Diver pushed open the door from the hotel lobby, and reached a stormy stadium. A cage thirty feet high filled the middle of a dark cloud-cave lit by dazzling spotlights. Around a hundred horse-people sat on cushioned concrete benches to either side. The stands had room for twice as many, making him wonder about the true population size, but the room still felt crowded. Diver made his way leftward to a free seat and plopped down with his hindlegs splayed and his forelegs between them, which seemed like this body's most natural sitting pose. He looked around for Scale and Meteor, who'd left while he was checking on Major Key. It was disappointing not to have them watch, but some part of Noctis was probably in the crowd.
Inside the cage, the batty Nimbus wore a microphone headset. "Stallions and mares, welcome to another edition of Battle Dome! You know the rules, so let's hear 'em!"
The audience took up a chant. "Two horse enter, one horse leave!" They stomped the floor to make their own thunder. "Two horse enter, one horse leave!"
Nimbus raised one hoof and cued an actual boom of thunder from the cloud around them. "Our first match tonight is some new blood. On the north side we've got a wandering star who was once ban-hammered for arson. It's Peat the Unicorn!"
A moss-green unicorn trotted through a gate in the cage and pranced around, making silly faces. Didn't look like a dangerous criminal.
"On the north side, it's a newbie pegasus looking to make a name for himself. Does he fight for justice, or to pay a secret debt? Please welcome the stallion of mystery, Sky Diver!"
A spotlight speared him. Diver's wings flittered in the sudden hot beam, but he climbed down from his seat to enter the cage's other gate. I'm supposed to beat a guy to death for these people's amusement, with my bare hooves?
Clubs, swords, rocks and a morningstar materialized along various parts of the cage.
"That's not what I meant," he murmured.
Nimbus hustled out of the cage and rang a bell by kicking it. Battle music with heavy bass started.
The unicorn stepped forward, eyed Diver, and jabbed a hoof toward him, suddenly serious. "The Eternal Spear must never fall into the hooves of a cursed one like you!"
Diver blinked. "The what, now?"
Peat used the distraction to rush him and pounce, leading with a hoof-punch to Diver's neck. Diver staggered back and took a glancing blow to his ribs.
You have taken a minor wound! said the world's interface.
Diver flicked one wing at Peat's face, fell back, and flapped to get airborne. "You're just making up nonsense, aren't you?"
Peat scurried toward a scimitar that jutted from the cage. His horn glowed green and he jerked his head as though pulling with it. The weapon flew free and hovered unsteadily in the grip of an emerald aura around its hilt. The unicorn brandished it in front of him as though he had hands.
Meanwhile, Diver circled the arena from above. He couldn't stop and hover. His foe tried to jab up at him, but didn't seem to have any reach with his magic. Just when Diver got complacent, Peat stabbed farther and came dangerously close. Then Peat hurled the blade, sacrificing his grip to make a deadly flying slash.
Diver yelped and veered to starboard. The blade clipped his left wing -- You have taken a minor wound! -- and made him crash back to the floor, wincing. He needed the height advantage. He forced himself back into the air, circling and feinting to keep Peat from getting properly re-armed. The crowd hooted and a vendor called out, "Popcorn, apples!"
Peat went wide-eyed and pointed to somewhere near Diver. "What's that over there?!"
Diver razzed him. His wings were running out of power on this hop; there was a time limit or something. He used the last of their strength to power-dive at Peat. The unicorn swung a club desperately at Diver but misjudged the timing. Diver didn't. His forehooves smacked into Peat's head with a crack. The impact threw Diver, an inexperienced flier, off to one side so that he landed dizzy at the cage's edge. He rolled to dodge a flying rock, then used his mouth to snatch up a morningstar that was within easy reach. He took a look at the menacing iron spike-ball dangling from a chain next to his face, then spat the thing out. "As amusing as that might be for the audience, I'll pass." He looked around for something more suited to his body. Peat was staggering from his head injury, but he'd lifted another rock and had another sword within easy reach. There was no blood anywhere.
I'm a pegasus. Swinging knives around in my mouth is something a human might do to imitate a fighting style they know. It's naive. In the absence of something custom-made, the best weapon here is me.
