I sat in my room on my bed, the place where I usually went whenever I needed to get away and think. Of course, at the moment, I was merely there just to relax a bit from the tenuous situations outside. I didn’t want to think just now.
De-equipping my armor and weapons, I slumped back onto my bed, and stared at the ceiling. This had become an almost routine thing for me. I would do this, and just idly stare around my bedroom while I let my mind wander… my old bedroom, mind you. Yeah, that’s right, it was the very one I had when it was only me and my team, back in the beginning of this game, back in Ponyville.
Sighing a bit in boredom, I realized that this routine had grown a bit monotonous. Of course, it wasn’t like I had anything to do when I was bored now… but months before, whenever I was bored I would usually…
I opened my player’s menu, bringing up my inventory and leafing through it until I found it: my journal, the one I had written in. It was a complete record of our adventures in the game… well, almost complete. I sighed as I remembered that I hadn’t even touched it ever since we arrived in Ponyville, after Canterlot fell to Discord.
Why?... I don’t know. It wasn’t that I was too busy nowadays to write in it…
… Maybe I just didn’t want to remember. Maybe I didn’t want to remember the huge loss we suffered because of Discord’s coup to take over. All those lives that were taken when the other cities fell, all those players that died on a
single day… they were staggering in their sheer numbers.
… But maybe it was because I didn’t want to remember her…
A pang of sadness struck through my chest as the memory came back, of me having to leave Frostlight… was she even still alive? I didn’t even know.
I sighed, shaking my head and pulling the journal out. I was being childish and I knew it. No matter how terrible the memories were, I still wanted to make sure they weren’t lost when everyone else forgot… assuming they even could.
I summoned a quill and opened to the next open page of the journal. I touched the quill to paper and set to writing.
Equestria Legends Online – October 31st
Hey, Shadowflame here… it’s been quite a while, so a lot has happened since I last recorded what’s going on in this game.
I found myself pausing as I wrote that. Scratching out one part, I continued.
… so a lot has happened since I last recorded what’s going on in this
gamehell. Too much has happened.Exactly three months and three weeks ago, Canterlot fell to Discord. He took control of the city and sent it high up into the air. Without a form of flight transportation, no one can reach it. The only way we’d be able to get the whole of our forces up there for an attack would be by airship, but that isn’t possible at the moment. Sure, we have enough airships to mount an attack, but two problems keep us from attacking.
First, our forces, all of the remaining players are scattered and spread thin.
Discord’s coup had one main objective: to kill off the admins in the game. He placed teams of Haters in every town and city, and when he gave the signal, every admin was to be assassinated. Excluding Sharky, who’s still here with us, every single admin who helped to create ELO is dead.
Without the leadership or advice of the admins, most of the other cities fell into disarray as they were promptly overrun by monsters and Haters alike. To this day, the only cities that survived are Ponyville, Manehatten in the north, and Cloudsdale, which drifts across the sky by the wing power of the players that have survived there. Everywhere else has become a ghost town, with nothing except hordes of monsters roaming their streets. Believe me, because over the past few months, I’ve seen them with my own eyes. None of them are safe anymore.
But even with three cities still standing, we’re in terrible condition. Even now, we have monsters constantly prowling at our front doorsteps. Here in Ponyville, we had to build walls with our own skills and a few hired NPC’s, all around the city for protection from the small monsters. It was really expensive, but definitely worth it in the long run. The walls would keep the hordes of small monsters, leaving us to fight off any larger monsters that roamed too close to us.
From what I’ve heard, it’s the same in Manehatten, and as for Cloudsdale, they have to keep their city, or what’s left of it, moving to protect themselves from airborne monsters.
Out of the three cities, only 247 players remain alive. A little less than half that number were the players who had to abandon their old cities and flee from Discord’s coup… they’re the survivors, all of them refugees as their cities became Discord’s personal monster nests. On that day the draconequus attacked, over 250 people were killed, most of those within the first few hours of the attacks across Equestria. Out of the 1000+ players that started this game, we’re down to a fourth of that at this point.
