//------------------------------// // Prologue // Story: Equestria RPG // by ketpony5 //------------------------------// Equestria RPG Prologue * * * >finalize patch_v12 INITIALIZING EQUESTRIA.EXE GENERATING LANDSCAPES... PUTTING ROCKS INSIDE THE DIRT PUTTING DIRT INSIDE THE ROCKS MAKING THE WORLD EVIL ...DONE SETTLING WATER... DONE LOADING BUILDING INTERIORS... [HOUSE_1] THROUGH [HOUSE_2127] COMPLETE ERROR: [HOUSE_77] FAILED TO READ HOUSE77.DAT WARNING: SEGMENT VIOLATION CANCELLING [HOUSE_77] STRANDED NPCs: 3 DEVELOPER INPUT REQUIRED. >run datamanager.exe DATA MANAGER INITIALIZED [HOUSE_77] DATA CORRUPT CANNOT CONTINUE WARNING: RUNNING EQUESTRIA.EXE WITHOUT DATA RECONSTRUCTION MAY CAUSE THE PROGRAM TO BECOME UNSTABLE >override FORCE INITIALIZING EQUESTRIA.EXE... * * * This is my world. Powerful magic saturates everything. Things work... mathematically. Everypony has a red bar over their head that shows how healthy they are. If a pony is struck, a red number appears and the bar shrinks. It’s called a “life meter.” If our "life" reaches zero, we die. And then we reappear at the nearest city or "save point." Our physical capabilities are measured in numbers. “Statistics.” Each thing we do adds to our "statistics," which we can view at a whim. Small groups are called "Parties." We gain "EXP" from defeating the monsters attacking our cities. We also get it from sparring with each other. Enough EXP and we gain a "Level," granting us some free statistic points. This, and many other quirks. Nopony considers these things strange. It's always been this way. It's not weird. It's... It’s normal. I grew up in this world. ... It shouldn’t feel weird to me. Golden Oaks Library 8:44 AM A purple unicorn lay still in her bed, her chest slowly rising and falling as strips of light gradually appeared across her room. As one of the beams crawled over her closed eyelids, she blindly reached out into the cold air with a purple hoof, fumbling around until she came in contact with a long plastic rod. Gripping it in the crux of her hoof, she gave it a sharp twist. Much to her delight, the fingers of sunlight that gripped her room shriveled and disappeared. She shifted herself until her hoof wasn’t cold anymore, taking a deep breath. According to the message in the sky the previous night, there had just been a System Update, a minor annoyance to her. Unfortunately she couldn’t say the same for the other ponies — they ran around like beheaded chickens whenever the sky messages notified them of this. System Updates sometimes added things, and sometimes took them away. Buildings, parks, monuments, mountains. Most ponies were worried that they would lose their houses, or their items, or their shops. Some ponies even made a connection between System Updates and Game Overs. Twilight snorted in disdain, rolling over. System Updates didn’t delete ponies. They never had, and never would. To Twilight, a System Update just meant that she would need to spend a few more hours in Sleep Mode, because they always reset each pony’s energy value to zero. There was only one thing the Developers could do that could ever cause Game Overs: a reformat. She shuddered as an unpleasant memory bubbled to the surface of her sleep-addled mind, a memory that was weathered with age, its edges disappearing into a white haze. She had only ever experienced one reformat, as a filly. Her blood ran slightly cold as she recalled the image of that gigantic, buzzing red wall that stretched to each horizon, slowly advancing from one end of Equestria to the other. Her parents and her brother were frantically telling her to come with them, to leave behind her favorite doll and her library of books. Hurry up, they said. We don’t have much time, they said. Please, Twilight. We don’t want to lose you. If a pony was caught by the advancing wall, they would be deleted. A Game Over. All ponies were encouraged to leave their belongings behind and move to one of the USB drives, which were like giant stark-white square rooms, big enough to hold every citizen in the country. After the reformat was over, they would return to their homes, which would somehow still be there. Or perhaps, they were destroyed and recreated. Each pony’s statistics were also reset. She never did find out why the Developers did that. A meaty thud from her smaller west-facing window roused her from her thoughts, and she blearily opened her eyes, blinking a few times to clear them. Pressed up against her window was a smiling blue face with strands of multicolored mane cascading down in front of it. “C’mon Twilight! Don’t you wanna get to AJ’s farm before anypony else does? It’s cider season!” The athletic mare’s voice was muffled by the glass, comedic squeaking noises reaching Twilight’s ears as Rainbow Dash rubbed her face on