//------------------------------//
// (4) Roll For Initiative 
// Story: Canterlot High's D&D Club 
// by 4428Gamer 
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Vareén's POV
On The Road




Over the next few days, everyone had fallen into a routine. Everyone would wake up at two hours past sunrise and spend the third hour preparing for the day. During that time they would need to wait for Thorn Wielder, the elf with vines around her arm, to cooperate. Whether or not anyone approved, the elf would unhook the oxen and let them roam free at the end of every day.

Platick, the human man, and Ricven, the gnome musician. would then have to wait for Thorn Wielder to 'talk' the oxen into coming back so that they could hitch them up. When that was done, everyone would assume positions around the cart from all sides as Thorn Wielder would always manage the oxen.

On the first day, no one minded as Stostine, the human woman in robes, created a system for everyone to take turns on the cart's bench; that way everyone could take a turn to rest. Well, everyone save for Ricven who spent the entire trip riding on top of the supplies.

Despite this system, Thorn Wielder refused to leave her spot and surrender the reins to anyone else; which did not last long. Partway into the second day, Ravathyra, the Dwarf in armor, spoke up. She argued that it was unfair for Thorn Wielder to keep her seat when other people had to walk for seven hours.

The point was made stronger when Ricven revealed Stostine was having trouble walking for long periods of time. She tried to cover up that fact but we all knew. So for her to get enough time to rest while others could do the same, Thorn Wielder had to walk.

It wasn't hard to convince her but she insisted on holding the reins. This made the confusing concept of her walking beside the oxen as she guided them. Although, when she realized that she could keep the reins while walking, Thorn Wielder only sat down for one or two hours.

At the end of every day, the routine would come back into play. Ricven would be somewhere playing his violin just as he did during the day, only stopping when people were ready to sleep or at the distant threat of wolves. Also during this time, Thorn Wielder would be tending to the oxen or caring for the plants and trees around us.

Meanwhile, everyone else actually did something productive. Glemerr, the orc with bandages, and Stostine would be on campfire detail while Platick tended to the tents and prepared the land for bedrolls. Once everything was complete and people went to bed, I and Ravathyra would act as the night watch on separate shifts.

Originally I wanted to spend the time before night watch hunting game to keep my skills sharp and keep rations full. However, Thorn Wielder made sure I never had the chance. She would keep warning the animals. And whenever I would tell her about our rations, in Elvish so I knew she'd understand me, she would just summon magical berries. Her annoyances were building on me but at least they weren't a hindrance.

The third day is the only time where there was something that broke the pattern. Rather than work on the camp, Platick took the chance to do inventory of the cart. Most of the others chalked it to the human getting tired of not knowing what we were guarding in the first place. So when no one stopped him, Platick pulled out every single item and searched it all.

In the end, there wasn't much to look at. Like Gundren said, everything was stuff for a mining operation. Pickaxes, shovels, wooden boards for tunnel supports, the list had gone on. If miners could use it then it was in there. The only thing out of place was a wrongly marked barrel filled with vintage dwarven alcohol. Again, not suspicious, but now it meant that Stostine had to convince a few of the others not to touch it. A task that she was not happy about.

The first four days came and went with little else. While out on my fruitless hunts I saw one or two of the others practicing or demonstrating their skills. Sometimes Ricven would incorporate illusions into his performances or have a second instrument's sound play along with his violin like the first day. On another occasion, I saw Glemerr find a hardwood tree and practice combat on it before eventually putting a huge crack in the trunk and calling it a day.

Thorn Wielder and Ravathyra didn't show much but it wasn't hard to figure out what they were capable of. One had vines and an affinity for nature, the other had heavy armor and a large hammer. Use logic and you had your answer.

The only ones that didn't give away what they were capable of were Platick and Stostine. I noticed that Platick had some hidden daggers that looked to be in much nicer condition than the rusted sword at his hip but aside from that he was careful about the skills he revealed in front of us. In contrast, Stostine constantly admitted skills she was useful at as well as her weaknesses.

The only thing she didn't seem to talk about was her abilities in a fight. Gundren had hired all of us to guard the cart so it was assumed that each of us was capable in some form or another. But the only thing that Stostine had demonstrated was her ability to get winded after travel and readiness to help others; neither of which was useful if bandits ambushed us.

The two human question marks made up the majority of the conversations as they butted heads a little too often. Originally it started when Stostine asked about Thorn Wielder; something that Platick knew about but had yet to tell either her or myself about. Over the days the debates bled into other things and the rest of us learned to ignore it and focus on guarding the cart.

It was only on that fifth day that 'guarding the cart' actually meant something.




3rd Person POV
3:42 PM
Classroom




Story looked up from behind his screen as the girls off-handedly talked about what their characters were doing. He had told them that transporting the cart would take several days and after just a few comments from the girls, they had gone into specifics about who was doing what tasks, if any, for the camp.

Somewhere in it all, Applejack had asked what was in the cart they were guarding, which sparked a small in-game argument between Stostine and Platick. The exchange actually surprised Story a little bit since he did not expect the girls to actually be this in-depth with the game already. Although it was, he thought, fun to watch and listen to.

When the conversation felt like it was reaching the end, Story glanced to a few minis he had hidden behind his screen and the picture of a map. It was time to begin the real game.

"As you all begin the fifth day of your travels," Story began. "The morning starts up like usual. Thorn Wielder, like all the previous days, is the first one awake and has already put out the fire while Platick makes quick work of packing up supplies. Vareén, Stostine, and Ricven all assume their positions on the cart when you leave and the morning hours go by quietly.

"Ever since the third day, your path had been veering away from the edge of the Aurora Trove forest and more towards a hilly landscape with only small areas of woodland to pass by. The skies above you leave scattered clouds and a slight breeze from behind you, the west, but with no signs of any immediate weather change.

"Something else that a few of you notice is that you haven't seen too many other carts from yesterday onward," Story continued. "During the third day you passed a small caravan but they had taken one direction at the fork in the road while you took the other. Ever since you haven't passed by any other travelers. You know that it's not surprising as the only town down this road is Phandalin, the town you're heading to. However, the lack of passing faces has left less to talk about than usual."

Story paused as he reached for his miniatures and placed three of them on the vinyl mat. The first was a realistic wagon with two miniature crates placed snugly inside of it with two posts jutting out the front. The other two were a horse miniature and cow miniature placed in front of the cart. Story didn't have two oxen so he had to make due.

As the girls studied the miniatures with interest, Story cleared his throat to get their attention. "After about four or five hours into your day, I would like to go ahead and ask where you are all situated." 

"Situated?" One of the girls repeated.

"Yep." Story nodded. "Whenever the group is traveling from one place to another I need to know where you guys are at in terms of the group. Who's in the back, front, sides. It's usually called a marching order."

"Marching order?" Rainbow Dash asked. "What, like a parade?"

"We're having a parade?!" Pinkie's attention vanished from the cart altogether as she held up the orc miniature that was placed at her spot at the table. "Glemerr's at the front!"

Story just shrugged. "Front it is." As Pinkie continued to bounce in her seat, she placed Glemerr's model in front of the oxen about three squares away from them. In Story's mind, he saw that she was fifteen feet away, one square equals five feet.

Twilight kept eyeing the wagon. "You said we can't all fit, right?"

"Nope," Story answered shortly. "It's not on the model but the wagon has a bench up front which can fit two of you. And because Rarity said so earlier, Ricven sits on top of the supplies."

"Correct," Rarity agreed as she carefully placed Riven's model on one of the boxes. "He's resting on a crate with his feet propped up on that barrel Platick found."

Sunset glanced towards Rarity and spoke as Stostine. "Please don't mess with the beer."

"Why Miss Stostine, I would neva'!" Rarity spoke as Ricven with a smirk. She was enjoying the accent a little too much. "That be, unless you'd like ta share a drink," she added with a wink.

Sunset instead ignored Rarity's jokes as best she could and handed her mini to Story. "I think Stostine's on the bench at this point."

"Good to know." Story balanced the mini on the front of the wagon. "Who else is sitting down?"

"...uh...I will." When she noticed that no one else was speaking, Fluttershy meekly pushed her miniature towards the vinyl mat with the end of her pencil.

When Story saw that Fluttershy had been what seemed afraid of the mini, he looked fully towards her. "Fluttershy, you okay?"

"U-um, yes." Fluttershy gave a weak nod. She was the only one of the group who had yet to see her anything glow yet. She had only seen the text appearing on the table and that was still putting her on edge. Regardless of what the other girls were trying to reassure her of, she was still worried. "I just...Didn't want to ruin it."

A gave a small chuckle. "Don't worry, they won't break that easy. Watch."

To show them, Story started turning the mini roughly in his hand and even began to lightly knock it on the table. The moment he did, nearly every girl sitting down seemed to tense up or even flinch with each knock. To all of them, the dice seemed okay but this was the first time dealing with something else.

"See?" One or two knocks later he balanced the model next to Sunset's character on the wagon. "Not dinged up or anything. It's just wings or thin parts like a staff or something you gotta be careful of. Besides, even if it does break I can glue these back together whenever."

"Well, still." Sunset slowly straightened herself from her chair. Not only that but I thought she might've been speaking in a slightly higher pitch. "It's better not to break it in the first place, right?"

"Fair point." Story shrugged.

After the rest of the girls got their minis placed into the right spot, Story took a moment to review it. before allowing himself a ghost of a smile that none of the girls seemed to notice.

Now that everyone's in their places, Story thought. It's time to see just how many of them get behind the fighting.

"One last thing." Story hid his smile well and got a pencil ready. "Everyone needs to roll me something. A perception check."

As the girls reached for their dice, Fluttershy finally saw the same glow that they each did. And while it took some reassurance from Rarity, Shy eventually did the same and everyone began to roll.

