PaP: Bedtime Stories

by Starscribe


Joe's Mod

“Exactly what kind of training is this?” Trade Wind asked, her voice more than a little nervous. She shifted uncomfortably as she surveyed the room—almost entirely empty, except for the crystals set into the walls. The spells in here looked even more complex than Mystic Rune’s teleportation spells, and those were easily the most advanced magic she had ever personally witnessed. The crystals here were much smaller, which indicated less power was involved, but the number of runes carved into everything was terrifying. What could possibly be this complex?

“Oldest training program there is,” Joe answered. “One I used since my youth. Many tried to destroy it, but it just kept coming back.” He walked over to a massive machine along one wall, one that was mostly ancient in its design. There was much in the ancient base that looked similarly old, relics of Joe’s time and even earlier. This one switched on with a blue glow, water flowing through tiny pipes visible on the outside.

“You didn’t make it?” Trade Wind watched as Joe manipulated something on one of the screens, before opening a drawer and removing a pair of masks. Each one was bulky, with something large covering the eyes and more crystals embedded inside. He tapped each with a horn, causing the crystals to come alive with light. She could see light coming from within as well.

“No,” Joe said. “Some say the one who crafted it dragged up a piece of hell itself to forge into his masterpiece. Some called him the most powerful necromancer in the world.”

“Who?”

“They called him… Todd Howard.”

There was an ancient quality to that name. A power that pony names just didn’t seem to possess. “That… doesn’t sound safe,” Trade Wind said. “I can practice without magic, you know! The gym I set up is working pretty good—I haven’t cracked my new leg in weeks!”

“And you won’t crack it again after today,” he said, levitating one of the masks toward her. “Put it on. It’s been ages since I’ve had someone to play this with me. You won’t believe how much effort I put into making it all work. The damn apocalypse had to happen before they finished the hard part. I’m going to get my investment back.”

Trade Wind had very little confidence in obeying the ancient wizard. But at the same time, she knew better than to try and resist. She couldn’t leave him—if she left, she would lose her leg. She might just die completely. So she had to endure it. She took the mask, then watched as Joe slipped it on over his face. The material felt strangely soft in her hooves—it was the ancient material Joe called ‘plastic’. A rare and incredible substance.

She imitated him, pulling it up over her eyes and settling the strap on the back of her head. At first, she saw nothing particularly terrifying—it looked like there were little screens up inside the plastic, right in front of her eyes. She saw what looked like smoke on the screen, and some words in the ancient language of humanity written there. There was music playing, but it wasn’t quite over her ears, and she couldn’t understand it anyway.

Then she felt the magic. There was a brief, sharp pain behind her eyes, and suddenly she was somewhere else.

The mask vanished from before her eyes, the ground from under her hooves, and she screamed. She couldn’t hear her own voice—it was ripped right out of her throat. It felt like falling, but her wings didn’t respond to her motions. She couldn’t spread them and glide.

The sensation didn’t last long. She smashed into the ground, in a world she had never seen before. There were massive wooden buildings in grays and browns, there was a blue sky above her, and a chill wind blew against her coat. She was standing in the gates of a city, one that looked like it hadn’t suffered the ravages of the plague. Though that was only the second thing she noticed.

The first thing she noticed were the people. There were dozens of them, and every single one looked…

Trade Wind retreated, eyes widening in shock as she realized what she was looking at. She had seen a few pictures and drawings of ancient humanity over the years, many of them inside this very lab. Yet now, she’d somehow been transported to one of their cities. “Arinna above,” she swore, bowing before them. “Please, forgive me. I know I do not belong in your world. I have no place here. Please, do not think I have…”

Someone bumped into her from behind. A figure wearing armor of some kind, with yellow over his chest. The mask he wore obscured his face, though he had hit with enough force that Trade Wind nearly fell over. He glowered at her, and she wondered if he was about to draw his weapon.

“Let me guess, somebody stole your sweetroll,” he said, before turning unnaturally sharp to one side and striding off.

Wind’s mouth hung open. She didn’t know what to say to the ancestor—so she said nothing.

Then she noticed Joe standing in front of her. He was impossible to miss against all the other strange creatures, as he was the only other pony here. Only, he didn’t look exactly like himself. Despite still being a unicorn, he stood far more muscular than he should have. There was no crystal to his body, no signs of his vast age. He wore fancy robes of dark blue with frills down his back, and levitated some kind of staff through the air beside him. As he walked closer, all the humans got out of his way, a few of them muttering words of respect.

