Prologue: A Different Kind of Book
It was no secret that everypony in the town of Ponyville was as kind and friendly as could be. Nor was it secretive that everypony was some degree of crazy, at least according to a certain purple unicorn. And it was most certainly not kept under wraps that a party was thrown at least thrice a week here.
What was a secret (at least, at one point) was Rainbow Dash’s love for a certain popular book series: Daring Do.
But, as everypony knows, secrets can’t hold forever. Especially since the rainbow-maned pegasus almost got herself jailed because of it (she tried to steal a copy of the first book from the hospital when she was unable to finish it). That was the day that her secret was out, but her friends didn’t care. In fact, they openly praised her newfound love of books.
It was then, that the Daring Do series evolved from a “like”, to a “love”, and then to “unquestionably, undeniably, her greatest obsession EVER” (not counting the famed Wonderbolts, of course, which rates just one more notch up the ladder). To date, Rainbow Dash has read every book in the current “Core 16” series, along with several other books in the Daring Do Expanded Universe.
…Yeah, that was an awful lot of books. But RD didn’t care what others thought about it. So what if she was a hardcore fan of Daring Do? It isn’t one of the most popular Equestrian book series’ for no reason!
But as great as all these books were, Rainbow couldn’t help but want more. Could there be anything more profound than another book in the super-awesome Daring Do series? Could there?
Apparently, there was. One day, while Rainbow Dash was doing one of her daily flyovers of Ponyville, she heard a voice from below call out to her.
“Hey! Rainbow Dash!”
At the sudden and familiar voice, the cyan pegasus skidded to a stop (yes, skidded, in midair), and jerked her neck to look backwards. A familiar unicorn with a purple coat and dark-purple mane was waving a hoof to her.
“Twilight!”
With excitement, Rainbow Dash turned at flew at breakneck speed towards her friend that was calling out to her. Twilight wasn’t quite as prepared for the pegasus’s sudden charge, and the only reaction the unicorn could manage were widened eyes and the words “OH BU—” before impact.
Both ponies were sent tumbling across the ground for a few yards from the collision. Rainbow recovered first, jumping to her hooves as soon as they both stopped rolling like nothing was wrong. All those years of high speed flights and equally high velocity impacts have toughened her up somewhat.
“D-do you have to do that every time, Rainbow Dash?!” Twilight exclaimed, slowly dragging herself to her hooves and giving the pegasus a critical look. She had to double check she was still wearing her saddlebags; Celestia knows that it’s been thrown clean off on more than a few occasions.
Rainbow only grinned. “Yeah, sorta. So, what’s up?”
Twilight raised an incredulous eyebrow at her friend’s odd perkiness, but shrugged it off with a huff. “I was just going to tell you, that—”
“IS THE NEXT DARING DO BOOK OUT YET?!” Rainbow Dash squealed, pressing her face straight into Twilight’s and very much invading her personal space. Her eyes were positively glowing with eagerness. “IS IT? WELL, IS IT?!”
“Uh… no,” Twilight said plainly, and the pegasus’s look of excitement deflated like an old balloon. “But, I still do have something that should interest you.”
Rainbow Dash finally leaned away from Twilight, and her eyes wandered off in another direction, choosing to examine a rather attractive-looking clump of dirt. “Yeah, yeah…”
“Oh, don’t look so down in the mouth!” Twilight cooed, shaking her head and laughing at the pitiful pegasus’s personal plight. Ooh, alliteration! “It’s still a part of the Daring Do series!”
“…!” Rainbow Dash snapped back to reality, and locked her sights back on Twilight in barely a wink. “R-really?! But… you said it wasn’t a book!”
“That’s right; it’s not a normal book. It’s a different kind of book,” the unicorn clarified. “You see, when I was sifting through the Library’s storage room, I found a bunch of pretty old stuff. Along with some old books that were filled with spells and charms by obscure authors, I also happened upon…” Twilight’s horn glowed, and a small, rectangular box was lifted out of her saddlebags. “…this.”
Rainbow’s eyes widened with both wonder and slight mystification as Twilight levitated the box into her waiting hooves. The box was mostly black, but the top portion had several shades of green ranging from light to dark. Right there in the center of the box, was a sepia-toned image of the audacious pegasus explorer herself: Daring Do!
“‘D-Daring Do and the Search for the Emerald Equine’…?” she read the title aloud. Her hooves trembled slightly as she held the box. “Um… ‘For use on: Mareintosh’? Twi, what does that mean?”
