Scattered Pages - Ponyville Ciderfest App Stories by volrathxp

by volrathxp

#RollTheDice - The Adventure Begins

The Adventure Begins

Code Word: #RollTheDice

It’s game night at the Crystal Brighthouse and you’ve been invited! Gaming with Sunny and the crew is always super fun and interesting. You arrive somewhat early to find Sunny herself seeming very excited about something. As the other ponies gather, Sunny pulls out a box with stylized artwork of a pony in armor on it.

“What is this?” Hitch says.

“I found this on one of our artifact-finding trips,” Sunny says with a grin. “It’s a game called Ogres & Oubliettes, and it’s sort of like a storytelling game. One pony tells a story that the other ponies interact with to progress the plot. Whenever you want to make a choice, you roll some dice and the result of that roll has an effect on the plot based on how well you rolled.”

“Ooh, this sounds super fun,” Izzy chirps. “How does it work?”

“Well, we need somepony to run the game, sort of like a Game Master,” Sunny says before turning to you. “We were hoping you would help us out with that, [USERNAME].”

You smile and nod. “Sure, I’ll give it a go. It sounds fun,” you say.

You help Sunny unbox the books and dice that are in the box and look over the rules as well as the accompanying adventure for beginners. It looks relatively simple enough as you set up the Game Master screen.

“Okay, it says here that you need to pick a character class, something your character is good at,” you say. “So… what would you all like to be?”

“Ooh ooh I like building things!” Izzy says excitedly. “Is there a class that builds things?”

You peruse the rules and nod. “That sounds like an Artificer,” you say.

“Awesome!” Izzy replies happily. “I shall henceforth be known as Izzimora the Unicycler!”

“Great name, Izzy,” Pipp says with a grin before looking down into the books. “Oh my pony, there’s a singing class! It’s called a Bard. I wanna do that, can I do that?”

“Sure, Pipp, it’s your character,” you say. “What’s your character’s name?”

“I’m going to go with Princess Pippicus Von Ponystein the IV,” Pipp says with a deadpan serious tone.

“Okay… then… uh, Misty? What do you want to be?” you ask.

The blue unicorn smiles softly. “I don’t know, I like magic and stuff, but I think I was also pretty good at all that sneaking around I did for Opaline, as much as I hated doing it,” she says.

You glance down at the rulebook again. “Well… there is a class called Rogue, which is basically a maximum sneaky class. Oh, and look, they have a feature where they get to cast magical spells too!”

“Okay I’m on board,” Misty says with a wide grin. “You can call me Misty Step!”

“Is there a fun class that has to do with animals? Maybe like a Sheriff?” Hitch asks.

“Oddly enough, there’s a class called a Ranger that has an animal companion,” you say, putting your hoof on the rulebook.

“That sounds great. You can just call me Hitch,” Hitch says.

“Hitch, I think the point of the game is to play somepony with a different name,” Izzy whispers loudly.

“It is?” Hitch asks. “But I wanted to be Hitch.”

“Moving on, I guess. Sunny, what about you?” you ask.

Sunny glances over the books and smiles softly. “Well, I’m kind of the support, and this Cleric class here sounds pretty awesome. They even have something called a domain for Friendship! It lets me use all sorts of cool support spells!” she says. “My character’s name shall be Alicornika!”

“Got it, what about you, Zipp?” you ask the white pegasus. She looks vaguely interested.

“I don’t know… is this really going to be fun? Seems like a lot of work to play a game,” she says.

“The rules make it fun, for sure. You like puzzles and detective work, right? Maybe there’s something for that?” you offer.

“I looked through the book already and didn’t see anything like that,” Zipp says, her eyes catching another class description in the book. “Wait, this Monk class sounds pretty cool though. Hoof-to-hoof combat? Maybe even wing-to-wing? Like some kind of action movie star.”

“That sounds awesome, what do you want your character to be called?” you ask.

“Zephyrina, the Wind Storm,” Zipp says with a grin.

“Sooo cool,” Izzy says excitedly. “This is going to be so much fun you guys!”

You begin to run the game for the others, trying to pull together the characters to start on their grand quest as explained in the adventure book. There are a few tense moments as each of the ponies learn the game and how to roleplay their characters, but you’re all having fun and hours pass before you even realize it.

As the adventuring party is entering into the deep, dark dungeon that is the primary focus of the adventure module, you turn the page in the book and blink as the next page is not like the others. It’s ancient and withered, containing writing you can’t even begin to understand. As you brush it with your hoof, your eyes widen as you realize it’s one of the pages from the Book of All Stories.

You look up at the others. None of them have noticed this, due to the fact that the adventure book is behind your game master screen. They’re engrossed in a discussion over splitting up gold between the party. You grin as you consider how powerful the page is.

Use the page… unleash the darkness upon the world…

A whisper in your ear gives you pause. The page is powerful, and you could use it to bring the game world to life all across Equestria. It would be the ultimate adventure game, with the ponies of Equestria as the players.

That’s so droll… eternal darkness. How about you just use it to have some fun with your friends?

You blink. A different voice? This one is telling you to use the page for fun. You think for a moment. It would be kind of fun to have the game be real just in this space for a night, nothing too dangerous but just interesting enough to spice the game up.

