//------------------------------//
// Chapter 2: Eye of the Beholder 
// Story: Synthesis 
// by Znex 
//------------------------------//

Whispers of the Arcane
Chapter 3

“So, you seek the Diamond of Ages, Michel?”

Suddenly, the room flashed brighter than the sun from the highest corner of the chamber, and my eyes beheld the dreaded sight of an ancient wizard, standing aloft on a platform with his staff aglow with magical energy.

I cringed as I stared closer at the wizard. “How the fuck do you know my name?”

“It’s not hard to realise the name of the most elusive and infamous thief of the last century.” The wizard grasped his staff and angled it down gently, somehow causing the platform to completely detach from its host wall and hover down towards my level. “The rumours surrounding how you made your way into the completely guarded Tibertan fortress continue even amongst the royal courts, that happening more than a decade ago. Believe it or not, you are perhaps the most infamous individual in all the land.”

“Let me ask again.” Out of my bag, I produced a powerful antimagic dagger and held it ready in my hand. “How the fuck do you know my name? I have never told one soul my name - even my parents don’t know it!”

“Ah, Michel, Michel.” With a fling of his hand into the air, my hand released its grip almost by itself, dropping the dagger into the abyss. “It is amusing to see how naïve you are. Allow me to explain...”

On the contrary, it amused me to see how naïve he was to believe that dagger was my only defence against him. “Fuck you, you sorcerer...thing!” With an almighty tug, I pulled out the AMR pulse device out of the bag seems random; should probably rewrite and onto the ground before pushing my foot onto the inviting red button. Stars bless the dwarves!

Actually, scratch that, screw the dwarves.

“Looks like you’ve hit a little snag, O Mighty Michel – namely, a missing battery.” Almost tauntingly, the wizard pulled the said battery out of his robes and waved it in front of my face.

“...what? How did you?!?”

“It’s magic, I don’t have to explain its intricacies to you.” Without strain, the wizard then proceeded to crush the battery entirely in his hand before throwing it away into the abyss below. He took hold of his staff in both hands. “If you were paying even the slightest bit of attention to the happenings, you might have thought that more people came here, given the preciousness and rarity of such an artefact, yet countless months were spent by you trying to find even a rumour to its whereabouts. The secret was ultimately kept by a tribe who kept to themselves in a settlement outside a cursed forest - did it not strike you as odd that you found out about it at all? You may accept it or not, Michel, yet it was I who led you to your search for the Diamond, and then guided you towards the forsaken tribe. All these steps towards ‘prosperity’ and ‘an early retirement’ were orchestrated by me.”

“Fuck you--”

“Before you try, yes, I have disarmed every other antimagic thing you have in that knapsack of yours. You thieves really are tiresome, you know that? Now shut up and listen – I’m keeping you alive for a reason.”

At a loss for words, I slowly placed my bag onto the ground before staring back up into that ancient face.

“Now, what have you been told about the Diamond of Ages? That it’s full of magical power? That it will make all your dreams come true?”

“Gee, how did you know that?” I looked up to him with pure awe and excitement. “You must be a really talented wizard to guess that--”

“Yes I did tell you that. And, none of it is true. None of it. It’s not even a pure diamond – half of it is composed completely of charcoal. This was all simply a lure, bait if you like.”

“...Right.”

The wizard sighed and slowly stepped off the platform onto a spot near my right side before taking his staff into one hand. Beckoning me to follow, he walked at a curiously quick pace to a crack on a wall of the temple. He rose up his hand to a random spot on the wall before uttering some mumbo-jumbo gibberish. Before my very eyes, the outline of the crevice glowed with a mysterious light before opening down from the crack as far down as the floor. “Michel, the truth of the matter is much graver and much more significant. I realise you have no choice in the matter now, however your skills are essential in resolving this.”

Hitching up his robes, the wizard crouched down and entered into the gaping maw
name’s still rubbish need to think of better one
plot sounds cliché? needs more p


*knock knock knock*


“Um, are you there, Andrew?”

I glanced past the doorway into the main room. “Yeah, I’ll be ready – just gimme a sec!” Taking my draftbook, I pushed away from the desk and threw the book underneath before pushing myself off the chair. Slowly, I looked around me with an examining eye. Alright, do I have everything? I plumbed the depths of my pockets and felt around for everything. Let’s see...wallet...phone...keys? Keys...fuck! Where are they? With a sigh, I stared back towards my surroundings.

