• Published 1st Jun 2014
  • 15,431 Views, 984 Comments

Twilight: The Gamer - ilbgar



Twilight dies, then finds out her life's a game. Chaos ensues.

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Time To Explore

Twilight had a busy week before the gala tickets arrived. She was spending time with her friends of course, but she was also looking for new side quests and stars. She hadn't been taking the time to go looking for stars before because she'd been on a schedule to meet up with all her friends and get to know them better before Nightmare Moon arrived, but now she had free time.

She focused on stars first, looking all over town with as much thoroughness as in Canterlot, having a look along their route to the royal sisters' castle, and in the castle itself.

Twilight found a library in the castle, which was a great find in and of itself, and she found a whomping ten stars throughout the search.

'Str 61, Int 62, Agi 61, Con 62, Will 50, Regen 61, Wis 49, Chr 51, Lck 49. HP 1060, Shd 50, MP 1247.'

She raised Combat, Resilience, and Blade-wielding to 76/1000. and Positive Magic to 85/1000. For Combat,

'At 70 or more, you are more skilled than anypony who doesn't have natural talent and a great deal of training.'

For Resilience,

'At 70 or more, falling from the fourth story of a buliding won't hurt you.'

For Blade-wielding,

'At 70 or more, you can out-duel a master if your sword is significantly better.'

For Positive Magic,

'At 80 or more, you're more than three-quarters of the way to the level of understanding required of an Archmage.'

She now regenerated at a rate of more than 1 HP/MP per second, and was roughly one-fifth stronger, smarter, and faster. She tested it out on a problem she'd had trouble with before, and solved it easily this time.

Then she moved on to quests. She found a large number of yardwork quests, and a few extermination quests. She did four landscaping quests, and finally reached level 10.

'Str 62, Int 65, Agi 62, Will 50, Regen 62, Wis 49, Chr 50, Lck 49. HP 1070, Shd 50, MP 1287.'

As expected, a fair number of skills were unlocked when she reached level 10. Her Hints had said as much.

'Physically Tough. 10% reduction to damage from physical attacks. This is before the reduction from Resilience. 0/1.

Spiritually Tough. 10% reduction to damage from magical attacks. This is before reduction from Resilience. 0/1.

Drain. A portion of the damage you deal restores the damage dealt to you, 1% for each point invested. 0/10.

Shield Slicer. You can break through shields with a bladed object. Cost is proportional to strength of shield in relation to your attack. 0/1.

Invincible Shield. You can project a shield that is completely unbreakable for 100 MP, however, it will disappear after 10 seconds. 0/1.

Caster. You can cast two different spells in the same instant, or the same spell twice in one instant. 0/1.

Attack Attacker. You can use this once every day to cut the damage of one enemy in half. 0/1.

Mob Crusher. You gain a 10% boost to your abilities if you are facing more than three enemies at once. 0/1.

Resilient. Automatic subtraction of 10 damage from incoming attacks after reduction by Resilience. 0/1.

Magician. Automatic addition of 10 damage to spells of the Positive Magic type. 01.

Skilled Combatant. You are able to see a technique in a fight once and imitate it, if not perfectly. Though seeing the technique performed repeatedly makes it possible to copy it flawlessly. Adding points improves your ability to replicate the technique. 0/10.

Swordsman. You can adjust your style to fit the specific blade you're wielding. Invest points to reduce the inefficiencies that crop up. 0/10.

HP Boost 1. + 10 HP. Note that you can't get a higher-numbered boost before a lower numbered one. 0/1.

HP Boost 2. + 25 HP. 0/1.

HP Boost 3. + 50 HP. 0/1.

HP Boost 4. +100 HP. 0/1.

HP Boost 5. +250 HP. 0/1.

MP Boost 1. +10 MP. Note that you can't get a higher-numbered boost before a lower numbered one. 0/1.

MP Boost 2. +25 MP. 0/1.

