//------------------------------// // The Daily Grind (1/2) // Story: Equestria Legends Online: Brothers // by 4428Gamer //------------------------------// The next several days had come and gone with everyone within ELO adapting as best they could. Dozens of teams scoured the Everfree Forest to map out every blank space. At the same time, everyone else left Everfree and Ponyville behind to try searching other cities. Once where there were a couple thousands of players in Ponyville, there were now only a couple hundred at most. Some players had fallen into a rhythm to go out, fight monsters for Bits and experience, and then come back to lounge around the town. Almost as though it were a job. Some were taking it a step further. They would save up money to buy a permanent house or even a guild hall as a more passive approach to help find the Elements. Although there were some that simply started mooching off the kindness of others. Then there’s the six players whose daily lives had become more...unpredictable. As she turned the corner, Gray reached out and tugged at the base of a shelving unit, knocking it over and blocking three ponies from chasing down the aisle after her. “Why are there so many of them,” she shouted, running further down the aisle to put distance between her and her assailants. Gray and the team were all scattered around a massive warehouse inside Ponyville. Since coming back from the Graves, Gray started finding multiple side-quests. She sold most of them for a profit but kept the useful ones for the team so they wouldn’t constantly be farming monsters from the forest. To either side of her were massive shelving units crowded with crates and bags of useless junk, trapping her in the aisle. With the way she came in blocked and ponies trying to get around it, she only had one direction to run. However, as she reached the end of the aisle, four more ponies stepped out, daggers and clubs poised to strike. Gray skidded to a halt and stared them down. This would be so much easier if we were allowed to use lethal, she thought darkly. “Guess I’m wasting this...Blitz, they’re all yours.” When the ponies realized she wasn’t moving, they took the initiative and charged. “Dark Blend,” Gray muttered, gone from sight as the first two ponies got close enough to swing where she was, catching only air. The four ponies started frantically looking around as their frustration traded for confusion. “Where’d she go?” One demanded. “She wasn’t a unicorn,” another pony pointed out. “How could she have done that?” The third simply shrugged. “Must be one a’ them adventurers,” the last one deduced. “She couldn’t have gotten far. Everypony split up. We’ll find her!” But before they could, a sharp whistle rang out from above them. They all craned their heads up to watch as, standing on the top of a tall shelving unit, was a smiling pegasus; one with a black coat and yellow mane. “Heya,” Blitz greeted with a wave. “You,” one of them pointed with an accusing hoof. “Get down here and face us like a stallion!” Blitz tapped his chin in thought. “Tempting. Very tempting.” Standing up, Blitz reached behind his back and pulled out a long dull red spear with a scorpion’s stinger on the end of it. The Manticore Tail Spear. The weapon the group had pulled from the Guardian back at the Graves. The ponies below him began backing away as they each felt worried about their slim chances. Alex shrugged. “Ya know what? Sure, why not? Comin’ down!” He leapt from the shelf; spear positioned to stab whatever stood beneath it.  The four ponies scrambled out of the way as Alex’s spear wedged itself in the ground. Before they could retort, Alex tore the stinger free from the ground and twirled it around in a whirlwind. In one move, all four of the thugs were battered to the floor. Blitz took a second to admire his work. Each of these four ponies all had the same name displayed above each of them; Ponyville Thug. It came with laughable health bars now all in the red and the noticeable lack of a player crystal above their heads. “Numbers aren’t much of a threat if they go down so easily,” Blitz pointed out. All he got in return was a weak groan from the enemies littering the space around him.  