//------------------------------// // Chapter Eight: Canterlot Bound // Story: Vinyl and Octavia Engage in Roleplay // by DoctorSpectrum //------------------------------// “Good afternoon, Natural Twenty,” said Octavia as she opened the door to greet her guest. It was a few days later, and as Natural Twenty had said he would, he had come around for the next session.   “Good afternoon to you too, Octavia,” greeted Natural Twenty. “How have things been since I last saw you?”   “Fairly well,” said Octavia as she and Natural Twenty slowly made their way to the lounge room. “I performed at a concert last night, so at the very least I don’t have to worry about paying bills this month. How about yourself?”   “Yeah, pretty much the same,” Natural Twenty said. Just like during the last session, the coffee table had a game mat, dice, and figurines scattered upon it. “Work is a jerk, but the money is always nice.” He looked around the room for a moment. “Is Vinyl around? I‘d like to get started as soon as possible, in case this session ends up being dragged out as long as the last one. Not that I’m expecting that, of course.”   Octavia raised an eyebrow as she seated herself on the couch. “Oh? What makes you so sure that this will be a short session?”   “During what little spare time I had over the past few days, I did some play-testing of this session using your characters,” Natural Twenty explained, sitting down in the same armchair he’d occupied a few days ago.   “Well, that sounds like the intelligent thing to have done,” said Octavia, nodding in approval. “How did things go?”   “Let’s see…” Natural Twenty said, retrieving some pieces of paper from his saddlebag. “Well, I was trying to do what I expected you two would-”   “And?” Octavia interrupted impatiently.   “- and so for the first session I spent about two hours with your characters arguing amongst themselves before deciding that I probably had better things to do,” Natural Twenty said matter-of-factly.   “Hey, don’t be so unrealistic!” protested Octavia. “Two hours is far too short an argument time for Vinyl and I! Well, I suppose it depends upon whether one counts the angry sex we usually end up having halfway through…”   “Anyway,” interrupted Natural Twenty, pretending not to have heard the last few lines, “the second play-test went much better. Your characters rolled terribly on their way out of the village, got spotted and their disguises were seen through, and then they ended up in a fight against the villagers.”   “…And you call that better?” asked Octavia, raising an eyebrow once more.   “To be fair, it didn’t really get better until you were kicked into the ravine, and Vinyl failed to save you or survive the fall down there,” Natural Twenty said gleefully. He put a hoof to his chin in thought. “Come to think of it, when I say it was better, I meant better for me.”   Octavia sighed. “Whatever. So long as I get some decent loot, I-”   “’Sup, guys?” Octavia was interrupted as a door slid open and Vinyl entered the room. She walked over to Octavia, collapsed onto her, and then slid to the floor. “Man, are we ready for the roleplay already? Sweet as.” Vinyl looked over to Natural Twenty. “How’s it going, Natural?”   “I am doing quite well, thank you, Vinyl,” he replied politely. “How are you?”   Vinyl grinned at him. It wasn’t her usual trademark grin – it was slightly more lopsided and wobbly. “I’m drunk!” she said happily.   “…Okay,” Natural Twenty replied after a moment of hesitation. “Will this impede your ability to roleplay for this session?”   “’Course it won’t!” Vinyl exclaimed. “I’m like, so happy and coherent when I’m drunk, y’know? Man, I am gonna be all over rolling dices and stuff today!”   “If you insist,” said Natural Twenty nonchalantly. “And there is no plural of dice; dice is the plural of die.”   “Whatever!” said Vinyl, clumsily climbing to her hooves. “I know what I’m talking abo-whoah!” Within moments of stability, Vinyl somehow managed to fall backwards onto Octavia, so that she was leaning on the Earth pony. “Hey babe,” she said, rearranging herself slightly so that she was sharing the couch with Octavia, “is this seat taken?” She gave Octavia a quick kiss on the mouth.   Octavia giggled nervously. “Vinyl, we have to start the roleplay – Natural Twenty has travelled quite a distance to get here, and as pleased as I would be to cuddle you for a while, we shouldn’t keep him waiting."   