Chapter 2: Salvaging a Bad Outcome
Twilight would never have expected such a display to go so wrong. 'Perhaps I let my familiarity with my Cadance have too much influence in my decision of how to introduce myself.' Still, thinking about it wasn't going to do anything. Maybe there was room to salvage the burning train wreck that had become of her introduction to a different Cadance. Time to employ the most dangerous weapon in a foal's arsenal. The Sad Face. Twilight sat in front of Cadance, slouched her posture just a bit, folded her ears back, let her wings droop a bit, and very slightly lifted her right front hoof off the floor, then looked up at the pink Alicorn. Hey eyes had widened almost 18%, her pupils specifically enlarging to take up an astonishing 67% of her visible eyes. Her purple irises widened a bit as well, the vibrant violet color only further accentuating the already pronounced wet look of her eyes, like she would cry any minute.
Her bottom lip was pushed out an impressive quarter of an inch, achieving a remarkable 30º angle in what would be called a legendary example of a soul crushingly devastated looking pout. "C-Cay-d-dace g-go? N-no go! Zday!" She tried to make her speech sound as broken and infantile as possible without losing the meaning or completely butchering the words. As she continued to look at Cadance, she could tell she was faving an effect. She leaped at the pink alicorn and hugged her tight, fake tears falling in an expert display. "Cayd-d-dace sad? Mad? I sowwi." That did it. Cadance gasped and hugged the foal.
"No, no! I'm not mad at you! I was just confused. Maybe a little concerned." The pink Alicorn immediately regretted adding that bit on when Twilight sniffled and asked,
"I do bad?" Cadance shook her head furiously, desperate to assuage the fears of a filly too young to understand. Twilight smiled and the tears stopped, her face the perfect image of a foal's relief that they hadn't done wrong. Her thoughts told a very different story though. ‘I win!'
Bond Quest: First Impressions with Cadance
Cadance got with your brother because she babysat you. If you want that to happen again, you might want to make a good first impression for your prospective sitter.Salvaged
Luckily Cadance has something of a bleeding heart for foals. Might be why she was always run ragged by little Flurry Heart.
+250 EXP
Quest Failure Penalty reduced. Awkward +5 status when interacting with Cadance reduced to awkward +2 status. Duration of 6 months reduced to 3 months.
65% chance Cadance will decide to be your sitter.
Bond with Cadance to be established.
Quest Salvage
Sometimes when a quest is failed, there's a chance to make up for the action (or lack thereof) that resulted in quest failure. This is called a Quest Salvage. A successful Quest Salvage results in a reduction in the quest failure penalty, plus a portion of the original Quest Success EXP and monetary reward being awarded to you on top of the much lower EXP and money given to you for your time when you failed the quest.
'Huh. Salvaging failed quests? Best not get into the habit of needing to correct my own mistakes, but still it's nice to know that's a thing. It would have been a shame if that act had gone to waste. Plus, now I know there might still be a chance to befriend Cadance and get him in with my brother.' Twilight looked at her mother and cooed innocently, visibly melting the heart of the previously mildly disturbed, off-white Unicorn. The foal Alicorn jumped to her next, hugging her just as tight as she previously did Cadance. It was a heartwarming sight to see, one that was ruined by a twitch in all present noses. Velvet gasped.
"Oh no! Dinner!" She was off like lightning, hoping that she wasn't too late to save her neglected cooking. Twilight and Cadance followed, and all three were disturbed by what they found. Night Light looking very proud of himself, standing in front of a range while black smoke billowed from the oven.
"I don't know how you made such a mistake honey." The blue stallion said, a smug look on his face as though he'd one-upped the master. "I mean really, what's the point of giving an appliance multiple settings if you're always going to turn it up to full every time anyway. It just leads to mistakes like what you made dear. You didn't turn the heat up all the way, but I fixed it for y-what's that smell?" Twilight facehoofed when she knew no one was watching.
'Seriously? My dad is that kind of stallion this time? Give me a break!' The purple princess thought. At the same time, her mother trotted up to her husband, a sickeningly sweet smile on her face that held a promise of despair beneath a curtain of false joy.