Through the supplies on the shelves, three aisles down, Blitz saw another three thugs chasing Fleur. “Fleur, you okay,” Blitz asked loud enough to reach her. “Oui! Okay,” she replied with a cocky grin. Then after a moment, Fleur glanced back at the thugs. “Bring it, losers!” Blitz rested his face behind his hoof. “That’s the fourth time today. Who taught her that?” When Rachelle reached the wall of the building, she twirled around and fired an arrow in one motion. Rather than an arrowhead, it had a rounded metal ball at the end. It only managed to fly ten feet before slamming muzzle-first into the first pony. The force of the hit threw him back and he slid across the concrete, cradling his poor, programmed, broken nose. The two remaining ponies went around their ally and kept pace. One was an Earth pony with a dagger in its mouth while the other was a unicorn levitating a club with his horn. Still no player crystal, just like Blitz’s goons. Realizing they were too close to fire another arrow, Fleur sheathed her bow. Her cocky grin, however, stayed drawn. “Amour Maladie,” she hummed, breaking into a run towards the ponies as her hooves started glowing dark pink. The three closed in and the Earth pony went to slice her neck. Ready, Fleur slid underneath him and used her magic to shove his jaw in the air, keeping the dagger away from her. Then, before the unicorn could club her, she pounced and clocked him across the face with all her momentum. The unicorn’s health took a small hit before the dark pink aura trailed from Fleur’s hooves, ensnaring the thug. While his eyes danced in multiple hues of pink, Fleur turned and drove a right hook into the other pony’s face. Blitz watched Fleur dodge the pony’s dagger again, punching him one more time before backing up behind the lovestruck pony. “...And who taught her that?” As he watched, the other three ponies finally dragged their way past Gray’s barricade and tried rushing Blitz while he was distracted. But before they got close enough for Blitz to acknowledge them, a crossbow bolt with a metal ball on the end dropped one of them. Blitz looked over and saw the other two ponies staring above them where a magenta pegasus with a brown braided mane, Siren, was staring at Blitz with a bored look. “Am I cleaning these up or you?” Blitz chuckled and threw his spear, embedding it in the ground between the two ponies. While they tried recovering from the heart attacks their fear gave them, Blitz propelled forward, drawing his tonfa to pummel them with. “Good,” Siren complimented. After checking over with Fleur, observing how one love-tranced thug was beating up his other as Fleur watched, Siren noticed another three thugs running to the entrance of the warehouse. “Sarge,” Siren yelled. “Three closing on your position. Status on VIP?” “VIP secure,” Sarge returned, readying his new broadsword as a NPC pony, with the name Tight Fit floating above him, stood behind Sarge anxiously as he glared at the thugs. “Here they come, Sarge,” Tight Fit pointed out. “There...There’s a lot of ‘em.” “Siren, back up Chill,” Sarge instructed. She obliged and started jumping from shelf to shelf as Fleur and Blitz met up just in time to fight five more goons. “Uh...Sarge?” Tight Fit stared at the Earth Pony who had only drawn his sword and waited. “They’re comin’ man! Fight ‘em!” These NPCs, Sarge thought to himself. Just real enough to be annoying. But Sarge didn’t budge. Instead, as the enemies all closed in, weapons and warcries ready, Sarge held out his forelegs like a human shield. He let all three of them strike at once; two daggers and a shortsword producing blue code. All the thugs’ warcries dwindled to confusion as they watched the large, armored Earth pony staring them down, blades still embedded in his body. “...Are you done?” Sarge asked boredly. Tight Fit watched as they lost all confidence, one of them stammering to bring out some sort of apology as his dagger was still stuck in Sarge’s neck. With a heave, Sarge lifted all three ponies off of their hooves before slamming them onto the ground. Then, ignoring their screams and pleas, Sarge hefted his broadsword and started slamming the flat side of the blade against each of their heads like a golf club. When the last one hit the floor, Tight Fit did enough cheering for both of them as Sarge observed Fleur and Blitz quickly finishing off the last thugs around them. “Is there an actual threat in here?” "Over here there is," a much younger voice shouted. The sound of metal clanging against metal rang out like a symphony before magic pulses fired in return. "Little help?!" Towards the back of the warehouse was an open space with wood pallets holding crates