Rainbow Dash's Awesome Nightmare Night Haunted House Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Adventure

by TheDriderPony

It's All Downhill From Here

Author's Note:

Welcome to the Choose Your Own Adventure Event!

Before you start, there are a few important meta-rules to discuss.

1) Do not use the Next/Previous chapter buttons. Never touch them or your web browser's back page button. You must only navigate between chapters using in-text hyperlinks. It won't make much sense if you try to read it in order anyway, as the chapters are all scrambled. The one exception to this rule is if you accidentally re-enter a room you have already cleared. Only then may you use the back button.

2) Fear and Endings. This story has not only a branching path, but also multiple possible endings. This includes several possible "bad ends" where you lose the game and have to start over. This is determined through Rainbow Dash's Fear Meter.

Taking certain actions and encountering certain frights will cause Rainbow Dash to become more afraid. This will be indicated in-story by a line such as

[This horrid sight rattles your soul. Add one (+1) to your Fear Meter]

You will sometimes encounter routes that will ask if your Fear Meter is filled beyond a certain threshold. If it is, you must take that path. This also allows for multiple levels of difficulty, as shown below:

Difficulty Levels:
Free Play* - Ignore the Fear Meter
Easy - Fear Meter caps at 20
Intermediate - Fear Meter caps at 15
Hard - Fear Meter caps at 10
Insane - Fear Meter caps at 5

*2b) While you can choose to revisit rooms you failed before in the same run, only in Free Play mode can you select the exact same within-room-action-option as before. Otherwise you can just repeatedly visit the one area which reduces your fear until the feature itself is meaningless.

It will be up to you to keep track of your current fear level as well as what items you have collected. I recommend keeping a pen handy. Speaking of items...

3) Items. In some chapters you will be presented the option to use an item. It should go without saying that you cannot take this option if you have not acquired the item in question from a previous room. Items are rewarded for defeating the monster or fright of a room (indicated by the name being bolded like This) and can be lost by using them incorrectly. If using the item makes you black out and awaken elsewhere, consider it lost. The same is true if you eat/drink an item or watch it be destroyed. Otherwise, items are reusable. Monsters may be weak to multiple items, but one will always be a better decision.

4) Comments. While commenting is always appreciated, please remember that comments posted on any chapter will all appear on the story's cover page, so please refrain from spoiling anything (at least without proper black boxes). Any comments that explicitly provide the solution to a puzzle or the answer to a riddle will be deleted for the sake of the continued enjoyment of other players.

With all that said, remember to have fun! This is an experiment in non-traditional storytelling, so have some frights and maybe a laugh or two at some not-so-discreet holiday references. They may even provide a clue to help you out.

The house looms before you, a monster in itself, much like those contained within. Only instead of eyes that pierce the darkness it has windows with flickering lanterns, and in place of vicious teeth that can gnash and tear it has splintered porch beams. A few kitschy decorations are taped around the edges, smiling paper pumpkins and grinning ghosts made of grocery bags, but the colorful additions do little to defang its natural presence. There is something to be said about rotted boards, walls of climbing ivy, and shattered windows that give a building a weighty presence like nothing else. Even if this wasn't Nightmare Night, this is the sort of house any normal pony would go out of their way to avoid.

Which is probably why it feels so unnatural to walk right up to it.

Then again, you are Rainbow Dash. You eat fear for breakfast.

There's a pony standing out front like a sentinel at the gates of Tartarus. Her costume is simple, but effective. A fancy vest with gold epaulets and a long flared red cape. A Master of Ceremonies. Fitting, given the circumstances. She squints through her pince-nez and smiles as she recognizes you.

"Happy Nightmare Night, Rainbow Dash! You're here for the challenge?"

You nod. "Yeah, I saw your flyer. 'Spookiest haunted house in Equestria.' That's a pretty big claim."

Starlight chuckles. "We've got a pretty big production going. Trixie and I have been planning this for months. Twilight could probably write a paper on all the innovations we've made in illusion magic." She leans to the left to try and see behind you. "Are the others coming?"

"Later," you assure her. "They're all running attractions or stands in town. I figured I'd come early and scope it out. Preview it for Fluttershy, you know."

She nods knowingly, a sly little grin on her face. "And maybe set a record in the process?"

You pause, caught off guard, yet captured by one of your trigger words. "A record? How do you set a record for a haunted house?"

"Because this... is no ordinary haunted house." Starlight steps back and rears up to gesture dramatically, her cape flaring out in a practiced swirl. "What you see before you is an innovation in Nightmare Night attractions. Part haunted house, part escape room, part dungeon crawl. An interactive experience like no other! Where illusion—" You blink as a second Starlight, identical save for her costume being blue, steps into view from behind the first. Had she been hiding there all along?

"—and reality blur together," Blue Starlight finishes.

"No guides!"

"No rules!"

"Each room offers its own unique flavors of spooks and specters to be faced in whatever order you like!" Red Starlight lights her horn and shimmering illusions of ghosts and monsters fill the air.

"Conquer your fears and you'll receive helpful tools and tips that will aid you on your quest." Blue Starlight gestures and the illusory monsters poof into bags of loot. "Turn tail and flee if you must, but be warned that the later frights will be only more difficult."

