//------------------------------// // Chapter 73: Gillie's Gold // Story: Spike of All Trades // by Ariamaki //------------------------------// Spike finally settled down to go to bed when Twilight did the same: They had very different goals for the next eight hours, of course. Twilight had started looking into new meditative techniques for sleep replacement, since she already was optimizing her waking hours to the point of perfection. The only way to get more time, she had reasoned, was to drive herself to sleep less. The real challenge was going to be finding a way to both do that and still get an equinely-feasible amount of rest. Spike on the other claw was burnt out on recipe testing (but he also got more than half of his plans done!) so he was going to take tonight to focus on the missing element. Combat. Just about every skill and feature in his Game so far had implied that he'd be needing survival skills... Either that or it was just inclined to make him more survivable and regularly alert him to things like damage numbers, resistances, etc. He'd gotten into a few scraps over the years, and confronted villains and monsters... Usually from the background of the metaphorical shot, of course. Twilight and the girls were more experienced in the direct hoof-to-hoof side of things, although even they only got into that kind of danger somewhat rarely. Luna had told him that testing combat out in his Omphaloskepsis-induced 'dream' space would be, quote "reasonable" unquote... But also said that the mixture of so many different types of magic and mental structure could make it unpredictably weird. Or maybe predictably weird? She claimed it would be rude to spoil the surprise. That implied that either she knew what was going to happen or that she had good reason to assume something would happen, even if she didn't know what. The only way for Spike to find out was to move forward, and he trusted the Princesses implicitly: If Luna said it was a reasonable thing to do, he was willing to do it. So down, down, down he went into the core of his visualized self. He imagined the red-lit cave again, and brought himself into being inside of it. Now he just needed something to work with... In the end he settled on a ponnequin (technically a dress form), a nice simple inanimate target. He knew there was a martial arts space in Ponyville, but he'd never gone himself and had no idea what their training dummies looked like. A simple white cloth exterior over a hard body. The interior needed to be firm enough to keep its shape, but not so solid that it couldn't receive pins. Padding over wood made sense to him, both in general and for his current purposes. Rarity would probably be furious that he was planning to maul a few of these, even in the dreamscape... But then again he'd seen her take out some mounting frustrations on her own collection before, so maybe she'd just give him pointers. Once he brought it into the pseudo-reality of his meditation space, he ran into a new problem. If Spike wanted to get some real combat testing with this, much less with a target that fights back? He'd need to figure out a way to let go. Right now everything in his dreamscape was still constantly under the control of the spell Luna had taught him. If he wanted something to happen, it would happen: Lucidity writ large and strong. But if he wanted genuine reactions that matched reality then he'd need to disengage his creations from the spell without letting them disappear. It took him a little while to figure it out, but eventually he managed to withdraw the spell without accidentally sending the metaphorical command to disperse. And it only took him six ponnequins, so he was under estimate! He'd originally guessed it would take more like ten or fifteen to get the hang of it, but it seemed like the nature of dream magic helped him here: It made things 'sticky', so they inherently tried to persist. Once he realized which bit of his mental control told them to go away? The very next attempt was a success. So now he was alone in a visualized cavern with a ponnequin that should, in theory, react to his attacks and powers like the real physical thing. Kinda emphasized how lonely this was... Eh, he'd have to get used to it if he had any intention of grinding combat skills! Either that or he'd need to find a repair spell and an out-of-the-way training space in the dead of night... or a healing spell, and an equally-nocturnal partner, and an out-of-the-way training space in the dead of night. ...Yeah, probably best just to focus on this for a while. Make sure no time is wasted! - - - - Well that was a waste of time. Spike was probably being a little hard on himself the next morning as he prepared breakfast. Sure, the entire evening had ended up being a dull and painful exercise in learning the limits of his new Dreamy Thing with basically nothing to show for it, but hey! ...He forgot what he was going to think to cheer himself up. Initial tests had been fine and even a little fun: Once the test dummy was decoupled from his dream control, it reacted perfectly. He could swipe it, crush it, blast it apart with fire breath or let it burn long and slow... But then he