Chapter 8
"Mom, I told you, I can totally handle this," Shining Armor said, smiling. "It's not like two fillies can get into a lot of-"
"No," Twilight Velvet said, putting a hoof on his lips to shush him. "Don't you dare say that, Shiny. You're a wonderful son, but please don't tempt fate. Do you remember when Twilight was a baby and she had a magical surge that turned your father into a mare for a week?"
"It was really awkward explaining to my friends why I suddenly had two moms."
"It was even more awkward for me, believe me," Twilight Velvet sighed. "Now, the good thing is that they're going to be kept busy with their little research project. Books should keep them out of any real trouble for a few hours... maybe I should cancel and stay here."
"Mom, you've been talking about this meeting for a week," Shining Armor said. "You're worrying about nothing."
"It's not nothing," Velvet sighed. "Just promise me you'll be smart about this? I wish I had time to find another foalsitter, but she backed out at the last minute because of some little stories she heard from the neighbors and-"
"Calm down, mom," Shining Armor laughed. "I promise, you'll come home and everything will be perfectly fine."
"Do you have the list I gave you?" Velvet asked.
"I have it right here," Shining Armor said. "Let's see - make sure they eat, make sure Twily gets a bath..."
"And it has the list of rules that they have to follow," Velvet continued.
"Right. No using magic without adult supervision. I count as adult supervision, right?"
"Only if they're practicing spells that aren't going to burn the house down." Velvet looked around warily. "It's probably better if they don't use magic at all."
"Let's see... no going into your and dad's room. That's fair. No going into the writing room. No playing in the kitchen..." Shining skipped down the long list. "No knives, scissors, or particularly sharp pieces of paper?"
"Twilight has problems with telekinesis sometimes, you know that. Your father never could get the record player out of the wall after she accidentally threw it. We had to just plaster over it, and it still turns itself on every Saturday."
"No reading ancient tomes. And it continues on to say 'especially if they're written in horse latin in suspiciously red ink.'"
"She does get curious about old books," Velvet muttered.
"That's a good joke, though, mom. I mean, as if we have books like that lying around..." He trailed off, looking at her expression.
"Just keep them out of trouble," Velvet sighed. "If nothing is on fire and the house still has all its walls, I'll double your allowance."
"It'll be fine. They're just studying in Twilight's room, right?" Shining Armor smiled. "I'll go let them know what's going on, and you and dad have a good time."
"Keep both eyes open," Velvet warned.
"I will!" Shining protested, going upstairs. He was sure his mother was overreacting. She had an important meeting with her editor, after all, and the stress was just leaking out into other things. If Cadance could manage to keep Twilight and Midnight under control, how hard could it be? She was basically a pushover anyway.
Shining knocked on Twilight's door.
"It's open!" Twilight said. Shining opened the door. Twilight sat on one side of the room, surrounded by open books. A second filly - and it took Shining Armor a moment to remind himself that it wasn't really a second Twilight Sparkle - sat on the other side, adjusting her glasses as she looked at her own pile of books.
"How are you two doing?" Shining Armor asked. "The foalsitter didn't show up, so I'm going to stick around and take care of you tonight."
"Don't you have Guard training tomorrow?" Twilight frowned.
"Are you worried I won't be able to handle you without combat training?" Shining Armor teased. "I didn't know your foalsitters had to defeat you in a magic duel before you'd let them tuck you into bed."
"I just don't want you getting in trouble!" Twilight blushed, her cheeks pink. "I know how important the Royal Guard is to you."
"And I know how important school is to you," Shining Armor said. "So I know you'll be busy writing that report all night."
"It's a very important research assignment," Twilight said, firmly. "I have to present my findings to the whole class, and we weren't even given firm guidelines on how long the report is supposed to be!"
"Ms. Wormwood said it should be about a page long," Midnight muttered.
"But she didn't say if it should be standard ruled, or college ruled! Or what size paper to use!"
"College ruled, obviously," Midnight said. "I mean, who uses standard ruled paper?"
"Well yes," Twilight agreed. "But my point is that it's open to interpretation. What if other students take advantage of that and turn a report in on wide-ruled paper? They'd be doing almost twenty percent less work and still be following the guidelines!"
"You could always use wide-ruled paper," Shining pointed out. "Then you'd be taking advantage of what the teacher said."
"That's dishonest," Twilight frowned. "And dishonesty has no place in the academic world. The important thing is learning and improving yourself. The paper is how we're going to demonstrate that to the teacher."
"The important thing is the spell," Midnight said. "And we've basically got that working. We should test it a couple more times just to make sure."
"Mom doesn't want any magic practice tonight," Shining Armor said. "Besides, you've got a lot of books to read, right?"
"But casting spells is more fun," Midnight grumbled.
"We have to get the paper written," Twilight said. "It doesn't matter if we get the spell working if we only have half of the assignment done. If we fail this, we might have to repeat magic kindergarten!"