it, trying to get through. “Don’t you want the buffs? One of ‘em doubles EXP gain for a couple hours. I’m like seventy-seven percent here and I need to be level thirty-three by the time the next PvP match starts. Just grab the stamina potion you left on your nightstand, and let’s go!” Twilight blinked, unamused. She saw no sense in wasting a stamina potion for something like a System Update. She just needed to go into Sleep Mode for a bit. Obviously her blue friend had drank one herself — there was no way she could be this energetic on five or six energy points. Twilight wasn’t terribly interested in combat, or pony-versus-pony matches. As such, she had little interest in EXP gain. Like all ponies, she could obtain it by either defeating monsters or sparring with other ponies. But she saw no point to it; she was perfectly content to sit in her library and read books. It added to her INT stat all the same, and it was fun. But sadly, she would be terribly easy to kill if she didn’t get some EXP, some Levels, and dying was inconvenient because she would have to walk all the way back to her house from Ponyville Square. Her only real enemy was fall damage, but there was always the occasional monster or two that highly outleveled her. Rainbow had a point, though. Undoubtedly nopony would be at the farm this soon after an Update. If Twilight went with her, they would be second and third in line. Pinkie was always first, even at a time like this. Twilight idly wondered if she had a secret stockpile of stamina potions. Releasing an irritated sigh, Twilight flopped out of her bed, landing ungracefully on the carpet and taking her bedspread with her. Ignoring the snickering from the other side of the window, she untangled herself and trudged slowly to the nightstand, her legs shaking, before lighting up her horn and focusing on the small vial of yellow liquid cradled in a tiny pile of rocks. No dice. Her eyelids drooping a few more millimeters, she snatched the vial with a hoof and brought it to her lips, relishing in the oddly honey-like taste. Instantly the film over her eyes dissolved and hot water rushed through her veins, simultaneously relaxing and energizing her muscles. Swallowing some of her own saliva, she took a deep breath through her nose and released it through her mouth, her brain finally waking up and opening the doors to advanced cognition. Her heartbeat rose for a moment before calming, pulsating with energy as if there was a large battery wired to it. After a short moment, the rush was over. Smiling to herself, she quickly combed her mane in front of her mirror before lightly tapping her chest with her hoof. A large transparent screen fizzled to life in front of her, her purple eyes briefly scanning the information. She had configured her menus to keep all of her important real-time status elements on one screen. Twilight_Sparkle HP: 85/85 MP: 240/240 EN: 100/100 Perfect condition. Nodding once at Rainbow Dash and drawing an excited squeak from her, Twilight merrily trotted down her stairs, purposefully lightening her steps to not disturb Spike. He needed sleep too, after all. Opening the door, she saw that Ponyville was more or less a ghost town after a System Update. All it needed was a tumbleweed or two to complete the image. Her ears perked as she heard an excited squeal, and she craned her neck. Saying Rainbow Dash was eager would be an understatement. She was quivering with excitement, a blue blur flickering behind her. She reminded Twilight of a hummingbird. [You have received a Party invitation from Rainbow_Dash.] Twilight allowed herself an amused grin. Rainbow was even being formal about it. Tapping the glowing green check mark on the screen in front of her, she looked around. “Where’s Fluttershy?” A blue shrug. “She didn’t want to use a stamina potion, so she’s still in bed.” Understandable. Stamina potions were expensive, after all. Fifty bits a pop. The athletic mare beckoned to her eggheaded friend, landing on the ground and pawing at it. “Race ya there!” Twilight’s smile vanished. “Rainbow, I put most of my effort into raising my INT. I don’t have a high SPD stat, so you won’t get much of a chal—...” She scowled as she realized she was talking to empty air, populated only by a few tiny blue feathers as they lazily drifted to the ground. * * * An amaranthine mane and the large red bar above it bounced in time with their owner as she eagerly waited for her friend to awaken. She giggled, yet another rush of energy flooding into her chest. “Hey... Applejack...! You awake.... yet?” she asked at each apex of her bouncing, speaking through an open window on the second floor. Below her was a structure of hay bales which, due to its questionable construction, tottered in the wind like a fragile house of cards, ready