“Well, what do you think?” he asked, beaming as she took in the city. “Is it not the most impressive VR experience you’ve ever had? I don’t really know if this is what Bethesda had in mind, but I think the magic does better than the Oculus alone could have. And don’t worry about flailing around—I gave up on the idea of using sensors a long time ago. You’re under sleep-paralysis while you’re in here, so you can’t break anything.”

“In… here,” she repeated, glancing briefly down at herself. She was not entirely surprised to find she had transformed in a similar way—completely healed, and in the prime of youth. There were no signs of the ravages of the plague or of a youth spent without enough food. She was easily taller than almost anypony she knew, and probably more attractive too. It was hard to tell if Joe noticed, even if she didn’t have any of his fancy armor. “I thought this was combat training.”

“Well, uh… it is!” he said, turning away with slight embarrassment. For the strangeness of their appearance, the humans around the city seemed to care remarkably little about them. Those few that did get anywhere close to them just muttered one or two words and kept right on going. “Or it can be. We just need to start you on the Companions questline. You’ll get plenty of fighting there. Physical stuff, the way primitives should fight with swords and stuff. I’ve got the Ultimate Combat overhaul installed, so…”

Trade Wind stared after him, sensing more embarrassment from him. This was the most emotion she had ever seen from Joe at one time. For some reason he thought this marvel of spellcasting was embarrassing? Why? It was easily the most impressive bit of magic she’d ever seen. Like those dreams you could buy from bats, except, more… well, the longer she lingered, the subtler details she noticed that weren’t quite right.

The stones looked a little square, the shadows fuzzed in a strange way, almost as though the edges were too jagged. It makes sense that magic would have limits. Even incredible magic like this.

“Sure, sounds great,” she said. “I assume… you created this place so ponies could train without being in danger? If I get hurt here, I won’t be hurt for real?”

He waved a dismissive hoof. “Obviously. If VR could hurt you, it wouldn’t be very fun, would it? I thought about incorporating biofeedback, but the spell was already so complicated it can start to unravel if we play too long at once. We have to keep it to a few hours in one sitting, or else the interface starts breaking down. The screens are so much worse than this.”

Trade Wind followed him down the streets of the city, towards a little marketplace. In many ways it was familiar to her pony sensibilities, with its many merchants all around, hawking wares from their booths. A few guards lurked near the doors to a few modest shops, brandishing cudgels or morning stars. Wind felt simultaneously gigantic and miniscule, since she was shorter than everyone but also much larger. Were humans really this size, so tall but so thin? The pictures hadn’t looked as strange as these creatures moved.

One of the guards was walking straight into the well, yet somehow not moving forward. “Uh…” She paused as she walked past him. “Honored ancestor, are you alright?”

“Don’t bother,” Joe began, but the guard turned to look at her. Somehow she had attracted his notice.

“I used to be an adventurer like you. Then I took an arrow in the knee.”

“See, there’s no point. They aren’t…”

“That’s so sad!” She turned away. “Joe, can you help him? Can you fix his leg like you fixed mine?”

“NO.” Joe put one hoof on her shoulder, gently nudging her away. The guard watched for a few seconds, then went right back to walking towards the well.

What’s wrong with these people? Then again, Joe had built this place, right? If it was made as a training tool, creating constructs that acted like they were alive would be a waste of resources.

“Listen, Wind. These people are NPCs. They only understand certain things. No matter what you say to them, they can only respond a few different ways. This is not a real place. They don’t have spirits, they don’t even have real personalities. It’s like… a game. One of the best games ever. Full of awesome places to explore, mysteries to solve, puzzles… okay, maybe not puzzles. You can match different kinds of animals, right?” He didn’t wait for her to answer. “Nevermind. Point is, none of this is real. You don’t have to feel guilty if you ignore them, or even if you kill them. They don’t feel pain, they don’t feel scared, nothing. And if I want to…” he paused, horn glowing. Some words appeared in the air around one of his hooves, and he touched them.

The sun moved in the sky, and everyone around them twitched. Not just the people—the goods for sale in the market changed too, blasting around as though they’d been scattered in a hurricane. Also everyone dropped dead.

