This story is a sequel to Meta Gamer in Equestria: Champion's Folly
For returning MGiE readers: This story is at the end of Moss's arcs. He's had his adventures. His magic has evolved and grown. The story will not be an exact spiritual successor to the others involving Moss. The story will go in a somewhat different direction and will likely have an effect similar to the Star Wars prequel trilogy had compared to the original. It was Star Wars, but "not the same" Star Wars.
For new readers: This is the 4th in a series that originally had 3 main installments planned with lots of details I won't be covering. It's a DnD 5e crossover with a four way multiclass and all the convoluted mechanics involved that can't be fully summarized to get you going. Read without reading the others if you want, but do so at your own risk.
He was forced into a war to protect Equestria and the world of Equis on the whole. The land was protected. Years went by. Promises were made, and promises were kept.
A spirit-turned-owl he first hated grew to be his best friend over the years as he spent his time stuck on Equis. The owl was always straightforward with him when he asked something. Only one minor item did the owl make a point to beg him not to force the owl to tell when it came up. It was not a big deal to him, as he understood it was for a promise to a lost love. Some secret the owl wished to take to his grave, he was certain. What he didn't expect was how much it would end up involving him and how much more it would end up explaining.
(As always, happy to send Hero Forge some foot traffic by showing how far their miniature customization has grown since I found them, linked in picture source)
It's interesting to see more of this. I remember the message you sent me when the original series had its end, so I hope everything's going well for you while you write this new addition to the story.
I'll get to reading this chapter and put a comment if I think of anything.
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Oh, I actually just finished it last night. It's all done. I'm just not releasing it all at once. I wanted to make sure I could finish it before I released it is all. I hope you like daily updates.
11882601
Corrected my grammar in the author's notes from future/present tense to past tense from when I originally made it. thank you for the comment.
Nice to see Moss doing alright.
So, Flash of Genius is a 7th-level Artificer feature, and Moss has stated that he is at the "limit on how much more skill [he] can gain" which suggests he's around 20th-level.
It's been some years, but this suggests that Moss was at around 13th-level at the lastest by the end of the previous book (and I forget what the multiclassing spread was between Wizard/Cleric/Druid, although iirc cleric was the lowest level of the 3).
And also since it has been some time since I last read the stories it took me a small while to remember many of the original characters in this chapter, but I've gotten some memory back on them.
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In which case, I hope everything was going well while you wrote this, and that it is still going well.
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(Faux) Life cleric 1
Moon druid 9 (can't elemental shape shift, that's a lvl 10)
Divination Wizard 2
total at end of prior book 12.
and then Alchemist artificer, 8.
wisdom, 18/+4. Intelligence, still 14/+2. Scraps 18 int.
Took a feat to improve his performance to expertise... for a human, allowing him to sing decent enough to have a small fan base, provided the amulet is translating, and 'almost' talk normal otherwise by Equestrian standards. Hope you enjoy the chapters to come.
A fun little fight scene with an intrumental version of We Will Rock You as background music. Quite nice.
What irony that Discord (hope he can't read the comments /j) had a rival who took the name Bunny Angel (obviously Archemedes) and then in the far future knew someone called Angel Bunny.
I bet he wasn't the most thrilled when he first heard that name said by Fluttershy in this universe, whether he showed it or not.
If I was there, I'd do my best to think of Discord as some random name instead, and my thoughts so far have gone with "Jarnathan".
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even if he could, this is all a recalling of ancient history. He'd long since have his name by now.
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Why do you think Discord picked on the poor bunny early on?
Man, drinking all that tea and getting knocked out for 3 days, while also nearly dying because they put so much in.
I assume they thought "he'll have some sips, then he'll fall asleep, so we need to put enough in for about 3 sips to be enough."
But then Moss had the thought of "what if I just down it, take the full brunt?" Not realising they put effectively a lethal dose into the cup.
Also, Old Ponish (I assume) seems to have a cipher that I assume is a vigenere from my guesses, but I don't think I know enough info to figure out the key.
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Modern Equestrian had alphabet substitution (One letter up or down in the alphabet among consonants, and same with vowels, the letter Y stayed the same) Since there is so little raw "Old Ponish" as you called it in the story, I didn't bother with a direct cypher. It is written flat from gibberish, as if it were its own unrelated language. To give an earth equivalent, think of Modern Equestrian being French, where Old Ponish is more like ancient Mandarin(Chinese) or even older like the tower of babel considering the sheer time difference. No root factorial besides the same species speaking it.
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Also, the alphabet substitution was more for visual variation in the writing than literally just a cypher from English. I would not possibly have been able to get away with making all of Modern Equestrian in the main story with just gibberish. The actual Modern Equestrian and/or Old Ponish would be more foreign too, with Luna previously tutoring him with a sharp nicker in some words as one example of this in Modern Equestrian, a sound humans might be able to imitate, but not want to produce naturally.
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That makes sense. Also, I do feel that gibberish makes "more readable words" to flow better than say an enciphered piece of text would for smoother reading.