But though the number of survivors would be enough to mount an attack on Canterlot, I told you before; We’re scattered across Equestria. Every mile of land or sky separating Ponyville from Cloudsdale and Manehatten is riddled with hundreds of monsters. It would take an army to trek across the plains or even sail to the other cities, and even then it’d be extremely dangerous.
We can’t also forget that Discord has an army too: a seemingly endless number of monsters at his command, and about 75 Haters at his disposal.
The Haters… for the longest time, I had thought them to be another enemy we had to fight. But now, everyone saw that they had been under Discord’s influence this whole time, but they were just as much Discord’s victims as we were.
But they can’t do anything about that now. Discord has gained mind control powers over every Hater who tries to disobey him. If they try to retaliate, they’ll become nothing more than literal attack dogs, completely obedient and vicious.
I winced slightly as a memory surfaced, before I solemnly wrote it down…
We soon found out that the thing that allowed Discord to take control of them was the Haters’ brand that they got when they joined their guild. It’s a skull brand that they burn to the back of every member’s ears, and unfortunately… one of our own, despite having left the guild a long time ago, still wears that brand.
___________________________
Siren
Siren descended the stairs into the makeshift dungeon, or rather, what used to be Town Hall’s basement. With her, the purple pegasus carried a tray of food down to the dungeon’s guard. The night shift had started hours ago and there was not much to do down there, so she thought it’d be a nice thing to do.
When she reached the locked door at the bottom of the stairs, she was met by the player who had been keeping the night watch: A Canterlot ‘refugee’ they had brought with them back from the fallen city. He was a yellow earth pony stallion, with a blue mane, armed with an arsenal of throwing knives. His cutie mark was a Roman history book, and his Player ID read: Roman Writ.
When he spotted Siren coming down the stairs, he perked up slightly, “Oh, hey Siren!”
She gave a small smile, “Hey, Roman.” She glanced towards the door he was guarding, “How is he?”
Roman sighed sadly, “Well, he hasn’t really improved.” He reached up and pulled away a little slit of the door, a peephole. He nodded towards it, “See for yourself.”
Setting the tray of food down in front of Roman’s hooves, she peered through the little hole in the door.
Inside, she saw a sight that felt like a knife to her chest. Inside the little prison, standing in the center of the room, stood a figure bound in shackles. The chains held him in place, restricting his range of motion around the cell. A light blue ring sat around the base of his horn to prevent him from using magic to escape.
Siren watched solemnly as the brown unicorn in the prison slowly lifted his head up towards her eyes. Upon seeing them through the door, his face twisted into a snarl, his glazed eyes showing no other emotion besides malice and hatred.
Cinn let out a deafening scream as he lunged towards the door in fury, only for the clanking shackles around his hooves to stop him in his tracks. Yet Cinn still pulled his chains tight, as if pulling on them hard enough would free him from them, so he could kill his target.
A blood thirsty scream roared from the unicorn, “Destroy the Elements! For Lord Discord! Destroy the Elements! For Lord Discord!”
Each scream, each chant that spoke with Cinn’s voice, felt like an aching pain to Siren. She had been down here to check up on Cinn several times ever since he first fell under Discord’s mind control months ago. But no matter how many times she came, it didn’t make it hurt any less to hear and see one of her friends like this. The bloodlust in his eyes and the chant he always screamed whenever he saw one of the Element bearers… they just weren’t ‘him’. This was Discord’s cruelty, and it was putting all of them all through this agony.
Sadly, Siren slid the peephole close, Cinn’s screams and thrashing chains echoing through the barrier. Siren glanced towards Roman, quietly thanking him, before ascending the staircase again. Silently, she wondered if there was even a way to save him from this…
____________________________
Shadowflame
*Sigh*
We’ve lost Cinn, or at least that’s what we’ve assumed. We hope that his mind is still intact somehow, just suppressed beneath Discord’s influence. Assuming that, the only way to free him is to defeat Discord… but that leads into our other current problem. We still don’t have the final Element of Harmony: The Element of Magic.
