Wow this is realy good hope to see more soon

I liked it ^^

The prose is mechanically quite sound (an altogether too rare thing), the characters and plot appear well written so far, and I am already quite fond of the two things being fused.  I have given this story five stars and am quite interested indeed in seeing how it develops.

Just from the synopsis it was no mystery as to what the crossover was with.  I like!

The only issue I have with this is that it seems like a large text wall so far. One thing that helps is indenting paragraphs. Great hook, and I want to read more, but I kept feeling like I was just reading one really long paragraph in there.

>>5696156961

Sorry 'bout that.  I'm not completely used to the method of moving my fics from the original .doc file to fimfiction.

All better now though.

HOLY SHIT A MYST CROSSOVER

Thank you thank yoou

...Was that last line supossed to be a pun? Seriously! Think on how this sounds!

"Twilight was absorbed in the book."

>>5777957779

That didn't even occur to me!

My pre-reader Miyajima thought I was hiding a reference to one of those new blind-bag ponies with poor Rarity's impromptu coat dye job.

confound my unconscious mind, making these puns and references without telling me

Wait...

Nyx is in this story!

Interesting developments.

I have, however, noticed that this latest chapter appears to have a larger number of mechanical errors than the previous one; you might want to be more careful about such things in the future.

Quite intriguing, this.  When you mentioned the extra passageway, I stopped reading for a while to try and make sure I hadn't missed something from the game.  I also don't recall a world with a name that could be turned into "Everdunes"...  Very interesting.  The prose quality appears to have improved somewhat, too.

>>6287962879

"Everdunes" is Atrus' name for the Selenitic Age.

Ah, thank you.  Oh, and congratulations on getting on EQD!

This is expertly done. Watching Twi and Dash fill the shoes of the Stranger is entertaining and nostalgic (we've all been there), and you've done an excellent job of recreating Myst Island. By building Aitran within the ponyverse, you've removed all potential for conflict with Myst canon. (Thank you for that, by the way. I'm a serious fan of the Myst series and it would have been painful to see a crossover fouled up by something as small as details.) I'm enjoying it so far.

And now... I shall pick one nit. Just one: the linking panel is at the front of the book.

That said, good work and keep it up. Shorah b'shem, sel-tahn!

>>6867268672

  No, no it's not.  Everdunes is an Age referred to but never visited in the games.  Selenitic was never a populated Age.

>>6870568705

>the linking panel is at the front of the book.

Had I gone with that, Twi would've found the panel before Dash even showed up and I'd only have the one pony to use.  

>>6896468964

Must not have paid close attention to that journal...

Votahr ah ’shehm khehkamrov kehnehm g’chehv ah’shehm khehkam l’ahrtahehm.

Maybe it's because I've never played the game, but the mechanical and puzzle sections are a bit hard to follow. Could be just me, though.

>>6935469354

That's ok. The IN GAME mechanical and puzzle sections are a bit hard to follow, too. Which reminds me, I still need to finish Myst V. I've put that off for too long.

I loved Myst as a kid. Riven especially, but the original was good too. I keep wanting to shout at Twilight and Rainbow Dash not to trust either Archeon or Cirrus, but hopefully they'll figure that out before they make a...permanent mistake.

Sigh.  Back to waiting for a new chapter...

Keep up the good work.

I think you might need to fix the formatting for this chapter.

Other than that, good stuff. Looking forward to the next chapter.

>>7515275152

I derped the indents again?!

Fixed now.  Hopefully I won't forget again...

This chapter was so hard to write!  Such a boring world to describe... At least it's over with.

Next chapter's shaping up to be more... interesting. So bear with me please

When I went to reply Myst recently I deliberately skipped over this world. I know it kind of ruins the effect but my god do I hate that underground rail system. That thing frustrated me more then anything else in Myst is it seemed more trial and error then the rest of the game.

Ah, that lovely, hated rail. I wonder if RD is going to figure out the correct 'go' 'no-go' tones or just guess her way through?

liking the story so far, though i have one question... could you please try to separate the text into paragraphs ?

walls of text make my eyes hurt

Rainbow dash should have an easier time with Mechanical fortress then the Selenitic tunnels *shivers*

Please update!

P.S. are you planning a sequel with Riven? because that would blow my socks off

>>8191481914

Secure thy socks to thy feet.

>>7906679066

This was a good enough chapter. I can tell you struggled some though. The writing isn't quite as good as yours usually is. I'll leave some notes about the obvious editing mistakes in case you later decide to go back through for polishing and don't want to pick over everything yourself.