A dull slap of face meeting palm echoed from Sunset. "I rolled a 1. Again..."

"Eleven, plus this number," Pinkie hummed as she poked, what Story saw, an empty space on the table. "Fourteen!"

Story cocked his head to the side, curious what Pinkie was poking at exactly, before—

"Ten."
"Oh, thirteen total."
"A five."

Story scrambled to catch who said what, his attention thankfully torn from whatever Pinkie Pie was doing.

"Meh." From the other side of the table, Rainbow didn't seem too enthusiastic about her roll.

Twilight's reaction, however, was the complete opposite as she began to count up the number before deciding to write down something off to the side.

"..." Story and the others waited patiently for Twilight to finish what she was writing but when they started to realize that she wasn't done writing, Sunset leaned over.

"She rolled an eighteen."

Story chuckled. "Good to know." He wrote the number down.

After going over the numbers Story reached for his own dice for the first time all game and rolled one. Then again. And then a couple more times.

Unbeknownst to Story, the girls were all watching in silent terror as flashes of dark green energy began to emit from behind Story's screen. The energy trailed off like demonic tendrils as though it were effects from every villain of every movie.

"Umm..." Sunset flinched as another green tendril curled over the screen before fading away. "What are you doing?" Her tone was casual enough but her expression matched the rest of the girls'.

"What, I'm not allowed to roll dice too?" Story gave a sly smirk before rolling one last time. As he did, the girls watched as several more tendrils of energy coiled up and around Story's shoulder.

"I...Guess not," Applejack said worriedly.

As Story checked over a few more things, marking something on a piece of paper, he looked up and began to speak as the last bit of green energy faded away.

"While the day arrived at one in the afternoon..."




Vareén's POV
On The Road
5th Day of Travel




The day proceeded the same as the ones before it. The group would continue along the path after breaking camp and take breaks for people to trade spots or allow the oxen to graze as per Thorn Wielder's 'command'. It was in these commands that I noticed Thorn Wielder had been getting antsy the more we traded the treeline for hills. I guess vine woman wasn't much for rolling hills and mining towns like the one we had been moving toward.

At the moment we were in the same formation as when we left Phandalin. Ravathyra and I were set up at the left and right sides respectively, Glemerr was ahead of the oxen, Platick was in the back, Stostine and Thorn Wielder were on the bench, and Ricven lounged on top of the supplies playing his violin just like every day.

Except now, the violin was getting on the Dwarf's last nerve.




"Okay. How do you do nothing but play a violin for five days straight?" Rainbow asked.




"Why, whatever do you mean," Ricven asked with an innocent look.




"We're supposed to be guards, right?" Rainbow glanced over at Story for a second. "So why are you doing nothing but playing a violin?"




"It is not simply a violin," Ricven countered. "It is an instrument that can unlock the hearts of any who hear it." As if to prove his point, Ricven played a few, admittedly, pleasant chords.




"What does that even mean?" Rainbow raised an eyebrow in confusion.




"Can we please save the banter for when we get to Phandalin?" Stostine looked behind her. "If we stop wasting time we may get there before nightfall."

"Try telling that to the caretaker up there," Platick spoke from the back. "If we didn't have so many breaks we'd probably be there right now."

Thorn Wielder said nothing. Instead, she simply clicked her tongue and the oxen began to speed up slightly.

"Uh-oh. Glemerr thinks ya made 'er mad," Glemerr said.

"If mad gets us there faster." Platick folded his arms behind his head and kept pace with the oxen.

"Oh come now," Ricven reflected with a yawn. "I think we should trust the lass's judgment. She does have quite the eye for nature. I'd trust no one more with the task."

Platick only scoffed. "That girl could lead you to a snake bite and you would still thank her."

"Well one of us has to be a gentleman around here." Ricven, for the first time this whole trip, sat up. "An' I do not see you doin' such a job."

"In case you haven't noticed, we're getting paid for this." Platick met the gnome's stare. "And while you've been playing 'gentleman,' the rest of us have been doing the actual work."

"Alright, that's enough," I called out. Without needed to look I heard all of them, even the oxen, come to a complete stop. "The small talk I can take but I will not listen to you all argue like children. So shut up and face forward."

From under my hood, I watched as all of them, save for Thorn Wielder, looked at me in surprise.

"What?" I narrowed my eyes.

"I-It's just," Ricven stammered. "I believe this is the first time you've said a full sentence ta anyone this whole trip. I believe we're caught a bit off guard is all."

"Good," I stated. "Maybe that'll show you just how little you're paying attention to the things around you."

As I spoke, my ear caught something that sounded like hushed voices up ahead. I faced forward and began to look around but we were heading up a gradual hill. We wouldn't be able to see anything until we got to the peak of it.

"You're right," Stostine sighed in regret. "We should focus. We're not safe until we reach the town."

One by one the rest of them agreed in their own ways, with Glemerr even going as far as to apologize despite not doing anything.

At least none of them are too proud to admit their noisy, I thought. The sounds ahead then turned into foliage rustling. Then silence.

When Thorn Wielder figured that we were done talking she clicked her tongue again and lightly moved the reins to make them continue.

They didn't move.

Thorn Wielder hummed in thought and tried again to have them move. Instead, all the oxen did was shuffle in place and hold their ground.

"Don't tell me they want another break." Platick frowned.

"No..." Stostine slowly stood up from the wagon's bench. "I think they're...spooked?"



"Ox get spooked?" Rainbow asked. "How?"

"Oxen," Twilight corrected.

"You know what I mean," Rainbow sighed. "But why are they 'spooked'?"



"The things around you," I repeated. I began to pull an arrow from my quiver. Something was wrong.

The rest of them began to follow my lead and went silent. Glemerr tightened her wrappings and Stostine seemed to straighten her left sleeve; both of which I assumed were out of habit. Ricven, meanwhile, simply sat up and started adjusting pegs on his violin.

It was only Ravathyra and Platick that actually followed my example and drew their weapons; the Dwarf pulling out her warhammer and the human readying his rusty sword. They both stepped up to the front of the cart.

Finally, there was Thorn Wielder. Rather than do anything that seemed like prepare for a fight, she instead hopped off the wagon turned her back to the direction the path traveled. Then, she proceeded to stare at the ox.

"What are you doing?" Platick asked.

As though to prove Thorn Wielder's danger, the sound of an off-key bird call echoed off ahead. And this time, thankfully, Glemerr seemed to recognize it too.

Thorn Wielder continued to ignore everyone. She just kept staring at the oxen before eventually glancing up at us. "Troubled."

"You don't say," Platick said sarcastically.

With her holding the oxen up, I and the rest of them were forced to stay still. If only some of them went forward then they could be picked off. If everyone went then the cart's only protection was a loopy vine woman. But, if everyone stood here like targets then whatever was up ahead could surround the cart. That is if they weren't already doing that.

"Thorn Wielder," Stostine started. She seemed to recognize the threat. "We can't stay here. You need to move." Stostine shuffled to the middle of the bench and reached for the reins.

"Hold." Thorn Wielder held up her hand. Stostine, and the rest watched as Thorn Wielder placed her forehead against the ox's and began to chant something in a low whisper.

The Dwarf looked over in bewilderment. "Now what are you—" "Shh!" However, Stostine shushed her and the rest of us with a wave of her hand. "She's casting a spell."

A spell? On the ox? Unless she had a spell that made them learn how to fight this was a waste of time.

Nevertheless, Thorn Wielder finished her chant and placed her hand on her throat. As she did, a bright glow appeared across her entire neck in a natural green color.

"Mankoi uma ile gorga?" Thorn Wielder spoke seamlessly, all traces of her shaky, broken language gone. Unfortunately, none of them could understand her now.

In fact, I couldn't understand most of it either. It had the same dialect as Elvish but the words were different. Ancient, almost. In fact, I could only understand the last word since it wasn't any different.  "Gorga" meant "Fear".

The ox Thorn Wielder spoke to began to huff and bellow in response before nodding in the direction we were moving. So even the oxen could sense something was wrong. But would they recognize attackers?

When the ox finished his "speech," the group watched as Thorn Wielder's expression went from focus to worried. "N-No..." Without any warning, to us or anyone, she turned on her heel and started up the hill. Alone.

Glemerr and Stostine shouted for her to stop or at least slow down, but the elf didn't listen. Instead, she rushed the peak of the hill and looked ahead.

She looked like a standing target in my eyes. And for every time she put me in danger, my bowstring grew tighter.

"H-Hold on!" Not wanting to let Thorn Wielder separate from the rest of them, Stostine tightened her grip on the reins and whipped the oxen to go ahead.



	“Why do I keep rolling ones?!” Sunset was now glaring down at the small die, now starting to wish that it would start glowing for her.

Meanwhile, Story, Rainbow, and Pinkie were all laughing at the little feud. “Here.” Story tossed Sunset a new die from his personal pile behind the screen. “Use this one.”

Sunset, not daring to take her eyes off the one that scorned her, snatched the second die out of the air without a second thought.

“I’ll say you have advantage since Fluttershy calmed the oxen down. You can roll a second time,” Story explained, wiping a joyful tear from his eye.

While holding her breath, Sunset rolled the new die. As it came to a stop, she relaxed her shoulders. “That’s…Better?”

As Sunset looked, the two dice on the table flashed as though a camera went off. And when she looked closer, Sunset noticed her new die now resembled her color scheme, albeit with some sort of theme, while the original was back to being a regular die.

Sunset did her best to ignore the change, for now at least and counted up the number on the die with the number that appeared on the table. “Twenty total.”



Coming to their senses, the oxen began to move as trained; this time at a quicker speed. With them moving I was able to keep in formation and reach the top of the hill. From there I looked at the scene ahead of me.

