At the Inn of the Prancing Pony
Chapter 29: She’s Not Entirely Stable
Celestia was beginning to get the feeling that Ellen was not entirely stable.
I mean, for one of the Lords of Creation, she seems to be rather unhealthily fixed on me, she thought.
And then, just as she was wondering how long she’d be stuck in the Astral Plane this time, she was back as Hope Springs.
“So, do you promise we can finally go to the Lost Caverns first thing tomorrow morning?” asked Burnished Lore. He seemed to be addressing the question as much to his god as to the other members of the party.
“Yep, first thing!” said Bumble the Breezie, leading them to their sleeping quarters.
“I’m surprised you even have sleeping quarters for beings of our size,” said Burnished.
“Magic pony-turny things, remember?” said Bumble.
“You know, if it weren’t for the fact that the haul from these caverns are going to be immense,” noted Torn Deck, “I might be complaining right about now about how the size of this party keeps getting bigger and bigger—and thus the size of each share when treasure gets divvied up is getting smaller and smaller.”
Hope said her goodbyes to the baby rocs, who were being cared for by the other breezies in a corral outside, and quickly joined the others.
As was routine for evenings with this group, the individual members split up to study or commune with their gods to get new spells. In Midnight’s case, she was already “full up”, which meant that Hope became the center of her attention instead.
“Hope, could you come over here? I have some questions for you,” the unicorn asked, waving from a side room with its own table and small oil lamp.
Hope came in and sat down. “Yes, Lady Sparkle?”
“I trust you. I don’t think that I need to learn your history or anything, but...do you believe in the power of Celestia?” She asked curiously.
Hope cast her eyes around her for a moment before answering. “Celestia is an alicorn,” she said simply. “She combines the powers of unicorn, pegasus and earth pony. When she was princess, she thought of nothing but of how to better the welfare of her ponies. I believe that Celestia is doing the best that she possibly can.” She smiled ruefully. “And yes, I believe in her.”
“Good...despite the image many have of me, I don’t want to spread the word of Celestia far and wide. Rather, I want to gain her more followers covertly. I asked to be able to say her name...well, you wouldn’t have heard that bit, but I want to say her name because to me honesty is important. I don’t want to lie to anypony. Will you help me quietly spread the news that, with Celestia’s help, we can bring harmony and friendship back to this world?”
Hope’s expression on hearing the word “honesty” was extremely enigmatic. On hearing her question, she turned away for a moment to control herself. “Oh, oh of course!” she said on turning back, her smile perhaps a little too wide. “I will do everything I can to assist with that goal, Lady Sparkle.”
“Wonderful. Get some sleep, we will have a less...friendly day tomorrow, I think,” Midnight sighed, and took out her dagger, looking it over with distaste, before putting it away.
Hope bowed, turned away, and walked over to her room. The creak of the floorboards as she walked sounded not dissimilar to laughter.
The next morning, the party headed south, towards the smoking mountain known as “Eggwife’s Horn”.
“Wait a second,” observed Torn Deck. “Since when was Eggwife’s Horn a volcano?”
“She means the dragon, nitwit,” said Burnished.
Who “she” referred to was not immediately clear to Hope. She kept her eyes glued on the mountain peak, even after they had gotten too close to really be able to get a good look at it anymore.
“Are you worried, Hope?” Carry asked, standing startlingly close to the earth pony, and moving silently.
“A little,” Hope admitted. “I wonder if she is suffering.”
“Who, Eggswife?” Midnight chimed in, looking at the Rogue suspiciously.
“If Eggswife isn’t dead, we are all in big trouble,” said Hope. “I meant the dragon. I hear that dragon fights can get quite ruthless if they are evenly matched.”
“Right,” Carry On agreed. “They could tear each other to pieces, but you’re worried about them... Because you secretly want dragons to be on the same level as ponies and griffons?” he asked, seemingly with more weight to her words than necessary.
Hope looked away. “I won’t deign to lecture you on the place of dragons in this world of ours,” she said. “Go along to the Caverns; I’ll let you know if she’s going to attack us.”
“Oohoho, testy NPC! Alright, I’m going—no need to glare.” Carry On very nearly vanished, sneaking ahead to scout.
The thief didn’t have to do so for long. The track led to a cavern with an entrance that seemed like a fanged maw. The roof was jagged and there were rising cones of stone below. A low moan came from the cavern mouth.
