Zero Hour: Part 1
Not only was Arcane Ammo's All-Day Arcade open all day, as the name implied, but it was a veritable treasure trove for training stats if you knew where to look. Strength and Vitality would be a little difficult, but those were also the easiest to train through traditional methods. Dexterity was a given for anything that called on precise manipulation or tight reactions, Intelligence and Wisdom came naturally from planning and problem solving... But Luck. Oh stars above, Luck was where this was really going to pay out.
Once he got inside, Spike had a plan of attack: He would start with a route through the games he had suspicions about, playing short rounds to see if there was any feedback. Based on those first findings he would assemble a list of the best avenues for growth. Then he could hunker down and really convert all those bits from his quest rewards into something truly valuable: Experience.
Almost every game with both a character growth system and expendable currency had a way to make transfers between them, or at least sacrifice one on the altar of the other. Shadow Spirits and Marrowmade, as well as their imitators? They cut out the middlemare and just made the two systems the same: Currency used to buy items could also be invested into your character, infused to purchase stats... Assuming you didn't die, dropping all your currency in the Puddle of Shame.
Spike had a feeling that the Arcade would be his own route for converting cash to progression: Coin-op arcade games took all the potential training and stat growth of Joyboy and home console games but added the resource sink of pay-per-play. It wasn't certain, but he hoped that by putting a cost onto the process he was inherently giving it more 'value', increasing the yields for his effort. It's one thing to test your Luck with a coin flip, and another entirely to bet your week's allowance.
He didn't see either of the Ammos when he got inside, but that was fine: He would say hello if he saw them, and no big deal if he didn't. It would be nice to ask them about some training tips from the Night Guard perspective... But that bridge could get crossed when it came. First? Game tests.
...Some time later...
"Well... Alright. Not as good as I hoped, but some pretty positive surprises."
Spike had started by checking options he knew would be fruitless, just for confirmation: Trail Untrodden was almost entirely deterministic and tactical, minimal Luck involved and only in the setup. Monkey Emulator looked extremely chaotic, but it was mostly just physics being enacted to a very illogical conclusion: Chaotic but consistent, sensible silliness... Which meant it wouldn't be much use for Luck grinding.
The second tier were games he hoped would be really good yields, but ended up being modestly useful at best. The Stricture of Steven's randomized dungeon-crawling, inspired by Gridslash and Bandit, only got him so far: Just like its spinoff The Myth of Hobo-Jo, the game handed the player random tools over the course of the run and simply asked that they survive using them. That did get him some Luck, but not quickly or easily. Runs were too slow, and he was good enough at the game that the random elements only held so much influence.
The biggest success... Well it was obvious, so he set it aside for now. The biggest surprise had been Basilisk's Lair and its many copycats. Stunningly animated marvels, especially given their age; they were games about moving through a pre-built animation, making split-second decisions that would either save or destroy your character. Games of the genre were technically almost set in stone: You might encounter rooms in a different order, but the solution to each room was fixed.
Why then did he get fully four points of Luck when grinding through a not-even-successful run of one such game? Spike initially thought it might have been the sheer cost of play, at 1 bit per play and instant death for failure... But then another working theory came along. When he played the game well, working on the memories and successes of past runs... The Luck stopped going up. At that point it just became mediocre Dexterity and Intelligence training, at a steep price in coin.
Then he switched to one of the sequels he had never played before, and focused entirely on just trying to predict the right answers: And there it was. When the flashes and hints came on screen too fast for his reaction time, and he didn't have foreknowledge to work from? That just left fate as the only hoof on the rudder! It doesn't really matter if a situation is actually random, it matters if he has any way to influence it. When the results are out of his claws, even foregone conclusions start to involve a little bit of Luck.
If he hadn't happened upon that lucky (heh) break, he would have defaulted to the guaranteed winner of the category: Actual straight-up gambling. There were almost no such machines in the Arcade, but that didn't mean absolutely none, and it wouldn't have taken long to find somepony with a pack of cards or a pouch of dice and some bits to burn if that failed. Spike didn't need to fall back on that option in the end, and he was rewarded for his investigation in more ways than one.
