During the hours the Lady's cloak had been bathing in magic, and the Mikoyan had been high above and far away from anything else, the former had... adjusted the latter - at least somewhat. The bridge, where it had been, had been nudged the most - just about every visible piece of wood was now heavily engraved with pictures of sprouting plants and animals frolicking; or the wood itself was sprouting flowers. The effect faded with distance, so the prow of the ship looked the same as when we'd started.
As we'd come in for a landing, we'd carefully woken up the crew who'd let themselves get sleep-zapped rather than risk becoming part of a Bacchanalia. Most of them had just raised their eyebrows at the new decoration scheme, then gotten to work checking the ship for damage. Thus, moments after the manticore landed, half a dozen ponies were crouched behind pieces of cover, aiming wands at it. Fortunately, it didn't seem interested in immediate mayhem; but after landing and making its initial pronouncement, crouched in place, muttering to itself as its eyes flicked over the ship.
I walked side-by-side with Red toward the bow, trying to ignore the flowers that bloomed in each of my hoofsteps. As we passed the mast, I was able to start making out, "... multi-species crew, blue shirts with logos on the chest, holding, I don't know, maybe they're stunners, a flying ship with two engines out on pods - I guess somebody was feeling a bit derivative. At least they were smart enough to avoid making the shirts red. Oh, here come a couple more - maybe they're the speaking NPCs."
Red whispered to me, "He sounds like he's speaking Equestrian instead of the local tongue, but I'm still not sure I understand him."
I whispered back, "I think I do - and it makes me nervous. But - let's try introducing ourselves, maybe it'll work out."
Red nodded, then stepped ahead of Armina, who was the frontmost of the crew. "I'm Captain Red Hot Chili Pepper of the airship Mikoyan."
The manticore puffed out its - his - chest, and bellowed, "I am Dirk Steel, the Dark Phoenix! What are you doing in my bay?"
I coughed, and found myself stepping forward. "Our five-month mission is to explore strange, new continents; to seek out new species and new cultures; to harmoniously go where nopony has gone before." Red looked at me and raised an eyebrow; I shrugged.
"Well," Dirk grumbled, "So much for originality. I suppose this is the scripted encounter so players who munchkin on combat have a chance to take it over and get to the finale that way." I raised a hoof for attention. "What?"
"I'd really prefer if you didn't try to take over my ship. It really does need a full crew, and whether or not you beat the crew trying to take it, you might hurt so many of them that it wouldn't be of any use to either of us."
He lowered his head to peer down at me. He snorted a few times... and his breath, frankly, stank, of both rotten meat and unbrushed teeth. "Say... you're not a player, are you?"
I debated for a split-second about how much detail to go into, which layer of secrecy to focus on; and decided to go with the MIB (CIB?) approach. "Would the fact that I've learned the words 'human', 'internet', and 'Canada' answer your question?"
"Finally!" He flopped down onto his belly, curling his tail along his side. "I was beginning to think I was the only one in this beta test!"
"You think this is a.. beta test?"
"What, are you on a production server? Or an in-house one?"
"Um." I scratched my head with a hoof. "I'm not sure I can answer that, at least the way you meant it. Was there, by any chance, a mysterious stranger who offered to let you... be here?"
"What, you mean Harry? Yeah, he was so impressed by my tricked-out rig and my special sauce, he gave me an invite on the spot."
"'Special sauce'?" Even I was starting to get confused at that point.
"Oh, yeah - I've worked out a trick that gives me an edge in any game I play. Really brings my hindbrain into action."
"Is it secret?"
"Nah - it'd just take you years to manage it yourself. I use self-hypnosis, so that I see myself inside the game. Gives me just that fraction of a second improved reflexes - but when a camper's sniping, and the engine's good enough to throw in sound-delay for the shot, a fraction of a second's just enough to make the dodge. Harry saw me trying out my new upgrade to my rig - a biofeedback sensor helmet. Gave me a helluva shock the first time I plugged it in, but even without any improvements, it's let me reach a whole new level. I wouldn't attack me, if you're thinking of sneaking a surprise on me - my reflexes are so good I'd have your throat out before you could say 'gangam style', even if it did aggro your mooks."
I rubbed my head slowly. This was all sorts of not-good, in just about every way I could name - and in a few ways I couldn't, since I'd never heard the term he'd just used. "And... what about the real world?"
"Ah, this new game's a peach. Persistent continuous gameplay, so I've gotta be logged in most of the time to really get through the grinding. I don't know about your config, but I've got my logout tied in with having my avatar fall asleep."