"I don't think you'd have to-" Shining started, not that Twilight was listening. She kept talking right over him.
"And then it would be on my permanent record! Twilight Sparkle, the filly who had to repeat magic kindergarten! Everypony would know my name and they'd think I was an idiot! I'd never be able to go to a good school, or become a professor, or a doctor, or a doctor professor, and I'd never get tenure!"
"You're overthinking this a little-"
"I'd end up on the streets, doing illegal math homework for other ponies just so I could make enough bits to eat!" Twilight gasped. "I'd have to... to... get a job that wasn't academic! I don't wanna be a math dealer, Shiny!"
"Okay, I think that's getting a little out of hoof," Shining sighed. "Twily, you're the smartest filly I know. You're not going to end up on the street. Also I don't think there's actually a black market for algebra."
"You don't know that for sure," Twilight said, sniffling.
"Now, how about we think about something more fun?" Shining Armor suggested. "Mom left me a few bits to get you girls some dinner, and I was gonna order a pizza."
"I've never had pizza before," Midnight frowned. "What's it like?"
"You've never had pizza?" Twilight gasped.
"The cooks at the castle always make a lot of weird food," she said. "Most of the time it's like... these big baked things that look really pretty on the table but don't really taste good."
"Really?"
"Yeah. Like... last night we had this huge squash." Midnight sat back and used her forehooves to mime a shape like a melon. "It was mostly hollowed out and then stuffed with like acorns and breadcrumbs and a lot of weird vegetables. It was really bland, even with the sauce they put on it."
"Don't worry, pizza is really great," Twilight said. "We can get it with mushrooms and spinach!"
"Mushrooms?" Midnight stuck out her tongue. "Ew."
"What's wrong with mushrooms?" Twilight frowned.
"They're gross and slimy. What about onions?"
"You've never even had pizza before!" Twilight huffed. "How would you know if onions are good on pizza or not?"
"Onions are basically good on everything," Midnight countered.
"But you don't know for sure!" Twilight said. "You should try it the way I like it first, since my toppings have been determined by experience."
"I'm never going to like it if we have to get mushrooms," Midnight retorted.
"Girls, please," Shining Armor said. "You can compromise."
"How can she not like mushrooms?!" Twilight said, turning angrily to Shining Armor. "That's impossible to compromise with! They're objectively the best topping! Next she'll want pineapple like a degenerate!"
"What if we just get a plain pizza?" Shining Armor asked. "Everyone likes cheese pizza, right?"
"It would be better with toppings," Twilight muttered.
"Half cheese, and half mushroom and spinach," Shining Armor corrected. "That way, Midnight can try your pizza, and she'll still have something to eat if she doesn't like it."
"But what about you?" Twilight frowned.
"I'll eat whatever you two don't," Shining Armor smiled. "I don't mind."
Shining Armor looked at the empty pizza box, as if there might be another slice hidden somewhere inside.
"How did those two eat an entire pizza?" He whispered. "There shouldn't even be room inside them for that much food."
"Shiny, help!" Twilight yelled, from her room. Shining Armor dropped the paper plate he'd been holding and ran upstairs, ready for some kind of disaster. Maybe Midnight had finally revealed her true form as some kind of awful reptilian shapeshifter-
"What's wrong, Twily? Is it another magic surge?!" Shining Armor bolted into her room, a spell to suppress fires already half-cast.
"Midnight wants to arrange the information in the report by order of importance!" Twilight said, still panicking.
"...And?" Shining Armor was starting to feel like this wasn't as much of an emergency as he had assumed.
"And that's totally inappropriate for this!" Twilight said, drawing out each word like she was an adult talking to a foal instead of the reverse.
"Doing it chronologically means we have to talk about a bunch of boring stuff before we get to anything good," Midnight said. "No one cares about how many laws she passed in old Unicornia!"
"It's important to understand the context involved before the founding of Equestria," Twilight countered. "Listing facts in order of some arbitrary importance or interest means we'd just be jumping around and things would get out of order."
"But it also means we can focus on the things ponies care about," Midnight said.
"It's an oral report. We should go in chronological order so it's like a story," Twilight said. "You wouldn't start a story with describing the climax, you have to build up to the big parts."
"...And why am I here?" Shining asked.
"You have to tell her we have to do it my way," Twilight frowned. "It's my house, so she has to do what I want to do."
"You could learn a lesson about compromise," Shining Armor suggested. "Like with the pizza. I thought we were on the right track there. Both sides make small sacrifices and-"
"And this is about my grade!" Twilight yelled.
"You could try writing the report both ways?" Shining Armor suggested.
"We can only present it once," Twilight said. "It has to be perfect."
"That's why I wanna do the important stuff first. If ponies are falling asleep at their desks because we spend ten minutes talking about how Princess Platinum came from a family of miners, they'll never listen when we get to the cool parts where she fights monsters using an army of golems!"