Diver charged like cavalry. Peat flung his rock right into the space where Diver would jump, but Diver saw that coming. He slid at the unicorn, across the concrete floor, and painfully parried the sword using the bottom of his forehooves. The pegasus yanked his enemy up off the floor with a fireman's carry and struggled into the air with him. Peat flailed but Diver managed to get an even better grip on him from behind. Then he got as high as the ceiling allowed, tipped over backward, and did a flying piledriver that cratered the floor and nailed Peat into it headfirst to the neck.
Diver tumbled and crashed into a wall, inches from the blasted morningstar again. He looked back and saw Peat twitching comically, then vanish into a mist of green particles. The pegasus righted himself and breathed hard. "Is it over? Did I kill him?"
"Winner!" shouted Nimbus over the speakers. "Sky Diver takes his first victory in the ring with that floor-crushing smash. Let's stomp the floor in support!" The crowd applauded by beating their hooves on the bandstand again, sounding like a stampede. The battle music became a victory theme with crashing thunder.
Diver turned around, looking at the spectators. Killing isn't such a bad thing here. It's a game! He lifted one hoof and looked at it, seeing the details of shaggy fetlocks around his "ankle" and the chipped edge of the hoof's mass of horn-stuff. He raised that hoof the rest of the way and waved in triumph. Just a game, yet it matters that I learned to do it.
The host said, "All right, peggy, enough basking. It's time for our next match, so get out of there."
Diver wobbled out of the ring, trying to check his status screen on the way to his seat. As he should've known, "hand" gestures for the world's interface weren't easy while walking. He made it back to the seats, where a silver pegasus clapped him on the back. "Good fight! I'll be sure to tell my friend Golden Scale all about it."
This town-mind stuff was going to take some getting used to, along with everything else. Diver didn't mind. "Thanks."
#
Nimbus sent him to purgatory after the night's fighting. The underground room was near the hotel rooms, next to the ice machine, and held only a battered card table and old magazines.
"Finally!" said an intact Peat, throwing aside a copy of Space Battles Monthly. "The Horse of Dracula there didn't tell me her arena traps you in the basement for the rest of the session."
Diver's ears lay flat. "Uh. Sorry for killing you?"
"No, you're not. Don't worry about it."
"Where are the rest of the lo -- the people who lost?"
"Different instances of this room in the same space, I think. You get used to some weird game logic after a while. Are you a new uploader, or just a newcomer to Hoofland?"
"The first one. Does that mean you've lived like this for years, fighting and dying and coming right back? Nimbus said you have a reputation."
Peat grinned. "She likes to make contestants sound menacing. I made some bad choices, is all. Once you get out of pony-land and see more of Talespace you'll get a better perspective on how to live without going nuts."
Hoofland was only one of the regions of Talespace, the virtual world whose parts shared only a patchwork framework of rules. Their geography was linked only by "teleport portals", and an AI that was either the Second Coming, or Skynet, or some of both, depending on who you asked. Diver's own impression had been that she was nice, but that he had no desire to define his life around thwarting, softening or aiding the global machine takeover. "I plan to stay in Hoofland for a while," he told Peat.
"Really?" The unicorn said. He waved a magazine around like an outstretched hand, indicating the little post-death room Diver had come to free him from. "Hoofland's got appeal, but you should broaden your horizons. Maybe you'll want to be something else."
Diver's eyes narrowed and his tail flicked back and forth. "Jack of all trades, master of none."
"Is oftentimes better than master of one -- is the rest of the saying. I'm just suggesting you not throw yourself too hard in any one direction just because you want to try something new. I've seen some crazy stuff, good and bad, and I don't usually deal with the really screwed-up people myself."
This room felt too narrow for Diver's wings, though he could spread them wide and hardly brush the walls. "Thanks for the advice," he said grudgingly, and opened the purgatory door.
Too many times in his old life, he'd tried to do many projects at once and accomplished few to none of them. Not this time.
"Why the long face?" asked Peat.
Fairly sure that Peat had set it up on purpose, Diver said, "Because I'm equine."
