Five travelers enter an old shop. The shopkeeper looks at the ragtag group suspiciously, keeping a close eye on their hands. The bard strums her harp as she looks at the potions on sale. "Oh to Holodrum we shall go, to Holodrum we shall go, a hi-ho Celestia to Holodrum we shall go..." Laela sings to herself, after which she continues to hum the tune. The shopkeeper's face pales a shade.

"Holodrum? Is that where you adventurers are bound?" Vythica, Laela, Calene, and Dylena set down what they had been inspecting, turn to the shopkeep, and nod. Brianan does the same, but pockets the dagger she has been looking at instead. The man behind the counter shakes his head. "You're all mad. With that dark fiend sitting on their thrown, who could possibly think to enter that land and survive?"

A deep laugh comes from Calene, who says, "Don't you worry for a second. We've faced tougher threats than that oaf before. The rightful king is paying us to oust this fool from the throne." She then taps the greatsword to her side. The shopkeep's face scrunches up in thought, before deciding to ignore the crazies.

"Ooh, is that a Bag of Holding?" Dylena asks excitedly. One of her eyes watches the bag, while the other stares off into an empty corner of the room. "I could really use one. If we adventure much longer my poor mailbag will be ready to burst!"

Brianan facepalms. "That wouldn't be a problem if you didn't accept every fetch quest you find. It's not even just the ones we run into, you go looking for them!"

Dylena looks offended. "Hey, remember I'm a Courier! Asking me not to take things from one po-er, I mean person, to another is like me asking Vythica not to kill people with her brain, or you not to steal stuff!" The shopkeep turns his head and starts to regard Brianan suspiciously.

Brianan gulps and says fast, "Oh Dylena you kidder! Sorry about that Mister Shopkeep, you'll have to excuse my friend here. As you can tell from her eyes she's not quite right in the head, if you catch my meaning." With that the shopkeep shrugs and goes back to his parchment. Several minutes later the adventurers are all ready to check out.

"Let's see here..." The shopkeep mutters as he starts to look over their piles. "Three rubies?"

Vythica lets out a chuckle. "Oh, those are for a, um, special project of mine. Hopefully the end result will include the head of Holodrum's tyrant popping like a grape."

The shopkeeper's face pales a little, then turns to something else. "Four Ioun stones eh? You do know they're all grey, and therefore have no powers. They'll just orbit your head."

Vythica grins and says, "Yeah, I know that. I just want them because they look cool." The shopkeeper just shakes his head and moves on the the next couple items clogging up his counter.

"...I have honestly no idea what these are for," the shopkeep said while looking at a feather boa, harmonica, spiked gauntlet, red hat, and red vest.

"Oh, it's a secret," Laela said with a devious glint in her eye. "Let's just say it involves liberal use of my Bardic Knock Spell."

The shopkeep decides to ignore ever hearing that, and adds the cost of her goods the bill. After finishing, he looks at the space in front of Calene, only to find nothing. She smirks and says, "I have everything I'll need already." He nods and moves on to Dylena, whose only purchase is a Bag of Holding. He smiles as he adds the large cost to the receipt. He looks over at Brianan, who has several dozen small daggers. His eyebrows go up.

"What's that look for? There's nothing wrong with throwing daggers, it's a perfectly legitimate tactic." He rolls his eyes, then totals up the groups purchase.

"That will be 5633 gold pieces," the shopkeeper says gruffly.

"WHAT!?"

Octavia turned her head to Carrot Top. "Yes?" she said as evenly as possible.

"That's just the book's listed price for those items added up, isn't it?" the farmer asked in a acidic tone.

Vinyl took a sip from her soda and said, "Well, yeah. That's kinda how shopping works in this game. Everything has a price in the book, and if you're selling to stores it goes for, I don't know, 75% of that or something. Most DMs just house rule it."

Carrot Top pushed her temples with her hooves. She then said, speaking faster as she continued, "That makes no sense! Why does everything have a set value that every shop agrees on? Shouldn't some items be more common and therefore cheaper in some areas, and while others are rarer and more expensive? How does anypony start a shop if they can't buy anything for less than they can sell it for?" She then took a deep breath.

"There, are you done? Carrot, you should just stick to The Mantra: just repeat to yourself, 'It's all a game, I should really just relax.'" Bon Bon said, attempting to calm her friend down.