""She was sitting on the floor of the rocket with the musical lock panel in front of her, but with the sliders all reset to the bottom and behind her was the pipe organ, although the journal she’d propped up on it was absent, as was the book she’d just used.""

---Run on sentence. Split it at "bottom and behind" to "bottom. Behind"

""What they hay?""

---What the Hay?

""catching her breathe""

---breath

""When Rainbow reached the point where the natural wall on her left ended, she could see a large grandfather-style clock tower ahead of her, while off to the left there was a paved path leading over a small bump and then climbing to the top of a cement enclosure and beyond and to the left of that Dash could just make out the shapes of trees through the fog.""

---run on sentence again, split at "cement enclosure and beyond and" "to cement enclosure. Beyond and" or semicolon instead.

""She made her way to the stairs leading up to the cement enclosure and started climbing the stairs to the top.""

---remove the 2nd "the stairs"

""contained two triangular button""

---buttons

""then yellow five buttons""

---five yellow

""The metal walkway Rainbow as on""

--- "as" should be "was"

""embedded in the walls ever few feet""

--"ever" should be "every"

Out of curiosity what would your take on a ponified version of Saavedro be?

>>8455084550

Y'know, I keep going back and forth on whether or not I can fit Saavedro into the history I'm building for this fic and its follow-ups.  I mean, I know everyone would be all or if I skipped over Exile, but at the same time I have no idea how I'd work it in.  If I were to use him, he'd more likely be something like a Zebra, a Buffalo, or even a Diamond Dog instead of a pony.  Or maybe a sheep?  I dunno.   I haven't thought much farther ahead than Riven yet.

Now, you'll probably be like "Vulpin, the means and motive for Saavedro would be a breeze to transplant directly into your pony-Myst verse!"  That would be true only if Star Swirl's history was the same as Atrus's. Which it isn't

you my friend have inspired me to play mist again because when I started reading chapter 2 a wave of nostalgia smacked me dead in the face. And  I want to say thank you! This is a great read and looking forward to the other chapters!

Awwwww , I was looking forward to seeing Twilight and Rainbow's reactions to the morbid stuff in Archeon's hidden room like he has in  Myst, like the caged skeleton, but still, an awesome chapter.

So they didn't try the leaver on the cage then.

...Possibly for the best. Also Rainbow is cheating :(

>>9866498664

Cheating?  Maybe, but I just couldn't find a good reason for her NOT to be able to fly this time around.

As someone who hasn't played Myst, I'm glad to see I can still understand what;s going on. You're obviously not getting too wrapped up in the small details. Just as well really, or I would probably give up on this one. I would like a bit more interaction between RD and Twilight, mind you. Other than that, I'm pretty glad I stumbled on this one!

>>9906699066

If you haven't played it I'd suggest playing realMYST Same game, same puzzles, same story, but with more freedom of movement and better graphics. As the blurb stated, it's the game the MYST ream wanted to make at the time but the technology. wasn't quite there yet.

Loving this story, can't wait to see more. Not going to spoil it for those who haven't played the game, but I do hope the ending here is the 'best' ending you can get in the MYST game.

Also, a quick question to the author, do you think once this story is done we'll get to see variations of Riven, MYST III, and so on? Not that I'd expect it, but I'm hopeful at the very least.

It's been too long since you updated. I missed my Myst ponies

Yay, update!

...And now I have to wait for the next one again!

Sorry this chapter took so long.  I got writer's block about halfway through and then switched focus to another project for a little bit.  Y'know, typical writer stuff .  I foresee focusing on this story for the next few weeks, so the next update should come quicker.

WOOT! UPDATE!

And now we get to read about the Ston-Baseli. I hated that place and it's evil, evil puzzle. *mumble mumble* stupid circuit board *mumble mumble* Because of it, I never even finished the first game, and it wasn't until I found out about RealMyst3D years later that I actually got to the ending. Through brute-force trial and error. Then I looked at a walkthrough and found out the convoluted solution, which is practically stated in the journal, that made me really hate the place.

But that's not important anymore, what is important is how unbelievably awesome this story is. Please hurry and write MOAR!

Aww, yeah. Ponies gonna get wet maned...

I mean, great chapter, looking forward to more.

Surprising a story about solving puzzles is so entertaining.