#
He was starved, and the hotel's food was bland, even the apples. Diver had been warned about it; in fact, Earthside evangelists used it as one of their arguments why Hoofland and its connected realms were a false heaven, lacking the true pleasures of whatever one did in Christian heaven. Diver shrugged off the dull packing-foam flavor of everything; he'd liked rice cakes anyway. There were said to be people working on the taste problem, and the dull sense of smell that went with it.
Nimbus let him keep his hotel room for the day. As a nocturnal inn, check-out time was dusk. Diver asked, "Do I actually need to sleep?" He wasn't tired yet.
"Basically every few subjective days," the bat-pony told him. "Depends on exactly how your brain works, but it turns out that a lot of the reason humans need sleep is hard-coded instinct from the days when insomnia meant wasting energy and getting eaten by hyenas. And another big part is maintaining a fleshy body, so that doesn't apply either."
Diver's ears perked up; it was cool to think about shedding a basic physical limit while still getting to enjoy sleep. Which brought up another question he hadn't thought to ask. He shuffled his hindhooves uncomfortably.
Nimbus grinned, exposing her little fangs. "Toilets? Obsolete. Sex? That requires further, vigorous testing. You're physically censored right now since you're walking around bare-assed in public, but check yourself out in private sometime."
Diver blushed; that much of his physical reactions was intact. He could feel... warmth, between his hindlegs at the sight of her, but nothing seemed to be there.
The mare loomed closer. "Or would you prefer an interactive tutorial?"
He stammered, "We just met!"
"So?"
His wings stood wide and his head spun. There wasn't much reason for relationships to work the same way as back Earthside either, was there? That wasn't quite true; some things carried over. He said, "I don't want to give you the wrong idea, that I'm looking to settle down with a family just yet."
"No assumptions, no commitment," she said. "You're a cute newcomer and you have a bed. Isn't that enough for now?"
#
It was. Nimbus was eager and energetic and apparently experienced with this kind of body. They dragged the unconscious Key behind the front desk and went back down to the little spherical room. There was some sort of software trigger linked to the closed door and his willing, private company, because he felt his body suddenly get a lot more realistic back between his hindlegs. Impressively so, once Nimbus started to explore it.
They spent hours in a tangle of wings and blankets. The mare squeaked happily at being nuzzled along the leathery flaps between her wing-fingers.
"How's this?" she said, doing the same along his feathers.
He shivered. "Nice."
Nimbus said, "You don't even have the full pegasus deal yet. Come back when you do; it gets better."
After the last few hours that was tough to imagine. "Better how?"
"More sensation in these, for one thing," she said, stroking his wings again. "And some tail feathers back here..."
#
"Why am I working at a hotel?" said Major Key, suddenly awake and climbing up to his hooves. He was still behind the counter, next to a bland NPC clerk.
Nimbus hovered nearby. "You're not. We just needed someplace to stash you. Next time don't fall asleep in the middle of the castle."
Key looked confused, then enlightened. "Oh, you mean logging out. And what are you grinning about, Sky Diver?"
"Just having a good morning! Not sure what time it is for you, but if you're free, we could grab Golden Scale and go on that quest of yours."
"Which one?" asked Nimbus.
"The Labyrinth of Night," said Diver.
The bat-pony swooped over to him with a look of horror, and shook him between her hooves. "No! You mustn't go! None have ever returned!"
Once he'd stopped vibrating he said, "What? That doesn't seem possible."
Nimbus cracked a smile. "Just kidding. It's a vast underground maze full of monsters and deathtraps, but you'll be fine. Did you say Scaley was your third party member though?"
Key said, "We need one each of pegasus, unicorn and earthbound, right?"
"That's true, but that means coordinating three actual life-forms. Shadow, immigrant, genius." Both stallions gave her a confused look and she rolled her golden eyes. "Earthside player, uploader, town-mind. Latin, you know? Genius loci?"
"Spirit of a place, yeah, but what's that got to do with anything?"
"Time." She grabbed a pair of cool sunglasses from the front desk, put them on, and pushed open the inn's door to show daylight outside. "You're operating on Earth time, so we probably seem like we're speaking with a weird delay. Our brains are both running at the usual, slower Hoofland rate. If one of us immigrants goes on an adventure with you, we'll either get sped up then and slowed down later, or stick with the delays in the middle of an adventure. Now throw in part of Noctis as your spear carrier --"
"I'm sure you'd be good at that too," Diver suggested.
