Twilight Sparkle has some !!FUN!!

by LakieLegion

Twilight plays Dwarf Fortress

Twilight Sparkle was known for a few things.

She was the personal student of Princess Celestia, she was the bearer of the Element of Magic, she had ascended to alicornhood after fixing one of Starswirl the Bearded’s long lost spells, she loved books and checklists.

And she was inquisitive.

Twilight had recently decided to return to the world of humans for a small research project, and her friend, Sunset Shimmer, had given her access to a computer. On this computer Twilight had installed the focus of her research project.

A video game called ‘Dwarf Fortress.’

She decided to look up as little as possible on the game, and only used a few simple addons to allow some more minute control over the game, which she simply knew as a management simulator.

After a short while of world generation, embarkment searching and preparation, she was finally able to strike the earth.

Only time would tell how badly things went.

---

“Okay, let’s get started” Twilight mumbled to herself, quickly getting herself acclimated to the keyboard controls.

Twilight quickly had a few things set up for her dwarves to start. She had set an area for her miners to dig out, she designated trees and plants for her grower and woodcutter to harvest and finally, her fisher and hunter were automatically set to do their jobs.

“This seems easy enough” Twilight said, gaining confidence as she watched her dwarves start to carve their way through the soft soils of the surface and the small amount of rock within the mountain she had decided to call home.

Not long after, Twilight had a few basic necessities set up; A large field growing the plump helmet mushrooms that her dwarves would soon distill into wine, a small area on the surface for the butcher and fishery workstations, as well as preliminary carpenter and mason workshops in order to get a head start on beds and doors for the inside of her fort.

Things were looking up, and they were quickly getting only better.

---

A few years had passed in her game, and Twilight had finally finished setting up enough bedrooms for her fifty and growing dwarves, she had even had a grand dining hall fully furnished.

But Twilight had yet to see more than honey badgers, elephants, kobold thieves and a logging accident, which had hospitalised three dwarves with mangled right arms.

However, Dwarf Fortress had a few things lingering up it’s sleeves.

Another simple month of carpentry, masonry, cooking, brewing and the like quickly turned into a horror show.

“What’s this? A Giantess? I hope she’s friendly” Twilight mumbled to herself, but Dwarf Fortress had other plans in mind.

As quickly as it had arrived, the Giant had claimed the lives of three fishermen, before being punched to death by five civilians, including the dwarf she had set as her Manager.

“That was… weird.” Twilight mumbled once more, thanking herself for setting up burial chambers during the few quiet years she had.

But again, Armok was naught but a cruel master.

Not long after the Giant had been killed, Twilight finally hit the cavern level while digging down, looking for more than the copper and silver bearing Tetrahedrite. Her dwarves her happy however, finally being able to gather spider webs down in the cavern level in order to supply the fort with an influx of silk.

But with the Caverns comes great horrors.

“A huge feathered crab, with a trunk that undulates rhythmically that also has noxious secretions? Okay” Twilight said, slightly perturbed at the mental imagery of such a creature.

The crab thankfully wandered hither and thither for a short while, allowing Twilight to quickly rally her newfound militia.

But again, Armok is anything but cruel.

A pair of unknowing weavers decided to trek down to the caverns for some fresh web, and came face to face with the undulating horror crab lurking down below.

Before she had time to react, the giant crab decapitated one weaver and had decided to start kicking the other, swiftly ending his existence before making a beeline for the stairway to her fortress.

Her militia met it halfway down, coming down upon the horror crab with their copper battleaxes and crossbows.

Again, a giant beastie fell to the supreme bullshit of dwarves as the forgotten beast was slain by a whack to the head by the butt of a crossbow.

And as the militia headed back upstairs to stow their gear, a butcher started making his way down to haul the remains of the horror crab.

Twilight’s dwarves would be eating crab for some time.

But not in their legendary dining hall.

No, soon they would be feasting in hell.

The prosperity of Twilight’s fortress had not gone unnoticed, the high quality of the badger bone amulets and pond turtle shell crowns she had exported in order to obtain more materials for her growing industry had drawn the attention of the local kobolds.

Barely a season past the slaying of the crustacean horror beast, a siege arrived. Around thirty kobolds, armed to the teeth, had set up a camp outside the gate of her fortress, slaying any dwarf that tried to leave for a task, whether it be hunting, fishing or plant cutting.

Twilight rallied her militia, she would break this siege if it was the last thing she did.

---

It turned out to be the last thing she did.

Twilight HAD managed to break the kobold siege, but not without casualties. A LOT of them.

Her last ten dwarves had barely made a dent in the ferrying of the dead to the catacombs before descending into a tantrum spiral. Their own tantrums sending their fellow survivors into their own tantrums.

And then the children started having tantrums, so badly that the young adolescent dwarves had torn the adults to shreds within a month.

Twilight’s ‘perfect’ fort had been ended by kids going crazy.