“Probably the wind,” Burnished noted.
“Certainly looks the part,” said Torn Deck.
“Yeah, this is it,” said Bumble from his spot on Torn Deck’s helm. “Wanna go straight in?”
“Hold on a moment,” Hope said calmly, walking over until she was directly facing the entrance.
“Must we—?” Carry was cut off by one of Midnight’s hooves on her snout.
“Go on, Hope.”
“The poem on the map said to look over your shoulder before you start,” Hope said, checking over first one shoulder, then the other. “What’s over there?” She asked the question as if she knew exactly what the answer would turn out to be.
Burnished, Torn Deck (and Bumble) walked over in the direction indicated. “A bit rocky over here,” said Torn Deck to his passenger. “Hold on.”
“I can do better than that,” Bumble said, rising into the air on his wings. “Are we looking for anything in particular?”
Hope shook her head. “It was a rather vague clue. Perhaps it was nothing more than a warning to turn around and leave.”
“Well, we might as well make a try of it,” said Torn. “Maybe there will be a key or something we need later on.”
“I hope it’s not a key,” Burnished said, kicking a few pebbles. “Because everything here looks like a key to these old eyes.”
“Ah, let me give it a quick try,” Midnight cast a spell, her eyes glittering silver with the magic. She then looked over the area carefully, searching for the golden glow of a magic signature. Several minutes later she slumped over, defeated.
“So, no magic key, huh?” asked Facet. She crossed her front hooves and cracked the joints. “Let me show you how a mistress of the metallic arts does it.” With a bit of concentration, a silver glow built up in her eyes, which then burst outwards in a rapidly-expanding sphere. The metal of the party’s possessions glowed brightly, and two of the rocks glowed dimly. After five seconds, another glow was briefly revealed. “A-ha!” she exclaimed. “I may not have found anything significant on the surface, but I hope you were paying attention, because I think I spotted a couple of neat treasures deep underground.” Having said this, she went over to one of the rocks that had glowed, raised it to her ear, and tapped it couple of times with a hoof. “A little bit of copper in this one. I might try refining it later.” The rock was placed in her saddlebags, soon followed by the other.
“Okay, I’m beginning to get tired of this,” Torn Deck said with a frown. “I think that Cutbelt is yanking our chain.”
“No!” Midnight said firmly. “If looking over our shoulder...what if it wasn’t behind our shoulder but above it?” She looked toward the entrance, along the top of the arch.
The walls of the cave were dull gray, and the ceiling had many stalactites growing down from it, though most of them had been broken off.
Torn Deck walked into the opening and then glanced down, as if consulting an invisible note. “This place has seen a lot of traffic,” he observed. “Notice that the debris from falling stalactites has been cleaned out. The floor is completely smooth, and the walls and ceiling are blackened with soot. Over here you can even see some discarded gear.” He poked a hoof at a decaying saddlebag. “Nothing useful.” He looked around. “We safe from dragon attack?” he asked Hope with a grin.
“Yes,” Hope said.
“Everypony present and accounted for?” Torn asked. He started counting to himself. “Wait a second...where’s—?”
“Found it!” cried Itty Bitty from a couple dozen ponylengths away.
The others raced up to the slight hill she was standing on.
She tapped the ground below her. “It’s hollow,” she told them.
Facet groaned. “I knew I should have asked Kelogto for Find Hidden Spaces!”
“Oh! Well then, I’d say that you have certainly proven your skill there,” Carry said. “I’m a bit jealous that I didn’t find it.” She conveniently did not explain what she had been doing instead.
A little bit of digging revealed the opening of a vertical shaft.
Facet walked over with one of her chunks of copper ore suspended in her magic, signaled the others to be quiet, and dropped it down the hole.
Two full seconds passed before they heard a faint splash.
Hope stood quietly, looking at the hole. “Who has that journal page?” she asked finally.
“I do,” said Torn Deck, pulling it out and unfolding it.
Hope pointed at one particular passage, reading it aloud: “...the span swiftly to plunge to doom…” “You need water to plunge. Those other adventurers had to cross an underground river or lake. And that was right before they descended to the lower level of the caverns. I think this could bypass half of the caverns right here.”
Burnished looked at her doubtfully. “That’s a pretty big leap of faith, Miss Hope. I mean, that’s got to be a good three stories underground, in a shaft too narrow for a pegasus to fly back up. If we go down this way, there’s no going back.”
