Moon dancer gets the power of the gamer. She is confused.
After the heartbreaking disaster that was Moon Dancers party she retreated home to sulk. Only to wake up the next morning with a floating screen above her head. Follow moon dancer and friends as she uses her new Gamer ability to go on a wild adventure with all The Gamer tropes you love so much. All to one day show up Twilight Sparkle.
This story is inspired by another MoonDancer Fan fic By the name of Game over.
{For now I'll keep any lemons off this story and put them into a separate one if people want to read it.]
Moon Dancer was not having a good night. Her head was pounding, and her body was aching. Her magic felt like it was trying to expand out of a body that was too small to contain it. She had already lost all the control in her body and was blearily staring up at the ceiling.
This day was just not going her way.
And worst or best of all was the screen floating in front of her in a long flowery text.
[Statues screen.]
It all started this morning when she had planned and implemented the perfect party. Or at least a good first attempt at one. She had been so happy while planning that party that she understood why Lemon Heart made a living out of it. It had been so much fun to pick out the cupcakes, the streamers, and tables. And most importantly the guest list.
It was her birthday and she wanted all her friends to be there. Everyone had shown up, everyone that is except Twilight Sparkle.
It wasn’t till the end of the party that she realized her peer was not coming. And she was now a peer instead of a friend because anypony who knew her would know that this party meant a lot to her and blowing it off as she did just crushed her.
Twilight was the only peer that might have been more intelligent than her. Certainly, she was more powerful. Her magic pool on its own was ten times the size of her own and being princess Celestia’s prized pupal gave her access to knowledge daily that Moon dance could only dream of.
She had tried to connect with her. Tried to somehow forge a friendship between the two. Working on projects together. Trying to talk to her during lunch. Trying to engage her with her studies. She thought that it was working and that she would be able to make Twilight Sparkle her friend. Yearend to be acknowledged by her peer.
Nope.
That didn’t happen. Come time for the party she never showed up. Not one word or note that she couldn’t make it or even a message. She was just ignored. Tossed to the ways side. Like trash.
When she looked back on the memories of the show her absence hurt even more. Because she saw how the self-absorbed mare was reminded by Spike that Moon Dancer’s party was today. She basically spat in her face and stabbed her in the heart by saying some silly prophecy was more important and that she didn’t need friends.
How did she know this?
Because the night didn’t end there. Nope. Not by a long shot. After she closed the party while trying to keep a straight face. She had left to go home. Only to be assaulted by another soul trying to mesh with her own.
I don’t know if you know this but having your soul battle it out with another soul is neither painless nor without consequences. Honestly, she didn’t even know how she had even met Daniel’s soul in the first place. Mabey it was the act of some ROB or some pony out there trying to screw with life, an errant spell that mas miscast? but the soul did something that no one could ever have expected.
It gave up.
She could feel the powerful, merciless, and monstrous soul. Just give up.
Perhaps that is not an honest comparison. The soul was strong. Orders of magnitudes stronger than her own. But instead of swallowing her up and absorbing her. It gave her itself.
Daniel liked MLP and was a decent fan. Not watch every episode kind of guy but he defiantly loved to read the fanfics. There was a shortlist of ponies that he really enjoyed, and Moon Dancer was on that list. So, when his soul realized what it was doing it stopped fighting, stopped absorbing her soul. And instead, he let go. It was touching. To give up your soul for a stranger. It’s indescribable.
And humbling.
Moon Dancer thought she was kind. But this was a level of kindness that was unreal.
All his power, all his knowledge, all the things that made Daniel were now being absorbed and assimilated into Moon Dancer. Showing her the show and letting her see herself from an outsider’s perspective.
She was not going to be the same mare she was moments ago. Her views were now to different, her self-reflection to complete. But in her core and soul, she at least would still be herself.
But the struggle was not over. Her body still had to get used to the larger soul, the influx of memories, and the power that came with the soul.
For hours Moon Dancer writhed on her carpet as she struggled to get her body under control. It wasn’t the pure torture that she thought it could become. It was more like a severe cold or muscle spasms. They hurt but nothing she would not live threw. But it left her unable to do anything as her body adjusted.
When the powers finally settled down Moon Dancer felt week, powerful, and too full all at once.
No pony could have handled that power. A human mind would have been able to cope with how it was structured but her own equestrian mind was not primed for anything like that. So, with no other choice, it had evolved and changed.
That still didn’t quite explain why there was now a floating text screen in front of her.
[Gamers Mind- Recognizes reality as a game. Immunity to Mental disorders.]
[Error- Due to error during download emotional control aspects of Gamers Mind have not activated. Recalibrating Central Cortex.]
[ Gamers body – Provides body to live reality as a game.]
[Error- Full body transformation halted. Recalibrating existing bio body to specifications. Success. Warning- the body will not have dulled the pain. Warning! Healing factor will be slower and not instantaneous. Some spells reduced or restricted.]
“Fascinating.”
Moon Dancer even while exhausted looked at the screen and curiously poked it. Closing both windows. “It appears as though the human soul was going to receive The Gamer as a way to introduce him to the world. However, the system had to adjust for my own self being present while the human was absorbed instead. It does make logical sense if the system wished to introduce Dan/me to his power gradually.
If this is anything like the leveling and gaming system from all those other stories like The Gamer or Hail the king, or Solo leveling then it would allow for me to get stronger at my own pace. No one can just gain huge amounts of power and know instantly how to control it. Assumingly even Discord would have had a learning curve.”
Moon Dancer got up off the floor with shaking legs. But then stood straighter as her strength slowly returned to her. The pain in her body was fading and she could feel herself going back to normal if not better. Examining her naked leg, she could see the small cuts she made while falling were already closing and healing as she watched. It was fascinating to watch all the muscle and skin knit together seamlessly into place. She resisted the strong urge to grab a scalpel and make a small slice into herself. That sounded way to wrong to be something she should do just to watch her skin knit together. Amazingly even the old scrapes, scars, and blemishes she had over her legs were now all gone.
“Sweet Celestia. This is amazing. This may not be Gamers body, but it still leaps ahead of what modern magic is capable of. I’ll have to perform a study latter to see the limits of my new body. If I can find a way to do so without it sounding too much like self-mutilation that is.” The human world frowned heavily on self-harm, if not self-mutilation. The world of sunshine and rainbow was friendship was magic would go ballistic if any pony found out she was cutting into herself, even for research purposes.
“OK, let’s take things one step at a time. What’s the first thing on the statues screen?”
Name: Moon Dancer/ Da#$#$@! Level 1 0/100 exp Age:18 “Ok, so not bad. It got my age correct, so it must be using the Equis calendar cycle. The name ….” Her own name was perfectly fine however the name of Danial was glitched and crossed out. A pang in her heart reminded her that she was not only alive because this one man had been too nice to take over her soul. “Ok, it recognizes I’m not Daniel and that he is gone. But still recognizes me as the new owner of this power.” Moony was not religious but did send up a prayer to the human gods for him.
“Level 1 hu, I suppose it makes sense from a game point of view that I would start from the beginning. That…sucks. I will have to go over my full repertoire of spells latter on to identify if my preexisting skills will count to my experience. Or if it will hamper me until I get them back to where I was with them. Will I have to re-learn them all or will my preexisting skills all transfer over? I can’t wait to test it out.” Moony said happily.
Sure, she hadn’t wanted to become a game character but now that she was one it was exciting. There were so many things to test and explore. New ways to see the world and maybe even get stronger as a person.
Race: Unicorn Occupation: The Gamer Title: Twilight Light.
The next portion of the screen looked standard. It recognized she was a unicorn and that she had the power of the gamer. However, the power of the gamer being an occupation was confusing. She didn’t have an official job, but she did moonlight as an Enchanter to pay the bills. And she was good at it if she said so herself. If she got an official job would her occupation change?
However, Title…. The title….
“WHAT!” Moony screamed angrily as she turned her full focus on the Title part of her statues screen.
Her teeth ground together so tightly it felt like they might crack, and her hair even started to flicker with embers as she stared daggers into the screen.
“How dare you. How Bucking dare you insinuate that I’m just some cheap knock off, of that self-absorbed moron!” For a moment Moon Dancers Horn glowed a bright red color before it discharged and shot a narrow beam of magic out of her head and into the ceiling. “AAARRRRGGGGHHHHH”
Moony ignored the pop-ups that were appearing around her. She was too angry, to furious at the universe for relegating her to being nothing more than just a shallow copy of Twilight Sparkle.
Yes, Twilight was insanely talented for her age. But that came par for the course with being a student of Princess Celestia. You would have had to be a brain-dead moron to not make something of yourself under her. And her magic pool was also magnitudes bigger. She got to train with the princess, so she got to use all those classified magic exercises no one else could know about. And judging by what she knew of the show she was being prepped and groomed specifically to one day be an alicorn.
‘Crunch.’
Moon dancer snapped out of her anger when she felt pain explode in her mouth. It felt like she had just split her teeth wide open. Her grinding must have cracked them with how furious she was. After a moment the pain stopped, and her teeth healed not only going back to normal but coming back even stronger and slightly pointed. Her health pool had gone down a smidge and then regenerated.
[Skill Learned – Overbite- Adds a Strength multiplier to your bite force. Teeth will now be reinforced.]
She would have been happy and fascinated by this new discovery, but she was still all too pissed at the universe for labeling her as just another twilight sparkle fan girl. It was insulting and degrading to her. As if she wasn’t her own Pony but just a lesser version of her hated rival.
While being called Twilight Light may not have had the same impact on Equis where the term light was common with good and love, but she had references from the human realm now and knew that it was an insult.
Trying to regain control of herself Moon Dancer breathed in deeply till her lungs were full of air. Then held it to the count of five before letting it all out. Trying to breathe out all her frustration with it.
The anger and bitterness didn’t go away all at once, but she needed to calm down at least a bit or she’d have to replace her poor ceiling.
If this had been a week ago then she wouldn’t have even been all that upset. It would have been a little insulting but understandable. But after being blown off by Twilight on the day of her birthday/graduation party. Seeing how she didn’t even spare a thought about her and dismissed her with all the care of an egg sandwich. She would never even have remembered her at all if it wasn’t for Spike.
With all that in mind her emotions all boiled over as fat tears streaked down her face at the injustice of even her own power comparing her to Twilight. She bit and sobbed into the pillow of her couch and let loose all the anger and frustration till there was nothing left but a small unicorn that was just DONE with life.
“Enough whining about Twilight. If she doesn’t have the common decency to even remember me then I don’t want her as a friend anyway. I can do better. I’ll just have to make something of myself that’s so much better than Princess of Friendship.”
STR: 5 Vit: 5 Dex: 6 INT: 21(10+11) WIS: 10(+11) LUK:5 Points :5 “Not unexpected. Unicorns are not known for our athleticism, so a low strength and vitality score does make seance. I wonder how they will equate to my real strength and body now that I don’t have the body of a full game character? I suppose having to run around after Minuette, Lemon Heart, and Twinkle Shine was good for something. Further study will need to be made on the effect of running will have on the Dexterity skill or if other more agility-based activities will have an effect as well.”
Seeing as there were a lot of things, she wanted to test she quickly pulled out a sheet of paper and began to write out a list of all the things she would need to do.
“My Intelligence and Wisdom seem to both be rather high. I can reasonably hypothesize that Intelligence and Wisdom both have something to do with my magic pool.”
[For logical thinking, and deductive reasoning you have gained +1 to Int.]
Her question was answered when she felt her magic pool swell. Increasing its size by a full fifth. Her jaw dropped to the floor with eyes wide in shock and disbelief. She even forgot to breathe for a moment.
To increase her magic pool by just a fifth she would have had to work tirelessly for a whole month or lazily for a year to get such an increase. And here she got it in just about an hour. Magic pools were not supposed to work that way!
And she could feel that it was a permanent increase as her magic regeneration slowly filled up the newly available space In her mana pool. Mana pools were essentially the well of mana located inside a unicorn’s body that a spell caster could dip into in order to cast their spells. It was an ethereal but quantifiable pool of magic that was in almost all living things.
Slowly a grin plastered itself upon her face. “This is Awesome.”
[Alert- New skill learned- Magic ray Level 2. A magical ray of destructive energy that almost all unicorns learn for self-defense..]
[Alert- Skill learned - Levitation LVL 5.]
[Alert – Observe Skill learned- extrapolates information about an object or person.]
“This day just keeps getting better and better. But this does confirm some things. I don’t have the stalwart emotional control that The Gamer had. My little…. outburst showed me that. My body still takes damage but at least it compensates and makes it stronger. My teeth have never felt better. Rage might be a bit of an issue but if I don’t go all nightmare moon on ponies, I should be all right. My base Skills look like they are going to start at level one but using them expertly seems to make them level quickly. I haven’t really used magical beams in years so having that at level 2 makes sense. I know how to cast it and point it in the general direction I want. Didn’t know about adding magic to it. I’ll have to see if their’ s a way to train it.”
Moon dance was happy that she had something she could work on these days. In truth other than the party, which had been her first attempt at socializing, she had nothing of note to do. Her job only took a couple days out of the week and most of her studies from school were done with.
“I still have one question on my mind. Why were all the ponies in the show Quadrupeds?”
Moony poked her head out of her bathroom confused at the knocking on her door. She wasn’t expecting any company today and she hadn’t ordered anything from the school. In fact, with the way she acted at the end of the party last night she wouldn’t have been surprised if half the ponies from the party started to avoid her.
She had been a grumbling and prickly mess by the end of it and it had shown. The only saving grace was Lemon heart stepping up to take control of the party.
Nock, Nock, Nock
Moony finished up in the bathroom and placed her sofa back down onto her floor. With a little experimentation, she had found out that she could level up her levitation skill by just lifting heavier and heavier things. Witch in turn helped to level up her INT Stat and her own level. So far, she was up to lifting the couch for a few minutes before it got too much. Much better than the ten seconds she had started with that morning. Soon she might be ready to levitate multiple objects at once.
She could also compound that by reading a good book while conducting the levitation exercise, their-by speeding up her INT gain as well. She was already up another 2 points and having all the extra mana was exhilarating.
Unfortunately, her level itself had not yet risen.
Nock, Nock, Nock
“I’m coming” She yelled down the hall while drying off from her shower. Experimenting with her new powers had taken most of the night and she had found great pleasure and joy in tangibly improving herself. A fire had been lit under her and now she was determined to be the best pony she could be. Even if her classification in the fandom was Anthro. Witch was a classification that lent itself to more…. lewd paths.
She opened the door and three mares rushed into the house all trying to hug her. Her friends Minuette, Lemon Heart, and Twinkle Shine had come in so fast that they launched her back and into the side of her sofa. Thankfully her regen kicked in before she felt much of anything otherwise, she would have had a very bruised spine right now.
“Oh, my gosh Moony. I’m so sorry. Here let me help you up.” Twinkle Shine said as she reached down and pulled Moony back up onto her feet and into a crushing hug. Or it would have been crushing if Twinkle shine’s head didn’t only just reach her own chin. She had all the right curves for a mare her age but had never been very tall.
“Um, Twinkle shine, you can let go now,” Moony said as she tried to pry her oldest friend from herself. Even if the hug felt good.
The others were no help as they just stared amusingly at them.
“NO. You need hugs.” Twinkles Declared with all the stubbornness of a little chuwawa.
Moony looked down in confusion and asked. “Um, please elaborate.”
Twinkle shine looked up from the hug and stared up at her with those big soul-filled eyes. Twinkle Shine was the scrappiest of her friends and had been with her since their first year of school together. She had been the new kid in school who had earned the orphanages scholarship to Celestria’s school for gifted unicorns. Leaving behind her old class on the other side of town, leaving her in a class of strangers.
“You need hugs. Lemon said that you felt awful last night when Twilight didn’t come to your party. We know how much you’ve been crushing on her. I wanted to go and throw some rotten apples at her but Minuette and Lemon said that would be illegal. This evening Lemon said she felt a lot of negative emotions coming from here and we got worried. And the best thing for feeling bad is hugs.” Twinkle shine was so sure of her logic that she just squeezed tighter.
Minuette and Lemon Heart must have agreed with her because they both took either side of her and hugged her with all their might as well.
It felt nice. Like a warm blanket on a cold night or a warm cup of coco after a snow.
Moon Dancer could feel the love and care just pouring out of them and the tension in her shoulders began to lessen as she drank in the effection.
“He,He,He,Gyurg.He,Her Herg” Moony began to laugh slowly and tears fell from her eyes onto her friends. The three mares around her just hugged her harder.
“Um, girls? Did we just break moony?” Minuette said as she let up on the hug. A flash of concern in her eyes as she looked over Moon Dancer. Quickly racing for a pack of tissues.
“Sorry, it’s just that. Here I was. Trying to get Twilight Sparkles' attention. I wanted to be her friend so badly. I completely ignored the friends I have. You girls are worth more to me than a hundred thousand twilights.” Moony wrapped her arms around their bodies and hugged with all her might trying to convey how much they meant to her.
[+1 Str – because hugs]
She ignored the screen and instead focused on her friends. Minuette blushed and looked away, trying to pretend she wasn’t a big softy inside. Twinkle shine lit up like a heartwarming tree.
Lemon heart was going to help wipe away some of the tears running down MoonDancers' face when she noticed MoonDancers new hairstyle.
Then Lemon heart said. “Wow, what did you do with your hair? It looks…. not horrible anymore!” She could not find any other way to refer to that mess she had before.
Lemon heart may have been the empath of the four, but she was also the bluntest pony you will ever meet. Good luck trying to hide anything from the mare that could feel out your emotions. She often came across as uncaring but that wasn’t the case at all.
I reached up over to my new hairstyle. After seeing myself from a third-person perspective I decided I didn’t want to look like a slob. It was bad enough I looked like Twilights missing twin sister. But looking like a generic nerd was just asking to propagate a stereotype.
Suddenly I felt very self-conscious as I chewed on my bottom lip and racked my fingers threw my new hairstyle. “Um, do you all like it?”
Now instead of a mop of hair sticking out of my scalp, I had a high proper ponytail (ironically). It wasn’t extravagant or anything, but it was a start in changing myself.
“Awww. Moony you look so Adorable right now.” Said Twinkles as she gushed at how adorable her friend could be without even trying. She often worried that her friend would turn out to become a hermit and never do anything in her life because of how anti-social she was.
After a moment Minuette let go and said. “Oh, yeah, we weren’t just here to check on you. We wanted to invite you to the Summer sun celebration tonight. I know it won’t be the same with Princess Celestia gone off to Ponyville this year, but it should still be fun. Please say you’ll come.”
Moon Dancer hesitated for a moment since going out to a party so soon after the botched one she made sounded like a bad and emotional idea. However, she could never say no to Twinkle when she started using those big blue puppy dog eyes of hers. With all three of them, she stood no chance.
“Alright, you can turn those things off now. Leave the puppy eye look to Twinkle Shine.” Moony agreed begrudgingly but in good humor. It might be nice to get out of the house and bond with her friends. Celestia knows that she had ignored them for far too long.
“Um, moony why is your ceiling full of holes.” Twinkle Shine asked as she pointed up at her ceiling that now contained dozens of holes from her relentless Magical Blasts.
“Oh yah, that. Well like you said, I wasn’t exactly feeling at my best.” She sheepishly admitted while her friends stared at her a little impressed at the destruction she could cause.
In reality, she had been experimenting with her magical blasts all night since it had been a great stress reliever. She could now confidently blast a magical beam out of her fingers instead of her horn. And it had felt so good to let go of some stress.
Moon Dancer winced. The cost of repairing that roof was not going to be cheap. Or she would need to find a spell that would help her with the repairs. It might take a while and some research, but she would repair it.
Unlike most ponies in her class, she owned her own home. So, there was a certain level of handiness and frugality with owning your own home when your job didn’t pay that well. Or when you were still a minor.
It had taken a considerable effort and sleepless nights on her part, but she was never going to mooch off anypony. She had seen too many fouls in the orphanage becoming spoilt bullies because people kept insisting, they were special and never telling them no. All because they were poor little orphans. In spite of the fact that most Orphans in the city were better than some resorts.
She was not going to ask her somewhat sister, her brothers, the academy or even the princess herself when It came to her living arrangements. Her independence was something she cherished and valued, only compounded now by her graduation. One meeting with Sunset Shimmer had seen to that.
Still, that also meant the roof was her responsibility. “I’m just glad you guys came to check up on me or I might not have snapped out of it before my roof was unsalvageable. Now let’s go. I can fix it tomorrow.”
All three mares stared after their friend. All of them knew that Moondancer was a bit better than the average unicorn. She didn’t have the top grades in class for nothing. Second only to the royal pupil herself. But even a strong unicorn would have a hard time making such big and numerous holes in their roof without being laid out for days.
Since moony still looked a little emotionally off they let it go. After all, she was trying and that’s all anyone could ask for. Bugging her till she had an emotional meltdown was not something any of them wanted to cause.
On the way to the party, Moon dancer was having the time of her life casting [Observe] on just about everything she could feasible see. It seemed that distance wasn’t an issue and only things cast with an obscurest spell seemed to block [observe] but then after the spell leveled up a few more times even those didn’t matter anymore. Just leaving a foot note under the descriptions that they had such a spell cast on them.
This was also a great time to see how she stacked up against other ponies. If she concentrated a little, she could see their Level and name above their head like in actual games. Sometimes with a title as well. but casting the actual [Observe Skill] showed her their stats.
Most of the ponies around all seemed to be between levels 5-10 while foals and young ponies were levels 1-7. She got the chance to [observe] a few guards and saw that they were all level 15 or higher. Their states all were higher than most average ponies. Depending on their tribe they had different boosts. Earth ponies had higher VIT and Str, Pegasai more Dex while Unicorns had a touch more INT.
She was betting that INT was more a measure of one’s magic pool rather than a real measure of one’s intelligence. Mister Rolling oats had a high Int score but rarely knew anything that didn’t have to do with oats.
But the most surprising result was her own friend's scores.
Each of them had high INT and WIS scores in comparison to the average unicorn. With Minuette also having a higher STR and DEX Score than the rest of them. Probably because she was a hyperactive Mare who had an endless abyss of energy and just never stopped doing things. It was no wonder she was both a maid and a certified surgeon.
“So where is the party anyway?” Moony asked as they walked among the clean streets of Canterlot. She needed to get a conversation rolling or ponies would start to wonder why she was staring at things so intently.
Lemon Heart swelled with pride as she pointed up the castle. “Well you know I’m part of the castles party planning committee now. So, I helped to organize and plan all the parties. Including the castles annual summer sun celebration!” she exclaimed while jumping around. Being an empath must have helped a bit since she could judge the mood of a party and help to steer it in the right direction. Such an ability was invaluable in many jobs.
We were all a little floored when she said she got a job as the castles party planner. We all thought she was going to inherit her family’s sweet shop. But we were all happy for her anyway.
“Aren’t we a little underdressed for a party in the castle?” Minuette asked nervously. She normally worked in the castle as a maid but partying in the castle was a bit different from working there. High-Class ponies would expect you to be dressed to the nines during one of the parties or they would ridicule you and ruin your night.