Twilight grinned. Rainbow Dash could’ve seen the incoming history lesson coming from 10 miles away. “I’m glad you asked! You see Rainbow Dash, a Mareintosh is a type of magically-powered computer that can perform a number of automated duties, like calculating numbers, writing reports, or just… in this case, having fun. They were made in Canterlot by a pair of well-known unicorn technicians. You see, those two have been in business together for years apparently, and one day they—”
“Twiliiiiiight!” Rainbow Dash whined, urging her to get to the point already. This was too much learning as it was for one day.
“Ooh, um… sorry. Anyway, when the Mareintosh started to get popular, a company that was then-called InfoColt decided to make programs for the new machine. Some of them were practical programs, and others were games… like this one!” She tapped a hoof on the box Rainbow held.
The cyan pegasus stared at the box with awe. “So this is… a game? A game… with Daring Do?! In all of her adventuring awesomeness?!”
“Yes, actually!” Twilight confirmed, nodding. “InfoColt was making games around the time that Daring Do started to get popular with all the kids, and they decided to license an original text-based adventure game! It was actually quite interesting; they apparently worked with the original author of the “Core 16” series to make it!”
“An amazing adventure… made by the same amazing author?!” Rainbow Dash couldn’t believe what she was hearing. But she oh-so-very-much wanted to. And lo, it was actually real! It didn’t matter if she believed it or not! The pegasus positively squealed with excitement.
“From what I heard, yes. It’s a bit of a shame though…” Twilight sighed, and continued on her ‘lesson’. “The Mareintosh never caught on. The energy usage and cost was just absurd, and they were also crazy expensive to buy in the first place. At its height, you could expect to lose 20000 bits for such a machine.”
Rainbow Dash paused for a moment. And then her jaw fell open. “Whaaaaaaat?! That’s crazy! That’s like… ten year’s worth of apples, or apple pie! You could buy a fancy house with that much cash!”
“Exactly,” Twilight concurred. “And so, only the rich and powerful could afford such a thing. Because of such a high price and limited market their popularity stagnated, and the model was discontinued. Nopony’s ever made any more of them since. I think a few old ponies in Canterlot might still have them in their attic somewhere, though.”
“…Wait,” the rainbow-maned pegasus interjected, starting to wonder something. “If those Marein-thingys were so expensive… why do you have this game? Wouldn’t you need a… thingy-tosh, to play it?”
Twilight chuckled. “It’s pronounced, ‘Mareintosh’. And yes, I already have one. It was among the things that were stashed away in the storage room. I’d brought it over from Canterlot when I first figured out that I was moving into Ponyville permanently.”
Rainbow Dash spent a moment blankly staring at Twilight, and then asked, “But how could you possibly afford 20000 bits? You could barely even afford to pay for the damages to the town after the Parasprites multiplied and you botched a spell and they ate half the—”
“AHEM, I thought we agreed never to bring that up ever again,” Twilight interrupted, clearing her throat rather loudly. “As for the cost, I’m the personal student of Princess Celestia, remember? She had a special one commissioned for me. It was already loaded up with a set of all the essential software and stuff. The Daring Do game was… um… well, a minor personal request of mine…”
“You mean just because you’re the princess’s favorite student means you get all kinds of free stuff?!”
Twilight blushed bright red with embarrassment (and slight guilt), and she rubbed a hoof on the back of her neck. “Teehee… um… Well, I was a pretty spoiled filly back then…”
“…Whatever!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed, and gazed at the virtual Holy Grail in her hooves. “This is…! So this game is like… the secret, lost adventure of Daring Do?!”
“Well, essentially…” Twilight smiled meekly. “…yes.”
The fan-filly squeal of delight which was heard that day reached such a volume that no volcanic eruption or Ursa Major roar could even hope to achieve. Were it any louder, a Sonic Rainboom might have been set off from the sound waves alone. Yes, apparently that’s somehow possible. It’s not like we really know for sure, nopony’s ever done it while we were looking…
“THAT’S… SO… AWESOME!!” the pegasus gushed, pressing her hooves to her cheeks and giggling like mad. “C-can I… can I play it?! I wanna play it, Twilight! Please, Twi? I’ll pay you! C’mon, be cool!”
“Whoa, whoa… Slow down,” Twilight said placidly, rubbing both of her very sore ears. “Of course you can play it, that’s what I was going to ask you earlier… But the Mareintosh is back at the library, so if you want to—” SWOOOSH! “—follow me back there, I can set up the… Uh… Rainbow Dash?”
Twilight waved a hoof around the pegasus-shaped cloud in front of her for a moment, perplexed when she felt nothing but air. Instants later, the cloud vanished, leaving behind a faint rainbow trail that went straight down the main road of Ponyville… towards the Library.
“Oh no, Rainbow Dash…” the unicorn muttered, and slowly shook her head while sighing. Left with no other option, Twilight began to trot after the fanatical pegasus…
“…I wonder how she’ll react when I tell her that I’ve never actually managed to beat that game."