Midnight closed her eyes, and simply thought “Celestia, should I go?” while imagining that she was speaking to the sun.
“I think—” the voice of Celestia began to say.
“Hey! Have you fellows forgotten about me already? Tiny scout pony here!”
“Oh,” said Burnished. “Right.”
Midnight shrugged and walked over to Bumble. “Can you fly down and back up safely? We have rope if you want a safety line.”
“Rope? Forget it. How about sewing thread?”
Burnished had been studying Bumble for several seconds before reaching his conclusion. “If we’re going to do this, we’re going to do this right. I’ll cast every protective spell I’ve got on you.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Facet. “I can set up a communication link between my holy symbol and a silver mirror.” She waved her hoof over her symbol, which changed shape from a silver ingot into a little silver mirror. “That way, we can see what you see, and give you advice in case you run up against a couple hundred monsters.”
“...Or bats,” said Itty Bitty. “Large carnivorous bats. I saw their sign right over there. There’s got to be a colony of a couple hundred of them in the caverns. Nothing for a full-size pony to worry about, but...”
“So, what else do you have?” Bumble asked, suddenly feeling a bit less brave than when he volunteered for this mission.
“I have the protections of Celestia. If you would feel comfortable taking her wards,” Midnight offered.
“You also have that potion of invisibility I gave you when I was handing out the Guild loot,” said Carry On.
“Ooh! I’ll take that, please,” said Bumble.
Midnight shrugged, and went back to looking down the hole.
“I’ve got a Ring of Fire Resistance,” Carry On said, “although I’m not sure how—”
Bumble used his transformation band to turn pony, picked up the ring, and turned back. This caused the object to shrink with him. “Thank you kindly,” he said.
“Hope, do you think it is safe down there?” Midnight asked casually.
“No,” said Hope looking down. “Which is why bypassing as much of the caverns as possible is preferred. Bumble is possibly saving all of our lives by this move.”
Midnight turned back to the breezie. “Right. Bumble, I...I would feel much better about all this if I could give you Celestia’s blessing. Would you...can I do that, Bumble?”
Bumble frowned. “In my world, the sun is controlled by its own spirit. I...I can offer no permanent allegiance, not so long as there is any chance that I and my people can return there. But if your Celestia is not a jealous goddess, then I will gladly accept her blessing.”
“No,” Midnight smiled at the thought. “She is not a jealous sort, no. She just wants all to have peace and safety.”
She brought a violet-blue light to her horn and surrounded the breezie in the light, making a tiny suit of golden armor, before it faded away. “You should feel less from any blow, now. The best I have. Thank you, Bumble.”
Bumble smiled brightly. “Alright! Let’s do this!”
Hope expected Bumble to descend into the hole. Instead, Midnight, Carry On, Burnished and Torn Deck looked up, and a second later Celestia found herself back in the Astral Plane.
“What now?!” she exclaimed.
There was no response.
She pulled her portal open once again. “Show me the cavern entrance,” she ordered.
The terrain was just as she remembered it. Hope of course was missing—she had already figured out that the Astral Plane was a real place instead of an actual dreamscape, as witnessed by the fact that Midnight and Hope actually disappeared during the frozen moment while they were here instead of there. Down in Equestria, Bumble, Facet and Itty Bitty were all present, frozen in time as they always were when she was in this place, but the other four ponies were gone.
“Where did they go?”
“Dinner break,” Mary Jo said, getting up. She took a look at her watch. “There’s a small chance we might be able to get up to the boss fight before they kick us out at ten tonight. This stunt of Bumble’s stands a good chance of getting us there.”
Gary walked over to her, a frown on his face. “Did we do something to tick you off?” he asked. “The NPCs have been carrying this entire adventure so far.”
“Oh, um, it’s because of the late start—I had to railroad things a little. I’m sorry about that.” She finished packing away her things enough to survive anybody trying to mess with them while she was gone, and turned to Ellen. “I was thinking of going back to the hotel restaurant, unless you have any suggestions?”
“Let’s do that, just us though if that’s alright. Some sister time.”
Ellen, for the first time all game, looked over toward Marcus, to see what he was doing. She was surprised to discover that he had left. “We might want to make sure that a particular weasel hasn’t beaten us there first, though,” she then muttered.
“He left way back when the Guild was assigning the mission,” said Mary Jo. “Looked pretty spooked, if that means anything.”