"That smell, dear, is you burning our dinner. How many times do I have to tell you, stay out oF MY KITCHEN!" The facade broke down very quickly, and very predictably, and with a blast of magic the blue stallion was ejected from his wife's sight. Cadance approached the mare, a pitying look on her face.
"Some ponies. What did you see in him, Velvet dear?" Surprisingly, the response given was not the usual 'sometimes I wonder that myself' that is usually the go to response to such a question. Instead, Velvet answered with her heart.
"I saw a rational, reasonable pony capable and willing to be an anchor to my adventurous spirit. More importantly, I saw a pony more than willing to put up with all that I am, which you know isn't always easy." The response given to that by Cadance was something in the realm of 'true enough', and then the girls shared a laugh before Cadance turned the oven off with a flick of magic.
"Oh, thanks for that. I can't believe I'd forgotten." Cadance gave a cheeky smile, and the two were back to laughing. To Twilight, it was like watching a pair of high school besties at a reunion after being apart for a year. Content with how the evening turned out, she smiled. Once the two got the laughter out of their systems, Velvet brought up the elephant that had suddenly stormed into the room.
"What to do for dinner though." Cadance took the opportunity to offer to pick something up. Velvet clearly considered it, but her only response what a very hesitant, "I-I couldn't ask you to do that! You're a guest, and a Princess besides!" Cadance waved the concern off, emphasizing that she offered, dismissing Velvet's attempt to make it sound like she was the one who brought it up. Once Cadance asked to bring Twilight, suggesting that it might be good for them; and her decision, if they spent more time together, Velvet was a bit more amicable.
With Velvet's blessing, Cadance grabbed Twilight in her magic and placed the foal atop her head. Still maintaining the persona of a normal foal, Twilight poked her head up between Cadance's ears, just above her horn in a display of false timidness mixed with an act of childish wonder. She was really getting into the act, seeing as there was a twinkle in her eye that really sold the 'childish wonder' angle. With a smile on both their faces, Cadance left the Sparkle home and made her way to the market district, talking about this or that to Twilight but expecting no more than the babbling she got in response. The pink Alicorn had a pleasant smile on her face by the time she got to the market.
As a pony who grew up a Pegasus raised by Earth Ponies, the many uses of Unicorn magic were still a novelty to her. Approaching a produce stall, she stared at the runic crystal-powered refrigeration unit with a wide-eyed wonder she'd normally expect from a foal like Twilight. She was snapped from her stupor by a gentle cough from a well-meaning Pegasus sales pony whose wings were very oddly folded. Perhaps luckily for Cadance, the crystal powered refrigerator was a rather new innovation, so it was currently in the novelty phase of its existence for all of ponykind. Thus, the fact that she; a pony with a Unicorn horn stared at it in wonder wasn't seen as odd.
Cadance struck up a conversation with the sales pony about his wares. He had suppliers from all over Equestria, so he always had different product from different climates that were always in season. The refrigeration certainly helped with that. It was a real bit saver once it became standard for cargo transports dealing with perishable goods. That the transports had to be made of something that worked with runic crystals made it better in other ways too. For example, the transports could be given defensive runes to protect against raid attempts.
Twilight took in the exchange like a sponge. She'd known about the refrigeration of course. It was an innovation that had come about shortly before she was born in her first life too. Still, runes and runic crystals had never been a subject of study at Celestia's school, since they were overall a new idea that too many considered impractical for too much to be taken seriously by the masses. As a result, classes focused on the study of runes were never approved for the School for Gifted Unicorns.
Speaking of; what a wake up call to learn years later that Celestia, Princess Celestia didn't have absolute authority for running her school. The school named for her. Too many of those on the EEA council didn't believe in the future of runes, so approval of rune study was never possible in any school. On a whim, Twilight chanced a glance at the palace. Cadance noticed her look, and giggled. "Yes Twilight, the palace is especially beautiful this time of day." When the sales pony asked about her, Cadance hesitated a bit, before responding,
"W-well I'm her...I'm her babysitter. I haven't actually started in an official capacity, but if she's going to be my charge I wanted to get to know her better, and what better time than now? Her father's a bit thick and ruined his wife's cooking, so I volunteered to get something to replace it!" The sales pony laughed and reiterated Cadance's previous statement of 'some ponies', then passed a white canister with a fake teat on one end to the pink Alicorn. At Cadance's inquiry, the sales pony revealed he was a father, opening his wings to reveal that the odd folding of them was covering a bundled up Pegasus foal.