You could say my flat was compact, but to me that was a bit of an under-exaggeration. The rooms generally were only about seven feet wide and long, and the ceiling was only a few inches above your head – these rooms were tiny! You’d think that would make it easier to look for the smaller possessions I owned – yet, truth be told, it was difficult to find the larger possessions I owned. It was even more difficult here in this little study of mine.

All around me were tall piles of sheets of paper with various scribblings on them, littered around the desk and on the floor, wherever there would otherwise be space. Most of these scribblings were random story ideas that I gathered, usually from my sleep or from my day. Some of these ideas were formulated to the point where I could start to work them into stories, though I still tended to work on only one story at a time to avoid virtual insanity. I think Whispers of the Arcane was the result of watching the whole Indiana Jones series overnight (though not the new one, thankfully).

Many of the half-baked ideas ended up dying in large quantities of scrunched-up balls of paper on the floor, where I missed throwing them into the bin.

There was now nothing else then but to begin my quest.

Donning my helmet and armour, I set forward - from the far west to the far east of Desktopia, I searched for the fabled Lost Keys of Studyroth. From the top of Mt Drafton, the tallest mountain of all of Studyroth, to the underground chasms of Mt Papery, I quested forth, looking everywhere I could.

Even to the depths of the ocean Floor, I plumbed my path to wherever the fabled Keys may be, fighting off many of the fierce Crumple monsters along the way.

Finally after many months, I came to the terrifying cavern of the Underdesk—

“Andrew...what are you doing?”

I pulled my head out from beneath the desk and met with the sight of a very confounded Sonia. “I was...looking for my keys.”

Sonia grinned as she produced a ring of very familiar looking keys from her handbag. “You mean these?”

“How did you--”

“You left them in the door.” Slowly, she placed the keys into my outstretched hands. “Um, why are you wearing two cardboard boxes?”

Clearly the guy who sold me my armour was a really bad blacksmith. “...No reason.”

I ripped both the boxes off within a few seconds. “Come on, let’s go!” I walked past her at a lively pace into the main room and out the door into the corridor outside my flat. Sonia followed me out a few seconds later and I closed and locked the door.

“Ohh, um, there is something I should probably mention.” Sonia fiddled a bit with her bag straps before putting the handbag over her shoulder. “Well, Windy wasn’t able to get a lift, and so...I kinda offered him one. I really hope you don’t mind?”

I shook my head as I shoved my keys into my pocket. We walked over to the elevator on the far side, and I pushed the button in on the side. No visible light change occurred. I pressed it again. Still nothing.

“Hm, that’s strange.” Sonia tried the elevator button herself with no success. “It worked fine when I used it to come up here.”

I pressed the button several more times before giving up. “Damn it all, we’ll have to go down the stairs.”

Sonia followed as I walked over to the far side of the corridor where the door to the stairwell was.

The staircase went all the way down the ground floor, though it was a pain to have to go down. The flat opposite Sonia’s was inhabited by a family with a raucous pair of kids, and there wasn’t an afternoon when you couldn’t hear them and their friends (more like gang) doing whatever they goddamned please. Usually it entailed smoking pot, swearing their heads off, and drawing giant phalluses on the walls surrounding the stairs.

As you might have guessed, I didn’t envy Sonia’s flat placement.

Going through the door into the ominous passage, we both caught a glimpse of one of their gang’s newest creations spewing out “excrement” before we quickly began paying our utmost attention to the floor. It didn’t look much better – rubbish was scattered here and there. Yet, to our disgust, there were even some suspicious white stains along the open corridor between the stairs. The air was filled with the strong scent of marijuana.

I glanced at her. “Come on, the sooner we get down these, the better.”

Sonia held her hands over her mouth, her eyes resembling for a moment those of a trapped mouse. However, she with these same eyes nodded and so followed.

As we approached the corridor, we made a sharp turn into it and ran forward alongside its wall before once again leaning around the corner into the stairs.

Looking to my side, I saw Sonia was weakening – she was already beginning to huff and puff with the strain. “Hey, don’t give up on me now!”

“I know...” Sonia stared back at me dazedly. “It’s just…these corners…”

“I know…” We leaped into the corridor bordering the first floor before stepping just as quickly down the stairs on the other side. “We are almost there!”

I coughed phlegm out as I hopped down a step at a time – it was becoming apparent I was feeling the strain now too.

Ahead of us on the wall facing us was another giant...thing touching-- oh shit, I can’t even describe it, it was so awful. I turned my complete attention to where Sonia was.

Sonia came plodding down the stairs, panting like a dog drunk with fatigue. “Andrew...I can’t!”

Reaching out my right arm as far as I could, I grabbed her left hand. “Damn it, Sonia, you can! We are not giving up!”