of metal ingots, building supplies, and blacksmithing tools. The youngest of the team, Light Chill, was hiding behind a pile of bricks from two more Ponyville Thugs and a pegasus mare with the name Thug Captain (Iron Gate) above her head. Every time Chill wanted to poke his head out and fire, a crossbow bolt would be right there trying to take his eye out. As long as the group was inside this warehouse, the threat was as real as fighting in the forest. “Stop hidin’,” Iron Gate shouted in a southern drawl, flying several feet off the ground to try attacking Chill from a higher vantage point. She was a gray pegasus with half her mane shaved while the other was left long, swept over her right ear and eye. While airborne, she held a curved dagger in one hoof while using a small crossbow in the other to try pin cushioning Chill. It didn’t help that her bolts had some weak poison dripping from them. “Let’s not make this harder now,” she tried to reason. “Come out an’ Ah’ll hit somethin’ vital. Finish ya nice an’ quick like.” Well, maybe ‘reason’ wasn’t the right word. “...” Gate smirked. “There ya are.” From above, a tiny bolt found its way into Chill’s shoulder blade. The shot did next to nothing in damage but Chill felt the poison wash over him, slurring his vision and movement. 117/123 115 114 112 Chill tried firing a magic bolt up in the air but it missed by a mile. Gate cackled as she took her time loading her next poisoned bolt. Then a normal-sized crossbow bolt missed her head by an inch. “Guuh!” “gHacK!” “Huh?!” Gate whipped around. Behind her, that crossbow bolt, rounded ball at the front, slammed into one thug’s face and knocked him out. Meanwhile, the second one crumpled to the floor when Gray faded back into reality. The pommel of her dagger where the thug’s neck once was. Gray glared at the pegasus the same time another magic blast sailed past uselessly. “Me first,” Gray taunted. The gray pegasus leered back at the gray Earth pony. “Gladly.” Iron Gate let her small crossbow drop to the ground below as she pulled out a shortsword and dove after Gray who drew a second dagger. In a spray of sparks, the two mares met with their blades crossed in a deadlock. The clash quickly devolved into a knifefight, Gray and Gate hardly tagging the other as any blade that came close was parried with a blade from the other, resulting in more sparks flying past them. Watching Gray’s attention divert for a second, Gate stepped effortlessly aside as an arrow from Fleur missed its target. Gate pulled back her shortsword for a heavy attack but halfway in its swing Siren flew in and let the sword cut into her arm. Gray managed to get one stab into Gate’s torso before the pegasus tore her sword free and went to rend Siren in two. Siren flew back and Gate took the chance to chase after her only to catch a tonfa to the face from Blitz. As her health bar ticked down a fraction, Gate spun at a grander speed, slicing open Blitz’s stomach with a vertical cut. After a gasp from the fighter, the two pegasi fell into a midair brawl. Steel scraped wood as the two pinballed around the open space. The others watched from below as Fleur and Siren tried to find a shot while Chill tried to shake the poison's effect off of him. The skirmish pressed on for a full minute with both sides cutting and striking the other respectively. In one moment, Gate kicked Blitz in the chest, throwing him into a shelving unit. The resulting force made the whole unit tip over, almost causing a domino effect in the warehouse with the aisles. While Blitz recovered, Fleur, Siren, and Chill all fired at the enemy pegasus to help knock her hit points down. Gate was ready for Fleur’s arrow, ducking under it before Siren’s crossbow bolt nailed her in the back of the shoulder. Chill’s magic almost caught her too but the blast moved through the air so slowly that she could notice and veer away from it in time. Only when the skies were clear did Blitz close in again, the process repeating with his health dwindling much faster. Then Gray got greedy. In the midst of their combat, she chucked a dagger to catch Gate in the back. With both of them flying around so much, Gate saw it coming. She deftly danced around the dagger, letting Blitz nearly fall into it himself. Taking the opening, Gate flew at Blitz like a cannonball, hooking her curved dagger into his arm, ripping a chunk of hit points out with it. But she wasn’t done. As Blitz flinched, she ran his chest