“Nope. Without the princess there, it’s not as formal. It’s mostly just going to be castle staff and their families. Games, food, and music, what could be better. And since it’s the summer sun celebration the sunrise is going to be spectacular.” Lemon gushed and pranced around so much her aqua hair was starting to dance with her.
Moon Dancer realized that the sun was not going to raise on time. Because out there in Ponyville. About now. Nightmare Moon. The boogieman of ponies. Was loose and terrorizing Equestia.
Not her problem.
Everything would go fine.
Nightmare moon would be defeated by the Elements of harmony and blasted in the face with a friendship canon that would brainwash her into being good again. Or strip away the parasite that was nightmare moon. Honestly, Danial didn’t seem to know much about it and just theory’s proposed over fan fiction. So the true origins of nightmare moon would be a mystery.
Moon Dancer pondered on visiting the Old Castle in the Everfree forest latter. It was a long castle that had been abandoned years ago. But for some reason, the show depicted that there was still a treasure trove of books and items left on site.
She might not care for facing off against the nightmare but saving a library of books was well up her ally.
[Quest alert ]
[Explore the castle of the Two sisters and collect all the poor abandoned books.]
{Reward – library]
[Bonus Objective ???]
Well, it looks like I know what I’m doing tomorrow.
According to the show the old castle still held hundreds of ancient tomes and scrolls filled with lost knowledge. Some of them had to be skill books that contained old esoteric spells. There was also the chance that she could get to study Nightmare moons armor. The show was clear that it had been left behind when Nightmare moon turned back into Princess Luna.
Yes, it was steeling. But she didn’t care. Those books had been left out for nearly a millennium with no one doing squat to preserve or take care of them. As far as she was concerned it was finders’ keepers.
The fact it will inconvenience Twilight when she was asked by Princess Celestia to clear out the old castle plays no part in her decision at all. Nope. Nada. Niet.
She may have to pull out her old teleportation book in order to get there in one piece, but it would be well worth it. Teleportation was a hard skill to gain for a unicorn and few ever truly mastered it. If her old Study book on it was still around, then it might be a Skill book that could teach her what she was missing to properly cast a teleport. Or the system would help her learn it.
Soon the quartet of mares arrived at the party to the sounds of dancing feet and merriment. The castle was filled with glowing Lantern candles, springtime flowers decorating every pillar and the sound of soft instrumental music floated over the grounds like a cool wave ready to relax all your worries away.
It inspired the pony seeing it to feel relaxed and at ease as they flitted about the party.
I reached over and hugged Lemon heart with one hand. “Lemon, I think you’ve outdone yourself. This party is amazing. Much better than the one I pulled. You really outdid yourself. I guess all those days of throwing secret parties when the teachers weren’t looking paid off.”
Lemon froze and robotically turned to Moony. “You. You knew that was me? HOW?”
“Who else has access to that much junk food and hides streamers in her bookbag?” Moony said as they made their way into the party.
Lemons secret parties at school had been amazing. Even if she hid the fact that she was the one who set them up. And since she set it all up in class before school started the teachers always just let them have their fun for a while before beginning the lessons during cake time.
She didn’t know how they did it, but they managed to somehow get her on the dance floor at one point. DJ PON3 was playing a nice relaxing beat and she let herself go for the night. Thoughts about what would happen later leaving her head as she danced with the girl. Thanking Danial profusely for the dancing lessons he took. The way that the girl all blushed while she was dancing with them was adorable and made her want to do it more often.
Eventually, the time came around and for the Sun to come up. I really couldn’t do anything to stop ponies from panicking, but I at least wanted to stay by the girls so that they didn’t get into any trouble.
Soon the time for the sun to rise had come and gone. At first, ponies had just acted confused or concerned. But then one pony started to panic then another. Then it was like herd mentality took over and everyone started to act like a group of headless chickens running around and bumping into things. I swear I even saw one stallion just run right into a wall three times before he just knocked himself out cold.
If there was one thing about the pony races that I didn’t like, and there were a few, then it was the herd mentality that dictated we all panic and run at the first sign of anything strange. I swear that if most ponies didn’t have hearts of gold then they’d all be rampant racists and xenophiles. It says something that it took almost the very extinction of pony kind for the three great tribes to come together.
Seeing that the crowd was going wild I had hopped up onto a windowed balcony not too far from where we were sitting. I looked around and saw my friends had joined the panicking crowd and were running around like animals. I didn’t want them to get hurt so I lit up my horn and my new semi mastery of levitation to levitate them one by one up onto the balcony with me.
This wasn’t easy by any means since ponies have a natural magic resistance inanimate objects don’t have. So being able to levitate another pony was considered a great achievement. Being able to levitate a dragon around, who had a lot more inbuilt resistance, made Twilight famous in some circle. Though I did have a theory that it wasn’t hard for her at all since her magic had hatched him in the first place. Enabling her to bypass his defense entirely.
First, Moon Lifted Lemon Heart as she looked a little too close to a tilted pillar for her liking. The Pillar toppled over moments later and into the obliterated the food table. Crusting all the foods and spilling out all the drinks. She struggled in my magic for a few moments but calmed down when she saw it was my light lavender aura and I was the one directing her. She was a fast study, so she put together I was levitating her quickly. She was so impressed that it must have knocked the panic out of her.
“Thanks, moony.” She said as I set her down a step away from me. She still looked oddly skittish but holding her hand seemed to calm her down a peg. Moony gave her the most reassuring smile she could as she went back to scanning the party.
She searched out the gardens again and spotted Minuette about to fall off the ledge of the terrace. She was keeping her cool a lot better than most of the other ponies, but a trio of fillies had run past her while screaming about the shadows all being mean. They bumped into her so hard that she lost her footing and was about to fall off the edge before Moony grabbed her.
Her panic was a lot more real than Lemons, so she struggled harder in Moonies' grasp. Nearly falling to your death was a legitimate reason for panic in comparison to the sun not rising. Moony struggled as she flew her completely across the gardens. Ponies all around pointing and screaming their heads off. Screaming it was the end of days. It was honestly getting annoying.
I placed her a step to my right and waited for the panic to die down. Holding her hand helped her calm and focus upon me. I could feel both her and Lemon Hearts beating quickly with how tightly they were gripping my arms. I smiled reassuringly to Minuette before resuming my search for Twinkle shine.
I desperately searched the crowd for any sign of her Twinkling purple main. Witch is a lot harder than you’d think considering that just about every other pony had mains in every shade of the rainbow. Some even with literal rainbows. Also, with everyone running about like ant colonies I was hard-pressed to single out just one speck of purple.
I found Twinkle Shine cowering behind one of the picnic tables. A host of spilled drinks and food splattered around her and on her dress. From what I could tell the dress also seemed to have a few tears in it. I quickly focused and ignited my horn.
During my search, I had dripped into a meditative trance to increase my magic regeneration and fill my reserves back up. I needed to stay perfectly still while doing it but thankfully I could still at least use my eyeballs. It just wasn’t quite as effective as traditional meditation. Using two long-range levitations had used up almost all my magic. Thankfully I could feel the Levitation skill had leveled a time or two without even looking at the screen. Enabling me to Levitate Twinkle faster and easier.
When I lifted Twinkle shine I could feel that she was thrashing and trying to resist. Unlike Lemon or Minuette who tried to magically thrash Twinkle as well only resisted physically. That was not a good sign since it meant she wasn’t even thinking straight enough to use magic.
As I placed on the ground in front of me, I didn’t let go of the levitation just yet. I held just enough that my magic circled her middle and kept her from leaping off the balcony, but she could not move.
Twinkle shine was in full-on panic mode. She was always the most skittish pony in our group. She was prone to worrying and panicking over the slightest of threats. She eventually got over them but there was always that initial few days she would be skittish.
But now she was having a full-on panic attack. She wasn’t seeing us. She wasn’t hearing us. And if I wasn’t mistaken, she was starting to hyperventilate. I needed a way to calm her down. But with both hands already tied by Lemon and Minuette, I only had one idea. One stupid, embarrassing, and glorious idea.
I leaned forward and kissed her. I kissed her deeply. Pressing my presence conformingly against her. Twinkle was so surprised and floored that she nocked herself right out of the panic attack and into honest surprise.
The kiss was warm, wet, and tasted of cinnamon buns and blueberries. I knew from Danial’s mind that most people had a standard sweet taste to them, but it seemed ponies had different tastes. After a moment Twinkle leaned forward into the kiss.
“Um, is that just for Twinkles or can we get in on that action?” Minuette said. She might have meant it as a joke but with her hands still trembling, I decided to take it seriously. I knew I wasn’t good enough for these girls but if a kiss made them feel better than I would give it.
I leaned into my other two friends and gave them both kisses as well. Not a full-blown soul-sucking thing like I did to Twinkle Shine to drag her out of her panic but enough to make them forget about any trouble. Minuette tasted sweet with just a hint of spice while Lemon heart had a sour and shockingly lemony flavor to herself.
I hugged them all close and was about to try and reassure them when a vase flew from nowhere and nearly hit Minuette in the head. It just barely managed to miss and fly over her scalp and shatter upon the castle walls. Leaving behind a few torn off hairs from her head.
She didn’t go back into a panic, but she did Reach out and clutch at Twinkle like a safety blanket.
Seeing all my hard work being undone and the sight of my friends being scared made me mad.
I have not been treating them the way they should have been. Haven’t cherished them for the awesome ponies they were. If it weren’t for them, I might have very well become a shut-in just like the Moon Dancer from the MLP show.
I turned away from my friends and turned back to the balcony.
“ENOUGH,” I shouted across the garden. My voice not quite reaching royal Canterlot voice levels but close enough. It had the desired effect of making all the ponies in the garden stop and freeze. The feeling of fear now geared towards the voice rather than some obscure threat.
“Are you all cowards or ponies. There is no reason to be running around and tearing up the place like a flock of headless chickens. Yes, the sun hasn’t risen yet. But it’s not the end of the world. For all, we know Celestia has simply been delayed.”
One braver or stupider stallion in the party with blue hair and ash skin spoke up and asked as loud as he could “But what if the princess is in danger? What if the sun never rises again? What If Nightmare moon herself returned from the grave?” His voice was not nearly as commanding as hers but not as potent as hers had been. But it did start making everyone skittish again.
“Then we will deal with it. For now, there are a million things that could be. For all, we know A baby accidentally fired a missed spell and turned the princess back into a foul for a night. There is no reason to panic. Look around. All that’s happened is that it’s still night and you all have managed to destroy several tables, tons of good food, and set fire to the curtain! Speaking of which.” Using an old water summoning spell I learned in school I overcharged it with a lot more magic and launched it at the curtains to put them out.
“Now here’s what’s going to happen. Your all going to find the rest of your families and make sure they're ok. If someone got hurt you will take them to the hospital, if not you will take your family home and sleep until you regain some sense. I’m sure by tomorrow the royal guard will have everything well in hand. Now Vamoose.”
The crowd began to disperse now that some sense had been knocked into them. A lot of the older stallions and mares were beyond embarrassed that their children saw them acting so un-composed. They soon picked up their kids and left.
There were a few ponies that had scrapes and bruises but only one needed any medical attention for a sprained ankle.
Moon dancer didn’t really expect too many things to go wrong. After all the show wasn’t incorrect when it showed that most problems in Equestria were solved stupidly simply. Captured by Dimond dog? While till your let go. Your gearing up for a battle against buffalo? You better bake a whole lot of pies. Accidentally insult a foreign dignitary. Sing a silly song till they get so annoyed they leave.
Moon Dancer turned back to her friends who were staring at her with wide eyes and mouths agape.
“What?” I asked.
“Ok, who are you and what have you done with Moon Dancer?” Minuette said jokingly. Seeing as I was acting completely out of character for myself. The Moon Dancer from two weeks ago would have been down their screaming her head off just like every pony else. Plus, they have never seen her take such command before. There were very rare ponies that could be good leaders and those ponies often became mayors, governors, and other high ranked officials.
“When we were in sixth grade you wanted to seem older, so you tried to wear the sexy underwear. Only to chafe so badly after Hoof ball that you needed my to help to get you home.” I turned to lemon heart. “You accidently got splashed with water in a white dress in the middle of restaurant row and needed to borrow my sweater to get home.”
I stared at Twinkle and she gulped this time from a different type of fear. “And someone replaced Mrs. Harsh whinnies whole desk with a cake look-a-like because she insulted cooking as a profession.”
“You can prove nothing,” Twinkle yelled. Pointing out a finger like a certain lawyer.
They all smiled with the tension diffused. Lemon heart wanted more time to think about that kiss so she tried to find whatever distraction she could. “Oh, sweet Celestia. This party is going to take forever to clean up. And the Drapes! We’re going to have to get all new ones.”
“Do you want some help with the cleanup. It’s still going to be a few hours to sunrise, so I don’t think anyone’s going to be coming around any time soon. At least we can clean up the food and send the clothes to the wash.” Moon dancer said. She was still knackered from having to use so much magic in such a short span but she could at least help. Even if she felt like she just needed to sleep for a week.
“Um, what do you mean a few hours? Sunrise should have been twenty minutes ago.” Minuette asked intrigued.
Moon dancer considered telling them about the show but decided against it. After all, she had no way of knowing what if the show was accurate and what was now no longer going to happen. Not to mention that most of the show couldn’t keep a straight timeline so any finer details and planning around them were right out the window for her.
However, there was one excuse that could work well and was socially acceptable too.
As she floated her friends down to the ground she said distressingly. “I got a hold of a scroll of prophecies Even better the scroll actually wrote out what was going to happen rather than making irritatingly vague comments like most prophesies. You have no idea how frustrating those old Prophetic tomes can be. Three full paragraphs just describing when a person was going to be born and then one vague statement about some evil, they will conquer? Fui.”
And it was true. Twilight herself tried to warn Celestira because she had read one of the compendiums of prophecy. Not something just anyone could get their hands on and you would still need to decipher what the buck it was saying but they did exits. Also, things like seers and prophetic dreams happened all the time.
As Twinkle shine Descended down, she asked. “Um, does that mean you know why the sun isn’t up yet?”
“Yup, but I don’t think I’ll tell you till after it comes back up later.”
“Why?” All three asked all at once.
“Because. While I’d love to kiss it all better knowing what’s going on without it already being resolved will send you all back into panic mode.” The three-woman blushed but agreed they probably shouldn’t know what happened yet. They were still a little spooked so they preferred to just clean the place and be done with it.
“Ok, I agree not knowing is better for now. I trust you if you say so. But seriously what happened to you? This can’t all just be from a Main style change. I know the main makes the mare but not this literally.” Lemon heart said.
I grimaced as I realized I’d have to tell them something or they would lose trust in me. While I was a big proponent of privacy and individuality, I didn’t want to lie to them. Yes, they would probably leave it alone if I said it was private info, but I wanted to share something at least. Friendships were about trust. The show got that right at least.
“Most of me changing my mind is private but I guess I can tell you all a little bit about it.” The three scooted closer like foals during storytime. Minuette even somehow getting a tub of popcorn that had survived.
I got the urge to conjure up a campfire and marshmallows if I was doing storytime.
“OK, so…. I was basically told by some pony…… That I was basically Twilight Light.” The three looked confused. “Um Isn’t that Twilights mother?” Lemon Heart asked. She had only met the mare a scant few times and it wasn’t for long.
“No that’s Twilight Velvet. And it’s not as light as in the spectrum of visible light. See the pony was from a town that had a drink called Bud. But during the health kick of the last decade they tried to make the drink lighter on the calories to appeal to the masses. However, everyone agreed that the light version was just a cheap copy of the original. A watered down, half bakes, inferior copy that no one liked.” I had to stop for a moment in the explanation because I could feel my eyes misting.
You could see the light doing on their faces as the girls started to get the point.
“So, when he described me being Twilight Light, he was basically saying I was nothing more than a inferior copy of twilight. I know I already look like her. And I never had her large magic capacity or stacked up in class. But It Hurt.”
A hug from behind me showed Lemon heart was hugging me fiercely. I looked down at her questioningly.
“I’m an empath remember. And I can feel that it really bothers you, Darling. Heck, you have so much negativity rolling off you that I’m half expecting a wendigo to show up.” She joked said as she pulled Moony in tighter. Trying her best to convey that they were there for her.
“Thanks lemon. So, yah. It’s only part of it but being compared to twilight like that…. I decided things needed to change. That I needed to be better than her. Or at the very least to be my own pony.”
Moony was glad that she had friends that understood just what she was saying. Just how much it meant that she was moving on. Looking back on her life these three were always there with her. They always invited her to hang out. Ate lunch with her. Helped her with her projects and then some.
They cleaned up the rest of the party in companionable silence. A few times royal guards came around to patrol and observe but since we were cleaning up, they left us alone. I had to assume either Shining armor or Princess Me Amora Cadenza had rallied the troops and were trying to restore order.
Which could not have been easy since the guards let it slip that most of the city had been in a panic.
We managed to clean the area in just enough time because just as we threw away the last of the spoiled food the sun finally rose over the horizon.
“Finally. Now will you tell us what happened or are you going to be cryptic again?” Minuette asked. Her job as a Castle maid did depend on the Monarchy paying her monthly wages after all.
Moony quirked one of her eyebrows and hummed to herself to prolong the experience. She then smirked and said as a matter of factly as possible “Nightmare Moon came down from the moon to spread eternal night but was defeated by a plucky band of heroes who found a set of mystical artifacts that blast a rainbow ray of friendship and harmony at her. Defeating Nightmare moon and bringing back a lost Princess of Equestria.”
The sheer look of bafflement and dropped jaws priceless.
She didn’t care if they believed her right away. They would learn she was telling the truth eventually.
Once Moon Dance had a moment to herself, she opened the notifications tab on her system and perused them. It had gotten annoying to just have pop-ups appear in front of her. So, she had asked the system to compile them in a notifications tab and it had obliged. It had fascinating implications for future use of her system if she could will certain aspects of it to change.
[Levitation Level up x 10] This must have been from levitating all her friends (who were all magically resistant) at such distances. Along with whatever she was levitating for cleanup.
[Alert – Mind-altering effect dispelled.] This one was concerning. Perhaps the ponies in the castle were not running around panicking only because of shadows but due to a powerful spell thrown over the land to cause fear? It would certainly make more sense than ponies jumping at shadows. “Then again ponies have been known to panic at bunny stampedes.” It was a mystery to be solved at a later time.
[Skill- Charisma- Level 1 – the ability to inspire or otherwise command. + 1 INT]
[Skill – Intimidate- level 1- Gives a chance to freeze or intimidate an enemy. +1 WIS]
[Skill – Pleasant touch – Level 2 – Your body is an instrument of please and desire. Gives a bonus to all sexually intended activities. +1VIT] Moon Daner quickly closed the window and tried to deny she was blushing to herself.
[Skill- Emotional control – Level 1 – You have some control over your emotions. Babies would be jelous. +1WIS]
[Quest alert- Save Lemon Heart, Twinkle Shine, and Minuette from the panicking crowd.]
[Bonus objective- Quell the panicking Crowd.]
[Failure- Major injury to friends]
[Quest and Bonus objectives reached.]
[Rewards- 100 Bits, - 1 X Tome of teleportation,]
[Level Up x2]
Moon dancer opened her inventory and the extra items and rewards were their already. A hundred bits wasn’t nothing, but it also wasn’t too much. It would cover maybe a week’s food budget.
She also learned that until she opened the notifications the stat points did not take effect. Because when she opened them up, she could feel her mana pool and other things growing and shifting. She could see the logic in needing to be in a private place before something like updating her skills happened. If it happened in a public area people would ask too many questions.
She had only raised her status a tiny bit over the last day. But now she had points to spend. The only questions she needed to ponder was if she needed to spend them now or wait a bit and see. “Insufficient data. I don’t know how useful and of these stats are a the moment. It would be wise to Wait for now and level up my stats normally and see which of them would be the most useful to me later on.” Moon Dancer smiled to herself at the thought of all the lovely experiments she could run on herself over the next few days.
88888 888 88888
The Next Day
Moon Dancer teleported into her living room and collapsed onto her couch breathless and exhausted. She laid there for an entire five minutes, waiting for her magic to recharge before she should go into the kitchen and get some water.
She levitated a notepad over to herself and wrote “Note to self. Just because my Magic pool is not empty does not mean that I won’t get exhausted from repeatedly draining it.”
She bounced back from magic exhaustion way quicker then most ponies could, but it was still annoying to be laid out on the floor.
The magical tome she had received as a reward from the mission had been fascinating and had reviled several details her own teleportation book didn’t cover. Perhaps it was because it was a redacted theory book that she technique wasn’t supposed to have had access to in the first place. The book was very sparse and didn’t tell you how to do the spell. You would have needed clearance from the princess to get access to the actual spell unless you magicked to piece it together. But the magic tome her system gave her explained it all.
There was an option to absorb the book and learn the skill instantly but that felt kind of like cheating. It wasn’t even all that big a book, so she decided to read it fully first. It would be interesting to figure out if there was a difference between just absorbing the book and reading it.
At first, she didn’t have a magic pool large enough to teleport. It required at least a dozen more points then she had. So she took the excess points she had and chose INT rounding it up to 39 points. The increase to her magic pool was exponential and still startled her. Her Magic pool had doubled, and it was an incredible feeling of power that was very heady. Like a cold beer on a hot day.
With the extra boost, she was able to cast the teleportation spell and teleported across the room. Of course, she teleported into the air and landed upside down.
After a bit of practice, she could do three short-range teleports reasonably well. The longer the distance the more magic it took. The more teleports she did the more her Level increased and the easier it was to do the teleport. Each level making the actual spell easier and streamlining the cost to use less magic.
She had been porting all around the city in all the nooks ponies didn’t frequent just testing out her rang and ability. All this porting around and training wasn’t just for her own amusement. It was all geared towards a singular important purpose.
[Quest alert – Explore the Castle of the two sisters.]
The sheer knowledge she could gain from the library in that old and decrepit castle would be worth its weight in gold. She didn’t know why Celestia or the castle workers at the time left so many books when they abandoned the castle. But their loss was her gain.
After making sure that her friends knew she would be out of town for the day and possibly night she finished up all her enchanting work. Gaining skill in enchanting and watching her skill rapidly grow had been fun since she felt a bit of pride in her work. She just needed the new orders to come in and those would take a week.
It was also nice to know that she would not have to re-learn all her old skills.
Moon dance grabbed her pack and headed out the door to the train station to buy a ticket to Ponyville and then hopefully find her way through the ever-free forest.
The train and station were sparse today since most of the ponies around the country or even the world was still reeling from the fact that the sun hadn’t risen last morning on time. Fear was at an all-time high around every city so most ponies chose to either stay at home or at least not travel.
Making the train ride to Ponyville empty of everyone else.
The train ride to Ponyvillle wasn’t all that long. It only took an hour at their current pace and before she knew it, she was disembarking and teleporting to the entrance to the Ever free.
There was no way on this Equine green earth she was going to stay anywhere close to twilight or her friends. Not while they could still feasibly shoot her with the harmony canon.
She was also feeling quite excited about going into the ever-free forest. There was just something about testing the metal that attracted her. She didn’t know if it was the new human (apex predator) perspective or the game’s influence but when she entered the forest, she felt giddy.