The younger sister just shrugged, stuffed her dice back into her bag, and started off toward the restaurant. “I hope he was scared off.”
“Yeah, well I was thinking—”
Any further words became impossible, because the pair had emerged onto the main hall of the convention during the break between the afternoon and evening seminars. People were pushing each other left and right, crying out and shouting to get the attention of the dealers.
“It just gets worse and worse,” Mary Jo tried to say, but couldn’t even hear the sound of her own voice. With a shrug, she put on a pair of headphones plugged into a Sony Walkman, pressed the Play button, and cranked up the volume.
Ellen, having gone to the same conventions as her sister, did the same.
Celestia was getting really tired of waiting. Something was happening, but it sure wasn’t happening here. She launched herself skyward and began flying aimlessly.
Eventually, she began to make out vague sounds. Following them to their source, she stopped at an off-white barrier, the same color as the sky and ground, which she was unable to make out until she was nearly on top of it. Landing, she reached out to touch it. The substance seemed like a tightly stretched membrane of some sort. She felt vibrations through her hoof and cautiously, she put an ear against it.
“I always feel like, somebody’s watching me.”
Celestia jerked her head back. Somebody was singing over there! She gingerly applied her ear once again.
“Tell me is it just a dream?”
The pair slowly made their way through the convention hall. A few individuals recognized Mary Jo, but were unable to get to them through the sheer crush of humanity. The best M.J. was able to do was wave feebly at them as they passed.
Finally, they emerged into the anteroom between the hall and the outside doors. Mary Jo cast her eyes about her, looking for pesky reporters or anybody else willing to cause trouble. What she saw instead were a bunch of people going about their own business.
With a satisfied nod, she removed her headphones.
“OWNER OF A LONELY HEART!” screamed the headphones.
Mary Jo quickly turned down the volume, then tapped Ellen on the shoulder, to tell her she could take her own headphones off.
She slipped them off, a crooning melody echoing out before they were turned off. “Free from the masses...” Ellen murmured, before addressing her elder sister. “We need to play more private games, Jojo. Not in the least because I’d like to get to know Celestia outside of the restrictions of a stage game. This is insane, Jojo. How are you communicating with her?”
The pair emerged from the conference hall, and started crossing the street to the hotel.
“I have no idea,” Mary Jo said in answer to Ellen’s question. “Look, have you ever written a story, and you’ve gotten so far into your characters’ heads that they’re ‘telling’ you what they’re saying and doing? Well, this is like that, but I know it’s not coming from me. I mean, she’s not taking me over or anything. I’m free not to say her words. But it’s hard to think of anything other than the words when she—or Hope—are expressing themselves.” As she finished speaking, they entered the hotel.
“By the way, did you plan that? To have Hope be Celestia’s witness or something? Because I have to say I didn’t see that coming,” Ellen confessed, as they got a table and ordered drinks.
“Hope’s as much her own character as Celestia is,” M.J. said. “I think I have less understanding of what makes her tick. I mean, we’ve got the whole backstory on Celestia. Hope could be anything in the long term. She’s certainly not just Midnight’s servant, I can tell you that.”
“Well yeah. I feel like...if I can’t ask Celestia a question, I just ask her instead. She’s keen, and I doubt she’d take it well if I started treating her as a retainer... Anything I need to stop doing or do more of for the rest of the game to work?” She asked before picking up her newly delivered iced tea.
M.J. poured three Sweet‘N Low packets into her iced coffee and began to stir. “Well, this is getting into conflict-of-interest territory. As Pony Handler, it’s my job to kill you off.” She said this with a friendly smile. “But I’d say listen to Hope. She short-circuited a third of the game by getting you to find that shaft. I honestly didn’t expect anybody to put together those clues I planted.” She laughed as a sudden thought occurred to her. “She better not be peeking in my part of our brain.”
Ellen was going to reply, when instead she suddenly turned her head to the right. “Did you hear that?” she asked.
“Hear what?”
She looked around a bit more. “Phantom drum solo…” she mumbled. “But...reading your mind, huh? I wonder if that’s what is happening? A sort of...subtle transfer both ways?”
“I guess you’ll know if she starts quoting prog rock lyrics,” M.J. replied with a smile.
Ellen took a sip of her tea, before she laid her head down on the table and sighed. “Jojo, why did Marcus have to show up? Today hasn’t been that bad except for him.”
