"K? That sounds dumb. How about we call him Glorp instead?"
Shining smacked a hoof against his forehead. "How about no, Rainbow? I specifically chose the name K as it has a series of implication that would tie into the overarching-"
"I like Glorp better, too!" Twilight said from her side of the table.
"You heard your sister, Shining." Rainbow grabbed Sunburst's character sheet. "Mind if I take this for a moment? Just let me change your name for you."
Shining took the sheet away from Rainbow and held it in his magic. "I'm the one writing the story, Rainbow, if I say that it's important for this character's name to be K then you should listen to me. Besides, it's Sunburst's character, you can't change it without his permission."
Sunburst passively watched the scene without doing or saying anything, showcasing about as much interest in the situation as the character sheet itself.
Twilight grabbed the sheet in her own magic and tore it away from Shining's control. "Well, he clearly doesn't have anything against it. Right, Sunburst?" Twilight's horn began to glow a little brighter as she started to modify the text.
Sunburst didn't answer. Rainbow Dash began to move a wing in front of his eyes, but he just kept staring ahead.
"There, all done!" Twilight said as she placed the sheet, which now read 'Glorp' on the top, back in front of the orange unicorn.
Sunburst sneezed. "Sorry, I got a little distracted there for a moment."
Shining silently muttered something to himself.
"Oh, come on! Don't be such a grump," Twilight said.
"Yeah! Why was the name K so important, anyway?" Rainbow asked.
"It's because it sounds like Kai."
Everypony turned towards Pinkie, who'd just spoken those words.
Twilight then turned back to her brother. "Wait, is this about that dumb music you listen to?"
"It's not dumb," Shining replied, irritated. "In fact, it's extremely good. You just can't appreciate it."
"Extremely good, sure." Twilight sighed, looking up. "Like that Rider of the Cosmic Whatever or however that song is called."
Shining stood up from his chair, planting his hooves on the table. "It's called Rider of the Astral Fire, Twilight, and just so you know it has the best chorus in all of the genre."
"What about Nightfall?"
Everypony turned once more to Pinkie.
"The studio version or the live version?" Shining asked.
"The live version," the pink earth pony replied, looking at the tip of one of her hooves.
Shining sighed, looking down. "Okay, fine, the second best chorus in the genre." He sat back down. "But my point still stands!"
"Guys, can we go back to the story?" Sunburst asked.
"You mean the game, right?" Twilight asked back from the other side of the table.
"Yeah, the story, game, whatever you want to call it. It's why we're here, right?" Sunburst replied.
"He's got a point," Rainbow said, "quit talking about your dumb music and go back to doing your part, Shining. And try to be better with names, remember that Sunburst liked my idea better than yours."
Shining looked at the pegasus, clenching his teeth. He suppressed a reply and instead took a deep breath, closing his eyes. "You're right," he said, reopening his eyes, "we should go back to the game. I believe I made you skip a turn before, I can make you take an extra one now if you want."
"Sounds good to me," the pegasus replied.
"Good. Now, where were we? Oh, right, the attack."
Lenoba turned around, just in time to see a shadow rushing towards her. She tried to dodge, but she'd turned around too late to have enough time to avoid the creature currently attacking her. Instead, as she was dashing to her right she was hit in the side by the thing's body.
"Here, roll to see how much damage that did," Shining said as he passed a four-sided die to Rainbow.
"Only a d4? From the way you made that sound I thought it was going to be something more serious than that," Rainbow said, grabbing the die and preparing to throw it.
"Oh, you're not rolling for the damage," Shining said, smiling at the pegasus. "That's to see how much it left you with."
Rainbow momentarily stopped. She swallowed and looked at the die in her hoof. "Well, that's what I get for irritating the GM, I guess," she silently whispered to herself. She tossed the die forward and watched as the small tetrahedral piece of coloured material spun on itself over the brown surface of the table and slowly came to a stop, displaying a one on the three sides of the tip pointing towards the ceiling.
The six legged alien was thrown across the room by the impact, crashing through some pieces of furniture and finally smashing against the wall. The creature attacking her quickly made its way over her body, standing at a short distance from it and preparing to attack once more, Lenoba lying on the floor, panting as she struggled to get up again.
"Your turn, Twily."
"Are you alright, Rainbow?" Twilight asked, looking at the pegasus who was breathing a bit too fast and jerkily shifting her position on the chair.
Rainbow looked up. "Oh, yeah, I'm fine, don't worry. Just got a little caught up in the scene, that's all."
"If you say so," the alicorn replied.
TW-1 began to study the files she'd selected, while still downloading as much of the rest as she could. She first tried to open the more heavily protected one. She began to work through the various layers of encryption, and ultimately-
"Woo-hoo, a nat twenty! Nice job, Twi."
-she was able to obtain a readable version of it.
Shining passed a folded sheet of paper to Twilight.
TW-1 decided to temporarily ignore the file, which she had now copied, and focused on searching for other hidden or encrypted documents. As she did so-
"Well, statistically speaking, the chances of rolling a three are the same as those of rolling a twenty. So I was just as good this time."
-the computer recognized her intrusion and began to shut down. She was able to stop it, but this forced her to take time to reconfigure her parameters to avoid being recognized again.
