Luna inhaled strongly. The smell of the electronics store filled her nostrils. She made her way to where the games were held.
Inspecting the shelves, she wondered at the sheer number of video games. Many attracted her attention, but one game in particular stood out. She grabbed a copy of it. Sid Maier's Nations 5 as it told her on the art.
As she flipped the box around to look at the back, a salespony, oblivious that he was speaking to royalty said, "Ah, Nations 5. I recommend this: you won't find a game more fun."
"I thank thee for thy recommendation." Luna turned to face the salespony, who gasped and fainted at seeing his princess. Sighing, Luna inspected a few more games before buying Nations 5, garnering a few more surprised gasps from the staff.
When she finally convinced the cash register-pony to take her bits to buy the game, she quickly teleported back to her quarters and began installing it. Congratulating herself on sneaking out, Luna waited for the game to finish, reading the manual on what Nations was.
After a few more minutes of install, it was ready to play. Luna squealed in excitement, booting up the game and quickly choosing multiplayer. She scrolled through the game's selection of historical nations of the planet's past. Gryphany, the Dragon Kingdom, the Wyvern Federation, the Nation of Equestria, and many more were all playable.
Unable to make up her mind, she finally went the natural route and chose her beloved nation. As she looked further into the stats for her choice in the lobby screen while she waited for a match, she noted that each nation or civilization had some special bonus, along with a unique unit or building that replaced a standard one.
Soon the game notified her of a match and commenced to launch the map she selected. Luna checked who she was going up against, as she chose the smallest map, meant for only one other player. Her opponent was somepony who used the gamer-tag of The Gemfinder.
Luna sent a now customary "gl hf" as soon as the map finished loading, which was courteously replied to. Getting down to business, Luna settled her first city of Canterlot where her settler-ponies started and sent her band of recruits to scout the map.
She soon realized that this was more like chess than Ponycraft ever had been, as both Gemfinder and the game soon pointed out that she needed to end her turn, rather than just let time pass.
"You know,” Gemfinder began in the chat, "you remind me of somepony I had visited only a few days ago..."
Shrugging, Luna continued with her scouting, finding an ancient ruin that yielded her nation a free technology. She pumped her fore-hoof in the air in enthusiasm, hoping that it gave her an edge.
As time went on and her empire expanded, Luna specialized it for building the large wonders of the game, managing to grab a decent number of them. While she built, she sent some of her ocean-worthy ships across the sea, in the hopes of finding where her enemy was.
Abruptly she was warned of opposing forces inside her borders. Snapping her view to it, she felt her heart sink as she saw multiple units already on her small continent with many more coming from the sea.
She frantically sent orders for all her ships to return to defend against the invading land units, but it would take multiple turns, something which her cities with their few defending units didn't have.
Watching in horror, Luna witnessed the fall of her capital, signaling the end of the game. She sent a resigned good game, Gemfinder returning it with a word of advice, "You work towards wonders too much, darling. You must balance your production with military units too."
Punching the air in frustration, Luna clicked on singleplayer, choosing the same nation, but paused on the difficulty. The difficulty levels were classed by rank of state and life. After a moment, Luna smirked and chose Deity difficulty. "This will be a true test of my abilities..." she mumbled to herself.
When the map loaded, she again settled her capital and began scouting.
Soon she ran across a fellow nation: the Zebras. After a brief introduction in his native tongue, the Zebra emperor paused in expectation.
"Greetings, o exalted Zebra ruler, I am Princess Luna, ruler of the night and of Equestria." Luna greeted cordially.
Onscreen, her Zebra counterpart merely waited, garnering no reaction. Luna awkwardly chuckled, remembering this was a game, not real life.
Moving through the diplomacy screen's different tabs, Luna eventually bid a virtual farewell to the Zebra emperor and continued to scout around her now shared continent.
A handful of turns later and Luna had completed her first wonder and recruited a group of ponies from Canterlot to construct improvements to her territory's terrain.