By fastidiously studying the options and finding a hidden gem, you gained 2 Luck and 2 Wisdom!
Hilariously, after two hours the majority of his Wisdom gains had been from things like that: Making wise calls about how to train his other stats, as opposed to playing games that taxed his decision-making ability. Spike absolutely wasn't one to look over a gift freely given, so he just kept riding that wave and testing more varied experiences. Maybe they had one of those old-timey strength-testing games in the back somewhere...
- - - -
While Spike didn't end up finding a strength-testing game, he made a lot of other discoveries. Some were useful to his new life-as-a-game: Attribute training avenues, games that he could play while still qualifying for Exposure, that sort of thing. Others were purely beneficial to his peace of mind and less immediately useful: A new series he hadn't seen before, a game he had thought was packed away years ago. After a few hours of searching, most importantly?
He managed to accidentally find the most important thing of all: A friend.
...Does it count if they're already a friend? Does it count if they find you? Regardless.
At one point he had been moving between sections of the Arcade, making sure not to bump into anypony but otherwise just sort of autopiloting through the food court... But then he was interrupted by a polite, demure, familiar cough. He spun on his heel to confirm his thought.
"Rarity?"
The mare in question trotted over to him, looking exactly as bright and beautiful as always... Give or take the addition of a pair of saddlebags overflowing with many of her tools of the trade.
"Yes! Funny to see you here, Spike... Well, I suppose not surprising funny, given your situation... Still! Humorous circumstantially. Shouldn't you be home with Twilight after her big day?"
"To be honest I think she's better off having alone time after a big social event like that. I might unwind fine in a place like this, but Twilight's happy to recharge solo. And I should be saying the same to you, more or less: What are you doing out this late after the big party?"
His former crush coughed into one fetlock, hiding her expression for a moment.
"Yes, well... It was just such big news! I must admit I got struck and swept away by a wave of inspiration almost immediately, and the sheer pressure of it drove me for some hours. Once I caught a breath, I realized that one of my ideas was best suited to Auntie, so... Here I am!"
On one hand Spike wondered how much of that sudden jag of inspiration had to do with the news, and how much had to do with the significant boosts to Wisdom and Intelligence (and even Luck) from the meal. On the other side of things, it could just as easily be both or neither: Inspiration was fickle weird stuff. He'd just take pride in the fact that she found her work a little easier with his unspoken and (mostly) unintended help.
"Finally going to make good on that threat about the lace?"
"Pfftpsh, no, that was just ribbing between family! This outfit should be significantly more rugged and suited to her active lifestyle: Not my usual affairs, but I feel she'd appreciate the gesture. Not to mention I could quite easily adapt it for Uncle Pierce! Couples outfits are terribly chic right now."
Spike didn't really know either of the Ammos well enough to reply to that: Family could be weird sometimes. Instead he just followed Rarity as she began trotting away, until he realized where she was going.
"...Do you think they're in their office? I didn't see them on the floor at all when I came in."
"Ah! Well that's no issue at all: Aunt Ammo always answers when I knock at their house, and since I received no reply? One option remains. As such!"
Rarity put a hoof to the door and opened it with her usual dramatic flair, probably expecting to catch one of her relatives in the middle of some paperwork. What she likely didn't expect was the very thing that happened: A diffuse cloud of blue and black pomf'd out of the open door and spread through the air in front of her face.
"Hark, I suspect I heard... Oh!"
Spike didn't get a chance to react (to say even less of the stunned Rarity) as they both got pulled into a sudden embrace by one of Equestria's Princesses. Luna was wearing her full regalia and taking up a significant chunk of Arcane's office, although she managed to drag them both inside in the process of a hug using both wings and legs. Her (loud) regal voice boomed in the confined space as the door was shut behind them.
"What fortuitous luck the two of you should come at such an hour!"
"Ah, p-princess I didn't mean to-"
Princess Luna seemed to realize how sudden and jarring her action had been, and the realization stunned her just as much as the actual tackle had impacted Rarity. She stepped back as if burnt and held a hoof up in a gesture of deference.
"My apologies as well! I had simply been planning to visit you both before the night was out, so the coincidence caught me quite unawares. How nice for all my intended targets of visitation to find themselves in one place and time!"
