Dust Bowl watched quietly, in a silence broken only by the clickety-clack of the train rolling down the tracks. On the table between them, his companion sorted through piles of colorful little cards, thoughtfully picking some out and putting others back with the occasional "hmm".
"What are you doing, Zeke?" the brown unicorn finally asked, when the silence had dragged on too long.
"I'm making a new deck, Dust," the human replied without looking up.
"I can see that. But why? Your other deck seemed to be working fine." The two had been companions for the last few weeks, and Dust Bowl had had an exciting time helping the human learn how is newly empowered artifact worked. Some parts he picked up trivially, probably by simply applying his knowledge of the game it was apparently made from, while some bits harder. Once he figured out how to aim his Lightning Bolt, for example, he had no trouble aiming a Fireblast. Fireballs, for some reason were a nightmare to master. While the destructive nature of his spells was quite frightening, it also brought out the thrill of the taboo. Also, it had saved their little town a few times in a few weeks, so a lot could be forgiven.
"My last deck was all offense, designed to win before my opponent has a chance to. It made sense when I thought I would have to.." Zeke shook his head, unwilling to finish the thought. But Dust knew.. they'd had that conversation before, and Zeke was quite enthusiastic to tell him about it when he and Daniel had parted ways and left him with a new understanding. "When I outed Daniel, he didn't fight to beat me, he maneuvered and stalled for time until he could win me over. If I run into another human who is still thinking PVP, I need a way to protect myself until I can convince them otherwise. I need damage prevention, healing, counters.. a white blue deck is the way to go. I won't be completely without offense, in case something comes up that I do need to beat down, but even that will be measured and controlled. It's a different kind of deck to suit a different kind of objective. And heck, I'll still have my red deck in my backpack if I need to take the time to swap out."
The human finished what he was doing, shuffling a pile of white and blue cards and slipping them into the holster at his hip, before putting the rest into a box and sliding it into his backpack.
"Also," Zeke continued, grinning, "maybe I can put these white healing cards to good use treating the injured or something? It'd be good to have them on hand for just such a purpose."
Dust Bowl shrugged, uncertain. Zeke had tried using them previously, but the only thing they had seemed to be able to cure was that weird sense of dread ponies got from fighting those unnatural human soldiers that had come up from the badlands a few times. That was useful enough, as no conventional healing magic seemed to make a dent in it, but it was still a distinctly limited niche.
"We still have a few hours until Ponyville. You should get some shut-eye while you can, partner." Zeke agreed with the suggestion, and soon the clickety-clack of the tracks was accompanied by gentle, rhythmic snoring.
When Zeke got off the train, he spotted another man walking down the road past the station. The man was in his mid twenties, lean and well toned. He wore all green, with a floppy green pointed hat, a long sword and wooden shield sheathed at his back along with a bow, and a handful of oddly stuffed pouches. If he'd had pointed ears, he would have been the spitting image of Link from the Legend of Zelda games, or at least a well done cosplay.
"Frank?" Zeke asked.
The other man shook his head. "I'm Robert, actually. And you're Zeke, and your friend is Dust Bowl."
Zeke started to ask the obvious questions when he was interrupted by a ball of boundless pink energy popping up between them shouting "Aha! I knew there would be extra special guests of great relevance at the train station and here you are. Come on, you're almost late for the funeral party!"
Both humans were rendered speechless, trading looks of bewilderment as Pinkie Pie shoved them bodily down the road, Dust Bowl trotting swiftly to keep up. They approached a clearing surrounded by black-clothed tables sporting tasteful sandwiches, with black streamers hanging from nearby tree limbs and black and grey party balloons hovering about. A few dozen random ponies attended, listening quietly as a unicorn gave her speech. Robert got pale when he saw who it was, his look of dread only growing as he listened.
"When Trixie arrived with her yesterday morning, she was so full of life, so determined to take on the world. Trixie was glad to know her as a friend, as Trixie shares these virtues. But when Trixie saw her again at noon, already she looked dead in her eyes. Already Trixie could see no life left in her, no spirit. Trixie was very worried, but she would not talk to Trixie." The blue unicorn had to stop a moment to sob, the experience still fresh in her mind. "Trixie left her alone, like she asked. Trixie is very sorry for this. Trixie's home has become place of death because of this..."
Wordlessly, Robert had crept up to the open casket during the speech and peered within. After a few seconds, he collapsed to his knees sobbing quietly, the word "mom" escaping his lips more than once, in various forms. Zeke wrapped an arm around him, and pulled him back to take a seat nearby, letting him cry it out, sparing him the questions for now. Seeing this, Trixie was unable to finish her speech and came down, trying to comfort Robert as best she could.
The silence started to make everyone else uncomfortable, so Applejack took her place at the podium. "Hi, y'all. I didn't know the departed all that long or all that well. But I did meet her once, and I'm afraid it might have had somethin ta do with her passing." AJ cringed as she got the attention her comment commanded. "Y'see another of these human fellers stopped by here not long ago, and talked to me about 'Survival Games'. He said there was some mixup, and that he and the others had been fooled inta thinkin they were competitive, rather than cooperative. He asked me to spread the word if I had a chance, and sure as the sun comes up, I did when I had the chance."