With one great effort, I pulled Sonia forward alongside me as we darted into the next corridor.

Our busy feet resounded in the stairwell with each steady step. Time seemed to slow down as we moved closer to our goal.

After what seemed like a lifetime, we crossed over to the corner and to the last length of stairs.

Sweat streamed from beneath my hair down the sides of my face as I forced the both of us to run the very last lengths.

“Almost...there...”

Our aching feet swam in the air down each step, paddling through our perspirations.

We jointly leaped from the stairs through the air, through the thick, dense air. In unison, we landed on the ground.

From the stairs, there was one last length – the dash for the front door, only metres away.

“Almost there!!”

With aimed precision, I launched my left hand to the door handle and twisted it open.

Like a bullet, we burst forth from the doorway.

The seconds crawled down to minutes as we journeyed over the land a centimetre at a time.

Suspended in the air, I stared out towards the street, to where Sonia’s car was parked. In the window, I could see Windy watching us with an amused grin.

Then I looked down to the grassy earth.


*THUMP*


It took a few moments for the both of us to realise we were face-first into the dirt before our nerves finally registered and began screaming to the world. If it were not bad enough that we were aching all over from the run, we now had raw bruises and scratches all on our arms and legs where we had landed.

We struggled to lift ourselves from the ground before a round arm took hold of the both of us by the arm and pulled us up. Windy (for he was the owner of the large arms) looked to each of us, mirth still dancing around the corner of his eyes. “Ye gods! Were you roleplaying or something?”

I patted the dirt off my beaten clothes as I tried to find a way to explain it without losing my breath. Just as I opened my mouth, Sonia beat me to it.

“Um, no, no....i-it’s a long story, Windy.”

“Of course, your Highness.” With a devilish smirk, Windy scrambled his hand into his pocket before taking out the pamphlet we had all seen a month before. “My lady, you’re going to need this if we’re to get anywhere.”

Sonia swept her hair back with her hand, causing a large dust cloud to cascade down. With a tired smile, she accepted the leaflet and began to read where the address was. “...Claudius...University.” Her eyes frowned as she stared closer at it. “Crayford Street...Crayford Street? Ohhh, I...I forget where that is.”

I patted Sonia’s shoulder gently. “Claudius is where I go for uni! It’s not even that easy to forget - after all, it’s not too far from where we normally meet. I’d say...” I coughed out what was left of my lungs before continuing. “It’s...it’s only about a few blocks away.”

“Then my companions, I believe that completes our preparation!” Windy pointed out to the car with a dramatic flair. “Onwards, to thou testing session!”

“Could you stop that?”

The three of us walked to the car and pulled ourselves in our respective seats. After whisking her keys out from her pocket, Sonia fiddled with them for a few seconds before finally selecting one and plugging it in. After a few twists, the car started and began to move off.

“So Andrew...” Windy propped his hands up onto my headrest as I looked behind me towards him. “What’s it like living with Flutter—Felicity?”

“We don’t live together,” I stated with a sigh, “we just live in the same set of flats. She’s more like my neighbour than anything else.”

“Well then, what’s it like being her neighbour?” Windy looked back to Sonia before leaning closer. “It must be quite...interesting.”

“Uh, I guess…I mean we’ve only known we were neighbours for the past month or so, but…yeah, I reckon she’s a good mate. We meet up every so often when we both don’t have work for coffee or something and just chat.”

“Only a mate?” Windy let out a trilling whistle.

“Yeah, only a mate.”

“Oh.” Windy paused for a moment, staring at his outstretched hands. “Seriously?”

“Well, yeah. What’s wrong with that?”

Windy lifted his arms in defence. “Nothing, there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s just that...well, I won’t say anything.”

I stared at him for a few seconds before turning back around. That was when I realised there was something very terribly wrong with Sonia.

The car groaned and wheezed as an uncharacteristically furious Sonia swerved it tightly into a small space on the side of the road. With a firm twist of the ignition key, Sonia turned to us with a vicious grimace. “You two are worse than the kids I have to look after at my job!”

Windy’s arms slackened as he turned to meet Sonia with a sheepish frown. I didn’t have the faintest clue what was happening, though my expression fell too with the dull taste of fear.

Sonia stared at us even more coldly. “Listen: if I can go the rest of this trip without hearing one peep out of either of you, we’ll be able to have lunch before the session. If not, no lunch. Got it?”

With the mention of lunch, Windy’s eyes immediately brightened and he started nodding eagerly. I nodded too, yet with no great gusto.