Her tail swatted him playfully. "And Noctis has their own complicated time-sharing system. I don't even know how that works."
Key said, "But the townsfolk do go on adventures with players like me, don't they? It's what they're for."
Diver reared his head back, nettled by that thought. "Noctis is... are, whichever, a person. They don't exist to be someone else's sidekicks."
"I'm pretty sure they do. It's why they were created."
Diver's feathers fluffed as he tried to shake off the unease that tensed his neck and ears. "I don't want to argue this, and I don't care if my sense of time gets desynchronized from the outside world. Do you want me along, and do you want to invite Scale or find some other earthbound?"
Key said, "All right, all right. I'm just here to have some fun. I'll get ready while you fetch her." He stood there, motionless.
Diver tried pushing him sideways. The unicorn tipped over. "This thing's a puppet being steered by a creature in another dimension."
Nimbus said, "This body's the same one I used before I uploaded, so I became the puppet. Made a game out of seeing whether people noticed, who didn't already know."
"Did they?"
She yawned. "They only guessed once I was rich enough to build the inn. Most Earthside players want to explore and fight, not to build."
"I'd better get going. Ah..." He leaned closer and tried to hug Nimbus, but couldn't do it with more than one leg.
"Like this." Nimbus draped her head and neck across his shoulders, nuzzling his mane. He returned the gesture.
"Say, Nimbus. If the Labyrinth gets you unicorn powers, what do I need to do to power these things up?" He flapped one wing.
"Lead a group up Mount Improbable," she said.
#
Sky Diver, Major Key, and Golden Scale trekked out of town, each wearing a set of cloth saddlebags. There was a rockslide and at one point they got jumped by goblin-weasels with sickles, but between Diver's flight, Scale's brawn and Key's limited telekinesis (Peat had been better with it) they had no real problems. Soon they came to a river where fish-monsters guarded a little bridge. Menacing drum music began.
"Watch out!" Diver said, and tackled Scale. The fish had spat some kind of steam ball at her. Instead of knocking her out of the way, though, he only flipped over her like tripping on a hurdle, and she staggered just enough to take the blast on one side instead of headfirst.
Key hopped forward, bracing his legs wide in a dramatic pose, and grinned. "Time to try these out!" He used the pearly, shimmering light of his horn to make his right saddlebag open and two knives wobble out and drop to the ground.
"Was that an attack?" said Diver. He picked himself back up and checked on Scale, who looked pretty good for having been steam-burned.
"Sorry; I'm getting used to this dual analog stick. It's got a little touchpad and -- whoa!" He narrowly dodged another fishman's attack. He levitated the knives again, having trouble moving his body at the same time.
Diver said, "Scale, can you cover him while he focuses on the knives?"
"Got it." She leaped back and forth along the riverbank, drawing fire from the enemies.
Diver harried them from above but didn't trust his agility in the stream's current. At last, a knife shot out from the unicorn and buried itself in one of the fishmen. Key had needed to get close to the river to do that, so Scale was busy trying to shove him out of the way. She even had to take an attack herself, which made her cry out as it burned her.
Diver wasn't doing enough. He landed nearby to reset his flight timer, kicked back up into the air, and slammed himself down on the nearest foe. His hooves smashed into scaly flesh and drove the creature into the water, burbling. A clawed hand shot out and dragged him down too.
He kicked frantically. The water around him moved strangely; it was like being buried in wet sponges the size of oranges. The monster's claws dug into his mane and neck and he was pretty sure he'd taken a wound or two in his thrashing. Holding his breath, he forced himself back up to the air. Instead of trying to fly with the beast still clutching him, he curled around and whacked its head with his forehooves until it let go. Diver thrashed his way to shore and lay there coughing. "Ugh! Are... are you two okay?"
"We got 'em!" said Scale, standing on the bridge. Nasty steam burns scarred her hide. Key was on guard with one knife ready, but no more monsters came and the music had faded out.
Diver got up and approached the mare. "You're hurt! Can't you fix yourself up the way you did when Meteor kicked me?"
Key said, "I lost a knife too; did you see one in the water?"