Spike blinked his eyes clear of Luna's flowing mane and looked further into the room. In what little space remained on the far side of the desk, he saw Arcane and Piercing Ammunition. Arcane was still trying to keep up a semblance of a formal stance, while Pierce was mostly just holding back laughter. Neither of them seemed nearly surprised as... any of the rest of them.
He turned back to the Princess and went to greet her... then interrupted himself almost instantly.
"Hey L-... oh."
[La Lune]
Luna
LV ???
Stats
Page generated in 0.047 seconds
Total duration
700 users online
978,347 hits today, 2,364,530 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
La Lune
Luna's title is The Moon
That means that Celestia is La Soleil
Luna is fucking triple digit level, or is three question Mark's what it gives anytime it's too high to tell
...
Lol
The Night itself needs no introduction or title, and Spike shouldn't need specific numbers to know that she's out of his league.
10664364
For a literal goddess, I give it 50/50.
If those ??? Ever turn red, you should run! Very, very, very fast!
10664467
Run? From a millenium-old mage-queen? You'd only die tired.
Wow, a ??? level? Don't fuck around with Luna!
10664492
Only one way to find out!
I need mooore. This is getting better and better.
10664558
I am getting Destiny flashbacks! Level ??? usually meant you are too underleveled to fight them, meaning you getting instakilled and doing no damage
10664467
Destiny player?
good chapter
10664893
And more!
“La La Luney.”
This is gonna be a bababooey situation, isn’t it?
10664347
I actually find it more likely it's not going to be based on French - their position as siblings aside, I don't think the system would take that into consideration more than their personality - and while Luna is definitely more about that aesthetic - the old-speak, the traditionalism just.. feels mostly like "french" (I don't really know how best to explain it but I do agree with it)
Meanwhile, Celestia feels more.. I don't want to say western, but it's kind of true. Roman, even.
Luna, to me, has always most felt European - France, Germany, etc.
Celestia on the other hand has felt.. incredibly western; Britain, America, even Australia.
10665354
dont forget luna is seen as the more artistic one. wjth so many arts from or about france(prance?) its not a surprise to me
A most unexpected end. Now im curriose how the Princesses stats will look like ones Spike teams up with em
Outside the box thinking can make the impossible change to very unlikely, since it already made clear that impossible can be overcome
I wonder what the dimentionality of Spikes array of gaming possibilities is currently and what sorts of empty spaces are proposing for hybrids and maybe new line suggestions, that he can then keep an eye on news in game magazines and even sent letters of suggestion in to the magazines so they can then get even more variations from the readers for the makers to maybe consider?
I wonder if Rarity has Reaction cloth or stealth sheet or gel trauma padding for Family buisiness?
Luna might be too high level at the moment, but Celestia had at least a few hundred years extra combat during clean up and a thousand years extra game time in Diplomacy?
10667014
True, although I'd imagine the challenges Celestia faced during the last millennium diminished over time as she set up frameworks and structures and tweaked them so Equestria and its politics largely ran and balanced themselves. Unless she's had a hobby no-one else knew about, Equestria would have simply stopped being challenging after a while. Particularly after spamming her "kick it a thousand years into the future" approach to dealing with major threats.
...aaaaaand now I think of it, did she do that deliberately as a backup plan in case Luna/Nightmare returned and banished her? Having to deal with a succession of such threats right after her return might have kept the Nightmare busy, or at least distracted away from politics or any other pony's attempt to unseat her using ancient leftover powers, and possibly may have encouraged her to (reluctantly) release Celestia temporarily to deal with the more problematic threats, which Celestia may have been able to leverage into escape or simply talking Luna around.
10668682
Is the gift merely a gift, or is it an overly complex and elaborate trap?
Rule 1 of any game: Avoid LVL ?? Mobs. They will insta-gib ya.
La Lune, French for “The Moon” Funny title aside is fits her, She is litterly the Avatar of the Celestial body she controls and which powers her.
Makes you wonder if you shatter the Moon, will it Shatter her too?
10677211
I am terribly sorry about this Luna.
I'll see myself to the corner now.
Lunar hugs are the best hugs ♡