Slowly, Sonia’s appearance softened, bit by bit, until there was little sign of her outburst left. I almost believed it never happened. “Good. Now, um, let’s keep going.” She winded the key back around and drove the car back into the lane.


~~~~


In the distance, the Latin Tower of the university grew into the air as we drove out from the lane outside the restaurant.

“So where’s the university?”

I glanced towards Sonia, who looked at me expectedly. With caution, I like any good mime drew a zip over my mouth with my hand and pointed to the zip.

Sonia sighed with an awkward smile. “S-sorry, you can talk now...”

I pulled the zip back over. “Well, you see that tower? My uni is just over in that direction, as close as you can get.”

“Outside the front of the tower?”

I thought about it quickly. “Um...yeah! That ought to do...”

It seemed Sonia already had it planned in her mind as she steered the car like any true expert through the semi-busy roads. Driving into a street on the left, directly bordering Claudius University, Sonia gradually slowed the car down to a stop on the far side, before pulling the handbrake and twisting the key out.

“Not a bad place.” I pulled myself around to see Windy staring at the university through the window. “What did you say you studied here, Andrew?”

“Literature, though it’s boring as all hell.” I scratched my head as I looked towards the uni. “I’m leaving after I finish my book.”

“Hm, shame.”

With this, Sonia took the lead out of the car and outside onto the footpath, where we began to move towards the entrance. “Um, hey Andrew, um...do you see anyone there?”

“Well sure, I see that guy, that guy, that girl, those guys, all coming in and out of there--”

Sonia shook her head slowly. “I mean anyone we know.”

I stared at her for a while before dismissing her lack of response. “Um, well, I reckon that looks like Ergo over there.” There was a rather shady-looking fellow leaning on the side of the entrance wall, face almost completely hidden by his black hoodie. If it wasn’t Ergo, that guy was almost certainly a dead ringer for him.

Sonia began to try and get his attention. “Um...Ergo! Over here! Ergo!” The man’s head flinched upwards as Sonia continued with her semi-yelling. “We’re over here! Ergo?”

The man began to walk into the university without giving us a moment’s glance, much to Sonia’s disappointment. “Oh, I was sure it was him.”

“It is him,” Windy said, “I’d recognise that hoodie anywhere. If that’s not Ergo, then I am not Windy!”

I shook my head. “We couldn’t even see his face. That could have been anyone, and we were just shouting at them a random adverb.”

Sonia looked back towards us. “Erm, even if it was Ergo, it doesn’t make sense. Why would he ignore us?”

“You were shouting too softly?”

Windy chuckled gently. “Like Fluttershy’s cheering.”

Sonia frowned.

I threw my hands up in the air. “That could’ve been the reason. Look, it doesn’t really matter right now. We need to find your brother and the other guys.”

“He’s right.” Windy pointed outward towards the entrance. “For it t’was not ten minutes past by which they asked us to arrive here, yet not one friendly soul is available to our access.” He grimaced before lifting his arm straight up into the air. “I smell foul play!”

“Or, um, maybe they’re just late.” Sonia aimed her finger back behind us towards the main road. On the footpath, we could see approaching towards us Evan and Menchant, who both looked to be in the middle of a great argument. “Maybe I shouldn’t try to call them over this time.”

“I’ll see if I can get their attention.” Looking towards them, I waved my arms in the air for a few moments before I saw that the two had seen my arms and then us. As the two began to head towards us, we moved forward towards them before meeting them at the foot of the stairs.

“Greetings, dear sister, Windy, Andrew! It is good to see you could all make it.” Evan brushed off his coat before continuing, “My apologies for our late arrival, my computer decided to fucking die and I had enlisted Menchant to fix it.”

“Is it fixed?”

“Nay, sister. He managed to fuck it up further!” Evan stared daggers towards Menchant.

Menchant shrugged. “Just because I’m a coder doesn’t mean I know bloody everything about how Windows works.”

“Oh, so how do you get paid then? Do you just laze around playing fucking games or something?”

“Look, I do plenty of shit – I even do stuff for the government on occasion – on a Linux computer. Besides, it’s not as if many games are compatible with Linux anyway.”

“Shit, just stop it. As if anyone cares about what you fucking do with your fucking Linux!”

“What I fucking do? You wouldn’t be able to last a day on a Linux because - remind me, will you - what the fuck do you do with your shit computer? Oh that’s right, nothing but look at fucking clop-fics--”

“How dare you! I read nothing but the best fanfics the community has to offer--”

“Please, stop!” The two turned to look at Sonia, who was staring at them both desperately. “Well, I mean, um, arguing is not...not good.”

Evan sighed and looked at the ground for a moment. Slowly he looked back up with a most striking expression of remorse. “Fuck, what am I doing? I’m quarrelling with a friend right in front of my sweet innocent sister. What would Pinkie Pie think of me?” Slowly, he lifted up his fist towards Menchant. “Have my apologies for my behaviour, friend.”

Menchant looked at the proffered fist before slowly nodding. “Ah, yeah...Yeah, I’m sorry too. Brohoof?” Menchant wiggled his fist up a bit.

“Brohoof.” The two fists collided with a satisfying thump.

Windy looked at the two for a moment before a large smile grew on his face, and he began to fish in his bag for something. After a few moments, he got out a sheet of paper and a pen. “Oh boy...” No sooner did Windy begin to speak before he, caught by a sudden bout of laughter, collapsed onto the floor, chortling maniacally.

The rest of us gazed at him with very confused looks.

I prodded him with a finger. “What’s so funny?”

Windy glanced at me for a moment before writhing in mirth once more. It took roughly half a minute before he regained the will to talk. “I was just thinking...how this would make a great letter to the princess!” Windy fell back, roaring with laughter.

Evan stared at him with stern eyes. “That’s...that’s the second worst joke I’ve ever heard. It was even worse than most of Lyrinx’s jokes.” After a moment, something clicked in his head, and he looked back to the rest of us. “Oh yes, that reminds me...Lyrinx isn’t coming to the session – he says he’s got a hot date with someone. I couldn’t tell if he was being serious or not, but let’s not expect him to be here. Have any of you seen Ergo yet?”

Sonia glanced at me and Windy, before looking back to Evan. “Well...we thought we saw him walking into the university, but, um, he didn’t really respond to our calling him - my calling him.”

Evan scratched his stubble curiously. “That’s strange. I suppose he didn’t want to wait for the rest of us, though he could have said something about it.”

I shrugged. “It’s not as if he says much already.”

“Even so...well, at least we know where he is – come on, let’s follow in. You too, Windy!”


