Day One
22 January 2020
I hurried through the door and quickly closed it behind me, stomping the snow and ice off my boots as the wind continued to howl outside. Setting the groceries on the counter and shaking still more snow from my hat and gloves, I turned and checked the clock in the kitchen.
11:30. I've still got a half-hour to kill before I can go in.
"That didn't take you very long." My mom rounded the corner into the kitchen and surveyed the small mound of groceries on the counter. "You didn't leave anything out, did you?"
"Milk, cheese, bread, meat, snacks." I rattled off the list she had given me as she went through the bags and we started putting everything away. "The only thing I couldn't get were eggs. I guess one of the stock carts fell onto the shelves and made a big mess. They should be cleaned up and restocked by tonight, though."
My mom sighed in frustration. "Could you go back and get some tonight then? I can't make breakfast tomorrow without them."
I nodded. "Yeah, sure. I picked up my new game on my way home and it comes online in about twenty minutes, so I'll play that for a few hours and then get some eggs once I log out. I promise, you'll have them before you go to bed."
She gave me a sidelong glance. "I'm going to hold you to that."
I just chuckled and stacked another box of cereal in the cabinet. No sooner had we finished unloading the groceries than a knock sounded at the front door. One of my sisters opened the door before shouting into the kitchen.
"Bryce! It's for you!"
"Coming!" I called back.
I headed back into the living room and was met with the sight of a rather large man setting his boots next to mine. He stood a little over six feet tall with short blonde hair and a hulking build.
"I'm here to tell you," he started in a gruff, but friendly voice. "I'm ready for all this wind to stop now."
"Hey Noah. And come on, it's not nature's fault you want to brave the Alaskan winter in a hoodie and a ball cap."
Noah let out a deep laugh. "Whatever. You got everything ready?"
I nodded. "Just about. The rig's all set up, and I just got the game."
"Alright." He hung his head in defeat, as if he had been hoping that something would go wrong at the last minute to save him from his fate. "Let's get this over with."
I laughed as I led him out to my bedroom in the garage. Most people probably wouldn't enjoy living in the garage, but I actually found it to be pretty cozy. The concrete floor was both heated and covered with several rugs, I had a full size bed with a desk placed at its end on one side of the room and a small entertainment center on the other with a couch taking up the space in front of the garage door. With several well-placed lamps, it became quite the living space. Right now, however, a large part of that space was taken up by a twin mattress laying in the middle of the floor.
Game in hand, I sat on the edge of my bed and began to unwrap it as Noah lowered himself onto the mattress on the floor. Between him and me, a small disc reader and two bulky helmets rested on the floor. You see, a few weeks ago, a bunch of my friends and I were all playing PVP together on a console game when someone decided it would be fun to raise the stakes of the game with a bet. We would all participate in a battle royale, and whoever won got to choose an activity that the rest of the group would then have to participate in. I won the battle, and there was a VRMMO coming out soon that me and one other guy had on preorder, so I decided that we would all play it together on opening day. When I informed the rest of the group as to my decision, most of them had complained, but begrudgingly agreed to hold up their end of the deal. Why? Because I’m a proud brony, and the game I chose was none other than the brand-new Equestria Legends Online.
“Which one of these is mine?” Noah asked, gesturing to the NerveGear full-dive helmets on the floor.
“You can use that one.” I pointed to the one closest to the mattress. “It’s my dad’s, but he doesn’t ever use it. He says it makes him feel sick afterwards.”
Noah grabbed his headset and started putting it on as another figure burst into the room.
“Let’s go be PONIES!!!”
“Hey Braden!” I laughed as I put my own helmet on. Given his initial reaction, Braden was in a surprisingly good mood. I guess he’d decided to make the best of it and have some fun.
“What’s going on brother? I brought my NerveGear.” He sat down on the couch and set a box down at his feet.
“Oh good.” I said as he hooked his NerveGear up into one of the two remaining interface ports in the system. I checked the clock on my headset’s internal display.
11:58
“Alright guys, it’s time. Once you spawn, wait for me and we’ll find the others together.”