Applejack paused a moment, taking a swig of water from a glass. "Well this Rebecca lady, I thought she would be pleased as punch to hear about it, but instead she gets this awful, haunted look to her when I tell her. She started going on about how her 'baby didn't have to die' or something. I tried ta talk some sense inta her, but she jus stumbled off, like she was dead to the world. I still don't understand what got into her, but I do feel dreadful sorry for anything I might have done to lead her to.. this."
Zeke turned from Applejack as she finished her speech, noticing the Robert had something in his hands now. A cell phone, the screen coated in a spiderweb of cracks, the damage in the middle deep enough to see broken circuit-board underneath. Slowly he pieced the clues together.
Robert had been the second player eliminated from the Game. But he hadn't been killed, his cell phone had merely been destroyed. That meant he couldn't scan the QR codes, or activate one. He was eliminated as a player. That also meant he could move without being tracked by the other players, giving him a potent advantage if he wanted to use it to sneak up on someone.
His mother had seen the elimination message, and simply accepted it. Perhaps it had even been a relief. If only one person could survive the Game, she would have dreaded coming down to the end and having to kill her own son, or let him finish her off to win. Her mind must have shoved the loss into some deep dark corner, ignoring it until she could win the Game and then allow herself time to grieve. But Applejack's pronouncement had reframed her situation, and it had reframed her loss. The dam had broken, and her sorrows had drowned her.
The results were horrible to behold. She had apparently committed suicide by emptying every flask in Trixie's travelling sideshow wagon, and a wide variety of magics had waged war inside her body. But there was still enough of her original features to recognize her by. And if there hadn't been, the elimination message on Zeke's phone was enough to confirm.
When Robert recovered enough to talk, Zeke was still sitting by his side. He pulled out a round piece of stone with several holes in it. An ocarina. The Ocarina.
"You know.. this isn't the first time I've lost her. But.. I think this time I can't just go back and fix it. It was my action that did this.. normally I could just make my way to Ponyville and meet up with her when she arrived, once I had learned that was what she normally did in the beginning. But, this time I wanted to try something different, something desperate. A new gambit to beat the 'army man'. I didn't.. I didn't think it would end like this. And if I play the song again, and go back to the beginning.. my possessions don't change, they don't reset like everything else. My phone will still be broken, and I'll be eliminated immediately, and she'll go through this all over again.
"How.. how many times have you used that song of yours?"
"I lost track but.. to give you some idea. I was ten when we started this stupid Game the first time. Sometimes it drags on for a few years, other times I have to cut back to the beginning after just a few days. But we've never won.. not yet at least."
"So.. can you at least confirm we're doing it right? I mean, that it's really a cooperative game."
"You're on the right track. But one of the players can't be convinced to join the cause. He builds up an army and sends them out against.. everyone. He hunts us down, but also fights all of the natives. No one has been able to beat him, or even get to him, or talk to him. I'm not even sure what his name is.. I just know he was sitting in the very back of the bus. I think he started on the area with the only QR code for Laughter."
"There's no duplicates then? Dang.."
"There are, for everything but Laughter. There was no QR code in my starting area. I've spent hundreds of hours scouring that wasteland, there's nothing."
"Double dang. Daniel's out there now, searching for it himself."
"What, why? He's normally in Canterlot by now."
"He was checking out your starting point, based on the elimination message. After he found Magic here, he suspected all of the starting points had them."
"Is there any way you can reach him quickly? We need to warn him. The 'army man' started just a small distance north of me. He could get spotted any time now, and he won't survive the onslaught."
Zeke dug in his backpack and pulled out the spider Daniel had left him with. "It helped me find the Honesty code etched into the bottom of one of the floorboards in the saloon I started in. It's also supposed to be able to convey messages to him. Alright.. umm.. Spider: tell Daniel to watch out for the 'army man'." Zeke frowned, unsure if it was working.
Daniel's voice crackled through the spider as if on an unclear radio connection. "Thanks Zeke. I'll be on the lookout. And thanks Robert for the info. Sorry about your mom.. but I don't think we can really spend a lot of time dwelling on it right now. Can you point us to the rest of the QR codes? Given what you've said, I don't want to give up looking out here too easily. Coming up one short again doesn't sound like victory to me."
Robert nodded. "Yeah, I know where all the rest are. There was a flask in Trixie's wagon with the code for Magic, but we can get that here from Twilight's library if you haven't gotten it already. Kindness is carved into a tree in the Everfree, near where Daniel started, which may be safer to get than the copy in the dragon's lair where Ben started. Generosity is somewhere in Manehattan.. I actually haven't seen the spot, but Joshua usually gets it before he goes to find his daughter, so I wouldn't worry about that. Just make sure to link up with players 8 and 9 when you can. And the easiest place to find Loyalty is the cornerstone of the courthouse in lower Canterlot. Simple enough."
Daniel's voice crackled through again. "Alright, why don't you two grab Kindness and then head up to Canterlot to join up with Frank and Scott. I'm going to start putting together a little surprise for your 'army man'. I think maybe it's time he learned the truth about exponents."
Robert frowned. "Good luck. And remember.. you can't win if you're dead."