"There's no evidence that actually happened," Twilight said. "According to Scholarly Prose, it's more likely that she actually led a small band of fully-armored knights. Full plate armor that covered the entire body was a new invention at the time and almost no peasants were familiar with it, so they thought it had to be magically animated statues instead of just ponies. The rest was just bad translation and speculation from ponies who just wanted to find out about 'cool' things instead of real, verified facts."
"But we do have evidence," Midnight retorted. "The spell we learned. It can be used to animate golems."
"That doesn't mean it was used in that way," Twilight said. "The come-to-life spell has a lot of applications, but combat isn't one of them. Otherwise the guard would be using golems now."
Both fillies looked at Shining Armor.
"W-why are you looking at me?" He asked, backing away.
"Does the Royal Guard have a secret golem army?" Midnight asked.
"You can tell us. We just need to know for this report," Twilight added. "Not that it's evidence that Princess Platinum had a golem army, but if one does exist now it would be proof that it's possible and we could mention it as a possibility."
"And we wouldn't publish your name," Midnight added.
Shining Armor looked at the two fillies and sighed. It was going to be a long night.
"Shiny, I'm bored," Twilight complained. "Midnight and I are done and we wanna do something fun."
"You finished your paper already?" Shining Armor asked, surprised. He'd been reading the Equestrian Infantrypony's Uplifting Primer over again, and hadn't really been paying attention to the fillies. "If you're done with your paper, maybe we should..." Shining Armor looked around. He needed a distraction. Something that would keep them occupied for the next few hours. "Play a game!" His gaze settled on the stack of board games on the bookshelf.
"Oh! You could run Oubliettes and Ogres!" Twilight said.
"I was thinking more like Mareopoly," Shining Armor said. "O&O is a little complicated for a filly your age."
"What's Oubliettes and Ogres?" Midnight asked.
"It's a game where you slay monsters and get treasure and stuff while you pretend you're a hero," Twilight said.
"Oh, so basically what my mom does." Midnight said. "That's cool. Let's do that."
"It's a really complicated game," Shining Armor warned. "You have to build a character, and the form is almost two full pages. Plus you need a certified O&O GM to sign off on them and run games..."
"You run for your friends, though, right?" Twilight asked. "So you can run a game for us."
"I am certified, but-"
"Can we see the books?" Midnight asked.
Shining Armor considered for a moment. They'd probably end up spending all night just reading things. But that was exactly what he wanted, wasn't it?
"I made a unicorn wizard with the magical academy background and a double specialty in divination, with necromancy and evocation as forbidden schools," Twilight said, pushing her character sheet in front of Shining Armor, a mere fifteen minutes later. "I used my feat for additional spells in my spellbook at each level, and the magical academy background means I don't have to declare what spells I have memorized."
"Okay," Shining Armor said, looking things over. Everything seemed to add up correctly, though she'd used more than one optional rule that he hadn't seen before until they were pointed out to him. "Wait, you have a pseudodragon familiar?"
"I took the Dragon Pact alternate class feature," Twilight said. "It reduces my starting health but lets me have a pseudodragon at level 1."
"I guess that's fine..." Shining Armor muttered. "But you're going to be really vulnerable to damage."
"A wizard's starting health is so low it doesn't matter," Twilight said. "I just have to be smart."
"I'm not going to pull any punches," Shining Armor warned.
"I'll be fine," Twilight said.
"If you say so. What about you, Midnight?"
"I made a unicorn sorcerer," Midnight said, holding up her sheet. "With the magical prodigy background I start out being able to cast a second-level spell!" She grinned. "Plus, I spent my starting feat on Spell Focus so my evocation spells will be harder to resist."
"Evocation spells? So you're going to be a fire mage?" Shining Armor asked. "Wait, why do you have a sword?"
"My unicorn is half-zebra, so she can use it as an implement to cast her spells." Midnight pointed at her sheet. "Plus I get free weapon training in it. I traded the nature lore bonuses away for an ancestral weapon that counts as a magical item."
"But the nature lore bonuses are the whole reason to make your character half-zebra," Shining Armor said, blinking.
"I still get the bonus to spot hidden doors and potion making, just not any of the knowledge skills," Midnight said.
"Okay, I guess. But are you sure both of you want to play casters?" Shining Armor looked between their sheets. "Most of the time you want a balanced party. The classic arrangement is a fighter to protect everypony, a rogue to disable traps and scout, a healer to keep people from being hurt, and a wizard to cast spells."
"The other classes are boring," Twilight said. Midnight nodded in agreement.
"Casting spells is way cooler than just healing ponies or sneaking around," Midnight added. "Besides, you said we could play whatever classes we wanted."
"Okay, okay," Shining Armor sighed and stamped both character sheets with his official O&O stamp, signing off on them. "Just don't blame me if you lose them in your first encounter."
"Let's get going," Midnight said. "I wanna start hunting monsters!"
"Well, let's see..." Shining Armor pulled out his notes. He hadn't had time to design his own adventure, but O&O had plenty of pre-written modules, including a few for brand new characters and players. He'd grabbed one of the simplest, the classic Keep on the Badlands. It was a certified module, so they couldn't blame him if they ended up getting eaten by giant frogs.
