Equestria Legends Online: Brothers

by 4428Gamer

Bedtime Planning

A Couple Hours Later
At the Inn
Gwen/GrayMatt3rsxxx’s POV

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With a satisfied sigh I fell onto a nice, firm mattress before suddenly realizing just how exhausted I felt from all the tension of the last couple of days. Everything up until now had definitely taken its toll on me.

Meanwhile, on the second bed in the room, the kid followed my example. Thanks to how short he was as a pony, he had to jump to reach the bed which took a couple of tries. But when he got it, he instantly rolled onto his side and went lax against the pillows. He must have really missed beds considering his group was sleeping on the floor of a blown up library until now.

Something we have in common, I noted. The whole time I’ve been in this game, I slept in an alley to save on money. The game’s town guard would keep pestering you if you slept in the roads but they didn’t care about alleys. Really gave the game that “realistic” feel.

“Hey Gray?” The kid called out with his face half buried in pillows.

“Yeah?” I didn’t bother turning my head to look at him.

“...I don’t think I can get up.”

“Mood,” was all I answered with. “But you’re going to have to. I paid two rooms for a reason. You’re going to the guy’s room when we’re done here.”

“But I don’t wanna move,” he complained the only way a whiny child could.

“No. None of that,” I scolded him. “If you and your brother sleep here then that means I have to move.”

“...And?”

“I paid for the rooms. I control the rooms. Period,” I decreed. All while not moving an inch.

“Fine,” he backed off. “But I’m not moving if they want to sit on the bed.”

I shrugged. “Fair.” Then, as I heard steps getting closer, I smirked. “Too bad you're going to get up to answer the door.”

“Hmm?” Answering his groan was someone knocking on our door, which only made him scoff.

“I get up for no door,” he declared. Which was enough to make me turn my head to look at him.

“Look you. Someone’s gonna have to—” but he proved me wrong. Without moving a single muscle, Chill’s horn glowed with a powder blue aura. While he stuck his tongue out, the door was unlocked and pulled open with his magic.

“...Show off,” I muttered, I should have chosen a unicorn.

From my peripheral, I watched as two figures slunk their way into the room and shut the door behind them.

“I see you two are getting along,” Alex told us.

“Can’t we wait, like, twenty minutes?” I begged lazily.

“What she said,” Chill added with a moan.

“Vous êtes pathétique,” the French girl spoke.

“Watch it.” I forced myself to sit up so I could stare her down. “Pathetic’s said the same way here, ya know.”

“Oh, look at that. You’re up now,” Alex said sarcastically, making me swear vengeance on the French girl. “Let’s make this quick, get some dinner and then you can pass out. Sound good?”

“Yeah, sure.” I waved him off, pulling the blanket around me so I could at least stay somewhat comfortable.

“I’ll do the pass out part first,” Chill called out with his face still half embedded in the pillows. “I don’t need to say words. I’m eight.”

“That’s not a reason.” Alex held his face in his hoof. “Okay. Fine. Sure, see ya tomorrow.”

"But go to your room first." I glared at him but he let out this fake yawn and got more comfortable. And then stuck his tongue out at me again while the others weren't looking.

Devious little brat, I cursed. I'm older than all of them. I shouldn't have to put up with this.

I took a moment to get over it before opening my menu and scrolling down the inventory. Then I took out an item marked ‘quest journal.’ The game lets you buy empty books to type messages as you wanted. I picked one up.

“So starting with the bad news.” I opened the journal and got into business mode. “Your brother’s food cart job is a bust. We doubled back before they closed and saw that they had a part two and it was active. But all we got were three of these.”

With my menu still open, I took out another inventory item. An apple dipped in caramel.

“It seems all that quest does is make you taste test the guy’s desserts. No bonuses either.” I paused to take a bite out of the dessert. “Shtill preddy good dough,” I said through my chewing.

Alex frowned. “Alright, well, what else do we got?”

I swallowed my food and started flipping to the right page. Then I held it out to the girl so she could read what I would say. “In total? Seven quests.”

“Wha-seven?” He blinked “That’s great! I thought we’d have to get desperate.”

“Don’t get too excited.” I frowned. “Not all of them are quest lines. Probably just two. I’ll be selling the others.”

That didn’t seem to phase him. “That’s fine. We can work with that. Are they useful?”

I took a moment to eat another piece of apple before going on. “The first one’s a fletcher named Long Shot. From how the quest went, he was an apprentice that got kicked out by his master. Not because he was bad, but because of...‘crea’dive differenshesh’.” I bit into the apple and held it with my teeth so I could use air quotes.

“What kind of creative differences?” Alex raised an eyebrow.

“Apparently, the master was old fashioned but Long Shot liked to experiment. He wanted to make specialty arrows. The quest is that Long Shot wants you to try his work in a real fight.”

The journal the girl was reading had more detail to it and she was getting excited as she kept reading it.

“Definitely a contender,” Alex pointed out. “And the second one?”

“It was the first one we got. Sleeping Beauty over there unlocked and accepted it.” I reached over and flipped the page for the girl so she could read the next quest along with us.

“A clothing tent owner hasn’t seen her adult son for days. Said son, according to rumors, is headstrong and argued with his mom before he stopped working there. Chill talked to the lady and she said the guards can’t know what happened. Part one has Joey and us meeting the lady at her house so she can tell us her story in full.”