“Alright.” Noah sighed.
“Let’s do this!” Braden shouted.
I took a deep breath as the clock struck noon and three voices exclaimed together.
“Link start!”
My vision was instantly overwhelmed as a series of colors and system checks flashed across my vision. The system checked all of my senses and my interface connection before taking me to the black void of the game’s login chamber. I quickly entered my login info and the keyboard in front of me disappeared before being replaced by the welcome banner, which was quickly followed by a small line of text and three selection boxes.
Now you must choose your avatar. Select which pony race you would like.
I looked at the images before me as I mulled over my options. Looks like it’s just the basic races. That’s understandable. Alicorns are too OP, and other races will probably come along in later updates. I tapped the unicorn option. I had already thought about what my options would be beforehand, and decided that magic would be the most useful skill for my playstyle. Once that was done, another text box appeared.
What would you like your avatar to be?
-Ponified Self
-OC
I hit the button to ponify myself. If I didn’t like it, I could just fall back on my OC. A scan light swept over me from somewhere in the darkness above before an avatar shimmered into existence in front of me. The pony had a brown coat, shaggy blonde mane, and blue eyes. It was good, but it wasn’t really what I was going for, so when the system asked if it was acceptable, I hit no and was returned to the previous selection, this time choosing to use my OC. A blank unicorn base appeared in place of the previous pony, along with several other windows and toolbars for me to use to design an avatar. Ignoring most of them, I found a button in one of the toolbars labeled “Upload File.” My NerveGear rig was synced with my personal laptop, so I was able to scroll through the images I had saved there until I found one of my OC.
Analyzing. Please Wait.
After a few seconds, several of the settings in the toolbars changed and the blank base morphed into a night blue pony with a short but shaggy white and silver mane and tail, white hooves, and crimson eyes. Another box popped up asking for my cutie mark. I once again uploaded a photo from my computer, and the mark of a white crescent moon and pair of black clouds in a red outline appeared on the avatar’s flanks. Satisfied with the design, I clicked the accept button and waited as my surroundings disappeared and the game loaded my spawn point.
When I finally spawned, I looked around to see that I was in the Ponyville town square, right next to town hall. I whistled under my breath at how good everything looked and started to walk forward. Unfortunately, I was used to two legs, not four, so when I moved my back legs forward, I didn’t think to move my front ones as well and ended up falling flat on my face with my tail in the air. I groaned in embarrassment until I noticed that several others were doing the same thing, which made me feel better. Picking myself back up, I tentatively tried taking a few steps before I kind of got the hang of it. It almost felt like crawling in my human body; if I started by moving one foreleg and the opposite hindleg, I could almost slip into a rhythm of sorts. Okay, I could get used to this.
With that out of the way, I remembered that my friends were waiting for me. Standing up on my hindlegs, which was now significantly more uncomfortable than it had been before, I scanned the players around me, but couldn’t find them. I dropped back to all fours and was about to take off through the crowd when a hoof tapped me from behind. I turned around to see two earth pony stallions smiling at me.
The one on the right I guessed to be Noah. He had an ocean grey coat, gold eyes, and a short blonde mane pulled back into a small ponytail. He stood at least a full head taller than me, excluding my horn. His cutie mark was a depiction of a raven sitting on a branch. His gamertag read aknoah.
The second stallion was a bit more…exotic-looking. Braden had obviously gone with the character creation engine, and it looked like he’d had a hayday while doing so. He had a deep purple coat, orange eyes, a wild red mane with streaks of blue running through it, in contrast to his blue tail with red highlights, and topped it all off with yellow hooves and a lime green compass cutie mark. His gamertag was GO0b3r.
“Holy crap, Goober. You look like you took a bath in a freaking rainbow!”
“I know, right! It’s awesome!” He started jumping up and down in jubilation before he tripped and fell.
Noah chuckled at the sight before looking back at me uncomfortably. “We’re still getting used to the whole ‘four legs’ thing.”