After she set them on autopilot, she continued scouting and soon met another world leader, Frederick of Gryphany. When the diplomacy screen commenced, he introduced himself, and sat back, content to icily scrutinize Luna from the screen.
She tried to negotiate an embassy in their two capitals, but he didn't agree to it on any terms. Shrugging her shoulders, Luna closed the diplomacy screen and went on her way building more wonders.
Soon Frederick popped up again, choosing some nasty words to say to the other leaders of the world about her. Flabbergasted, Luna retaliated in kind, gaining some favor in the eyes of the Zebra nation.
Warily, Luna soon began building a small military to guard her homeland, something wisely done. Shortly after his random denunciation of her, Frederick attacked, already equipped with old firearms and trebuchets.
Luna jumped back in shock. How could the computer be already so far ahead? In contempt, she fought as hard as he could with her basic warriors and swordsmen, but her capital was soon razed, signaling her defeat.
Muffling her rage, she decided to quit before she took out her frustration on the computer. After closing the game, she turned on Ponycraft once more. A beep informing her that Resonance was online.
Almost instantly, she was invited to another party by Resonance. Luna reluctantly joined.
"That was a short rage-quit," Resonance began.
"Thou shall not speak a word," Luna warned. Sighing, she asked, "Wherefore are Twilight and Rainbow Dash."
"Eh--They left shortly after... ya know." Resonance responded. Luna winced at the reminder, stomach churning still in anger from thier defeat by Ponymus. "It doesn't really matter. Want to play a couple more rounds?"
"Nay. I have had my fill of your strategy games for now." Luna replied, staring blankly at the screen.
"You were pretty pumped this morning," he stated. "What suddenly changed your mind?"
"Have thou ever tried Sid Maier's Nations 5?" Luna inquired, looking over her chair towards her bedroom suite's door after she heard a small scuffling in the hall going by. Dismissing it as only a servant stumbling, she waited for Resonance's reply.
"Are you kidding?" he asked incredulously. "Who hasn't? Well, I'm sure some ponies haven't--but yeah; I've played that to death!"
Luna began to open her mouth, only for him to cut her off. "It's an expression of speech.
"So you went out and got Nations 5, huh?" he continued. "Don't tell me you--"
"--played multiplayer once we bought the game?" she finished. "Yea; but we did not expect the computer to cheat!"
"Wait, what? What difficulty did you play on?" he asked, sounding surprised.
"Deity: something that seemed truly worthy of our status!" Luna declared.
She heard a resounding smack on the other end of the conversation. "You did not just play it on hardest difficulty, did you?" he asked flatly.
"Yes?" she whispered.
Dead silence came from her headset for a minute. Finally Resonance said, "How about you try a different game, or I don't know, take a break?"
"Nay, we want to continue experiencing the wonders of the modern pony age!" Luna snapped back.
"Uh-huh. How about I call you on the phone, and I'll help you find a new game?" Resonance asked, sounding slightly annoyed.
"Your princess would enjoy it immensely." she answered emphatically.
***
"This is truly an odd experience." Luna stated, looking at the blocky, three-dimensional world in front of her.
"That's Minecraft." Resonance affirmed.
Luna tested out the controls. Different from the other PC games she tried, but nothing she couldn't get used to. "I thank thee for helping me understand how to use this... Minecraft's 'website'."
After Resonance explained to Luna over the phone what Minecraft was, he walked her through her first exploration on the internet, something she only used prior for gaming.
When she finally understood how downloading and buying a game via the internet worked, Luna eagerly bought Minecraft and jumped into the game, creating a new world.
Still talking to Resonance, Luna began exploring the underground caverns of her world, in search of raw materials.
"You do have it on easy right?" Resonance asked.
"Thou said that the enemies of this game are easy to defeat. Therefore, we have set our--my difficulty to--" Luna screamed. Without warning, a green, four-legged vertical rectangle with a smaller box head jumped from who knows where and exploded in Luna's character's face, killing the virtual pony.