~~~~


“21, 22...23! Here we are.” We followed Evan past the side of the bustling university corridor and over towards a large door bearing a small sign displaying the label ‘A23’. Tossing the pamphlet back into his bag, he knocked upon the door several times before turning back to us with a gleeful grin. “Alright, everyone ready for the time of your lives?!?”

The group would have erupted into thunderous cheers of excitement but for Sonia fearfully shaking her head. “Um, please don’t.”

The door opened and a small man with a goatee poked his head out from behind it. “Yes?”

“Ah, greetings, good fellow.” Evan turned back around and reached out his hand, which the man reluctantly shook with a hand that he stretched out from behind the door. “We were told that a playtest session was being held here for an MMO, Friendship is Global?”

“Um...I don’t think so. Hold on, lemme check.” The man’s head disappeared behind the door as he presumably went off to do just that.

“Hm, I was sure it was the right designation.” Evan took out the pamphlet again and read it very closely.

The man’s head appeared from behind the door again after a remarkably short amount of time. “Oh yeah, the FiG guys. Yeah, they’re meeting in the broom closet.”

“The broom closet?”

“Don’t ask me, mate.” The man scratched his head. “The rest of us think they’re in there for holding interviews and stuff. We’ve only been in here for about ten minutes or so, so sorry we can’t say much else.”

“That is no problem, good fellow.” Evan smiled to him before stuffing the pamphlet back in his bag. “Now, if we could enter...?”

“Oh! Yeah, sure.” The man walked out from behind the door and pushed it open.

“Thank you, Mr...?”

“Stephenson. Um, Vance Stephenson.” Vance wringed his hands for a few seconds. “I’d better get back to my group.” After giving a nervous smile to us, Vance quickly crossed the length of the room back to where a group of similar-looking people was gathered.

“Interesting fellow...” Evan led us into the room and so my first complete impression of the room was clear. It was a fairly large computer lab as I had presumed when I saw the designation earlier, computers lining most of the horizontal wall space, bar two areas where the door back out into the corridor and another door on the far side of the room were. From my estimates, the lab must have had room to house at any given time fifty students.

Menchant stared around the room in bemusement as we moved towards the other door. “They didn’t decide to do the session in here?”

“I suppose there wasn’t room enough for the Ariadne device in here.”

“Implying it is large and blocky.”

“Well it is very new technology.” Evan scratched his head. “Anyway, if it was tiny, the university probably would not allow it on these computers. FiG likely have computers of their own set up with the Ariadne technology and whatever else they need.”