“‘The stars inform all of my movements,’” M.J. said, imitating their father’s voice and wiggling her fingers in the air. “Who knows why he does anything?”
“Probably just to make me feel crummy inside. You know, I’ve got an open file on him and his cult,” Ellen reminded her sister. “I’ve been working on it for a long time, I just...I can’t pursue it and I’m missing a few things that would be required to put the case out there. How many years has it been now, and I still can’t do anything about him?”
“Too long. Far, far too long.” Mary Jo looked over at the waiter, who walked over.
“Are you ready to order, Mademoiselles?”
“Um...sure.” Ellen actually opened the menu, picked a random thing, and pointed to it. “Asp...I mean that, the chicken alfredo looking thing.” She looked wildly about her for a few seconds.
The waiter, being a professional, acted like nothing strange was going on, and entered Ellen’s order. “And for you?”
M.J. stared at Ellen for a few seconds, then looked down at the menu. “I’ll have the pork chop, with asparagus.”
“Very well. I’ll put in the order, and get a refill for Madame’s iced tea.”
M.J. tasted her coffee, grimaced, and put a sugar packet in.
“Hey, Jojo...”
“Yes?”
Ellen sipped her tea again, casually. “I’m hearing things that sound suspiciously like drums beating me around the head, and I’m a little curious if it has anything to do with...her?”
“What, you think she’s infectious?” M.J. laughed.
“I’m her follower!” Ellen hissed, wide eyed. “Not just...not Midnight, I’m...it’s stupid, never mind. Maybe it’s because of Midnight.”
M.J. shivered, suddenly regretting her choice to eat next to the patio. “I’m going to run upstairs and get a sweater. You need anything?”
“Don’t...please don’t go, Jojo, this is weird and for all that I dress in pink and act like a princess, I don’t handle this type of weird well. Can she...can she hear us?” she asked, looking up toward the ceiling.
“You’ve got nothing to be afraid of from her,” M.J. said sternly. She gestured imperiously to her waiter. “Excuse me, but I need a porter to be sent up to my room to retrieve the white sweater lying on my bed.” She took her room key out of her purse.
The waiter nodded and accepted the key. “I’ll have it done right away.”
“There,” said M.J. “Nobody’s going anywhere.” She took Ellen’s hand in her own.
Ellen yanked it back. “Youch! You do need a sweater,” she joked. She then reached back out to put her hands around Jojo’s. “You’re freezing...”
“I’m just cold-blooded,” said M.J. “You know that. I was always the one turning on the heater in the summertime. And you were the one with the A.C. in the winter.” Her eyes grew distant. “Maybe we were just glad to finally have electricity.”
Ellen didn’t speak, just bowing her head, trying to warm her sister’s hand. She then looked sharply to her right, before letting her head drop again.
“Room 1013?” asked a young woman in a bellhop’s uniform.
“Here,” said M.J., waving her free hand.
“There...there was a note taped to your door, Miss,” the bellhop said cautiously as she draped the sweater over the back of M.J.’s chair. “I took the liberty of bringing it down.”
M.J. looked over at Ellen for a moment. “Let me have it,” she said. “Thank you.”
She took the piece of paper, folded over several times into the shape of a small square, and practically covered in tape. With a sigh, she dug into her purse to produce a small pair of scissors, which was applied carefully until she could spread the paper flat.
It was a sheet of lined notebook paper, the jagged edge indicating that it had been torn from a spiral binder. M.J. read the note a few times, before passing it over. “Well, you wanted an explanation of us and Equestria? This is probably as close are we’re going to get.”
“He never told me what he was truly doing,” the note read. “Only that he needed three to make it work: a caster, a summoner, and a channeler. Howard was the caster, and I suspect he got exactly what he wanted. Do not try to find me.”
The note wasn’t signed. Which did not mean that the pair had any doubt who must have written it.
“Celestia, is that you?” Ellen whispered, once she finished, laying the paper down on the table.
Mary Jo stood up suddenly, looking around in all directions.
It took a few seconds for the voice that literally seemed to come from inside her head to respond. “What does it say?”
Ellen shivered, and grabbed M.J.’s hand again, pulling her back into her seat. “Can you...?” she asked, pointing at her ear.
M.J. rapidly shook her head in denial.
“It...” Ellen haltingly replied, “it says effectively that our father had someone named Howard cast something through us... Marcus...a man biologically defined as our parent, let us be used in a ritual of some sort.”