The Ever-free forest did somewhat deserve its reputation.
There were dozens of dangerous beasts and plants around the area if you didn’t know where to look. However, if you stuck to the bush crafters rule of thumb and could defend yourself you should be reasonably safe. Staying away from bright colors and anything that moved was a given.
But most ponies ignored all that and instead focused on the fact the weather moved on its own. The plants all grew wild, and the animals all took care of themselves. It was honestly rather irking considering that Equestria was the only country to control those things.
She entered the forest and could tell there was something different in the air. It wasn’t bad per se but it was different. Like hot vs cold.
The first hurdle was finding the dang castle. There were no maps, landmarks or stories telling her its location. What she needed to do was make her way to one of the tall hills in the ever free and then climb the tallest tree.
The EverFree was not only a forest but a rolling expanse of hills as well. It made traversing the forest a lot harder since everything was obscured by a hill just out of sight. Not all the areas of the forest had them but there were enough that you could reasonably hide a castle in it with no one finding it for centuries.
“Hu, maybe that’s why they moved castles? No one could find the dame castle to report trouble.” I mumbled as I stepped over another log to get threw a puddle of mud.
The trek through the forest was oddly peaceful. All the sounds of the little critters working away, the wind blowing chaotically, and even the plants growing wildly were soothing. However, she did pay attention to not get close to any bright colors. Most bright colors in nature were warning signals that screamed poison or danger. So, when she came across blue flowers or pink trees moon dancer decided to admire them from a distance.
When the forest became eerily quiet, she knew she had stumbled into somethings den.
She could not see anything but the feeling of being watched was not going away.
Looking around the small clearing she found herself in, Moon Dancer cast [Observe] on anything that looked suspicious. Until finally she got something when looking at what she thought was a downed tree.
[Timber Wolf – LVL 2]
STR -30 VIT - 100 DEX - 30 WIS- 20 INT -20 [A part of the forest that has been possessed by a spirit of wild magic.] I gulped at the number associated with just a level 2 timber wolf. His strength and speed were no joke and it was more intelligent than I would have given it credit for. It was more than just a set of leaves and twigs flung together in the shape of a wolf. It was a fully functioning predator.
Then there was its VIT. It was off my dame charts. I’ve never even come across anything with stats in the triple digits. But how was it possible. It was well known that a Timberwolf would burst into splinters rather easily. Unless it counted the fact it could reconstruct itself as a part of its Hp pool. Perhaps one needed to deal enough damage to were it could not reconstitute itself?
Seeing that the wolf now knew its cover had been blown I teleported up into a tree. The branches were not as secure as I would like but they held my weight as I stared down at the wolf.
“OK moony. Just like I practiced. Condense the magic in my fingers, instead of your horn. Hold the magic for a moment then release while still supplying magic.” The official term for the basic unicorn beam attack that almost all unicorn knew was called Tactical’s Condensed Unifying Force Array. However, she preferred Daniels's name for it after reading threw the context. Her method was also a lot more accurate.
[Cero]
The condensed beam of magic hit the timber wolf dead center on its head. Bursting it's head open like a coconut. However, after a quick observe she could still see the Wolf had more than half its Hp left. And it was regenerating quickly. After a moment the pieces of the head began to fly up towards the head.
[Cero][Cero][Cero][Cero]
Moon dancer repeatedly shot down at the beast until it finally stopped regenerating and she could confirm that It’s Hp pool was now down to 0. The beast had taken a lot more shots then she thought it should to permanently keep it down. She even needed to slip into meditation once just to keep her magic pool toped off with magic.
[ 900 Exp gained.]
[Level up x2]
Moon dancer gaped at the sight of her level once more going up. It had taken so much effort to raise it a single level on her own and now one dead Timber wolf had given her two whole levels.
This not only indicated that the system was built for a combat role in its user's life but that It also took part in the defeated foes magic to run.
Before the last leap down Moony opened her Statues screen and placed one point into INT and one into WIS. The INT point would increase her available magic again while the WIS would help with Magic Regeneration. Her WIS score was actually hard to increase since you needed really clever thinking and not just logical processing to get point into it. Or the method to train WIS was just escaping her. But she was getting tired of constantly being low on magic and having to wait minutes for it to fill up again.
As she got closer to the Timer wolf corpse and accidentally stepped on its twigs a new pop up came up in her messages.
[Items collected – Timberwolf Stick.]
[Timberwolf Stick – A stick heavily charged with the magic of the timber wolf. Can be used as an alchemical ingredient or in magical tool production]
“Fascinating. I’ll need to run some tests when I get home to see who much of a charge it holds. I wonder if I can use it for my enchanting projects?”
She would have done more but a growl behind her had Moon dance instantly teleporting back up into the trees.
More Timberwolves started to come out of the woodwork. Their big bulking bodies somehow still able to run through the forest with barely a sound.
They began to sniff around the area that she had been standing in. Looking around and trying to hunt her. When the wind shifted and started to go upwind, they turned their heads as one and looked straight up at her. “Ok, that’s not creepy at all. But creepy or not, they are going down.
With her [Cero] blasts now being stronger and able to fire it more often she was able to start hitting the wolves with more power. Unfortunately, it only took one being put down permanently for them to start covering for each other. These things were smart. The one with the Highest health would block one of the shots for those with low health and allow them to regenerate their lost health before they took the now injured one’s place.
She needed to pull some tricks to finish off any of the wolves. At times she would try to do two consecutive fast-paced blasts at a lower Health wolf and managed to get two more down permanently before that wolves started to run around the trees as cover. Making double shots extremely difficult.
She tried a continuous beam attack that would just keep going and hitting anything in its path, but she could only sustain those for ten seconds at a time before her magic got so low that she needed to stop. It finished off one more of the Timberwolves leaving five left.
Thankfully she was steadily leveling up herself. Making the battle easier as each new level of proficiency to her skills made them a small degree stronger or less costly.
Seeing that they were losing the wolves pulled an unexpected move that she knew they could do but hadn’t believed until she saw it with her own eyes.
They merged themselves. Sticks breaking and sticking together, stones reforming into the shape of muscles and veins coalescing into the hair.
The resulting Wolf was three times the size of the normal timber wolf and far meaner. Its teeth and claws were bigger and now filled with thorns. Its head now sported vine-like hair running down its back and all its wooden body looked denser to her eyes.
[Guardian Timber Wolf]
VIT 300
Even with her [Cero] continually improving it barely made a dent in the wolf's wooden hide. And the vine-like hair was even worse because with it could be damaged easily it regrew rapidly back into place. Resulting in an ever-growing armor around Wolf’s body.
“OK, moony don’t panic. Just think this threw. Your safe up here in the tree for now. You have time on your side. Yes, the wolf’s regeneration is keeping up with my damage but it is getting hurt. I just need to find a way to damage it more than it can regen in one go. What’s Wood's weakness? Fire? No, its living wood. Only dry woods week to fire. Mabey ice? Freeze the liquid in its body to make it more brittle? But that won’t be enough. It could just replace parts of itself with more wood. An axe would be helpful since axes seemed like the natural enemy of wood. Even if it is living wood. Do I have a spell for that?”
She was ever so thankful that she had a full compendium of the spells she knew located in her system. It allowed her to parse threw them with a glace and see their strengths. Most of them were mostly useless junk you needed to know because the school demanded it but there were some useful spells here and there.
[Frosty] [Axe split]
The first was a cooling spell that was usually used to either cool your drink quickly or cool down a room. It was also a very inefficient attack. Used often by ponies as prank spells. But if she just didn’t stop the spell and kept hitting the wolf with it the water in the wolf would start to freeze up and become crystals. Making the whole thing a lot more brittle and slow-moving.
The second spell she also had to overpower as she cast it. It was taught to them one day when the school wanted them to build their own clubhouse. The spell split wood down the middle and was used with fine precision to make boards for building materials. Suffice to say their clubhouse came out looking more lopsided. But it was a fun day. Only ruined when Twilight sparkle became so over-eager to please the teacher, she cast a spell that tore down the building and reassembled it exactly to factory specifications. It had been a tremendous magical achievement but also incredibly boring for every pony else.
Suffice to say no one else used it after that.
But with both of them combined she was able to slice into the hide of the huge timber wolf. There was no way she could aim these spells right so she wasn’t able to get its head or feet but enough damage seemed to be getting past the vines and into the hide that the wolf took notice. It snarled and began to paw at the tree she was standing on. Rocking it in hopes of knocking her off.
With a little telekinesis, she stuck herself onto her branch while repeating the process of freezing and cutting the wolf.
For one moment she thought the whole tree was going to come down but then the Wolf's Hp hit zero and it finally stopped regenerating and burst apart into twigs leaves and logs she held her breath.
[ 3000 Exp ]
[Level up X 4]
Moon dance sighed in relief. If that last attack strategy hadn’t worked, she was prepared to have just teleported back into Ponyville and left for home. The books would e a great find but they were not worth dying over.
She made her way down to the dead Timberwolves and stepped on any she could find.
[Items collected – Timberwolf Stick X10]
[Item Collected – Soul shard]
[ 200 Bits]
[Soul shard –The condensed form of spirit magic that can be either used as an ingredient or collected to summon ???.]
She kept all of that in her inventory and trekked up the rest of the mountain to look around for the castle.
The castle was well hidden behind a series of craggy hills that would have made a very good defensible fortification.
She had just gotten dame lucky that the Hill and tree she was standing on was the perfect one to just get a glimpse of the castle. She had been only a little off when she began her journey. She had been going true north, but the castle was a bit more eastern from her starting point.
On the way to the castle, she ran into a manticore that was eating a dead deer carcass. They locked eyes but the manticore didn’t want to fight. It had its food and it wasn’t a monster. Just another creature needing to eat. It also senses a faint tingle of familiar magic from the small pony. This was not the small week pony from the little village this was someone who just saw a fight.
The manticore left her alone to her own devices. Letting her get to the river that blocked the path to the castle. Not wishing to get wet or swept away Moon Dancer teleported across the river.
She smiled since she liked that she was getting good at teleporting. Even if she still sometimes landed upside down.
The patch of the woods that looked like they were all trying to make scary faces all looked ridiculous in the daylight. Nightmare Moon would have had to have placed a strong fear spell to make them all feel scary. It was interesting to note that the scary faces were natural. Perhaps they evolved that way to scare away woodcutters?
Following down the paths she eventually reached the rope bridge that connected to the castle. It was a rickety old thing and she didn’t feel like testing its sturdiness. So, she teleported over it instead. The crags at the bottom of the castle looked sharp and painful just to looks at.
Unexpectedly she landed on her back rather than on her hooves as she had intended. The trip out to this castle was taking it’s a toll on her.
Moon Dancer sat down in front of the castle of the two sisters, gazing in wonder at the giant castle. The show did not do it justice. Not only was the castle rather gothic but it was much bigger than the show portrayed. She felt small next to something so huge. The sheer scale of the castle would have her poking her nose around it for most of the day and night.
“Well, no time like the present. To Knowledge.” She said as she opened the creaking door.
The main hall of the castle was just as dilapidated and dusty as you would think. But ancient pony masonry must have been something else because only a few stones were missing from the roof and most of the important structures looked sound.
There were a few banners based around the hall but none that looked like they were irreplaceable. The more important ones must have been taken when every pony moved out. The configuration of the architecture was far removed from what she knew of the palace.
Moon dancer started her search on the first floor. She found a kitchen with food so old it had molded rotted and turned to dirt again. A small administrative office with loads of desks but no files or paperwork as well as a few empty rooms.
It wasn’t too surprising. The Royal Canterlot castle has a similar set up were most common people would be able to handle the day to day administration of the kingdom. The throne room was directly above the stairs and would have been the only place on the second floor anyone could enter.
With nothing else to find Moony hiked up the stairs and made her way into the second floor. She left the throne room alone for now. The throne room was were Nightmare Moon had been defeated. If she went in there now there was no telling how long she would be in there for.
The first few rooms she looked threw were spartan and empty. A few nick-knacks, beds, and the occasional wardrobe or desk indicating that these were either guestrooms or other quarters.
There were hundreds of little rooms or halls in the castle and before she knew it the sky was descending on the horizon.
But finally, in the last room she tried, she found what she was looking for.
The library.
Rows of books filled the large room and gave it that musky paper smell. The room was lite with a dull light that came from some light crystals on the ceiling. These types of crystals were like glass but could reflect more sunlight into the room. They didn’t have quite as good glasswork back In the day so they needed to make intricate crystal chandeliers to help distribute the light.
Walking over to the first row of books Moon Dancer started her research.
After an hour of looking through books, Moon dancer was nearly jumping for joy. There were lost and restricted tomes here that history books had deemed lost ages ago. There were even a few skill books added into the mix. She would of course read them instead of absorbing them since they were priceless artifacts at this point. She placed each book inside her inventory with reverence. Making sure to pick the shelves clean of all the books she could.
She even magicked to find upgraded and more dangerous versions of her own spells. [Frosty] was upgraded to [Winder’s blast] and attack that delivered a ray of freezing cold energy that could freeze even a fire solid and [Cutter’s Woe] with was a cutting spell several magnitudes more powerful than her simple [Axe Chop].
It was when she was pulling and storing the last of the books that a ‘click’ befell the library. A bookshelf slid out of place and showed a long stairway to one book bound in chains.
“Hmm, isn’t that the book that made anything you wanted but started to drive you mad with power till you become a nightmare version of yourself? Why couldn’t Daniel have just watched that episode?”
Not wishing to be infected by the book without proper study and a controlled environment Moony tossed the book into her inventory.
Yes, she wanted to become powerful and better then sparkle but using an item of power that was nearly guaranteed to drive you mad seemed silly and cheap.
She had no way of knowing if the book could affect her with their partial Gamers mind. External mental intrusions were always hard stopped but if she took the book as a skill book and tried to absorb it wouldn’t that make the corruption internal?
“More studying to do.” She mumbled. Her list of things to try to do was getting longer and longer.
The rest of the Third floor contained an armory, a set of bedrooms that could only have belonged to the princesses, and what she could infer were magic rooms. The enchanting room was particularly interesting to her since it contained a fully functional Enchaining table, an alchemy desk, and a small forge.
She knew the amount of love and desire at the sight of those magical implements should have been a bit concerning but she could not help it. The amount of help these could give her work. The experiments she could run! The ideas made her shiver and just a touch wet.
Hey, don’t knock her till you tried her.
While Modern science has advanced by leaps and bounds do to the now easy access ponies had to electricity. The magical arts still tended to use the same old tools they always had. The only difference is that they became more expensive over time as fewer ponies found they wanted to follow the path of magic. Making the full enchanting table alone worth more bits then her whole house.
Moon dace cradled the enchanting table lovingly as she pushed it into her inventory slot. Going so far as to label it the number one item in her inventory.
The rest of the tools followed soon after in a flurry of magic as the one full room soon became baron and empty.
She did stay away from the princess quarters once she realized they were their personal rooms. It was one thing to take things from a castle that had been abandoned for a millennium. It was finders’ keepers at that point. But rifling through their old draws seemed more like an invasion of privacy.
Moon dancer valued her independence and privacy so she would respect every pony else’s privacy as well.
Even if she really wanted to know what ‘secret’ book or object the princesses kept in their nightstands. Every mare had at least one nighttime fun object and knowing would be funny. But she refrained for privacy’s sake.
Finally, she came upon the last room.
The room that held the elements of harmony and the sight of where Nightmare Moon was defeated.
Opening the large double doors, she walked into the room. It was bright and sunny inside now that the roof had a gaping hole in it. The sunlight and bird song just streamed into the room.
The pillars for the elements were not anything special themselves. Their original casings had been turned to ordinary dust after the elements chose new bearers. Their magic leaving the original stones to make those gaudy necklaces and crowns. Were the elements just follow magic as its leader because no one else got a crown?
Her opinion on harmony was a little mixed. On one hand, peace and prosperity were good. But on the other hand who were the elements to choose what peace and prosperity were? It seemed to have a will of its own and blasting people into statues didn’t seem very harmonic. Then again what else could you expect from elements grown from the seeds of past heroes?
It was in the corner of the room that she saw it.
A corner of the room where the light was dimmest and the sunlight didn’t reach.
Nightmare moons armor.
Walking over to the amour moony began to cast Observe on it to see what it was.
The majority of the armor was made of star metal. Not meteorite’s which were mostly armor but an actual metal called star metal. When made into armor it had an odd property that layered in onto itself. Each armor piece is composed of hundreds of layers of thin sheets of metal. And when one layer broke or was penetrated it shattered and flaked off. It was like bulletproof glass in that regard.
But the crowning jewel.
[Essence of Nightmare Moon]
[This helmet has been saturated with the dark essence of nightmare moon for a thousand + years. It holds a significant portion of what was once Nightmare moon. The true nightmare is dead and gone from the Blast of harmony energies, but this last slip of her essence remains. It holds no consciousness or directive and will soon fade from existence.]
[Do you wish to absorb this essence?]
Moon dance stared down at the helmet in wonder and bafflement. It sounded like Nightmare was indeed a separate entity from what the description said.
But to absorb her essence? To take in apart of nightmare moon. It was daunting and frightening. What if the spell was wrong and there was still a part of Nightmare moon in there? Just waiting for an unsuspecting fool to take up her mantle? There were just as many stories of things going horribly wrong with Nightmare as there were storied of things going right. Was it worth the risk? She pondered that question for what felt like hours. Staring at the helmet.
Then she noticed something. The face staring back at her. It was still her face but tinted purple, in the helmet's shiny reflection. She grits her teeth as she recalled that first day of being the gamer. How she had felt when told by the system she herself was now a part of that she was nothing more than a week version of a different mare. “NO, I won’t be left behind. I’ve always been second best, second place. Second choice for adoption, the second choice for a scholarship, the second choice for everything. Well not anymore.”
She pressed yes.
“ARG” She screamed as the dark purple smoke began to rise from the helmet and into her mouth. She could feel the mass of magic traveling into herself and settling into her magical core. But that wasn’t all.
She felt like she was being stretched thin beyond what should have been possible. Her magic reserves were expanded to their maximum capacity and yet they were still trying to reach further. Breaking them down and building her up again.
[Alert – Maximum level Species cap is being breached. Magic Spirit acquired and activated. Calculating Assentation routes…..Assentation Options…..Ali….Co..Bie…feat.]
The pain was getting too much for her. Tears in her eyes were blocking her vision. She knew that surpassing what it meant to be a unicorn would not be painless. But the feeling of having her skin be too tight for her body was getting too much. Not caring what she chose at that moment Moon dance slammed her fist into the screen in hopes of something happening. Hoping she had not just doomed herself to a horrible mistake.
After a moment the pain began to fade to be replaced with a strange feeling of growth and change. Like her muscles were being moved outside her control. Some spasming others contracting and new muscles outright growing. Before she blacked out, she was able to see one page.
“Urgh, why does everything feel Wrong?” Moon Dancer groaned as she woke up from her ordeal. Her head pounding and her whole body experiencing sourness. It had not been pleasant and after the first minute, she had hated taking such a life-altering decision so hastily. What was she thinking? Absorbing a piece of the primordial essence of the cosmos like that? She was lucky she was even alive, game body or no. With her luck, she would have turned into an alicorn and go into hiding. Or worse. She could have exploded.
In the back of her mind, she vowed never to do something so stupid again.
Seeing that she was still faced down on the ground with her eyes facing a particularly muddy patch of dirt she lifted herself off with her hands to et off the cold ground. Strangely it was a lot easier than normal to lift herself. There was a new sense of lightness and grace to her movements that made moving feel a lot more relaxing.
“Well, I suppose that absorbing the magic of a foultale icon like that would make me stronger in some ways.” She stretched out her arms and body feeling a satisfactory pop as her bones aligned back into place.
She looked down at herself with wide eyes and an open mouth as she realized her whole body was different. Other than the colors her whole body was unrecognizable.
But oh, sweet Celestia was she different now. She stood at least a foot taller off the ground. Her biceps were like canons and her forearms might as well be rope. Her belly once toned but nothing special was now a solid pack of muscles that moved and wriggled as she twisted. Not only were her abs standing out but the muscles around her were also feeling and looking powerful. A glance down at her legs showed off more high-powered muscles that looked like they would have been at home on any racehorse from the human world. Her cloaths were at the very edge of bursting as they stretched to accommodate her new growth.
The body spoke of power.
Looking around frantically Moon Dancer searches for a mirror.
Even with torn clothing and an uneven gate, she smashed herself back towards Celestia's personal quarters. Holding along the walls as she went in order not to fall over with her new proportions. Knowing there had to be a mirror in the room. Even an old dusty one would help now.
Because this transformation was Bizarre! She had seen princess Celestia before and princess Cadance to a lesser extent. While both were eerily beautiful and womanly, they did not have the hard-packed muscles that she now sported. Moon dancer would have noticed if either princess was packing heat like her. Not to mention how much her own bust had grown considerably.
“What in tarnation is going on?” she said just as she reached the bed champers. Flinging the doors open without care as she ran to the nearest mirror and tore the covering off it.
She stared wide-eyed and agape and gasped at what she saw.
Periphery she acknowledged that she was now beautiful in that powerful amazon way. With hard-packed muscles that any gym rat would lust over and a pair of tits that were now big enough that she was glad for the extra back muscles to help compensate.
This she acknowledged but that didn’t shock her.
What shocked her was that she Didn’t have a pair of wings growing in on her back like she had feared and secretly hoped for.
What astounded her perhaps even more than that was the Second Horn now attached to her head.
She stood there and looked in wonderment at her new body. Not understanding what had happened and why she was like this. She could feel she was powerful now. The well of magic inside of her was now more akin to a lake rather than a tiny well in comparison to what it was before.
“What happened? I thought I was ascending. I thought that meant alicorn? I mean I’m not knocking it because dame these muscles are fine but WHAT AM I?” She yelled into the mirror as she tried to deal with this confusing influx of emotions.
A window popped up and Moon Dancer hungrily read through the notification. He inquisitive min zeroing in on what she needed to know.
[Assention route activated as a fail-safe for user consuming power too much for being to handle.]
[You have chosen the Bicorn Assentation route]
Bicorn Bio.
[Bicorns as a mixture of a unicorn’s magical prowess and an Earth ponies Durability. Their magical and physical potential is unmatched by any other species. All Bicorns have an inbuilt resistance to damage, disease, and can adapt to almost any environment. A bicorn is noted to have two horns on its head that multiply its magical reserves and potency. A Bicorn is a lot denser than either the alicorn or steel wing Branches. As those branches have hollow bones while the Bicorn have thick and sturdy bones that made it a poor flier and rather slow. Most Bicorns choose to counteract this weakness with their amazing magical talent. Bicorns are also known for their sexual prowess and pleasure abilities. Able to Satisfy even a whole herd of mares in one go. Bicorn's main magical strengths are ground magic, Magical resistance, and body enhancement.]
[+100% endurance]
[+100 % magical growth rate]
[+80% to learning Complex magics.]
[+100% to sexual Magics.]