Evan knocked on this door in very much the same way he had previously. The door then opened, and a tall lanky man in a suit stepped out from behind it, meeting us all with a vast grin. “Howdy there, are you all here for the playtesting?”

I nodded, looking around at my group. And there was a very visible lack of any affirmative response from them – rather they all stared or gaped at this man like he was a god come down from Mt Olympus.

Evan was doing both. “Haaa...you’re—you’re Squees091: the creator of FiG!”

Squees’s smile was even wider. “That I am.”

Taking great care, Evan removed his pony from his head and knelt down before Squees, stretching his arms before him. “We are unworthy to meet such a god among bronies, such as you are.”

Squees laughed with great cheer, taking Evan’s arms and helping him up. “By Jove, I am but a man! If you consider anything worthy of praise, then worship my game!”

The group and I ogled him with curiosity.

“I’m kidding! Though I’m not kidding when I say you’ll love it! Now, I’m right in assuming you’ve all read the flyers we’ve sent out?”

“I have one right here!” Taking the pamphlet out again, Evan began to read from it. “‘Hey bronies and pegasisters! We at FiG would like to invite you all to playtest the newest--’”

“Then you are all aware that you are to be tested before we allow you to start?”

Evan stared further down the pamphlet with an expression of dread. “‘All those who are approved will be able to test the newest gaming technology known to mankind.’”

Menchant scrutinised the pamphlet from where he was with a hawk’s eye. “But we’ll all pass, won’t we?”

Squees shook his head. “You’ll understand with the new gaming technology we’re using, we have to be extremely careful with who is and who isn’t allowed to test our game - unfortunately, I have had to already turn away those whose medical issues would not allow them to remain in peak health. We invite you all in your interviews to make known any medical concerns or issues that may not mix well with the equipment. Are you all agreed?”

The group and I nodded, though without the same enthusiasm we had upon entering the room.


~~~~


“Alright, next!”

Those around me looked sorrier by each passing moment. I was the last one left, and everyone around me had been rejected for one reason or another. The chances for me looked slim.

“Next!”

I stepped forward towards the doorway and through, trudging my feet along the carpet with deliberate effort. A dim bulb lit the room I entered, almost half filled by a desk and those sitting behind it: Squees, and an eccentric-looking man with glasses and wiry hair. This other man was busy scribbling away in a notepad he had in front of him beside a booklet of forms.

“Howdy! Come, sit down. This is Dr Spryges, my medical consultant. He’ll be evaluating your condition based on the information you give.”

I sat down gingerly in a seat placed in front of the desk.

“Now, what’s your name?”

“Andrew...Andrew Peters.”

Dr Spryges raised his head from his work. “Middle name too, if you would not mind.”

“Um...Arthur.”

Spryges continued his writing in one of the forms. “Andrew Arthur...Peters.”

“Date of birth?”

I scratched my head. “Um, fifteenth of July, 1993.”

“Height and weight?”

I thought about it for a moment. “Um, in metric or imperial?”

Squees looked to Dr Spryges for a moment before he answered. “Imperial.”

“Then those would be...um...5 foot 11, 114 pounds.”

“Fitness level?”

The morning was still very clear in my mind. “Medium.”

“IQ?”

“I-I never took any tests...”

Dr Spryges wrote more furiously in the forms, to my discomfort.

“Any medical issues?”

“No...”

“Family history?”

I meditated on my old family life for a while before realising that my family really didn’t have any serious illnesses at all. “Well...none.”

Squees focused his eyes on me for a few seconds, and then nodded. “Excuse us for a moment.” Turning to Spryges, he spoke with him in a manner I couldn’t distinctly identify, yet with normal volume. It was almost like they conversed in a different language. Squees turned to me again. “Alright, any past testing experiences?”

“No.”

“Okay, it’s a simple deal.” Squees beckoned to Spryges for the notepad and after turning it onto a new page, placed it in front of me. “In a notepad like this, you write down what you found good, what you found bad, where there were glitches or bugs. Don’t hesitate to do what you want in the game, and do all you can.”

I was astonished. “Wait...I’m in?”

“Well, you still need to sign these forms.” Squees moved the forms over and flipped through them a bit before reaching a particular page. Passing me a pen and turning the page around, he pointed at a number of spaces that I subsequently signed. “Now...you are.”

“I’m...in?”

Squees grinned as he took a card out from within his coat and gave it to me. “This is your pass. Go to the designation written on the bottom right-hand corner, and use this to get in. Good luck!”

The card wasn’t very dissimilar from most cards that my university passed out to people – the front was covered with technical information about the degree of access and restrictions – though of course the designation for each was different (this one was E8). I put the card into my pocket and walked back out slowly before closing the door. My group still stood on the sides, now looking to me curiously.

Evan spoke first. “So...were you approved? Can you play-test?”

“...I was.”

Everyone around me became completely still.

“Y-you’re serious? You actually got in?”

“No, I’m not serious.” I took out the card and held it up. “I went into that room, and all I got was this lousy pass into the play-test session.”

What followed those last few seconds of silence must have been the most jubilant sound in all my life.