"You two already know each other, and you've been traveling along a dirt road towards town," Shining Armor said. "It's a bright, sunny day out, and you're passing through the woods. Describe your characters."
"Squire Page is the picture of a classic unicorn researcher," Twilight said. "She's tall, with a bright blue coat and curly parchment-colored hair. Her cutie mark is a helmet made out of book pages with a plume that's a quill still dripping with ink."
"Nice description," Shining Armor nodded.
"She wears thick robes and heavy saddlebags full of books. Her pseudodragon, Charles, rides on her back and keeps watch around her," Twilight finished.
"Charles?" Midnight asked, raising an eyebrow. "That's a really strange name. Did you make that up?"
"It's from one of mom's fantasy books," Twilight admitted.
"There's nothing wrong with borrowing names," Shining Armor winked. "How about you, Midnight?"
"Well, my character is Flash Fire. She's totally awesome," Midnight said. "She's red with black stripes from her zebra heritage, and wears her mane up in a topknot. She wears armor made from alchemically-treated leaves and has her sword with her at all times. It's an ancient, curved blade from Hippon. Unlike Squire Page, she doesn't carry any books at all, and her cutie mark is an explosion!"
"Okay, well, she definitely sounds dangerous," Shining Armor ventured.
"She is," Midnight nodded. "Do we see any monsters?"
"Well, while you're walking along the road, a pony steps out of the brush and raises a hoof, motioning for you to stop..."
"The road ahead is blocked by a landslide," he said. He pointed to the side. "There's a path through the woods, and I'd be happy to take you, if you'll pay me a few copper coins for the trouble-"
"I waste him with a Fire Burst!" Flash Fire yelled.
"What?!" Shining Armor blinked. Midnight rolled a few dice.
"Ten damage. He can roll a reflex save for half." She smiled up at Shining Armor.
"But he was just a harmless old stallion..." Shining Armor said.
"Does he make the save?" Midnight asked. Shining Armor sighed and rolled.
"No. He falls over, on fire." Shining Armor groaned. "Girls, he was just a normal pony. Not everything is an enemy."
"I have Charles search the body," Twilight said. "As a pseudodragon, he automatically finds anything worth more than one silver piece, and any loose currency."
"He has a few coppers from others that he's guided through the woods, safely, because he was a good and honest pony who was trying to make a few extra bits to get through the tough times-"
"We'll split it evenly," Twilight said.
"Okay, but the road ahead really is blocked off by a landslide," Shining Armor said. "And the guide is currently on fire."
"I cast Find The Way," Twilight said. "It'll lead us more accurately than a guide."
The town was quiet, this early in the morning. The townsfolk were going about their business, not knowing that the two ponies who had just walked into town were murderers.
"We should go to the tavern to find work," Squire Page said.
"Maybe there are some monsters around that they'll pay us to take care of," Flash Fire agreed.
Of course, what neither of them knew was that they were the real monsters, since they'd killed an innocent pony in cold blood.
"Well-met travelers," the stallion behind the bar said. "We haven't gotten a lot of visitors since the road gave out."
"Are there any monsters?" Flash Fire demanded.
"This is a quiet town," the bartender said. "The worst we have is a few diamond dogs that skulk about at the edge of town, but they're not really any trouble."
"We're looking for paying work," Squire Page said. "We're both highly skilled and educated spellcasters."
"If you're adventurers, you could try finding something in Goldmane's Burrow. Legend says that there's treasure in there, but also danger. No one in town goes near it."
"We'll do that, then," Flash Fire declared. "Which way is it?"
"Well, we have a town guide. Didn't he lead you here?"
"Never mind, I'll just cast Find the Way again."
The two left, without a guide or gathering any additional information about the burrow. If the guide had been alive he could have no doubt told them all sorts of tales that would have given them helpful tips about how to deal with the traps and treasure inside the dungeon.
"Shiny, stop it," Twilight huffed. "Killing the old stallion was the obvious thing to do."
"He could have been a bandit," Midnight nodded. "Plus we got money!"
"Fine, fine. You get to Goldmane's Burrow, your spell leading you to a doorway set into a large, low hill..."
"Do you think the doorway is trapped?" Squire Page asked. "I could cast a spell to find out, but I wanna save my spell slots for later."
"It's okay, I know what to do," Flash Fire said. She pulled out her crowbar and started prying at the locked door with her telekinesis, keeping a safe distance to the side. The well-made wooden doorway refuses to give out, and the cheap metal of the crowbar bends.
"It's a masterwork tool," Flash Fire corrected.
The crowbar didn't bend at all, actually. Instead, the door cracked, and opened with a lot of noise, no doubt alerting anything inside, as the lock was forced out of the frame.
"Good work!" Squire Page said. She cast a light spell on a pebble and threw it inside, revealing a patterned tile floor just inside the door.