Cadance had to keep herself from cooing in adoration, lest she awaken the baby, but the sales pony explained that the contents of the canister was a substitute for mothers' milk; so long as a baby had received the mother's first milk. Cadance passed the canister to Twilight, who after a brief appraisal worthy of a foal; one consisting on checking different parts of the thing to see if it was food, and then briefly tugging on the rubber teat, she settled for using it as intended. The sales pony figured that if Cadance was looking for something to make into a meal, produce probably wouldn't do it, though he did offer her a slight discount of a head of lettuce. The princess-in-training accepted graciously, and after the lettuce was paid for, the pair moved on to more stores. Twilight happened to notice the window of her 'game' open with text. A list?
[Bond Quest: Help Gather Dinner!
Cadance is shopping for your family's dinner! Help her out!First Ingredient
[ ] Noodles
[ ] Broccoli
[X] LettuceSecond Ingredient
[ ] Tomato
[ ] Olive Oil
[ ] Hay DoughHelp Cadance! Select a Second Ingredient!
Reward
+100 EXP
+1 Bond with CadanceNo Failure Condition
Twilight raised an eyebrow for a bit, then smiled. Any little nudge she could make toward a chance of having this Cadance be like the Cadance she remembers is worth a shot. She poked her head up behind Cadance's horn, and squinted her eyes, peering keenly over the selection of stores and wares before her. Though the question remained, what to pick...?
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Might include a header to note that the previous chapter has undergone revision. I spent most of reading this trying to figure out how this fit with the Rock Roc.
You don't need to capitalize alicorn, unicorn, pegasus, or earth pony. They're basically breeds, like dogs, and the only dog breeds that get capitalized are those named after places.
This should be ‘her’ because it is talking about Cadence (unless Cadence suddenly temporarily turned into a stallion)
I also think Twilight should chose the Hay Dough, not sure how it would go with the first ingredient, but maybe some sort of sandwich?
Tomato ... salad it's a simple easy herbivore meal. Especially last minute.
Hymn .... is magic being cast the everyone can see your horn lighting up it's your color variety or they actually gotta scan it for the unicorns signature variety. I think it's the 2nd due to the canterlot wedding because chrysalis never got called out when she levitated stuff. Only reason i mention it is twilight should be observing/scanning more. Also of course the unicorn supremacists wouldn't want runesmithing to get out .... a type of magic a earthpony or Pegasus could actually use. Earth ponies would be naturals in crafting them.
Had a thought about hard mode and what can constitute combat. Maybe normal mode was like the show worst kinda pony you'd come across is someone with a snide comment or talk behind your back except for the bosses. Maybe in hard mode violence is more normal and theirs actually crime and regular ponies willing to do harm. Nobels could actually plot to overthrow the princesses. Someone could attempt to mug or pickpocket cadance since she's a alicorn and alone. Or purse snatchers. Also not every battle has to be a fight even getting a cookie without getting caught can be a battle...lol. Just thought of another good example of hard mode .. when rarity got caught by the diamond dogs they actually whipped and beat her if she didn't listen.
9575299
That was actually one of the things that stood out the most as a ‘what the **** did you think you were doing?!’ Speaking of the ‘Scan’ skill as it is, given the limitations I was thinking of either making it one in a set of ‘Scan’ skills, or making it a skill that expands as it advances. In the case of the latter, it would start out as a ‘Scan Ally’ skill, then when it expanded to include characters who don’t share a bond with the user it would be ‘Scan NPC’, and then finally the general ‘Scan’ ability when it grew to include usability against enemies.
Given the way I’ve included the ‘Scan’ skill so far, I know I want to change its name to ‘Scan Ally’, but do you think it’d work better as an expanding skill or one in a set?