MP Boost 3. +50 MP. 0/1.

MP Boost 4. +100 MP. 0/1.

MP Boost 5. +250 MP. 0/1.'

That added up to 49 skill points to get all these new skills. She'd gotten 14 from the four quests and leveling up, so that left 35. Luckily, she had over a dozen quests left to do. 10 more yardwork quests, and 8 exterminations. That should be 44 skill points, more than enough.

She'd written a letter to the princess asking if she could study negative magic. She had waited because she wasn't sure how her mentor would respond. The princess had agreed with some reluctance, and sent her a few books. She wouldn't let Twilight access the higher level stuff right now. She'd dump the extra 9 skill points into Negative Magic to help facilitate the new area of study.

Once she had finished the yardwork quests, her reputation had risen a fair amount and caused a new quest to appear. It was already a good chunk higher from helping stop Nightmare Moon, and the interaction between the town's reputation and the national reputation had only raised it by quite a bit as well before she even got there.

Her questing was raising it a fair amount more, and unlocked four more quests in the yardwork line and two more exterminations.

She soon had all the yardwork quests finished, and moved on to the exterminations, which ranged from Spiders, to Rats, to a new enemy, Wasps, which awarded 7 Exp/ Bits for defeating them.

'Wasps. A particularly nasty species of wasp that is like the killer bee of wasps. They have proven difficult to eradicate.'

She got 25 Exp/Bits and 2 skill points from each of the eighteen yardwork quests, and 50 Exp/Bits and 3 skill points each from the 10 exterminations. That totaled at 950 Exp/ Bits and 66 Skill points. She'd also gained 400 exp from the monster-slaying involved in the exterminations, totaling at 1350 Exp. This caused her to reach level 11 with 750 exp necessary to level up.

'Str 62, Int 65, Agi 64, Con 64, Will 50, Regen 64, Wis 49, Chr 51, Lck 49. HP 1515, Shd 50, MP 1732.'

Of course the game had waited to give her these boosts until after she had fought freaking Nightmare Moon. Sometimes she really didn't like the thing or its sense of humor.

Anyway, she'd maxed out her new skills, and poured 30 of her 33 remaining points into Negative Magic.

'At 30 or more, you understand Negative Magic better than most since almost no one studies it, but you don't hold a candle to Luna or Sombra. Heck, you don't hold an unlit match to either of them.'

Sombra? Who was Sombra? She'd have to look into him. That description was a bit insulting, but she supposed that she really should have expected it since she was still below 50 in that skill. She'd also gotten a new skill out of the bargain.

'Non-corrosive. Reduces the corruptive effects of negative magic by 10%. 0/1.'

After grabbing that skill, she put the remaining two points into Negative Magic, raising it to 32/1000. After that, she spent the rest of the first week hanging around her 'new' friends and using a clone to study the negative side of magic. At this point, they lasted 153 minutes if she made just one, so she could leave one to study the other branch of magic while she spent time with her friends.

What they did varied from a picninc, one of Pinkie's parties, helping Applejack out at the farm, helping Fluttershy with the animals, letting Rarity dress them up, and reading in the library. Twilight gave Rainbow Dash a few books on aeronautics that ended up improving her flight a bit. She'd apparently always done it by practice and what felt right.

Applejack had been impressed by Twilight's strength, even though Twilight had said she could switch between the three types of pony magic at will. Though she left out the part about not being able to use more than one at a time.

Pinkie soon noticed that Twilight had a strong stomach thanks to her high Con, and got her to test all sorts of recipes. More through her exuberance than any particular desire to try the rather bizarre concoctions Pinkie created, even with her high Con, her stomach could only handle so much, and her tongue was less than pleased at some of the more spectacular failures.

Twilight would put up with being made to wear dozens of different outfits long after even Fluttershy had quietly asked to be excused, so she got along well with Rarity, and they talked in between Rarity switching out portions of her living ponyquin's outfit.