"Do you think it's trapped?" Flash Fire asked.
"No guards at the door, so it would make sense to have traps inside," Squire Page agreed. "But we can't search for them without using spells."
"We don't really need to search for them," Flash Fire said. "I've got a better idea." She created a summoning gate and brought forth a celestial hound, immediately ordering it to walk into the doorway ahead of them. The noble, brave beast didn't even see the pit trap coming before it fell.
"It was trapped," Midnight said. "But it's statistically unlikely that there will be another trap in the same room. Is the hound dead?"
"It's injured but still alive," Shining Armor said.
"I use my telekinesis to get it out of the pit and order it to continue into the room."
The brave, noble hound walked through the doorway at the other end of the room and was struck down in an instant by a crude blade, disappearing into motes of light as it collapsed.
"An ambush!" Flash Fire gasped. "I knew it."
"We did make a lot of noise opening the door," Squire Page said. She threw another pebble further into the ruins, revealing the shape lying in wait was a diamond dog.
"What do you mean, what type of gem is it?" Shining Armor asked. "You can't tell."
"My pseudodragon can with his treasure sense," Twilight said.
"A diamond dog's position in the pack is determined by what kind of gem he wears," Midnight added. "So we can get an idea of how strong he is if we can determine that."
"Well, it's a quartz," Shining Armor sighed.
"Then he's super low-level," Midnight said.
"Flare Arrow!" Flash Fire yelled, her magical attack striking true and felling the Diamond Dog.
"There are probably more of them," Squire Page said. "But now that we know what we're looking for, I can use a Lifesense spell to see them through the walls."
"Unless the walls are made of lead, of course," Twilight added. "But that's highly unlikely."
"It only has a range of fifteen paces," Shining Armor said. "So you aren't going to be able to see very far with it."
"Actually, by using the blood of the diamond dog we slayed as a focus, I can use a variant of the spell that allows me to see a hundred paces out but restricts it to one species," Twilight corrected.
Squire Page could tell even from the entrance room that there were three other Diamond dogs in the burrow, all of them in a central chamber below. Using a ladder as a bridge to bypass the pit, the adventurers stopped in front of the stairway leading to the lower chamber.
Squire Page pulled a bag of marbles from her overburdened saddlebags and cast an illusion over them to make them look like glittering gems before pouring them down the stairs, the marbles making an awful racket on the way down, no doubt further alerting anything lying in wait.
"They'll have to make a will save to see through the illusion," Twilight reminded Shining Armor. "At a minus five penalty from my specialty."
"Minus five? Are you sure?" He opened the rulebook.
"Page one hundred and sixty six," Twilight said. "I took the double specialty option for divination. The effect applies to all will saves."
"Fine, with a penalty." Shining Armor groaned. Diamond dogs already had abysmally low will saves, and a penalty that low basically meant they'd have no chance of success.
Two of the diamond dogs ran over to the apparent gems, already arguing with each other about them.
"Fire Burst!" Flash Fire yelled, throwing a spell into the room, Squire Page closing the door after the mote of flame lanced past. There was a muffled boom, and the two diamond dogs started yelling, stomping up the stairs, singed but not defeated-
"In a confined space, the damage of the spell is increased," Midnight corrected. "The blast reflects off of the walls and doubles the damage if the area isn't large enough to contain it."
The diamond dogs managed one step before falling over, having taken significantly more damage than they'd thought they had.
"There's still one left," Squire Page said, "And I think he's the boss. My spell shows him as being more powerful than the others."
"I'm almost out of spell slots," Flash Fire said. This, of course, was the biggest weakness of spellcasters, especially at low levels. While their power was significant, they had little staying power. Perhaps if they had a brave fighter to fight the diamond dogs without using more resources, or a rogue that could have gotten them inside without alerting the enemies, they would have had a better chance.
"Charles can handle this," Squire Page said. She ordered him to assume his natural invisibility, sending him downstairs. Since she could see through his eyes, Squire Page could see that the last diamond dog was far larger than the others, with crude armor and a wicked axe. His ears flick up as he hears the invisible creature fly into the room.
"Shining, are you sure you're certified?" Twilight frowned. "It says in the book that pseudodragon flight is magical and silent."
"No it doesn't," Shining Armor protested.
"Pseudodragons have both the dragon and fey subtypes," Twilight said. "And according to the Bestiary Book, creatures with the fey subtype, like breezies and flutterponies, have magical flight."
The silent, invisible creature did not alert the diamond dog at all, actually, though he was still on guard, having just heard two of his packmates get set on fire, and that's entirely fair.
"I should have taken Silent Spell," Flash Fire muttered.
"The applications are very limited for an evoker," Squire Page said. "The diamond dogs would still have made noise when they got hit by the spell, even if the blast itself was silent."
"Yeah," Flash Fire sighed.
Charles got around behind the diamond dog, lying in wait.
"Okay, then. I cast Mage Armor and charge him!" Midnight said.