Even though Discord has already taken almost total control over the game, slaughtering and cutting off the players from each other, Nightmare Moon still hasn’t revealed herself. We have no idea where she, the final boss, is hiding.
Without the final Element, we’re not sure we’d be able to defeat Discord. As he is basically a god of this world, he’s sure to be immortal to just about everything else. Without all of the Elements, we don’t have much of a chance against him.
So now, we’ve all been waiting for the past three months. We’ve fought off the monsters from Ponyville, tried to find some way to join with the other players in Cloudsdale and Manehatten, and mostly, just waited. Just about everyone is terrified, wondering with every passing day if Discord will finally end us like he did with everyone else… Equestria hasn’t seemed more desolate to me than now.
I glanced towards the clock on my bedside table, only to find that it had grown late since I started writing.
It looks like I’ll have to end my writings here for tonight. It’s getting late and I better get back to checking up on everyone else in town.
You see, ever since the admins were killed during the coup, everyone lost the leaders we had followed from the start of the game. And just like real life, people choose someone else to be the leader… and unfortunately, that role fell to me. It seemed logical to everyone else, since I was the closest person to Jupiter, though I think me being an alicorn had a lot to do with it.
Though I didn’t get why Sharky didn’t step up to take charge. He used to be an admin, so he seemed like the ideal choice. But upon asking him about it later, he said he’d rather not be known to the public as the only surviving admin, lest any players grow suspicious of him. It’s a valid reason, I guess, though it’s not like I could’ve stopped the others from looking towards me for somekind of guidance.
Anyways, I’ll write again later. But for now, I better get going.
Signed,
-Shadowflame
Putting my journal away into my inventory again, I hopped off my bed, requipped my gear and headed outside my room.
The old Ponyville base was just the same as always, with two stories in it. All of the bedrooms were on the second floor, with just barely enough rooms for all of us (with the couples in our group sharing rooms, not that they minded of course). The whole house was relatively dark, but mostly not to disturb the others. It was almost 11:00 at night, and some of our group members were asleep, mostly everyone who kept the town in order during the day.
As of late, our group hasn’t really been altogether at once. This whole survival crisis has kept us from seeing each other all at once like we used to. Even though we all lived in the same house, we all came and went on our own times. We still saw each other, but not usually for too long. It was a bit depressing…
Anyways, I quietly made my way out of the house and into Ponyville’s streets. Up above in the purple sky, the moon shone fully, maybe even slightly bigger in size than usual… Oh, wait.. that’s right, it’s Nightmare Night tonight. Too bad hardly anyone is in the mood to celebrate… well, except maybe Cross, but that’s just the Element of Laughter for you.
“Hey, Shadow!”
Speaking of which;
I turned to see Cross trot up to me, all of his gear on like usual. The blue unicorn had a slight smile on his face as he walked towards me.
“Oh, hey Cross.” I replied, smiling slightly in return, “What’s up?”
“Oh, nothing much.” He yawned, “Just finished my rounds around town.” Shrugging, he mused, “Although, I don’t see much the point of having to check on the town’s interior. Both you and I know monsters still don’t spawn inside city limits.”
I chuckled a bit as I shot back, “Yeah, but both you and I know some monsters can climb the walls and hide out inside town.” I smirked at him, “Man, you complain about this every night. Just be grateful you’re not stuck on the wall shift tonight.”
Cross just laughed, “First off, I don’t complain. I just do what I do best; joke around. Secondly, isn’t it a bit late to be heading out to the wall shift?”
I shook my head, “Nah, I’m not on the wall ‘till tomorrow. I just wanted to check on the others who are.”