What do you do?

[CHOICE]
What do you do?
> Unleash the game world using the page all across Equestria, making the land a much more dangerous place. (Villain)
> Present it to the others as an option to enhance the game for fun for an evening. (Chaos)
> Resist the temptation and play the game as normal and give the page to Sunny to safeguard. (Hero)

[ENDING A: VILLAIN]
You touch the page and begin to focus on it, deciding that Equestria could do with a bit of a makeover. The page glows softly and rumbling begins to emanate from the ground below.

“Wait… what’s going on?” Sunny asks as one of the walls of the Brighthouse begins to cave in. “Everypony, move!”

The others scramble to move, but you stay in place, grinning wildly as a pedestal forms underneath you, elevating you above them.

“What are you doing? What magic is this?” Zipp shouts, flying up towards you.

A buffet of wind blows the pegasus back to the ground. You open your eyes and find that the world around the ponies has drastically changed, and the Crystal Brighthouse has now become the dungeon the ponies before you were going to enter.

“This is… this is from the game!” Sunny shouts. “What’s the meaning of this?”

“Oh you know… I thought Equestria could also learn how to play this game,” you say with a dark grin. “Now… I believe it’s time to roll for initiative.”

(+1 pages for Villains)

[ENDING B: CHAOS]
You ultimately decide after a few moments to ask the other ponies if they’d like to “enhance” the game for the evening.

“Hey, Sunny?” you ask. “Out-of-game question for you.”

“Sure, [USERNAME], what’s up?” Sunny says, looking away from the others at you.

“This box you found? There’s a page from that Book of All Stories in here,” you say, lifting the page to show them.

Sunny frowns. “Those things are supposed to be possibly dangerous magic,” she says. “We should protect it.”

“Well… I had a bit of a thought. You’re all having so much fun playing this game that maybe… maybe we could make it real for a little bit? Like, you get to actually be your characters?” you ask with a sheepish grin.

Sunny and the others pause for a moment before Izzy chimes in.

“That actually sounds like the coolest idea!” she says. “Come on guys, we can actually do magic and stuff!”

“Izzy, you can actually do magic right now,” Zipp says with a deadpan expression. “Still, it would be kind of cool to be Zephyrina even for just a night. I’m in.”

“Me too!” Misty says.

“Okay, [USERNAME],” Sunny says. “We’re game. But not too dangerous right? It’s still just a game.”

“Absolutely. If things get out of hand, we’ll set it back the way it was, and we’re only doing it inside of here,” you say, nodding.

You focus on the page, willing your wishes into the fabric of reality as the Crystal Brighthouse seemingly expands outward to make room for the new world inside of it. You appear again in a cloaked form just outside the dungeon as your adventuring party makes their presence known.

Princess Pippicus appears first, clad in beautiful finery, a tune on her lips to inspire all who hear her. She’s followed by the shadowy Misty Step, who appears to be levitating a hand crossbow next to her. She’s dressed in leathery armor and wearing a face mask to conceal herself. Next to her is the proud Hitch, clothed in forest greenery. A baby dragon slithers on his back while a longbow is attached to his saddle. Izzimora the Unicycler is off to the side, dressed in work clothes and sporting several wrenches and spanners. Around her are a few metallic bunnycorns. On the far end is the lithe and graceful Zephyrina, stretching her wings back and forth. Her robes are simple and plain, her true power based on her training and meditations. In the center is the larger alicorn known as Alicornika, Cleric of Friendship. She’s wearing full plate armor and levitating a rainbow-colored crystal mace, her golden wings covering the others in holy light.

The six ponies step up to the entrance of the dungeon and give each other a wink before rushing into danger. You grin widely. This is going to be so much fun!

(+1 pages for Chaos)

[ENDING C: HERO]
“Sunny? I found something in this book you oughta see,” you say, producing the page. “This doesn’t look like part of the game.”

Sunny scowls. “You’re right, [USERNAME]. Thanks for telling me. This could have been really dangerous,” she says. “I’ll put it somewhere safe for now.”

Sunny takes the page and heads over to the stand near the table, placing the page inside a lockbox there before returning to the game.

“Now then, where were we?” you say to yourself. “Oh, right. You were just about to enter the dark and scary dungeon! I need everyone to roll a Stealth check!”

The clatter of dice hits the table.

“I got a 19!” Izzy shouts. “Maximum sneaky!”

“16,” Zipp says coolly.

“18!” Pipp sings.

“I also got an 18,” Hitch replies.

“29?” Misty says sheepishly. “It’s kind of my thing.”

Sunny looks at her dice, her eyes wide as she looks up at you. “Uhh… Natural One?”

You blink. “Okay so, you’re all trying to be sneaky, and then from right behind you your cleric in full plate starts clanging around, alerting the skeleton guards! Roll for initiative!”

(+1 pages for Heroes)

Author's Note:

This one was the most fun to write out of anything I did, and I actually turned this one into a real D&D one shot I ran at Ciderfest!

Thanks so much to Noteworthy for all her help with this one.

Comments

[Janicethelight]

I would love to see this expanded! Mane 5 enjoying d and d night? Fantastic!