Twilight was used to Fluttershy's shyness, and knew when to pull back while interacting with her less-than assertive friend.

Rainbow Dash was quite grateful to have her technique improved, as it would only heighten her chances of making it into the Wonderbolts. Thus, Twilight had gone up a notch in Rainbow's opinion. She had checked the rep. bar and it showed a marked increase and everything.

Pinkie was just friendly with everypony, so she didn't get along with her much better than the first time because they'd gotten along very well after the first few bumps in the road.

Twilight was also making some excellent progress in her studies. She'd soon be through the books the princess had sent her.

A thought occurred to her, and she visited the main menu, and discovered that she'd unlocked some more Avatars.

'Lunar Equestria Twilight. This version is from an alternate Equestria where Celestia became Tyrant Sun, and was sealed away by her sister. This is essentially just Equestria with Luna in charge for her sister's 1000 year absence. The main difference is that negative magic is studied enough to rival positive magic. Unlocked by going one-on-one with Nightmare Moon and having a Negative Magic skill level of 30 or more.'

Hm, that would probably get her a lot more material to study in dark magic, but it would sort of be going behind the princess' back.

'Nightmare Twilight. This version was corrupted by Nightmare Moon after the darker incarnation of Princess Luna saw her potential. Unlocked by going one-on-one with Nightmare Moon, using the Elements of Harmony, and having a Negative Magic skill level of 30 or more.

Negative Mage Twilight. This version is set in the time before the windigo incident taught the tribes the value of friendship, and during a war between the unicorns and the pegasi. She is a user of negative magic who is quite famous on both sides for her combat ability. Unlocked by having Combat and Negative Magic skill levels of 30 or more.

Magical Theorist Twilight. This version is from an alternate Equestria where Luna was never sent to the moon, and Celestia had no reason to send her student to Ponyville. Twilight grew up in Canterlot, and took the magical world by storm at the age of twelve. Unlocked by having a Positive Magic skill level of 50 or more.

What The Heck Is She Twilight. This version doesn't get injured from anything short of falling off a skyscraper, heals the loss of entire limbs in less than a minute, and is stupidly skilled in combat. This is necessary, because she's from a version of Equestria that is being ravaged by invaders from other nations. Unlocked by having a Resilience skill of 50 or more, having a Regen of 50 or more, and having a Combat skill of 50 or more.'

Well, Magical Theorist sounded interesting at least. She decided to do Lunar Equestria then Magical Theorist, that way she'd get a solid base in dark magic from Luna, a master of negative magic, and an even greater understanding of theory from the Magical Theorist Avatar.

She felt a bit guilty that she was going to go behind her mentor's back, but an alternate version of her sister was probably as good authority on teaching dark magic as she was ever going to find. She started Lunar Equestria Twilight, but got an alert saying the game was updatable. Once she had, a notice popped up.

'Bug preventing clones from being affected by Resilience skill fixed.'

Her right eye twitched slightly. That was due to a bug the whole time?! Oh, she wanted to blow something up right now. Stupid game!

She mentally ranted for a few minutes, then took a deep breath and entered the world of one of her new Avatars. She soon found that this Avatar's world was significantly different from her baseline. Nightclubs and similar nocturnal activities were very popular for starters. There were also a very high number of batponies relative to her Equestria. This was probably an effect of Luna's influence.

She was quite impressed at the new book selection. There were several dozen tomes on dark magic available at the public library. Nothing too dangerous, but certainly dark magic. She was able to learn a great deal about dark magic before even actually meeting this Avatar's version of Luna.

Her personality and body in this Avatar was almost identical to baseline, except for the fact that she had a small amount of insomnia. She was glad, it was weird having her personality change when she switched Avatars. Though not being able to sleep until eleven or so took some getting used to.