Rolling his eyes, Cross chuckled, “That’s our ‘glorious’ leader for ya. Always going above and beyond just because he got a pair of wings stapled to his back.” He yawned again, trying to stifle it with a hoof, “Well, I better hit the hay… maybe get a midnight snack of hay fries while I’m at it. Goodnight.”
“’Night.” I replied as I stepped aside, letting the unicorn step past me.
But just before Cross stepped inside, he stopped and turned, “Oh, yeah. And Shadow…”
“Yeah?” I asked.
He reached into one of the pockets on his armor, before pulling out something small and throwing it towards me. I caught it in midair with my magic, and holding it closer to see it, I found it was a tiny piece of candy.
I looked back towards Cross to see him smiling back. He shrugged, “Hey, we might be on total lockdown right now, but I still call tonight a holiday. Happy Nightmare Night!”
I smiled back, “Thank you. Happy Nightmare Night.”
Nodding, Cross disappeared into the house, leaving me out and alone in Ponyville’s darkened streets.
Turning around, I spread my wings and took to the air, tilting my course towards the north wall of Ponyville.
____________________________________
As I flew, I couldn’t help but glance down at the town passing by below. The streets were empty in the moonlit night, hardly anyone walking along them. In the past, there would be dozens of NPC’s and players milling about. Of course, during the night, NPC’s mostly returned home, but ever since the monster attacks, many disappeared. We weren’t sure whether that was because of Discord, or if the monsters killed them off, never to respawn again.
Soon the north wall came into sight, as well as the two guards that stood atop it. Tonight it was Sky and Eclipse manning the night-watch position.
They spotted me and greeted me upon me landing beside them.
“Hey.” Sky grunted briefly.
Eclipse turned my way, “What’s up?”
“Nothing much.” I replied, “Just came to check on things around town. Anything interesting happen?”
Sky shrugged, “Not really.” He glanced down towards the base of the wall, looking down at a pair of timberwolves trying to claw their way through the wall, but to no avail, “All we’ve had come close are timberwolves and an occasional zombie or two.”
Eclipse smiled slightly, cocking two arrows into his bow, “But hey, it’s given me some target practice.” He pulled back on the bowstring, aiming down towards the wolves below. With a quick whistle as the arrows pierced the wind, the timberwolves gave an abrupt yelp before bursting into code as the arrows met their marks.
“So all quiet on the northern front?” I inquired.
“Yup.” Sky muttered.
Eclipse stretched out his arms a bit, “Honestly, it’s been getting kind of boring lately. No big monsters for the past week or two, no raiding force of Haters hellbent for survival, no-“ He stopped for a moment, eyes widening as he looked upwards, “Um… the moon’s glowing.”
I raised an eyebrow, “Um, dude? Isn’t the moon always glowing?”
“No, I mean, really glowing! Look!” He pointed a hoof towards the white orb in the sky, and Sky and I directed our eyes towards it.
To our surprise, the moon was glowing even brighter than before, and still growing in brightness. It was almost becoming too unbearable to look at it directly.
“Gah!” Sky had to shield his eyes with a hoof, “What the hell?”
“You’re telling me!” I muttered, hoof over my eyes too, “What’s going on?”
The moon was now as bright as the sun, blanketing everything in white light. It seemed like everything had just been flashed away… but just as quickly as the moon became a blinding celestial body, the brightness suddenly ceased, the moon reverting to its normal shade of white.
But as calm seemed to set in, a pinnacle of light erupted out of the moon, shining directly down towards Equestria below… right into Ponyville.
Sky, Eclipse, and I just stared in shock as the whole town was illuminated before our eyes.
Eclipse’s jaw hit dirt, “What the hell! Are we under attack!?”
“It’s Majora!” Sky exclaimed, “Majora’s bringing the moon down on top of us… no wait, that isn’t it, wrong game.”
But just like the blindingly bright moon, the pillar of moonlight instantly shrank in size and disappeared, just as quickly as it had come.