"I ready an action for later," Twilight added.
"You're a sorceress," Shining Armor said, slowly. "Are you sure? Sorcerers aren't really known for being tough or strong. Going into close combat might be deadly, even if you have an ancestral weapon."
"I'm sure," Midnight said. "I have the element of surprise, and with Charles behind him, I get a flanking bonus to my attack!"
"You lost the element of surprise when you used that Flame Burst."
"It's a metaphor," Midnight said. "Can I roll my attack now?"
"Okay. Remember you get a +2 bonus for charging." He didn't add that she'd still need to roll extremely well to hit the diamond dog pack leader.
"Natural 20!"
"What?"
Flash Fire charged into the room, curved sword held high in her magic, and brought it down on the Diamond Dog, her weapon slipping through a gap in his armor and wounding him badly. However, the monster was strong enough that even that attack wasn't enough to fell him instantly. He raised his axe and brought it down-
"I use my readied action to cast Mirror Image on Flash Fire," Twilight said. "It creates two duplicates of her, and he has to roll randomly to determine which one he hits."
On an illusion of Flash Fire, which vanished into glittering dust. He spun with the backswing and attacked again, his axe going wide and hitting the other illusion, shattering the spell protecting Flash Fire.
"Two attacks?" Midnight frowned. "That means he's at least level six!"
"This module was designed for a full party," Shining Armor said. "There are only two of you, and neither of you is really good at melee combat."
"After he attacks, Charles gets his turn," Twilight said. She rolled some dice. "Fourteen."
"That's not enough to hit."
"Fourteen, plus his bonus to hit from flanking, and being invisible, and studying the opponent for a round," Twilight corrected.
"Okay well..." Shining Armor frowned. "How do you even know all those rules?"
"I read the book, Shiny. Now save against the poison sting."
The Diamond Dog yelled as he was stabbed in the back by a tiny, annoying dragon familiar that shouldn't have been allowed. With some incredibly bad luck, the poison actually managed to affect him, weakening him and making his strikes slower and less accurate.
"Shocking Touch!" Flash Fire yelled, as she channeled electricity through her sword.
"Since he's wearing metal armor, I get a bonus to hit and damage," Midnight said. "I do... fifteen points of damage!" She grinned.
"How, exactly, do you figure that?" Shining Armor asked. "At best it's twelve."
"I'm using my sword as the spell implement for a touch attack, so I get to do its weapon damage, too."
"By my calculations, that should be enough to finish him."
"It would be, if he didn't have the Diehard feat!" Shining Armor said. He didn't like to cheat, even if it was just changing the rules a little, but he was getting annoyed at how casually his little sister was treating the game. "He gets another attack. Natural twenty!"
"Don't forget the weakness effect," Twilight said. "That means you roll twice and take the worst roll."
"Right, whatever," Shining Armor sighed. He knew he'd still hit as long as he didn't roll a natural one.
The Diamond Dog drunkenly swung its axe, the poison throwing it off balance and making it miss with what should have been less than a five percent chance of failure. Thankfully, it avoided hurting itself.
"You have to roll twice for that, too."
For all of five seconds before falling on its own axe.
"We won!" Midnight yelled, happily.
"What did you win?" asked a voice from the doorway. Shining Armor looked up, blinking. Cadance was standing there, looking amused.
"We beat a bunch of monsters!" Midnight said. "And we did it with magic. And a sword."
"And a dragon," Twilight added. "A friendly one."
"That sounds very exciting," Cadance giggled. "I want to hear all about it. Maybe you can tell me on the way back to the castle, Midnight?"
"Is it time to go already?" Midnight sighed.
"It's getting late," Cadance said. "Sunset wants to see you before she has to go to bed too."
"Okay," Midnight said, hopping down. "Thank you for running the game, Shining Armor."
"Maybe we can play again?" Twilight asked. "We could start by dividing the treasure from this game."
"...Yeah," Midnight smiled. "That sounds fun."
"I don't know if I'll have the time to run any games..." Shining Armor said quickly. "I mean, I've got training."
"Pleaaase?" Twilight asked, her eyes wide and sparkling.
"Well... maybe, if we plan the time carefully," Shining Armor said, folding like a laundromat.
"Yay!" Twilight cheered. "I'm gonna read all the game books and find some fun spells to try for next time! Maybe some of them are even real spells that I can learn!"
"What have I gotten myself into?" Shining Armor sighed.
"Don't worry," Cadance whispered. "I won't tell your drill sergeant that two fillies defeated your tactical acumen."
"C-Cadance!" Shining Armor blushed.
"Next time, try describing something mundane in great detail," she suggested. "Twilight will spend hours trying to figure it out."
"Will she?" Shining Armor asked, considering.
"And try attacking them when they rest. It's the time spellcasters are most vulnerable." Cadance whispered.
"Thanks for the tip. Next time, Twilight, next time..." Shining Armor laughed, marking the place in the module.
