Chapter 1: Adventures Beware!
Zecora had created a monster.
She didn’t mean to, of course. Nor did she intend this to get out of hoof. But the result of what she had made had grown into something she couldn’t undo.
At least, not by herself.
Looking over towards the bag that was sung around her shoulder, she still heard the drums that cry out like a bad-tempered infant.
“Be silent, be hushed! Do you want to be crushed?” She chastised just above a whisper.
It kept beating all the same.
Even though she began her project out of love and as a gift, this had to be taken care of immediately. A birthday present meant for a filly that had been the first pony to have reached out to her since she moved to Equestria, she now saw as not just unfit – but dangerous. In any other circumstance, this might be disheartening considering the time and effort she had put into this. A board game that would be recognizable in her homeland, complete with the style of the jungle, the savanna, and the rivers of Zebraca. Yes, she may have never crafted a game before, but she did her best to find the right wood, import in the right stones, ivory, and even custom brass items to assemble.
However, for the centerpiece of the game, what was meant to be a shortcut and, dare she say it, “magical” replacement of cards that would give the game a unique flavor had… backfired. A dark green gem where she had put in the cards with rhymes and riddles from her imagination, all infused by a complicated process using potions and spells. When she placed the last piece in the center of the game, she had hoped to be her masterpiece.
That was until she began to hear the drums.
Not just any drums – the deep, dark tones that brought dread to her very soul. The impatient, maddening rhymes that she hadn’t heard since she was a little filly. The booming beats of war drums. She could feel the box vibrate as the muffled drumming was somehow coming from inside the box itself. Even just touching it, something about the game felt wrong. It was soaked in bad juju all around.
Even when she opened it to exam it so that the drums would stop, she saw the green gem in the center was misty and swirled in yellow smoke that formed the word of the game she gave. She didn’t need to play the game to realize that something had gone horrifically wrong. This thing, she could see, had the potential to cause utter mayhem if anyone, a child no less, got their hooves on it.
Which was why she hurried through the Everfree Forest towards Ponyville. In a sack, the threatening war drums were getting louder, as if the dark magic was just waking up. What she needed now more than ever was to get it to someone who knew magic and could disassemble it safely.
Down the trail, and into the streets of Ponyville, Zecora received some curious looks from the ponies she passed by. Some had wondered where that drumming was coming from while others didn’t seem to notice. Zecora didn’t notice as she was as fast as she could head towards the one pony that could help her.
She headed towards the School of Friendship.
Going over the drawbridge and through the front door, she went directly towards the Headmare’s office. Without so much as knocking, she busted through the double doors.
“Twilight Sparkle, this you need to see! For this is an emergency!”
Behind a desk of a mountain range of student papers, Twilight nearly jumped from her sudden appearance. “Zecora! Don’t scare me like that!”
“Frightening you, I apologize. But there is something here that needs your eyes.”
Twilight’s ears perked up, as she looked around the rooms. “Who’s playing drums and… where is it coming from?”
Zecora’s expression paled. “You hear them too? Here, allow me to give you a clue.” Going up to her desk, she put the sack down to pull show the game to her. As soon as they saw it, the drums had stopped.
With a raised eyebrow, Twilight eyed the object. “What is it?”
“An intended gift I had made, but now I fear is something more grave.” Zecora put a hoof over the lid. “I had attempted to make it interesting through magic, but the dark vibe it gives just makes me sick. Surely, you can feel it as well – how vicious is this spell.”
Twilight lit her horn to levitate the game close to her. “Is it okay to open it?”
Zecora nodded, “Whatever you do, do not take out the tokens. Otherwise, all you know will be broken.”
Humming Twilight opened the wooden game’s split lid where she saw the dark green centerpiece and the shadowy fog just underneath. “Zecora… what did you do?”
“I meant the gem to read only cards that had a riddle, but something has gone wrong – ah! This is a pickle. What was meant to be a harmless artifact, a misstep has accidently made a trap.”
“Yes, and I can see why you need my help. What we have here is a landmine of a spell that if triggered could cause all sorts of chaos.” Placing the game on her desk and folding it up, she added. “Luckily, I might have a few books that deal with dark magic, I could use them to dismantle the spell before anyone else could.” Twilight got up from her desk and was about to leave her office, but noticed that Zecora wasn’t following along. “Zecora?”
“You are not going to leave that, are you?” She pointed to the game. “I think it’s unwise to leave it here too.”