The path went down the hill at a gradual decline and carried on for a few hundred feet before banking left. On the left side of the path were more hills and a treeline that thinned out the further from the road you got. On the right, the treeline stayed thicker without any glades or open spaces to spot.

Then, more importantly, there was a blockade at the bottom of the hill made from a wagon. It was about the same size and make as our own only it was tipped over and smashed in places. Any crates or supplies that were on the wagon had been pulled out and ransacked with every sign of valuables already picked clean.

Finally, there were the animals attached to the wagon. Instead of two oxen like we had, this one was instead pulled by two horses; both of which now lay on their sides dead.

They were sprawled out beside the wagon with dozens of black-fletched arrows sticking out of them like pincushions in every angle. With the arrows were several daggers and knives stabbed in the chests and faces of them. However long the corpses had been like this they managed to attract a small cloud of flies as well.

Without getting closer I was already able to tell that it didn't take all those arrows and knives to kill them. The culprits mutilated the bodies. Not only that but the entire scene was purposely placed across the road, blocking us from passing. It was an ambush.

The oxen came to a complete stop and this time I didn't blame them. The sight, and probably smell, was not pleasant. It was, however, a clear sign for the others to get serious as some of them began to eye their surroundings.

Immediately I spotted several small figures hiding in the brush ahead of us on both sides. Meanwhile, Glemerr and Ricven only studied the left side where the trees were thinner. They seemed to be the only others who spotted the moving figures.

The world's simplest trap, I thought. It was the kind you read about in children stories. A broken cart or fallen tree blocking the way only for something to be lying in wait. 

"Be on your guard," Platick warned. He was looking for any sign of the attackers but just seemed to be whipping his head in every direction. Despite this, he seemed to keep his wits about him. "Whatever's going on, don't let them near the cart."

"...Wouldn't dream of it," Ricven said evenly. He didn't dare take his eyes off the figure.

With the group and myself on top of the hill there was a height advantage. Not to mention I had only counted five targets. If it was a simple highway robbery then there couldn't have been too many of them. Too many ways to split the earnings. Those of us at the cart had the advantage in numbers and location. All anyone had to do was stay their ground and attack from a distance. The enemy would either charge or run away.

They already lose, I thought as I allowed myself to smirk.

And that's when Stostine started sprinting down the hill.



	“Sunset!” Applejack looked over. “What in Tarnation are you doin'?!”

"I. I-I...Those poni..." Sunset let her face fall into her hands. The realization was suddenly dawning on Sunset. Ugh...I actually thought they were ponies in trouble. "I don't know what I'm doing."

"...I'm running too," Fluttershy called out with a small burst of determination. Which quickly deflated as she saw Applejack's expression switch to her. "If, um, that's okay, that is."

Before Applejack could say anything, Pinkie stood from her seat with a fist in the air. "Then so will Glemerr!" Her war cry bolstered the courage of Sunset and Fluttershy while just making Applejack and Twilight share a look of worry.

This is gonna be fun, Story thought. As he looked down at the six miniatures he was hiding behind the screen a ghost of a grin was forming on his face. Unbeknownst to him, his set of dice were all glowing with the same sickly green aura as before.



As the three flailing idiots continued running down the hill towards the obvious trap all hidden figures began moving. Then, after four arrows shot off after the running targets I quickly pinpointed where the arrows had come from; two from the left and two from the right.

In terms of accuracy, these archers left much to be desired. From the right, an arrow flew for Thorn Wielder and whizzed past her, missing her bare leg as she kept running.

The second archer from the right was even worse. From it's hiding spot a greenish creature shorter than Ricven lept from its place and pulled the bow as taught as it could. But rather than fire, the bowstring snapped and ricocheted the arrow right into the creature's face, rendering it useless.

From the opposing side, two more green archers took aim and fired at the lumbering half-orc. Glemerr, having kept tabs on them the whole time, managed to juke out of the way of the first shot as it missed striking into her hip. But with her momentum now gone, Glemerr was an easy target for the next arrow.

Glemerr's size worked against her and apparently she wasn't aware of that. So rather than face the archer at an angle, Glemerr made the shot easier and turned fully towards the green archer and held up both hands to— I think —catch the arrow.

When the archer saw this, it pulled back and released the arrow with glee.

And as expected, Glemerr's hand caught air as the arrow carved below her upper arm. Her war cry turned to a pained scream as her faded white bandages turned red in moments.

"Glemerr!" Stostine watched as the arrowhead dislodged itself from Glemerr's arm from the leftover momentum. "Are you alrigh—"

"Myehhhehe!" Before she could reach out to Glemerr, a new face lept from the forest with a snarky grin and second notched arrow.

The three of them all glanced around, taking in the four creatures that revealed themselves. For the moment it seemed like both groups were in a stand-off with the rest of us watching from atop the hill.

"We..." I barely heard Stostine speak before she began projecting her voice. "We. Are not here. To fight," she spoke slowly. She assumed the creatures couldn't understand her.



	So. It seems like five out of the seven girls are pretty into the roleplaying part of the game. The only ones who didn't seem too interested were Rainbow and maybe Fluttershy, Story surmised. He was watching as all of them rolled initiative; something that decided who went first in a fight.

While they rolled, Story pulled out his markers and draw up the battlefield. It didn't take too much effort, just two lines for the dirt road and a couple of circles for the trees and bushes. When that was done, he placed Sunset, Fluttershy, and Pinkie's figures about 6 blocks away from the cart before placing four of his six goblin minis further away. The rest of the group, not counting Rainbow and Applejack's minis, were directly beside the cart.

It looked like a military map in a way. The enemies had the three surrounded from both sides and the rest of the group, the reinforcements, were a distance from them. A pincer maneuver, Story recalled.

When the girls started throwing numbers to Story, they all quickly caught on that they weren't all going first. Some of them rolled too low for that.

Hopefully they learn to fight just as quick. Story tossed the marker aside and got ready.



Before Stostine could say another word, the creature fired its next arrow directly at her torso.

Stostine forced her eyes closed as she looked away, only able to listen as a sharp crack of wood echoed from in front of her. By the same she opened one of her eyes to look, she saw Thorn Wielder's buckler with the black-fletched arrow embedded in it.

Thorn Wielder muttered a single word but I was too far to catch it. Instead, I watched her vines begin to writhe about and loosen from her arm as a fifth goblin rushed out from the brush next. Instead of a bow, it had a buckler in one hand and a curved sword in the other. A sword that the creature was bringing up to use.

"Big one fall! Big one fall!" With a high-pitched, yet guttural voice, the green figure quickly closed the gap between it and Glemerr before swinging its blade along and through her left thigh with a cheer.

"Guuuukkk!" Glemerr was trying not to yell but that task was starting to seem fruitless. Visibly dazed from the pain, Glemerr leaned her weight on her good leg and readied herself.




"It's my turn now, right?" Rainbow's knee was bouncing as her patience to take her turn was wearing thin.

Story smiled and sat back. "The floor is yours, Rainbow." He quickly looked over the miniatures and then at Rainbow's character. "What would you like to do?"

"Okay," For the first time the whole game Rainbow leaned forward, now fully interested. "You said that dwarves were slow right?"

"Little bit." Story nodded. "They move twenty-five feet in one turn. So five blocks in any direction."

"Five blocks? That's it?" Rainbow looked a little dejected but started to count every direction she could think of.

"Well you can use your whole turn to run ten blocks but then that's it. No actions," Story explained.

"Uh...Well then..." Rainbow paused. "I can move to Pinkie Pie right?"

"You mean Glemerr," Pinkie cheered with a war cry.

"Yeah. Her. Can I?"

"Yep." As if to prove it, Story moved the dwarf mini right behind the orc. "Not close enough to hit anything yet though. Unless you would like to do somethi—"

Rainbow tapped something on her paper. "I, uh, I use. I'm gonna use the...Lay on Hands, thing, to heal her. All five points."

Story blinked. Huh. She did that on her own. With how she's been acting about the game so far I thought that she was gonna sulk about not hitting anything.

"Alright then." Story leaned forward with newfound interest. "As you rush up to your ally..."




Veiled by the noise of clanking metal armor, the Dwarf bounded down the hill with her warhammer now slung over her shoulder. For a moment, every goblin on the path looked towards the armored woman in fear but quickly went back to their fight when they realized that she wasn't going for them but towards the orc.

Ravathyra then planted her warhammer into the ground beside her with a heavy thud and slammed her gauntlet-encased hand squarely upon the orc's back. She seemed focused despite not looking at anything but the orc's wound.

"Oi, you alrigh'?" Glemerr glanced back for a moment, the sudden weight paining her thigh again. "I can' let ya lean on me foreva!"




"Uh, yeah..." Rainbow half-hearted played along. "I, um..."




"I heal you!" The Dwarf announced.

Despite the sudden 'prayer,' Ravatyhra's gauntlet was cast with this bright golden aura that began to pulse into Glemerr's body and across her wounds. In seconds, Glemerr readjusted her stance so that it was balanced as the entire wound on her thigh sealed up. At the same time, the wound on her arm stopped bleeding.

"...Huh," Stostine huh'ed. "I suppose that's one way of calling the Divine."

The Dwarf shrugged as Stostine took a moment to assess the situation around her. Now that Ravathyra had joined them, Stostine assumed she was safe from the goblins targeting her and studied the chaos around her.

When she saw one of the archers duck behind the wagon, Stostine shouted loud enough so that even the people back at the cart could hear her.

"We're dealing with a band of five goblins," she started. "Four of them have bows, and another has a sword."

But she was off. As I notched an arrow I saw another goblin creeping out from the right where Stostine wasn't paying attention. This one, rather than run up screaming, quietly dashed for Stostine; ready to chop into her hip.