[+50% Magical Resistance]
[+75% Physical resistance]
[+80 base Str]
[+100 Base Vit]
[+10 Base DEX]
[+100 base INT]
[+50 Base WIS]
Error…
[All Race levels and abilities have now defaulted back down to level 1.]
[Alert – Assertion route energy and containment circuits insufficient for proper assertion. Eroro.>. Eoroere…..
[Targets Level is too low to survive Magical assertion. Eroroer….%@%]
[Re-routing Energy matrix, constructing new algorithms, Stripping Energy Combulation}
[Re calculating for Player Stupidity.]
[Route A quired – New Perk Created – [Assention – Bicorn – Level One]
[Assention – Player transforms into their more powerful ascended form for 1 hour every month. Skill multiplies users' states and provides full Bicorn Bonuses. At the Present Level user is only able to use 1% of Bicorn Bonuses.]
[This system would like to remind the player that While [Gamers Mind] will protect the user from external attacks it is unable to protect the user from self-inflicted emotional turmoil and reckless stupidity. This System would like to recommend the Player rest and relax before making any more potentially life-threatening and suicidality stupid decisions.]
Moon Dancer didn’t know where to even begin. But the new more active parts of herself zeroed in on the particular portion that said she could satisfy mares. Was the system glitched? Because last time she checked she was a mare herself. How could she please any mare fully? She could admit to herself that she wasn’t as straight as an arrow, but romance had been the last thing on her mind.
She only owned one romance novel and it was gathering dust under her bed for Celestia's sakes.
Looking down at herself and feeling a light tingle Moon dancer looked down and realized there was a heavy bulge now in her pants. She was so floored that when she pocked it and it twitched, her eyes rolled into the back of her head and she fainted from the shock of the situation.
Her new Bicorn physiology making the impact on the hard-stone floor painless and harmless.
Sometime later.
When Moon Dancer woke up later she really didn’t feel like getting off the ground. She didn’t know just how many more shocks to her system she could take. But get up she eventually did.
But she couldn’t spend all day laying on her back watching the faded paint on the ceiling chip away. She would love to bury her head and not deal with this at all but the ground was getting uncomfortably cold so she decided to sit back up and look back in the mirror.
To her relief and slight disappointment when she peeked back into the mirror she was back to her old normal pony self. Her hair was a rat’s nest and her coat needed a long bath to get all the dirt out but she was clearly back into her own body.
“Oh, thank Sweet Celestia, My body. My Horn, MY HORN.” Shivering in relief Moon Dancer cried tears of relief as she hugged her body tightly. Now more than ever appreciating it.
She was ever so grateful that the system had turned all that energy and body into just a skill that she could activate, even if only once a month. Going around in that new body would have been embarrassing and humiliating.
“I Almost Died. I…I.. What in Tartarus was I thinking? Absorbing a massive amount of strange and esoteric Magical energy like that? I’m not Terek the Devourer. Stupid, Stupid Moon Dancer. You might as well have pelted yourself with gamma rays while you're at it. Or let every spider from here to Neighpony bite you. That was reckless and stupid and I never want to do something like that again.”
There were only so many things she could handle in one day and even her lesser version of Gamers' mind could only do so much before she overloaded herself. As her little fainting spell had shown.
She may have become too arrogant and ambitious as a new Gamer. Some of that Human adventurism bleeding over or her natural Pony curiosity taking over.
She had come so close to the edge of death again. And for what? A Chance to Beet Sparkle Butt? A Chance to show up somepony who probably didn’t even remember she existed? It wasn’t worth it.
She needed to sit down and really think things through. Draw out some diagrams and create an emotional flow chart while sipping some fresh tea. She needed to figure out if chasing Twilights tail was even worth the hassle or if her New state of Gamerdom had somehow focused her anger and resentment. Expanding what was just Schoolyard Drama into this deadly game. It was a good thing this castle had such crazy vibes going off it otherwise some creature would have come in to investigate all the clattering and loud noises she had been making over the last few hours.
“Wait, what are these vibes?” Looking around she could now tell that there were swirling energy patterns around the area. It wasn’t seeing exactly, it was more of a sixth sense that she never knew she had was now amplified a dozen times over. It was fascinating to feel all the old spells in this castle and how they interacted with each other and the outside world. This alone would enhance her magical prowess considerably.
After a few calming breaths where Moon Dancer tried to get control over herself, Moony got up off the floor and onto shaking legs. With a yelp, she was forced to hold onto the side of a drawer to steady herself as her legs gave out on her. She was feeling considerably weaker than before and even her brain felt a little sluggish.
But she still needed to get out of her.
If I fashion some of those Banister Rods into a walking stick and use some of those drapes for the rope I might be able to use them to temporarily fix the bridge and get out of here. I’ll need to test their tensile strength, their elasticity and then knot them together to….
[For Deep and logical thinking you gain +1 INT.]
Almost forgetting about the system entirely Moon dancer opened up her status screen to see if she could find any more information. Perhaps a screen to show if she was under any status effects.
“What the Tartarus, Everything is down to level 1? Even my stats and skills? OH, Celestia, I’m as week as a newborn Foal now.”
Because of the drastic actions, the system has needed to take to save her life a full reset was needed on her body. That Required that all Stats, skills, and proficiencies all reset back to level 1. Her STR was 1 her DEX was 1 and even her CHR was 1. The only one that wasn’t 1 was INT witch was now a 2.
Scrolling through the system and reading every line Moon dancer discovered to her dread that even her skills were back down to level 1. She supposed she should be thankful that the system didn’t delete them outright but that didn’t really help her when she was stuck in the middle of a dangerous forest.
The only silver lining was that all of her skills and Stats would level faster thanks to the small bouns she got from the Assertion perk. She could at least feel a little relief that she wouldn’t have to run through whole several years of Academic educations just to get back at her old skill level.
However, now that she was a little calmer she was getting more curious about why the system had chosen Bicorn. She had never even heard of a Bicorn before and assumed that Alicorn was the epitome of pony assertion.
“Hmm, System what other assentation were possible? What would their effects have been and what are the requirements for assertion? And why choose Bicorn?”
[Assentation route window open.]
[Alicorn- A perfect three-part mix of the standard three Base pony tribes. Typically have both a Horn and set of wings with a hearty constitution. Alicorns are often the leaders and diplomats among the pony communities. They are typically averse to violence and gain power when their subjects are content and happy. Abilities include- harmonic resonance, Flight, increased magical reserves, increased strength, and Dexterity. Nature Domain resonance.]
[Bicorn- A mixture of unicorn and Earth pony. Grows a second horn and additional muscle mass. Bicorns are typically depicted as the darker creatures due to their aversion to virgins. Massively increased strength, vitality, and magical reserves. Natural internal resonance, magical sense, Increased magical potential.]
[Souring Wing – A mixture of a unicorn and Pegasus. Increase in strength and dexterity. Loss of horn in exchange for magically charged wings. Access to speed force, Weather manipulation on a global scale, and increased durability.]
[Metal Wing – a mixture of Pegasus and Earth pony. Grows a pair of Light Metal wings with full flight capability. Built for long distances and endurance. Massive increase in Strength and Dexterity but Low magical potential. Abilities include Lightning affinity and Slipstream. Access to the Speed force and punch dimension.]
[System did not choose a route for the player. The input was required to follow the route. While Player Moon Dancer was under the statute effect Deleiour Player moon Dancer chose Bicorn.]
Moon Dancer didn’t know how to feel about that yet. She was thankful she wasn’t an alicorn because the attention and problems That kind of transformation could cause would send her right back to being an anti-social hermit.
Tho a small part of her was a bit resentful. All little fillies at some point in their lives want to be a princess. And she was no exception. To have come so close yet be so far was a little disappointing. Thankfully she felt that it was only a small part of her that was feeling this.
Moon dancer did not want to have to go through growing a pair of wings. Hiding an extra horn was hard but doable. Spontaneously becoming a Pegasus. Nope. That was not going to fly. And the loss of her horn would have been devastating to her. It would have been akin to losing a hand to grow an extra set of feet.
In a way, she was thankful that the system had turned it into a skill rather than proceed with the changes. She certainly wasn’t powerful. But now she could earn that power herself.
Moon Dancer closed the system and went about the laborious process of gathering all the materials she would need to get over the chasm of the castle and back out into the wild.
[Due to strenuous activity STR and DEX has risen by 1]
As Moondancer acknowledged the notification she was relieved when the burden on her shoulders became a lot easier to manage. She supposed that her status was just so low now that even this small bit of work would level her up. Tho it was embarrassing that she was only able to lift a few small pounds now.
She could just imagine what the girls would say when they saw her in this state.
Oh the girls, I can’t believe I almost got myself killed just as we were starting to become friends. Well, me being a better friend at least. When I get back I’m spending more time with them! I can’t just keep lowing them off. Or I’ll lose them.
[New Quest – During the night the rope bridge connecting the castle to the forest broke. Find a way to fix it and get across.]
[Reward- all states increase by 1]
Moon Dancer accepted the quest. Wondering for a moment if this was a pity quest since she got re-set. Then figuring it didn’t’ matter and she would take the pitty anyway.
Moony walked out of the castle and came across the rope bridge again. There was just one slight problem. While the Teleport skill was still there it was back to level one with all her other skills and levels. This could pose a serious problem if she accidentally teleported over the canyon instead of the other side to safe earth. If the spell even fired at all.
Taking a quick look over her spell she grits her teeth in annoyance that she didn’t even have enough mana to cast the spell at all. Making that option null and void until she leveled up a few times.
Gritting her new teeth Moon dancer Dropped the few things she had brought with her from inside the castle. Figuring it was better safe than sorry.
Before starting she plopped herself down in exhaustion for a moment. Taking a moment to steady her panting breath and racing heart.
If only she had a way to move all this easily.
Moon dancers ears twitched back as her hoof met her face in a hard face palm.
[Due to continuous strenuous activity Physical resistance has gone up by 1 %]
Ignoring the prompt Moon dancer’s other hoof met her face as she realized that she had an inventory that could have held all this stuff for her.
“Oh NO! My Inventory, The BOOKS! No, No, No, No.” Moon Dancer yelled as she quickly tried to pull up the inventory.
If her negligence and carelessness resulted in her destroying all those old precious tomes she might as well hand back her nerd card and throw herself off the canyon cliff side.
The inventory screen popped up and Moon Dancer quickly fumbled through it. Scrolling through all the items and then sighing in Relife as she spotted all the tomes and scrolls still in her inventory.
Those were old and valuable tomes that deserved to be in a museum archive. After she perused them first, for the authenticity of course.
Satisfied with her find Moon dancer went back to trying to fix the bridge.
Taking a beep breath she cast levitation, Struggling to pick up the first bord and rope. Even as she continued to make her makeshift rope bridge Moon dancer suppressed a blush of embarrassment. A foal should have been able to do this with less effort than what she was exerting now. Her pride as a Unicorn was now damaged.
But she made it past the canyon at least with some old-fashioned hard work.
She let out a sigh of relief that it had worked…. Somewhat. It wasn’t the best-looking bridge in the world but it should hold… at least for a day. Leaving her with a small sense of accomplishment. She could feel her control improving as she worked to assemble the little bridge.
Taking her first tentative step forward she placed her hoof on the first board and began to slowly began to move forward. Inch by inch she dragged herself over the tightrope thin bridge.
Just as she managed to get to the halfway point her worst fears came to life as a fast gust of wind raced through from the canyon below, shaking and rolling the bridge as she clung for dear life. Once it subsided and the bridge stopped shaking Moony sprinted across the bridge. The force from her stomps reached the bridge as she passed. The bridge quivered and fell just as she leaped over the last foot to safety.
Moon Dancer sprawled out onto the grass, tumbling her way away from the canyon.
[Quest Complete -Make it Across the Canyon]
[All stats increase by 1]
[Level up]
Moon dancer didn’t want to stick around any longer than she needed to. Picking herself up she shook herself of the dust caused by the landing. Then sneezed loudly as the dust ticketed her nose.
Hoping that nothing heard that she turned around then promptly froze.
“Oh yeah, The Ever Free forest. The forest full of dangerous poisonous plants, pony-eating animals, and random Magical phenomenon. And I’m back at level 1. Well, 2 now, Not that it makes that big a difference. Stealth skill, here I come.
For the next hour Moon Dancer stalker her way through the Everfree forest. Her heart hammering in her chest at every small sound she heard in the forest. Every snapped twig, flutter of wings, and aren’t groan nearly sent her into a panic that would have alerted everything to her whereabouts.
Numerous times she hid behind a tree of bush as the sound of something grumbling past her.
The fact her new stealth skill was leveling faster than ever was not reassuring.
As she was hiding Moondancer discovered a new and helpful skill that her assertion granted her. If she wasn’t surrounded by bloodthirsty monsters she would be drooling at the academic applications of this skill.
[Magic Sense] was beyond helpful. There were any number of magical plants, herbs,, and even gems that she would have stepped on or fallen into if She hadn’t felt the magic in them. Moon dancer was sure that there was no harm in most of the plants. She recognized at least three magical herbs that she picked up that were great for enchanting or balms. But there were a few that she didn’t know about and didn’t want to take the chance. A Grove of bright blue flowers was making her nervous enough to backtrack since the feeling of laughter kept coming off them.
It was while she was musing about creative ways to test her powers that Moon dancer stumbled across a wooden cottage out in the middle of the forest. It was blending in so well with the surrounding foliage that she had nearly walked past it before realizing that it was there. She could smell that something inside was cooking.
Her nose twitched as a hearty spicy smell filled the air.
“Hmm, if memory serves me right then this is supposed to be the home of Zecora the zebra.” Unlike the denizens of Ponyville Moon dancer had seen and met with multiple zebras in her time as a doc assistant at the Canterlot ports. So she was used to some of their peculiarities.
Moon Dancer was going to leave and let the zebra be but before she could the window of the building opened, and a soft voice wafted out from inside.
“OH, A guest. I apologize for the start, I was not expecting a guest. Please come inside and rest.”
Moon dancer only got a glimpse of black and white hair before Zecora turned back into the house.
She stared at the door for a minute, contemplating if she wanted to get involved with the Zebra. But her hooves were aching from the long trek through the forest and her belly was rumbling at the smell of the Soup.
Her hooves moved at their own volition as she walked into the house.
It’s a surprisingly nice house for it being in the middle of the woods. Everything from the bed, tables, and sofa looked like it was homemade with an ax and chisel. The rugs looked like some of the wilder and more aggressive creatures in the area. And all around them, there were dozens of plants growing in pots with vielles of liquids scattered all around the room.
In the next room was the classic big cauldron with a bubbling mixture surrounded by a fireplace. It seemed like the fire was contained by a stone bowl to keep it away from the rest of the tree.
All of this Moon dancer noticed paraphyly as she watched the Striped mare walk around her hut gathering bowls and utensils.
[ LVL 45 Zecora]
[The Exiled Shamen]
Her fur was the traditional black and white of her tribe, a few golden rings on her figure accentuated her hourglass curves. Her mane was styled into a sweeping mohawk that covered half of her head stylishly. Add her wonderfully full brests were only being contained by the leather brasier. And with her turned around she could clearly see the round and bouncy ass on the mare.
Moon Dancer blushed as her heartbeat like a drum in her chest. She struggled to understand what had overcome her. She hadn’t ever felt like this before. At least not this strongly.
With her zebra to Pony filter, she got from many years at the dock’s she was able to understand Zecor as she spoke.
“Greetings traveler. I am Zecora. It is not often I see another pony in the Everfree. Even less in such a troubled state.” She handed Moon dancer a bowl of green spicy-smelling soup and a spoon. Both looked hand-carved and well worn. Moon dancer had a flash of insight when she realized that the Zebra could not have bought anything in his house when every pony in Ponyville was so scared of her.
“Thank you Zecora. I appreciate the soup. But I must ask, how did you know I was out there? I was trying to be stealthy. I sipped at the soup and smiled at the warming feeling as it filled my belly.
Zecora pulled a glowing blue flask from between her breast and shook it. “Is that Ground indigo? Its magical absorption properties would make It a decent early warning system. Smart.”
Zecora nodded and sat next to Moony as she fished out her own food implements. From what she could tell Zecora seemed just a touch nervous at having a guest. She was still sensual but just a touch more energetic than she suspected the Zebra normally would be. But then again she might not have had a guest in years. Of course, she was going to want to make a good impression.
“Indigo Powder works for my purposes. I don’t get many visitors around here, being in the middle of the forest. Most of them hide when they see my striped Coat. But you seem unafraid.” Moon Dancer nodded in sympathy “I live in Canterlot and for the last few years, before I got my small enchanting business off the ground, I worked at the docs to pay my way through school. The orphan stipend is nice but I never liked being dependent on the state. I’d usually get sent to work on the Zafrica Shipments.”I took another delighted sip and began to explain my last job with Zecora listening intently. Her posture relaxing after a while.
“There are three to four Zabrican Merchant ships that land at port every three months or so. I oversaw inventory since I was small and smart. So I got to talk with a lot of different ponies. None of them could stay for long but the chance to learn about other cultures was too good to pass up.”
We began to talk about her homeland and how things differed from Equestria. While Zebraic was a dangerous place full of dangerous beasts that would give any Everfree critter a run for their money it was still a beautiful place. The number of Zabrican warriors over the years has instilled a sense of respect into all the beasts so that most of them won't attack ponies on site.
Zecora told tales of her time as a foul in the grasslands of Zabrica in the Spring Hoof tribe. A very funny story revolving around how she was very proud of her black and white coat but then getting dosed with poison joke. It had Moon dancer laughing into stitches.
Honestly, Moon dancer could not even begin to wonder why Ponyville would at all be scared of this woman. She was kind, strong, and funny. She may dress strangely but that was no excuse. At least a couple stallions should have approached her at some point. If only because hormones usually overpowered survival instinct.
Zecora bit her lip before asking with some hesitation. “I mean no offense but what is a young mare like yourself doing out here in the middle of the woods in the middle of the night?”
Moon dancer smiled and waved her hand to indicate no offense was taken. She figured it would come up since walking around in the forest was strange by any metric. It didn’t help that she must look like something the cat dragged in then ate before hairballing out.
“Geeze I must look like a mess, And the answer to that is, complicated,” Moony said as she downed the last of her soup. It had been a very nice soup derived from the magical plants. The magic in them feeding her own depleted reserves.
[+5 Magic Regen for 1 hr]
Zecora nodded in understanding as she said, “As are most things worth knowing.”
“Heh, alright I guess It’s only polite. I think. I never paid that much attention to etiquette class.”
This got a small chuckle from the mare as they moved their discussion to Zecoras Couch. Zecora moved over a small simmering pot of tea, pouring each of them a small cup of soothing tea.
“I’ll tell you what I can, but um, please don’t ask for too many details. Some things are rather… private.”
Zecora smiled in an understanding before motioning her to continue.
“I guess it all started when I had a certain revelation. A Moment in my life when I was slapped in the muzzle with my inadequacies. I found out that I was…average. Or at least heading to mediocrity. And that point was driven home when I found out that an old…fre… acquaintance of mine from school was certainly above average. So far above average, she breaks the scale. Compared to her I’m nothing. Done nothing.” Stalin for a moment moon dancer took a shaky sip of her tea. Taking a few moments to calm down and not let her emotions get the best of her again.
Zecora seemed happy enough to let her new friend take all the time she needed.
“Anyway, I got frustrated. Frustrated at my own abilities. So I sought power. And knowledge. Ok, maybe the knowledge a bit more than the power but there was defiantly a lust for both. So I journeyed into the Ever free forest looking for power inside the castle of the two sisters. Well, I found power all right. At a cost.”
“Power often does come with a price. I hope the power you sought was not more you can pay.”
She shook her head in the negative. “No, nothing like that. I have gained power, just in a different way. I guess the best way to explain it is that I've been reset. My whole body and mind are as week and fragile as that of a foal. In exchange, my growth rate is far faster. So if I work hard I can surpass anyone. Tho I didn’t expect I would have to go back through the forest like this.”
“In retrospect, I was being stupid.”
Zecora shook her head and laid down her empty cup of tea. “No Moon, you were acting with your heart. And in my book that is never a bad thing. Even this new power of yours’s, if it does as you say, if it does as you say, sounds like an honest power. For nothing in this world is truly free.”
The pony and zebra soon devolved into less important topics both seeking to learn a bit more about the other.
A double yawn from both pony and zebra made them pause and notice the time. Zecora peered out into the night and noticed just how long they had spent talking.
“It is late. Would you prefer to stay over the night? The forest is treacherous at this time of night and you seem like you could use a good night's sleep.”
Moon Dancer didn’t have the strength to disagree as she laid out on the couch with a blanket to keep her warm.
{Mature section of this story has been cut and will be placed in a separate story folder.}
The next morning Moon Dancer walked out of Zecoras house feeling a lot better after a few hours of sleep and rest. Thankfully Gamer's body seemed to negate Lactic acid buildup and muscle inflammation. She had expected to feel horrible the next day after her ordeal.
Everything just seemed so much better and she could appreciate the little things. The wind in her hair, the sun on her face, and warmth on her skin. And the weightless feeling in her shoulders.
Moon Dancer bit farewell to Zecora. Thanking her profusely for taking her in last night.
She promised that she would come to visit the mare when she could.
Tho it was a little hard to look the zebra in the eye after the steamy dreams she had last night. Her WIS stat gained one point just from the sheer willpower needed to not stare at Zecoras behind when she was bending over.
Yes. The world now looked so much brighter and new.
Or that could have been the fact she no longer needed her glasses. It had taken her a hot minute to notice that she wasn’t wearing them anymore. They had either been lost in the castle or destroyed during her transformation.
The world used to look like a murky and watery mess most days. Only her bifocals gave her a chance at reading, but it had always been irritating to look farther than a few yards out.
Now the world was in a picture-perfect clarity. Clearer than she had ever seen before.
A part of her would miss her glasses. They had been a part of her for so long that not seeing their dull rim around her eyes was a bit jarring. But still a pleasant change. Just think of the research applications available to her now that her body could regenerate itself!
“I better get back to Canterlot soon.” She said as she cantered down the small winding path that leads from Zeoras home to the edge of town.
Zecora had confided in her that she often walked into town to buy whatever amenities she needed and could not procure from the forest. Nature was wonderful but she was only one mare and it was hard for one mare to make everything.
At first, a few of the shopkeepers had hesitatingly sold her some necessities. Much to Moonie's surprise. The bed and couch she had assumed were hand-made by her were actually bought from a skilled crafter in Ponyville.
Then all of a sudden ponies stopped speaking to her, most running into their homes and hiding from her. It had been so sudden and jarring to just suddenly get the cold shoulder like that. She kept going into town, hoping that one day the ponies would get used to her.
Despite only being friends for a day Moon Dancer felt irked for her friend. It wasn’t right. She suspected that a certain pink Party pony had something to do with her sudden status of Pariah.
As much as she would like to march right into town and yell at the ponies for ignoring such a kind mare, there were way too many cons to doing so. First of witch is that the situation would resolve itself in a week or two tops if this universe was anything like the original timeline.
Relling on time lines to stay the same would be utterly foolish on her part but this part of the timeline still seemed likely to happen.