"Your turn, Rainbow," Shining said, passing the dice set to the pegasus. "I believe you were about to be crushed to death. Wanna try to go for a save roll?"
"Sounds good to me," Dash replied.
Shining looked over his notes. "Given the situation you're in, the type of creature you're fighting against and the distance, I'd say you need a fifteen or higher."
Rainbow picked up the die and prepared to throw. "Doesn't sound too hard," she smugly stated.
"Also, since your character has just been severely injured, you should be limited in your ability. So you'll be rolling with a d12."
Rainbow dropped the die she was holding in her hoof and stared at Shining, wide-eyed.
"Well, what are you waiting for?" the unicorn asked, staring back.
Silently, gritting her teeth, Rainbow picked up the correct die and then simply let it fall on the table.
Shining looked at the results, then wrote down something.
With an agile jump, Lenoba dodged to the side and-
"Wait, what?" Shining lifted his head to look back at the seventeen displayed on the side of the die facing the ceiling. He took a long, deep breath. "Guys, this is the last time we use something that has been inside Pinkie's mouth. Remind me to take out a different set later."
With an agile jump, Lenoba dodged to the side and avoided the creature's attack. As the shadowy figure impacted the wall, the metallic surface tore away under the strength of the assault, and the monster went through it, ending up inside a room filled with computers and barely missing TW-1 with its body.
"But that doesn't-"
"Sunburst, I believe this would be a good time for your first turn. If Pinkie doesn't mind, of course, but this way you'll fit right in with the current rotation."
"That's okay for me," Pinkie said.
Slowly approaching Ro, K Glorp assumed a pony-like shape. He studied the pony, trying to decipher his features, and decided to adopt a calm strategy, trying to earn his trust. He smiled warmly to the pony, who-
"Twelve," Sunburst said, sparing the other unicorn the trouble of stretching his neck to read the result of the die he'd rolled on his side of the table.
-smiled back. Suddenly, a loud alarm went off and a flashing red light filled the room. Steam began to hiss out of the pipes lining the walls, the gauges on them signalling they were reaching a critical level of internal pressure. A pipe above the entrance to the room broke, beginning to spray its contents, the metal floor rapidly turning to a shade of red from the heat. Acting quickly, K Glorp threw himself over Ro's body, protecting the pony, and a few seconds later the pipes on the left side of the room exploded, tearing a hole into the wall.
The two got up, Ro unharmed, K Glorp marked with a few of what looked like scalds that rapidly healed away, almost ingested back into his skin. Despite having sustained the bulk of the explosion, he didn't appeared to be particularly harmed. After making sure that the other pony was alright he walked up to the hole, the pipes now emptied out, and stared into the other side, Ro following him.
The blast had destroyed a chunk of the wall, revealing a room filled with computers. TW-1 and Lenoba were both inside the room, one near a computer and the other near another hole in the wall, panting. Together with them was a large creature, lying on one of its sides and with what appeared to be scraps from the recently broken wall lodged into the other.
"That makes no-"
"Pinkie, your turn," Shining said, cutting off his sister.
Ro rapidly made his way through the hole and inside the room, and walked up to-
"NONE OF THIS MAKES ANY SENSE!"
Everypony turned to Twilight.
"We went into completely different, almost opposite directions when we entered the ship and split up at that three-way path. There's no way we all ended up in the same exact room when all we did was walk straight!" The alicorn looked at her brother, her brow curved in a questioning and annoyed expression.
"Well maybe the corridors were curved!" Shining shot her an equally annoyed look. "Now can we go back to-"
"Well maybe you're just doing a poor job." She firmly planted her hooves on the table, causing a die that had been left a little to far from the centre to roll off the edge. "And don't give me any of that 'maybe the corridors were curved'," she added in a mocking tone, "you clearly said they were straight! It's evident that you didn't think this through, and if you'd really planned this ahead you'd have a map to show the path we followed."
"I have a map!" Shining barked back, standing with his front hooves on the table like the alicorn.
"Show it."
Shining looked to the side, swallowing. "I can't," he said, "it's got stuff you aren’t meant to see yet," he hastily added.
"Or maybe you don't have it!" Twilight retorted, smirking.
"Well maybe the writer was getting tired of having to jump between three different locations!"
"You mean the narrator, right?" Sunburst asked.
"You mean the GM, right?" Rainbow asked to the orange unicorn to her left.
"You got yourself in this mess, Shiny! You're the one who made us split up!" Twilight yelled.
"How is this my fault?" Shining stared at Twilight. "You're the one that decided to split up! What kind of idiot enters a mysteriously abandoned spaceship that's possibly infested with hostile aliens and decides to split up at the first occasion?"
"Oh, screw it! I qui-"
-Lenoba, making sure that the alien was alright. Upon noticing her state of distress and her wounds, he took out a few pills and fed them to her.
The creature got back up, roaring, and in the light of the room the presents finally managed to get a good look at it.
"Shining?" Twilight asked, still sitting a the table. "Where exactly did you get this game?"
"It was a present, Spike brought it when he last visited. He said he'd gotten it from-"
The creature turned towards K Glorp and began to charge.