“If the first quest is talking to her then it’s definitely a whole quest line.” Alex smiled. “Works for me.”

“Intrigue,” The French girl said with a smile, reading over some more.

I finished off the last of the caramel apple and tossed the stick over towards the window, watching as it burst into blue code. “The quest wants us to meet with her before two in the morning but it didn’t have a due date.”

“Then it probably means that we can start that quest whenever.” Alex opened his menu and looked at his completed quests. “The quest I got day one said specifically that I had one day to turn it in. Well, then it got changed, but...”

He looked back at me and my curious face before shrugging to himself.

“Not important,” he wrote off. “Take away is if it doesn’t have a due date we can probably do it whenever.”

“Yay,” Chill cheered drowsily.

For the best, I figured. We can’t do all the quests in a day. Spacing them out is smarter.

With my report finished, I laid down on my bed with my hooves folded in front of me. “So that’s our side of the job. You get anything?”

Alex’s expression dropped as he tapped around his menu. “Not particularly. There were a few times it looked like we had something but then they said something along the lines that we weren't strong enough. I think there’s a level requirement.”

I huffed. “So nothing then.”

“I’m getting there.” He smiled a little. “We found one place.”

Alex opened a different completed quest and showed it to me so I could read the details.

“It’s from a jewelry store,” he explained as I read on. “The jeweler’s been getting less business since adventuring's become the newest trend. He asked if we could—” “Modèles!”

I watched the girl beam in glee as I finished reading. “He wanted you two to be models?” I took a moment to size up Alex before shrugging. “I don’t see it.”

“Har har,” he deadpanned. “He had us equip different sets of armor along with his jewelry so he could see what worked. Only problem is that none of his jewelry has bonuses. It’s all cosmetic.”

I smirked. “Isn’t that the point of jewelry?”

“Not in a video game,” he countered. “But when I pointed it out, he reacted. Maybe the next quest will have something useful.

“And then there’s the weapon shop,” he went on. “We couldn’t get there in time because Rachelle really wanted to be a pretend model.”

Rachelle saw the attention aimed at her when he said that and got somewhat embarrassed.

“But when we got there a few days ago, he said he’d want to ask for our help again,” he concluded.

“That makes four quests.” I took my journal back from Rachelle and opened up the edit option so I could write into it. “All of them split their experience among all the players that help out. So we’ll plan who does what.”

“Well, if no one’s against it I think I should be on most, if not, all of them,” Alex suggested. “I’m the lowest leveled so I need the boost. Especially if I’m the only front line fighter.”

I considered the idea for a moment but it wasn't too good an idea. “I think we might want to hold off on that. We need to get these quests done as fast as we can."

He nodded in a so-so fashion. "Well then what if I take on a quest solo? If I can manage it, all the experience goes to me and it doesn't slow us down."

"That might work better, yeah. Besides, we're pooling the loot anyways so the rewards don't matter much. I say take on the jeweler job. It seems the safest."

When he didn't have any objections, I marked it down in the journal. "While you do that, the rest of us can take care of the fletcher job. On top of the quest, whatever we fight will give out EXP too. Rachelle and Chill said they know a good mob hunting spot earlier.”

"As long as you don't go into Everfree itself, it'll be safe," he reasoned. Although it sounded like he was convincing himself instead of me. “Finally, all of us should probably group up for whatever the weapon vendor has. Last time, he sent us on a fetch quest. If we all do it, it’ll be done in no time.”

I had no objections. Even if we would take two or three days, I wanted it finished as soon as possible. These rooms weren't cheap. “If that's the case, after we talk to the lady, Chill and I might want to do the rest of that quest on our own so long as it's simple.”

He smiled. “Sounds like a plan. You good with that Joey?” Alex looked over.

However, the younger brother didn’t answer. Instead, he was quietly snoring while he started to drool into the pillow.

Rachelle giggled into her hoof at the scene, which made me feel even better with what I was about to do.

“Hey, Rachelle.” I waited until I got her attention. “Your. Bed,” I spoke slowly, pointing to her then the furniture.

It didn’t take long for the gears to turn in her head and she scrambled to pull away the rest of the pillows before they were ruined too. At the same time, Alex carefully scooped Joey onto his back so he could take him to their room.

Ha ha! I laughed inwardly. Who’s pathetic now you bunch of brats?!

Author's Note:

Originally this chapter and the next one we're all going to be one but I decided to split them so I could actually give the quests their spotlights. The next chapter will be out before Christmas.

Inns in ELO are meant to be expensive because they give minor bonuses to players who pay for them. That's mostly because the game was designed to let you log out when you got tired and have your character sleep/wait until you logged back in. They didn't think players would actually sleep in the game though. So cheaper 2-bed rooms in Ponyville cost 120 Bits a night and Gwen paid for 2 rooms.
The bigger problem is that there are more players than rooms in Ponyville because the game designers didn't plan for everyone to get stuck. That's why some players left Ponyville immediately, so that there weren't too many players taking everything up first.

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I hope you enjoyed the chapter! It's more light-hearted then the next ones will be...

Happy Holidays!
-Zeke

Comments

[Mix-up]

even more fun, keep it up.