She must get acting skill sor that things. Or something alike.
Still a day 1 newborn. Didn't even said "Mama" yet. Epic fail here.
I thought she came for doing that. Like, really, can she even decline? It a national scale problem, finding babysitter for a alicorn foal.
Also, quests on repeating past development? Meh. It will be boring.
Lettuce you know what to do with that!
Bonus option chosen: Coleslaw makins.
9575313
Maybe a multi-leveled skill? Level 1 can scan allies and common objects, level 2 can also scan NPCs and minor magical objects, and level 3 can also scan enemies and more powerful magical objects. And just specify the level like 'Scan (1)'.
Yeah. Love the work that has gone into the rewrites. Definitely makes A LOT more sense. And, yeah, considering the previous "game" was more slice of life comedy than action (though there was still enough action to keep things interesting), it makes more sense to have something along the lines of establishing an early bond with Cadance be her first quest than a fight with a roc (yeah, probably better to save THAT, as you said, for when Twilight is old enough to be a student at Celestia's school. Plus, having experience taking care of a natural born alicorn might mean Cadance will be better equipped to cope with Flurry Heart decades down the road. As for the second ingredient, yeah, I'd say tomato as these ARE herbivores.
And I'll repeat an idea I had for later chapters when you get to the more action-oriented chapters. Perhaps, you could have it so that, in a major monster fight, for every civilian Twilight helps save, she gets 250 experience points PLUS a certain degree of increased reputation with said civilian AND that civilian's friends and family. And every time she defeats a major villain or monster with NO civilians getting seriously hurt and LESS THAN 10, 000 bits in property damage, she gets double experience points PLUS ten percent increased reputation with the city in general.
Anyway, excellent job on the exchanges, characterizations and future chapter set-up in all the right places.
The only logical choice would be tomato.
Walkings fine with normal ponies and horses its practically right outta the womb they walk. Hoping and galavanting thou and using anything even remotely sounding like words to me is a little .... Hymn it's hard to find the word I'm feeling... unrealistic maybe. It takes a real world foal about 4 daysish to run buck and .... horse around *snort* plus the cake twins first words were pinkie pie and their (Edit 1 month old). Twilights tooooo smart. She tested for CSGU at 6-7ish she was still a small filly. She's extremely book smart by then. Maybe at 1week instead of a month shed say her first word being considered a prodigy without suspicion. At 6 weeks shed say simple sentences like want cookie.. want big brother read story. At 9 months read a children's book and be able to talk almost normally... no big sciency words ....and at a year read actual books and use big words. This twilight I half expect to levitate a book when she gets bored and get caught reading by day 2.
Go for the Tomato as a second ingreident
9575413
I went to verify your time frame, but the Cake twins were actually just one month old when Pinkie babysat them in the episode.
9575430
Ahh your right pinkie sang a your a month old song in that episode. Hymn ... but still day 1 talking is still weird. But gotta tip my hat to you.
9575439
Yeah, it was a Pinkie song that tipped me off.
9575462
Reedited my last response don't know if you get notices. You were right.
9575465
That was very kind of you to let me know. Thank you, Chronokat.
9575466
Yah figured no point in having a comment up that's wrong. But truthfully timelines in mlp are off sometimes to a ridiculous degree. But I laughed when 3 minutes in pinkie did sing one monthaversery can't get clearer then that.
9575313 fun fact: 'Scan,' as you call it, is called "observe" in other gamer fics. This skill does what your scan skill is doing, however it not only gives the person's name, level, and class, it also gives them a detailed background, sort of like a biography, and it levels up the more this skill is used.
I just realized.
The Chapter title is meta.
I'm worried how will you manage to convincingly write her in the future: she's A LOT smarter than an average human. It's hard to predict what a character with super intelligence would do.
And it's surprising how nobody cared when a 1day old child started talking.
9575681
well, first alicorn baby so they don't know it's not normal.
9575681
I guess they assumed that alicorns can talk right after being born. It's not like there are other alicorn foals to compare.
