Flip. Flip. Flip.
The sound of an old paperback D&D manual reverberated through the treehouse room. It's reader? A young dragon by the name of Spike.
"Inventory," he said.
A blue screen popped up. The whole thing was covered in criss crossing lines arranged in a table pattern. Spike slipped the notes he had so far into the screen. A small image of the notes filled up one of the boxes.
It was an inventory.
In the past hour he had learned quite a bit about his abilities. Or at least he hoped he did. On top of that, he had gained several new skills.
Reading:
LV 21
You can comfortably read simpler adventure novels. It takes about two minutes to get through a single page.
Writing:
LV 53
You can write faster than most people can read.
Academia:
LV 42
You're at the level of most high schoolers.
"Status," he said.
The familiar blue screen flew to the center of his vision.
Spike
Health-100/100
Mana-50/50
Class: The Gamer
Title-None
Level-1 Exp-30/400
Race-Dragon
STR-4
VIT-3
DEX-2
INT-3
WIS-2
LUC-3
POINTS-0
MONEY- 0B
Spike is a dragon, the son of ? and ?. He is still a baby dragon, and has a fairly short attention span. He has ?, but hasn't figured it out yet. Spike is unaware of who his parents are, and wishes to find meaning in his life. Spike loves Twilight Sparkle, and all his friends.
Status-None
Looking all of them over, he didn't even realize he had been pacing. That wouldn't be important in and of itself, but there happened to be a fairly heavy copy of Peace and Peace. Before he had even realized what had happened, he'd fallen into the pop-up.
His eye twitched.
Carefully, he pulled himself up to look at the pop-up once more. To his surprise, a small tooltip had popped out of the STR stat.
"This is too weird," he said, reading through each of the tooltips.
'STR determines strength, no surprise there. VIT determines stamina and health. DEX is just agility and speed. INT determines intelligence, or 'how'. WIS determines wisdom, or 'why'. LCK determines luck! Oh, I should write this down!'
You have received 1 WIS for reading through tooltips!
You have received 1 INT for grabbing writing supplies!
"This fic is going to be really inconsistent." said Spike.
Elsewhere, a small chicken spontaneously combusted. A farmer wandered into the smoldering room.
"What the-"
Spike broke out of his thoughts to grab writing supplies. Flicking out his quill using years of experience, he began to write like the pathetic assistant he was. As he marked down his statistics-
Meanwhile...
"I HAVE RETURNED MOTHER*****S!!!"
Nightmare Moon stepped onto the balcony, totally terrifying everyone!!! There was lots of screaming!!! Wahhhh!!!
Spike slipped a claw into his ear. Had he heard something?
Ignoring the strange sound, he focused on the new buttons that had popped onto the bottom right status screen.
Skills. Feats. Titles.
Spike clicked on the 'Skills'. A new screen popped up alongside the status screen. He worked his way through the listed skills.
Deception:
LV 1
The level of this ability determines your ability to lie.
Currently, you'd be lucky to fool a baby.
Your chances of deception are calculated like so:
(LVofDeception + LCK) - (Subjects Perception + Subjects LCK)
Dragon Fire:
LV 1
Dragon Fire is a highly versatile skill given to (you guessed it) dragons. White fire can supposedly burn through the fundamentals of the universe itself, while green can teleport objects. The MP cost is extremely high, with the exception of green fire.
You currently receive a 0% efficiency bonus.
Green Fire:
LV 1
MP cost: 2 MP
You can teleport envelope sized objects with ease.
?
LV ?
Due to traveling through time, you ?????hl?amd?emqhr?
Gamers Mind:
LV MAX
You are virtually impossible to attack mentally.
Gamers Body:
LV MAX
You have near perfect control of your body.
His eyes flew to the question mark almost immediately.
'So it's connected to time travel,' he thought.
His eyes refocused on the status screen. Titles.
Assistant:
All utility skills receive x2 multiplier bonus.
His eye twitched for the second time that day.
CRASH!
"So you're a spy!"
A mellow smile spread across his face. He remembered how often Twilight would talk about this moment, and the following adventure. Too bad he wouldn't get to see any of it-
Save Twilight.
Success: +5 LV. Her undying gratitude.
Failure: Death.
He sighed. When the familiar sound of the library door closing reached his ears, he rushed down the stairs.
One by one, the mares ripped through the trials. By the time they had reached the castle, Spike was beginning to question the validity of the quest.
Then Twilight fell.
Spike nervously awaited the other five, watching the impending doom from a cubby hole. Where are they? A cold sweat broke out across his scales as Nightmare Moon stepped closer to Twilight. Her intentions were clear.
He knew what he had to do.
LV. 12 Combat
You might be able to last thirty seconds against a master. If you're lucky.
"Hey! Moon Butt!" said Spike.
Moon Butt's gaze leveled onto Spike. Ancient and terrible and glorious. Whereas others might probe with their vision, she was attempting to shoot him. Quickly, he shifted his gaze. Endless was the word that came to mind. Spike attempted to comprehend the power in front of him, but he couldn't. Something deep and primal told him he couldn't even hope to do so. One thing he could comprehend was that she was so far beyond him that any hope of victory was already foregone. Frankly the voice was right.
His mind flashed back to one of the skills he saw.
Gamer's mind.
'The only reason I'm not a blubbering mess on the ground,' he thought.
Internally, he grinned at his monologue.
Only one problem with all of that.
He didn't have to win.
Ding!