tried to actually attack it seriously, using his Gamer abilities. Meditating Pseudo-Dream Projection Spike, as it turned out, was still just Regular Spike for most purposes. Which meant a lot of his concentration (and well over 90% of his mana) was all still tied up making the dream happen to begin with! Activating more than a few simple skills or stars forbid trying to cast a buff? Best-case scenario it failed, worst-case scenario it knocked him into Mana Confusion and back into consciousness! He'd stubbornly kept at it for most of the eight hours he'd allotted for 'sleep' anyways. Eventually he found that the process, failures included, was a good improvement for several of his skills... But not much better than what he'd been doing on previous nights, and much more painful and frustrating. In the end he 'got up' a few hours early and pivoted to work on more dishes for the party. He'd almost gotten the entire menu together: Currently he was just auto-piloting his way through the process of making sure his blueberry syrup didn't get burnt. He wanted to avoid caramelization, but without a candy thermometer that was tricky, even when you made the fire yourself... Maybe Bon Bon (Sweetie Drops, whoever) would have a spare one for sale? He'd check that later. Once the syrup was finished he put it in his Inventory with the rest, and then stretched and popped his back with a groan. He didn't really need to? Still felt pretty nice, so he did it anyway. He had a feeling a lot of things were going to be like that from now on, as the Gamer: Eating was a luxury or a method of getting buffs so far, sleep was a method of healing and not much else... Well, at the end of the day Spike was still Spike, so he would probably go out of his way to keep it 'normal', for given definitions. Breaking out of his reverie and looking at his schedule, today was the last day before the big event. Apart from his first training session with Rarity and her Aunt Ammo? There wasn't anything on the docket. He could take it easy, and he planned to do exactly that: Today would be a nice change of pace. He cut a meandering path from the entrance of the Library across most of Ponyville, and just... Took it all in. Things were different now that he was The Gamer, and not just because of his powers and changed perception. Yes, he saw titles and levels everywhere he went, and he had a newfound appreciation for the flows of magic in the air. More than that, it was how others treated him. Ponies hadn't exactly kept him at an extra distance or anything before, but the change was still palpable. Maybe it had to do with the Crusaders or his own weird behaviors, with his new 'normal' "sleep" schedule or something else entirely... Whatever it was, Spike felt like he fit in better. Ponyville had always been a weird little village and he'd been weird even for Ponyville, the only dragon in all of Equestria... The only civil one anyways. Now enough time had passed, enough things had changed, and he'd grown up physically and emotionally: He'd become part of the social fabric, and it felt nice. He made his way through Sugarcube Corner and bought a Walking Breakfast (Pinkie's name for the most densely-nutritious muffin she could make without sacrificing flavor) before taking a long route out past the fountain and through the far side of town. Today his feet could just take him where they wanted, and he'd follow along... Above. Whatever. Some of the pegasi were flitting around Town Hall, hanging flowers and small banners for an upcoming festival... Or maybe just for fun? He lost track of that kind of thing pretty easily, at least he used to. The market stalls were still just filling in this early, leaving space for him to move fast without worrying about running somepony down. A few colts and fillies, on their way to the school-house, got him caught up in a little race. Things kept going in that sort of pattern, little moments of familiarity and quiet activity, until he finally wound up at a small not-quite-house out near the AAAArcade. More accurately it was near the Arcade, the original, because this little temporary structure was where Gillie Horse lay homestead. Not his home, that was out on the road with his family: But he was an older pony, and he'd decided to spend a few years settling around in Ponyville while the rest of his relatives found their way to new and exciting places. Rarity and the Ammos had said he'd be moving on with them later in the year. Spike felt that it would be a crying shame if he didn't get to visit and thank him before he left, so he decided to stop in now and see what there was to say. He had never visited him personally like this before, but they had talked and played together plenty back in the original open-air arcade. Ponyville wasn't lacking for strange architecture, and Gillie's 'house' was high among them. It kind of resembled the living-space wagon that the Great and Powerful Trixie had originally brought through town, but with an emphasis towards decoration. Not gaudy or overbearing, but... It was a little hard for Spike to put into words. Putting some thought to it, he settled on 'lovingly' decorated- There was a sense of care, affection, and