“Yeah,” I nodded. “I had some trouble myself. By the way, Noah, you know you could have come up with a more creative handle. Most people avoid playing under their real name for security reasons. Plus, it’s cool to go by a different name every once in a while.”
He just shrugged. “Eh. Noah works just fine. Not like I plan on ever coming back here after I hold up my end of the bet, anyway. What’d you go with?”
I smirked at his naivety and simply pointed a hoof above my head, where I figured my tag would probably be.
“MoonGuard97?”
“Yep!” I beamed. “Now come on! We still have to find the others and buy some gear before we can start exploring.”
“Don’t bother trying to find us!” A shout sounded from a little ways away before the clop-clop of trotting hooves came up to us from the edge of the square. I looked and saw four ponies approaching us. Dang, how did they get the hang of walking so quickly?
The one in the lead was yet another earth pony stallion who, while not to the same extent as Goober, also looked a bit strange. He sported a reddish brown coat, but towards his flanks it became speckled with brown splotches over a black undercoat, with black hooves and a black diamond on his forehead to match. His two-toned purple mane and tail had a smooth, well-groomed of look to them, and his brown eyes smiled behind a pair of green-framed spectacles, which was actually the only way I could tell that he was smiling, since most of his muzzle was shrouded in a bushy moustache. His cutie mark, which was slightly difficult to see because of his patterned flanks, was a burning quill. The tag above his head said SirGrammar101, though I knew from past experience that he would likely go by Grammar Quill.
Peeking out from behind him was a small, timid-looking unicorn mare who’s tag was just Mary. She had a cherry pink coat and wine-purple mane, her cutie mark showing a simple cherry blossom design. Her eyes sparkled bright blue from where she hid behind Grammar, adding a nice contrast and seeming to tie the whole color scheme together. She seemed to be trying to hide her face behind her mane, but it wasn’t long enough.
The last two looked like negative images of each other. They were a pair of pegasus mares named Shadowkat02 and Pale_Mist. Pale Mist’s color pattern was mostly blue, similar to Mary’s pinks. Her powder-blue coat matched the blue of her winged heart cutie mark, and her breezy mane was a shade of blue so light, it almost was almost as bright as mine. Her violet eyes twinkled with some kind of underlying humor.
In contrast to this, Shadowkat boasted a pure white coat, but her mane, tail, and eyes were the same blue as Pale Mist’s coat. Her mane and tail were styled in gentle curls and she had a spray of freckles across her cheeks. Her cutie mark, which also matched her mane, was a swirling vortex. She hovered in the air rather than standing on the ground with the rest of us.
“Sup Grammar.” I greeted, holding a hoof out for a hoof bump. “Looks like you found the rest of the group.”
“Yeah, it wasn’t too hard since we all spawned together.” He chuckled for a second, pointing at my mane. “Wasn’t too hard to find you, either, with that bright of a mane. Why am I not surprised you went with your OC?” This got me to chuckle as well. Grammar and Shadowkat were the only other bronies (and pegasister) in the group, and he and I were constantly making fun of the other’s OC.
“You’re one to talk.” I shot back. “You’re the only one here with a speckled rump.”
“Tousche.”
I looked around at the rest of the group. Three earth ponies, two unicorns, and two pegasi; a pretty well-rounded group, if I do say so myself.
“Alright guys, we’ve only got a few hours before the bet is up, so let’s make the most of it!”
A chorus of cheers, groans, and one squeak rose as we all trotted out of the square and down a side alley, where several merchant stalls could be seen. A few of us, myself included, stumbled once or twice as we adjusted to walking on four legs, though Shadowkat avoided this by simply flying over our heads, which was admittedly funny whenever she fell. Upon reaching the alley, our group spread out between the various weapon, armor, and supply stalls. Noah was admiring a large axe while Goober was browsing through one vendor’s map collection and Mary…just stood awkwardly in the middle of the street. She looked pretty uncomfortable and didn’t seem to know what to do. I took a step to help her before Mist beat me to it.
I browsed through some of the weapons somewhat disinterestedly, not really knowing what I wanted to use before an idea struck me. I quickly closed out the dialogue with the merchant and opened up my player menu. Scrolling through the windows, I found what I was looking for and brought a small book out of my inventory, placing it on the ground in front of me and opening it to the table of contents.