This is definitely way better than the first chapter 2
9575364
Flurry Heart can't. Cake tweens can't. So, cartoon foals can't
9575474
I am in total agreement about the timeline being messy, by the way. Winter Wrap Up released before Running of the Leaves, after all. And then Season 4 said all of this happened in one year...
Not as bad an inconsistency as Pokemon, but yeah.
9574900 there's one thing I forgot to mention about that other Twilight gamer fic, there are problems with it, and why it most likely got canceled. Take this as what not to do with your gamer fic, that being Twilight being ooc and being a sociopath, some of the logic and stats don't make sense, the pacing is fast which causes most of the fights to come off as lazy, breaking the rule of show don't tell. In just two chapters I can already tell how much better this fanfic is, so keep trying to improve and you'll be great.
9575968
Unfortunately, your criticisms here rely too much on the assumption that I’m using the canon as the be all and end all for even the finest of details. The canon is the basis of Twilight’s first ‘playthrough’, but so much is different right out of the gate that it isn’t at all reliable.
Foals in the show might not be shown to walk, but they’re given very limited screen time anyway so it’s not much to go on.
9575318
For the first part of this I’ll say that Cadance could technically decline, but Celestia has a lot riding on her accepting so it’d be hard to worm out of. However, given the outlandish manner in which the foal suddenly started behaving, I know it wasn’t clear what kind of disturbed look Cadance had, but it was the look of someone questioning ‘so are her eyes going to bleed now? Or will that be after her head leaves her body and starts flying around and speaking in an echoed voice.’ Yeah, in real life it’d take something a lot more disturbed to lead to that train of thought, but differences in story or no, this is still
CandylandEquestria.As the the ‘quest on repeating past developments’, there are some things that Twilight took for granted in her first ‘playthrough’, to the point that having them be different is inconceivable for her.
9575317
Twilight is a lot more mentally advanced here than any baby has the right to be, and I don’t know how fist learning to talk works so that bit’s my ignorance at play combined with ‘there are some things I’d like to have as default for ease of progression’. Twilight’s already used what amounts to ‘legal cheats’ to do far worse than skipping her ‘learn to speak’ phase, so I have to wonder why you’ve yet to complain about those. Now then, I’d agree with the technicality of your first word fallacy; specifically what Twilight’s first word here was not, if not for the fact that in canon, which as the basis for Twilight’s first playthrough is the sum of all her memories and past experiences, she had a lot more interaction with Cadance than she did with her parents. You could use my own argument that I used before against this claim, but canonical interaction seems to make it pretty clear that for being their daughter she never seemed as close to them as she was to her brother and his wife. Likely to do with how antisocial she was as a kid, but she’s been letting her past experience guide her more than is probably healthy. Her initial blunder with Cadance is proof enough of that.
9576109
You wrong, i'm not talking about can she or not. I talking about her act. She was pretending the whole time. Now, she made a stupid mistake. Yet, no one questions that.
Also, it's not about sticking to canon. Normal people wouldn't even know that foals, in fact, can walk. It's you sticking to real life. It's opposite of what you said. Besides, writing fanfic, but basing it on real life?
Also, About Cadence and her decline.
If dancing foal can be compared to flying head in your imagination, you have a problem. I personally only would find it confusing and cute.
9575983
Don't get me started on Pokemon.. lol.
9575983
More episodes than there are days in a fucking year, but Ash is totally still 10 years old. Bleh.
Interesting. You have my attention.
S'a good thing y'all went with this replacement chapter instead of the original lmao, don't wanna nuke the fridge y'know?
Gotta say that you've made a more interesting start to a "Game Equestria" than most fics I've read of the same theme. Most tend to overload with game stats (which is good to know, but shouldn't break the flow of the story, which you've done a good job with), or just be unoriginal and just retell MLP from a different perspective. So far you've had Twilight go off course by not just being an alicorn, but being self-aware and messing with other ponies, which is one of the most compelling things to do in such a situation. If you were granted foreknowledge on a situation and meta-knowledge of how the world works, wouldn't you use that to mess with people occasionally? That was a great start to the story IMO as it shows you're not too afraid to go off the rails and work with the world you've created.