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Didn't you read the same book, Shining?
i have feeling next time, cadance and sunset join in, the game or twilight and midnight get some friends to join them
That just reminds me so much of TFS At the Table!
Aww. No mention of the notes of Celestia's saucy journal? Ah well, this is adorable anyway. Twilight and Midnight are those players, ones who know the rulebook inside and out to manipulate things to their advantage. Not quite minmaxers, but close.
i have to agree with twilight mushroom pizza is the best mushroom omlits are evin better
Geez, what a couple of twinks.
And the worst part is that they didn’t cheat: It’s a rare situation where the DM would helplessly look to the group’s resident rules lawyer, whose only response would be to glare back and shout, “You did this!” before the group disbanded and never played with that particular arrangement again.
The above story may or may not be a recounting of my time as a 3rd edition rules lawyer.
You know... Shining should have expected a couple of Munchkins to go Full MUNCHKIN on a game... Especially this pair of Munchkins...
keep reading shining and rember questioning it is HERESY and will get you BLAMED by a commissar
This was just great - had a big smile on my face the whole time! Velvet obviously shows how much motherly experience she has - especially as Twilight's mother. And the O&O game was just fantastic and hilarious! This is what happens when you get two prodigies with no moral compass: powerful characters without them becoming Mary Sues. Twilight and Midnight worked really well off one another and it's helping them start to get along. I hope we get to see some more O&O adventures with them in the future.
Well, at least they're getting along now.
WHY does Velvet have those books?!
Sisters in munchkinry, bonding over becoming murderhobos together. This is all kinds of adorkable.
Also amusing to see that Midnight can put in the effort to read things over carefully first rather than just jumping in, when given adequate incentives to do so, as evidenced by her character creation.
I want a chapter where they play with Shinings friends and comepletely win against his friends or just outplay him, getting all the good things or solving the problems.
I image his friends bein a bit cross with him at first and then being shocked because they are so good.
I was honest when I said I like it, but I really need to see something happening between them instead of getting the fact of "they are so close right now" with Cadance and Sunset.
What I meant is, I still am a bit wary about Cadance, mostly because it happens more often than not that I don't enjoy her in a story and then the thing with the romance happens where I would like to see some of the progress instead of just getting showed that they are "that" far already.
That is one of my favourite chapters so far.
So the play by play DnD was actually more amusing than I'd thought it was going to be. You did get the mirror image bit wrong, though, assuming you were using 3.5 rules--which is what I gathered from the double diviniavtion specialization that restricted her from two other schools of magic. Mirror Image is a personal range spell, and can't be cast on others. Twilight could have used silent or minor image to do that too, but it has the problem of not being able to absorb two attacks because the first failed attack provides undeniable proof of an illusion which makes the other clones become apparent.
I was new to DnD back in December 2017, I was a conjuration wizard and I didn't know anything. But fortunately for me, I kept rolling natural 20s that basically (usually instakill) killed half of the early monsters my group and I faced while avoiding taking damage. It was fun but my wizard was so weak that he can get one-shotted to go down if the enemy is lucky enough.
"glass-cannon" build unfortunately.
My knowledge of D&D is minimal at best, but that was hilarious! Of course the two Twilights would read all the rules cover-to-cover in 15 minutes and know the game better than Shining. He knows not what he has unleashed!
Min-Maxing murderhobos whose edge you can bleed on. Those two will still go far.
I'm torn between wishing for SunDance and the standard CadArmor. On one hand, a nerd getting the dream girl. On the other, Cadence becoming a badass and Sunset cuddles. It's a hard decision indeed.
this was a cute experience and i love that shining folded like laundry
The characters they chose really show off their differing ways of thinking.
Twilight the wizard using knowledge and reasoning while Midnight the sorcerer using instinct and being spontaneous
I was laughing so hard tears came to my eyes. Bravo!
I shouldn’t have read this while having breakfast. Trying my hardest not to laugh while holding my bowl of cereal over the keyboard was nerve‐racking.
Poor Shining Armor. Two level 1 Rules Lawyer/Munchkin gestalts at the same table. This is why GMs drink. Of course, that only puts them at a further disadvantage. I'm torn between asking just how far into splatbook power creep they got, and admitting I play that way myself. But I'm calling shenanigans on that Magical Academy background. It's ridiculously powerful and I totally would have taken it myself if it were real.
This paragraph...
Had me dying on the floor!
Victory through saturation fire.
"Lets just destroy the area and then loot the bodies."
"Okay."
I'm not sure what's better, math dealer Twilight or Dr. Claw Shining.
"Yaks are small, weak, and easily frightened by loud noises."
In any case, the friends who slay together stay together. Wonderful to see these two bond. And even Shining and Cadence get a few moments together. Clearly they should co-DM the next adventure to counteract the munchkinry. (Though I do have to object to Twilight applying her divination specialization perks to an illusion spell.)