to give way any minute to the eccentric party pony’s bouncing. A low grumble emanated from the window. “Pinkie... Ah told ya, Ah can’t ‘ford stam’na potions... Jus’ lemme sleep, m’kay?” The farmpony’s accent was thick enough to cut with a knife. She always slurred when she was tired. The supercharged mare didn’t comply. “Oh don’t be silly, you silly! I can’t really afford them either! I just ate lots and lots of cake this morning!” She licked her lips, her eyelids drooping in pleasure as the smooth, creamy flavor of cheesecake revisited her tongue. Pinkie’s grin widened as she heard soft chuckling from the window. “Pinkie... y’know that stuff only gives temp’rary energy, right? After a few minutes, it drops even lower’n before...” A muted thump followed by soft snoring was the only answer to Applejack’s warning. Tearing herself from her warm, comfy bed for a moment, AJ supported herself with a hoof as she peered out the window and down at the precarious assortment of hay bales. A twinge of annoyance flared up in the back of her mind, but she smothered it with a healthy amount of willpower. Although she would personally see to it that those hay bales were loaded back into the barn, with Pinkie sweating like a pig. Lying on the topmost haybale, belly-up with limbs dangling off the sides, was a sleeping pink earth pony. Applejack smiled softly at the sight before crawling back into her soft bed. Her eyes snapped back open as a loud crash was heard from outside, before she scowled. “Consarnit, Pinkie...” Shifting to look out the window again, she took notice of a large red “84” floating up past her face just before it vanished. Her face twisted up in concern. Ouch. She yawned. "You okay?" Pinkie was lying on the ground, her limbs splayed out every which way on the dirt. She was surrounded by hay bales, her eyes looking different directions as stars swirled over her head in a rather animated fashion. AJ propped her head up with a hoof, smiling playfully. After exactly ten seconds, Pinkie was back on her feet... before promptly collapsing. Her life bar was a mere fraction of its original length. "Need some food? It'll fix ya right up." AJ’s smile widened. Food restored hitpoints. It was the obvious answer, and she could treat one of her friends to some Apple Family home cookin’. "Maybe some hay to sleep on, too...?" Pinkie mumbled, uncharacteristically quiet. "I still got here first... so I wanna be first in line for the cider..." Applejack just laughed. Meanwhile, Rainbow Dash had eventually decided to join her earthbound friend on the scenic route, coming to a disgruntling realization that she wasn’t going to get her race. Whatever. She would just trounce AJ at a duel when they got there. Yeah, that would make her feel better. She bit her lip, hoping that it wouldn't turn out like last time. Stupid overpowered Earth Ponies. Oh, well. She supposed she shouldn’t complain. Earth Ponies might start out with a STR boost, but Pegasi got the same treatment for their SPD stats. Unicorns, of course, were gifted with extra INT from the start, though Rainbow often couldn’t see how that was very useful. With SPD, you could more easily dodge enemy attacks or make yours strike home, as well as travel faster. STR, of course, made you more durable or made your physical attacks more damaging. All INT did was... well, she couldn’t honestly remember, now that she thought about it. “Hey, Twilight! What does the INT stat do, again?” Rainbow descended to face her friend at eye level, cocking her head. “I know you get it from all the books you read, but how does it help you?” Twilight sighed raggedly. Leave it to Rainbow Dash to discount INT. SPD and STR weren’t everything, though Twilight did have to admit that she was sorely lacking in those departments. She cleared her throat. “Along with boosting magical abilities and increasing mana recharge rate, INT is like money for buying skills.” Twilight spoke with the air of a professor, her chin held slightly high out of habit. “If you have a high INT stat, you can buy a more expensive skill when you Level Up.” “But what use is an expensive skill when you don’t have the SPD to land it or the STR to make it hurt?” Rainbow’s eyes regarded Twilight with childish curiosity. Twilight chose to ignore that. “That’s the trade-off, I guess. According to legend, that’s how the Developers prevented any one race from being too powerful. If you want to be superbly effective, you have to hone each of your stats. Of course, as you know, most of us prefer specialized living styles.” “I guess that makes sense,” Rainbow admitted, her mouth shifting to one side as she cast her gaze up to the clouds. “But I’ll stick to SPD.” Twilight merely nodded, knowing she would do the same with INT, even if all her books did indeed advise