Chapter 42
“...And during the night phase, I move my Iron Beak Raiders through the swamp, their flying negating the movement penalty so they can reach your camp in one turn for a sneak attack.” I said and moved my troops on the map. “Then I play my 'Furious Roar' card, boosting their combat damage for this turn by twice. Hitting your trops for...” I rolled my dice. “Seven plus the bonus, fourteen. Armor save of three, that still eradicates all fourteen hundred warmages.”
The game was called 'Rise of Empires'. It was a strange mix of card game, board game and pen and paper.
You played as the grand general out to conquer the world. You built a deck of buffs and debuffs for your troops and each kind of troops had different stats.
It was Celestia who suggested it for the train ride. Neither Luna nor I had heard of it before, but we were all about it now.
Luna narrowed her eyes at me. “So that's what those troops were.”
I nodded, eyeing my cards a bit smugly. I had picked the griffons as my choice. No direct combat magic, but all their units could fly and they had some great one turn buffs for their troops.
She hmm-ed. “Well... in response I'll play my 'It's all an illusion' ability.” she said, putting a card on the table. “Once a game, I am able to take all my troops and relocate them anywhere I want inside my borders.”
Uhm, what.
Luna smirked and snatched all her troops up with her magic, moving them out of danger and towards the left border of my territory. “Then I attack with all during the day phase, using my Princess Celestia's 'Solar Flare' ability to reduce your fortifications to zero in the 'Manehattan' territory.”
I just watched as she rolled her dice before completely eradicating the troops that held my most valuable and heavily defended province. That had been a quarter of my troops.
Ponies OP. Plz Nerf.
Sighing I checked my collection of cards in hand. Nothing I had that could prevent any of that. All my troops were arranged to counter her previous positions.
I had been ready for the solar flare, that's why I had so many troops there to counter the troops she had at the ready.
Her Unicorns might be slower moving, but they had ranged magic and a ton of 'Once a game you may' abilities.
Shaking my head, I let my cards drop on the table. “Good game, you win.”
“Huzza!” she cheered. “Another?”
Celestia looked up from her book. “That was your fifth game, isn't that enough? We should arrive soon.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I think that's enough for me. I think I have gotten my tail kicked enough for today.” Out of five games, I had won once and been close a second.
The other three, Luna had just dominated.
Apparently actual battlefield experience carried over nicely to this game as it was more flexible than something like chess.
Luna pouted, but then nodded and grinned. “I stand victorious over all then. And I will claim my prize.”
I just chuckled and started packing the game away. “Later. We are almost there, right?”
Celestia nodded from her couch. “We should arrive in thirty minutes.”
The Crystal Empire. It had been a long trainride, but we were almost there. This was going to be awesome. While the Princesses did... princessly things, I could explore the place and hang out with Shining Armor. Which was awesome.
“Say, Princess...” I started to ask as I put the last figurines back into the box, turning to Celestia. “That Solar Flare... is that actually something you can do?”
That got a chuckle from the Sun Princess. “Not as such. The creators of the game imagined a spear of fire from the skies. I can greatly increase the sunlight in a area, but it's more 'make things bright' than 'Burn everything'. There are better spells for that, anyway.”
Huh. Made sense.
I nodded and folded the map up, putting it into the box before closing it as I pointed my hoof at Luna. “I will have my revenge.”
“We will play more on the way home.” She chuckled and scooted closer to nuzzle at my ear. In turn, I shifted to lean against her.
Maybe I'll pick Pegasi next time. They also had flying. Less attack power, but they could move two territories a turn and what they lacked in buffs, they made up for in weather magic. Both used for area debuffs and direct attack magic.
Closing my eyes, I relaxed. “Mmm... when are Twilight going to show anyway?”
“Tomorrow.” Luna mumbled, resting her head across the back of my neck. “Her friends are coming... didn't want to pull them away from their jobs early.”
“Mm.”
Makes sense. Princess of Friendship and all that.
Would be good to see her again, didn't really get much time to talk during the entire coronation and all that.
Would actually be fun to talk to Rainbow as well. She might be a bit enthusiastic about things, but that was fun too at times. It was kind of cool to have somepony to really geek out over stuff with.
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That must be a hilarious thing to say for her in the weirdest way.
It would be funny if Celestia in her own ways makes Page call her by her name instead of her title, because they are rather close or 'almost' family. Though when one boinks another's sister it is only proper to be using their name instead of title, though what might happen if he found Sombra's horn shard? learn the dark side? ^..^
Heh....Solar Flare. You got me to laugh at 5 am. A difficult feat, good on you. Looking forward to seeing how THIS goes with him around.
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I kinda want this story to do the whole mood whiplash thing and suddenly turn into hardcore grimdark The Rise of Dread Lord Blank Page now. It would be hilarious.
Wait, they are going to the princess summit.
Where Twilight goes through the portal to the human world.
...he's going to get involved in human world shenanigans, seriously consider staying, realize it's not his world, then go back to Luna.
That or he'll just stop sunset before she gets to the portal, this skipping all of it.
6887331 Both entirely possible due to his sleep schedule being different, and he is actually awake for part of the night.