"No, I will not calm down!" Carrot continued. "I haven't gotten to the most annoying thing yet! Why is it that after telling this idiotic shopkeeper, who can't spot a thief to save his inventory, that we're on a quest to defeat the guy responsible for the terrible war, a war I'll remind you that the region he specifically lives in has suffered the worst from, he doesn't give us a discount? This never adds up! We're heroes out saving his country at worst and the world at best, and we have to pay for the things we need to do so? Either he's the greediest character ever, or he has no sense of self-preservation!" After she stopped, everypony sat watching her for a while. "Um, that was it. I'm done this time. For real."

Lyra coughed. "We should probably get back to the game now." Everypony nodded and started updating their character sheets for their new items and lightened coin-purses.

Twilight Sparkle awoke to the sound of a familiar belch and the light of green fire. Spike ran up to her holding out a scroll, one carrying the royal seal. She looked over at the clock and sighed. "What is so important the Princess couldn't wait until morning?" she said, her weariness showing not only in her voice, but in the bags under her eyes as well. Spike unfurled the letter and read out, in as much energy as he could muster:

"Dear Twilight Sparkle,

I have news of the utmost *yawn* importance, that concerns you, your friends, Ponyville, even *yawn* Equestria itself. It is best I do not divulge this information in text, it is something you must hear from my own mouth. Gather the other Bearers and bring them to your library. My sister and I should be there in an hour and a half.

Your Faithful Teacher,

Princess Celestia"

By the time he was halfway through the letter, the contents had woken Spike considerably. Twilight and Spike looked at each other, their faces grim. Twilight said, "Spike, you wake up Fluttershy and have her help you with Rainbow Dash. I'll head off and get the others. Try to be quick about it, and make sure they understand the, the gravity of the situation."

A small smile overtook the seriousness on Spike's face. "You mean the situation we literally know nothing about?"

With an odd noise and a flashing light, a large blue box materialized on the side of a Ponyville street. The door opened inward, and four ponies walked out. They all looked a little shaken, and their faces seemed paler than usual. Daisy said, "Not that I don't mind a break after that...ordeal, but is there any particular reason we landed in Ponyville?"

The Doctor smiled, and said quickly, "Weeeeeeeell, there's two reasons. No, wait, three. Firstly, I think it's a good idea to relax after running for your lives as much as we did. Second off, the TARDIS is running closer to empty than I'd like, and Ponyville's rift is as good a one to refuel at as any other. And lastly, I got this message." He reached into his tie collar, and pulled out a wallet. When he opened it, the paper where the license should be said "HELP."

Roseluck smiled widely. "It's good to know that the second we finish stopping one indomitable evil, there's always another adventure on the horizon, eh Doctor?" she said with conviction.

Lily rolled her eyes, but the rest of her face betrayed no emotion. "Please don't say such things, Rose. There's being brave, and just being genre-blind." Roseluck started to retort, and Daisy was about to try and cut the argument off there, but they were all interrupted by a familiar sound. They turned around and saw that the TARDIS was dematerializing. "Doctor, why is it doing that?" Lily asked, a hint of dread creeping into her words.

"There's only one reason the TARDIS would do that: it's detected something around here it doesn't like, and is hiding in the Time Vortex until I call it back," the Doctor said, looking around. "Let's try to keep our eyes peeled. Sexy Thing doesn't spook easy, and if this is bad enough to get her to just take off, I don't want it to take us by surprise."

After breaking camp, the group rides through the morning light. Several hours of uneventful travel later, they come across the border of Holodrum. There's a large wooden gate over the rode. Laela squints at the structure. "I don't see anyone there," she tells her companions. Vythica smiles, then a light blue glow forms around her. She levitates up, and over the gate. Before she can get too far, several archers come out a door on the gate, and start shooting at her.

"Roll your initiative," Octavia said with a smile. Vinyl stared at her dumbfounded.

"Archers? Where in Tarturus did they come from?" she asked Octavia angrily.

"The gate contains a small barracks, and an equally small squad to guard it. If Lyra had rolled better on her Spot check, you would have heard about a door on the base." As Vinyl's face became redder, Octavia's smirk widened slightly.

The DJ threw her hooves in the air. "Well, then why did they just attack us? You didn't even let us talk to them!" Octavia shrugged.

"It's a toll gate. They saw you going over it, and thought you were trying to get around paying. Maybe if you didn't respond to every obstacle with 'I levitate.' this wouldn't have happened." Something clicked in Vinyl's head.

"You," she said, more anger entering her voice. "you hosed me! This encounter was made to hose me, wasn't it! You know the second I get hit with an arrow, I lose my concentration and I'll fall, probably die!"

Octavia responded to her friend's anger with a glare. "Throughout my entire campaign you've ignored every challenge, and stopped the fights from having any meaning. You just mind blast everything, and it's over before anypony else gets to contribute anything! Psion is a ridiculous class in this game, and your shameless," she paused, then continued with a word filled with all the venom she could. "munchkining is ruining my story!"