When her heart finally slowed down from her fright, she heard Resonance trying to muffle his laughter. "I assume you just met the feared 'Creepus Explodus', otherwise known as the Creeper?" he asked, still chuckling at her startled outcry.
Ignoring his mirth-filled question, she complained, "'Tis unfair! How were we supposed to see that enemy!?"
"That's the point of the creeper: it creeps around and explodes on you when you least expect it." Resonance explained. "Look. How about I you give the internet address of a server I play on, and I can show you the ropes?"
Luna nodded. Realizing he couldn't hear a nod, she verbally agreed. Moments later, she was playing alongside her gaming companion, who was showing her around the impressive spawn village.
Giant cathedrals, towers, and monuments dotted the city. Luna looked around in awe; could a pony truly build something so lifelike just from blocks? Echoing her internal question, she asked Resonance about the wonders before her.
"Actually, I helped improve the town," he stated. "Just a pastime, mind you. But I've spent quite a bit of time on this server."
As if on cue, the members who were on recognized one of their own, sending out chat greetings. Replying to them, he also introduced Luna, under the rather thin guise of her gamer-tag that she had used prior on Mares of Duty.
Oblivious to whom they were with; the other members cordially welcomed her to the server, something which she appreciated.
Luna turned her character to look at Resonance's, who was giving her some gear. "Thou hast spare diamond armor?" she asked in slight wonderment. He had explained to her earlier the tiers of armor and weapons in the game, diamond being on top, but exceedingly rare.
"When you have as much time as I do in the evenings; then yes." he answered as she equipped the items.
As Luna continued equipping the items, Resonance explained some of the basic things she would have to learn about the game. "I'll set up an area where they'll easily spawn, and you can practice fighting the different enemies." he said, running to a series of signs with different names on them.
Following his prompts, Luna selected the proper sign and was dropped into a new location, that being of a small rural town. After Resonance spawned in too, she followed him as he dashed off towards a plains area in the distance.
***
"HAVE AT THEE, FOUL UNDEAD ARCHER!" Luna proclaimed as she sliced cleanly at a skeleton-pony who was shooting arrows at her. She quickly brought down her adversary with her blade; her final kill of the night.
Turning to look at Resonance, who watched her battle the hordes of enemies that spawned during the night, Luna ordered her character to make its way up to him.
Sounding mildly impressed, Resonance said, "You caught on quick. I guess you starting off with Mares of Duty was a good thing."
Before she could reply, a notice on the bottom of the game screen caught her attention. "Ponymus Prime has joined the game." it said. Almost instantly, the members began logging off the server.
"Impossible! How did he find us?" Luna inquired in disbelief.
Resonance sighed. "He is a sad fact of this server. He found out about it online or somewhere and has since pestered us every now and then." Moving his character back towards the town, he continued, "Ponymus isn't really as dangerous on Minecraft. He's rather obnoxious and is a tried-and-true griefer, or somepony who gets enjoyment from destroying other pony's work in Minecraft, but he does little damage thanks to our constant backups of the server."
As if to confirm that statement, Ponymus appeared in the town and began knocking out blocks in the different buildings. Charging in rage, Luna brought her diamond sword to bear, trusting in her armor to protect her against her unarmored and unarmed foe.
"Luna! Don't!" Resonance warned, but to no avail.
Ponymus swirled around and magically flew into the air before coming back down and giving one swing at Luna, instantly killing her character.
"I could've warned you that he uses invincibility and other hacks, that's how we haven't killed him, or keep him banned for that matter." Resonance stated, sounding slightly worried at the dead silence from the other end.
Without a word, Luna disconnected from the server, quit Minecraft, and turned off her phone. She sat silently on her chair in front of her computer, staring through narrow slits of eyes at the screen.
Sighing, she took a look at one last game she hadn't tried. Angrily grabbing Pony Wars: Republic in Turmoil she inserted its game disc into her computer. Resonance could wait, she needed time alone.
After a few minutes of install time, she booted up the game.