~~~~


We moved along the corridors at a vigorous pace, without even the slightest of pauses. All of us were so eager to get to E8 that we practically had to hold back our urge to run the whole way (though I’m confident that even then we would certainly have had the energy to do so).

Evan slapped my back with gusto. “I knew you would get in, Andrew! You’re too sprightly a lad not to!”

“Um...thanks, Evan.”

“No, seriously! From the moment I saw you, I was thinking to myself, ‘There’s a fellow who could go all the way to Equestria if he wanted to.’ You just did!”

“Don’t party just yet.” Menchant glanced at Evan for a second. “He still has to see if FiG’s any good or not.”

“Any good or not? By Celestia, you must be joking! Why, with such technology and such epicness, what could possibly be bad about it?”

“Well, let’s see: the graphics, the story, the gameplay mechanics--”

“Learn to recognise rhetorical questions!”

“Um, besides, Menchant, forgive me if I’m being...intrusive, but, well, weren’t you for the game when we were talking about it a few weeks back?”

“Look, Felicity, do you understand why we were going to a play-test session? To test the game.” Menchant shrugged with his hands up. “The finished product will be great - thanks to us - but this middle stage may either be very good or very bad.”

“Alright, quiet down – we’re here!” We stopped just outside a door with the desired label E8. Evan approached me with a great big grin. “Now, it is time for you to go in there and discover all that Equestria has to offer. Celestia be with you!”

I looked to everyone around me and smiled. Although but a fraction of the group were here to see me off, I was no less grateful for their farewells – the past weeks were some of the more enjoyable I had ever had. “Alright, see you later!”

“Farewell!”

“See you!”

“Bye!”

The last member stood looking almost downcast. I wondered if she somehow forgot I was going to come back. “B-b-bye!”

I held up my pass and turned back to the door. Just next to it was a small card-shaped indent that I fit the pass into. The door opened wide, and I walked all the way in.

“Ah, welcome, Mr Peters! Please, sit down.”

A smallish man was sitting behind a desk in the middle of the blindingly white room. The room apart from this man, his desk, and a chair with no back in front of it, seemed to be completely empty. As I stepped forward, the door shut with a resounding click. I took the seat with some trepidation. “Where is everything?”

“Hm? You’ll have to speak up, I’m a bit deaf.”

“I said, where is everything?”

“Where is it?”

“Yes! Where’s all the stuff: Ariadne and all that crap?”

“Oh, you won’t need it, Mr Peters.”

I stared at him. “What?”

“I said ‘You won’t need it, Mr Peters.’ Don’t worry, you’ll able to experience your world soon enough. Right, Muscles?”

“...Muscles?”

“Not you, the guy behind you.”

Suddenly I felt more dread than I had ever felt in all my life. Like any fool, I turned my seat around and met with a human-like tower. The man, if he could be called that, lowered his chiselled head down to my level and gave a deadly smile. “Hello, Mr Peters.” In a split second, he straightened back up and wound his arm up before I could protest.


*BAM*


Whatever happened next I experienced in a state of delirium. Where I was taken, and what the hell happened – shit, I cannot even remember when I woke up and fell asleep. All these moments passed me by in a measureless blur. I would not have been surprised when I finally woke up if I found that I lost half my brain cells to that punch. Unfortunately, my eventual waking was not half as pleasing as all that – I could still feel.

I awoke in a state of complete and utter agony. My mouth moved of its own accord as it screamed an unearthly cry – not only from the initial pain, but also from the pain involved in moving the jaw itself. The most I could move without more pain were my eyes, and what I saw was most juxtaposing to the situation: a garden. Or a forest. Or a jungle. To be honest, I couldn’t really fucking care at that point – I just wanted to stop hurting.

What made it worse was I knew what the pain was – I had had enough broken bones to recognise one when I broke one – and this pain coursed throughout my whole body. I can’t say how terrified I was at that point in time. For all I knew, I was abandoned here with no physical way of escape. I was going to die incapacitated by a thousand broken bones.