"What happens if something knocks you...r avatar out?"
"Hasn't happened yet."
"I've got something that's supposed to create a pretty good sleep effect - mind if I try it on you?"
"Very funny. Still haven't decided not to take your ship - or at least kill everyone aboard. Don't want you hitting the final quest before I do."
I bluffed a bit, "What makes you think it's the final one?"
"Are you kidding? The graphics are great, but whoever they've got writing this is a hack - start on one corner of a linear continent, and at the far end is the mysterious island shrouded in storms that nobody's been able to get to? You're not exactly a shining beacon of creativity yourself, even if it is a nice-looking airship. What are those things your party's pointing at me, magical phasers?"
"The name 'fuzzer' was proposed for them," I admitted.
"See? I bet that once somebody picks up the plot coupon to get to that island, it'll be a straight-up fetch quest. Kill the local elite team, then the big boss, get a nice shiny reward, and maybe have your character become the big boss for the production release. Or my character, I should say - I'm not going to let you win just because you picked up some fancy toys. If I'd known there was steampunk stuff available, maybe I'd have worked more on crafting than collecting an NPC army?"
"... A whole army, you say?"
"Yeah - they've really made a good conversational engine here. Well, I think they have - I think the whole thing might be bankrolled by that phone company, since everyone around here speaks Finnish, or something like that. But I've picked up enough that I can show up, shout a few words, kill anyone who challenges me, and the rest of the fighters join right up. Hey, how'd you like to be on Team Phoenix? I don't know what you were thinking when you picked that species, but you've got a nice ship - and coming in second's better than getting tossed out of the game entirely, right?"
"Depends. Maybe I should be asking you to join Team, um, Dairy."
He bellowed a laugh. "You haven't even picked a name yet? Lemme guess - you're a role-player, not a munchkin, aren't you?"
"So you can defeat locals in duels - are you really enough of a combat monster to even help taking down an endgame boss?"
The tip of his tail apparently teleported, the stinger resting against my throat. "More of a monster than you. The local random quest system has its hits and misses, but I've killed enough evil lords and local monsters to up my stats pretty high."
I tried to pretend I was completely calm as I gently touched the end of his tail with my hoof, and pushed it away - and tried to ignore the drop of clear fluid that was beading at its tip. "Tell you what," I said, "I may not be a meat-shield, but I do have my uses. For example, I've crafted a magic item with the command word 'vomitere'," and here I paused a moment, for I was concentrating on the opals in my cow-stomach and getting this monster - in several senses of the word - to lose his lunch. Unfortunately, he seemed to be just as resistant to that sort of magic as the local dragons, so I continued, "which has the effects you might guess, and-"
"Wait," he said, grinning, "did you just try and whammy me? While we were talking?" He snapped the fingers on one of his forepaws together, and I briefly envied him the ability to do so. "I bet you started off on a different continent, and that's why you've got all this cool stuff but you've been pumping me for information. I bet you don't even know how the local anti-magic system works. Still - if you're up to trying that, then whatever secret weapon you're getting ready inside your ship is probably almost ready to go."
I tried to keep my expression blank, as if I was hiding my reaction to his statement about the secret weapon that I wished I'd thought of working on. Things seemed to be coming to a head - or, at least, the conversation seemed to be winding up - so I tried to think of something I could do to neutralize Dirk - as he didn't think any of what was around us was real, he didn't have any qualms about taking who-knew-how-many lives. Maybe I could use my glue spell on the planks he was standing on, and hope the effect was physical enough to affect him; or I could run back to the safe the Warden Whistle was in; or... there was the powered-up Lady's cloak, which I was still wearing. (The thought came across my mind that maybe Dirk was bluffing about having anti-magic, and maybe the cloak had just drained my opals' magic.)
Mind-control was a terrible thing - but mass-murder was at least arguably worse than using minor mind-control to prevent it. So I tried activating the cloak's powers of command by concentrating on what I'd have to do to him if the cloak's magic failed, and ordered him, "No killing."
He blinked a few times at me, then shrugged. "Nah, I'm not going to kill you. Too many games have those stupid cooperative puzzles near the end, and you're the only other player I've found. But I'm getting bored here. I think I'll get back to the ol' pillaging, looting, raping, and setting fire to stuff grind, and come back for ya if I need ya."
I tried to hurriedly shout out, "No rap-!" but before I did, his wings had spread and he was gone.
I closed my eyes and let my head thunk against the railing.
Red said, "We're going to have a nice little debrief about everything that just happened, aren't we?"
"Yep. Soon as you help me get my horns out. Again."