“I don’t know, I can’t exactly to have something this potentially dangerous be touched by anyone either. I mean, being a game, someone is bound to get too curious about it. So… how about this,” lighting her horn, she put the wooden game into a drawer in her desk. “I’ll have the office locked so none of the students or faculty would get in. Plus, with the game out of sight, no one would even know it was there even if someone did come in.”
“But can’t I convince you to take it with us Twilight.” Zecora nervously eyed the drawer. “I’m not comfortable with not having it being locked tight.”
“I’m sure it’ll be right here when we get back. Besides, I would need you to help me through what you did to make that so I could undo the spell you made.”
At first, Zecora was hesitant. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Twilight, especially when dealing with magic that have threatened for an apocalypse. However, she didn’t trust the game being by itself. As unlikely as it might be of anyone coming across it, she felt deep down that without her supervision, the game could do something catastrophic.
Sighing, Zecora replied that she will go with her, but they must do this quickly. The sooner they could find a way to undo her mistake, the better chance they have of not causing a major disaster. Before leaving the room where Twilight had locked its doors, Zecora looked over to the desk, wondering why it didn’t start to play the war drums yet.
Gallus picked up another flashcard: “True or false, kindness to others should always be offered, even when you’re being taken advantage of.”
Smolder hummed as she thought it over, her brown being nit closely. “I almost want to say true, but there’s something about it that rubs me the wrong way so… I’m gonna go with false.”
“Yep, that’s the right answer.” Gallus tossed the last card aside, leaning his back against the bark of the tree.
“Finally!” Smolder let out an exasperated breath. “I thought we would never get through with it.” Using her wings to switch her seat on the branch with Gallus, she turned to face the clock tower. “No, it couldn’t have been half an hour. I swear that felt way longer than that.”
“But you’ve got most of the answers hammered down. And we’ve still got plenty of time before we have to go anywhere.”
“To do what?”
Gallus shrugged, “I don’t know, maybe see what the guys are doing. If they’re not doing much, we could do something with them.”
“Like what? It’s too cold to go swimming, there’s nothing being played at the movie theater, and I’m pretty sure we’ve gone through every game known to Pony, Griffon, Yak, Changeling, Hippogriff, and Dragonkind. If we’re gonna do something, don’t you want to do something different?”
“Far as I’m aware,” Gallus put his talons behind his head. “There’s no bad guy to defeat, and I’m pretty sure we don’t have to go on any adventures that would get us killed. So what can we do?”
“I’m asking you.”
“And all I’m saying is I’m completely out of…” Gallus' ears perked. “What’s that?”
“What?”
“Be quiet for a second… do you hear that?”
Smolder listened. At first, she didn’t hear anything except for a very, very low sound. Like it was coming deep from the earth sort of low. Whatever it was, the sound started as muffled – distant even. But after a minute…
“Is that drums?” Smolder asked as she spread her wings. “Where is it coming from?”
Gallus opened his wings to get out of the tree to see if he could figure out where the source of the sound was. He moved around the courtyard, listening to the rhythmic beating that slowly got progressively louder. “It’s coming from the Headmare’s office.”
“What is she playing?” Smolder, who was just as curious as Gallus, went up to one of the windows with the griffon to peer in. “There’s not even a record player and nocreature’s around. So what’s going on?”
Gallus placed his talons on the glass against the panes where he felt that it was loose. So pulling it aside, they heard the sound of the impatient rhythmic drums was indeed coming from the office. The two slipped – no one was around yet the drums were booming as if the invisible drummer was nearby. And it was clear where it was coming from – Twilight’s desk.
Smolder knelt to her knees to listen where the sound was at its loudest. It was in a drawer. Standing up, she pulled the drawer opened… and the drums instantly stopped.
“What’s this thing?” She pulled out the wooden box and placed it on the desk for her and Gallus to see.
It was made out of dark wood where there seemed to be a panel that split horizontally in the middle. The lid was hoof-carved, showing a sort of jungle somewhere with tall palms, thin trees with enormous foliage, and three volcanos in the distance. It was framed around with four figures on each corner: a rhino, an elephant, a monkey, and a pony in a pelt hunting hat. In the very center that ran along where the wood divided were a crude spear and the word-
“Jumanji?” Gallus tilted his head. Confusingly looking over to Smolder. “I don’t I’ve heard of it.”