“What’s that Moon Guard?” Goober was looking over my shoulder while I read.
“It’s a manual.” I responded. “One that only unicorn players get. It’s got information on how to perform magic.” As I flipped through the pages, I found the telekinesis spell, which actually looked really simple, and levitated the book off the ground in an aura of crimson magic before continuing to flip through the pages.
Mary’s eyes went wide and she pulled out her own manual, laying down on the stones and reading through the various spells. Noah let out a low whistle, watching as I continued to flip through the book.
“That’s pretty impressive.”
I laughed, my eyes never leaving the pages. “You ain’t seen nothing yet! Levitation is literally the most basic spell in this book.” I continued to scan the contents, searching. Oh, please be here, please be here…yes! Conjuration spells! I scanned through the spells until I found what I was looking for. I set the book back on the ground, charged my horn, and focused on what I wanted. The air in front of me shimmered as a wisp of red magic wafted from my horn and solidified into a simple double-edged sword. I opened my eyes and smiled. The sword was small, only about two feet long, but it was a start.
After the others commented on how impressive my magic was, I went back to the merchants, now completely ignoring the weapons vendors. The amount of MP needed to conjure a weapon wasn’t all that much, and it took nothing to sustain, so I wouldn’t really need a physical weapon. Instead, I could save my bits for better armor and other supplies. Before long, I was clad in a simple black breastplate with some food and a potion or two in my inventory. I looked around and saw that the others were also suited up for battle. It was time for the fun to begin.
CRUNCH!
The timberwolf let out a howl of pain as Goober’s hammer smashed into its side, leaving a large scar of red code. Without missing a beat, Grammar Quill leapt forward, slashing a pair of Assassin’s Creed-type knives across the wolf’s exposed throat. The creature stumbled backward before baring its fangs in a wicked snarl and charging the offending earth pony. Right as it was about to crunch down on him, Grammar rolled to the side and Noah took his place, swinging his axe upward in a powerful strike that brought the timberwolf’s health bar down to the red zone. A pair of crossbow bolts sprouted from the creatures side, courtesy of Mary and Shadowkat, before Pale Mist swooped down with her lance, knocking the creature on its side, where it was promptly impaled by a glowing red sword, depleting the last of its HP. I smiled as everyone in the party put their weapons away and my sword faded.
“Good work everypony.” I congratulated them as notification windows popped up in front of everyone, letting us know we had all reached level four, with the exception of Mary, who was still working on getting to level three. True, leveling was slower for us, since the XP was split seven ways, but with such a large group, we were able to take on larger groups of monsters at once and deal with individual monsters pretty quickly, enabling us to get more hunting done than parties with only two or three players.
“Hey Moon,” Shadowkat landed next to me, showing me the clock in her player menu, which showed that it was past six. “Time’s up.”
I nodded before turning back to the others. “Alright guys, time’s up and the bet’s over. Anypony who still wants to play with us is more than welcome to, but if you want to leave, then by all means, please feel free to do so.”
“I’ll probably stick around a bit longer.” Goober piped up. “I bought a whole bunch of maps from those guys back in town, and I kind of want to explore them.” Well, that explains why he could only afford the hammer.
“I’ll probably jump in every now and then as well.” Mist spoke softly. “With the wedding coming up, coming here and killing things would be a good way to relieve stress.”
Everypony chuckled nervously at that.
“Well I’m out of here.” Noah rumbled. “Sorry, but I held up my end of the deal, and I’m done with the whole pony thing now.”
“Me too!” Mary’s voice was surprisingly loud, seeming to defy her timid attitude. “Things have been trying to kill me for the past five hours, and I can’t handle it!” Yeah, she didn’t usually handle stress well IRL either.