What utter madness. O&O appears to have available all the munchkinry of D&D 2e, 3.5, Pathfinder, and some unholy mix of 4e and 5e - all made with editors less alert than a concussed puppy. Twilight and Midnight broke it apart to a hikarious degree.
Shining had no chance, save for the non-existent mercy of the Sparkle duo.
I did find Twilight having an actively helpful Dragon assistant absolutely adorable, too.
I am not fond of this variation of Twilight, but her taste in pizza confirms it. Plebeian. While mushroom is, without question, the second most awesome topping for pizza known to man or pony, the incomparable pineapple deserves its ripe golden crown of supremeness. Sadly, they do not go well together. Mushroom adds an excellent texture but its actual flavor is easily overshadowed by the citric delight. The half and half approach is mandatory in order for both to get their due.
I'd say this is a great example of why 3.5 is the most broken edition of D&D, but in 3.5 pseudo dragons can't be taken as familiars prior to level seven to the best of my knowledge.
Not to pretend there aren't terribly broken builds though. rest in piece chickenmancer.
Honestly if Sunset joins them at the table I want her to show up with the necrotic chicken mancer build, just to show these two how to really break a game.
(necrotic chickenmancer at level 2 or 3 can summon infinite undead chickens every turn, and when they die, they explode in a burst of negative energy. You always know something fucked up is gonna happen when a build begins with one level of COMMONER)
Shining, you dun goofed.
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Chickenmancer?
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Not quite that enemy did a triple roll of natural 1s. It was truly amazing.
Hey kid want some Calculus? I also have some Chi squared.
Tiny Murder Hobos for the Win!
So, in this story's universe, zebra are elves?
How is the house still standing, and how have the denizens of Deep R'neigh not been summoned yet?
It begins already. He'll really deserve that extra allowance if he lives.
That was an epic (and hilarious) example of munchkin minmaxing. I want to see what happens when Shiny snaps and has them walk into Tarrasque.
I think that it's very fitting that Twilight and Midnight both make OP Min/Maxed broken characters then proceed to Murder-Hobo their way through the adventure.
I don't see why that would be a problem.
Oh my god she's a red and black OC
Describe the Dread Gazebo to her :V
(they're little minmaxers and I love them)
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Actually, what they're doing IS min-maxing in addition to rules-lawyering. They're finding exploits in the rules to give themselves overpowered level 1 characters, and push what the rules say whenever Shiney contradicts them to try to undermine how stupidly powerful they are. It CAN be a fun way to play if you do it right, but generally, it's an irritating way to play.
Now I want to see that turned into a one-shot for some reason.
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I pull it out whenever DMs are annoying or do stupid things.
Like... initial questgiver is obviously BBEG. I play an Artificer, with the feat to assemble a device from base components as a free action, and Eschew Materials because Artificers pick from Wizard feats as well. Wander off into a dark corner while party is conversing, nudge the nearest party member under the table to keep the conversation going for several rounds while I roll.
Pick a splinter off a table, snap my fingers and poof ballista. 6' spear-arrow to the back of the head, sneak attack crit.
And I play a clockwork Warforged with a mild obsession of "integrating" / haphazardly welding weapons onto myself.
Party disarmed and locked in cells. "Did they dismantle me?" "Uh, no?"
"Cool. Dragon talon gauntlet, slash the lock off the door. Right arm crossbow, sneak attack the guard."
"And now you're out, but lost in th-"
"I caught a glimpse of a map on the way in. You were the one that homebrewed an Advanced Pattern Recognition feat for my particular breed of Warforged."
Absolutely loved the O&O segment. Two level 1 casters taking on a dungeon designed for a full party and not taking a scratch. If they managed this with level 1 casters then the thought of what they'll manage at higher levels (when even the most generic casters get crazy strong) is truly terrifying.
The Equestrian Infantrypony's Uplifting Primer?
Recite the litany of stealth to avoid detection!
My god, they're Munchkins!
Every true gamer's worst nightmare... and there always seems to be at least one in every party.
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But aren’t they playing completely by the book with an incompetent DM? That’s no reason to put them on the Henderson Scale.
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Yeah, they are just more informed that Whining Armor.
This chapter was golden.
Twilight being a tier 1 splat diving demon is so very appropriate. And shining barely knowing the potential of the system he’s running is the experience I usually have with gms.
Oh Shiny, you don't tell Twilight or Midnight something is complicated. They'll see that as a challenge.
...I’m pretty sure, it’s just illegal tutores... You don’t really make any money from dealing with math.
Shining Armor's passive-aggressive DMing is easily my second favorite Players-annoying-the-DM joke I've seen.
ok , one question ...
why is velvet aware of the necronomicron?
For the record if the players are steamrolling through the game the DM can and should adjust enemy types, placement, equipment, etc to give the players an actual challenge and kep the game fun and from being cut short. Twilight already set him up for that by restricting her detection to only diamond dogs. I would have connected the barrow to a diamond dog tunnel network and made the inner chambers of the barrow warded against magic to a restrictive degree.