"That fool—" Platick went into a full sprint down the hill, drawing a dagger from his boot in one smooth action.

I brought up my bow but it was no good. The goblin was too small a shot and if I missed I would have killed Stostine before it had the chance.

Without much choice, I put Stostine's life in Platick's hands and watched as he kept running. But he was too far. At his pace, Platick would only be getting a seat in the splash zone. Thankfully, unlike Glemerr, Platick was aware of that.

Thinking quickly, Platick put his fingers up to his mouth and quickly let out the loudest, and dumbest, catcall possible. In that instant, Stostine turned back to glare daggers that seemed sharper than Platick's but her instincts made her pause.

With all reflexes, Stostine jumped back just as the goblin's scimitar cut air and struck the ground where she had been standing.

The goblin pulled the sword back to lunge again only to stop moving. From Stostine's perspective, she watched as the tip of a dagger stuck out of the same Adam's apple the goblin had been screaming with.

The goblin dropped his sword and tried to reach for his nape where a dagger's hilt rest. By the time its hands wrapped around the weapon, its eyes rolled back as it finally choked on its own blood and bile.

Behind him, halfway down the hill, Stostine spotted Platick standing there, dagger no longer in his hand.

"He. Why'd you—?! I. When did—" Stostine glanced down at the goblin that was no longer moving while she tried to stop hyperventilating. "...Thank. You."

As Platick made it to the bottom of the hill, I brought my attention to the rest of the fight. The other sword goblin was mixed in with the group so he wasn't a clear shot. Which left me dueling the archers.

I needed a full view of both sides without leaving myself exposed without cover. Lacking many options, I went up to the cart wheel and planted my foot on the spoke. With one hand still clutching my bow, I brought the other hand to the barrier and launched myself up and onto the back of the cart.

From there, I made my way across whatever barrels and crates that I could make out through the tarp.

"Woah—hey!"

I stomped over Ricven who barely had enough time to roll out of my way. Even now he was sitting back as the chaos went on.

When I reached the closest crate to the front, Ricven wore this dumb smirk on his face. "Why hellooo Vareén," he welcomed.

"Ugh." With an eye roll, I raised my bow and aimed it towards one of the goblins.

"Everybody duck," I shouted. And all at once, six sets of eyes, one of them belonging to the other sword-wielding goblin, turned just in time to see me let loose an arrow downrange.

Platick and Stostine both dove in different directions as the arrow whizzed past. Then, as the goblin from the right side reached for its next arrow, it glanced up just in time to watch my shot pin it to a tree by the lung. Whatever strength it had it spent trying to tear away the arrow only for it to expire quicker.

"Two down," I announced.

I began to study the tree lines, watching as the other archers ducked back into their hiding spots when they saw what I did to their friend. All except for one. The goblin that landed a hit on Glemerr earlier felt braver than the others and stepped further from its tree to fire a sloppy arrow towards in my direction.

Rather than lose my perch on the cart, I allowed myself to lean to my side and let the arrow fly sail past me, missing my waist by a mile.

"BWAH!" The gnome, however, let out a girlish scream when the arrow pierced through the barrel he was leaning on, missing his hand.

"Don't shake the cart," I commanded before pulling a new arrow from my quiver.

As I watched for my next shot, Thorn Wielder lowered her shield to look around. With the goblin who shot at her now dispatched she needed a new target. Thankfully she didn't have to wait long.

Directly ahead of Thorn Wielder was the goblin who broke its bow. Apparently when it ducked behind the broken wagon it spent time tying its bowstring back together. The string probably wouldn't last a second shot but that did not seem to dawn on the goblin. Instead, jumped from its hiding spot cheering as it waved a newly strung bow in one hand while a black-feathered arrow was gripped in the other.

"You," Thorn Wielder called.

The goblin froze in mid-celebration, locking eyes with the scythe-carrying woman before its toothy grin vanished.

Thorn Wielder pointed to the arrow he was waving around. Then to him. "You. Equine Killer," she named with no emotion.



	Whether anyone noticed or not, a deep chill went down Sunset's spine.



The goblin said nothing. Instead, it hid the arrow behind his back and proceeded to look around it. When it saw no other goblins around it, it turned back to Thorn Wielder and 'confusedly' pointed at itself.

"Meeee?" it asked with a voice that sounded like a chain-smoking child.

Thorn Wielder gave no response. Instead, the thorned vines around her arm thrased about in fury.

The goblin saw this and tried backing away but as though the vines could sense the goblin's intent, they lunged forward like a cobra.

The goblin dove back behind cover and cried as the vine struck into a stray plank of the broken wagon. With the plank reduced to mulch, the goblin's terrified face was once again visible.

"Thorn Wielder, please calm down," Stostine insisted. "Getting angry at a group of goblins will only hinder our ability to—" "YAAAHHHH!" "Think clearly..." Stostine's face faded into her hand as Glemerr continued her war cry.

And Glemerr's war cry didn't go without action. The goblin beneath her gaze froze in fear from the orc and with a clatter, its scimitar hit the ground beside its foot.

Grinning at the sight, Glemerr brought up a fist to smash the goblin into the ground like a nail, making it flinch in terror.

But as the moments past, the goblin dared to glance up only to see Glemerr groaning in pain. Only now had she realized that her 'smashing arm' was the same arm that was shot earlier.



	"You said that was healed," Rainbow argued.

"I said it stopped bleeding," Story countered. "There's a difference. Besides, Pinkie rolled a natural one. A nat one is a nat one."



"New...New plan," the orc muttered miserably before deciding to try curb stomping the goblin into the dirt. Though with the slower movements from Glemerr, the goblin rose up its shield and somehow managed to hold up her boot.

Stostine watched the struggle through her fingers before pulling her hands away from her face. "Okay then," Stostine said in a shaky tone. "If this is how we're going to do this..." Stostine turned her left hand towards the goblin.

It was hard to tell what was going on, especially from the top of the hill, but after a couple of seconds Stostine's hand collected faint embers. Then, as she made a couple of sweeping motions, the embers flared into a small torrent of flame that collected around her sleeve harmlessly.

Stostine stopped all movement as she leered at the goblin, holding her flaming hand up to its face at point blank.

"Roast."

The goblin tried to jump for its scimitar but it was too late. By the time it reached the hilt of the blade the goblin's entire arm was ensnared in flame. Its cries drew the attention of the other goblins as it flung its arm around in an attempt to douse the fire.

Glemerr chuckled as she grinned down at the creature. "A tad overcooked. You should be tossed out, little gobbo." Glemerr went to nod at Stostine only to see another archer aiming for Stostine's head and fired.

"Watch out!"

Stostine made a dismissive wave over her shoulder and listened as the arrow suddenly glanced off a spectral dome around her before careening into the woods. The dome remained, entirely unfazed.

"I. I think I'll be fine," Stostine assured, her voice still a little too loud to be considered casual. "Make sure no one else gets hurt."

By this point, Ricven finally decided to crawl up to the front of the cart, past me and onto the bench. He then sat back comfortably with his head leaning back where he could look up at me.

"Well, I hafta say," he started. "This band a' ours is gettin' much better by the moment now ain't it Lady Vareén?"

My expression turned dark as I nocked the next arrow. "It'd be better if you helped."

"Aheheh. Is that right?" Ricven asked. "Well then allow me."

Leaning forward, Ricven took a moment to spot one of the goblins. When he found his quarry, Ricven cleared his throat softly. As though in response, the goblin hiding behind the smashed wagon, nearly fifty feet away from us and opposite of the battlefield, perked up to look at him.

I readied myself to take the shot but Ricven gripped the bottom of my longbow, stopping me. "What are you..."

Ricven stood up and took in a breath, a collection of light blue aura building around his mouth as he then began to shout.

"You there!" Ricven's voice had me lean back with how unnaturally loud it became. "Ya little cross-eyed, puss colored, rat-rubbin', hit-yerself-wit'-a-bow, coward, forest stain of a fool!" Ricven ignored my, Platick, and the other goblin's odd looks and went on. "How's 'bout you crawl yaself back ta whatever muck ya grew out of an' shove them dark arrows up yer own target!"


...Own target...


Own target.


Own. Target.


The last two words gave off this unsettling echo that sounded as though the sound was slithering forward. When it seemed as though the echo physically struck the goblin, that's when it got stranger.

The goblin behind the wagon slowly lulled about. Its body went lax as his bow hit the dirt and his jaw hung low. His pupils then shrunk until even the two of us could see the whites of his eyes.

The sight was short lived, however, as the goblin collapsed behind the wagon where I couldn't see him. The only thing I could see was the unnatural twitching of its already dead body. It was not getting up again.

"Ah..." With a relaxed sigh Ricven let go of my bow and sat himself back down on the bench. "There we are."

Ricven folded his arms back behind his head and glanced up at me again. "It's as the sayin' goes; ask an' ya shall get the thing ya asked for before ya gotta ask fer it again."

...What? My mind buzzed around his saying for a moment before I cleared my head. "What did you just do?"

"Oh, that?" He asked innocently. "Jus' a bit a' magic a' my own. It's not as, ahehe, fiery as Miss Stostine's magic but it is quite mind-bogglin' if I do say so. Though it does call for a tad inch a foul wordplay."

Wordplay? Mind-boggling? I thought his magic was illusion-based. In the past few days all Ricven did for magic was make instrument sounds. I thought that magic users focused on one kind of magic, like illusion for example. Did Ricven know multiple kinds of magic or was it all illusion?

"Just what kind of magic is that?" I stared at him.

"Ya curious ta know?" His relaxed smile grew wider. "I could teach ya if ya wanted."

