//------------------------------// // AppleQuest // Story: 1 Apple = 8 Bits // by NTSTS //------------------------------// ---------------------------------------------------------wellokay---------------------------------------------------ldfeQQII.winx-----------pl-------------------exinrom------inrom-------enrom--------bb----f---b---bb----bbb----ff-----t—exe---w.il-y-------------err#108--------------------------------8----16------0------------1----------------8-return----[ldfeQQll.winx]| Applejack felt the throb of waiting thunder overhead before she even opened her eyes. The ground felt solid, but not in an unforgiving way. She swore the grass beneath her hooves was real for a moment until she opened her eyes, and saw nothing but green blocks compressed together. There was no room left for a sigh, because something in her head told her this was it. The final challenge before return. Or, the final time she’d get her hopes up before resigning herself to an eternity of futile attempts at completion of every objective this unreality could throw at her. For once, Applejack wished desperately she was a proper optimist. There was a lot different about this place. To start with, even Applejack’s body felt unusual. An experimental movement of her foreleg revealed the source of strange sensation – instead of orange fur leaping into vision, Applejack’s entire body was covered in what looked like red rusted blocks. They moved with each of her movements, and surprisingly managed to leave her motion relatively unrestricted. She tapped against one set of the red blocks with a hoof, and it plinked in response. So, armor. Applejack was beginning to connect the dots already. She felt on her back with a hoof, preparing herself for what she could expect to find strapped there. A clink of her ‘armor’ let her know her suspicions were correct. As she pulled her hoof away, something clung to it of its own accord. Without any effort on her part, the object strapped to the back of her armor had followed her hoof, and was now hovering alongside it, practically attached through some sort of magic. A sword, long and sharp, or as sharp as it could look with a center composed of two condensed black squares to form an edge. Of course it would have to be this one last. Applejack could see the first screen stretching out in front of her already. Unlike the rolling green hills and bouncing platforms of the game previous, the new sights emerging were blockier, and more menacing, shaded in greys and browns and packed with what she could already see at a distance where evil looking bats and other unpleasant creatures. Applejack hefted her magical sword experimentally, swinging her hoof from side to side and marvelling as the sword followed perfectly. At least she was far from ill-equipped. “How many castles did Applebloom say again…” Applejack could remember at least three. And what else? A Hydra, a giant troll… and if she got to the end, an evil dragon. Mercifully, Applejack’s exhaustion from her track run through obstacle laden fields and over obnoxious crabs seemed to have vanished, leaving her feeling refreshed and capable of taking on anything. Unfortunately, Applejack’s optimism had always been historically clouded by a more sensible pragmatism… the thought was there, in the back of her head. Can I do this? And if I do, what guarantee is there that it will make anything better? The world gave no answer. But, as the stretch of first dark greys and wobbling bats leered at her from their positions in the world they seemed to say at least one thing. Try. Applejack stood, and hefted her shoulders from side to side, trying to get a feel for the armor on her body. It didn’t impede her movement in the slightest, and the sword seemed weightless as well, flowing perfectly with her foreleg swings and drifting out of the way when she willed it to her side. Did she think she could make it? It was hard to be sure. But there was one thing the Apple family members were not, and that was quitters. Between the machinations of adjusting to the swinging of a sword and the bounding over shallow rivers and dark pits, Applejack had time to think. The actions became second nature, barely contained at all in conscious action. See a bat, swing sword. See a pit, flex legs, jump, land, continue forward. Applejack wondered if she had gone delirious from the combination of all the different systems and worlds she’d been immersed in – by this point, sanity was immaterial. She was progressing, and progressing fast, and that’s what mattered. But it left the rest of her mind free, and against Applejack’s usual designs, her thoughts began to wander. What had she said, before the box had shattered and the floor had opened her up, plunging her into a rotating slot of world cartridges, each one different from the last, all with their own challenges and obstacles? She’d said a lot of things. Somehow, given the context of freedom for however long her mind was convinced it had been, Applejack felt the first pangs of clarity creeping through the back of her mind. The harvest was… it had been fine. Was doing better than years previous, with extra gusto from Big Mac and herself. But she had hounded Applebloom… not just in regards to her chores, which it was true, her help was useful on… but more specifically, for what she had done instead of spending all day working, like Applejack had wanted her to. What constituted work now… that was something Applejack was beginning to debate. Had she been working so hard now to reach the end of this gauntlet of challenges and return herself to the home that she loved? She had run and jumped and performed athletics last… and before that, she had flexed every muscle in her brain to try and determine how to tell a confused foreigner what to let her do. Now she was slaying monsters and traversing terrain as fast as her thoughts could let her – and despite the ability for her mind to wander, the focus was there, burning in the back of her thoughts ever present as she moved forward. Bats turned into strange squid, pits of darkness turned into holes filled with menacing magma, but she persisted onward. Each stumble was countered with “just a little further.” Until soon, she could sense it. Troll, she had met. Hydra, she had dispatched with three swings from her magic sword, confident in her stride enough to not look back once as she had hewn its heads off. Applejack couldn’t claim herself an Equestrian Monstorology degree at this point in