She became Luna's student after hatching this world's Spike with relative ease. It was only about half her MP at this point. She explained her situation to this Luna, as she couldn't come up with another way to explain knowing as much about magic as she did. She managed to convince the less-accepting alicorn princess with an amount of knowledge that a supposed six-year-old wouldn't be able to acquire all of. She could only assume that Luna had been so accepting in the other timeline because her sister and one of her saviors were the ones who had told her. That, or this Luna was significantly different from the other Luna due to having sealed her sister and spent a thousand years alone for all intents and purposes instead of the other way around. Maybe some of both.

She learned a great deal about negative magic and a thing or two positive magic. Thanks to Luna being in charge instead of Celestia, magic had moved in a different direction in several areas. This meant she had several areas to expand her knowledge in, and returned the favor by teaching her mentor the things that had been discovered during her solar counterpart's thousand years. They came up with some completely new material together.

Near the end of her tenure in this Avatar, she discovered a way to use positive and negative magic together to make a far more potent form of it. Come to think of it, this seemed similar to alicorn magic. Celestia and Luna used mostly positive and negative magic respectively, but there was a hint of the other type present in their magic.

When she switched to Magical Theorist, she was surprised to find that this Avatar had a bit of a crush on both her mentors. She was able to keep it under control though, and learning how to do this helped her learn to control all of her emotions better. This proved useful, as the nobles were put off by the sheer lack of even a hint of sentimentality she could portray.

Twilight did indeed take the magical world by storm at twelve, though this was to be expected of the joint-student of Celestia and Luna. She had once again hatched Spike and become their student as a result. She had explained her situation to them just after.

She found a bunch of new books for a similar reason as the previous Avatar. She was soon looked upon as being on the level of an expert. She could honestly say that she was quite happy with this Avatar. She had an excuse to 'make discoveries' about magic from other timelines. This caused more discoveries to be made by her peers who built on what she showed them, she made new discoveries from theirs, in a cycle that fed on itself, continually accelerating.

Before she realized it, she was in her thirties, and had learned an immense amount about magic, more than several of her Avatars combined. She kept it going until the age of sixty-five. Then her parents died.

Her father had passed in his sleep. and her mother had followed a month later. Her mind had essentially shut down for a week. She knew she could see them again, logically, but emotionally she was less than convinced. She stayed for a couple years after, until she was sure she wouldn't break down crying when she saw them again or act strange when asked about them. Then she left that Avatar's world, and returned to Enhanced.

Now then, she was going through the ticket incident tomorrow, but she'd already made preparations for that. Despite her efforts, Spike noticed that she acted a bit differently. She didn't really move differently, since her Regen had slowed her aging process a great deal after 21, so she was only biologically thirty-five when she left, but she responded to things differently, and her speech was a little different.

He hadn't confronted her about it, but she could tell he was concerned. She hadn't told him about the game, and didn't intend to. Hopefully, he'd be too distracted by tomorrow's events to question her.

Oh, she really ought to check the other Avatars' worlds for stars. She should do that now actually. She had a look in each of the worlds she'd previously visited, and found 15 stars total, apparently Enhanced was relatively rich in stars.

'Str 67, Int 80, Agi 79, Con 79, Will 65, Regen 79, Wis 64, Chr 66, Lck 64. HP 1815, Shd 50, MP 2077.'

She raised Combat, Resilience, Blade-wielding, and Negative Magic to 85/1000, and Positive Magic to 94/1000.

For Combat,

'At 80 or more, you can take out a medium-sized group of skilled opponents.'

For Resilience,

'At 80 or more, falling from the fifth story of a building won't hurt you.'

For Blade-wielding,

'At 80 or more, you can out-duel a master if you have a better sword.'

For Negative Magic,

'At 80 or more, you have an impressive understanding of negative magic, but still less than Luna.'

For Positive Magic,

'At 90 or more, you understand magic almost at the level required of an Archmage.'

Right, now to get a good's night sleep. Tomorrow would be hectic.



'Chapter Progress: 25 stars found. 28 quests completed. 750 exp to next level.'