That's where I ended my questioning. Rather than spin into Ricven's word game, I turned back to the fight where it seemed the goblin Stostine lit on fire had managed to get its sword back. Not only that, but it stepped away from Glemerr and now stood against Thorn Wielder, who was bleeding from her leg.

"Stupid algae covered—grrrrrrrah! I can't do that again!" As the stand off continued, Ravathyra ran by Glemerr with her warhammer dragging behind her by a single hand. When she reached the goblin, Ravathyra grabbed the hammer fully, rose it to the sky and proceeded to — watch as it flew away.

Ravathyra stood there, confused as the warhammer left her grip and sailed several feet away from her. The hammer reached such a height that it spun mid-air three times before stricking the dirt road with a weak thud. It then laid there. Entirely useless.



	"What was that?!" Rainbow demanded, furious. "Sunset's rolled like four of those ones, how's come nothing dumb happened to her?!" Despite her anger the rest of the girls were snickering to themselves about the misfortune.

"Oh trust me," Story said through the giggles. "The next time anyone else rolls a one in a fight, you'll be laughing just like everyone else."

Rainbow didn't bother arguing. Instead, she folded her arms and leaned back. While Rainbow would never admit it, Story was right.

The first time I get to do something fun and the dumb dice mess with me, Rainbow thought. Gee. Thanks magic!



As the Dwarf glared at the goblin's laughter, someone else's voice caught her attention. "Why are you laughing?!"

Platick turned his head to the side, saying something just audible enough for Ravathyra to hear while wiping a tear from his eye with his wrist. When the moment was spent, Platick jumped into the fight again.

As he arrived to the group Platick made a forward leap, landing on the goblin he killed as he plucked the dagger out of its nape. Then, without losing any speed, Platick spring boarded off the goblin corpse and ran towards a new target.

Platick gave another sharp whistle and got his next goblin's attention; this goblin being the one laughing at Ravathyra. The goblin, still laughing, turned around just in time to see Platick bury the dagger into the roof of its mouth and tear it out through the nose and between the front teeth. Platick then stepped to the side to avoid the goblin bleeding all over him.

Platick ignored Ravathyra's glare and turned the dagger in his hand for a reverse grip. He and the others had now gathered in a circle in the middle of the road facing out to the remaining two goblins; one on each side. Both had bows and several arrows each but I could see the glint of swords at their hips from my perch. That didn't mean that they were ready to use them, however. Neither seemed willing to charge the group. Apparently they realized that being in the open was suicide.

As the two sides had a stare down I was deciding what to shoot next. Both goblins were taking cover behind trees and both still had bows in their hands. I couldn't tell which one would act first. So, without any other idea, I fired an arrow to the goblin on the right and watched as tree bark splintered past it.

Missed, I chided to myself. My plan wasn't to kill it with that arrow, it was too well covered for that. So I settled for giving cover fire. Still, it would've helped if I struck it at all.

My target brought its head out from behind the tree and shouted something across the path. As it did, the goblin I failed to shoot at stepped out from its cover, ready to fire.

Shit, shit, shit! I tried reaching for my next arrow but just fumbled over my own fingers. I was impatient.

When I finally got an arrow, the goblin let out its own warcry as it fired.

“WAH!”
“WOAH!”
“TKKK!”

The entire group ducked out of the way as best they could from the arrow before finally it crashed into Stostine's magical shield. Thankfully, it deflected off of the shield with the shaft of the arrow splintering from the force and coating everyone in shrapnel.

One by one, all of them turned to watch the goblin who was now visibly worried. It was forced to watch as each member of the group below brandished their own method of punishment that ranged from daggers to warhammer, from fists to magical flames. But, the most eye-catching of them all was the elven woman who stepped forward.

The blood from Thron Wielder's wound traveled down her calf and collected around her foot, leaving bloody footprints in the dirt. Despite this, Thorn Wielder stood firm as her vines compressed against her arm like a tight spring.

"Come....Here."

With what seemed like a quiet shout, Thorn Wielder made a punching-motion and the vines launched forward in a spiral that rocketed through the woods.

The goblin abandoned its bow and ran back to the tree to hide from the flying vines, but it was pointless. The vine proceeded to glide around the bark without harm and tightened itself around the goblin's throat.

It scratched and clawed to tear away the vines but it meant nothing as Thorn Wielder wrapped the base of her vines around her hand and yanked, the vines retracting as quickly as they shot forth.

The goblin was pulled along for the ride like a ragdoll, dragged away from its cover and brought before the still bleeding foot of its predator. And now that it was pulled into the open, the vines forced themselves taut so that the goblin was forced to look up.

With their job done, the vines unfurled from around the goblin's neck and began to wrap themselves back around Thorn Wielder's arm like a silent snake.

Thorn Wielder began to draw her scythe, only stoping when Glemerr gave a thumb's up.

"Hey, thanks fer bringin' 'em out!" Thorn Wielder tilted her head in confusion and watched as Glemerr cracked her knuckles. "'Ere. Let old Glemerr deal wit' 'em."

Thorn Wielder watched as the orc stepped up. "...I. Older," she pointed out. But it fell on deaf ears.

Instead, Glemerr reached down and grabbed the goblin by the back of the head before repeatedly bashing its head repeatedly into the ground until it resembled an ostrich. At best, its skull was fractured but alive.

"Well, uncanny but, good job girls." The spectral shield around Stostine faded as she overlooked the duo's work. "Now I believe that only leaves..."

Stostine turned around and spotted the last goblin backing away. For a moment, the two locked eyes and the goblin was too scared to turn away, terrified of the embers that still floated from Stostine's hand. But, with courage fully replaced by fear, the goblin turned and made a break for it.

"Capture him!" Stostine shouted.

As though to lead by example, Stostine brought up her hand and fired another blast of flame at the goblin. By luck or cowardice, the goblin ducked low enough and avoided the fatal blast as only its hair ignited.

It kept running.

"Welp," Ricven scooped up the reins for the oxen. "I neva was one ta keep a lady waitin'. So come on boys! Mush!" Ricven gave a dramatic crack of the reins to have the oxen leap into action.

It was a shame that the oxen refused to move.

In the midst of the fight, the oxen watched as arrows, vines, and fire were thrown in every direction as the smell of old blood was mixing in with the new. With all of that taken into account, no amount of whipping would have convinced them to run into the fight.

"Ugh," Ricven scoffed. He tossed the reins away from him. "Utterly hopeless."

Ricven stood back up from the bench and spotted the fleeing goblin. As he cleared his throat, Ricven extended a finger. Similar to last time, the goblin slowed down and turned to look at Ricven as though it somehow heard him through all the shouting and fear.

"Excuse me, sir," Ricven began, speaking in a regular volume instead of shouting. "We mean ya no harm! We simply wanted ta cross the road, is all. Except now there's a wagon that brought us to a halt. Could ya kindly..." The words seemed to echo with a sense of...Importance? "Stay a spell and help us understand everythang?"

The group ahead of us paused to see what was making the goblin stop and his expression lull. Then, much to the group's further confusion, the goblin soon began to grow a small grin as a cyan colored aura hovered around his mind, seemingly containing his attention.

But as he began to turn fully towards Ricven, he blinked. Then blinked again.

By the third blink, his smile turned to a vicious scowl, screaming one word after another at the gnome in a raspy language.

"Welp. I'm outta ideas." Ricven fell back in his seat, frustrated. "Sorry ladies, that's all I had. Guess he had a few brain cells somewhere in that thick skull."

"I'll get it then!"

Forcing her way through the group, Ravathyra ducked her head forward and went into a full tackle at the goblin. The goblin turned to flee once more but as it took its second step, Ravathyra's shoulder collided with its back.

With all the strength and speed behind her, the Dwarf smashed the goblin into a tree with an echoing crack. Then Ravathyra stepped back, grabbing the goblin by the scalp and peeling it from loosened tree bark before spiking it into the ground like a football.

Groggily, the goblin lifted its head only to see Ravathyra standing over it with her warhammer aimed at its face.

"Alright," Ravathyra breathed. "Keeps your hands where I can see 'em!" The goblin stared down the hammer and tried backing away only for Ravathyra to put the head of her hammer against its forehead. "I said hands up! Otherwise, your head serves as a golfball!"



	The girls and Story were laughing along with Rainbow Dash's act, pleased that she was finally getting into this.

However Story, through his smile, seemed happily confused. "Rainbow? Why are holding a hammer like a gun?"

Rainbow Dash paused her 'police work' and looked up from the map where there was now only one goblin left. "Uh...I-I mean. How am I supposed to scare him with a ham...I mean...Wait—"

When she realized that she was still holding a pretend warhammer like a pretend shotgun in this pretend game Rainbow quickly crossed her arms and sat back down. She then buried her chin under her crossed arms as though trying to recover some lost dignity.

A few of the others giggled in good fun, enjoying the charade, but they gladly let her be.



When the goblin didn't respond, Ravathyra roughly set the warhammer atop the goblin's head and kept a watch of it.

"Here. Give me a moment." Platick walked up and rested his boot on the goblin's back, pinning it to the ground on the off chance it would try something. "It's already surrendered. Besides, it might turn up useful if we keep it awake." Despite the relaxed demeanor, Platick took out some rope to tie the goblin up.



	"Keep it awake? I don't even know what these things are," Rainbow said with a look, no longer acting along. "What do we do with it?"



"...Question..." Thorn Wielder leaned her weight on her good leg as she gripped her still clean scythe. "They...Infest forest."

“Infest?” Platick pulled on the rope again, causing the goblin to grip. “I know that they’re the same color as germs but I doubt they’re infesting much of anything.”

"Our merc friend has a point." Ignoring Platick's death glare, Ricven finally got the oxen calm enough to bring bring him and me closer to the group. "A lot a' these pests are civil enough for them ta live in the cities."



