“Bumble uses his legband to become a pegasus. Sophia looks at him strangely when he does this, but says nothing,” announced Mary Jo.
“Alright, first three successes please announce themselves,” said Alexia.
“Yes!” exclaimed Susan. “Torn Deck succeeds.”
“Itty Bitty succeeds,” Mary Jo said with a surprised smile.
“Midnight gets it this time,” Ellen advised.
Luke clapped, then shrugged and stayed quiet as he realized he was fourth.
“The doors open,” said Alexia.
“Choss and Sophia position themselves to hold the doors open,” said M.J.
“Beyond the iron doors is a corridor with walls of red marble,” said Alexia.
“‘Just like before,’” commented Sally.
“The walls and floor are polished and dust-free,” Alexia continued. “A thick black carpet runs from the entry to an ebony door 13 ponylengths distant, the gleam of silver hinges, studs and ring apparent even from outside the passageway.
“The arched ceiling is of black marble shot through with bands of scarlet. A dim red glow seems to come from the ceiling, giving an eerie light which pervades the entire passageway.
“On the left wall, a painting shows a four-and-a-half ponylength wooden boat with a lovely, black-maned pony at the tiller, smiling under a stormy night sky. What do you do?”
“Burnished casts Detect Magic,” said M.J.
“It is practically redundant,” said Alexia. “The room is radiating magic so intense that all of you standing outside can feel it as a faint electrical tingle, the unicorns most of all.”
“Yeesh...” Ellen looked her sheet over before speaking again. “Hope, I’m thinking we have to get to the other side, so we might as well go, but I’m not sure what kind of effect that could have on us...”
“I roll to look for traps,” Luke said. “Thirty six percent?”
“No traps,” said Alexia. “Not of the mechanical type, anyway. I mean, from an engineering standpoint, there are sixteen moving points in this passage, represented by the four hinges of the four doors. Nothing else will move—no pressure points in the floor or walls, no holes for dart traps or what have you. The outer doors are magic-proof, and you can see that there’s nothing trapped about them. Opening the inner doors? No way to tell what will happen.”
Ellen steeled herself, and nodded. “Midnight would lead them in, and open the other set of doors.”
“The ebony doors open at the slightest touch,” Alexia narrated, “and at the same time, the iron doors behind the group close inexorably.
“At the very instant of the wooden door’s opening, there is a brief flash of golden radiance…”
Mary Jo takes over narration from Alexia. “The room you are now in appears to have been hewn from the rock. It is seven ponylengths square, and it has a six ponyheight ceiling. Four passageways lead from it, one in the center of each wall.”
“Well,” remarked Sally, “here we are.”
“Burnished examines the area for magic,” said M.J. “He finds none. ‘Not surprising,’ he comments, ‘Teleportation destination points are rarely enchanted.’”
“Gem checks the southwest corner,” said Brittany.
After a moment of consultation between the two P.H.’s, M.J. replied. “You don’t find the mark you were looking for.”
“I guess we’re not in the same place we were sent last time, then,” Brittany concluded.
Susan grabbed another sheet of graph paper and drew in the room. “I’ll copy this over to the main map as soon as we figure out where we are,” she said. “But considering the verses, I am going to bet we’re in the southwest corner of the map.”
“So, north or east to get back to the Hexagon?” Luke speculated.
From the snack table, Gary laughed. “As if M.J. would ever make it that easy!” he exclaimed.
“You keep out of this!” his wife exclaimed. “Unless you want to make another attempt on Burnished.”
“Not yet.”
“Then shush your mouth.”
“‘North,’ says Hope Springs firmly. ‘And why are you so sure of north?’ asks Bumble (who’s become a breezie again)—mostly because I don’t want to let her get away with bossing the rest of you around. ‘Because decisiveness is a very useful trait for an adventurer to have,’ she says, but I don’t believe that’s her true reason.”
Many members of the table (and audience) share confused looks at M.J.’s monologue.