"She's burned and you lost a thing that's imaginary to you. Those are not the same."
"Colts," said Golden Scale. "I've been adventuring longer than you. A few burns don't even slow me down." She lay down on the grass, wincing, and started calling up the runic interface she'd used for spellcasting before.
Key nodded to her, then turned to Diver. "It's true. Getting hurt is temporary, but losing tools hurts us until I can get replacements."
Reluctantly, Diver agreed. "Is it safe to try swimming?"
Scale focused on her magic. "Of course. We beat the monsters."
"Yeah, but... never mind." The fishmen didn't make ecological sense if they were randomly jumping out to attack three grown equines tough enough to fight back. They'd probably not existed until conjured into existence to give the party a challenge. But the missing knife was as real as things got around here.
He waded into the river and ducked his head under. His vision was blurry but it was easy to keep his eyes open. Now that nothing was trying to kill him, he could focus on the low-resolution water flowing across his skin... his blue coat, and through his mane and tail. His wings spread, unbidden, and he paid attention to how the current moved along them with his attempt at paddling.
On the riverbed a few paces deep lay Key's spare knife. Diver poked it with one hoof and got stuck to the metal, like a magnet. He swam back out, still looking at his hoof. "Got it. My hooves still feel like I'm walking on one finger for each. Is that normal?"
Scale looked mostly intact, now. "I think so, compared to those weird arm-tentacles you used to have."
Key chuckled and levitated the knife back into his saddlebags. Once he'd done that and his real fingers on a controller were done pretending to control his horn, he made the rest of his body lead the way onward.
#
A short trot past the river stood a black stone shrine with a sealed door, surrounded by twisted pillars. The ground them was scraggly grass amid stone. "This is the place?" asked Key.
Scale nodded.
"Then give me a minute." Key stood idle, busy doing things Earthside, then resumed. "How do we get in?"
Scale said, "It's your show. It's a unicorn's job to get past the entrance."
He cantered around the pillars, studying runes carved into each one. After a minute he lowered his head and paused.
"Thinking about it?" said Diver. The runes looked like they were arranged in groups of four, in three panels on each pillar, but he wasn't trying to solve the puzzle for Key.
"Taking notes. Do you see one that's all those J-shaped marks?"
Diver shook his head. Scale grinned to herself, saying, "Hmm..."
"You've solved this?" asked Diver. "Did you do the matching dungeon for the earthbound race, or do you all start with full powers, or what?"
Scale said, "Most of us have gotten our powers, so we've seen the Labyrinth and Mount Improbable and the Fire-Mine several times over."
They chatted while Key worked on the puzzle, poking here and there at the columns. Diver said, "Does it get dull?"
"Not really. The details vary, and really what makes it interesting is the ponies we travel with each time. I specialize in being a battle sidekick, so I'm better suited than most."
"I can't find it," said Key. "It should be four J marks, or... no, three Js and that slashy one." He kept searching.
"Hmm!" said Scale.
Key looked sheepish, rubbing one ear with his hoof. "I could use a hint."
Diver wondered where the gesture was coming from: a camera watching the human playing Key, and translating his expressions?
Scale said, "Friendship!"
"That's your answer to everything, isn't it? All right... Diver, can you try looking at this from the air?"
Diver saluted, crouched, and kicked the ground away. His wings weren't strong yet, but wind rushed beneath them with every flap and carried him higher. He wheeled around in a rising circle as he remembered to look down. The sight of the land so far below -- only around thirty feet, but with nothing to stand on -- made Diver draw in a deep breath and be glad he had no bowels. These wings of mine work! Reluctantly he paid attention to the pillars below instead of the rush of air and feathers. "The one to your right!" he called out.
Diver felt his flight power run out, making him unable to rise or keep altitude. He could still glide, though, so he enjoyed the drop for as long as he could and tried not to be scared of the ground rushing closer. When it threatened to smash him muzzle-first he reared back and flapped hard, which turned out to be the right move. "Whew! On that pillar there, I saw a set of symbols on top like what you said."
Key went over to study it again, then slapped his forehead. "Of course. Scale, could you hit this pillar when I say so?" He outlined a sequence of symbols to poke.