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I called it "Old Ponish" because that is a canon old language in MLP, one that was around for Starswirl The Bearded to speak/write (and he supposedly had pretty bad "handwriting" (hoofwriting? hornwriting?) which was difficult to read)
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that was roughly 1000 years ago. Given the Speaker's canonical age, this is at least 12 times farther back than that if he was not to be believed to be exaggerating it. (Retroactively, maybe some but still 'lost to history' long ago.)
Edit: Either way, though we are still talking "the older pony language" in this conversation, so we're splitting hairs.
It is "mishmash", not "miss mash".
Getting yourself a future pardon from (I assume) saying Hallelujah while under the effects of "literal translation spell" which you said off the cuff and with no knowledge of how it would be taken. Quite the promise you got yourself there, Moss.
Unless the crime was the whole "Fey don't like Quintessence" thing, or something else I forgot. Still a good promise, but it means I just forgot what you're getting the pardon from.
A nice bit of music, and an unfortunate need to demonstrate healing abilities. Let us hope that the following day has no need for any magic use, so that Moss can recover as much as needed.
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Technically it's the Fey don't like gods, and the Torillan gods they hated were known for Quintessence. So in turn Fey don't like Quintessence. They never learned the difference between a 'Quintessence being' god, and a 'non-Quintessence Idol/cosmic-force' god, and lump both of them together, a planetary Animus Mundi being the only clarification they ever were able to make in this grouping without even a thought of another exception. (And an Animus Mundi isn't a god, but the collective life force/lifestream/biosphere of a planet, but comparable in power to a quintessence being and is frequently worshiped, though that makes little to no impact to its power, unlike a Quintessence being.)
But the whole calling hallelujah thing in their land was the thing he did to offend them. You remembered correctly.
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corrected. Thank you for the clarification.
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little known developmental detail: The song Carry on Wayward Son was the inspiration for the character of Wayside in Compass for a Lost Dreamer, which Keen Wit (Wayside's son) from earlier and a few others hail from. While the MGIE series isn't strictly canon to Compass for a Lost Dreamer and Compass for a Lost Dreamer was made stand alone originally, Compass for a Lost Dreamer absolutely is canon to the MGIE series, linking them retroactively. (Think kingdom hearts and Disney stories. Kingdom Hearts isn't canon to the Stories Disney made/bought, but those stories are absolutely canon to Kingdom Hearts.)
Nice to see Discord getting is second True Name.
My current guess is that Ebony Nexus becomes the Tree of Harmony
Darn, unfortunate around what happened with Ebony.
And I would think that seeing Discord doing that must be rather scary if you aren't passing out at the time.
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Thanks for considering this a solid enough entry into a series to add it to your 'Story in serieses' list. And yea, Discord would be pretty fricking scary in that moment. Almost want to commission that scene as a painting or drawing or something if I wasn't nearly flat broke.
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I thought of putting it in favourites, but I normally wait for a story to be done or further in before doing so.
I could vividly see the scene of Discord clawing at the barrier in my minds eye.
Edit: you know what? I will do it now.
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It's actually funny that it is so vivid, because looking back that scene itself is described rather poorly. I think it's more the context leading up to it that gives such an understanding of how to visualize Discord in that moment. His sheer power level, his general wicked/conniving nature prior to his redemption, his desperation to ensure the war is won, the temptation of the TARDIS's tech, and the anger of his prize slipping out of his grasp despite all his careful planning and backstabbing (he is a chaos spirit that is just out for himself right at this moment).
Heh, you got me there.
Yes, I called it that Ebony became The Tree of Harmony.
It was rather moving to see Moss with Speaks with Talons once more, even if just from Moss' perspective.
Also, congrats on making the "tear duct bookshelf" with this story.
Just checked my last "called it" moment, so that I could do the same thing here.
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I hope I sufficiently described all the weird time loop, wibbly wobbly timey wimy stuff decently enough to get an idea of what was going on with Ebony Nexus, Father Gatekeeper, and Speaks with Talons?
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I at least believe that it was sufficiently explained.
My “moss’ perspective” part was more to do with how this is probably the last time Moss will speak with SwT (from Moss’ point of view) but it is not the last time SwT will speak with Moss (from Speaks with Talons’ point of view).
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add the same with Ebony Nexus, and you should be golden on that stuff. Also, did you recognize who Father Gatekeeper is the father of from the old books? (yes Father Gatekeeper is a title that does not require him to actually have a kid, but he is an actual father too.)
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I’ve not read the original stories in some time, so nothing rang a bell and I don’t really remember specifics. But given the role he had here he seems important.
Is he possibly Hope’s grandfather?
Edit: I should re-read the whole story at some point anyway, so I don’t want the answer specifically given.
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Like wanting to re read the lord of the rings after reading the hobbit in class or something. Glad the stories stuck with you enough to still have some interest later.
Edit: I hope you end up liking the next chapter. I put an extra dash of TLC into some aspects of it.