“C’mon. We better check it out.” I spread my wings and took to the air, flying directly towards where the light had landed, with Sky right behind me in his cloud form. Eclipse, incapable of flight, had to follow behind us on the ground, so he was considerably slower.
Our search led us to Ponyville’s town square, where I had thought the moonlight had touched down. But when we reached there, we found something we didn’t expect.
At the fountain in Ponyville’s square, we found a mare lying face down on the ground shuddering as frantic sobs hiccupped out of her. She was a pink earth pony with a blue mane. Her cutie mark was a music note surrounded by a rainbow, and her Player ID read: Aurora Sounds.
But that was strange. I had never seen her in town before, and considering I’ve been in Ponyville for the past three months, that meant she hadn’t been here before… did she come from the beam that shot from the moon?
Sky and I lighted down beside the crying mare. But as our hooves connected with the road, the sound caused her head to jolt up suddenly. She looked towards us with tear streaked eyes, her sobs choking in her throat.
I quickly approached her, “Oh my gosh, are you alright?”
This new mare looked up at me with watery eyes, “P-pl-please. P-please he-help me…”
_________________________________________
Soon later, we led Aurora back to our home base. We had managed to calm her down and set her down on a couch, with a blanket for comfort. By the time she had finally dried out her eyes, we had woken and gathered the rest of our group. After all, if she had just appeared out of a moon beam, asking for help, then it was most likely something big, something that required everyone’s attention.
Once everyone was assembled in the base’s living room, I turned the attention towards Aurora. “Are you fine to talk now?” I asked.
The pink mare slowly nodded, hugging her blanket tighter around her body, “Y-yeah, I’m fine.”
“You said you needed our help.” Sky commented, “What exactly is it?”
Eclipse quickly added, “Yeah, and what was that massive ‘moon-beam’ we saw? Was that you?”
“Now guys,” Neon, who was sitting beside Aurora on the couch, chided us, “One question at a time.”
Aurora shook her head at her, “N-no it’s fine.” She took a deep breath, “I need help… because I just escaped Nightmare Moon’s clutches.”
That enticed a few widened eyes from everyone present.
“Wait, Nightmare Moon?” Soul asked.
“We’ve been trying to find that boss for months.” Violet inquired, “Where is she?”
Swift asked, “Were you her prisoner or somethin’?”
Aurora winced slightly, “W-well… I-I…” She sighed,
“It happened just before Discord made his final bosses announcement. I was… captured by Nightmare, and she locked me away in the place she’s been hiding all this time: the moon.”
“The Moon?” Lexus facehoofed, “How does that even make sense? No wonder we were never able to find her!”
Aurora gave Lexus a curious look, but Neon explained, “Sorry, he never watched the show to begin with, so he doesn’t get any of the references this game throws in.”
Nodding, the pink mare continued, “Well, after three months, I was able to escape…” She paused, “No… I didn’t escape. She let me go… sh-she gave me a message before I ran away.”
“A message?” Sharky asked.
Aurora nodded, “Yeah, she… she told me, ‘Tell those fools down on the surface that I am ready to fight. I will be waiting for them, if they dare come for me.’”
“Then that means,” Cross breathed, “We can fight the last boss now.”
“Now we know where the last element is.” Sharky commented, “But we’ll need time to prepare for the boss battle itself. We can’t just go running there as we are now.”
Aurora blinked in surprise, before wincing, “Um… Nightmare actually said you might say that, but she doesn’t want to wait while you all prepare.” She took a few deep breaths, “S-she said… that you had a friend who was under Discord’s control, and that you wanted to save him from his mind control.”
An uneasy silence filled the air. I nodded, “Yeah, that’s right.” I frowned, “What about him?”
Aurora hesitated slightly, before slowly replying, “S-she said… she said if you came and found her before midnight, then she would give you an artifact if you defeated her. She said… that this artifact could free your friend from Discord’s mind control.”