She kept her words to a quiet whisper.
M.J., her sweater forgotten, clutched tightly to Ellen’s hands, a frightened look in her eyes that she managed to fight down.
“And who is Howard? I have heard the name before, but what, specifically is he to Equestria?”
“He...to Equestria?”
“What is she asking?” begged M.J.
“She’s asking who Howard is to Equestria,” Ellen said cautiously. “Like...I don’t remember a Howard.”
“That’s because I left him out,” answered Mary Jo. “Kelogto, Cutbelt, those are proper names for gods. Who ever heard of a god named Howard? I mean, it was my vision, so I had the right to leave out the silly bits. Howard...Howard was the first adventurer. The one I never could remember in any detail. He found...an artifact? Something, and he used it to conquer Equestria. Then he seeded all the treasures in all of the dungeons ever since.”
“Can...can you hear...what I hear, Celestia?” Ellen asked.
There was a significant pause before Ellen heard a response. “I have to say that I am not very impressed with your species, if this is how you decide to greet us.”
“Please don’t hurt me...” Ellen whimpered. “We...we don’t remember most of it. We were tortured...we were just kids...”
M.J. pulled Ellen into an embrace. “What are you saying to her?” she addressed Celestia. “You will not do anything to her without going through me!”
“Stop...please stop remembering,” the voice said, suddenly weak. “I...I do not hold you personally to blame...how could I? You were but children. Children of...savages…”
Ellen closed her eyes and thought of flowers. A safe image with no negative connotations for her, a field of flowers she could browse during meditation or times of stress. Then she spoke. “Celestia was...upset by our reception of...another race, I guess? I’m having trouble processing all of this. It’s your world, after all...” She opened her eyes to look up to Jojo.
“How do we reverse this?” M.J. asked. “How do we give Equestria back?”
“She doesn’t know.” Ellen addressed her next words to Celestia. “So like...can you just speak through me like you do with her? Because I’m a crap translator.” Then she took another sip of tea, a good deal of it spilling.
“I do not know how this system works. I wasn’t even aware that I had passed between you.”
M.J. rolled her eyes after Ellen repeated this to her. “So we’re stuck with our own rulebook?”
“I guess so...wait...” Ellen’s eyes went wide. “Celestia, you sa—” Ellen sat up and tried to look unsuspicious as the waiter delivered their food, an incredibly awkward smile on her face and tracking the waiter’s every move until he left.
M.J. poked at the asparagus with a fork. “What was I thinking? I don’t really like asparagus.” She looked up at Ellen and braced herself. “So, Midnight, what do you do now?”
“Um...w—” Ellen looked around and shrugged, hoping that Celestia had moved back to her sister. “Well. I want to ask Celestia why Hope has as much power as she does, that’s really perplexing.”
“‘I’d tell you all about Hope, if I truly felt that I trusted you,’” M.J. said in character.
Of course, now Ellen could actually imagine the words in Celestia’s voice, now that she had heard what it actually sounded like. The feeling she got was that Celestia was keeping quiet to protect Hope. “O...kay. What do you want, Celestia? Outside of the game, outside of anything we want?” Ellen started to eat as she awaited her answer.
“‘I would like to be your friends,’ Celestia said. ‘But first we would have to resolve our differences. Specifically, Equestria. You have it, and I would like it back.’ Oh, that’s cheeky of her!”
“Yeah, well we certainly would give it back, if we knew how!” Ellen laughed, shaking her head. “It’s not like we have anything to be gained from linking our game to a real world. It’s just a game. Sure, we’ve made money off it, I imagine that much is obvious by the stage we were on earlier, but if it all went away?” She looked up to M.J. and shrugged. “We would create something else. A new story, a new company. So...you don’t know how to get Equestria back, we don’t know how to give it back, how urgent is it that we give it back anyway? We...wow, we do a lot of damage, now that I think about it...” Ellen frowned and resumed her meal.
M.J. took a few bites herself. “Yeah. You do not want to read the Association of Churches report on how many ponies we killed off in 1981 alone.” She stopped for a second. “Wow, I sound like a genocidal maniac.”
“But those can’t all be real ponies,” Ellen protested. “We make a ton of them up. Like...Midnight. She was created as a one-off character, a blank slate for any player to take up and add a class to. What are the odds that she really exists?”