Vinyl grinned again. “You’re a cool mare, Octavia! I like what you talk about!” She rolled to the ground with a loud thump!, dragged herself over to the armchair she had sat in the other day, and then awkwardly climbed into it. “So are we starting, or what?” she asked as Octavia passed her character sheet to her.   “That we are,” said Natural Twenty. “As I’m sure you’ll both recall, last session ended with you two managing to disrupt the magical field protecting the sword and the tablet of the village, and-”   “We were about to have sex!” interrupted Vinyl loudly. Natural Twenty cringed slightly.   “Yes… I was sort of hoping that we could start this session after that happened in-universe,” he said.   “Yeah, whatever man. It’s all cool, right?” Vinyl said. “So, like… can I take the sword?”   “Like buck you can!” Octavia exclaimed. “That sword is my loot, Vinyl!”   “But…but… but you get the tablet for that…thing…that was in the temple, yes?” Vinyl pouted at Octavia as she finished her stammering.   “Well…how about you can have it for now, and then when we have all three we can head back to the temple and you can give it back to me then?” Octavia suggested mischievously. “That way I’ll still get it, but you can have it for longer!”   “Cool!” said Vinyl, grinning happily in spite of how much she was getting screwed over. “Right, so I’ll…roll?”   “What for?” asked Natural Twenty.   “I dunno. What do we normally roll for again?” Although Vinyl was staring at the board, her gaze was unfocused, and she wasn’t blinking.   “You could roll to try and escape the village without being seen, I suppose,” suggested Natural Twenty. “Unless you want to do something else here before leaving, of course.”   “Hmm…although I do not wish to stay here for too long, I do wonder whether there may be a clue as to where the next tablet is hidden…” Octavia thought out loud. “Vinyl, your mask disguising you as the village chieftess lasts one hour, correct?”   “…Yes?” said Vinyl, squinting at her character sheet.   “Right. Natural Twenty, how much longer before that disappears?” Octavia asked.   “Roll an endurance check and I’ll tell you,” he said.   “Why?”   “It’ll determine how much longer it lasts.”   “Okay…” Octavia said, rolling at his behest. What is this all in aid of? An endurance check shouldn’t affect the magic of the mask… “Fifteen with modifiers,” she said.   “Right, so multiply that by three… Vinyl’s mask will last another five minutes,” Natural Twenty said.   “How so? That’s rather specific,” Octavia said.   “Well, according to your endurance check you two had sex for forty-five minutes, and I added five minutes before and after it. Hence five minutes,” Natural Twenty explained, grinning at his own inventiveness.   The one time when taking my time works against me! Octavia thought to herself. “Right, in that case, we should probably get out of the village whilst we still can, Vinyl. At least, you probably should; the villagers think that I am the chieftess’ friend.”   “Nah, no stress, Octavia,” said Vinyl, slurring her words slightly as she looked at Octavia from a slightly tilted angle. “I can totally use the mask again probably.”   “Really?” Octavia asked, surprised.   “Yeah…at least, I think that’s what 3-slash-Day means, right next to it.” Vinyl leaned over to pass Octavia her character sheet, but fell out of her seat in the process, landing flat on her face. “Oof!”    “Huh. It seems as though you are correct, Vinyl,” said Octavia. “Well then, I assume that you’ll use it once your current mask runs out of magical power?” A muffled sound came from the carpet where Vinyl’s face was. “We’ll take that as a yes.”   “Alright then, since I assume that Vinyl will use her final use of the utility talent for the day once this second mask runs out of magical power, the two of you have two hours to explore the village,” Natural Twenty summarised. “What would you like to do?”   “I’ll hide my sword, and step out into the village,” Octavia said. “I plan to see whether the villagers have any idea where the next tablet is.”   “I’ll find somewhere to get a drink!” said Vinyl as she managed to pull herself up from the floor and back into her chair.   “Right then. Octavia, roll a persuasion check, since I assume that you shall be asking the local villagers about the tablet. Vinyl, roll a streetwise check.” Both ponies did so.   “Natural Twenty!” cried Vinyl after squinting at her roll for a moment to read the die properly.   “Oh, good roll, Vinyl,” said Natural Twenty.   “No, no, I meant like…your name, Natural Twenty…because it’s Natural Twenty, yeah?” Vinyl said, slurring more. “Hey, that’s just like a dice roll!”   “…I never noticed,” said Natural Twenty in a deadpan tone. “What did you roll, Vinyl?”   “Natural…six?” Vinyl said hesitantly. “Hey, that totally sounds like the name of your brother! Do you have a brother?”   Natural Twenty grimaced. “I don’t talk about Natural Six much,” he said. “But regardless, you manage to find a nearby stream; the apparent source of the village’s water.” He smiled. “You were looking for a drink, after all.”   “YES!” shouted Vinyl, leaping into the air and managing to fall out of her chair once more. “Oof! I’m okay, everypony!”   “Excellent,” said Natural Twenty casually. “Now, Octavia, what did you roll?”   “A twenty-four, with modifiers,” said Octavia, looking quite pleased with herself.   “Good roll,” complimented Natural Twenty. “You ask around the village for a bit, and although most ponies are too reluctant to tell you anything, particularly after you mention that you know about the temple, you eventually find a villager who trusts you based on the ‘chieftess’’ judgement.”   “What does he say?” asked Octavia eagerly.   “According to him, two of the three tablets needed for the temple were stolen generations ago to parts unknown. As neither he, nor anypony here, has ever left the village and explored Equestria properly, he has no idea where they would be after all these years.”   “Leaving that plot thread for us to find over the course of several sessions, Natural?” Octavia asked, smiling. He smiled in return. “But of course, my dear Octavia. How else am I supposed to pad out – I mean, make the campaign a decent and realistic length?”   Octavia shrugged. “Well, so long as I get some decent loot I shall be pleased. Speaking of, what does this sword do? I assume that it is more than just a shiny sharp piece of metal.”   “Roll a perception check to work it out,” Natural Twenty said. Octavia did so.   “How does a twenty-two with modifiers sound?” Octavia asked confidently.   “Nah, that’s pretty crappy.”   “What?”   “This sword may or may not have an enchantment, but if it did – which believe me, it may not – I wouldn’t make it easy to find,” Natural Twenty said. “After all, this is a treasure of the village – they don’t want just anypony working out what it does.”   “Ooh! Can I try and work out what it does?” Vinyl asked, putting her hoof up in the air and jumping up and down on the armchair. “I’ll roll a magic check since it’s magic! Like…magic!”   “Very well, Vinyl, you may roll an Arcana check,” agreed Natural Twenty.   “Natural Twenty!”   “…Are you saying my name this time, or did you roll a natural twenty?” the DM asked.   “…Both?” Vinyl asked, staring at the die, which true to her confusing claim, had landed on twenty.   “Well, seeing as how only you worked out what the sword does, I’ll have to tell you without Octavia finding out,” Natural Twenty said. Vinyl got off the armchair, stumbled her way over to Natural Twenty, and awkwardly leaned towards him as he said something in a low tone.   “Wait… isn’t that, like, totally unfair?” Vinyl asked as he finished, looking towards the board. Octavia raised an eyebrow.   “Potentially, but if she were to…” Natural’s voice went low again as he continued speaking to Vinyl.   “Well…okay then…” said Vinyl, clumsily making her way back to her seat.   “Well?” said Octavia after a moment of silence.   “…No, I was drinking from a river…I think,” said Vinyl, squinting and staring at the board.   “…I meant, ‘Well, what does the sword do?’” Octavia deadpanned.   “Oh! Um, well, Natural Twenty said that rocks would fall if I told you since that would spoil the surprise… I dunno what that means, but it sounds scary,” said Vinyl, her gaze focusing and unfocusing on Octavia as she spoke. “Hey, Octavia… did you know that you’re at a weird angle?”   “Well…could you at least tell me where the sword would be useful?” asked Octavia, giving a cautionary glance to Natural Twenty as she spoke.   Vinyl too looked to Natural Twenty to find him frowning and shaking his head. “…No?” she said.   “Fine then, I suppose I shall just try and roll another perception check later,” said Octavia, sighing. “At any rate, as we have no idea where the next few tablets are, I suppose we should head out of the jungle.”   “Canterlot!” exclaimed Vinyl. Octavia gave her a look. “What? They’ve got good bars there. Anything’s better than this boring old stream.” Vinyl seemed a little more coherent than before – she mustn’t have had as much to drink as Octavia had thought she had.   