Siren gasped, eyes wide, “We can save Cinn?”
“But only if we reach her before Midnight.” Sky reminded his girlfriend. He frowned grimly, “This makes things… interesting. Either we prepare for the battle against Nightmare, or we leave now and save Cinn.” He sighed, “Even though I might’ve not liked Cinn in the past, this is a hard choice.”
“What’s so hard about that choice?” Neon argued. All eyes turned towards her in surprise, but she continued, “I mean, I know going into a boss battle unprepared is bad and endangers our lives, but seriously, I think we’ve been in enough battles to adapt quickly to anything Nightmare throws at us. I don’t care if we take five minutes to prepare and get ready, but any more is pushing it. We have only one chance to save Cinn, and as his friends, we should be jumping at the chance to help him.”
The room went silent for a moment.
Soul jokingly whined after Neon’s outburst, “Hey, I’m the Element of Loyalty here. That should be my line!”
Neon giggled, “Sorry, Soul.”
Eclipse interjected, “I think Neon’s right. If our past run in with that Hydra boss in Canterlot is anything to go by, we’re ready for anything. Heck, for the past three months, we’ve done nothing but prepare and wait for Nightmare to show her face. This is the chance we’ve been waiting for!”
Everyone let out a cumulative cheer at that, if not varied slightly, “YEAH!”
But then, a pause fell over the group. Comet was the first to realize something, “Please tell me if I’m mistaken, but was Eclipse the one who said that?”
Eclipse frowned, “Yeah, what’s so surprising?”
Swift gave the unicorn a friendly smack on the arm, “Dude, you’ve been holding back on us. I didn’t even know you could talk like that.”
Eclipse paused, and as he did, I was pretty sure his and my thoughts drifted back towards our conversation we had back in Canterlot, when I had been trying to activate his element, “… I guess I have been holding back.” He smirked, “But not anymore.”
Aurora blinked at us in surprise as she watched, “You… y-you all would charge into a fight just for one friend? All of you?”
“Of course!” Cross chimed.
Sky rolled his eyes, “Even if Cinn was a bit of jerk to begin with, Siren wouldn’t let me live it down if I didn’t help him.”
“And you know it!” Siren giggled.
Aurora paused for a moment, before a tiny smile appeared on her face, “I… I guess I should have expected that from the Elements of Harmony. You guys really are the Elements, aren’t you?”
Eclipse replied, smiling, “Yeah. We have the necklaces and everything to prove it.”
The pink mare giggled slightly at the joke, but then sighed, “Okay, I’ll tell you how to reach Nightmare Moon. But I also have a request for you.” She paused, “Please… save my friends…”
“Your friends? Were they taken by Nightmare Moon too?” Dylan asked.
I glanced back towards Aurora, “Where can we find them?”
Aurora shook her head, “D-don’t worry about them. If you defeat Nightmare, they should be released from her hold.”
I nodded, before glancing towards the rest of the group, “Alright everybody, gear up and get ready. We leave for Nightmare Moon’s hideaway in five minutes!”
“Right!” Instantly, the whole group broke away and went off their own directions, off to prepare their gear for the big battle ahead.
…Well, all except Eclipse. Out of the corner of my eye, just as I was leaving to grab some stuff from my room, I watched as the white unicorn made his way towards Aurora on the couch.
Eclipse walked up to her and put a comforting hoof on her arm, “Don’t worry, Aurora, we’ll save your friends.”
The smile on her face grew just that much more at his words. She beamed at Eclipse, “T-thank you. I-I…” She glanced down at the floorboards, “Good luck. I hope you return safely… all of you…”
Just then, I saw something that made a profound wave of relief pass over me. A little notification window popped up in front of him, and even from where I stood, I could make out what it said.
Acheivement Get: Generosity (Activate the Element of Generosity
I went off to prep for the battle, silently thinking to myself, Two more left now. Mine and the Element of Magic. After that, Discord's as good as dead.