“Um, I don’t know what you’ve got going on with this ‘Hope’ character,” Brittany said cautiously, “but I’ve got no objection to going north.”
“North’s fine with me,” said Susan, her eyes fixed on her maps.
Mary Jo looked around the table. “As nopony has any objections, you go north.”
“As you walk north, the path splits off paths going southwest and southeast,” said Alexia, taking over narration. “Do you keep going north?”
“Southeast should lead back to the Hexagon, so we go that way,” said Susan.
“Dead end,” said Alexia.
“Drat. Keep going north.”
“The northern path curves into a northwestern path.”
“So it’s going the wrong way.”
“Basically,” said Alexia. Rather casually, she added, “Oh, a narrow path branches off eastwards, just as the main path bends northwards.”
“East!” exclaimed Susan.
“You enter a small and non-descript area with a strange box in the center. Atop the box is a skull, probably that of a pony or zebra.”
Utter pandemonium broke out at this pronouncement, especially among those who had played or watched the playing of the infamous “Oubliette of Terror” game back in ‘82. Cries of “lich!” and “demilich!” echoed through the hall.
Mary Jo had herself a good laugh.
“Excuse me! Excuse me!” Alexia had to repeat herself. “Did I say crystal skull? No, I did not.”
“So you’re telling me that somebody just put a skull on a box?” asked Susan incredulously. “An ordinary skull?”
“‘What color is it?’ asked Burnished, who is standing towards the back of this group, and so can’t get a good look at it.”
“It’s white,” said Alexia.
M.J. pursed her lips—presumably in character—but said nothing. “Hope is getting impatient. She’ll probably spoil everything if one of you don’t react quickly.”
Alexia looked over at her. “What?” she asked in confusion, totally unused to having NPCs pushing her around.
Ellen raised her hand. “Um...I’d like to take the skull off the top of the chest.”
“As soon as you get within one ponylength of the chest, the floor comes to life and wraps itself around you. It inflicts five points of crushing damage.”
“‘It’s a trap!’ Hope exclaims, too late.”
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Aye, that it is, dear Hope.
Hmm.. when Alexia is the PH, will M.J. claiming 'her' NPCs keep Hope Springs in her head rather than Alexia's or not? For that matter, how about the NPCs who've been affected by the anti-mind control - Choss, Burnished and Facet?
I wonder does M.J. realise how weird this sounds?
i.imgur.com/vYJGZe6.jpg
Stuff seems to be picking up. Shiny!
5337296
MJ has all the 'free' NPCs for exactly this reason, to avoid any crossover.
5338698
That seems to clearly be her intent, but I was more wondering if just claiming them would have any effect - it's quite possible she's correct, but it also seems possible that the PH, in describing what's going on around the players, would automatically describe what's being said by ponies who aren't actually being controlled by anyone.
5338968
I'd assume if Hope speaks, it'd channel through MJ who'd interrupt Alexia, and draw annoyed looks, but at least not drive her insane.
There is less panic and craziness than I expected, even if it's still weird.
Ah the classic DnD monsters...where the floor, ceiling, walls, and random bits and bobs in the room, could all attack you!
Please tell me there's a gelatinous cube in there somewhere!
Ahh, so MJ is in no way shape or form fooled by Alexia's little secret campaign. Fun.
Interesting. One way or another this demonstration is going to shake up the game community once it spreads that the in-game adventurers have their own personalities.
An adventure made entirely of karma.
That gryphon in the girls' party is seven kinds of suspicious.
Erica is going to flip when she finds out about
FirebelleSophia.Of course it was a trap. They really should have sent someone to trigger it other than the level one cleric who's been more or less made of tissue paper all game long (when it comes to physical tasks, at least). Midnight might not even be able to invoke the free full heal from Celestia since they're in the transdimensional part of the dungeon. Then again, maybe she'll be able to since Celestia is technically in the room, I suppose the question is whether Ellen tries or not and if they realize the implications if it works.