Vinyl yelled back, "No!" Her friends jumped a little as Vinyl's hoof struck the table. "You're just a control freak! You want to railroad the adventure, and have it go in certain ways, but the second a player steps off the path you've set you blindside them!"

Octavia's face looked like it was struggling to seem composed, and failing. "I don't have a problem with players taking the story in new and exciting directions. My problem is when we build up to an epic finale, one all of us have put in many hours of work towards, and you end it in maybe two rounds! It's anticlimactic and unfair to the others! And Celestia forbid I actually try to give the boss some workaround to subvert your game-breaking two-dimensional fool of a character! Because then I'm being 'unfair,' when what I'm doing is letting the rest of the party do something for once!"

"Power-mad fossil!"

"Min-maxing trollop!"

"I! How dare! Ergh!" Vinyl stormed out of the room, claimed the stairs, and slammed her bedroom door behind her.

Octavia sat there, breathing heavily, before her respiration slowed down. She took a deep breath, then said, "Sorry for that everypony. I think we're done playing for today." She started packing up her things, and the rest took their cue and started gathering their dice and papers.

As Carrot was putting on her saddlebag, Bon Bon came over and tapped her on the shoulder. "I think we should talk."

The farmer turned to Bon Bon, a confused look on her face. "Really? What about?"

"That little outburst from earlier," Carrot Top's face darkened. "it wasn't much about the game was it?"

She shook her head. "No. It's just...it's been two weeks since our last mission from the Princess, and I'm getting antsy. It's not that I don't like my normal life, far from it. But ever since she recruited us, we've been doing something so much more!"

One of Bon Bon's eyelids went up. "And?"

Carrot Top sighed. "And, well, it's getting to be too much. The, I don't know, anonymity of it. We're out there, busting our flanks to help not only Equestria, but our allies as well! But we don't get any parties, or vacations, or discounts or anything! It's petty of me, I know that. But still, it's hard to live with that."

"I don't know what to do about the second thing," Bon Bon said. "But I think we should get used to the first one. It's not like the world comes under threat every other day."

"Doctor, it's at least three in the morning. We should take a break, maybe take a nap. The nasty thing will be there in the morning." Daisy said. They were currently in front of Sugarcube corner. The Doctor didn't reply, and just soniced the building.

"Odd, a building made of sweets, but not what we're after." He continued down the road, his metallic device whirring as he went.

The girls trotted down the street to him, and Roseluck said, "Listen Doc, I was onboard with this adventure as much as you, but it's time to rest. We've been searching for hours, and we're still tired after that whole incident with those robot things!"

"Girls, normally I'd be okay with taking a quick breather, having some fish and chips while we wait, but this is important! The TARDIS hasn't reacted like that since I installed the feature, so we're dealing with something she's scared of! And trust me, when she's scared, we should all be terri—" Before he could finish his thought, the noise made by the screwdriver changed. "What?" He turned it around in every direction, until he managed to find the direction it was strongest. "Alright girls, allons-y!" He trotted towards to reading.

"Why does he keep saying that? What does it even mean?" Lily asked as they followed the Doctor. They ended up just outside Carousel Boutique.

Daisy stared at the entrance, confused. There was a stone statue of a pegasus in front of the store window. "Now that's odd. Why is there a statue in front of the Boutique? And does it look like it's crying?"

The Bearers stood assembled in the town library, and before them stood their two princesses. Twilight bowed in front of the alicorns, and her friends did the same. Celestia raised her hoof, and they stood again. Rainbow Dash asked, "Alright Princess, who's butt are we gonna kick?"

Celestia started to answer, but before she could Pinkie Pie said, "Ooh, is it those monkies from when we were gone? Or are the changelings attacking? Or maybe it's zombies! Or dragons! Or zombie dragons! Or they're changelings disguised as monkeys riding zombie dragons!" Or—" Celestia raised her hoof again, and Pinkie Pie found her mouth filled by Twilight Sparkle's hoof.

The sun princess closed her eyes and sighed. "Thank you for trying to lift our spirits Pinkie, but this is serious."

Fluttershy was shaking, and raised her hoof in the air. Celestia nodded at her. "Um, exactly how serious is this?"

"It's the end of the world."

((Author's notes: Yay! After multiple edits and rewrites, chapter 1 is done! There may be a longer delay than usual between chapters, but the reason should be obvious soon. I'd like to thank Minjask from /fic on Ponychan for reviewing it beforehand, allowing me to fix some errors and hopefully improve the quality.))