balancing stats. But that’s what Parties were for, right? You had different ponies specialize in different areas, and then each pony could offset her party members’ weaknesses. That’s what the Manual — the grandaddy of all books — advised, anyway. Even if it didn’t give you any INT boosts, it was by far the most useful book in the world, so much that each pony had a copy automatically uploaded into their mind at birth that they could access at their leisure. The two ponies crested the top of the last hill before Sweet Apple Acres, which spread out before them in the mixed light of the rising sun and the setting moon. Luna was probably just now returning to the castle at Canterlot as Celestia warmed up for the day. Twilight found herself wondering idly for a moment what the stats of the princesses themselves were, as she had always been too polite to ask her mentor when she lived in Canterlot. Whatever they were, surely they must’ve been enormous. “Twilight, check it out!” Twilight’s train of thought crashed into a mountain with a fantastic explosion as her blue friend threw out a hoof in front of them. Quite the odd creature had bisected their path. In fact, it didn’t seem like a creature at all. It was composed entirely of sticks, save for its eyes, which burned bright with leaf-green pinpricks of wispy balefire. Timberwolves weren’t exactly rare around here, but they were often found only in the Everfree Forest. It was quite unusual for one to have ventured this close to town. “You up for a little monster-bashing?” “I’d rather just Flee,” Twilight noted uneasily. She’d been in her fair share of scraps, but that didn’t mean she enjoyed them like Rainbow Dash. She hadn’t agreed to an EXP hunt — just to a visit to Applejack’s for some cider. “Ah, come on, Twilight!” Rainbow begged playfully. “I hardly ever get to battle alongside you anymore!” Twilight, though, was already bringing up the Options menu. Highlighting the Flee command, she pressed the floating words with her hoof... ...only for the box to disappear and be replaced with another announcing “CANNOT FLEE FROM REQUIRED BATTLE.” “Required battle?” Rainbow Dash read, leaning over Twilight’s shoulder. Her eyes grew wide with realization, her face splitting with a wide smile. “Then that must mean... Aw, yeah!” She pumped a hoof into the air. “We’re in a new Questline!” “Another one?” Twilight groaned. “I was just getting over the last one!” “Come on, Twilight!” Rainbow pleaded. “This’ll be fun! We can get the Party back together and go on another epic adventure! This is what we were programmed for!” “I suppose it’s not like I really have a choice anyway,” Twilight conceded. “Though I wish the Developers had programmed me to read instead of ‘saving’ Equestria.” Rainbow let out a squeal of delight, her wings buzzing behind her again. If there was one surefire way to gain Levels quickly, it was a Questline. “Alright, let’s see...” Twilight muttered to herself as she turned her attention back to the window in front of her, tapping it once with her hoof. It now read “WOULD YOU LIKE A TUTORIAL ON COMBAT?” Her eyes narrowing, she quickly punched “SKIP.” She’d already heard the same spiel enough times to know her way around a battle, even if she did try to avoid them more often than not. After the TUTORIAL box vanished, Twilight refocused her gaze on the wooden being in front of her. It stalked to her right, circling her, snarling as tree sap dripped from its maw. Her violet eyes snapped up to the space just above its head, where the words “Speedy Timberwolf” hovered. Monsters sometimes had adjectives placed in front of their names to indicate if they had a relative abundance of one stat. And “speedy” monsters were obviously— TCHIK. Twilight flinched and gasped as a red gash appeared across her foreleg, a small “17” floating out of the impact zone. She looked at it, before returning her gaze to a patch of empty air in front of her. Wait, where was the— “Ow!” Rainbow Dash yelped as something sliced into her wing arm, the pain causing it to flap slightly slower than the other. Mere seconds rolled by before she crashed sideways into a nearby tree and fell to the ground in a crumpled heap. “What the... Urgh, cheap shot!” The pegasus rolled to her feet, snorting angrily as she glared at the nearby Timberwolf. She could have sworn that it was smirking at her, even though it didn’t have lips. The pegasus cracked her neck, gritting her teeth. “Oh, you think you’re fast!?” All Twilight saw was a blue blur tackling the monster and slamming it into another tree, quick as a lightning strike. Rainbow Dash proceeded to furiously kick at it with her front legs, breaking off chunks of wood with each hit. 7, 6, 8, 7, 9, 8, 10, 7, 12, 10, 12... Twilight noticed that Rainbow Dash wasn’t doing much