Plus it would be her word against the pink ones and she didn’t have nearly the clout needed to challenge an element of harmony in her home turf.
“If things don’t improve in a month ill do something about it. I’m way too week right now to worry about this.” She mumbled to herself as she walked through the forest. Taking heed of Zecoras warning about the various dangers along the way she was able to bypass the field of poison joke.
However, her inner researcher reared its head, not allowing her to leave such a crazy and fascinating specimen behind.
Not wanting to get pranked by a flower Moon dancer settled for picking up a pair of sticks and used them as a pair of Giant chop sticks to throw a few samples of poison joke into her inventory. The stones turning into limp hoses the moment she let go of them.
The rest of the way to town wasn’t any more interesting, but just in case she had her stealth skill active. In the lookout for any other monsters or Traps, her game’s system might decide to throw at her.
Thankfully nothing major popped out at her and she was able to get to the edge of the Everfree and into town just fine.
It seems that Her system could partially read her mind as well because it gave her a quest.
[A Wallflower.]
[Getting tangled up with one of Ponyville's adventures can be such a bother. Get to Canterolot without being spotted by any of the Main 6.]
Bonus Objective ???
Bonus Objective ???
[Reward ???]
Y/N
Accepting the quest Moon Dancer ducked back down around the trees. Mulling over how to get to the other side of town where she could just barely see the train tracks.
There were a lot of ponies walking around the town. Most of them seemingly ordinary. Tho there were a few whose level was especially high. One mare by the name of sweety drops had a level of 50. But none of them were really looking for her. So she could slip by.
Deciding that it was too risky to just walk into town moon dancer walked along the edge of the forest. Looking all the world just like any other hiker wandering about the woods. At the edge of the forest closest to the far end of the town, Moon dancer walked out and skirted the edges of the town proper.
[Acting – LVL 2]
When she had no choice any more Moon Dancer walked out of the forest and into the edge of town. A few ponies giving her a double-take when they realized she had walked out of the Everfree forest. But non approached her. Possibly due to her unkempt appearance.
Passing through town She noted that this place didn’t look bad at all. It was certainly a lot less developed than a proper city but there was a certain charm to the place. Tranquil and friendly energy just made you want to relax.
She almost didn’t notice when she arrived at the train station till her snout slammed headfirst into the signpost.
It didn’t hurt but her face did heat up in embarrassment as other ponies around her stared. They were all staring in concern but she still felt embarrassed she had done that.
Getting back up onto her hooved she walked into the train station and handed the ticket officer a bit for a ticket and another bit for a newspaper.
She could not believe she had just done that and nearly ruined her cover like that. Hopefully looking through the newspaper would distract her from her own mortification. She opened the newspaper and looked through it for any interesting articles.
“Mane care? Not that interested yet. Hoofball scores? Nope. A story on Baltimore’s fish disappearing? Potentially interesting? Phillidelphias new art exhibit? Nope. Hmm, Maritime spells for the sea worth? Ok, that’s interesting.” She said as she began to flip through the newspaper as she waited for her train. Absorbing herself in the reading.
“Please darling, You simply must hurry back as soon as you can. Your outfit is only half-finished and you know how hard it is to get those last final touches if the pony in question isn’t there to try the outfit on first.”
“I did not know that. But I’ll be sure to hurry back as soon as I can. Thiers still some stuff I need to get from Canterlot before I can officially move in.”
“But darling, Didn’t the princess herself say she would have your bags packed for you and ship everything here?”
“Um, yes. But I need to be there to umm… Make sure they get everything. YAH. That’s it. Just need to get some of my more…Private books.”
“Ahh, Say no more darling. A lady never tells. Oh, I must sound so inconsiderate. Of course, you would want to make sure Everything is packed properly. Now hurry along dear the train is arriving.”
“Thanks for understating Rarity, and I hope Spike won't be too much trouble, He really wanted to spend time….”
As the train’s whistle blew it startled Moon Dancer out of her reading. She quickly got into the first compartment available and sat down quickly to read the rest of the article. It was a fascinating read on maritime spells and how certain spells only worked properly when in or around the sea.
It was a few minutes later a voice disturbed her asking “Scuse me, are you done with that paper? It has some interesting articles I’d like to take a look at.”
Still engrossed in her reading Moondancer mumbled out “One sec, just finishing.”
A minute later she was done with her article, content with the knowledge but also a little disappointed. The Article was well written but had a few magical theory mistakes that undermined the whole point of the article.
Moon Dancer quickly handed the paper over to the mare asking for it and then promptly froze in place as she took the newspaper and left to read it.
Twilight Sparkle – LVL 95
Title - Element of Magic
Moon Dancer was so shocked at seeing Twilight that she was unable to do anything but stare at the mare as she sat back down to read the newspaper. Completely ignorant of the mare now staring holes into the back of her head.
Moon Dancer robotically moved her head away from the violate mare and stared out the train window for the remainder of the trip. Taking in deep breaths and letting them out to try and parse through all the confusing feelings she was getting right now.
Ultimately she failed. Her emotions were such a jumble right now that she didn’t know what to feel.
[Gamers Mind Activated.]
Instantly Moon dancer felt better as the flurry of emotions subsided into something a lot more manageable if no less confusing.
“WEEEEE, Canerlot Stop, All disembarking disembark, all Embarking, All aboard.”
The voice of the conductor snapped her out of her shock as she spotted Canterlot Station outside the window.
Holly Shit. Where already here?
It had felt lime meer moments had passed and yet she was already home.
[Quest complete]
[You have managed to get back to Canterlot.
Bonus objective – Don’t be seen by anypony – Failed
Bonus Objective – Don’t get recognized by twilight. – Succeeded.
{Reward: 10 bits, + 5 levels to sneek}
Bonus reward + 5 levels to acting. ]
She didn’t recognize me. She didn’t seem to even know who I was. Ten years. Ten years of working together on projects, going to school together, and competing academically and she didn’t even spare a second glance. Well to Tartarus with you too.
Her mood soured Moon Dancer walked out of the train and turned to take the long path back home.
##
After a log day and night, Moon Dancer was just done. Completely spent, both physically, mentally, and emotionally.
She clumsily opened her front gate and just barely managed to get it closed again before getting to her door and heavily leaning on it. Not wanting to move from that spot.
Resting at Zecoras had been a good idea but it had only been a few hours before she had to move again. The walk from Zecoras to her house was still a considerable distance even with the train. Her weeker body protesting was sore and still tired. A bone-deep weariness had settled in as she had rested in the train.
Counter-intuitively staying still had made her even more tired. Moon dancer not having enough fitness knowledge to understand that she needed to keep her body moving if she wasn’t ready for rest.
Add in the sheer mental fatigue from constant shocks coming in one after another and she was ready to sleep for a week.
If only she could just get her door open!
Slam, Slam, Bang, Klank
Moon dancer's vision was starting to blur as she fought to keep her eyelids open. The sweet tempting voice of sleep whispering in her ears to just let go and fall asleep.
She only retained enough sense to know she should sleep inside instead of outside. She didn’t want to cause a panic with any concerned citizens.
Then the door opened on its own and Moon dancer stumbled in lethargically.
“Wow, Moony what the Tortures happened to you. You look like you've been through boot camp. Girls help me with her.” Minuet said as she caught a falling Moon Dancer. Dragging the half-asleep mare threw her door and into her living room.
Lemon drops and Twinkle Shin both ran out of the kitchen and helped Minuet with Moon Dancer.
All of them were shocked and worried at seeing their friend so out of it.
The three of them had only been at Moon Dancers' house to invite her to hang out. Inviting themselves in since they knew Moon Dancer could get lost in her own little world if none of them broke her out of it.
They didn’t expect that their little shut-in would actually be out.
With Moon dancer placed on her couch, Twinkle shine had the idea to find her a blanket while Lemon drop went back into the kitchen to get a pitcher of water.
When they returned it was to see Minuet with glowing hands and horn running her hands over Moon Dancer, now fast asleep. The low thrum of magic reverberating in the air as Minuet cast a diagnostic spell to see what was wrong with their friend.
After a few minutes of studying the results, Twinkleshine got impatient “So what's wrong with her?”
Minuet hummed as she cut off the spell and scrunched up her face in confusion. “ I have no bucking idea. She’s exhausted, Dyhidrated and very week. Her Mana pool is a fraction of the size it should be with bruises and sores all over her body. I…Have no idea what could have caused that. But I do know she needs fluids, now as well as like a week or two of sleep.”
Lemon Heard noded and placed the cup of water she held in her grasp up to moon dancers lips. Even unconscious the Book worm still gulped down the water like a penguin in the desert.
Twinkle shine threw a blanket over the exhausted Unicorn and did her best to make her comfortable. She fidgeted in place, wondering if there was anything more she should do.
Lemon's heart sighed as she worried about her friend. “Clearly we can’t just leave her like this She’s far too week and exhausted. Should we stay over until she wakes up?”
Minute bit her lip as she mulled over the idea. Thinking of all the reasons that would be a bad idea. But ultimately she wasn’t going to leave Moon Dancer alone. Especially after she had saved their bacon at the party. “Yes. One of us should stay here with her just to make sure she doesn’t get any worse. Lemon you have work soon so you should head off to that. I’ll take the first shift and twinkle shine. You head home and sleep. Come here after our shift at work tomorrow and take over for Leamon. Sound good?”
Twikleshine and lemon heat both noded. Thankful that their heard leader was in fact a good leader. She had managed to finagle them out of worse situations before. So if she said they only needed to look after Moon dancer for a few days. They would.
2 days later.
[For resting in your bed all status ailments, hp and mp recovered.]
Blinking her eyes open moon dancer promptly closed them again when the light from the nearest window fell right into her face. Annoyed she buried herself further into her blankets.
She knew that she should probably get up and start her day or evening. But all she wanted to do was tuck back into bed for a few more hours. Letting her brain stay numbs just that bit longer as she rested. All this excitement of Dark castles, ancient powers, Bicons, alicorns, and resets could just shove off till she was good and ready.
She enjoyed just staying there for a while but eventually her body deciding that it had enough rest and she agreed.
Yawning as she got out of bed…er, couch, She arched her back and felt several satisfying pops as her backbones cracked.
She was deliberating if she should take a shower when she heard a gasp from her side and a solid squishy mass launch into her. Nocking her back into the couch.
“OH MY Gosh. You're ok. You're ok. You're ok.” Twinkle shine said as she hugged Moon Dancer into the couch. Her body pressing hard enough into her that it was getting a little hard to breathe. Thankfully she let go soon after and Moon dancer was able to ask.
“What happened? Why are you in my house and why am I on my couch rather than my bed?”
Moon Dancer wanted answers but it didn’t look like she was going to get them soon since Twinkleshine was still hugging her. From the way her back was shaking moon dancer could only assume she was crying.
Oh god, she is Crying! What did she do? Why is she crying? Should she call for help? Try to comfort her? What do I do?
Moon Dancer was thankfully saved when her front door opened and a worried Minuette walked in with a shopping back in hand. Shen walked all the way over to the kitchen and placed down the bag before she realized something was wrong and turned around.
“Sweet Celestia, You're awake? How? That sort of exhaustion should have had you on your ass for days.” MInuette said in disbelief.
“Hmm, Heavy.” Moony stammered out. Minette noticed her predicament and quickly pulling Twinkle's shine off her before she started to suffocate.
Moony gasped of air as the pressure around her middle was released.
Twinkleshine might be on the short side of being a unicorn mare but that girl had a Grip. Thankfully she was usually just so sweet that no one ever minded if her hugs had some extra umf.
I have really got to do some mild training and get some of my stats up to par again. Being as weak as a little filly again is going to get old fast if even the slightest breeze tosses me around.
Minette sat down on the side of the couch and handed Moon dancer a bottle of water. Making a few last-minute checks with her magic. Moony chugged down the whole bottle in moments, not realizing just how thirsty she was. Her mouth still felt like cotton but it was a lot better now.
In her face, Minuette asks. “OK Moony, Spill. You're gone for a whole day on some mysterious trip. You come back super late the day after Dehydrated, exhausted, and bruised. Your body is super weak and all my scans show that your Magic is super low and isn’t coming back as it should. And yet I can’t find any discernable reason why.”
Moony recalled vaguely that Minuette was studying to be a surgeon and would probably know better than anyone something was wrong with her. So even if she felt like lying to her, which she did not, It wouldn’t make much of a difference.
“Hmm, Sorry girls. It’s been a long few hours. I’m still sorting things out in my head. All this shouldn’t last too long. I’ll be back to normal in a week or two.”
“I’ll be the judge of that Moony, You're not getting out of that bed till I’m 100 % sure your ok or I’ll strap you down myself.”
“Um. Gosh um, Minuette? Wouldn’t it be super uncomfortable to sleep on the couch all that time? Shouldn’t we get her to bed?”
Minuette blushed but held her proud pose. “Fine but straight to bed. And don’t think I haven't noticed you dodge the question.”
The two of them were going to help Moon dancer get off the couch and into bed but moon dancer felt bad enough she had to have her friends look after her at all. What little pride she had wasn’t going to allow her to accept help up the stairs.
Twinkle and Minuette protested this but eventually let her do it herself. Even if they hovered around her in case she collapsed again.
Moony sat down on her bed, not feeling nearly as bad as she expected to. The gamer's body did good work on her.
“Ok, so spill, What happened. Did you get mugged? Magical accident? Baleful teleport? Archana mishap? Did you accidentally lose another book and look all over the city for it?” Minuette prodded determined to get some sort of answer.
Moon Dancer mulled over how much she wanted to tell her friends. On one hand, they were her friends so keeping thins from was going to be hard. It wasn’t like they really needed or deserved answers. But on the other hand, they did help her when she was at her weakest and she didn’t want to alienate them again.
“I was doing some Private research into a Personal matter in the Everfree forest. I was hoping to do some research on an ancient castle there.”
“Everfree, Everfree, Everfree? Isn’t that the giant wild and chaotic forest due south? The one with Hydra’s sleeping dragons and all manner of strange and bizarre things?” Twinkleshine asked.
Minuette’s face darkened as she heard this “You went out into the wilderness. On your own? That was incredibly reckless. No wonder you looked dead on your feet when you got back.”
“Oh, no the forest part was easy. I got through that with minimal difficulty. (if you call a couple timberwolf attacks and giant ents easy). This is the result of interacting with a magical anomaly inside the castle. I…um… miscalculated. It was supposed to make me stronger and more powerful but um… It failed. Kind of.”
A smack to the back of her head jolted her forward, looking back a bit in surprise that Twinkleshine of all ponies had given her a head slap. “Moony, that was incredibly irresponsible of you. You could have been seriously hurt. You were seriously hurt. Do we have to have another Intervention on mad science and evil wizardry?”
Moon Dancer paled at the memory. So many hours of safety lectures. A shudder rand threw her as she vehemently denied it. “NO, no. No need for that. I just got a little emotional and excited is all and things kind of spiraled out of control for a bit. And everything worked out in the end.”
“Yeah, and now your whole magic system is wack, and you as weak as a little filly. Exactly how is any of that end well?” Minuette asked in exasperation. Wondering if she was doing the right thing by holding her at home instead of rushing her to the hospital. Or at least a shrink.
Moon dancer winced at the sharp tone. “Fiar. It looks bad. But in exchange, I have a growth multiplier to an of my skills.”
Twinkle and Minuette both tilted their heads at the same time before motioning for her to explain.
“Basically I can grow faster at whatever I train in now.” She explained.
“What?” Minuette asked with a concerned face again. “Did you hit your head too? Moony everyone grows from training that’s kind of just how life works.”
“Well, I guess. But now I can train the proficiency of my skills far faster than I normally would. Just imagine all the new experiments I could do when my mana pools get even bitter?” Moon dancer got afar off look in her eyes as she imagined all the new experiments and spells she could do now that she had enough power. Or would have anyway.
MInuette seeing the long-suffering look that had caused Moon dancer to be so isolated snapped her fingers in front of her face. Snapping her out of her thought.
Feeling a bit miffed at Moon dancer Minuette came up with a dastardly plot that would both help her grow up a bit as well as teach her a lesson. “Alright if you’re so sure then you won't mind going to the gym with me and the girls from now on?”
“Um, The gym? I well… Isn’t that a little…Um” Moon dancer did not like going to the gym. So many ponies walking around. So many machines she had no idea how to use.
“Yup. It’ll be good for you and if your spell or whatever does what you say it does then weight training will only help you.” Rollin her eyes Moon dancer agrees. Minuette and Twinkleshine both soon leave. Extracting a promise from her telling her that if anything else happened she needed to call them straight away.
After the two of them left moon dance was filled with a sense of relief and calm. Soon shattered by the grumble and rolling rumble of her belly telling her that she was starving. The bits of water and tea that she had drunk doing nothing to calm her hunger.
He held her stomach in pain as the wave of hunger subsided. Only to discover that she was absolutely filthy.
She wasn’t a clean freak or anything but the day's worth of dust and sweat on her body was starting to feel very uncomfortable.
She stumbled into her bathroom and quickly set about preparing a shower. Brushing her teeth while she was at it.
It was while she was going through her ablutions that she noticed several subtle changes to her body. Her first observation was that her teeth were different from her normal ones. They used to be smooth flat chompers like most ponies. But now she had a few teeth that were rouned out to sharp edges, they were not too noticeable if you weren’t looking for them but her toothbrush noticed when she bit right threw it.
She should have been more freaked out, but after the last day, she was just done with life and just rolled with it.
In the shower, she notices that a lot of her muscles were different as well. At least what few muscles a skinny nerd like her would normally have. They were certainly smaller, do to her weak state, but after running a hand over them she could tell the muscles were a lot harder. Some even moving a little differently than expected. She didn’t have a clue what any of that meant so she shelved those thoughts as she enjoyed the spray of hot water washing away the grime of the day.
Soon the growling rumble of her belly cut the shower short. Throwing on a pair of shorts and a large shirt she liked to laze around in Moon made her way down to her kitchen.
She knew Minuette would have a fit that she was out of bed but she was hungry dame it. Her belly demanded food!
Opening her fridge she skimmed it quickly before grabbing some flour, a couple of eggs, some hay bacon, some sugar, and milk.
Tossing everything but the bacon into a bowl and stirring till it became runny Moony set the fire for the stove. Grabbing some apples from her countertop to snack on till she made breakfast. She was planning to make some pancakes with a side of bacon. And possibly some jam glazes if she still had some.
It was sacrilege to her friends but Moon dancer preferred a gooey and flat pancake over the fluffy others enjoyed. She supposed that didn’t make them proper pancakes but she didn’t care much.
It seems her system didn’t mind as well since it acknowledged the pancakes as a pancake variant. It even provided her with a plus 2 VIT for the next few hours. Something she was thankful for since it made her feel a lot less tired.
Before she knew it Moon Dancer had finished a whole stack of pancakes, several pieces of fruit, a baked sweet potato, two sandwiches, and a frozen pizza. It was only after devouring the last slice of pizza that she stopped feeling hurry.
“Strange, only the pancakes I made added a buff. Does this mean that to receive a proper buff I not only need to cook the food but make it from scratch? Or does it take into account the time It takes to cook? The amount of contact I have with the food? Or is it a complexity kind of thing?”
Curious Moon dancer went about her kitchen and made a new sandwich, this time taking more time and effort into making it and with a few more nutritionally packed ingredients.
[Hearty Egg Salad sandwich - +1 Vit]
Moon dancer raced over to her workstation and pulled out a notebook and proceeded to jot down all her hypotheses, tests, and observations. Noting how recreating the same sandwich again with less viable ingredients did not give a but and also didn’t give one has she rushed it and made it sloppily.
She continued to eat and test. Never quite getting to the point of being full. Even when her fridge stood empty.
“Hmm, perhaps there's a bit of magical transference occurring as I make the food. A magical spillover that only occurs if I take my time with making the food? No that doesn’t sound right. I took five minutes on the second sandwich and it didn’t buff. Perhaps the system also gages intent, time, and rarity of ingredients when it assigns a buff to a dish? And perhaps more importantly, what can I make with this skill?”
[Cooking skill -LVL 10]
Her cooking skill had certainly leveled up quickly. At the tenth level, she even got a new screen that depicted dishes she could try to make for specific buffs. She didn't have the ingredients for them but this new screen did spark a renewed interest in cooking.
She had never been all that great at it but if it gave her even more buffs then she was willing to do some work to improve her cooking skill.
After she was done with that Moon Dancer walked over to her study room. She decided she needed to work her INT score back up to snuff and she needed to get to work on her magic.
Looking for some of her old textbooks Moony tried to use Levitation to bring the book over to her. A deep yellow aura surrounded the book for a moment before the book dropped back down to the ground with a heavy thud.
Moony sighed as she realized just how much her magic had been set back and how much work she would need to put in to get back to just an acceptable level of magic. She wasn’t going to shy away from the work and nothing worth having come easy.
She sat herself down into her comfy chair and began to peruse her way through her Books. Taking head to try and levitate a small paperweight around her. Splitting her focus and hopefully leveling her stats and skills proficiently.
‘Nock, Nock.’ Moon Dancer put down her book with her telekinesis and walked over to answer whoever was knocking.
She had been training her magic since she woke up this morning and now she was able to pick up most lightweight objects. If her stats kept improving like this she could start levitating the couch while sitting on it soon.
She didn’t really need to but the idea of reading while being rocked by her couch was too appealing a goal not to strive for. Keep your flying carpets she’ll make do with a whole flying couch.
‘Nock, Nock, Nock’ The knocking became louder and more frantic as she opened the door to see a manic and frantic lemon heart pounding on her door. Minuette and Twinkle shine were behind her and both looked rather nervous.
“Moony! You’ve got to help me. I have to plan and execute the Nightmare Moons welcome Party by tonight! All the other party planers are gone. I can’t find anyone to help me and i….i wahh..” Lemon's heart fell into Moony arms starting to tear up as she began to break down from expectations.
Moony wrapped her arms around Lemon Heart and looked to the others for some help with what was going on. She was entirely confused about what was going on.
Minuette elaborated. “ Princess Celestia’s asked Lemon to plan a welcome back party for Princess Luna AKA Nightmare Moon.”
“Ok, but why Lemon? She’s good and all but there are supposed to be senior staff for that kind of thing.” I asked. It didn’t make sense that the princess would ask her specifically. She was good but still new to the party planning gig. It would make far more sense to just have the senior staff handle it.
“Because the others are traitors!” Lemon Grumbled under her sweater. Still crying fat frustrated tears.
Minuette Glared at Lemon before rolling her eyes and explaining further. “They went on vacation during the summer sun festival and none of them will be back for another few days. Especially now that they heard the party is for nightmare moon.” Minuette explained what she heard about around the castle while doing her maid duties.
Twinkle shine looked just as nervous as Lemon as she spoke. “And if the party doesn’t go off without a hitch then Lemon could be blamed for it, then she’ll get a reputation for making bad parties and never get hired again!” Twinkle had to have her mouth clamped by Minuette before she made Lemon Heart burst into tears again.