A minute of puzzle-solving later, the sealed door slid into the ground, revealing a staircase into the depths. A cheerful music sequence played, then faded to silence.
"You mastered the basic light spell, right?" Scale asked.
Key nodded, then raised his head dramatically and made his horn glow. "I can leave this spell going passively, right?"
The mare said, "I believe for you there's a 'switch to passive' icon?"
"Got it." The unicorn did nothing visible but his horn kept shining. "I haven't got enough of a mana pool to cast this and much else at the same time besides basic TK though. The pool improves once we do the quest, I hope."
Diver blinked twice at the technical details. "Ready?"
They descended, and hit a checkpoint crystal together.
#
The Labyrinth of Night was vast and echoing, lit here and there by crystals. The light sources usually meant trouble, since they existed to free up magic power for Key to fight more effectively. There were horrors of fang and shadow in the stone maze. Between battles the three horses explored murals showing unicorns building monuments, commanding the sun and moon, and casting spells in ways that made Key stop to take notes. "A lot of thought went into the layout," he said. He looked troubled, though it was hard to tell if his equine body matched his real face.
After a battle with regenerating golems and a set of platforms where brawny Scale had to bash a new path at Key's magical direction, they found a vault with an elaborate puzzle blocking a door. Key's hooves clip-clopped across the uneven stone floor as he studied the situation. Dimly glowing crystals hovered in one corner. "Okay, let's take stock. Diver?"
Diver looked things over. "Crystal colors: red, yellow, green, blue, purple, black. Five platforms next to the gate: stone, wood, iron, bone, leather. I guess we have to put one crystal on each, and leave one color out."
Key consulted the cryptic diagrams etched all over the wall, then shut his eyes. He recited what he'd found:
-Blue goes with stone if-and-only-if red not used
-Iron is red, black or blue
-Yellow, green and black abhor mined materials
-Leather can't be yellow or black
-No primary colors on once-living matter
-Wood is yellow if-and-only-if iron is red
He fell silent for so long that Diver was tempted to tip him over again. Diver asked Scale, "What if he has to leave? Are we stuck here?"
The earthborn leaned against the iron platform and giggled. "That takes us back. One of us was with two shadows -- Earthside players I mean -- who got distracted and completely forgot they'd left their computers idle. We just ignored that body and put our thoughts into the rest of us, so it was no real hardship. But then one of the shadows came back and his friend had gone to sleep. He was so mad! Did you know the Outer Realm has twenty-four different time zones?"
"More, actually."
"I'm sorry. Of course you know. In your case as an immigrant, you'll slow down while he's off doing human things. If he totally forgets then we'll get a teleport out of here, then maybe come back later."
The reality of being trapped in an underground maze would give way to adventurers' convenience. The inconsistency bothered Diver, but it was a compromise made necessary by working with real players. With people. No... with humans. If Diver played with what was now his own kind, reality would make more logical sense and not keep bending to fit the narrative of a human with a more important life outside Hoofland.
Key, some unknown time later on Earth, returned his attention to the body that was just his puppet. "I think I've got it. First, I'll take the purple crystal and..."
They arranged five of the crystals on the platforms, leaving a sixth aside. The puzzle-solving ditty played again and the big gate rumbled open. A checkpoint crystal filled most of the little antechamber leading to a well-lit arena pit.
"Boss monster ahead," said Key. "Seen this kind of structure in plenty of games."
Sky Diver tapped the crystal, and the others did the same. "Substantial chance we're going to get killed in a moment, then." He looked down into the seemingly empty pit and contemplated the worry churning in his imaginary gut.
"Doesn't matter for you any more than for me. Let's go."
Key followed a few terraced platforms to hop carefully down. Scale jumped straight down, landing in a battle pose, and Diver glided because he could.
A trio of stalactites slammed down from the distant ceiling, forcing all three adventurers to dodge. When the dust cleared, a snake made of tan stone in a Mesoamerican style slithered down like a rockslide and hissed like a rain of sand. Obsidian razors like giant feathers flicked out along its sides. The name "OPHIORM, THE NIGHT-PLUMED" flashed across Diver's vision and a fast-paced tune full of dulcimer and rattles began.
Major Key struck a pose with his horn high, raising his knives in a magic glow. "This shouldn't take long."