“Neither have I.” Smolder examined the box, turning it this way and that. “There doesn’t seem to be a lock, so it should just open…” Prying the folds, the box easily opened, splaying out a game board with twisting, snake-like paths, palm leaves, and a green gem in the center. Inside of the folding panels, they saw two signs with a brass panel underneath. “Jumanji. A game for those who seek to find a way to leave their world behind. You roll the dice to move your token. Doubles get another turn. The first player to reach the end wins.”
“Sound simple enough,” Gallus shrugged. “But how was this thing making all that noise?” He looked through the drawer again, half expecting to see a speaker inside. He found none. Then looking back at the game, he pointed, “Hey, what does that say?”
Flipping it around, he read aloud: “Adventurers beware: do not begin unless you intend to finish. The exciting consequences of the game will vanish only when a player has reached Jumanji and called out its name.”
After a beat, Smolder closed the game and tucked it under her arm.
“What are you doing?”
“What does it look like?” Smolder answered, “I’m gonna see if the guys want to play this.”
“Hang on,” Gallus put a claw on the game. “You’re not saying you’re gonna steal it.”
“Stealing would mean to take something and never give it back.”
“But we don’t know what this thing is. And since it’s in Twilight’s desk, maybe it’s not meant to be played on. For all we know, it could have some weird spell on it.”
Smolder turned to face him and said flatly, “Dude, it’s a board game. If I thought this thing was a spellbook or maybe a magical do-hickey, I wouldn’t even touch it. But this is a board game, I highly doubt anything remotely dangerous would come about just by playing on it.”
“Yeah, but you’re taking it from Twilight’s office.”
“Then we’ll play one game.” Smolder said, “I promise that as soon as we’re done with it, I’ll put it right back. I’d bet Headmare Twilight wouldn’t know it was missing.”
“But-”
“C’mon dude! This is something new. Something different. And even if it’s boring, we can always bring it back no problem.”
Looking between her and the mysterious wooden game, he replied while raising a talon. “One game. And remember, if the Headmare catches us, I’m blaming you.”
“Deal!”
Smolder flew out the window, game firmly under her arm. Gallus followed behind after closing the window, hoping that maybe they wouldn’t get into trouble for taking the box.
In the student’s dorm, Ocellus and Silverstream were on the couch studying. All they had left was to read a few more paragraphs of their textbooks and they should be done. However, Smolder came in before they could do so.
“Hey girls, are any of you busy?”
Ocellus raised a hoof. “Hold on, I’m almost done.”
“Me too… Just about… and… there!” Closing the book with a satisfying slap; it made Ocellus jump, losing her place. Silverstream blushed when her study buddy glared at her. “Sorry.”
At this point, Gallus came inside, closing the door behind him. “You guys busy?”
“I was,” Ocellus deadpanned. Then noticing the box under Smolder’s arm, she pointed, “What’s that?”
“Something to do.” The dragoness held up the game.
Silverstream tilted her head. “Ju… Ju-man… What does that say?”
“I think it’s pronounced Jumanji,” Gallus said, “although I don’t have a clue what it means.”
While Smolder set the game on the ground, Ocellus hopped off the couch, looking at it with fascination. “I think it’s Idube.”
“What?” Smolder tilted her head. “What’s eye dube?”
“No, Idube, it’s a language in Sothern Zebrica. It’s… and I know I’m butchering it, but it loosely means ‘Many Effects.’” Ocellus felt around the lid of the game and fold it open. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen this game, where did you find it?”
“Smolder stole it,” Gallus said bluntly.
“No, I didn’t!”
“It was from Twilight’s office. But how we found it was really weird.”
Smolder was intrigued. “Really? How?”
“We started hearing drums that were coming from her office, and they stopped when we found that thing.”
Ocellus hummed, eyeing the green centerpiece. “Could this thing be an artifact of some kind? If it has magic I… I don’t know if it has or not because I’m getting strange vibes from it. Not good or bad just… odd.”
“How do you play?” Silverstream asked as she felt around at the brass covers inside the folds. In one, she found a pair of dice. In the other were four tokens – each hoof carved out of different materials. One was a monkey made of jade. One was an elephant made of gray stone. A crocodile that looked and felt was carved from volcanic glass. And a rhino made of ivory. “Besides, this game does look cool.”
“So you wanna play too?” Smolder asked with a hopeful smile.
“Oh! Can I? I want to be the crocodile!”
What happened next, caught the four friends off guard. As if by magic, the tokens somehow leaped out of Silverstream’s claws and onto the board where they instantly, quickly moved to each corner of the game.
Gallus blinked, “You… saw that too right?”