Is it ironic that although Cirrus's rooms have more stuff in them as a rule, it's much more fun to describe Archeon's rooms?  I'm always second-guessing myself when I use the word "ironic"

Achenar/Archeon tends to have more "toys" that leave an impression than Cirrus/Sirrus.  The latter's just "hey look, I'm RICH!  Be jealous! " While the former's all " I keel yu!"

... I had to use a Fluttershy emoticon to illustrate the scary evil that is Achenar.  THAT is ironic...

>>163560163560

That second irony isn't really ironic considering that Fluttershy is the most terrifying of all ponies.

Image: http://twentypercentcooler.net/data/df/bf/dfbf6436539f8b6fe840b5f9451ba9c8.png

See what I mean?

They were both very twisted individuals. So after this it's just the wood, or are you going to include the ice land from realMyst?

You've got a bit of awkward, repetitive phrasing here:

"and a similar plank bridge linked the rear ship half to something under a large umbrella.  Twilight wasn’t anywhere in sight.

“Twilight?” Rainbow called out as she flared her wings and prepared to land on the rear ship fragment.

“Over here Rainbow,” the unicorn called out.  Looking around, Rainbow saw her standing in what looked like a crow’s nest rising out of the sea and shielded from the rain by the large umbrella."

This is better than what I thought it would be

and first to comment

Interesting.

Crud...I wish I had known what this was about sooner. I wouldn't have wasted my time trying to make my own rendition of it.

More Myst ponies

>>238339238339 Eeyup

and I liked that game

and so it begins

also, first!

Ahh, I remember this moment from the game.  The reaction from Atrus was wonderful, and the wonderful aspect of actually meeting another live person in the story.

I've been itching to write this moment for weeks now, and I am ON FIRE with creative energy , so these last few chapters will probably come quickly.  You ready?

I'm ready! I'm ready! I'm ready! I'm- *brick'd*

This is good, but I'd like to note that the D'ni didn't write about buildings into their works, especially finished works as the results would be too dangerous or unstable, as evidenced by Atrus's Stoneship Age, where the ship he tried to put in actually got cut in half and melded with the rocks. By this, I mean in the first chapter when you mentioned buildings in the Aitran book. In Myst, Atrus built everything that wasn't naturally part of the island by hand.

I remember the first time I found that book. I was so excited that Atrus only got out that single phrase before I warped in...

Ah, fun times

>>239849239849

That's what we call creative license.

As similar as it may seem, keep in mind that this is NOT Myst, the D'Ni do NOT exist (so far as we've explored anyway ), and the rules of writing books to form portals to other worlds are different.

Thank you for your input.

>>240038240038 Yeah, the moment I started reading the second chapter, that thought occurred to me. In any case, this is turning out good. I'm both envious and grateful that you came up with this before I did. Mine probably wouldn't have been as good.

Edit: To be honest, you actually saved me a lot of trouble. The only reason I tried to do mine was because, at the time, I thought no one else was doing it. Now that I know, I can just leisurely sit back and watch it all happen. Thanks!

Hell yeah! I am so looking forward to what happens next! Also, sequel perhaps? *nudge nudge*

>>241755241755

I'm planning on a sequel.  Not 100% sure when it'll start happening though

>>241788241788 Yay, Riven! Or, maybe. I think I may be getting ahead of myself.

Can't. Wait. For. Next. Chapter.

And thus closes the first chapter in the tale.

...But as with all myst books, the story never truly ends.

:)

Methinks Dash is in a bit of trouble there, and as The Magister says, Myst is a Neverending Story. I for one am looking forward to seeing how the MLP version of Riven goes, along with the other trio of mainline games when their turns come up.

"...in Books, and Ages, and life, the ending can never truly be written."

Great adaptation. Lots of fun stuff. A wonderful and interesting adventure all around.

Well that was pretty great fun.

I vote for the villain name to be "Ringo".

>>247233247233

No, the Neverending Story is an entirely different 'get trapped in a magical book' scenario.

Hmm... Copy 7.... Where are the other six?!?!?!?!?!

>>247823247823

And that assumes that there's only seven copies...

there needs to be a sequel to this where Star Swirl comes back and needs the Elements to defeat his old foe

>>247823247823

Well, let's see...  The original copy is sealed in Star Swirl's "tomb" in Equestria.  That's one.  There's a copy in each of the four worlds Twilight and Rainbow visited.  That makes five in all.  And then there's the one in Star Swirl's study-world.  Six

BUT... >>247950247950 has a point. Star Swirl visited many other worlds and most had a link back to Aitran, requiring one book each.  They're all accounted for.  I think.