even honor given to the structure. It was inherently mobile and temporary, yet still designed to weather the nastiest storms that Equestria could throw at it. Even taking those features into account, the wagon still looked nice as opposed to being just utilitarian: The window shutters were gilded, the curtains plush and thick. Scrollwork and images of prancing ponies covered each panel of the exterior, and the entrance stairs were solid wood instead of flimsy planks. Another difference between this wagon and Trixie's? Gillie's sat off-wheels, settled on a foundation: Gillie had been here since before Spike and Twilight came to town, although now it seemed they'd be here once he left. Seeing a wagon like this so heavily disassembled was unusual, but only if you didn't take the stallion's age into account. He was old, and it was natural for him to take things a bit slower and calm down for a while. But before then... The Roama had their own sort of insulated culture, apart from Equestria as a whole. They travelled and scouted, finding new places and exploring old ones: Living on the roads even if it meant making those roads themselves. As he looked at the pony pulling weeds from around the wagon's elevated supports, Spike thought back over what he knew about him. He had heard lots of stories during his past visits to the Arcade, so he knew that Gillie Horse got up to a lot of interesting things back in his younger days: Maybe even more than Spike had originally assumed. [The Stallion With the Golden Bit] Gillie Horse LV 55 ...Yeah, a lot more than he originally assumed. Observe was limited by the difference in their levels, but what he could see showed him the nature of the situation: Gillie was old, and had done so many things over the years that all those experiences accumulated into a lot of, well, Experience. He had a veritable ton of traits, Titles, features and bonuses that were likely accumulated over a long life of travel and interesting work. Those days were clearly behind him now, because his actual stats were degraded way, way below what his level implied. The exact numbers were hard to see, but even rounding in Gillie's favor put him closer to a pony half his level and a fraction his age. In O+O, he'd be the picture-perfect example of a retired adventurer or a seasoned guild captain: Once formidable, and still nopony to mess with, but... Well, time changes all things. Spike closed the Observe screen and took a closer look at the pony himself: Gillie was a light tan and kept his dark green mane cut short and loose. His Cutie Mark was a large square-bottomed bottle with a blue ribbon wrapped around the neck. He had that tightly-drawn look of age, as if he'd once been inflated with muscle and then shrunk down to the bone over time. His movements matched the aesthetic: Where a lot of older ponies would work slowly and smoothly, Gillie was snappy and quick like a bowstring letting loose. Even as Spike approached the wagon, the old horse still moved from one weed to the next with ruthless efficiency... But there was a moment where both of them stopped moving, very briefly. Spike's foot had just crossed some arbitrary distance away from Gillie, and at the same exact time they both... noticed each other, for lack of a better word. Actually, Spike did have better words for it. Or at the very least, his system did. Through the continuous accumulation of Mastery, you may now properly [Sense Danger]! Through the continuous accumulation of Mastery, you may now properly [Detect Bloodthirst]! [Detect Bloodthirst] (Passive) LV1 EXP: 0.00% An instinctive ability to sense killing intent and battle tendency directed at the user. Detects bloodlust within 30 meters of the user's location and alerts the user to its origin. Increased levels of this skill extend the range and precision of detection. [Sense Danger] (Passive) LV1 EXP: 0.00% A natural survival instinct honed into an additional full-fledged sense, a kind of deadly premonition. Allows the user to predict the potential for danger or threats in the environment. Increased levels of this skill extend the window of detection and nature of the premonitions. In the tiny slice of time between Spike's eyes moving over the skill description windows and back, Gillie had produced a gardening trowel from seemingly nowhere, and brandished it with obvious comfort... Before letting it drop to the dirt with a booming laugh. "Spike, ya silly dragon! Don't sneak up on an old grast like that, nearly gave me a palpitation." He laughed off the momentary standoff himself, secretly thanking the old horse for finally producing the push needed for those skill Masteries. "That makes two of us: Not every day I get a blade pointed my way... I mean, not since the first week after we moved here." They closed the gap between them and Spike quickly gave Gillie a hug, a gesture that felt a bit overly-familiar given how rarely they spent time together properly... But well, he was coming to say goodbye, right? That added an extra layer to things. It was OK to be sappy, all things considered. "I guess ya heard from the new kiddos runnin' the shop that I'm making headway out of ol' Ponyville?" "I wouldn't