	"I mean, does that really change anything?" Rainbow shrugged. "It's kind of like a video game. There's a bad guy, you fight 'em. The end."



"...She's got a point," Platick admitted reluctantly. "They were still bandits, plus they killed whoever owned the cart and horses. That's probably proof enough that they're not the same goblins you'd see in cities."

By this point I stepped off of the wagon and made my way to the goblin corpses. From what I could tell, none of them had been giving signals or commands to one another. In terms of 'rank' the two that charged out with swords seemed to have nicer scraps of armor than the archers but aside from that there was no sign of who could be a leader.

While the others talked I spent the next minute doing a quick inventory of the four dead goblins. It didn't take long before I held up a handful of small pouches.

"Anyone care for coin?" I offered.

There was a collection of no's and head shakes before I pocketed the coin and headed to the broken wagon where Thorn Wielder had been. She didn't bother with talking with the group either and instead seemed to be studying the horses. When I approached her, Thorn Wielder didn't even acknoledge me.

"I knew them," She revealed. She spoke in Elven and her tone, while still awkward, felt more regular than when she spoke Common.

Thorn Wielder knelt down next to one of them just as Stostine and Platick came over. "Horses travel with Gundren. Infestation kill them." Thorn Wielder began to remove the black-feathered arrows from the horses, careful not to disturb their bodies anymore then she already had to.

"Gundren and Sildar?" I glanced at the wreckage. "This was their wagon?"

Thorn Wielder nodded.

"Wait. How is this his wagon?" Platick asked. "He left the day before we did. I'm no vet but I'm pretty sure that the horses have been dead a little more than one day."

"Horses are faster than oxen," Stostine pointed out. "And by the look of it, the wagon was lighter packed than ours.They probably gained a day's distance from us."

"Hold up," Ricven shouted from atop the wagon. "Did you just say their load was smaller? Now, I seem ta recall Gundren tellin' us that we were splittin' the supplies fi'ty-fi'ty. He lie ta us?"

"Not the issue," I called back to him. "What is the issue is that they're not here."

"Then where are they?" Glemerr asked, looking around.

From behind the group, a high-pitched, nasally laugh had everyone looking over at the side of the road. "Dwarf n' Man! Dwarf n' Man captured—hehehaaaah! They captured with food n' paper-thing! hehehehehe..." On the ground the goblin that Platick tied up had turned on his side and was laughing for joy.

"Paper thing?" I thought over everything that Sildar had told me. Before I ever met Gundren, before the tavern back in Dreiweg, Sildar told me what he knew of the job. And a lot of it had to do with Gundren finding something.

The paper thing, I repeated to myself. If that goblin knew about the 'paper thing' then they had to have found it inside the...

I looked over the remains of the cart and the ransacked items before my eyes landed on something half-crushed under the cart. It was a thin, cylindrical case, meant for holding maps.

Rather than hold up the case and give what I knew away, I decided to play dumb. "What do you mean by paper thing?"

"Paper thing is paper thing! Me not care what it is," it shouted, sounding almost offended. "Unog and Rofla brought it to Klarg! They lucky! They get pick of wolves we snag from the fores—GAAAAHH!” Thorn Wielder's scythe embedded itself so close to the goblin's face that the blood from its cheek traced along the edge.




Sunset’s POV
Tuesday 4:18 PM
Classroom




"Wolves." Fluttershy spoke in a calm and serious tone. "Where?"

"Nor—North!" Story answered in this extremely high-pitched, nasally voice that was like a helium-induced Joker. It took me a second to remember that this was the same person that not an hour ago had a convincing deep Scottish accent.

"The wolves are northwest! There— And while struggling through the tight ropes," Story explained, changing his voice on a dime. "You watch as the goblin points towards a small collection of brush off the road that he was trying to run to before you caught him."

Twilight perked up, looking at the part of the map that the goblin would be referring to. "Do we see anything over there?"

"If you'd like to go over there and look, roll me a perception check."

Twilight took the chance and like with half the rolls from most of the girls, the die revealed a faint glow while the aura beside it formed into a '+2.' "Eight total," Twilight said, dejected.

"Here," Applejack picked up her die next. "Let me give it a shot." She quickly let the dice tap across the table before landing on the mat. However, unlike Twilight's dice which at least had some glow, AJ's lacked even that.

"That'd, uh," Applejack let her hat fall over her eyes. "That'd be a one on tha die." Story and the rest of us started chuckled along.

"Wow," Story said, breathing through his teeth. "How did you both fail that?"

Neither of them bothered to answer. Instead, they both looked at one another in sad acceptance.

"As you both come up to the brush you take a few moments to start clearing the area only to realize that the bushes and branches were simply placed over a dirt path. But, Vareén, when you start searching for tracks that can show you what you're looking for, something. Keeps. pulling you back," Story explained, acting as though something were pulling him by the collar. "Again. And then again. And again."

"B-By what," Twilight asked, confused. "What keeps pulling me?"

"A bush," Story said while turning to Applejack. "The same bush that's now caught on Platick's sleeve as he's thrashing around to shake it off of him." Story then started to shake his arm around just enough to where he wasn't actually hitting any of his things. "However, as he's shaking it around, there's a root that got caught on Vareén's hood."

Twilight bit her lip. "Vareén's going to stop looking for tracks and immediately ensure her hood stays over her face."

"...Eeyup," Applejack hummed with no emotion. While AJ reached for her dice and pulled it back to her, Rainbow watched with a half-cocked grin.

"So," Rainbow started. "Ya find anything yet?"

"I'll help her with the bush," Fluttershy inched forward and pushed her miniature towards Applejack's.

"Alright. As Thorn Wielder reaches for it, the bush harmlessly pulls off of Platick's arm as though it was never stuck to him to begin with."

AJ muttered a thanks under her breath as Story continued. "When there's no more getting smacked by foliage the two of you are able to spot some tracks that head to and from the forest trail. But since there's so many of them going back and forth you're only able to learn that they're probably goblin tracks. As all this is going on, however, the goblin that you hog-tied has been watching the entire time and this snarky grin has started to spread across his face."

As though to emphasize the point, Story held his arms behind his back and let out a high-pitched Joker-like laugh. "Cart people never make it to cave! You just be shot by more black arrows!"

As Story began to laugh even more, Rainbow leaned back. "Okay, can we shut this thing up or something?"

"Heeeehahahaha—Yep." Story abruptly cut his laughing short and tossed the lone goblin mini off of the map. "Like playing a game of miniature golf, you square up your hammer with his head and," Story clicked his tongue. "He's out cold."

"We should tie him on to something," I suggested, speaking in the calm, even tone that was Stostine's. "After all, they wouldn't be too helpful if free."

"This 'un too," Pinkie spoke in her gruff, British accent as she pretended to lift a goblin. "I only knocked tha bugga out." 

"Way ahead of you," AJ talked as if she were hiding her usual dialect with a slightly deeper voice. "Do I got enough rope ta tie 'em both to a tree err somethin'?"

"Oh yeah, you got plenty." Story nodded. "I'd say it takes you about five minutes to hog tie the second one and then string both goblins along the base of a nearby tr..."

Story was cut off by his phone buzzing along the table like a beetle. After the third buzz he picked it up with an embarrassed grin.

"Sorry girls," He apologized as he quickly made his way toward the door. "I'll be right back. Call it a five minute break?"

As he opened the door, Story finally answered his phone. "Hey! Everything alright?" And as quickly as it opened, Story shut the door behind him rather than let it close.

"Holey Moley, this is so much fun," Pinkie cheered. She then jumped out of her seat and started to slink towards Story's side of the table. "And look at all the cool stuff Story has back here!"

"Pinkie, don' be touchin' anything," Applejack warned. "We still don' know what the magic might be doin'."

Pinkie ignored the warnings and started sifted through a few papers for something interesting. But as she finally chose a paper and actually started to read something, she gasped and covered her eyes. All as she jutted out her bottom teeth like Glemerr would.

"Oh no," Pinkie cried in a gruff British tone. "Glemerr can' know what's gunna 'appen!"

As she backed away from the Story's stuff, Pinkie's leg caught a chair leg and was sent crashing onto the ground with a heavy thud.

"Pinkie Pie!"

I and Rarity both ran over to check on Pinkie, only to find her clutching her stomach and giggling to herself like a madmare. "Pinkie," I said in a sigh. "You need to watch where you're going." As I scolded her, Rarity allowed herself to step back.

Through the giggles, Pinkie looked up at us. "I'm sorry, Sunset. It's just—" With little effort, Pinkie jumped up off the ground and onto her feet while one hand wiped a tear from her eye. "I can't believe that I've never heard of this game before! Usually I'm the first to know about fun games like this!"

"I guess it's okay," Rainbow admitted with a shrug. "It's only interesting because our magic made it cooler."

"Oh please, Rainbow Dash," Rarity started with a sly grin. "Don't think we didn't notice you getting invested in the fight."

Rainbow straightened up. "That because it was just the most not boring part, is all."

"Uh-huh," Applejack hummed. "Never mind the fact that ya stood up when you were holdin' the goblin at 'hammerpoint'," she added with air quotes.

Rainbow said nothing in return. She simply crossed her arms and looked away.

"Sunset," Twilight called out. "Were you able to figure out what's causing all of this?"

"Not entirely," I admitted. "Although I think I figured out a few things." When the girls motioned me to go on I took in a breath.

"From what we know right now, Story either can't see the magic at all or he's not reacting to it as he should. So, assuming that the first option's true, that means that our situation is different from his. Possibly it's because it was our magic that fed into the game so only we can see what's going on."

"Didn't Ms. Cheerilee see it?" Applejack reminded me.