>>247823247823

There is one in Star Swirl's tomb, one was with him in his Age in the green book, and one was in each of the four Ages Twilight and Rainbow visited on Aitran. Not to mention that there could be more on many Ages, as each of the Ages that Cirrus and Archeon destroyed from the Aitran library had one, and possibly other Ages as well. Also, am I the only one who realized that Star Swirl married Clover the Clever?

>>248704248704>>248835248835

Dammit, I really should hit refresh before writing a comment right after reading the chapter. Especially when I have to leave it for a while to do some chores.

Aaaaaand... it's done! I was thrilled to learn that someone had crossed ponies with my favorite game series ever, and overall, I was not disappointed. After this two-month-long ride, I think you deserve an in-depth review, so I shall give you one!

I'll start with how you adapted Myst to fit ponies. For the most part, this was done well; you did a good job of keeping the story of Myst intact. I like how you had Starswirl take the place of Atrus and Clover the Clever (I assume that's supposed to be her, anyway) of Catherine. Being able to adapt your source material in a crossover without ruining it is a powerful skill. One thing that confused me were the "frogaloids", as Dash calls them, from Forestsea. Channelwood in Myst is abandoned, and the addition of sentient beings other than the two brothers and Starswirl/Atrus feels out of place, and slightly ruins the experience for me. What was the point of them, other than perhaps to speed up Twilight and Dash's journey through the Age? Once we're finished with them, they're never seen again, leaving me wondering what will happen to their race and so on. It seems to add an unnecessary (and, frankly, boring) loose end that's never tied up.

Pacing was also an issue in some places for me. The first few chapters in which Twilight discovers the book and the two get trapped in Aitran were great, up until Dash's journey in Selentic (Ch 5). This was very boring, as it ended up being mostly a walkthrough of the actual Myst age from Dash's perspective with occasional, and mainly insubstantial, commentary from her. I want to know how she feels exploring Aitran – how it affects her, changes her view on things, and so on. In some cases, I was glad that you skipped over parts of the game that are more tedious than others, like the maze in Selentic, but still showed how Dash felt during it when she talks to Twilight later.

I also feel that Dash acts a bit out-of-character in Selentic. Myst can be a very difficult game, but she pretty much blasts through the age without any serious problems. I would have loved to see her get stuck on a puzzle, and see how she reacts, in frustration and growing fear, when she has no idea how to continue. Testing Dash's loyalty (to Twilight, in this case) is a great way to explore her personality and develop her character. This also applies throughout the story; there's never a point when the ponies truly get stuck on anything. I understand you don't want to draw out the story by having them spend five chapters trying to figure out where on Aitran the last page is because they missed the torn note, like I stupidly did my first time playing Myst, but for nearly every mystery to be solved a couple paragraphs later? You miss an opportunity for interesting character interaction/development.

Speaking of character interaction, I was super happy that you picked Twilight and Dash to fill the role of the Stranger, because they're my two favorite ponies, and they can have a fascinating back-and-forth because their personalities are so different but still compatible. I was slightly underwhelmed when their relationship wasn't explored that much in the story, their interaction mostly limited to helping each other solve puzzles. I mean, the two just underwent a very stressful adventure in each other's company, but I don't learn anything about how it affects their friendship. Do they grow closer because of this? Putting a small group of people alone for an extended period of time does crazy things to their mentalities; you see this in astronauts who spend time in space with a handful of others. Not saying you have to ship them or anything (although I do like TwiDash), but it made the story disappointing in places. Hopefully this is something you'll explore later on.

There were relatively few grammatical errors, most of them appearing later on. It was noticeable (to me, but I have OCD when it comes to grammar ), but nothing serious, so I applaud you for that. Also, forgive me if I got some of your story's details wrong; it's been a while since I've read the earlier chapters.

And that's all I have to say! Apologies for the wall of text. I had a lot of fun reading your story, and you even got me to break out my old 1999 iMac to play Myst as I followed Twilight and Dash's adventures. Definitely looking forward to more work from you, especially your adaption of Riven, which is my favorite game in the Myst series. Let's hope you do an even more awesome job next time!

A SATISFYING CONCLUSION INDEED

>>249377249377

Thank you for that.  Now, here's my response:

> "This was very boring, as it ended up being mostly a walkthrough of the actual Myst age from Dash's perspective with occasional, and mainly insubstantial, commentary from her."

Trust me, I had about as much fun writing that chapter as you had reading it.  I doubt adding Twilight to the scene would have improved matters.  I just wanted to get the Selenitic out of the way, and I also determined that i would never again separate the two ponies for very long.