They brawled. The monster coiled and slithered rapidly across the pit, retreating up the three pillars and back down in between barrages of dropping boulders on them. Diver pushed Key out of the way of one rock but couldn't dodge it in time. A weight crushed him, making his body flare with pain.
He cried out, disoriented and hurt. The arena was far away. The checkpoint crystal hovered beside him. How...? Oh! I died. That was all? He shook himself and found everything intact, though a lingering ache still slowed him down. Diver glided back to the arena, feeling that he was in a dream. The last time, on an operating table, didn't stop me for long either.
Back in battle, the pegasus used his wings to jump onto the monster's back and hammer its stone-feathered sides with his hooves. He leaped free when it twisted around, trying to bite him. Obsidian eyes stared lifelessly at him. Diver took cover behind a pillar. The boss monster slammed into it, cracking it and sending a shower of broken stone down on them all. Key yelped and scurried away but was crushed to death.
"It's working!" Scale called out, unconcerned. The serpent's rocky hide had cracked.
Key bounded back down the entry platforms to reach them again. "What now?" It looked like the treasure they'd found in this dungeon had spilled out of their saddlebags when they died, and now littered the floor.
Scale said, "My turn. Cover me." She sprang into more aggressive action to work her way toward the monster's tail. After two minutes' intense brawling, she hindleg-kicked the beast so hard that three sections of its hide cracked worse, revealing a trio of glowing orbs. "Unicorn time! Think carefully."
Two pillars were smashed now, leaving just one. Diver stuck around near Key, distracting and fending off the enemy. The unicorn grabbed chunks of fallen stone and flung them but could only do minor damage that way. "I can't seem to target the glowy bits."
Scale said, "You're close, but try something different."
Diver landed on the serpent's back and whacked one of the targets, but it threw him off before he could accomplish much. It was Key's turn, apparently, so he went back to covering the guy. But Key kept trying variants on the same thing: swinging the knives within his magic grip, swinging one in his mouth, flinging them and running to fetch them again, and throwing rocks.
"Hint!" said Key after his second death. He climbed back into battle and looked around, hopping out of each attack's path and making none himself.
Scale's mane had gone wild and she had several bloodless wounds. "What are you and what can you do?"
"Unicorn. I levitate things and cast spells." Key magically scooped his blades back off the ground as he ran past the thrashing serpent.
"That horn is for more than... than for what you're doing."
Key huffed in frustration, "I've used everything on my magic menu, not that I have much yet. Do we have to leave and find some item we missed?"
Diver was in midair when he understood. He's a unicorn. Their gimmick is their magic horns. Those are like extra limbs, like hands, like sense organs. Except he's only using his power to control things instead of sensing them. He kept his muzzle shut, not wanting to spoil things.
The fight went on, but it was a stalemate. Diver began to wonder if there was a limit to the number of deaths they could suffer, and got distracted long enough to get horribly bitten in half. Just as he started to feel himself being torn and shredded, he died and popped back to life by the checkpoint, hit with a searing pain that made him collapse and scream. It gets worse each time in quick succession. Next time... ow! He shuddered and kept in the air as long as he could. "We need a solution, Key."
"I'm trying!" The unicorn was twitching and flailing now, probably mashing buttons on his controller.
"Scale, I think I get it. Can I say?"
"Not outright."
Diver swerved hard to port to dodge another snake-swipe. "Key, you're just talking. Can you listen?"
"To what?" Key cast a light spell, turned it off and did it again, pointlessly. He scowled. "Unless you mean..." He stood there idly --
And then a wave of white light pulsed around him. It faded out at a short distance, but he was close enough to the last pillar that it interacted with some hidden cracks and exposed them for all to see.
The "puzzle solved" sound effect played again. "I don't think we needed that," said Diver.
Key pointed to the cracks. "All right! Diver, get the upper one, and Scale, you hit the bottom two!"
Diver jumped and soared. The pillar shook as Scale bashed it in the right spots. Diver hurried to slam his hooves into the topmost weak point. At last the whole beam shuddered and collapsed, revealing a wickedly sharp javelin made of something like red-tinged copper.
Key ran close and snatched it up with his horn. He jabbed experimentally with it. "Better reach than with the knives."