I laughed at her antics. Typical Mary. “Well guys, thanks for playing with us.” I did my best to give a flashy bow. “Until we meet agai—”
I was suddenly interrupted as my vision was filled with a flash of white light. I couldn’t see or hear anything, surrounded in a cocoon of light. Then, as suddenly as it came, the light died and I found myself standing back in the Ponyville plaza. My friends appeared next to me in similar flashes of light as the same happened with an increasing number of players all across the square.
“The hell is going on?” A censorship warning showed up in front of Noah.
“Someone initiated a mass teleport.” Goober muttered.
“But why?” Mary was on the verge of panic.
Questions like these continued to fill my ears as more and more players edged closer to panic. No more lights flashed anywhere around the plaza, which must’ve meant that all of the players in the game had been accounted for, and the mass teleport was over. No sooner had I thought this than a lound voice cut through the chatter all around me.
“Gamers and players, may we have your attention please!”
Everyone looked up and was greeted with the sight of four alicorns flying over us. The one in the lead was larger than the others, with a red coat and a white, flowing mane and tail, giving off an air of authority and wisdom.
"Everyone,” the leader began, “We are the administrators of Equestria Legends Online. We are in charge of analyzing the system and keeping it running in top condition. However, right now we are experiencing several technical difficulties in the system. One of which, as some of you might have noticed, is the absence of the log out button in your player menus. This is a major problem, since there is no other way for anyone to leave the game. We do not know the cause of this malfunction, but please bear with us as we try to fix it. While we try to find what's causing this, for your own safety, please remain in the Ponyville square for the time being."
Cries and outbursts began to rise from the crowds while he was talking. Before long, the entire square was closer to panic than they had been after teleporting in as everypony talked amongst themselves in hushed tones about what this all meant and how they had to get back soon. One of the pegasus players flew above the crowd and voiced the question on everypony’s mind.
“What do you mean you don’t know what the problem is?!”
The red alicorn simply shook his head. “This problem isn’t from a lack in the system, so we don’t know where it might have originated.”
No sooner had he finished speaking than the entire town was plunged into darkness. Now, when I say darkness, I don’t mean a nighttime kind of darkness. This was a pitch blackness so deep that I couldn’t even see my hooves. Cries of alarm and further panic rose into the air as lightning flashed periodically around us and a voice chuckled in the dark.
“Oh, I think I might know what the problem is.”
My jaw went slack. This just…it couldn’t…there was no way! I knew that voice all too well—in fact, I’m pretty sure almost everypony here did. I struggled to cast an illumination spell, bathing the area around me in the red light of my horn as chills racked my spine. The spell only lit the darkness enough to see a tail’s length in any direction.
“That would be me,” the voice spoke again. Another crack of lightning flashed behind the admins, silhouetting a long, snake-like creature with mismatched limbs hovering above the four alicorns.
The god of chaos.
Discord had arrived.
The draconequus let loose a dry belly laugh that echoed off the nearby buildings as the darkness faded. “Hello, my little bronies!” Then, grinning wickedly below him. “And hello to you, my good administrators.”
The lead admin, whom I had dubbed “Big Red,” pointed an accusing hoof at Discord, "How can you be the cause of the problem? You are a program in the system that we designed ourselves. You may have partial control of Equestria, but you don't have the power to change the layout of the system completely."
Discord vanished with a snap of his eagle talons, reappearing behind Big Red.
"Oh, but you already know the answer to that.” He stated simply. “You designed me to be exactly like the 'me' in your television show, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic." He suddenly appeared next to one of the players behind me, mumbling something about the show needing a better name, before once again snapping his claws and teleporting behind Big Red—this time sitting astride his back—and resuming his explanation.
"You see, you gave me control over reality in Equestria. But with this power, I hacked into the rest of the system, giving me power over the entire program. Oh, and to make sure that I stay in power…” Another snap of his claws, and the admins hovering in the air suddenly found themselves with neither horns nor wings, causing them to fall out of the sky, landing roughly on the roof of Town Hall before tumbling into the crowd below. Silver Mist and Shadowkat, being the closest pegasi, quickly took off and caught some of the falling ponies before they could get hurt any further.