damage. The Timberwolf’s life bar was slowly shrinking, but she had a hunch that the monster would slip out of Rainbow’s grasp before she could kill it. Lowering her horn to point straight at the pinned enemy, she grunted in concentration as beams of energy coalesced into her horn, causing it to glow brighter and spark more violently with each passing second. Beads of sweat dripped down her forehead, making it difficult to see her target as they slipped into her eyes and over her pupils. With a great shout, she unleashed her Charged Blast, a vicious spear of lightning exploding out from her horn and hurtling towards Rainbow Dash. The attack slipped straight through Rainbow’s blue body, instead impaling the Timberwolf behind her and blasting it to pieces with a grand, flashing “88”. Rainbow settled down, throwing a smirk over her shoulder at Twilight as motes of golden light flowed from the Timberwolf’s remains into her body. “Aren’t you glad I usually keep Friendly Fire off in my parties?” Twilight nodded slowly, still panting. Bringing up her Status Menu, she garnered that she had used nearly two hundred mana points for that attack. Oh well... her high INT caused it to regenerate quickly. She breathed deep as some of the golden motes from the Timberwolf flowed into her as well, relishing in the brief warm feeling of EXP gain. She was vaguely aware of a percentage appearing in the bottom-right corner of her vision, slowly rising from “38.34%” to “44.80%.” It was then that she became aware of a niggling feeling. It was a combination of strange sensations in her gut and mind, like there was a little creature in each. They were scratching gently, oh so gently. Why was everything in the world based on... numbers? Why was it so easy to measure a pony’s physical capability with just a few phantom numbers assigned to abbreviations? Why did EXP, which meant “experience,” have a different meaning and purpose than what the word “experience” literally meant in the dictionary? It had always been that way, but... She put a hoof to her forehead. Something felt off. Something that had been under her nose for her entire life, but yet she never noticed it. She suddenly felt like a fish that didn’t know that it was in water. Something was wrong. Something had always been wrong. But what was it? What was it...? Rainbow Dash flopped down against a tree, extending her injured wing and taking a gander at it. “Y’know, I was hoping that fight would be tougher.” She scoffed. “I guess that’s what I get for hanging around Ponyville. The monsters here don’t go past level twenty-five.” She chuckled for a moment, before her mirth died as she touched her wing injury and flinched. “Ow... I guess I’m not flying until I eat something. My wing is Crippled. Dang.” Twilight shook herself out of her introspection, deciding to save it for later. “You could just walk with me, you know.” “But walking is so boring!” Rainbow threw her hooves up to the sky. “Why do wings have to be so freakin’ fragile? They get Crippled in almost every fight unless I don’t get hit!” Turning sideways, she fell onto her back. “Sometimes I wish I was an Earth Pony so I would do more damage and not have to worry about breaking my wings.” “Or you could buy a weapon,” Twilight chided with a raised eyebrow. “Most pegasi have small blades such as knives.” Rainbow nickered as she waved a blue hoof in the air, not looking at her friend. “I don’t need a weapon. I’m awesome enough without one.” “Most level thirty-two pegasi deal twenty or thirty damage per hit.” This struck a nerve in the pegasus, and she whipped her head to face Twilight with an angry scowl. “Whatever. I’ll buy a weapon as soon as you hit level fifteen, Twi.” Twilight cast a slight glare her way. She was only level eight. She didn’t have any interest in raising her level, since she didn’t like fighting. She had the lowest level of each of her friends. Even Fluttershy was still level twenty since, living near the Everfree Forest, she often had to defend her home from powerful monsters. On the other side of the coin, Applejack had the highest level. She was level fifty, and she had followed a stat build that was commonly referred to as “INTless” by other ponies. Applejack had no fancy attacks, but her basic innate Earth Pony skills did a lot of damage. Her buck did almost three hundred, killing most monsters around Ponyville in a single strike. It also served to embarrass Rainbow Dash. Twilight giggled to herself at the memory of Applejack killing her with a single well-placed buck in their latest duel. A mere twenty seconds later, Rainbow Dash had arrived at the farm again, her cheeks burning red. Fortunately for her, she was able to cause everypony to laugh it off by taking one look at the corpse of her previous Life and muttering “Wow, I’m hot.” Rainbow had nopony but herself to blame, though, and she knew it. Applejack earned STR experience points each day simply by doing her job. Bucking apple trees was excellent exercise, after all, and Rainbow Dash mainly only gained STR from PvP matches. Even then, she only fought when she wasn’t doing her low-maintenance job as weather mare, which gave her lots of SPD points... or when she was in Sleep Mode. Whatever the case, all of Twilight’s friends outclassed her in all but INT, as the few times she wasn’t reading she was also leveling up her mana bar by testing out new spells. She did so because she wanted to see the result, not because she wanted the Levels, but they were a nice secondary reward. By the time Twilight and Rainbow had reached the bottom of the hill, the sun was well on its journey into the sky and Applejack was milling outside the farmhouse, offering some cider to the slumped form of Pinkie Pie. “Must... resist... sleepiness...” Pinkie mumbled to herself before Applejack turned over the keg of cider she was carrying, a healthy stream of liquid pouring into the pink party pony’s open mouth. Her eyes widened the moment the amber drops splashed on her tongue, and she literally leapt into the air before falling back down, slowing as she did so and landing lightly on her hooves. “That’s the best batch of cider yet, Applejack!” “Thank ya’ kindly,” said the farmpony, smiling appreciatively as Twilight and Rainbow trotted up to their friends. “And howdy, Twi and RD! I suppose ya’ll are here for some cider too?” “We were at first,” Rainbow Dash answered. “But on our way over here, we got some awesome news!” “It seems we’ve been activated for a Questline,” Twilight sighed. “Again.” “Yee-haw!” Applejack hollered, rearing up on her hind legs before slapping Twilight on the back and nearly knocking her to the ground. Twilight could only imagine how strong the farmer would be at the end of this Questline. “What’s the conundrum that needs solvin’ this time?” “We don’t know yet,” Rainbow admitted. “But as soon as we gather everypony together and find out who the leader is, I’m sure something will tell us. That’s what happened the last few times, anyway.” “I can’t wait to find out!” said Applejack. Like Rainbow, she rather enjoyed the Questlines. The STR experience, she claimed, helped her with her applebucking and thus helped the farm. Twilight only hoped that AJ wouldn’t one day grow so strong as to buck the trees right out of the ground. Surely the Developers wouldn’t allow for that, right? “I reckon all we gotta do now is find Fluttershy and Rarity.” “I can fly over and get Fluttershy if you can teleport over to Rarity’s, Twilight,” Rainbow offered, stretching her hurt wing, which had already begun to heal. “I’d prefer to save my mana points for when I really need them,” Twilight noted, but she did have to admit that even she was getting curious as to what this Questline would be about. Perhaps it wouldn’t hurt to splurge on her stash of mana-restoring Ethers just this once... “But I suppose I can go ahead and get her. Meet you back here as soon as possible!” With a flash, Twilight disappeared, her mana bar remaining just long enough to show a significant depletion. * * * “Isn’t this just so exciting, darling?” Rarity almost squealed as she stood in line with her friends, bobbing on her hooves. She and Fluttershy had been the last to arrive, and now they were waiting for the Party Leader Selection as the Manual instructed. “I can’t imagine all the wonderful sights we’ll see on this adventure! And just think of all the Apparel items we can collect!” “I kind of wish this Questline could’ve waited until next week,” Fluttershy disagreed, her voice as quiet as usual. “Or not have appeared at all... I get so worried for my animal friends when we’re away on these journeys.” “I’m sure they’ll be fine,” Rarity assured her friend. “They were for the last few Questlines, weren’t they?” “Yes...” Fluttershy admitted, ducking her head. “But I’m always afraid that the next Questline will end up with a Boss holding Ponyville hostage, or destroying it, or maybe we’ll fall into one of those Dungeons that’s a nightmare version of our town, or—” “Relax, darling,” Rarity soothed, smiling at the timid pony. “I’m sure the Developers wouldn’t do anything like that. The Questlines are supposed to be fun, remember? I’m certain the Developers wouldn’t do anything that dark.” “It’s starting!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed, her body shaking as she beamed up at the sky. A glowing arrow had just appeared out of thin air, and it began moving over the six assembled ponies randomly with rapid beeping noises. Each knew that when it finally stopped, it would be pointing at the leader of the Party for this Questline.