through with her shortsword and spun around, chucking him back towards the Earth before she shimmied past another arrow Fleur had waited to fire for so long. “Merde,” she cried in a fit of anger. Gate started cackling. “Wooie! Ya had me goin’ there, flyboy,” she taunted through her breath. “A pint like you really knows how ta keep up with a lady.” “Blitz, you alright?” Sarge called from back at the entrance. The NPC he was guarding refused to go any further into the warehouse and Sarge couldn’t abandon his post. “I keep seeing your health drop!” “F-Fine,” Blitz stammered, propping himself up off the ground with a growl. Blue glowing stab wounds littered his body including the massive gash from chest to back where the sword cut through him. He didn’t think his health looked that bad. 84/174. Iron Gates’s health, however, was only down a fourth. Even after two straight minutes against Gray and Blitz. The NPC sounded exhausted but she was still flying. Chill tried firing a mini barrage at Gate in hopes to contribute anything to this fight. However, Gate was slippery. Even with over a dozen magic shots, Gate weaved around each of them, laughing all the while. “Too fast,” Chill muttered, pulling his wand over to his side. “Do we have to do this nonlethally? She’s an NPC.” Siren watched Gray. “This is getting ridiculous.” “The quest’s description said there’s a bonus if we do it like this,” Gray reminded her. Although Siren could tell Gray wasn’t far from giving up herself. “Okay. I’m good,” Blitz breathed, slowly flying back up so he was at eye level with the Bandit Captain. “Round two.” Gate clicked her tongue, twirling the curved dagger in her hoof before smirking at the other pegasus. “Knew Ah liked you fer a reason.” “Sure,” Blitz fired boredly. He brought his forehooves together almost like one would fold their hands. “Goodbye.” “Bye?” Gate’s brow furrowed. “What d’ya mean b—” “Cloudscape.” Like a smoke bomb, a large white cloud erupted from Blitz’s hooves and surrounded both him and Iron Gate in the blink of an eye. Gate screamed out in surprise, but it was muffled from within the heavy cloud that hung in the air like a thick blob. Outside, the team listened in shock as they heard Blitz strike Gate with his tonfa repeatedly, his attacks sounding out like thunder. They could see Blitz’s health tick down ever so slightly now and then but that was nothing compared to the number of hits they heard him dealing. The fluffy blob in the air shifted and twitched like one would picture a fight cloud in cartoons. Finally, as the sound of fighting stopped, the center of the cloud condensed on itself for a moment before Gate was launched out the bottom. She crashed into the floor in a heap, looking as though the cloud chewed her up and spat her out. More seconds passed and the cloud floated lazily to the ground and opened like a clam, revealing Blitz lounging there with his legs kicked up on a recliner and ottoman also made of fluffy clouds. He turned his head and opened one eye, grinning at his team. “I have been holding off on this for way too long,” Blitz admitted as the others watched in mild amusement. “Cloudscape. Let’s me make and manipulate clouds. Cool huh?” “So cool,” Chill gushed, rushing forward and leaping onto the cloud to enjoy the comfort. He fell right through and ate concrete. “Ow,” he groaned shortly. The cloud muffled his pain. Everyone flinched, worried for him before Chill’s head popped up through the clouds like a meerkat. “Oh yeah,” Chill said to himself. “Only pegasus-es can walk on clouds.” Hearing that, Siren carefully stepped up on the cloud. Blitz’s recliner took up most of the space but there was room enough for her to lie down on the edge and instantly sink into the fluffy base. “Oh, I could get used to this,” she admitted with a grin. “How long do you have this thing, anyway?” “The ability’s already over,” Blitz admitted. “The cloud just kinda lingers for...a while? Eh, whatever.” He shrugged. As the two relaxed, the others watching somewhat enviously, the NPC Sarge was guarding, Tight Fit, walked over with Sarge following. “You. You actually stopped them,” Tight said, stunned. “Yep,” Blitz tossed out lazily. Siren glanced at Gray again. “So when’s the bonus part of this quest gonna kick in?” “...But there not going to stop for good,” Tight admitted, scratching the back of his head. “They’re gonna keep comin’ after me.” “Doesn’t this town have NPC guards?” Sarge pointed