“None of that now. I’m sure if we all pool our strengths and work together we can make the best party in all of Equestria. Moony will you help us. I know you're still recovering but any help would be preferable right now. ” Minuette was the leader of the little group. She had looked over the problem and figured that they would need Moonies help in the party since she was so knowledgeable on the old times and an extra horn never hurt.
She really would have preferred to have just let her rest this one out but they were desperate.
“Ok, what do you need me to do?” Moony asked them as lemon Heart finally let go.
“We need help deciding on a party theme, getting the party supplies, and distributing the Party invites. Twinkle said she’d chip in the food with a little help from her company and Minuette said she can run over to get the supplies.” “What do you have in mind so far for a theme?” Moony asked. The idea of not helping never even crossed her mind.
Minuette said “Well I thought a night theme would be a no-brainer, but lemon shot it down. Twinkle thought a really old-time party would be best but Lemon said that might upset nightmare moon even more if people acted like they were from the old days and got it wrong. And a modern party would just confuse some pony that’s been trapped in the moon for years.”
Moony rolled the ideas over but she really was not a party planner. Some of the human's memories were helpful but human parties were a bit different compared to High-class parties. The human mainly preferred going to mosh pits and raves so his experience wasn’t useful here.
“Um, then why not compromise? Use darker themes for the princess and use some old styles with New games and refreshments. I’m not sure but Isn’t a gothic store by the castle that should have some dark oldy time things you could use?”
The Trio looked at Lemon heart who was now stuck in a ‘The thinker’ pose as the gears in her mind were running so fast that they were expecting steam soon. A small trail of smoke coming out of her ears as she contemplated color pallets and dining options.
She burst from her pose and grasped every pony in warm guys. “Thank you, girls. This means a lot to me. I know I was falling apart there for a moment. But I know that if we work together we can pull this off and not be sent to the moon if we fail.”
She looked so confident and strong at that moment that we didn’t have the heart to tell her that no pony just gets sent to the moon like that.
Quest!!!
[Fete of the year.]
[Your friend Lemon Heart is in desperate need of party supplies and a good baker. Gather all the items.
{0/10 Party supplies]
Reward – Increased reputation with Lemon, Twinkle, and Minuette. 20 Bits. Stat crystal.
Failure -Broken hearts. Massive Decreased reputation with Lemon, twinkle, and Minuette.
Bonus Objective- Sweet treats.
[Finish with enough time to make it back to the castle to help out with the baking.]
[Increased reputation with???]
[1 Gatcha token]
[Cake recipe]
While Moon Dancer wanted to stop for a moment to process the fact that she now had a reputation system and that her game was far more precognitive than before. She simply didn’t have the time.
By her calculations, she only just had enough time to get all the supplies she would need and make it back to the castle. If she ran that is.
Moon Dance hated running. Given the choice, she’d rather walk or take a cab to wherever she needed to go. She was selected lazy like that.
But all the cabs were busy this time of night and running was the only way to get to where she needed to go. She supposed that as a silver lining she could gain a stat point in VIT. At first, she had assumed that running would improve her dexterity. However, it seems that the constant pace she was running at was more of a vitality enhancer.
Moon Dancer nearly ran past the Shop she was heading for. She sheepishly turned around and entered the shop.
The Gothic Pony
Moon dancer wasn't proud of that phase of her life. Dying her hair purple and black, donning deep eye shadow, and wearing leather had done nothing more than giving her friends a laugh. It had been ridiculous in hindsight. Only wasting her time and money on acting out in such a bad way it could be called Cliché.
Still, she had been a metalhead for long enough to get to know some of the people that ran the Gothic Pony.
At the sound of the doorbell ringing, the bored receptionist at the front counter looked up. She was a gray pegasus with a black mane and even darker lipstick and eye shadow. All Dyed and coated like almost everypony else in the shop. She even had a few small strands of pink in her tail that she had not yet dyed yet.
“As I live and breath? Little Moony? Is that you?” The mare at the counter said as she excitedly hopped out of the counter and up to her.
“Hi, Cotton Jin. It’s been a while.”
“A while she says. Filly you up and disappeared one day. We’ve been really worried something had happened to you. Why Spirit Song’s done no less than ten divinations trying to check on you. So far my favorite prediction was the one where you were executed for smuggling away some of princess Celstias cake.”
Moon Dancer's apology stalled in her mouth as she burst into a fit of giggles.
“OK, OK. I’m really sorry I didn’t come around. I was….dealing with some stuff. Didn’t have a lot of time to come to the concerts or the shop. But I’m here now and I need your help.” Moon dancer pleased.
Cotton raised a brow in surprise but quickly hopped back behind the counter of the shop. “Alright Moony, what do you need?”
“I need a wagon load of party supplies. One of my friends is hosting a party for a…. well, I can’t really say who it is just that they're really old and really into the whole night thing. So I had the idea that I could use some of the gothic decore you have around here for decorations.”
“Hmm, not a bad idea Kido. Let me get you our typical party supplies and maybe I’ll throw in the latest album by the Barbed Horn if you're still interesteeeddd.” Cotton said with a smirk, knowing that the band had been one of Moonie's favorite when she used to come around the shop. The sweet draw of melodic metal a tempting offer.
Biting her lit Moon dancer sheepishly nodded her head as they walked around the shop and picked out the various things they would need for the party. She bought deep violet table sheets, Crystal Cups, Lights that glowed with a dim but far-reaching light, Torches, flanges, and anything else that caught her eye.
She wasn’t exactly sure what Princess Luna would like a party so she mostly stuck to Cotton’s suggestions as the gray-ish pony filled her cart full of things to spice up the party.
[9/10 Party supplies]
Glancing around the show with a detailed eye moon dancer tried to come up with anything else that might make the princess feel just a little more welcome.
Out of the corner of her eye, Moon dancer spotted an old tapestry filled with depictions of a village under the night sky. Vague shadowy pony-shaped wisps flew around the dimply lit village that was illuminated by the moon.
[Tapestry of Dim Shade – This tapestry depicts the village of Dim Shade as it was a millennium ago. A populated Thestral village whose main staple was mushrooms and hunney.]
I was perfect. Moony was sure that either Lemon or Minuette would know the perfect place to hand this.
Moon dancer and Cotton loaded everything up onto her cart. Struggling a little as there were too many items bulging out. But they managed to try them all down with some work.
Cotton rang up Moonies bill and moony had to stop herself from flinching at the 800-bit price tag. That was a lot of money. Especially for her misery sensibilities. But she unhitched her pouch anyway to pay for it all.
As moony realized that she didn’t’ have many bits her mind flashed to her inventory screen where she realized that she still had money there. Moon dancer discreetly used the system to withdraw another 500 bits and smiled at the happy sound of coins in her pouch.
Mabey all that time grinding hadn’t been for nothing after all?
Satisfied with her purchase and promising to see Cotton again Moon Dancer began the long uphill climb to the castle.
[Due to a strenuous and exhaustive activity you're raised your VIT by 1]
[Due to a strenuous and exhaustive activity you're raised your STR by 1]
[Due to a strenuous and exhaustive activity you're raised your VIT by 1]
[Due to a strenuous and exhaustive activity you're raised your STR by 1]
Huffing and puffing as she cleared the servant's pathway through the castle and into the courtyard where the party was going to be Moon Dancer beelined to a pitcher of water and drank down the whole thing.
She wasn’t really all that exhausted thanks to her new gains. Plus it was nothing in comparison to the hard track from yesterday. But there’s nothing quite like a tall glass of cold water after some hard work.
Moments later Lemon Drop zoomed-in beside her wearing a light gray business suit and It was a professional style but whoever tailored It certainly knew what they were doing since it fit her figure to a T.
“Moony thank goodness you’re here. Twinkle needs some help with the baking can you give her a hand?” Lemon checked props from her list and looked over the party supplies. “ Oh, dear. Where did you find such oddities? I especially love this old silken tapestry it’s positively medieval. Great job Girl.”
Mooned dancer blushed at the praise and turned her head away to hopefully hide it under her main. The smirk on lemons head told her she had failed.
“Thanks. I’ll just go and help Twinkle then, Do you need any help setting any of this up?” Moon Dancer asked as she started to pull gothic tablecloths and bright silverware from the cart.
Only to have lemon drop shoo her away, “Dear heaven no love. I feel bad enough asking for your help only a day after you collapsed. I just feel awful about it. So let me hand the preparations here. Minuette should be back soon from delivering the letters soon so I will have some help soon. Now shoo. Shoo, I say.” Lemon playfully shoved her away from the cart and towards the kitchens.
The Canterlot kitchens were said to be some of the best in the world. They were also fairly large due to the sheer number of people that it needed to feed every day.
According to ‘Canterlot Castle builders eye’ and ‘Greatest architecture of the last millennium Canterlot castle didn’t originally have a kitchen like this. It had a small wood-burning furnace that was used mainly for the princess's use and some employees. However, as more and more people started to work in the castle and plans were being drawn to add a wing for visiting dignitaries to stay in. A new Kitchen needed to be designed to feed all the new traffic.
So it was decided that one of the smaller ballrooms closer to the ground level would be designed into a kitchen. The planers spared no expense and designed the best kitchen they could, Latter chefs adding in new Cooking gadgets such as microwaves and stoves. Everything you could need to feed a castle full of people.
When it was fully active Moon dancer was sure it would be a sight to behold.
But with all the chefs gone and no one in the room, it felt hollow and slightly creepy.
The sound of pans clanging and chopping drew Moonie over to the sight of Twinkle Shine rushing around from table to table, grabbing, preparing, and cooking at an exhaustive pace.
“Do you need any help?” Twinkle shot up off the floor with a shrill yell that bounced around the empty room. Tossing the bowl of whipped egg whites into the air. Moonie caught the bowl in her telekinetic grip before it could hit the ground, placing it gently down onto the counter.
“Oh Moon Daner, don’t scare me like that. You know I startle easily.” Twinkle said as she held a hand over her racing heart.
“Sorry, couldn’t resist. But do you require assistance?” Moony repeated.
She bit her lip and looked behind her at all the irradiance that still needed to be prepared. She was a pastry baker so baking a lot of food wasn’t an issue for her. But the time crunch and scale of it all was starting to make her a little frantic. She nodded her head and motioned for her to come over.
“I need all those eggs serenaded, the whites beet. The chocolate and flour separated, The vegetables chopped and the sugars and spices measured. While I deal with this can you get all those ready? I already have the recipe cards on the table just group them up please.”
Nodding moon dancer picked up a knife and the first vegetable to chop.
[Side quest- Measure the ingrediance]
[Help Twinkle by correctly measuring and preparing all the ingredients she needs]
[Reward- Bonus to cooking speed and Cooking buffs]
Agreeing to the quest Moon Dancer got to work sorting out all of the ingredients on the table.
As a for thought, she began to use [Focused meditation] to keep her centered on her work and make it go buy just a bit faster. It was a fine line since she wanted to get this all done quickly, but spreading her attention between too many tasks would lead to mistakes.
So while she measured out the ingredients in scales she was also magickly levitating the knife to chop the vegetables while also sitting flour into small Bowles needed for each dish.
The rest of the world faded away until she was done with all the chopping, sifting, mixing, and measuring.
[Due to a strenuous mental activity you gain + 1 Int]
[Quest complete- All ingredients measured with 99% accuracy]
[All cooking skills will be boosted and Food buffs will be more powerful]
Getting that extra little but made Moon dancer smile as she read over the skill.
With the amount of food, she now had to eat to compensate for the extra mass and energy consumption from her evolution, nutritiously dense but palatable cuisine would be preferable over her common oats. The tase of the Buffed foods was infinitesimally better than her common oats.
Running a hand through her head Moon Dancer pulled back her hair again as it escaped her ponytail and tied it into a high bun at the back of her head. Casting a quick spell to make sure she didn’t leave any hair left behind.
“Hey Twinkle, what's next?” she asked as she placed the last dish in place.
“Oh, oh, Um. Can you make a couple of brownies, please? I’ll handle the lava cake the cookies. I’m just finishing up these Fruit Crepes now. And great job Moon Dancer.”
Moon Dancer nodded and got to work preparing the Brownies. With her ability, these should be a breeze.
[Quest – Fete of the year – Complete]
[You’ve not only helped get this party together but helped out your friends when they needed you.]
[Increased reputation with the Candy Heared]
[1 Gatcha Token added to inventory.]
[Rare Cake recipe added to inventory.]
[+5 Stat point crystal]
[Level up]
Moon Dancer smiled at her quest screen before dismissing it. She could distribute her points later. For now, she had a handful of freshly baked brownies dusted lightly in powdered sugar and overlayed with caramel.
It would be a true wase if she dropped it since [observe] told her that this dish boosed a ponies running speed by a whole 10%. Mabey not much to someone like her but to anypony else who was a runner it would give them an excellent day.
Using her magic to hold two other dishes Moon Dancer placed them onto the set table.
“Waw Leamon Heart. You’ve really outdone yourself here. This Party looks beautiful.” The whole party gave off a soft calming aura. It was still festive and fancy but it wasn’t nearly as rambunctious as most daytime parties. The soft glow of the many lamps in the area made the whole thing really come together.
There were still a couple other ponies walking around, helping with the decorating and moving thing. Lemon heart came over, not even looking away from her list. She looked a bit tired from the stress but pulled through easily.
“Thank you Moony. This is all so very last minute but Minuette managed to convince some of her maid friends to help out with the party as well. It’s really helped. How is the baking coming along?”
“We should be done soon. Twinkle just needs to take a few things out of the oven.”
“Already? You two work fast. Again Thank you for all your help Moony. With all of us working together, then I’m sure we can pull this off without a hitch.”
“I know we can, Still, let's never do this again. Short notice parties are far too stressful to repeatedly atemp.” Lemon agreed wholeheartedly. They had managed to put together a good party at the last minute. She really hoped the princess liked it because if she didn’t her career would be down the toilet.
Moon Dancer saw that Lemon Heart was feeling a little down and worried. She didn’t know what to do. Should she give a pep talk? No, she was horrible at those. Should she try to help more? Nah everything already worked out great.
So instead she settled for wrapping Lemon heart in her arms and giving her as helpful a hug as she could.
Hugs, they don’t solve anything but they do make things better.
“Don’t worry Lemon heart, you put together this awesome party on a shoestring budget and on the fly. Celestia would have to be a complete idiot to overlook how much work you’ve put into this shindig. Your amazing Lemon Heart and don’t let anyone ever tell your otherwise, Even yourself.”
Lemon blushed at the praise, pretending to look over her list and notes to hide her blush.
But someone else noticed her blush.
“Tee, Hee, Don’t go hiding behind those notes of yours again Lemon. This whole thing would have been impossible without you.” Minuette said as she jumped onto Lemons back and hugged her from behind.
A purple missile soon found another pair of arms wrapped around lemon as well. Twinkle Shine humming to herself as she squeezed more air out of Lemon. “I don’t know what's going on but I’m not getting left out of a hug. Is this a Hug circle? Did we decide to become hippies? Oh, I should get my bongo drums?”
The trio laughed and giggled as they disentangled themselves from the hug. “Nah Twinkle, Where just showing Lemon Heart some much-needed appreciation. Princess….Whatever her name is should be grateful that we have such an awesome party planner for a friend.” Minuette said. Setting up most of the décor had been easy for her and her maids who handled cleaning around the castle. But it was Lemons touch that really pulled it together.
“Ehem,” The four of them turned their heads over to the seed a nervous-looking guard. He was shaking in his armor and looked rather pale, even with his snow-white coat. “I have a… I mean I was sent to …Um… I’m here to say that…”
Celestia POV.
I admit I might have been a bit over-eager when I asked Lemon Heart this morning to plan out a whole party for my bab…little sister luna. When I initially went to ask her I had assumed that the entire Party planning committee was still in the castle. It wasn’t till one of my regular maids had let it slip that one of the other maids had taken the day off so that they could help the understaffed planning committee that she had realized my mistake.
A staff of one mare.
I winced as ideas of what must have been going on in that pony’s mind when I asked her to plan the whole thing without the others. I knew she was a good up and comer who I wanted to give a chance to but this was too much to put on one ponies shoulders. I just hoped she didn’t have a Twilight Freak-out moment (Trademark Celestia).
I opened the doors to the party hall assigned for the evening expecting things to be in chaos. Mabey a few tables ready and a bit of decoration. But the actual reality floored me.
The Room was gorgeous.
The softer colors of the lavender lights offset the darker flowers perfectly. The table, cloths, and chairs looked like they were picked up straight out of Lunas coming of age party. With three rows of long tables followed by bench-like chairs surrounding a food table piled high with tempting treats.
The varnishing’s the tapestries, even the songs were old ones but updated for the current generation’s tastes.
“Remind me to give that pony a promotion.” She mumbled to herself. The guards next to her expertly not hearing anything.
I walked out into the party room and spotted Lemon heart who looked rather distressed as a Light-yellow Mare who looked so much like twilight for a moment, I mistook her for twilight before noting the small changes. The mare looked like she was mad about something and stormed off and out the door.
“Is everything alright my little pony?’ I smirked as Lemon Heart jumped a good foot in the air before twirling around and facing me with a surprised look on her face. That little nickname circling around the staff did have some merit to it after all. But how they derived Trollestia was still a pleasant mystery.
“OH, Hello your highness.’ Lemon placed a hand upon her heart and tried to control her heartbeat from the sudden shock. I smiled my kind motherly smile and spread my arms to sweep across the room.
“I must say I am impressed with your work. Even more so now that I realized that I assigned you to this without the help of your fellow planners. You have gone well beyond what I have expected. I am sure my sister is going to love it.”
“Um, that might be a tinny problem with that your highness.” She moved her thumb and pointer finger to indicate a small issue. Then burst back into motion as she said, “Princess Luna doesn’t want to come to the party.” She exclaimed while falling backward into a chair. A look of total exhaustion on her face.
I mentally shook my head at Luna's antics. She wasn’t the most social of ponies at the best of times and canceling her own party because she was feeling self-conscious was a rather typical Luna thing to do. If I wasn’t so happy that she was here at all I might have been annoyed at her. But just having her back was an immense relief.
“I’m sorry Lemon Heart. My sister can be a bit…shy. I know you worked hard to prepare for the party. Perhaps I can go talk to her and get her to show up anyway?” It was a bit of a long shot but if she dusted off some of her old blackmail (I.E baby photos) then she could get Luna out of her room.
Lemon Heart sighed with relief at the idea. “Thank you, your majesty. But I’m more concerned with all the work my friends put into helping me hear. Minuette and Twinkle needed to take the day off to help me and Moon Dancer ran herself into the ground getting all the party supplies and helping with the cooking just a day after collapsing herself. It would be a shame to just cancel the party and have all their hard work go to waste.”
The name Moon Dancer vaguely ran a bell, but she could not remember why. But even more impressive was the bond of friendship between these girls. They were such good friends that they went above and beyond to help Lemon Heart with her problem. But then her thoughts were derailed by what Lemon Heart said next.
“But you might want to hurry. Moon Dancer was kind of mad that Princess Luna wasn’t showing and kind of marched off to drag her here.” Lemon ended with a whisper and a wince.
That could be a problem. Luna was temperamental at the best of times and even in her present state she still terrified the staff. I tried to quell the information that she was nightmare moon incarnate but with Luna sequestering herself in her room since she got here it had been a hard rumor to squash. If a mare just walked into her room and demanded anything of her she would react….
“BEGONE FROM OUR CHAMPERS AT ONCE.”
Badly.
Hanging my head in resignation that tonight was going to be ruined I marched myself through the castle and up towards Luna's room. Hoping that the side of the castle would still be left standing.
She really had hoped her sister had mellowed out. But It was too much to ask for. I didn’t like to think badly about my sister. I really didn’t but she could be such a melodrama queen at times. Her siter was all but blind to the fact she overreacted to things.
It would be a small miracle if Luna came out of her room now.
But what I saw as I peeked around the corner to Lunas room was so much more shocking and amusing than I could have hoped.
First, I noticed that the door to Lunas room was ripped off of its hinges and placed to one side. I’d have to make a note to enchant our doors to not have this happen again. The second thing I noted was that A screaming and still smallish Luna was in the middle of a temper tantrum as she was hauled into the air ass first as the yellow mare with the Purple and red hair lifted her with east over her shoulder.
The fact this mare was a Unicorn and not an earth pony as I had assumed was able to rip open a steel door and overpower Luna was impressive. Even if her baby sister was still in her teenage form she could still pack quite a wallop. That mares back would defiantly be feeling those thumps tomorrow.
I tried to suppress my laughter to keep them from hearing me as they passed by. Leaning against my Sun staff a little to the side as to not fall over from giggles.
“Unhand me you brute. I am your princess and I Command your respect.” Strangely Luna's shouting was only audible at the normal volume. I had expected that she would be using the full power of the Canterlot voice. A dull shimmer of energy near her lips was the only clue I needed to know that Moon Dancer must have cast a muffling Spell over my sisters’ lips. An impressive feat considering our magical resistance.
“No, you demand my attention. Now you are going to go to this party and mingle with the brown nosers for at least the next two hours. Lemon Heart worked hard to set this up and it will not be ruined by ……” As they walked away it got harder to hear them. But the unmistakable sound of an ass being slapped still reached my ears.
Oh were was a camera when I needed one? This was blackmail gold!
Sure, it was a bit concerning to see some pony dragging my little sister down the corridors. But I had enough planners, assistance, and guards who did the same thing over the years to myself. Seeing it happen to some pony else was fun on this end.
After I regained my composure I walked back towards the party. The sound of soft techno music made the walk pleasant and comfortable in the early night. I really should have started to head to bed but with my sister being back there was no way I was missing the party.
I didn’t need to be awake to move the sun. Being awake just meant I could optimize the sun's path over the equator to provide the maximum about of solar energy the world needed. But the sun would still do so If I slept. It would only be a lot more random where the full energies of the sun would go. I’d made a spell that allowed the sun to move on its own ages ago. It wasn’t perfect or anything but it kept me from needing to constantly move it.
The party hall already had dozens of party-goers moving to and fro as they mingled. A few date night couples were dancing on the dance floor already and those that had skipped dinner were enjoying the Buffet spread.
At one table in the room, Luna sat with a couple of her solar guards flanking her to keep any trouble down. Even with the mellow atmosphere of the party, it was still possible for some upstart to cause trouble. Mother knows it happened at least once a night for her own parties.
However, unexpectedly Luna was smiling as she talked with various ponies around her. From what I could hear she was explaining the origins of the music and the significance of the tapestry on the wall. Not the most interesting of topics but it was enough to break the ice as it were.
“Lemon Really deserves that promotion now.” The party didn’t go off without a hitch or two with her sister but all things considered, it was still a success in getting Luna out of her shell.
“OK, what’s the emergency?” She said as she opens her front door after somepony continued to bang on it as a pony possessed. Moondancer wasn’t in the best moon to receive guests as she was in the middle of power leveling her Enchanting skill further.
She had just crossed over level 40 and was miffed she had to stop now.
“Well hello to you too grumpy pants. You know we don’t always have an emergency when we come over.” Minuette said as she sauntered into the room with Twinkle and Lemon in tow. She hopped over to one of the counters and pilfered some of the cookies she had been baking to level up her cooking skill and gain some Buffs for her enchanting project. She had just taken the pot roast out of the oven and the place smelled both sweet and spicy. Relaxing any pony that came in.