Silverstream tried to take hold of the pieces but found they wouldn’t move. “Hey, they’re stuck.”
“Maybe they’re magnetic?” Ocellus suggested.
Silverstream lifted the tokens – along with the game several inches off the ground before putting it back down. “Those are the strongest magnets I’ve ever seen. How are we supposed to move them?”
Smolder felt around underneath the brass coverings. She frowned in confusion. “Okay…? Where are the cards?”
“They’re not in there?” Gallus asked, hovering over the game.
Silverstream then looked at the dice that were in her claws. A thought came to her, “Maybe… this game is magical? If Ocellus says is true, and this game literally means ‘Many Effects,’ maybe the only way we know what it does is if we start playing. She offered the dice to Gallus, “You wanna go first?”
Sit down next to her, he took the dice into his own claws with a look of distrust. “I don’t about this guys… something about this isn’t right.”
“To be fair,” Ocellus pointed out, “we don’t know if this game has magic or not. And who knows, maybe it can be fun since we still have plenty of time before class starts.”
Looking around the room, Gallus sighed, “Okay, fine. But we’re doing one game. After that, we’re putting this back where we found it. Got it?”
Nodding in agreement, Gallus rolled the dice.
Seven.
Before he could reach for one of the pieces, the rhino token started to move. Wide-eyed, they watch as the piece all by itself walked across seven spaces.
“Okay…” Smolder blinked, “That answers the question of whether this thing is magic or not.”
“What’s that?” Ocellus pointed to the gem in the center of the game. The four of them eyed the shiny centerpiece as yellow mist circles and swarms to form words.
They are strong creatures for their size.
When they are many, they’ll cause your demise.
“OW!” Gallus suddenly felt a small but painful bite on his hind leg where he turned around to swap at it. It felt like someone had jabbed a long, thick needle without warning. And when his claw came smacking down, he felt something gooey. “What was that?”
“You okay?” Silverstream asked.
“Yeah, it felt like something bit… me…” The girls then saw what made Gallus trail off.
At first, there was one. Then two. Then four. Eight. Sixteen. Thirty-two. Sixty-four. With every passing moment, more and more ants were appearing. They were crawling out from the carpet, from between the baseboards, cracks in the walls, the ceiling, the windows, under the couch, between the cushions; more and more and more, there were ants that were crawling. Not tiny picnic ants. Each ant was about an inch long with thick red bodies and pinchers at the head that look as though they could cut deep.
“WOAH!” Instantly, all four friends leaped in the air with Smolder taking the game. They hovered there with their wings as the dorm room was being invaded by these ants.
“Where did they come from!?” Silverstream exclaimed.
“We need to get out of here, now!” Gallus said as he turned to their only exit which the door was being infested by the gigantic ants.
“On it!” Smolder flew over near the door and taking in a deep breath, she let an outburst of fire that scorched the insects but not enough to get the door catch fire. Instantly she reached for the doorknob and singled over to them, “C’mon! We can’t let them out!” Like lightning, she and her three friends flew out before Smolder slammed the door shut.
“Okay!” Gallus shouted, “What was that!”
“Gallus, your bite, let me see.” Ocellus went over to the griffon to look at the leg he was bitten. “Okay so just stay still for a second, I see its jaws are still on you so let me remove them…” With her magic, she was able to pull out the thorn-like jaws from Gallus to examine them. “Huh… now that is strange.”
“What is?” Smolder asked.
“What swarmed our dorm room, they’re Safari Ants. Nasty little things, especially when they swarm but… none of that makes sense because they’re native to Zebrica.”
“Don’t tell me they’re poisons, right?” Gallus asked with a worry in his voice.
“No, but they sting. And if there were a lot of them on you… Then yeah, you’ll be dead in less than a minute from the pain.”
Silverstream looked between the door and the game under Smolder’s arm. “Do you think… they came from the game?”
“Huh?” Her friends asked.
“Well, think about it. The game spells out a riddle that said… what was it?”
Ocellus recited. “They are strong creatures for their small size. When they are many, they’ll cause your demise.” She blinked. “I think I get what you’re saying. Every time we roll the dice, something would come out from the game.”
“I knew it!” Gallus stomped, “You see Smolder! I told you we shouldn’t touch the game!”
“Hey! I didn’t know that this would happen!” Smolder frowned, “But what are we gonna do now? We have a cursed game board that apparently exists, so what do we do?”