I leaned my head side to side in a so-so manner. "She saw our magic going into the game but she hasn't seen the dice glowing or numbers appearing; there's no way to know for sure. In other words, anyone might see our raw magic; case in point, everyone seeing our magic at the Friendship Games or when we play our instruments.

"But here's the difference between the instruments and the dice." To make a point I held up the die I had rolled against Applejack with earlier; the one that was no longer colored to resemble me. "Applejack, when you and I were trying to use the dice to see if the other was hiding something, your dice was glowing, wasn't it?"

"Well, yeah?" She nodded. She seemed confused. "Wasn't that already obvious?"

Rather than answer, I instead turned to Twilight. "Twilight, you looked confused when Applejack rolled it, right? How's come?"

"Well, I didn't see it glowing at the time." Twilight's response was met with a chorus of nods and agreements from the rest of the girls.

"And there's the biggest difference," I explained. "With our instruments, it used to be hard to keep the magic in check. Not only that but it would be seen by anyone. Now, the dice haven't done anything wild— yet —but they can apparently be seen only by select people at a given moment. Even between us. Whatever this magic is, it's not under our control. And aside from showing numbers on the table, I have no idea what else it might be able to do. It's like it has a mind of its own."

Not to mention there was the dark magic that was practically flooding from Story. I was still worried about that. Those green tendrils were undoubtedly dark magic; just like what happened to me and Twilight. Only now the victim seems entirely unaware about it.

"Ah, come on." Rainbow wasn't convinced. "What's the worst that can happen?"

"How about making zombies out of the student body?" I frowned.

"Or a band a' sirens that sap the joy an' love outta everyone," AJ added.

"There's becoming a demon that can open fissures into other dimensions for no discernable reason," Twilight argued.

"Saying 'what's the worst that can happen'," Pinkie concluded.

"Okay, fine, bad question!" Rainbow scowled towards no one in particular, more than likely scolding herself. "I meant, for right now, what's the worst..." She locked eyes with Pinkie for a second as Pinkie almost seemed to challenge her to say it again.

"...All that's happened," Rainbow said slowly, changing her sentence. When she earned a nod from Pinkie, Rainbow Dash continued. "Is that words appeared for a couple seconds and then poofed away. That's even what Sunset said; numbers showing up on the table. If that's all that it's doing right now then, what, do you think that the game's gonna become real or something?"

"It might," AJ planted her hands on the table. "It don't really matter how many a' these incidents come up, assumin' somethin' ain't a good idea. What if the game is a real place now?"

"Let's not go that far, Applejack." Applejack looked to me. "Rainbow Dash does have a point. No magic has ever been able to create reality. Life, maybe," I argued. "But not reality."

"Wait. Create life?" Applejack repeated. "How's that even possible?"

"I..." I sighed. "Different story. The point is, we shouldn't worry about making another reality out of our magic. At the end of the day, we're still seven girls."

"Well. Perhaps there's still something to watch out for," Rarity countered. After we checked on Pinkie, Rarity had made her way behind Story's screen that kept us from seeing any of his things. And right now she was in his chair, reading over one of the papers Story had with left out. "Sunset, you may want to see this."

"Rarity!" Pinkie called out. "You can't just cheat and read the notes. That's no fun!"

"Well, that's just it, darling. I cannot read them." She read over another paper. "I don't think this is even writing."

Curious, I walked over to Rarity and she quickly handed me the first paper she was trying to read. And by one glance I immediately realized 'reading' this was going to be impossible. Not only did it look to be in another language but the characters also moved and shifted nonstop.




Klarg and the Goblins

Klarg: ⏚̢̡⎍̨͜☌̶̵̷͟⏚̶͡҉̷͟⟒̷̵̢̢̛⏃̛⍀̨̡̢,  leader of the goblins. ⊑⟒̛͝ ͜⌇̢͞⟒͘͡⟒̴☍͝҉̶⌇̸ ⏁͢͡⍜ ⏚̨͞⟒̷̶͡☊͘⍜́͏͘⋔́͡⟒̢ ̀⏃ ̀͘⍙̕⏃͝͡⍀̸̧͞⌰͠⍜͢͢҉⍀͟⎅ ́⍜͘͜⎐̶́͝⟒͝⍀̷҉ ⊑͞⟟͏̨̕⌇ ̸⍜̷⍙̸̶͠⋏̡ ̵̕⏃̸⍀̕⋔̧̡͠⊬̨͏ ̛͘⏃͘͠͝⋏̧⎅͘ ̸́⏃͡͞⌇̴͠ ⌇⎍̛͠☊́͡͡⊑ ⌇̶⟒̴͞⟒̕⌇ ̷̵̷⊑̢͟⟟⋔͝͏⌇͝⟒⌰⎎ ⍙̨⟟҉̧⏁̧̛⊑͟ ̧⌰̨̕͢⏃̵̕⍀͢͠☌́̕⟒͟ ̶́͢⟟͏́͟⋔̸͠⌿̵͟⍜̧⍀҉̸͘⏁͜⏃͜͠͝⋏҉̴☊͏͢⟒̷̴.̵͠ ⊑⟒̶ ͏̵⍀̶͢⟒̷̀⎎̶͢⟒⍀̢͢⌇͜͜ ⏁̛⍜̛ ̴⊑̴⟟̕⋔⌇̢͠⟒͠⌰҉̢̛⎎́̀ ̸͢͟⍜̨⋏͟⌰̶̕͟⊬̀͢͡ ̵͠҉⟟̧̡⋏ ⏁̀⊑̛⟒̶́ ̶⏁̧̕⊑̀⟟̶⍀⎅͘ ̨̡̀⌿͟͠͝⟒̢͢⍀̴́⌇̧⍜́⋏́͏͜ ̛͘͠⏃⋏̕͞⎅̸́ ͏⍙⟟̸͟⌰⌰ ̴̢☌̸̢⌰̨⏃⎅͏̸͢⌰̡͢⊬҉͘ ̴‘̧☊⍜̕͡⋔⋔̴⏃̧͢⋏̛̀͡⎅’̴ ҉̵⏁̶̴͠⊑͏̵⟒҉ ͡͞☌͏҉⍜͏͞⏚͟͝⌰⟟̀⋏̀̕⌇͝͠͡ ̵̡⏁̷́⍜̢́͘ ̛͜⏃̴̷̡☊͘⏁̨̨ ⎍̵͡⋏⎅҉⟒̴⍀̛ ̶͝͝⊑̕⟟̸⋔͏̡.̷̛̀ 



"What the..." I didn't bother trying to study the rest of the page. It was just more of an alien language. Even when I tried reading the back of the page or look over the other notes on the table it was all the same. Shifting characters.

"There were only a few words I was able to read on it. Same with a few of these," Rarity admitted. As she spoke, Rarity was trying to find a paper that she could read without moving too many papers. "...Oh. I think this is as close as we'll get."

As Rarity held up another page I took it in my other hand and tried looking it over. And, as though the paper had to consider it, I watched as most of the words began to clear up into something readable.




Player Characters


Fluttershy: "Thorn Wielder" Wood Elf. very anti-social, does not speak well, ⍙̴͎̅⟟̸̹̓⌰̷̢͊⌰̵͎̆ ̸̻̐⏃̸̙́⎐̴͔̐⍜̷̲͐⟟̸̪͝⎅̵̦͛ ̸̃͜⊑̷̛̳⏃̷̡̓⍀̷̜̒⋔̷͔̇⟟̶͉̊⋏̶̝̇☌̴͕͌ ̴̠̑⏃̸̗͆⋏̶͉̈́⟟̶̩͗⋔̷̳̊⏃̶͉͛⌰̶̙̚⌇̵̜̽, mismatched clothing. (Full Backstory)

Pinkie Pie: "Glemerr" Half-Orc. ⍙̴̟͐⟟̶̘͍̊͒⌰̵̧͚̓̍⌰̵̡̓ ̸̳̍̈́⏃̸͔̎͘⎐̴̛͙⍜̷̦͛̊⟟̶̧͒͝⎅̸̢̭̾ ̶̰͐⋢̣͕̃⏃̷̯͠⍀̶͖̈͆⋔̸̺͌͋⟟̴͎͐͠⋏̷̨̦͐☌̴̘͒́ ̵̢̙͌⏃̸̩͖̓͗⋏̴̦̕⟟̸̺͓̓̓⋔̷͙͐͜⏃̶̭̖͘⌰̶̗̰̂̊⌇̴̩̿, friendly to most, very intimidating build, somewhat tattered clothes. (⏁̶̭̜͆⏚̶̰̻̌̚⎅̶̨̛́)

Rarity: "Ricven Lioncatch" Forest Gnome. Charismatic, ⎅̵̳̿⍀̷̘̄⟟̷͙̀⎐̵̢͍́⟒̵̱̖͌⋏̶̣͈͆͛ ̷͍̉⏚̸͓̐̈⊬̸̼͍͒ ̶̠̇̂⍙̵̭̚͝⏃̴̖́̚⋏̸̫̒⎅̴̤͕̏⟒̵̡̨̑⍀̵̣͝⌰̸̥̳͊͝⎍̵̛̣̝͗⌇̷͕̖͌͝⏁̶̦̾̅͜, constantly retunes violin, nicely made vest. (☊̶̛⍜́͝⋏҉̀☊͜⟒͢⌿̷̕͞⏁͝)

Applejack: "Platick Fortuna" Human. ⟟̴̮͕̅⋏̴͌͜⍾̷̛̬͘⎍̸̼̻͛⟟̶̥͔̽͠⌇̴̱̚⟟̶̲͈̓⏁̸͕̓͂⟟̴̡̈́͠⎐̷͉̄̒⟒̷̣̗͛, quick to act, distrusting of others, inconspicuous clothing. (⌰̵̹̄̆⟟̸̹͗͌⏁̵̜̞̃͝⏁̷̠̈́⌰̶̝͍̍⟒̶͉̂ ̸̖̺̓⏚̵̙͓̏⏃̸͓͘☊̶͍͔̓̾☍̵̺̓⌇̷͇͕̒⏁̸͔̚⍜̴͍́́⍀̴̲̉⊬̸̧̨̈́̐)

Twilight Sparkle: "Vareén" ⟒̸͚̮̆⌰̶͖̄⎐̸̙̙̈́⟒̷̼͝⋏̴̱̈́. Quiet, calm, keeps to herself, always keeps her hood up. (⏚̸̳̀⏃̴̳̕☊̸͇́͐☍̷̣̬͗̅⌇̷͔̥͆⏁̴͔̇⍜̵̤͗⍀̵͖̝͌⊬̷̻̆)

Sunset Shimmer: "Stostine Swordhand" Human. Cooperative, polite, falls apart under duress, natural blue clothing. (Concept)

Rainbow: "Ravathyra" Hill Dwarf. (⏁̶̭̜͆⏚̶̰̻̌̚⎅̶̨̛́)



I slowly gave the paper back to Rarity only for her to stop me. "Sunset, by any chance can you read the one that has my name next to it?"