Moon Dancer slowly raised an eyebrow at her friends. Predictably Twinkle broke first at the uncomfortable stare.
“Yes, we have another emergency.” She admitted while waving her hands in the air in defeat. Moony smugly looked at Minuette making her mutter “Don’t you even start” Before forgetting her irritation in the face of cookies.
“So what’s have you girls gotten up to this time?” Moondancer said while fished out lemonade from her fridge for her friends. She did enjoy her friends’ company even if they were interrupting her work. Thankfully it didn’t backfire and explode as the last one had. Soot was no a good look for her.
Minuette leaned over her couch as she tossed some cookies over to the rest of them. “Ok, here’s the sitch. Twinkle shine is under suspicion for theft, grand larceny, and corporate espionage.”
Moondancer spits out her drink across her table in a spit take that splashes across Lemon's heart's face and covered her in juice. “Sorry, did you say Twinkle Shine? Our Twinkle Shine. The girl who can’t even watch a horror movie without running out of the theater is being investigated for theft. This Twinkle Shine?” She pointed at twinkle who only grumbled that she wasn’t that bad, and was promptly ignored.
“Ha got you their Twinkles. But yeah seriously. She hasn’t been arrested yet but unless the police get another suspect soon, they’ll arrest her.” Minuette said as she tossed a clean towel to Lemon Heart who was magically cleaning the juice off her outfit. Moon Dancer rubbed her head in her hands as she tried to wrap her mind around the issue. “Details? Please”
“Um well, a lot of inventory has been going missing lately from the store. Lots of salt and some other spices have been going missing in large quantities. The manager of the store accused me of taking them since I’m usually the last one in the store at night. And now I’m afraid ill lose my job and going to jail.” Twinkle shine nervously wringing her hands as she explained her predicament.
It broke Moonie's heart to see her like this. Would a hug make things better? She wasn’t sure. Should she offer more food? Mabey. Should she blow up the store? No that wouldn’t solve the issue. She settled on a hug instead.
“Doesn’t your family own the business?” Moon Dancer asked in confusion as she thought of the problem.
“Yah, but it's not an entirely family-run business. Too few of us to do that. So, stealing from the company counts as corporate sabotage not nicking five bits from moms’ purse.” Twinkle mumbled into her shoulder.
[ Quest Alert – Framed Stars- Twinkle Shine is being framed for a crime she didn’t commit. Prove her innocence before the guard comes to arrest her.]
Objective 1 – Prove Twinkle Shine's innocence.
Objective 2 – Find the true culprit
Objective 3 - ???
Reward: Massive increased Rep with Twinkleshine.
Increased rep with Minuette and Lemon
???
“Alright girls, I’ll help however I can,” Moondancer said. She was more than a little intrigued by the mystery of it all. If there was ever a time that Twinkle needed her then this was it.
At the Slated Caramel
After a long conversation between the gang and Twinkle, they managed to make a shaky plan that could potentially find the real Culprit.
The shop/restaurant closed every night at 8pm, after the dinner rush. They were not a late-night establishment and most of their business happened either at breakfast, lunch, or just after schools let out. They sold all kinds of sweets candies and other pastries. Speaking from experience they could all reasonably say that the food there was some of the sweetest they ever had.
To learn more about the business Twinkle had started working at the shop along with her cousin Gum Drops a few months ago. She didn’t suspect anything to be wrong at all. The Cooks were kind of snappy when they got busy but the weight staff were all nice ponies who she talked to and even the manager was a nice stallion most of the time. He honestly seemed sorry to have to let her go but he didn’t have a choice. She was the only option to fire he had.
In the end, her family had heard from him about Twinkle being fired. They were, confused. They didn’t want to believe that their shy but hardworking Twinkle Shine could do any wrong. But they also couldn’t ignore the facts. In the end, they had to believe in the evidence. They were very disappointed in her and while they were going to give her the benefit of the dought, their hands were tied.
She was the last pony in the shop every day. The Times that merchandise went missing coincided with the days she was the last one to lock up. The theft also only started a few weeks after she had joined the company.
In the end, their plan was both simple and tried and true.
A stakeout.
In a pair of bushed overlooking the shop, Moondancer and Twinkle Shine were hidden behind the foliage. A small picnic blanket was spread out so that they didn’t get dirty and a small plate of cookies was being munched on between them.
It was a bit much but Moony figured she could just toss the lot of it into her inventory and clean it up later.
She had found that keeping her friends out by stuffing lots of stuff into her hair was extra funny.
“How long do you think It’s going to take before someone comes. It’s getting really uncomfortable here. These Branches are really pokie.” Twinkle tried to make herself more comfortable but only succeeded In getting more twigs into her hair.
“It’s a stakeout. They're not supposed to be fun. Just be happy I thought to bring some cookies.”
“I know, and thank you for that. I need something sweet to get over all this stress. I tell you when I find out who’s framing me I’ll give them a Kacha, Wapaw, Pwachaa!” Twinkle mimed doing a few punches before losing balance when the twigs in her hair pulled her back.
Chucking Moony reached back to help her untangle herself from the bramble. “Just like you said you would show Iron Hide after he stole our cupcake? Or that griffon who shot spitballs at you?”
“Hey, those two were a lot bigger when you got up close to them. I am a fragile flower, I can’t let this cute little face get smashed in.” Twinkle tried to defend herself but knew that she was just too much of a coward. She talked a good game but when it came down to actually confronting people she was paralyzed.
Spotting movement at the edge of her vision Moondancer motioned for Twinkle to quiet. The shop was dark and deserted however there was a tall figure that had pulled over a storage cart next to the shop's docking bay.
They couldn’t see who it was but the pony pulled out a key and opened the back door of the shop then turned on the lights inside.
“Dang it, I can’t get a good shot Moony. We need to get closer.” Twinkle shine said as she pulled out a camera. It was a holdover from the time they needed to do a biology project together and had used to it take multiple pictures for their project. But it would also work just fine to take a picture of the perpetrator.
“If we get to close well be spotted, We need to take a picture with the person red-handed. Give me a second I think I have just the thing.” Moondancer said as she tossed her trash into her main and inventory.
Anticipating that they would need to do some sneaking around at some point Moondancer practiced two skills at home.
[Sneek –level 4 While hiding from a target you are less likely to be spotted.]
[Illusion magic – Level 5]
It had been totally last minute and she had to dump a few extra points into INT and WIS just to make sure she had enough magical energy to cast the spell. But she had managed to learn the invisibility spell.
It had been sequestered inside one of the many books she had liberated from the castle of the two sisters.
Studying those books was fascinating and fun while she either trained or did other things. Sometimes the information she got was useless, frivolous, or just plain wrong, But every now and then she would get something like a restricted spell or lost knowledge and insights.
While Celestia's school for gifted unicorns was still the best institution to learn magic in the world. They weren’t going to be teaching an invisibility spell to a class of hormonal teenagers with too much time on their hands.
“Hold still Twinkle,” Moony said as she lit up her horn. The odd sensation of an egg being broken over her head made them both shiver for a moment but then they saw that their bodies were disappearing.
“Holy Smokes Moony, where the heck did you learn an Invisibility spell? I thought only special forces and street performers knew how to use it?” “Don’t pick at the membrane too hard Twinkle. It’s a thin coating of illusion magic that’s making us transparent. However, if you bump into something the illusion will be broken. It’s also not perfect so don’t move too fast or you’ll cast an outline. Let’s just take the picture and leave.” Moon dancer said as they snuck closer to the cart.
Along the way, Twinkle shine couldn’t help but mess around with the spell and wave her limbs about to see the cool wavy effect it had on the air. The spell broke halfway to the cart and Moony had to reapply it fast before the Thief saw them.
If Twinkle could see Moony now then she would have looked away in shame at the glare she was shooting at her.
They soon snuck over to the side of the building and peered into the windows.
Inside Moon dancer could see a Tall and thin Yellow stallion with a stereotypical black hoodie and joggers. He didn’t seem to be nervous at all and was instead hoisting various buckets of things onto a dolly.
She could hear a gasp from beside her. “I take it you know who that is?” Moony softly asked.
“Yes, it’s Gum Drop, He was hired at the same time I was. But we had different shifts, so I never got to talk to him very long. I guess he tried to take stuff from the store only on his off days? But why?” Twinkle shine said as she peered over the window.
Gum Drops was so engrossed in stealing as many buckets of ingredients that he didn’t bother looking around.
Sneaking around him was doing wonders for Moon’s sneaking ability and invisibility ability, However, she didn’t want to be stuck here for longer than she needed to.
“Twinkle, Just take the picture of him and the cart, We can figure out the why later,” Moony whispered over to where she assumed twinkle was standing.
After a moment Moon dancer heard a click and saw a flash as the flash from the camera illuminated the inside of the building and once more when it took a picture of the cart.
Only too late did Moony realize that the flash would alert Gum Drop of their presence. Already she could see the stallion inside become more agitated and confused.
He reached into his sweater and pulled out a pair of Brass Nuckels before placing them on his hands. Brandishing them as he put down the merchandise and walked towards the door.
Moon dancer wasn’t scared of him. She knew plenty of spells and the gamer's body would make sure that she would be healed by the next day at the latest.
But she wasn’t alone. Twinkle was here with her and Twinkle didn’t have the stupidly overpowered ability to be a game character. She was very much vulnerable and was about as strong as your average baker.
Biting her lip and thinking quickly Moondancer reached forward blindly and grabbed a hold of the invisible Twinkle. Only holding back her strength so that she didn’t pop their invisibility.
Relying on her stealth skill and illusion she slowly, almost painfully slowly dragged Twinkle behind some bushes. Her instincts wanted her to either Fight or flee but she clamped down on them with her gamers mind.
She gently pushed Twinkle behind a thick shrub near the window even as Gum Drop got closer. She could hear his dull skittish steps as he walked around the building to their location.
Just as they were about to reach the bottom of the shrub a stray twig pocked Twinkle shine and popped her invisibility bubble. Cursing internally Monon dancer thought fast.
Reaching for Twinkle's hand she willed the layer of illusion magic around her to start encompassing Twinkle. She needed to be close, very close for this to work.
MoonDancer pressed Twinkles face to her chest. Wrapped her arms around her head and tangled their feet. Pressing her middle as close to her friend as she possibly could as she stretched the illusion spell to its max.
For a couple of tense minutes, they stayed still as the stallion walked around the grounds, twitching and squirming every time he got close. Eventually, he must have figured that either the flash didn’t have anything to do with him or the pony that made the flash was long gone.
He soon went back into the store, loaded up the ingredients, and took off down the road.
Only when she was sure they were alone did Moondancer let the spell drop and release Twinkle.
“That was a little too close for my taste, did you get the pictures Twinkle?” Moon Dancer said as she dusted herself off.
Twinkle was still laying down on the ground with the camera heald tight, Her face was flushed and her breathing was ragged as she stared off into space.
“TWINKLE?” Moondancer yelled as she tried to snap her friend out of it.
“Uh, oH, What? YES, I got the pictures were all good.” Twinkle shine said as she hoisted the camera in front of her and shakily smiled. “I’ll bring the pictures to the manager tomorrow.”
Moondancer was relieved that they acquired the picture. She was sure Gumdrop would still cause a mess of things later, but at least now Twinkle wasn’t going to get taken away kicking and screaming by the guards.
Ok, she would admit that was a bit of an exaggeration. They would probably have just levied her with a massive fine. But that was still an injustice against her friend that she wanted to be rectified.
“Hey, moony can you take me home now? I think I really need a shower after wallowing in the dirt all day. I just can’t believe that Gum Drop was the one framing me all this time. Why would he do this Moony? And just the ingredients? I mean yeah we have the highest quality ingredients we can get but why would any steel that? It’s like steeling lamp posts or carriage wheels. Who even buys stuff like that?”
“I don’t know Twinkles, I just don’t know.”
The two of them stopped by a photo store really quickly to get the pictures developed for them. It took only a few minutes for the pictures to be made and stamped with the CSA stamp of approval stating the pictures had in no way been altered.
It was when they reached Twinkles apartment that Moony got a notice that her quest had been completed.
The next day.
Arriving early at the Salted Caramel Moondancer, Twinkle and Minuette walked through the front door to the glares and dirty looks of the employees. They all knew Twinkle shine and had worked with her for months. So the trio could understand the feeling of betrayal.
However, that didn’t stop Minuette and Moondancer from flanking either side of Twinkle in a show of solidarity.
Twinkle shine appreciates the support as she marched over to the manager of the shop.
The manager was a tired gray old stallion who looked like he should have retired years ago. But old Note Pad was a stubborn stallion who believed that an ideal day was a day wasted. He had spent all of two weeks in retirement before applying for the job of store manager. He was a hard-working stallion who valued hard work and hated slackers. Since Twinkle was an exceptionally hard worker when it came to baking it broke the poor stallion's heart when he had to let her go.
When they came closer the stallion got up out of his seat and gave a small smile as he spotted Twinkle.
“Shine! It’s good to see you again filly, How are you holding up? OY you bunch, if you got the time to be rubbernecking you got the time to clean, Vamoose!” Note yelled out at the employees that were pretending to do their work while listening in. “Ah, a bunch of children I say. Now what brings you back, I would think that little business a week back would have soured your mood!
Twinkle gave the old stallion a hug then pulled out a manila folder that held the pictures we had developed. “Well, thanks to the hard work of my friends here I got proof that I wasn’t the one taking the inventory.”
The stallion's eyebrows shot up to the stars as he quickly opened the folder and looked over all the pictures that had taken the night before. It clearly showed Gum drop dressed out of uniform and like a thug sneaking into the store and stealing ingredients before carting them off.
“Why that no good dirty rotten varmint. I knew it was fishy when Branch manager High Drop insisted that you had to be the thief. Opportunity my wrinkly ass. That no-good snake must have figured his son was the culprit and was trying to cover it up! Don’t you worry non, hun, I’ll get this over to the Officer in charge of the case.”
Twinkle shine looked absolutely relieved. It was like both a hundred pounds had been lifted from her shoulders as she simultaneously lost all her energy. “Thank Celestia. I love this job. I didn’t want to lose it.”
“Oh don’t you worry hun. You weren’t going to stay fired anyway.” Note said as he placed the pictures back in the envelope.
“What do you mean sir? I thought that she was being charged with serious accusations here.” Minuette asked in confusion.
“In a way dear, I’v been around the block more than I care to admit and I know how to set a decent trap. We took Twink’s Keys here the day the accusations were levied and made user they were high enough that any judge in court would have to throw the case out on principle. But they were high enough that whoever was stealing them would return to steal again. Proving that Twinkle was innocent. You didn’t think we were just going to sit around doing nothing, were you?” Note Pad said with a cunning smile as sharp eyes as he ordered coffee and tea for the group of them.
It was a confusing case but moony had to admit it would have worked.
Just as the coffee reached their table Moon Dancer received a notice her quest was complete.
[Framed Stars Side Quest complete- You have proven your friend's innocence, found the guilty party, and shown winkle that she wasn’t nearly as alone in this as she believed.]
Objective 3 – Find out what the ingredients are being used for – Fail ]
[Reward: Massive increased Rep with Twinkleshine ] [For reaching 50 REP with Twinkleshine you gain Bakers touch] [All reputation gains with lovers of confectionaries increased]
[Increased rep with Minuette and Lemon Heart]
[+5 INT and WIS Stats.]
[Level 1 Dungeon key acquired. ]
[Perception check roll – User can run a perception check to notice important items or information. ]
[Ring of Might- A ring worn at the base of the horn that doubles the users base STR]
[1000 Exp]
[1 Gatcha token]
It seemed the game was being very forthcoming with rewards today and she was excited to look over all of these rewards. But for now, she decided to dismiss all of these notifications and focus back on her friends.
Moon Dancer looked around in fascination at the mirror world of Equestria. Looking around she could see that it was almost an exact copy of her home and neighborhood. It was so eerily similar yet just different enough that she felt on edge in this place.
She knew beings like Discord and those of similar power were able to create their own pocket dimensions but to make one herself was awe-inducing and filled her chest with pride. Even if she knew that the Gamer system was doing all the heavy lifting when It came to making this place.
Tho according to her menu and what she could see the dungeon only extended out a few miles in each direction so she didn’t have a whole world to play with. Still, it was a lot of room where she could test her more destructive and disruptive experiments.
She had expected that the system wouldn’t even give her the ability to enter dungeons, considering it was a bit rude and angry with her.
She was just happy she had her own little world.
An entire world with no pony around.
Or at least a few square miles. She could vaguely see on the edge of her sight that a wall of mist stopped her from seeing past it. Perhaps more would become clear as she grew stronger or she would unlock other-dimensional bubbles instead. It was a bit of a toss-up but she was eager to find out.
But here she was, out on the open-air with a timber wolf running at her…..”Wait what?” She said in surprise.
[LvL 1 Timber wolf.]
The timber wolf ran at Moon dance full force slamming into her and sending her ass over kettle into the front of her foe house. She only just managed to cast an [Cero] out of her hands-on instinct before the thing jumped her. The pure beam of power shooting a whole into the Wooden body of the Timberwolf.
[-100 Hp]
[Disorienated debuff applied.]
“Ok, so enemy-filled Dimensional mirror. Ok. Yeah, Forgot. It’s a Dungeon. Dungeons have enemies you need to defeat.”
The Timberwolf was still disorientated with half its head burning a mile away Moon Dancer took the chance to punch the wolf in the rest of its face. In a rare display of annoying physical violence, Moon dancer punched the wood. The wood splintered and cracked apart to her satisfaction and with another two punched the wolf finally went down.
[Enemy killed]
[50 EXP]
“Fascinating. At 10 STR points, I have the capability of splintering apart wood with my bare fists. Small lacerations and bruising are already gone and there is no lingering sourness. STR, as a Bicorn seem, ’s to have a higher quality value than that of a normal unicorn as the strength differential is astounding. Hmm, tho I think I felt my magic move inside my body as I punched the timberwolf. Further testing will need to be done to see if that is due to my new earth pony strength.”
Fishing a notebook from her inventory she quickly jotted down her new discovery.
A Loud haul from the distance distracted her from her notes. She looked around in nervousness before tossing her notebook back in her inventory.
Not feeling like dealing with this shit at the moment Moon Dancer asked the system to exit the Dungeon.
While the level one dungeon she now had access to was going to be invaluable for both improving her stats and testing her spells, she didn’t quite feel like fighting yet.
“OW, that dame sack of sticks got me good,” Moony said as she sat down on her couch. She had a healing spell for small cuts and bruises but decided to instead just deal with the pain till the gamer's body fixed it.
That Timberwolf had come out of nowhere and had slammed into her, cutting into her shirt and belly, before she would do anything to stop it. If she didn’t have decent reflexes she would have certainly had been cut in half. And she really didn’t want to know how her body would calculate damage when it came to serious injuries like that. And she hopefully never would.
“I’m really going to have to look at that training scroll at some point.” It was a humbling experience. One moment of letting her guard down and she was almost killed by something her own power created.
A level 1 creature no less.
That was just pathetic.
In retrospect, it was a bit arrogant of her to assume that just because she was a big bad Bicorn now she would know how to fight. Yeah, she was great and powerfully but all the power in the world wouldn’t do her any good if she didn’t’ know how to effectively use it.
It wasn’t like she was really expecting a lot of trouble either. But with the way, her quests and life were going she could see a lot of fighting in her future.
Especially if even half the things that happened in the MLP series she knew of happened.
Seeing as she wasn’t going to be moving around till she healed Moony brought out some of the Timberwolf Sticks she had taken from her inventory and hobbled into her work room.
{Experiment # 1 – Enchatning)
Enchanting wasn’t the easiest career move but with so few unicorns taking the time to learn it there was a decent niche market she could occupy. And with her new power, she really wanted to test out her new skills on the enchanting board she had ‘liberated’ from the abandoned castle.
[Enchanting Skill: Level 1]
Having her enchanting skill drop down to level 1 had been devastating. Once she had remembered to look over all her skills she nearly cried at all those years of hard work being wasted. Then she shed a few tears anyway before buckling down and Grinding through the first few levels of Enchanting by making a dozen of the same enchanted pocket watch.
It is pure torture as all the muscle memory she had acquired is gone. All her lines and engravings were sloppy, her Runes were jagged and even the magical imbuement took too long to properly set.
“My Awesome Enchanting skill, Gone. I call Hax game, you hear me. Cheat! I want a refund!” She yelled at her screen, punching the translucent page, then trying to smother it in a pillow.”
She didn’t lose focus tho. If there was one thing that she and games had in common was the drive needed to grind for hours on end to get what she wanted.
Once she finished her twentieth and final Enchanted pocket watch lid she sighed in relief before jumping out of her before she jumped out of her chair and danced in place, doing a happy little jig.
The reason for her excitement was that her enchanting level had risen up to level 15 and she was finally able to work her craft to sufficient quality. She still had the knowledge about how to enchant items, it was only her muscle memory that was one so with more practice she would be able to get back all her skill.
Already her lines were smoothing out and the magic was flowing smoother.
At this point, she could now confidently start working on some of her commissions.
“Let’s see. Mister WoodCutter wanted to commission ten Crystals that would allow him instant communication with each other, Mister Gem Glow wants a watch he can never lose, Cloud Jumper wants a blanket that will always be at the perfect temperature. Ok, I can work with this.”
Moon Dancer placed one of her normal enchanting wands out of its bin and placed it on the cleaned table. It was only a cheap mass-produced item that was all she could afford. She then placed one of the Timber Wolves Branches on the table as well. She then took the branch and carved it into the shape of a wand.
Most of the Enchanting wands worked by imparting their magic into the enchantment as you started to write them. Horns could do that as well but they were not as accurate since you had to move your head to write the letters. So funneling your magic through the wand was preferable. Unfortunately, that also meant that you could not levitate the wand as you used it or it would blow up in your face. Lots of explosions and having to use hoof writing instead of levitation was one of the many reasons there were very few active enchanters.
“Test sequence number 1. I will be determining if there is any fluctuation in power level, magical depletion, or any other know variables changing between the three separate instances. The normal Gem wand and normal table being my control group.”
Moon dancer decided that she would use a simple light Enchantment to test on the wands. The standard wand would be able to make three bright lights that could turn a dark room into a brightly lit room each. They normally lasted only five minutes per use unless anchored to a source object.
First taking her Normal Gem wand she carved the runes that would make the enchantment and out popped three lights before the Wand died. It would need to soak in a liquid crystal bath for a day before it regained its charge fully if it didn’t already break it.
She then additionally made another enchantment with an uncut Timber branch and then a Timber Wolf wand and then another using the wand and the Enhancing table.
After timing, the lights at exactly five minutes Moony used the same spell to cast lights out of the uncut timber stick. The enchantment didn’t go out of it quite as easily as the regular Gem stick, but it did produce five lights. Each light was also significantly brighter than the original three. However, each one was shimmering in different intensities. The lights lasted for only four minutes before extinguishing.