A thought came to Silverstream, “Wait, what did the game say?” Going over to take the game from Smolder, she unfolded the folds to read: “Adventurers beware: do not begin unless you intend to finish. The exciting consequences of the game will vanish only when a player has reached Jumanji and called out its name.”
“So, the answer is obvious,” Ocellus states, “All we have to do is keep playing until one of us wins. But then again… if that thing could produce verrucous ants, I wonder what else can that thing do.”
“We need help.” Gallus said, “Whatever this thing is gonna throw at us, we’re gonna need all the help we can get. Where’s Sandbar and Yona?”
“Hang on, why bring them into this?” Ocellus questioned. “This game is clearly dangerous, so why get them involved. In fact, should we at least warn students or play this away from other ponies?”
“But who would believe us?” Smolder pointed out, “Up until a few minutes ago, I didn’t think cursed game boards exist. Regardless of what we do, we can’t convince anyone unless they see it for themselves.”
“Smolder’s right,” Silverstream nodded. “If we’re gonna finish this game, we need all the help we could get.”
“And we should find Twilight,” Gallus sighed. “I know we’re probably gonna get expelled for this-”
“If we’re lucky.” Smolder interrupted.
“But first thing’s first,” Gallus raised his claws. “Where are Sandbar and Yona?”
“They went to the library.” Ocellus said.
“Okay, c’mon, the sooner we find them, the sooner we can end this game.”
As they left to go find their friends, the Safari Ants had burrowed out from the door.
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Which jumanj movie is this story based around? The original with Robin Williams, welcome to the jungle, or the next level? If the original I'm curious to see how it will go.
11118952
It's more towards the original.
11118954
Sweet I loved that movie now I'm excited.
Huh! So it seems Smolder is the act-first-questions-later creature here, while Gallus is more the voice of reason! Neat!
11118954
Wise choice! The reboots, as fun as they are, honestly seemed to miss the point of what the game is about. If you really think about it, the game Jumanji is actually horrifying, and possibly a bit Lovecraftian, constantly drawing people in to play and fall victim to it's influence. There's a youtuber named Deusdaecon Reviews who does a full-blown analysis of the film, and goes into a lot more depth about how the game works, and it's a really great watch for anyone who loves the original film.
Get out! I was just about to search for a Jumanji story on this site and the first thing I see when I come here is one in the new stores segment! Kinda spooks me a little.
11119025
What can I say? I've been on a nostalgia kick recently.
11119038
It's still a weird coincidence. Almost as if Jumanji itself knew that I was looking for a story like this. If the things happening in the story start happening to me, I'm blaming you.
Obe question. Will you be using the cards from the movies or creating your own ones?
11119056
It'll be a mixed bag. Some would be from the original movie, others from the game itself, and a few that I've invented would be sprinkled throughout.
Zecora if you knew about this dark vibe you should have gotten rid of it but we all know what happened in the movie
She has a point Twilight because you do realize kids can be very curious when it comes to things like that
Yeah smolder about that....
Okay this is a very interesting start of a soy and this is like the very first Jumanji movie which I got no problem with the other ones they're pretty great but the first one will always be my childhood movie Zecora made a game thinking that it was supposed to be a fun one but instead it was a curse so she asked Twilight if we can reverse this or at least get rid of it somehow so they check out the library to see if there's anything meanwhile smolder and gallus what just hanging out at the yard but then they heard the drums so they check it out and they found the board game they're not supposed to find so they decided to play this game with the other two Ocellus and silverstream at first they didn't wanted to play but they wanted to see how it goes so they did and unfortunately this is when the game begins and as they say Welcome to the Jungle not really but you know what I mean but I wonder what they're going to do guess we'll find out next time
so... this is bast on the O.G. one ?
not this
your O.C. as a Jumanji Avatar !?
11119673
It would take inspiration from the original 1995 film and even the game board itself.
11118968
Agreed! To be perfectly fair, the reboots are still good movies in their own rights, but they just don't capture the same mood or spirit as the original did, and that was what had made the original so very memorable to begin with.
Hmm...I wonder if, when, and how will Fluttershy get involved.
Yo a My Little Pony and Jumanji together I think that is pretty freaking awesome and it looks the young six got to stop in a pickle with that game board looks like they're in for a wild ride
Meanwhile, from the outside perspective:
Btw,
(... DANG Equestrians are bad at safekeeping dark magical artifacts. Oh, I'll just leave it in my desk, it'll be fine! ... Ugh, Twilight...
Also, ants! Why'd it have to be ants!?)