Octavia mused over Vinyl’s suggestion. “Well, I suppose that as the capital of Equestria, there may be information passing through there about the tablets, so it is as good a place as any to try. We should leave the village, and then find the path to head in that will lead us in the general direction of-”   “After several days of travel,” interrupted Natural Twenty, “the two of you arrive in Canterlot, the bustling capital of Equestria. Everywhere around you are fancy ponies with more bits to their names than you could ever dream of having! The paths are all-”   “Hang on a minute,” said Octavia, being the one to interrupt Natural Twenty this time, “did we just…arrive in Canterlot?”   “Not just then – it took you several days’ journey. But from a meta level, yes,” Natural Twenty confirmed.   “How the bloody hay does that work?” Octavia asked, frowning. “If we want to cross the jungle, or get through a temple, it takes us a billion rolls and several hours of real-life play, but if we want to get to a city which is several days’ travel by train, we just teleport there?”   “Well, I was really skipping over the travel time, since nothing interesting happened there,” explained Natural Twenty. “But it did take you two as long as you said – you caught a train, and –”   “How?” Octavia interrupted again. “We lost all of our possessions at the start of the campaign – we have no money with which to buy tickets.”   “I have a tablet!” said Vinyl, oblivious to the conversation. “As a matter of fact,” Octavia continued, “where is the train station? There’s hardly going to be one in the middle of the jungle now, is there? And if there’s one just outside the jungle, then how the bloody buck did we get through the jungle without any food, water, shelter, or being eaten by the creatures that reside within it?”   Natural Twenty sighed, and put a hoof to his eyes. After a minute or so of silence, he rolled a d20. It landed on sixteen. “There, that’s how.”   “…What?” Octavia asked.   “A powerful wizard on the other side of Equestria was trying to teleport his bag full of money to him, but he fumbled the spell and instead sent it to you. The spell also teleported you two to the nearest train station,” Natural Twenty said. “Better?”   “Fine,” said Octavia, rolling her eyes. “What shall we do now that we’re in Canterlot, Vinyl?”   “Wait – we’re in Canterlot?” Vinyl exclaimed. “I hate Canterlot!”   “…You suggested we go here,” Octavia said, controlling her rage.   “Did I? Dunno why I’d do that, Canterlot’s full of snobs,” said Vinyl, taken aback.   “…We live in Canterlot,” Octavia said, pointing out the window.   “When the hay was that mentioned?!” Vinyl shouted in surprise, staring at the window as though she’d never seen it before.   As Octavia facehoofed, Natural Twenty quietly said, “For the record, it’s fairly late at night when you arrive in Canterlot.”   “Well then, I suppose we should find a place to spend the night, since I assume that you won’t just give us our house in Canterlot,” said Octavia. “I’ll drag Vinyl towards the nearest inn.”   “Right. Anything you two want to do before going to bed?” Natural Twenty asked.   “…Sex?” Vinyl suggested.   “If you must,” said Natural Twenty, rolling his eyes. “Now, I’ll need both of you to roll perception checks.” Both ponies did so. “Did either of you get above twenty-three with modifiers?” The two mares shook their heads.   “Right then,” said Natural Twenty. “As a result of this, neither of you hear the hoofsteps in your room in the middle of the night, so neither of you wake up.”   “…Where are you going with this, Natural Twenty?” asked Octavia, frowning.   “Do you think that we could have sleep-sex with each other?” asked Vinyl bluntly to Octavia.   “The next day, the two of you wake up to find yourselves in a completely different place,” said Natural Twenty, ignoring Vinyl. “It’s dark, creaking, and the room appears to be moving somewhat. You can’t see where you are in the darkness.”   Swallowing, Octavia rolled a die. “I am rolling a perception check to work out where we are,” she stated.   “Nice roll,” said Natural Twenty, looking at the die. “From a few clues – namely the moving of the room and the material it’s made out of – you’re able to deduce where you are and what happened.”   He stared at the two ponies as he said the next part. “You have been kidnapped from your room in the middle of the night by unknown parties, and spirited away. At the moment, Vinyl and Octavia, you are being forcibly shipped.”