> Re: the ease of puzzle solution

You have a good point, but I wanted this story to be a bit more about Twilight and Rainbow's moral dilemma of choosing between Cirrus and Archeon and the mounting evidence that neither was a safe bet.  Besides, I personally think the part of the Selenitic I showed is a rather intuitive puzzle.  Her experience with the underground maze could've been far more entertaining but I was sick and tired of that dumb place and had no desire to try and write that part.

> "I was slightly underwhelmed when their relationship wasn't explored that much in the story, their interaction mostly limited to helping each other solve puzzles."

I'll try and do better in the next story   That said, they were pretty focused on getting home from the get-go.  I could have changed the focus of the last chapter to a reflection on what Twi and Dash had gone through together, or...

Y'know what?  I'll see if I can't tack on some sort of Friendship Report to the end of chapter 14.

>>248835248835

I see how you could be confused, but the Clover mentioned in this story is NOT Clover the Clever from the Hearth's Warming pageant.

It's just a happy coincidence.

Ok, perhaps not so much.  Her name was originally Raven, but I came to dislike that as a pony name, so I switched it up.

Sorry to have misled you

And so the first book closes. Looking forward to any potential sequels. I could definitely see Fluttershy being way out of her depth in the Aitran equivalent of Exile.

There is however one unsolved mystery. This is My Little Pony... so what was in the wooden box, in Archeon's secret room, on the equivalent of Mechanical?

And with the first chapter of the Aitran series coming to a close, I have one final thing to say...

>>252196252196 I think he wanted to skip that because...well, I don't want to spoil anything.

The Ponies of Planet Gallopfrey and their Culture

DOCTOR WHOOVES- SIGHTED

Good story, looking forward to reading the rest!

A story based off of Myst?

I loved watching my brother play it when i was 5. I could never beat it myself, even now.

I can't wait to see how you incorporated the puzzles into the story. (I haven't read it yet)

Wait a sec, this is based off a video game? Dude, I would totally play this, it sounds awesome.

Sequel?

Maybe?

wow, myst crossover??

I'm going to break my rule of not reading crossovers...

THAT EXPLAINS MYST IV

-DELTA-

You sir, are a Genius. My friends make fun of me for liking it, but dammit, I LOVE MYST.

And Ponies too!

Any criticism has already bee said, so I'll just leave it here.

  -Delta-

Fantastic job integrating Myst into ponies...

Absolutely fantastic job.

But the story never ends, and I wonder what else Star Swirl the Bearded will discover now that he's essentially immune to the ravages of time.

Here's me finishing this at 1 in the morning, definitely worth the 3 hours or so I should have been sleeping.

Kudos!

So I started looking up MYST stuff because I was just playing RealMYST today.

Ponibooru links me to this story.

Oh my god.  I am squeeing so hard at how perfect everything is.  The music and sound is just flooding back to my ears.  Dash's comment on the Rotator Simulator is just perfectly what everyone else was thinking.  I knew that would come up.

Really awesome stuff so far, this is my first comment on FIMfiction and you deserve it for how well you're doing all this.

Is it bad that I remember the EXACT order of sounds on that goddamn piano organ, and I easily imagined Dash playing it over and over again.  

Awww man my FAVOURITE world, good ol' Stoneship Age.

This is just incredible, I totally see their line of thinking even if I already remember the entire thing by heart.  I also like the fact you don't COMPLETELY reveal the puzzles in order to not "spoil" them for people who want to play the game.  Nice touch :3

I like the fact you don't comment on every single area, since you skipped past the bottom of the ship at Baseli.  Shame though cuz I love that area but no worries :3

Also, hellz yeah Channelwood/Forestsea.  I wonder if they'll find that machine with the guys speaking weird languages.

Hatchee toooh-baaaaah natoh-KAO...

Frogaloids was a great replacement for the tribal locals of Channelwood.  I approve vehemently.  Also, son of Gero?  Couldn't help but remember Majora's Mask XD

Really good stuff man, very glad you kept that recording device, was one of my fave moments.

Oh.

Sweet

Luna.

Wow...not only did you explain someway of the Myst-ology, but damn, Star Swirl.

Seriously awesome, I am squeeing excitably as both a brony and a Myst fan in dual <3

HAH, brick joke with Rarity, awesome.

Very awesome work man, as a fan of Myst, I give my hearty thumbs-up of approval

Also, great ending, ties very nicely to the show feel.

its good, gonna have to make more time to read this one