---

“I don’t understand! I had three full squads of dwarves trained for combat, and I still lost all of them to the kobolds! How is that possible!? They punch a giant to death, and turn a giant undulating CRAB into dinner by whacking it with their crossbows. But a Kobold siege? They all die… all thirty of my militia, killing about ten of them. A swarm of sixty untrained dwarves, using their bare fists only BARELY finished the kobolds off, with only about ten of them surviving! How do you beat a game like that!?” Twilight ranted, with Sunset Shimmer and Rainbow Dash as her involuntary audience, laughing their heads off.

“Sounds like you had a rough day yesterday, Twi,” Rainbow said, wiping away the tears that had formed due to her laughter, Sunset having more trouble in stopping her laughter.

“That’s kinda the point of Dwarf Fortress though, Twilight, seeing how insane or weird things get when everything goes awry, and how glorious a death you give to your dwarves in the end,” Sunset managed to choke out.

“What!? What kind of masochist enjoys that kind of game?” Twilight exclaimed. Sunset just laughed harder.

“You’d be surprised Twilight, you’d be surprised,” Rainbow sighed.

---

Fluttershy watched as her fort was decimated by a forgotten beast.

It was unfortunately a losing battle from the beginning, as the creature produced a cloud of dust that killed the majority of the dwarves that charged into the battle.

“Oh dear. I guess it’s time to start again,” Fluttershy moaned as she looked over to her pet rabbit, Angel.

“I think I’m going to start in an evil biome this time. How does that sound Angel Bunny?”

Author's Note:

I had an idea to write this the other day after starting good ole Dwarf Fortress again the other day.

Although, needless to say, the part with Fluttershy was thrown in on a whim at then end.

Comments

[Harmony Pie]

!!FUN!!

Just something I noticed; when a character is speaking, it's important to have a comma if they say something directly.

Ex: "Hi," Twilight said.

Have a nice day

[Blacklight]

Did this come about because of my post on that other story, or in the forum, I forgot where I posted it, where I mentioned "Could Twilight handle playing Dwarf Fortress" yesterday? Haha!

[LakieLegion]

7340975 nope, but hey, great minds think alike

7340895 thanks for that

[Blacklight]

It's funny, because yesterday there was a story where Twilight tried a "Startegy Game" and it was some simple real time strategy game and I posted something like "Oh come on, she's Twilight Sparkle. Could she possibly handle something like "Dwarf Fortress" or "Larry Bond's Harpoon Commander's Edition"?" Haha!!

I posted this yesterday. Then I saw your story today.

Coincidentally, I was actually playing "Dwarf Fortress" earlier today too. Haha!! How worlds collide.

[LakieLegion]

7341600 I was spurred into action to write this after reading 'Twilight plays a strategy game' earlier today not to mention that I recently started a new fortress, which, coincidentally, is where the giantess and crab forgotten beast encounters came from

[Blacklight]

Great minds DO think alike! :) I love that game more than any other game ever. Heck, I sometimes generate worlds just to read the Legends files. The legends alone are FULL of incredible stories. I've seen stories in the legends that rival some of the best fantasy stories I've read. I remember one story where there was a young elf girl who grew up as an herbalist, but then her town was attacked by some giant forgotten beast. She escaped from the massacre but ended up wandering the wilds for several years and eventually ended up in this Elvin city where she caught the fancy of the local prince. They got married. But tragedy struck as some creature of the night kidnapped her and took her to his stronghold. He transformed her into a "Lady of the Night" She then became this wicked villain and waged war upon her own people and ultimately this heroine from her own city trekked out to the fortress she lived in and struck her down.
I love reading the Legends. You can find so many gems in there.

[LakieLegion]

7343020 yeah, although, sometimes you can find some silly gems too

one of note was the time I found a necromancer who wrote a book about a book written by ANOTHER necromancer in the same tower... which was a book written about the first necromancer... just... these necromancers REALLY like writing books about eachother and eachother's books

[Blacklight]

I remember another gem where there was this dragon who lived in a cave in this place called "The Desert of Blankets". The locals kept sending warriors out to his cave to kill him. They sent dozens of warriors out one by one every month or year or however it keeps track of them. One by one, the dragon just slaughtered each one that went out there. This went on for years.

Then, one day, something in the dragon snapped...

I guess he got really tired of having these guys just show up at his cave year after year because he ripped this one guy's eyelids off, and let him live and let him wander the desert. From that point on, each successive warrior who showed up, the dragon just ripped the guy's eyelids off and left the guy wandering around in the desert. Sometimes he would injure some other body part, but he ALWAYS would rip off the guy's eyelids. It became his thing. "You come to my cave, You're going to lose your eyelids!"

It must have been agony for those guys wandering around in the hot desert, with the bright sun shining on the sand with no eyelids!!! This dragon would be TERRIFYING to lose a battle with!!!