Without choice or reason, I began to weep. I rasped and wheezed with every painful heave of my chest, yet it was oddly satisfying to cry out the pain. I suppose it is part of what’s left of a child, the urge to cry for mama when something goes wrong or when you don’t get what you want. There was no mama here - just the echo calling from the distance.

I don’t know how long I bawled like a baby. It felt like days, though there was no real change of light. Then I heard it: a steady rhythm. Coming from something ahead of me. As I lay in my own puddle of despair, the beat of the rhythm became slowly but surely louder. I was curious enough about it to stop crying for a few moments.

It was an odd rhythm, something like one-step, two-step, one-step, two-step. It was solid and heavy, and growing louder and louder. Slowly, the beats became clear enough that I realised they were moving towards me, one step at a time. Although I was in no danger of moving anytime soon, I couldn’t help but hold my breath in panic. It could have been either my saviour, or my destroyer. My opinion slowly deteriorated as the sound became clearer.

As the sound grew closer, I became aware of a brief high-pitched whine that accompanied each and every beat. At some point during this continual rhythm, it then suddenly clicked in my mind that the sound was mechanical, almost robotic. Somehow, human technology had reached the wild reaches of the world. There was now no doubt I was going to be saved.

I opened my mouth to shout out to it, but all that exited was a mewling whimper. Better than nothing. I mewled again, and again. As much as I had to to get even the slightest of attentions from the approaching machine, I did. All this time, it came closer and closer.

Finally, I could begin to feel the vibrations in the earth as the machine came within a few metres’ reach of me. Then it stopped. As I listened vehemently, I began to hear whirring and clicking, and then a buzz. Suddenly, my hopes hit an all-time low. This did not sound good to the man in the metaphorical desert.

The buzz became louder and louder at an exponential rate, diffusing into the air as crackling sparks. The smell of ozone grew strong in the air. As the energy build-up grew larger (for this is what I assumed it was), my already-aching flesh stung from the multiplying sparks to almost what felt like a point of absolute pain.


~~~~


After that point, I must have blacked out. I can’t remember anything after that point until I woke up again in a comfortable bed. What seemed to be the interior of a very small industrial factory surrounded me. It was surprisingly quiet, given what was taking place: parts and steel and bits and pieces were being conveyed around to vices and a large furnace, yet only the odd squeak of the belts was ever heard. I supposed the films had gotten it all wrong again.

“Ah, you are awake.”

I turned all the way around to find to my astonishment an odd-looking (I couldn’t quite put my finger on it at the time) white horse with a partly blonde mane. Around its eyes, it wore a large pair of welders’ goggles that it lifted onto its forehead using its hoof upon its noticing my gaze.

“Don’t be afraid to speak or move, you should be completely fixed now. It took no pain to turn, I trust?”

I used the opportunity to swing my jaw open in amazement. It was strange enough to hear a voice and turn around to find a horse – the strangeness level increased tenfold after seeing the same horse speak as if it was a perfectly normal and ordinary thing for a horse to be doing.

“Hm? I fixed your hearing as well – you had your eardrums in the oddest conditions. I said you’re free to move and speak.”

“I, um...” I then realised how weird and wrong it felt to speak. My mouth and tongue moved in no way I had ever moved them, and...I felt I was going to speak in a completely different language, yet I completely understood what I was saying and going to say. The horse spoke in this same language that due to my familiarity I first understood to be English. I had the strangest feeling about all this.

“Ah, suit yourself. Whenever you feel like leaving, there’s an elevator that will take you to the surface. In the meantime, I have tea and coffee on the brew, cream and milk if you want that. I’ll be monitoring the factory in a room over to your right side if you need me.” The horse smiled and before going to leave, put its welders’ goggles back on.

I put the weirdness of speaking behind me before it went too far. “Wait! Where am I, and why am I thinking...a-and speaking in your language?”

The horse turned back around somewhat perplexed (even more weird than the speaking bit). “You are in Equestria, and are speaking the age-old Equestrian language.”

“No, I don’t mean that, I meant...”

The horse thought for a moment, and made a face that could have been mistaken for a mischievous look. “You mean why do you not speak the language of the eastern Griffons, or why do you not speak the language of the Hippocampi from the far west seas?”

“...I suppose?”

“You are a pony, born and bred in Equestria most likely. With such a crash as I heard, I can’t blame you for forgetting.”

“A...pony?”

“You don’t even remember what you are? Take a good look at yourself!”

A lump rose into my throat as my eyes slowly slid down to my body. A tan brown fur covered the vast breadth of my body, as fine as the horse’s own, and likely not that much different at all. I then lifted up one of my hands.

Instead of my pink fingers, I saw my arm ending at a big round hoof.


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