M.J. reeled. “Celestia...ooh, she’s really mad! ‘Why don’t you ask Hope about her best friend, the pony who followed her across half the country to try and help save Equestria, the pony whose body you’re currently wearing like a cheap suit!’”
Ellen paled and stared at her food, putting her fork down with a grimace. “So...she’s a real being. But she’s not in my head! Oh, also we need to be quiet, we’re in a restaurant.”
“‘Yes, you are in a restaurant, eating meat. And I have been polite enough to refrain from remarking on that fact. But please continue, and I shall try to keep my voice down.’”
“We’re omnivores, it’s...ugh. But that’s...should we just call off the game? I don’t want to roll a bad save and get her killed or anything...”
M.J. pushed some asparagus shoots around with her fork, saying, “‘Cutbelt, Jojo, whatever you wish to call yourself...’ Whoa, this is getting seriously meta. ‘What would be the consequences of ending this game?’ Well, I said, talking to myself, that would be a bit tricky. Lost Caverns of Soap Candy is a metaphysical game.” She looked over at Ellen. “That was supposed to be a total surprise, by the way. What I mean is that the core area of the game exists outside space and time. Theoretically, every player who ever reaches that area is existing in the same place with every other player. The conjunction of realities is supposed to be the source of Eggswife’s power, and that of the spoiler-spoiler at the heart of the caverns. So if I cut off my game...hm, I’m not really sure.
“Realistically, you can’t possibly have every player that ever plays Ponies & Dragons traipsing around in your Equestria, or there’d be nothing left. Players play the same modules at the same time, and none of them find when they get to the treasure that it’s already been looted. So either there are multiple alternate Equestrias, or only some of them count...like say the showcases.”
Suddenly excited, Ellen smacked her fork down on the table. “Sorry...” she cringed as the whole restaurant looked at the loud noise, then slowly resumed their meals. “But no! It has to be more, because you, Ms. Sunbutt, scared the heck out of a fairly new PH by showing up in his game...no, that was Hope wasn’t it? I was wrong about it being you, but if Hope is in your world, then you are in the same world as our most annoying player. Gods he has probably gotten all of his poor characters killed, hasn’t he...?” Ellen trailed off, slumping against the back of her seat.
M.J. smirked. “You do know that Brian has this official certificate printed up, saying that every game he plays is ‘showcase canon’, with the idea that if he does anything epic that I’ll be required to put it in our next rulebook. It’s his own fiction. Although, considering the power of belief in Equestria...wow. You’re really screwed.”
“That’s not very nice,” said Ellen. “So, right now, do you see me or Midnight, Celestia?”
“‘I see you, Lady Sparkle,’ Celestia replies.”
“Wait...so I just control her by saying stuff—this is a subtle system! Can you imagine the amount of energy it would take to monitor every player, Jojo?”
“No, I honestly can’t,” said M.J. “And now I’m guessing that you’re stuck on our timescale, Celestia, if you’re able to communicate when the game is stopped. And our campaigns cover decades in a matter of days! It would be an act of cruelty to even sleep!
“‘I can manage,’ Celestia replied. ‘If you are like other mortal creatures, the last thing I need is for Equestria to suffer the effects of your sleep deprivation. So what is this about a metaphysical game? Why can’t you just end it?’” M.J. took a few moments to eat before she answered. “It’s just that, part of this game should apply to you no matter who plays it, out of potentially hundreds of copies that have already been sold. And trust me, you definitely want this boss taken down. Celestia sighs. ‘So, it would appear that the path of violence is the only one open to me, then?’”
“Or... A path of cleverness.” Ellen shrugged and leaned forward again. “Listen, Celestia. We don’t know how to save your world right now. But we do know how to adventure. We can do this thing, finish it and go home, try to figure out a better solution. I don’t want Midnight hurt. I don’t want Hope hurt, but, if it does happen, please don’t hate us for it. We still want to help.”
Mary Jo as Celestia sighed, and then became very stern. “‘Very well,’ she says. ‘But that means from now on, we shall be playing this game my way, with no questions asked.’”
Ellen sighed, laying her head in her hands and rubbing the ghosts of tears from her eyes with the heels of her hands. “That’s not how friends operate, Celestia,” she said softly. “We might ask questions, they might be stupid but...we will defer to you, because you know what you are doing, okay? An exchange of assistance?”
M.J.’s expression softened. “‘Very well. I shall amend my last statement to “Trust me.”’”
“That. I can do that.”