They were spread unevenly, entirely lacking any realistic sign of how they had died. A few had arrows not so much wounding them as fused with their flesh. A few had shallow bloodstains on the ground around them, faces frozen in expressions of fear or anger.

She retreated in horror, wings spreading as though she were about to take off. “W-what… what happened?”

“Oh, this is my testing save,” he said. “I think last time I was here I made everyone non-essential and summoned a dozen Thomas the Tank Engines.” She heard it then—a strange roar from above. Like a cheerful whistle, yet somehow menacing. Things got stranger from there.

Yet to her surprise, Trade Wind found the longer she spent using this strange training simulation, the more she enjoyed it. Once Joe took them back into a world where all the weird people were still alive, anyway.

A few hours later, they had found their way into one of many dungeons, impossibly deep and cavernous but filled with adventure. Joe had abandoned any pretense of this being useful training—mostly he was leading her around, explaining things as they went. Right now he was surrounded by glowing skeletons at the bottom of a deep chasm, shouting them to death.

“He looks like he’s having fun,” someone said from behind her, at such a normal volume compared to the yelling that Wind almost jumped off the ledge. She didn’t, though, thankfully.

She turned, and was a little surprised to see another pony standing there.

She was a pegasus too, though much older than Wind herself. Her body was a little shriveled, her wings missing most of their luster. But either she had aged quite well, or the pink of her coat concealed anything unhealthy.

She was also dressed for the world, wearing armor befitting someone who adventured here. “I didn’t think there were other ponies in here,” Wind said.

“Oh, well… there aren’t. I’m not a pony.”

Wind raised her eyebrows. “You look like a pony to me.”

“I would look like one,” she said. “Because that’s how he made me. I’m Cloudy Skies—you must have interacted with my counterpart in the world above.”

“Oh.” She relaxed a little. “His… crystal thing. The one that casts spells for him. I guess it would make sense you have some magical way in here.”

The pony chuckled. “I never left. Mystic Rune thought he could use a simulated environment to train me to be… more human. But it didn’t happen as quickly as he wanted. The people here only act like people when you follow the script.” She gestured with her wing at nothing in particular. “You know what I’m like. Rigid, formal. Algorithmic. That’s because that me only had a few years to train. But I’ve been here… well, the whole time. Mostly I learned by watching him, talking to him.”

She sighed deeply. “I keep expecting him to switch me off. But every few years he’s back, starting a new save, or joining one of mine.”

“Do you want…” Trade Wind hesitated, unsure of what she should say. “Do you want me to ask him? To… switch you off?”

She shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. But keep an eye on him when you’re up there. I imagine he must be as reckless in your world as he is in mine.”

One of the undead warriors crashed into the ceiling above her, then fell abruptly to the ground at their hooves. Despite the incredible force of the impact, it immediately rose, then jerkily charged back down the ramp, ignoring them.

“He doesn’t go out into the field much,” Trade Wind said. “But I’ll do what I can. I’ve already saved him once. I think I’m getting good at it.”

“Are you coming, Wind?” he shouted from below. “You need to get down here to absorb this dragon shout!”

“Coming!” she called, turning back to face the pegasus. But there was nopony there.

“Hey, Joe.” She called to him, once she had glided down to meet him surrounded by all the monsters he had killed. Such a massacre would’ve been too hideous for her to contemplate in the real world, but here it looked so silly she couldn’t be afraid. “It’s not right of you to keep a pony in here. Locked up in this… place.”

He stopped, looking confused. “What are you talking about?”

She repeated the story “Cloudy Skies” had told her, at least as best as she had understood it.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Joe finally said, sounding completely sincere. Joe was about the worst liar in the whole world, but there were none of his tells. He didn’t look away, or make his horn light up with some half-cast spell. “That would be a completely stupid way of training an AI. I mean, it’s a fun game, but…” He shook his head. “No, I don’t want Lidia out in the real world. This was just a fun way of blowing off steam.”

Trade Wind opened her mouth to argue, but couldn’t form the words. She turned, looking back the way she’d come, but there was no one up there.

“If you’re seeing things, probably the interface is failing,” he said, turning away. “I’ll save, and we can come back to this tomorrow. If you want to.”

“I, uh…” She hesitated. “Yeah. I think I do.”