call them kiddos myself, just for the sake of personal safety... But yeah. I'm sorry I wasn't able to get out to the Arcade more!" Gillie shrugged, a long rolling motion that practically sent him wobbling off one hoof: Mannerisms like that made Spike wonder if he was any relation to Pinkie, however distant. "Don't go apologizing for somethin' like that, sonny: I barely got out there some days myself, which was part a' the problem. Come inside, let's stop jawin' in the street!" The transition inside was surprisingly quick, and Spike barely noticed the way Gillie handled things in the process: Trowel back into a sheath, the basket full of plucked weeds slid across the smooth wood floor of the wagon with one kick, door closed behind them with the same hoof. A few drawers and cabinets were opened and drinks thrown together so fast Spike could barely follow it, and the table and couch pulled out from the wagon's walls can't have been light... It's possible that years ago Gillie might have had Big Macintosh's level of strength: Even now there were still echoes of it. "A proper toast for us both then: Me for leaving, and you for breaking that yoke you've been struggling with." A part of his brain immediately thought yolk, of an egg, before he realized the actual word. "Guess it's pretty obvious I started growing up, huh?" "That and other things: 'Tswhy I gave ya the good stuff! Cheers, boyo." Gillie raised his glass to Spike's and they briefly clinked together, before he took the drink. It was an experience: He'd had his fair share of alcohol before, between sneaking sips when Night Light wasn't paying attention at a party all the way up to the long debriefing session with Twilight (where he had demurred at first, but the night got stranger as it went on). But this was very different. Wine was one thing, this amber-colored kick-in-the-teeth was entirely another. The immediate flavor was acrid yet sweet, like dark honey and smoked nuts. The sweetness got fruitier as it made its way across the stupendous surface area of his tongue before dissolving into something grassy and funky, then fading entirely... Except for the burn, which caught him by surprise more than anything. "Wow! I mean... wow." "Comin' from a dragon, that's a credit to the label! I'll have to tell the boys next time I'm out in cow town." "Cow... I guess you met the makers while you were travelling?" "Ayup! Bullmenach, out in the hills. Round 'bout near where I was born, come to think it." Their conversation wound and wended over time, covering the things they'd been doing in the last few months. They had last seen one another around Nightmare Night, after all: There was quite a bit of ground to cover, especially with one leaving so soon. Spike didn't go into the details of his recent growth and upheaval, but he had a feeling (and an Observe'd sheet of skills and stats to back it up) that Gillie knew more about that than he let on. "Yea, the comin' of age is a big moment for any-creature what-so-ever. I remember my halcyon days, and... Heh. Well, no sense talking about those bygone eras. Notwin' I can show some things to ya!" Gillie cleared a loose pile of game engine parts off one of his shelves and began rooting around in the shelves behind it, eventually coming back with a small velvet bag on his hoof. A flick of the wrist sent it through the air, and the weight inside made it skid to a stop right in front of Spike. "...May I?" "Ach, would that all the kids had yer manners: Of course." Spike delicately opened the faded green drawstrings and let the mouth of the bag open, tilting out its contents... A golden token. It was much larger than a normal bit coin, and thinner. Heavy too, and despite being both a dragon and the Gamer? Spike couldn't recognize the metal. There were no visible marks on the surface, but when he ran his claws across it he could tell there was supposed to be some kind of inscription: It was just incredibly fine and too small to make out with even his eyes. Observe... Was less helpful, somehow. [The Golden Bit] A seal of imprimatur from an unknown culture, carved into a disc of alloy metal. The gold in its name refers to its royal origins and not its materials: There is no literal gold perceptible. He let out a low whistle, turning the 'coin' in his claws as he squinted at the maybe-not-even-text. The symbols probably weren't Equiform characters, but he could only just barely make out that there even were symbols by turning all his buffs up to full drive. Maybe he'd get a chance to give it a closer look next time Gillie came back to town? By then he'd have a ton of new skills to turn on it. "Ay, quite the lovely piece: I won it years ago, decades at that. Won it off a very fair mare in an extremely unfair game..." Gillie trailed off into reminiscing silence, which Spike eventually broke with a chuckle. "Heh. I won't press you for the story right now, but maybe if you want to send somebody letters while you're travelling we could keep in touch? Sounds like the kind of thing that might be easier to write about, for posterity." Gillie had a thin smile when he replied, as if Spike had just read his mind. "Ye, I might at that. Very well might!"