Discord, still floating where he had been, laughed maniacally. "Now the admins are just plain earth ponies! Oh, and I've also taken power over their admin codes. They won't be able to do a thing to change my world. As for all of you, I will let you keep your wings and horns while you play in a game of mine."
The crowd around us, including Noah, burst into a cry of rage, some of them yelling obscenities toward the draconequus, who simply snapped his claws once more, and the crowd was instantly quieted with the sound of a thousand pairs of lips being literally zipped shut. Annoying and slightly painful, but unfortunately, quite effective. Once the crowd was quiet and the censorship warnings faded, Discord continued, laughing all the while.
"My, my, I haven't even told you what the game is, and you're already so anxious to get started! Now, the game that I have in mind is a bit of a scavenger hunt. I have taken the Elements of Harmony and placed them all in secret hiding places, inside and outside of Equestria. Your job is to find the Elements and use them to reach me. There, we will have a fight to the death. If you manage to retrieve the Elements and defeat me, then I will allow everyone to log out.
"But,” he held up a finger on his lion's paw. “It won't be as easy as you think. You see, I've added a few new features to the game. In the original system, if you died in the game, you would instantly re-spawn in the last town you were in. But that's too boring for me, so I re-wrote the system a little bit. Now, when anyone dies, their avatar will be deleted, and their Nervegear Helmet in the real world will fry their brains. In shorter words:” His voice deepened, resonating in the ears of every player as he smiled. “If you die in the game, you will die in the real world."
A collective gasp went up from players and admins alike as our mouths were released. The menace that was Discord gave a jolly laugh and drew a line across his neck, slicing his own head off and catching it in his talons. The now disembodied head continued laughing as if nothing was wrong. “Now, now, no need to lose your head over it." He laughed harder. "And while we’re at it, if there is any tampering with the helmet in the outside world, the helmet will kill the player instantly. Actually, quite a few of players have already died this way."
My virtual body didn’t have blood, but if it did, it would have all drained out of my face in that moment. It didn’t have a heart, either, but I could swear I felt it stop. Players had already died? This game started with a little over a thousand players. How many of them were left? How many were now lying cold in their NerveGear rigs?
Behind me, Mary screamed as she furiously rubbed her hooves against her head, as if trying to remove her rig. Shadow, who hadn’t landed since we started this game, suddenly felt her wings give out on her. Noah crumbled to his knees as his legs lost the will to support him. I simply stood, rooted to the spot, to shocked to do anything more than stand there with a dumb look on my face as my brain spun in circles.
Discord kept going. "Now, in this game, there are a few rules. First, you cannot receive help from the outside world—that is, if you can even manage that. If I catch anypony communicating with the outside world, all of you will die. Second, any tampering with the system from inside the game, and the rule-breaker will die instantly."
He chuckled, "And just so you know, I have a couple of monster friends who want to get out of their designated areas, so I'm letting them roam a bit. Maybe you'll meet them when you go outside of town, but don’t worry, they won’t follow you inside. They hate crowded places.”
The draconequus laughed again. That laugh was starting to grate on my nerves. "Oh, but a few of you might have thought, 'There's only six elements, so this will be easy.' Well, I'm sorry to burst your bubble," he suddenly belched up a bubble bigger than himself, "But I thought that only six elements would be boring. So I added four new elements." He poked the oversized bubble with a claw, causing it to burst and reform into ten smaller, multicolored bubbles. "They will be hidden all over Equestria, but they will be guarded by my favorite kinds of monsters, just like a boss for each element. If you find the element, and defeat its guardian in a boss battle, then you may walk away with it in hoof. But I must warn you, my guardians are no push-overs."
Lighting struck again behind Discord, silhouetting his mismatched figure once more as he rose higher into the sky. "Well, there you have it. So just remember, your lives are on the line, not mine." He laughed loudly, and another bolt of lightning crashed down behind him. "So, my little bronies, let the games begin!"
With a final laugh, lightning crashed down all around the square, blinding all the players as the thunder mixed with the laughter of our new enemy. When the lighting subsided and the last thunderclap finished its call, the only thing remaining of Discord was his cold laughter, echoing across Equestria.