out. “You saw what they can do,” Tight Fit countered. “They’ll just find a way past that. As long as I’m in Ponyville, they’ll keep coming.” Some time back, Light Chill and Gray had visited one of the busiest shops in town where an NPC named Good Fit sold cloaks and clothing apparel. When the group had finally gotten around to working on the quest, it apparently spanned a couple of days and led to skirmishes with Ponyville Thug enemies. Tight Fit was Good Fit’s son and while he tended to have a way of getting in trouble, he meant well. Supposedly. However, he wanted to open an armorer shop rather than make clothing his whole life. He was skilled but he needed money. He ultimately took a loan from Iron Gate which ended in disaster. “Then move,” Gray offered. Only Light Chill was interested in humoring the game’s NPCs but the fact that some of them almost behaved like regular people compelled the others to answer them. Tight blinked a few times before glaring at the floor. “But. But if I do that, it’ll take all I got to deliver these supplies to wherever I’m going. I’ll be outta money all over again!” Siren frowned. “Does this game, err...country,” Siren tiredly corrected. “Not have actual money lenders? Get a loan from someone who’s not a criminal.” Tight thought about it for a moment. “The bigger towns have those kinds of ponies. Not Ponyville.” Blitz, hearing all of this from his new cloud chair, rolled his eyes. “Well, sounds like you need to move regardless, so move to a big city. Like, I dunno, Chill? What’s the name of the capital?” “Canterlot.” “Yeah, go there,” Blitz dismissed with a wave. “Gotta be something there.” Tight thought about it for a second. “Yeah...Yeah. That might actually work! And if I can get a shop there, there’s no way Iron Gate could try coming after me.” “Yeah, great, moving up the ladder.” Gray rolled her eyes. “I believe there’s still the matter of our job though?” Tight Fit’s eyes started blinking frantically, unnerving Sarge for a moment before the pony suddenly nodded with a sheepish grin. “Right. Yeah, ahehehe. Well, ya see, since I’ll be needing money to get all this stuff to Canterlot, I can’t really pay that much.” Blitz, Siren, and Fleur out let out groans of frustration. “All this for nothing?” Siren questioned. “Ces flèches gourdin ne sont pas bon marché,” Fleur complained darkly. “Well, I-I didn’t mean that,” Tight Fit backpedaled. “I have a way to pay you, just...not with money?” As Tight Fit started to explain, the entire group’s expression turned from confusion to complete shock and awe. “WHAT?!” Later that evening, after Tight Fit was returned to his mother and the blacksmithing tools and supplies were packed up, the six players were now standing outside in the middle of the road. Ahead of them was a quaint blacksmith’s shop. The door was closed and the forge itself, resting outside, was unlit and dim from lack of use. The place had a broken window and a few rotting pieces of wall and floorboard that could do with replacing but other than that, it was a nice place. And according to the deed Alex was still clutching in his hoof, it was his blacksmithing shop now. That’s what Tight Fit decided since Alex was the one who dealt the finishing blow to Iron Gate. “This was the quest bonus,” Siren, or Kaylee, said incredulously for the fifth time today. “We just...own this house now?” “Shop,” Gwen corrected blankly. “And I think we’re the first players to own a shop.” “Do we..." Sarge trailed off for a second. “Do we keep it as a blacksmith or what?’ “Gray, didn’t you want to open a shop?” Chill asked. “Yeah but not here.” Gwen frowned. “Players are leaving Ponyville in droves. The actual cities have most of the players in it.” “Faisons-nous un prêteur sur gages?” Rachelle asked. “...Alex? Translation?” Sarge asked. “No idea,” he shot down. Eventually, Kaylee clicked her tongue and started walking towards the door. “Well, we’ll figure that out later. At least we’re not paying for hotel rooms anymore.” The others watched as Kaylee walked up to the door and pushed it open. She had to use some force since the door wasn’t aligned correctly. “Shit.” She bowed her head in exhaustion. “What?” Alex blinked. “...” Kaylee slowly turned towards the group with a sunken expression. “Anyone have furniture?” The group let out a heavy groan. All the money they had saved from quests and the graveyard was about to go out the window. Thankfully, one of them was broken already.