"The material's made for levitation," said Scale. "Finish it off!"
The snake menaced each of them in turn. Key stabbed at its glowing weak points but could do no damage. "There must be some trick to... of course." He dropped the spear, set off another scanning-ping with his horn, and revealed a real vulnerable spot under the monster's chin. "Acupuncture time!" The party maneuvered and dodged. Diver veered up to make the snake tilt its head up, barely avoiding its snapping jaws. Then below, the beast roared and the whole room shook. Diver landed, rolled to his feet, and found that Key had stabbed it to death.
They got out of the way of its death throes. When it had crumbled into sand, another crystal appeared, this one with the image of a horn inside. Silver coins spilled across the sand, adding to the supply in the group's saddlebags from the rest of their adventure.
"Congratulations!" said Diver.
Scale said, "Did you learn anything?"
Key trotted up to the prize. "About using my powers to scan things? Yeah. Let's see what this does." He took it, and it vanished in a flash. "All right! Got a boost to my mana meter, and access to better spells once I learn them. Arcana-type spells, whatever that means."
"Those are the broadest type. You unicorns are the natural wizards. But really, being a unicorn is about interacting with the world in both ways, sensing and affecting. The horn is part of you, not just an excuse to have magic."
Key grinned at both of his companions. "Sounds a little too mystical for me, but at least it helps solve puzzles. Thanks, you too! It's been fun but I need to get dinner. Can we just walk out?"
Scale's voice was flat as she said, "Exit's hidden behind that wall."
Key pinged it and revealed a shimmering teleport portal. "Great. Sorry to hurry out, but the nearest restaurant closes soon. See you!" He jumped through and was gone.
Diver sank onto his rump and caught his breath. "He didn't get it, did he?"
Scale said, "He got the powers but not the lesson. What can you expect, though? Not that I know this, but we know what it's like to have a natural magic conductor on your forehead, moving through currents of mana and feeling everything in the world like an invisible pattern you can tug on."
Diver shut his eyes. "I guess that's a whole side of the Hoofland experience that I'll never know."
"There's still a chance to switch races. If you finish the pegasus quest though, you're locked in."
"For the rest of my life? But a guy like Key can just create a new character if he wants something new."
Scale shook her head. "I was wondering if you'd ask about what the earthbound or unicorn experience is like, or the more exotic races like bat-pony and deer. The rule we've been using is that as an immigrant, you'll be locked in for a century. Subjective time."
Diver gaped. Back Earthside, before he signed his brain away, he'd had a natural lifespan of around threescore and ten, close to being cut short by a failing body. Now... now the only limit was how long Hoofland existed. Whether outside forces would force the realm of Talespace to shut down because of some damn lawsuit or a terrorist attack or a law against AI. "I could be a pegasus for a hundred years, and not be done seeing all there is to see. But only if Hoofland survives against people out there who won't take it seriously, or who fear it."
Scale walked over to sit beside him, facing the sand-pile of the defeated boss and the world portal leading outside. "You said you weren't going to run right off to do things Earthside."
"I won't. I promised a solid month before I worry about things like that."
"You're worrying now, though. I can already hear you thinking about having an obligation to help us by working in the Outer Realm. Your 'real world'." Bitterness had crept into her voice.
"My old world," he said. He reached one forehoof out toward her, and she pressed hers against it. "I mean it. I really like this place so far. If I leave to do other things, it'll be to protect this world, not to abandon it because it's just a game and the Chinese restaurant closes early tonight."
The mare's ears lifted from where they'd lain flat against her head. "You like 'Dragon Empire' food? I know a place in town that serves it. Everypony says the taste isn't right, but it's one of the better attempts so far, and the decor is nice. Want to go?"
"Sure." Neither of them bothered to stand up for a minute. Reluctantly he stood at last and offered Scale his hoof, which worked like a magnet to help pull her up. "You'll have to show me how the heck chopsticks work when you don't even have thumbs, though."
She giggled. "Immigrants always ask that."
"I think I'm done being an 'immigrant'. Let's do Mount Improbable if you have time... or if one of you has time, I suppose. I want to see what it's like to be a full pegasus, even if I'll always be considered an outsider to some extent."