time, but she was well on her way to preparing for a career in monstrous taxidermy. And still, despite every fearsome thing that leapt at her from the darkness, struggling with every ounce of its being to bring her hero’s journey to an end, Applejack’s mind burned brightly with a single question. Was she wrong? The final castle loomed against the background of darkened cliffs and lightning spirals. Applejack swallowed dryly, clearing her throat and shaking her body in the husk of now brightly shining armor around her frame. The seventh castle. She knew what that meant. She couldn’t tell how much time had passed, or if she had failed and was now only carrying on in a space purely in the realm of her own mind. But the end, fictional or real (if this whole thing could be called real) was in sight. Applejack held her glowing sword above her head as the lightning crackled against the clouds. There was only forward. The dragon king was not what she had expected. “Applejack, please put the sword down!” Spike was cowering behind his blackened throne. Skulls shone with blue flame candles on either corner. Applejack lowered the magic blade to her side, tucking it against her armor with a thought. “Spike? Well don’t that make things a mite easier.” Despite the trials of what seemed like days, and could have been as short as hours, Applejack’s demeanour was completely composed. Spike, on the other hand, was huddled behind his royal seat and clutching his black cape like he expected the farm-pony in front of him to charge and strike him down at any moment. “Relax, Spike… I ain’t about to do anything unnecessary. ‘sides… in so far as I understand it, the ‘dragon king’ is just in the way of the rescue that makes up the end of the game. Am I right?” “Uh… maybe? I’m still not sure how I got here. One minute I was sleeping, and the next minute I’m wake in this place with you waving a sword at me!” “Calm down! I put the sword away. It’s away, see? Tucked over there nice and neat.” Applejack couldn’t have been happier at the sudden turn of events. She’d been expecting a colossal behemoth an ancient dragon to slay in the fiercest of cold blood… instead, she’d gotten a baby dragon she could have defeated with a well placed noogie. “Don’t suppose you know the way to the princess – er, I guess it’d be prince – to the prince’s keep?” Spike managed a shrug as he slowly edged his way out from behind the throne. “Beats me. Did you hear the part where I said I just woke up?” Spike looked around as though doing so for the first time, catching a glimpse of the tattered black curtains on the ancient ornate windows, and the flashes of lightning from the sky outside. “Where are we, anyway?” “Somewhere that ain’t gonna matter in a couple minutes.” Applejack’s green eyes glimmered as she caught sight of the stairs leading up in a spiral, laid in to the stone at the far end of the cavernous room. Her armor clinked as she walked, the half-metallic half mechanical sound now sounding like the most natural thing in the world. Applejack whispered a few beeps to herself as she reached the foot of the stairs and began her journey upward. After the journey till now, the final ascent felt like the longest part, but eventually the stairs did end. The room at the height of the staircase was small, what looked like an ornate waiting room carved in stone, with a single wooden chair in the corner, and an ornate door at the room’s far end wall. Applejack’s mouth fell open in her helmet when her eyes landed on the chair. “Applebloom?” “Sis?” Applebloom’s familiar voice squeaked through the room and bounced against the stone. It was the sweetest thing Applejack could remember hearing, drowning out enough frustration to make up a thousand years of early alarms by video game beeps. Applejack ran to the chair, and scooped her sister up into the biggest hug she could muster, pressing her against the armor like it wasn’t there at all. Applebloom shut her eyes with her sister as she returned the hug. For a moment, it didn’t’ matter. Sweet Apple Acres, real or a game, speech or bleeps or HUG YELLOW PONY, Applejack didn’t care. Her sister was the best thing she’d seen in what could have been a thousand years. Time had stopped meaning anything by Castle number four. “I’m so glad to see you, Applebloom… I didn’t realize how much I missed you. It feels like it’s been a long while.” Applebloom sniffled into her sister’s chin, the only part exposed by her armor. “I missed you too, AJ… I dunno why, but it feels like I’ve been asleep for a long time.” Applejack managed to pull herself from the hug after another minute, setting her sister down on the castle floor gently. “Where are we, Applejack?” “Ain’t gonna matter in a minute… you ever make it to the last castle?” Applebloom’s eyes widened in surprise and confusion. “No… never past castle five.” “Well, I’m guessing my prince is behind that door… so, shall we?” Applebloom took her sister’s hoof nervously, and the two of them walked across the room together. The door at the far end shimmered, beckoning them forward, and it was warm as Applejack pushed it open. There was no creek, only the hum of the presence inside. The last thing Applejack knew she would need to see before everything was right. And there he was, facing the window, dressed in dashing robes and glowing with the magic of the game’s conclusion. Applejack felt a lump in her throat, which she swallowed. She let her sister’s hoof fall away as she approached the pony staring into the distance. “I… I made it. I’m here, after all that. And now… it’s over?” The pony at the window turned, as though they were startled. Applejack was only a few feet away, and caught her first sight of the prince’s face with a swelling intake of breath. Whether because of expectation, or realization of what this moment meant, she felt nervous in an entirely unfamiliar way. This was her prince; the finality of absolution and a return to everything being right again. She wanted to look into his face. Applejack’s eyes widened so far she felt they might escape from her body. The pony in front of her mimicked the expression. “Rarity?!” ###################################EEEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR#########################COMPLETE###############################################################################################################ENTERHISCORE#################################################################### 1. HNSTY 2. 10000 3. 5000 4. 2500 5. DSCRD