Wondering if Twilight is aware of the implications of the world resetting. All the friends and bonds she said she'd not redo if she had the chance, and immediately it happens and she goes on and does just that. Is she in shock, was her curiosity too much and blinded her of the implications? I'm curious to see what goes on next. And maybe you can have an epic battle like Ric Rock in a more decisive moment, it was pretty jarring and while I usually don't like rewrites, it was probably the best to do at the time.
TL;DR: You're doing good and I'll be watching!
Hay dough
Can't wait to see Twilight interact with the other elements. I know some "reset" fics have Twilight meeting them soon, haven't seen it in a gamer fic yet. Most seem to stall for different reasons before Twilight meets another of the Mane 6. I still wonder will Pinkie more blatantly bash down the 4th wall now that Twilight is aware of it too?
As to how different he friends and family will be, I expect deep down they are the same ponies, but Twilight's relationships with them will be different.
This was an awesome chapter, somehow I knew you would implement something to help Twilight salvage her failed quest, but I wasn't sure what; it was almost as if you read my mind. Anyway, I wanted to talk about Twilight increasing her stats quickly. Besides doing it the gamer way by leveling her up, she can also do it by doing other tasks, like for her STR or any stat that's physically related, she can do exercises or sports. For mental stats like INT or WIS, all Twilight has to do is to think of something like an well thought observation or strategy, or even by just reading a book or playing chess, just to give ideas. Finally, her magic stats can increase by, what else, training and constantly using her magic. She might even gain new skills by increasing her stats as well.
9576109
9575697
9575723
In prologue Twilight decided that she won't talk:
That's why her choice to speak broke my suspension of disbelief.
I agree that there may be some logical explanations; you're totally right in that regard. She could have a reason to change her mind and adults really could think it's normal for foal alicorns to speak.
But if that's the case, then it's really poorly explained in fanfic. As it is, it honestly looks like author simply forgot that she wasn't supposed to talk.
I don't think editing this chapter is worth it, but it would be great if author could pay more attention to things like that in the future.
9576673
Twilight was basically going for broke in her attempt to salvage the situation, but she wanted to keep in at least somewhat believable, hence the poor attempt at broken speech.
I just had a weird thought but wouldn't healing spells fall under dark magic? Seeing how healing spells encourage(force) one body to recover faster and heal injures you normally can't recover from.
9576817
I never made that connection in my own story, but now that you’ve brought it up my new head canon is that they are but healers don’t care because it’s not their job to care what measures are allowed to save lives, and those in the position to officially publicize the connection choose not to in order to feel better about their self-righteous view of magic that would be tarnished if it ever came out that their definition of Dark Magic includes healing spells. Thank you for inadvertently adding another dimension of corruption to my story’s Equestria’s politics.
9576834
It’s one thing to have a firm belief of something that still has a chance of being wrong, but it’s entirely different for something to be concretely spelled out. Whenever she considered the possibility that she’d never seen the full power of Discord, she’d counter it with the absolutely asinine argument of ‘I’ll believe it when I see it’, in order to make herself feel more secure. She knew it, she just didn’t want to accept it if she didn’t have to. When it’s laid out in plain terms, she has no choice but to accept it as fact.
9576835
Its what I do. Introduce ideas that destroy people concepts on how things normally work.
But seriously, I like idea where Dark magic has good things to it but no wants to admit because of their personnel views. Like how Twilight realize how powerful Discord really was and how he could've easily killed everyone she knew with the snap of his claw.
... Plus the idea of a dark brooding overlord heal spamming to appear unharmed from the hero's attacks amuses me.
question. since when is Cadence a guy?
9576236
Me: "What?" *nonchalantly whistles while discretely putting Fat Man behind Pinkie Bush tm* "I would never do that."
9576948
That casual reference to Fallout, Grade A+
Good job, you made me laugh
9576954
More (or less, not sure how this works) casual than you think. I wasn't intending to make a Fallout reference. I make comments like that from time to time because I laugh. The Fat Man just happened to be the first handheld nuclear weapon I could think of.
Edit: yeah, i realize i meant to say Fat Man. i don't even remember what i was thinking of when i said Fat Boy. i know it was something though