Hmmmm, will Page go through the mirror?
Found both of your fics today. You've done a great job with them and I'm eagerly looking forward to more!
Anyone else wonder how this story would be different if Page came here during The Nightmare Moon timeline from Cutie Re-Mark?
Would Page still be with Luna? Albeit with a darker visage?
Or
Would they be enemies?
6887204
Page becomes a dark Alicorn.
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6887411
6887494
Page will either cold cock sunset with a magical chackrim or go through the portal and have it done in a day.
6887747 I'm hoping he goes through the mirror, I like Sunset and want her to be redeemed.
Yea, I can see the game creators being a bit racist. I think people did the same thing quite often even after the world wars.
6887747 Yes maybe, though it would be rather funny if his coat changes to black he could say he better matches Luna by color. :P
6887917
If not, I would totally crowdfund that with a 100 bucks. 200 if I get a founder version of the game, with limited troops, card and buffs.
Can't wait for him to see the 'human world', which I bet is not the same one he came from.
Hurry up Sunset and give them the excuse to chase after you!
6888133
Your profile pic just makes that perfect!
6887264
And I really hope he doesn't do that. The fact that this fic is relatively light-hearted is the reason i read it. If it succumbed to the same grimderp like so many other HiE fics I would be very disappointed. Don't let this suffer from cerberus syndrome.
This is kinda far out there, but I wonder how things are gonna go with Tirek. Given that the entire story is slice of life, and the main character isn't supposed to be heroic, special or otherwise interesting he shouldn't get involved with Tirek or should get BTFOed. But at the same time he didn't have magic until he was in Equestria, so he very well might be able to function without it. At the same time if all magic is taken from the pony, would he no longer be a pony without magic? Would he turn back into a human? Would Blank Page hit Tirek with a bat until he stopped moving or would he repeatedly stab him or would Luna keep Blank Page away from Tirek entirely?
Other thoughts were on the books he could write. If he wanted to continue in the sci-fi vein, Frank Herbert's Dune series would be interesting, but can he remember 3 thick books (with strong spines) worth of material? (Or 4-6 books worth if he wanted to bring the "entire" story over? )
I wanna play this game they are playing.
6890453 It looks interesting to be sure, but considering the unicorns are basically a trump-card based race in the game, they would probably lose in many other encounters were it not for the once a game bs. At that point it would become less a game of strategy and more a card game of "When is the right time to use my trump?" with some strategic peripheral mechanics, and for anyone who did not pick unicorns it would be a game of "How can i make them use their trumps early?" It would be unbalanced, the unicorns in it aren't even playing the same game. (My bet is that the creator of the game is an elitist unicorn who has high views of Celestia.) Notice how the main character chooses a race with no real trump cards just a general strategic advantage, he loses to the race with many power full once a game trump cards, instead of changing his approach he decides to do pretty much the same thing by choosing the pegasusesas for his next race, the outcome will be much the same. I'm guessing that the game he lost to Luna was the first one, when she was trying to learn his strategies, now that she has them, he cant win.... Or I'm really over thinking and over analyzing what is most likely a game that will not appear again in the story with any major role.
Twilight Sparkle: "We Are Legion"
Some of the grammar fails are almost as amusing as the actual jokes.
6887643 As her dark concubine? Evil Apprentice? Stabilizing influence?
"No dear, we can't drop the moon on them because their tribute is a day late," said in the tone of a long suffering housewife.
So I'm re-reading this and:
I can't help but wonder if the "Archimedes Mirror" concept would be viable here? (Large parabolic mirror used as an antiship weapon)
It's time to Dddddduel!
that made me think of a book, "by the sword" by Mercedes Lackey: someone used a spell like that, combined with very shiny armor, to make their soldiers harder to hit.
This man is my spirit animal.
8207637
My spirit animal is a phoenix
Wut?
Am I the only one who misread that as "crotch"?
Also, "Orbiting the planet at maximum velocity. The moon with the rebel base will be in range in thirty minutes." I'm surprised no one has quoted that line. I mean, it was just begging to be quoted.
Ah yes, the old "glass the battlefield" method. Always a favorite.
i.redditmedia.com/oPgj_KZOvMo89DHK5LAFsE4507yjKONptqDRuYblap0.jpg?w=574&s=d54910cfc4e349f83eb19a054d6bbec0
Just the thing for zombie swarms, so long as you don't mind collateral damage.
artofmtg.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Wrath-of-God-Invocations-Amonkhet-MtG-Art.jpg
Yeah, whoever designed that game is clearly a pony, probably a unicorn
9722499
Yeah hey probably didn't like the other races as much so they made ponys more powerful
That's what I'm guessing anyway
10380046
what do you mean with enchanted ICBMs?
Have never heared of that before.
'ive read this story 3 times now, for some reason that line allways makes me fall over laughing
Time to d-d-duel! And suddenly both have huge spikey manes
10402400
An ICBM is an Inter-Continental Ballistic Missle, in other words a giant flying bomb made to go over the ocean. The Princesses panicking would be because if they have those under Canterlot they are way to close to a City and Chrysalis's new hive is under Canterlot as well so she would have access to them.
troops
I made a story where she can