"Kind of," I admitted. "The part in parenthesis and what's in the middle is all garbled."

She looked it over real quick and rolled her jaw. "Rarity," she read aloud. "Ricven Lioncatch. Forest Gnome. Charismatic, ⎅⍀⟟⎐⟒⋏ ⏚⊬ ⍙⏃⋏⎅⟒⍀⌰⎍⌇⏁, constan—" She paused when she saw me, and everyone in the room flinch away. "What's wrong?"

While I still gripped the paper in my hands, I swallowed my initial fear and spoke up. "Rarity...Say that last part again."

"What? You mean ⎅⍀⟟⎐⟒⋏ ⏚⊬ ⍙—" "Yes, that." I nodded along, glancing back at the paper. "So then you can read your part of this just fine?"

"And most of everyone else's," Rarity confirmed. "Not that it's anything I don't already know."

"Don't already..." I took back the paper and read it all over. What do I know that no one else knows?

I read over the entire paper taking note of it all. Everything on my character I could read just fine but that wasn't surprising. If I read it out loud there was probably a good chance that they'd hear everything just fine. Almost everything came up already.

So instead I looked at the others. The clothing descriptions Story had explained. All of these personality traits were there for everyone to see. Same with races. And we already knew each other's names.

...

Applejack's character, I remembered. I then read back over AJ's part of the list before I noticed something. I knew that Platick distrusted people. I knew he was human. I knew what his clothes looked like. And I knew his name. But no one else knew Platick's last name.



 "Fourteen," I announced.

"Good. Applejack," Story turned to AJ, who was now sitting there with her hat pulled low over her face. "If Platick is normally friendly to new faces, roll persuasion. If he's normally not so friendly to new people, deception."

Applejack glanced up at me while I sat back trying to show as much satisfaction as I could. If she realized it was a front that'd be fine. I just needed her to catch on.

When Story wasn't looking, I gave the most obvious wink I could muster, confusing AJ even more. But as she turned the idea in her head for a few moments, I saw the light go off in her head.

AJ matched my grin. "Ya got it all figured out, don't ya?"

My smile turned genuine. "Yep."

Applejack quickly joined in the idea and rolled the dice, though her smile turned for the worst when her number came up low.

"Five," She said pitifully.

“Welp.” Story quickly tossed his pen down before heading over to where I was. "Seems we have a winner then."

“Wait, what’s happening...” When he got closer, Story signaled for me to lean over. Once he was sure that none of the others could hear him, he whispered.

"As you keep studying Platick for any crack in his armor, you finally manage to determine a couple of his tells. Whenever someone watches him a little too closely he closes in on himself or turns away slightly. However, now that you have the chance, you notice another tell.

"Whenever someone tries reaching or reaches for a very distinct looking necklace." Story explained.

Unable to control my volume, I simply turned to Story. "What's on his necklace?"

"Hold up! How's come she found that out?" Applejack straightened up.

Story leaned back for a moment. "She studied you for any signs to see if Platick is as they seem. Devil's in the details."

I gave a humorous smirk while Story went back to whispering.

"Hanging from around Platick's neck is a very distinct platinum coin. And as you take a moment to think it over that's when a family name starts to ring a bell...



"Platick Fortuna," I said. Everyone in the room, save for Applejack, sat back and stared at me.

"Platick what?" Twilight asked.

"So that's what he was whsiperin'," Applejack realized.

"So you could understand me," I announced. When I looked at the rest of the group I saw the confusion and worry in their expressions. "I guess this proves the magic goes past glowing dice."

At that moment, the doorknob into the classroom started to shake.

Rarity scrambled to get out of Story's chair while the rest of them rushed back to their own seats looking as not casual as possible. While they were trying their hardest, I started to shuffle the papers back into looking just how they were before Rarity had messed with them.

"Uh. Girls?" The doorknob rattled once again before the door was pulled back and forth. Ms. Cheerilee must have locked it before leaving. "A little help? Quickly?"

"Rainbow, get the door," I instructed. When I was getting the last few things straightened out I rushed to my seat as Rainbow Dash got to the door.

Immediately as Rainbow opened it, Story came half-running towards his chair like an alarm had gone off. When he started scrambling for the papers I felt my heart stop for a second.

How did he know? How did he know?! I kept thinking.

"I'm really sorry everyone but I gotta pack everything up." Once he got all the papers together he tapped them on the desk to line them up and then stuffed them all in a folder.

"Did," I started, trying to remain calm. "Did something happen?"

"Yeah," Story threw the folder in his backpack and then made quick work of the DM screen before tossing it in as well. "Something came up and I have to cut the game short."

“What?!” Twilight perked up. “But, but you can't! We still need to figure out how the ma—”

“Many goblins!” Pinkie suddenly jumped in, stopping Twilight and hopping beside Story with an excited grin. “We need to know how many goblins there are! Oh, and Gundren! Glemerr needs another drinking match with him!”

“I'm sorry Pinkie, but I really can’t.” Story took a hold of the vinyl map's edge and yanked it like a tablecloth. Save for a couple of the miniatures still on the map, almost nothing moved with it. He then started to roll the map up as tight as he could. “My Mom’s car is in the shop and she’s got an emergency. I need to drive her to the hospital as soon as possible.”

“Hospital?!”

This made most of us snap to attention and a few of us even scramble to collect all the dice and figures for him.

“Is everything alright?!” Rarity quickly gathered up her dice and brought them towards Story to help out.

“...Oh!" Story stopped what he was doing and facepalmed. "Sorry! Yeah, she’s fine. I mean that she's a surgeon.” Story quickly sealed the vinyl map in a cylindrical container. "Her car broke down and she's on call today."

Before we knew what we were doing, the rest of us jumped in and started packing everything wherever we could to get Story Spinner out of the door as soon as possible. We were like a military camp bugging out with how fast everything was getting put away.

Not even a minute later, Pinkie ran up to the door and held it up so Story could get into the hallway with Rainbow Dash carrying whatever Story couldn't in one trip.

"I hope they get well soon," Fluttershy called out.

"Hurry so they can read their get well soon cards!" Pinkie shouted.

By the time both of them turned the corner of the hall the rest of us stayed in the room to catch our breath. A few of us even fell back into our chairs.

As the girls tried debating what to do, my focus was instead on the lone object resting in front of me. In the midst of everyone packing the game away all of us had pushed the dice towards Story Spinner.

Except, I kept one for myself; the one die Story had given me. When everyone's dice first absorbed magic, mine had turned a dark red with orange numbers on them. Except, the one he ended up lending me halfway through the game was different.

Rather than the first die this one felt heavier and looked as though it were made out of metal. Plus, rather than a dark red base, this die looked somewhere between copper and gold while the numbers seemed burned into the metal with my Cutie Mark replacing one of the numbers. In fact, rolling the die in my hand revealed that it was certainly as heavy as the metal it looked to be out of. The points of the die even felt sharp enough to hurt if I wanted to grip the die tight enough.

Finally, around the edges of each face, there were these symbols. I couldn't remember but they vaguely looked like magic runes from back home. I turned the thought in my head again and again but I simply couldn't remember. They weren't the regular symbols I learned from magic kindergarten or under Princess Celestia's tutelage. These were something else.

Something I had been trying since the Fall Formal to forget about.

Dunamancy.

A purple hand waved past my face.

"Sunset?"

"Oh. Sorry." I sat back and shook my head free from my thoughts. "I went off in my own world for a second."

"Be careful," Pinkie warned. "There could be goblins in there too."

"Ahehe. Right." I reached for my bag and stood up. "I think for now we should call it a day. We aren't going to get anywhere if we just sit around speculating. Besides, I want to wait and see what Twilight—Princess Twilight," I clarified. “Has to say about this."

I picked up Stostine's character sheet and looked it over. Story had left those with us to keep and now I was glad that he had. "Until then, I think we should try to get some D&D stuff of our own. Dice, miniatures, whatever you can. It wouldn't be a bad idea if we could see how our magic interacts with everything else outside of Story's games."

The rest of them seemed to agree. When we had all gathered our things, Fluttershy, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie made plans to stop by a gaming shop later on today while Applejack and Twilight would go tell Rainbow Dash about what we decided. Which left me as the only one left in the room.

After I finished packing, I brought out a familiar book and flipped it open to the latest page with pen in hand. We had the room until 5:30 anyways. And after what Ms. Cheerilee saw I doubt that she would mind if I used it to do a little note passing.

So, finding empty space on the page, I started to write.