“Experiment note 3 The Timber Twig I have procured seems to be able to produce more potent enchantments and has an extended use time. However, the enchantments are not as stable and are harder to compose. Experiment 4 had all of its lights burst after ten seconds of use and burned out the cap it was engraved on.”
Reaching over to her carved Timberwolf stick she began the experiment again. This time producing four lights that shimmed just as bright as the brightest light as the non-cut twig with no deviations between them. She became increasingly more excited as the timer on her watch passed the fifteen-minute mark.
“Fascinating. It seems that the granular structure of the wood has an impact on magical control. While it was easier to control and produce the lights it was also a touch weaker. It provides a level of stability that is only seen in high-quality gen wands. Fascinating.”
[Due to logical thinking and deduction + 2 Int and +1 Wis]
[Due to proficiency at Enchanting your Enchanting level has risen by 1]
After repeating the experiment with a few different sticks and getting the same results Moony decided to move onto the enchanting table.
An enchanting table made the transfusion of magic threw the wand and into the object much easier. Due to the nature of this transition, some magical potency was always lost in the transfer without a table. If enough of the magic did not transfer over then you got a failure and possibly destroyed item.
She knew from experience how painfull some of those explosions could be. Looking over to the corner of her room she could still see the blackened remains of some tin cans she had failed to properly enchant.
Moon placed six caps to test out the new enchanting table vs her old one.
The old one was a battered old enchantment bored she had received from a garage sale from a young unicorn that didn’t know his old grandfathers’ stuff was worth something. It wasn’t a great table but for a weekend worker at the docs like her, it was a steal.
The Boarded had two magical gems infused into the wood with numerous arcane copper runes placed in a circle in the middle. It wasn’t pretty but it got the job done.
On the other hand, the new table was a full table with runes of power leading into the circle with six large gems and a skull of all things carved into the headboard of the wood.
She cast the spell onto a control Cap and watched as the Pocket watch began to glow.
[Glowing pocket watch – Uncommon tier item.]
A quick [observe] showed that all the other caps and watches she had experimented on were classified as common items. Showing that the new one she had made was indeed a cut above the rest.
“This is good, No this is Great! This bored is making all my enhancements at least 50% better and if I combine that with the extra power increase from the Timber wands then I get a wapping 100% efficiency increase. I can finally start taking higher-level commissions now! Yes.” Moon dancer said as she wrings her fists in excitement.
There were so many new possibilities open to her now. And this was still only at level 15. Apprentice level. She could only imagine what she could do once she maxed her level.
(Experiment #2) Flight.
Flying was a bit of a tricky subject for her. For one thing she didn’t much like crashing. Sure souring, dropping and heights didn’t bother her but when all three were combined that was a different story.
She did not choose the Alicorn Route, so flying was never going to be her strong suit. She just didn’t have the needed dexterity and light weight to weave around the air with the natural grace of a Pegasus.
For some reason, her levitation skill was taking far more energy to lift her off the ground than it ever had before. Her mana bar depleting in just under five seconds of controlled self levitation.
But that didn’t mean she was going to give up on it entirely. There were far too many advantages to having the high ground and traveling over the sky to give up on Flight without even trying. If the timber wolves have shown her anything it was that being out of your enemy’s reach was far preferable, then being smacked around.
There were a few spells out there in the world that would give you a facsimile of wings and reduce your weight but they were fragile and slow. More akin to showing off than for any real flight.
What Moon dancer was trying to accomplish was more akin to self-levitation. Which was a lot harder to do than you might think. There was no concrete spell that would allow someone to self-levitate or fly. Anything even resembling a flight spell was stuffed into comics and story books. She only even knew about the one that gave you wings because the episode in the show was entertaining. It also helped that the young fliers tournament had happened just yesterday. Kickstarting the memory from her mind.
“I suppose it could be possible the government is Censoring any flight spells. It would be chaotic if every unicorn in the world knew how to Fly. It would undermine what makes Pegasai special. And Celestia forbid anyone tries and shake up the Harmony of Equestria. Or it could just be that hard.”
Rolling her eyes at her last failure Moon Dancer began to experiment with various forms of lift.
First, she tied to just make magical steps in the air she could use to get around. They were very low power and could double as shields if needed. Convenient things to use in a pinch. However, running across them was both slow and took a lot of focus from around her. Resulting in more than one bumped head against the ceiling.
[Skill created – Airwalk- A skill that creates a stable magical barrier underneath the feet of the caster. Costs 1mp per step barrier.]
It was a decent short-ranged option if she even needed to get past bridges or get past another gaping chasm.
The next thing she tried was a full-body levitation charm. It was a fairly complicated spell that boils down to encompassing yourself in a full-body shield and then moving the shield around.
The problem with just self-levitation was that she was encased in a barrier of her own magic that would not let her move anywhere. She tried to expand the levitation and ended up inside a bubble of magic. If she stood in the bubble then she could fly but it wasn’t comfortable at all.
[Magic Shield – absorbs as many Damage points as magic placed into shield]
It seemed like even the system agreed that this was more of a defensive spell rather than a flight spell.
“I suppose I can still add this one to my grimoire. If it only uses the amount of magic needed to defend an attack then I suppose any unicorn could use it.”
The next test was a little more complicated. It involved only levitating parts of her body and not the entire thing. If she uncased just parts of her arms, legs, and torso into a film of levitation magic. The aura was thin enough around the joints now that she could attack while still being able to levitate.
She focused her levitation and flew forward…right into a wall.
[Skill creation -Flight – LVL 1 – you can launch yourself into the air with the greatest of ease. Landings are a bit squishy.]
“Owie, OK so I’m on the right track. I just need to practice is all. And maybe not destroy my house while doing so.” She said as she looked at the various cracks and holes in her house.
“By day’s end, I’m betting that I’ll have a restoral spell as my higher level.”
The following hour was filled with Moon Dancer barreling through tree tops, crashing against trunks, and falling into just about every puddle on the forest floor.
“Wahoo. Well, that went well.” Twigs, grime, and dirt were stuck all over Moon Dancers' face as she climbed back up onto her feet from the pile of timber she had crashed into. Yes, the crashes were painful, but the short burst of flight while training was just too fun to stop. Besides her body was a lot heartier than she was used to and she could just walk it off.
She had walked out to the woods bordering the docks of Canterlot. Choosing to test her spell by flinging herself up and over the trees and crashing down in heaps in the forest.
Very few ponies visited and even if somepony did, there were enough Excitable students from Celestia's school of gifted unicorns that used this place as a spell testing ground, that few would bat an eye at more loud noises.
(Experiment 3 # STR Control)
Name: Moon Dancer Tier 2 Level 6 STR: 10 VIT: 11 Using this opportunity Moon dancer figured she might as well test to see how strong she actually was before calling it a day.
She still had 5 points to spend from her last level up, giving her the perfect opportunity to test how much 1 point in her STR was worth.
“Urgh, Exercise. Fooie.” She mumbled as she searched the woods for any large pieces of timber and boulders. Soon finding a small area that had just what she needed.
“I could just wait until Minuette drags me to the gym…. But I really should do this now or all my calculations will be off.”
Going to first a small fallen log that she would have only been able to barely lift last month Moon dancer bent over and lited it with far more ease. “Expected. Infusion of Bicorn DNA into my being has strengthened my musculature. An expected and result.”
Moon Dancer began to pick up heavier and heavier stones and small trees till she finally got to a weight that she was unable to pick up. Winded she noted the dimensions of the rock and used her knowledge of geometry, chemistry, and geography to estimate the weight of the boulder.
“Sweet Celestia, that’s a wapping 300 pounds! That’s insane. That’s averadge earth pony levels of strength, at least without magic. Ho, Ho, Ho. Watch out Furniture the next time I need to move you I won’t need to ask The girls for help. I shall be the clean of cleanliness once again. Mua, Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha.” Moon dancer joked to herself.
“Now let's see what happens if I put a point into STR.”
After placing a single point into STR Moon Dancer tried to pick the boulder she couldn’t before up one more time. It was still difficult and it hurt her back but she was able to lift it this time. Testing again till she found out her new maximum load is 350 pounds.
“Hmm, strange. I expected all that exercise to have given me an extra STR point itself. Oh, well, I’m too tired to keep testing time to go home.”
“Oh, come on Moon Dancer, the gym isn’t going to hurt you,” Minuette said as she pulled a sluggish Moon Daner through the doors of the gym.
Moon Dancer didn’t have a problem with working out per se.
But she really didn’t like Gyms. Back at school the gym always smelled awful, was full of screaming ponies, and everypony there was mean when she tried to do her exercises.
She didn’t relish the chance to do any of that again.
Grumbling along the way Miuette quickly handled her check-in and they tossed both of their gym bags into a locker before heading back downstairs to begin stretching.
Minuette was a little worried that Moon Daner was going to have a difficult time here but she also really wanted to test her to make sure she was still healthy and fit.
She hadn’t forgotten that Moon Dancer has essentially done self-experimentation on herself. So this was both a punishment and test to see if there was anything wrong.
Tho she also found it funny to tease Moondacer a little by pressing herself up against her while “helping her stretch”. Moony turned the most colorful shade of red when she bent over to grab her toes. It was just to funny not to tease her a bit.
“Alright Moony, I think we've stretched enough let's go and start with some dead lifts.” Minuette beckoned Moony down the stair and into the level of the gym that held the most weights.
They quickly spotted an open Squat rack and claimed it. Minute placed a ten-pound weight on either side of the plate and asked Moon Dancer to lift it.
Moondancer walked over to the plate, a little embased that she was going to pull such a small weight, and spoke up about it. “Um, isn’t that a little too light? It’s only ten pounds. I've lifted heavier stakes of books.”
“I know but I want to check your form first before we start pilling on the weight. I don’t want you to pop your back.”
Not sure what Minuette was talking about Moony bend down and pulled up the ten-pound weights with no effort.
She looked over to Minuette and was surprised to see a scowl on her face. “No, No. All wrong.” “Huh, What do you mean? I lifted it didn’t I”
“Yeah, but you used your low back to do it instead of your legs and hips. Biomechaickly our lower backs are some of the weakest and most important parts of our bodies. If you put too much pressure on it your could easily pop a disk by accident or even damage your spine. Instead what you should be doing is sticking your ass out while keeping your spine stiff and straight. That way you use more of your hips and body to lift the weight. Here let me show you.”
Minuette pulled moony aside and took a position over the bar. She stuck out her ass and grabbed hold of the bad. Moony noting how stiff and straight her lower back was. There was no curve to it like there had been in hers. She did a set of ten reps and then lowered the bar back. It wasn’t difficult but moony could now see the difference in form.
Looking back on it she now understands why she sometimes got a -1 hp or 2 while she was training in the woods. She was unintentionally hurting herself in her training. She suspected this was also why her STR was stuck at 10 and didn’t rise.
She tried to lift again and was still doing it badly, however with Moon Dancer correcting her form she was able to make successful lifts using the right muscles. Her system seemed to agree with it since it rewarded her with +1 Wis when she started to correctly train.
She even gained a new power from her system
[Perk unlocked]
[Training Time- Beginner - Increases the efficiency of State gain inside Training facilities.]
“Alright, now that you have the form down we're going to be increasing the amount of weight on the bar by ten every ten reps. Now lift!”
For the first hour, Minuette lifted alongside Moon Dancer. It felt nice to have a workout buddy for a change. Twinkle and Lemon both didn’t have the time to come to the gym with her and even when they could make the time they were more into the cardio part of it instead of the strength gains she was looking for.
Minuette encouraged Moondancer so that she would feel comfortable enough to come back. But quickly realized when the weight got up to 300 pounds and Moondancer was still going strong she didn’t need it. For a moment Minuetter felt jealous that her nerdy friend had found a shortcut to strength.
It wasn’t exactly fair to use magic to increase your strength gains. It was like doping to boost your performance. But she would let it go for now since she knew moon dancers didn’t see the magic that way.
But those thoughts were quickly washed away with fascination and admiration when Moon dancer started to pull upwards of 500 pounds and her muscles started to show themselves under her fur. They were flabbergastingly small for the amount of weight she was carrying. It confused Minuette to watch her nerdy friend deadlift so much from the get-go.
Minuette could lift more, but for a beginner? This was great.
While Minuette was busy being flabbergasted at her, Moondancer was happily pumping away at the weights for a different reason.
[For Correctly straining your body you gain +1 Str]
This was the first STR point she managed to gain from training. The first 10 levels she gained really didn’t count for very much since they came really easily. However now she had a way to actually train her STR effectively and efficiently.
Moon dancer didn’t think she was ever going to be a strength-type gamer but leaving her STR at 10 for who knows how long just didn’t sit well with her.
And if she was being honest with herself. Seeing her STR rise made the work out just a bit more fun.
“Ok, Ok. I think we can stop here for now. Wow, 600 pounds…Thanks just insane. But Super strength or not I don’t want you to overwork those muscles. Let's take a break before we continue?”
Agreeing to the break both of them went to the gym's indoor snack stand. They had a nice selection of protein smoothies and other health food that Moon dancer thought she was going to gag on but actually enjoyed once she tried it.
[Protiene shake – Increases SP regen for 1 hour and increases EXP acquisition by 10%]
“Well look who It is boys. Minnie Floppers, back to break some more mirrors?” A short but stalky Earth pony stallion flanked by a pegasus and another earth pony sneered in their direction. They were all fairly well built. The kind of well-built that you might see working out at a beachside gym.
Looking over at Minuette Moony figured that she didn’t like any of these ponies is the annoying glare and sight were an indication.
“Oy, don’t ignore us Floppers, or did ya hit you head so hard again ya now hard of hearing, Can’t expect much from a horned head. Especially a mare horn head.”
“Oh wow, that was both racists, sexist, and grammatically incorrect all in one sentence. I’d almost be impressed if I could assume you were intentionally trying to be ignorant.” Moon said with a hint of superior venom in her voice.
Minuette smiled at the jab while the three Stallions frowned in annoyance at her. They dangerously glared at her while the lead stallion began to fume.
“Hey, muffin top, keep it to yourself. This is between me and Floppers.” The stallion said as he tried to stand taller for intimidation. Since he was naturally short it wasn’t impressive at all and instead made him look a bit constipated.
Moondancer was confused at the muffin top comment and looked down at her stomach. She supposed that with the large shirt she was wearing bunched up like it was, the shirt did make it seem like she had some flab. It wasn’t a flattering position, but this Stallion should know better than to comment on a Mares weight. It was one of those unwritten rules everyone just followed.
Still, she wasn’t going to just let some random Shmuck insult her friend. Especially ones whose level was only a pitiful 10.
“Said the guy who’s looks like he’s had work done to get those muscles. Tell me did they charge you extra for the but implants or did those come free with the Pec lift?” Moon Dancer didn’t have a clue where these insults were coming from or how she knew what any of those things were. But at the moment she didn’t care. Her Friend was being insulted and she wasn’t going to stand for it.
If the banging on the table as Minuette shook was any indication. She was doing a good job.
“That’s it you Horn's head. I challenge you to a squat off. Well, see who’s smirking after a couple hundred squats. “
[New Challenge]
[Beat this loud-mouthed Imbecile in his own game]
[+20 affection with Minuette, ?? .]
Accepting the quest off-hand They all separated so that they could prepare for the challenge.
“You know you don’t have to do this. Bicep’s an annoying pain in the ass for most of the gym and I think the manager is going to ban him soon anyway.” Minette said as she ran through the proper way to do a squat in the challenge.
“Yeah. Well um. It’s just…Well I want to. He insulted you, I mean the words weren’t all that insulting but the way he said it, even before he devolved into chauvinistic rambling. I just didn’t like that he did that.” Moondance mumbled as she tried to look anywhere else but Minuette.
Minute beamed at Moondancer and resited the urge to wrap the girl in the most bone-crushing hug she could manage.
“Thanks, Moony, Really, it means a lot. Now, let's run through how this is going to work one more time.”
When the time starts your and Biceps are going to start squatting down to see who can do the most amount of squats in 5 minutes. It may sound easy but working all those muscles for that long will strain anyone no matter how strong. A rep only counts is your ass becomes parallel with your knee. I’ll be counting Biceps reps while his friend Calf will count yours. By the end of the five minutes, whoever has the most amount of reps wins. Understood?”
Moondancer nods as both of them head over to the small area of the gym covered in Foe grass. The challenge will be held on the foe grass to no obstruct the other weight lifters.
Moondancer and Bicep got into position on either side of each other and when he saw the time begin both of them began to squat.
At first, Moondacer was going fine. She continued to squat in the same form that Minuette showed her. It was all going well till her spotter got to the twenty squat marks. She had started off strong but now she could feel a tight burning sensation stemming from her thigs and moving towards her hips and ass.
She had been in the lead by 2 squats but after the burning sensation started she slowed down and dropped back. Now she was only keeping within 2 or 3 squats of Bicep.
And this was only the end of the first minute.
By the second minute, she was getting desperate and her squats didn’t count. The only consolation being that Bicep also missed 2 squats when he got cocky.
By the third minute, her face started to develop a red tint and her breathing became labored. Every time she dropped down to another squat she needed to fight her own body to breathe. All she wanted to do was just crash down and lay down but she wasn’t willing to give up just yet. She may be trailing behind by five reps but she wasn’t out of the running yet.
On the fourth and last minute, each rep felt like she was trying to pick up a mountain. Her face was now fully red as she hyperventilated for more air. Her legs were shaking as she forced them to work for one more rep. She had both of her eyes shut tight as the sweat from the reps was starting to sting her eyeballs, making it more difficult to concentrate. If she had looked down she would have seen a small puddle of sweat from under her. Her muscles were screaming at her, begging her to stop and rest. But she couldn’t, Wouldn’t. her pride was too strong. She was going to give this her all. Even if her whole body felt like it was on fire.
“Time!”
At the sound of The clock reaching five minutes, Moony fell face-first into the ground. Her Legs finally resting after the sudden shock of overload. She didn’t know or care if she won or lost at that moment. All she wanted was for the burning pain in her legs to go away as she gasped for every new breath.
Thankfully gamer's body kicked in shortly and rapidly began to re-energize her. Allowing her to turn over and get onto a bench in just a few seconds.
“Wow, Moony that was so impressive. I didn’t know you had it in you. I mean, Not that I doubted you but that was awesome!” Minuette passed Moony a water bottle that she all but tore out of her hands and began to guzzle down.
“Did….Did I win?” Moony asked, hoping that her stats were enough to bet out the rude jerk.
Looking around she could see that Bicep was also exhausted but in considerably better shape than she was in. He was drenched in sweat but it didn’t look like he was about to collapse as she had.
Falling onto the floor like that would have been embarrassing but she was just too tired to care now.
But the Beaming smile on Minuettes face made it all worth it.
“YES, You Frikin did I Moony. YOU WON. It was close, only by a single Rep, But you beat out won.” Minuette said as she grabbed hold of Moon dancer and spun her around in a bone-crushing hug. Not caring for a moment that all her sweat was getting onto her.
Moon Daner was thankful that her face was already red otherwise she everyone could see just how much she enjoyed Minuetts hug.
“NO, I don’t accept this. Thiers no way I lost to some newbie. I call cheat.” Bicep said as he stood up and puffed out his chest to try and look menacing. He was not willing to accept that he had lost and since it was by such a small margin he wasn’t going to admit anything.
“Cheat? Your buddy was counting her reps and I was counting yours. There was no cheating. You're just pissed cause you half-assed a dozen reps cause you underestimated Moony. Just admit you lost and move on dude. This doesn’t have to become a thing.” Minuette said as she stood in front of Moondancer.
Not that she thought Bicep would try anything. He might yell and holler but he wasn’t a violent sort. Just the cheating sort.
Ponies around the gym had been watching the little contest about halfway through. It wasn’t every day you see a mare nearly kill herself with squats and that kind of effort drew attention. So there were plenty of witnesses to the Contest.
Rounding on his groupie Bicep asked “ Calf, you were counting her reps, how many did she squat?” Just from the tone of voice, everyone could tell that biceps was demanding his friend lie for him. It was petty and stupid but Biceps just had too much pride to lose to anyone without a fight.
Visibly uncomfortable the taller earth pony bit his lip and mumbled out “Uhhh, It was three hundred Fifty....four?" Calf said but it came out more like a question. He shrugged his shoulders and looked away from everyone, he didn’t want to look anypony in the eye and reveal he was lying despite everyone knowing he was.
“Ha, There I won. Now get out of here you losers.” Bicep said cockily, unaware his reputation in the gym was falling even further down than what it was before.
Minuette was getting angry and wanted to punch the bucker in the face for being such a jerk. But a hand by her waist stopped her. “Min, We won, We know we did. If he wants to delude himself, then just let him. Arguing with him’s not worth it. It’s just going to be pointless in the end.” Moondance said as she stretched out her legs. They were really feeling cramped all of a sudden, uncomfortably so.” “Your friend there is right little Minie, Go ahead and get her to the locker room before she collapses.” A tall and jaked unicorn stallion with a silvery stary main and ruff dark blue fur-wearing tight exercise sweats and a windbreaker said to Minuette as he walked over to them.
He was the owner and of the gym and a friend of Minuetts parents. He had seen the whole contest and was in fact impressed with her friend. It wasn’t an amazing amount of reps or anything like that. But the fact that she could just keep going even when she clearly was so close to her limit was impressive. That kind of focus and determination showed she had some potential.
Moving past the two of them Alligator Press marched over to the three bone heads that were still celebrating their little ‘win’. Stalking them like his namesake. He had enough of all the complaints coming in about these three and he was now going to do something about it.
Feeling tired and sore but ultimately triumphant and a little smug at Bicps coming to misfortune Minuette and Moondancer walked away to go clean up in the Loker room.
Having a chance now Moondancer was able to see the slew of alerts she got during her workout.
[For straining yourself to the limit you have acquired +5 VIT]
[For pushing past your Limits you have gained +5 STR]
[For learning about proper body train form you gain +1 INT]
[Challenge complete] – Beat the imbeciles at his own game.
[+20 Reputation with Minuette]
[100 Exp]
[Skill -Trolls Endurance aquired] – Gain a +500% Stamina recovery multiplier.
[Skill Work Horse aquired] – Stamina loss decreases at 50% rate
[Reputation threshold reached. 50/100 Reputation with Minuette Aquired]
[The Leaders Charisma. +5% charisma multiplier when iterating with other ponies.]
[+10% reputation gain with ponies in the Maid Profession.]
[20 VIT reached – Passive skill acquired – Bellowers Breath- Negates status effect [Short of air]]
[STR 20 Reached- Passive skill acquired- Earth ponies Constitution- You have gained the stalwart strength of the earth pony tribe.]
Looking over her stats sheet Moondacenr couldn’t help but think training with Minuette had been worth it. Not only had she grown by leaps in just a couple of hours but now she knew that she couldn’t just lift heavy things to get stronger. There was a method to the swoll madness and she was eager to learn it.
“Come on moony, Let me give you a message in the sauna to loosen up some of those tense muscles.” Minuette coxed a tired but satisfied Moony away from her locker and beckoned her over to the sauna.
Felling like a nice hot Sauna was a great idea Moony followed her in.