The Starlights move in a perfect mirror of each other in a strange dance of gestures that ends with them poised dramatically towards the doors. "Will you accept the challenge and face your fears, or run home shrieking like a schoolfilly?" they chant in unison. "The choices are yours and yours alone!"

You can't help but get more and more excited as they continue. "This. Sounds. Awesome! How do I play?"

Red Starlight tips her hat down over one eye, grinning. "Just head on in and try not to get too scared. When you think you've had enough and figured everything out, you can make your way to the exit, or if you want to give up, back out the entrance."

Blue Starlight quickly drops her Trixie-like showmare demeanor and adopts a serious expression. "First though, a few rules and warnings."

You groan. Of course. No way it could be as awesome as you were imagining. There just had to be a bunch of rules to make it lame, just like every other haunted house you've been to. No going outside the marked areas. No punching the monsters. Take only one piece of candy at the end.

She steps aside to reveal a small posterboard covered in seasonal doodles and a few lines of text. "Rule number one," Blue Starlight says. "You can tackle the rooms in any order you like. There is an optimal route based around the tools you may pick up as a reward for clearing rooms, but there are many paths to success."

Red Starlight moves her hoof to the second bullet point. "Rule two: Reasonable reactions. There are no actors here. Everything inside is props, magic, and illusions. So if your first instinct is to knock a skeleton's block off, have at it."

Your appraisal of the event, and to a certain extent Starlight, skyrockets back up. "What? You mean I can fight the monsters?"

"If you want. But—and this is a genuine warning—these high-level illusions are nothing to scoff at. Everything that happens will seem entirely authentic. You may even start to forget what's really real. No matter what you think you feel or see, no harm will come to you."

Blue Starlight smirks. "This is some of Trixie's and my best work. Not even Twilight will be able to tell what's real and what's an illus—" She cuts off as you stick your hoof through her muzzle. With a look of total surprise that's mirrored on her red counterpart, Blue Starlight bursts into sparkles.

"Wha..." she stammers, her mouth hanging open. "How... how did you know she was the fake? My spellwork was pristine!"

You shrug. "If she was the real one, my hoof wouldn't have gone through and I'd have just booped your muzzle."

She grumbles something about 'adding a tactile matrix next time' but doesn't really seem all that upset. She quickly shakes herself out of the funk and gets back into character. "Anyway, where was I? Right, rule two. Lots of illusions inside—ones you won't be able to pop since they're tied to keystones—so feel free to fight if you want, but don't come crying the first time you buck a zombie and get your hooves stuck in its gooey organs."

A flash of movement catches your attention and your eyes snap up to a second story window. It's empty. Even the curtain is still. You could have sworn there'd been a pony standing there a split second earlier. Must have been a trick of the light. You put it out of your mind.

You roll your eyes. "It can't be that scary."

"Don't underestimate it," she warns. Her eyes narrow as the beginning of a smile starts to creep across your lips. "I'm serious, Dash. We actually have a waiver you need to sign."

"Seriously? I thought you said it was safe."

"It is; physically. The waiver is for mental scarring and trauma. As I said, it's very realistic."

Despite her warnings, this only makes you more excited. The best things in life always require a wavier or at least the hint that one should be needed. It's like a certification that something's gonna be awesome. You manage to reign in your anticipation behind a veil of coolness and sign her wavier, if only to conform to the letter of the rules.

"And finally, rule three: It's okay to give up. It's not just scary, this is made to be a challenge. We fully expect it'll take some ponies multiple tries to successfully make it to the end. If you get too scared you can always come back out the way you came in and take a breather before trying again. Though, if you do, everything inside will reset and you'll have to start over."

You almost feel insulted before you realize that this is probably a heavily practiced speech that she has to give to everypony, including ponies who are a lot less brave and fearless than you. It's nice that she thought of them, though you're not going to need it. "Psh, really? I'll be fine. I'm not some little filly going in without her big brother, I can handle it."

Starlight shrugs. "Don't say I didn't warn you." A sharp breeze punctuates her words, making the house's shutters rattle and a gnarled old tree groan in protest. "Now, are you ready to begin your adventure?"

You grin in eager anticipation. "Oh you know I am!" You start to head for the door.

"Oh, wait!" Starlight announces, pulling you up short. "I almost forgot. You're going to need this." She presents you with a plastic foal's candy bucket.

"Uh, thanks? I was just planning on eating any candy I got as I go though."

"It's part of the experience," she explains. "This is your Inventory Bucket. It'll hold any items you pick up along the way, even ones that are too big to fit in it."

"Oh. Okay, thanks." You take the bucket, still feeling slightly silly. You haven't used one of these since you were a preteen.

"You might also find it helpful to use a piece of IRL paper."

"A what?" you ask.

She pulls out a thin strip of paper that looks like a blank receipt and sticks it to your bucket. "An Inventory Registry List. To help keep track of everything you have on hoof."

"Now you're ready to begin!" With a wave of her hoof, the double doors creak open, the void inside beckoning you in like the mouth of Tartarus itself. "May the strength of your spirit and the fortitude of your mind guide you through the dark road ahead!"

You barely hear her as a few swift wingbeats send you sailing through the door, hungry for adventure and thrills.

---

[Click Here to Begin Your Adventure]

Comments

[The Blue EM2]

"It is; physically . The wavier is for mental scarring and trauma. As I said, it's very realistic."

McAmey Manor, anybody?