+5 WIS
Persuasion
LV 13
You might be able to convince a toddler to give up a lollipop.
Perception
LV 50
You've looked into the heart of the abyss, and can understand the tiniest bit.
"You dare?"
Two simple words, and yet they carried so much meaning.
Focus.
"Why are you doing this? Please, tell me your story," he said.
Nightmare Moon's hostility melted from her face. Replaced by a mere bittersweet pain. A small smile graced her face.
"You truly wish to know, young one?" she whispered.
He nodded slowly.
What followed was the single most beautiful story Spike had ever heard. Far too beautiful for words. Every syllable sang with an unheard melody. Every paragraph with an unknown symphony. It was indescribable. It was beyond comprehension. And yet for one moment, Spike understood. He comprehended.
As the elements charged up, he smiled. His eyes hit Twilights. She had a strange mix of emotions hidden away. A bit of fear, worry, and pride.
~|~|~|~
By the time he had fallen out of his trance, he was back at the library. He felt strangely warm?
Oh. Twilight was hugging him.
"You never do that again. You hear me?"
QUEST COMPLETED!!!
~|~|~|~
'It must've looked strange,' Spike thought, "to see how quickly I've advanced."
And it did look strange. Spike had been consuming every book he could find, solving every puzzle he could solve, and lifting every weight he could. Often all at the same time. It wasn't unusual to see him running through the town at the crack of dawn, reading A Dummy's guide to Fighting while dragging a tree. He even worked on his dragon fire. Twilight often gave him odd looks, but he shrugged it off.
Books were by far the most useful. All he had to do is read them and the knowledge translated into LV for skills. On top of that, he could read really fast.
Having finished his training for the day, he opened up his status.
Spike
Health-800/800
Mana-200/200
Class: The Gamer
Title-None
Level-6 Exp-30/400
Race-Dragon
STR-9
VIT-8
DEX-7
INT-8
WIS-12
LUC-3
POINTS-50
MONEY- 0B
Spike is a dragon, the son of ? and ?. He is still a baby dragon, and has a fairly short attention span. He has ?, but hasn't figured it out yet. Spike is unaware of who his parents are, and wishes to find meaning in his life. Spike loves Twilight Sparkle, and all his friends.
Status-None
Skills:
Skill Points: 50
Reading:
LV 57
You can comfortably read college level books. You have an average reading speed of around 1200 WPM.
Writing:
LV 53
You can write faster than most people can read.
Academia:
LV 59
You're at the level of most college students.
Deception:
LV 1
The level of this ability determines your ability to lie.
Currently, you'd be lucky to fool a baby.
Your chances of deception are calculated like so:
(LVofDeception + LCK) - (Subjects Perception + Subjects LCK)
Dragon Fire:
LV 5
Dragon Fire is a highly versatile skill given to (you guessed it) dragons. White fire can supposedly burn through the fundamentals of the universe itself, while green can teleport objects. The MP cost is extremely high, with the exception of green fire.
You currently receive a 0% efficiency bonus.
Green Fire:
LV 1
MP cost: 2 MP
You can teleport envelope sized objects with ease.
?
LV ?
Due to traveling through time, you ?????hl?amd?emqhr?
Persuasion
LV 13
You might be able to convince a toddler to give up a lollipop.
Perception
LV 50
You've looked into the heart of the abyss, and can understand the tiniest bit.
Combat
LV. 32
Most amateurs have no chance of defeating you.
Gamers Mind:
LV MAX
You are virtually impossible to attack mentally.
Gamers Body:
LV MAX
You have near perfect control of your body.
Titles:
Assistant:
All utility skills receive x2 multiplier bonus.
He frowned. As usual, the leveling system made zero sense.
Now for the dilemma.
He had fifty skill points, and fifty stat points.
Reading was still an obvious one. The faster he could read, the faster he could gain more skills. But Dragon Fire was difficult to level up.
He dumped ten points each into Reading, Dragon Fire and Combat, resolving to use the rest later.
Stats.
It was tempting to dump it all into strength, but Spike had matured. Luck and Wisdom were the only ones he couldn't increase consistently. Nodding to himself, he pushed ten points each into Luck and Wisdom.
Now then, what to do with the rest?
"Spike!"
"Who what where?"
Twilight looked on, unamused.
"C'mon, I agreed to help Applejack with the farm," she said.
Spike simply nodded as they walked out the door.
"So," she began.
"So?" Spike replied.
"I'm worried about you," she said, with the barest hint of emotion.
Spike raised an eyebrow.
"Why's that?" he asked.
"Because you almost died a week ago!" she yelled.
Twilight had stopped walking. Barely suppressed rage and fear tugged at her heart as she looked him in the eye. Her breathing slowed as she stared him down.
"Spike, there's introverted and then there's just plain distant," she sighed, "You've been running around training, avoiding everypony, and it's scaring me."
She was surprised to see Spike walk up to her.
And hug her.
"I don't want to lose you, Spike," she whispered.
"You won't," he said.
"When will this story earn it's comedy tag, by the way?" she asked.
~|~|~|~
As they continued their walk to Sweet Apple Acres, he thought over what had just happened.
He hadn't even noticed, but he was slowly becoming more and more apathetic.
'Gamer's Mind,' he realized.
Whatever gave him such powerful resistance to mental attacks must also be causing him to lose his emotions.
That or he was crazy, but that wasn't a possibility he was very willing to consider. Giving a shy smile to Twilight, he promised himself something.
He would add enough fluff to reach two thousand words, no matter what the cost.