Beginning: I Need Your Help
Words you heard Fizzy say earlier play over and over again in your mind. Am I just done here? Do I still have a purpose here? Maybe I should just go back where I came from.
“Oh, no no no, this won’t do at all. Or will it? Maybe, maybe not. Wait, won’t do what? What won’t do? What won’t it do? Will do, won’t do, what do, who do?” says a voice from seemingly nowhere.
You look around, trying to find its origin. “Who said that?”
“Me, over here!” The voice seems to be coming from a standing lamp.
“A lamp?”
“No no, I’m not the lamp. I’m the genie inside. OK, you got me. I’m not a genie.”
The lamp becomes enveloped in a sparkling golden light and morphs into a pale-skinned biped creature with a white beard, pointy ears, and a long round nose. He’s reminiscent of a troll or a leprechaun, but his expression suggests someone who is mischievous, but not malevolent. He is wearing a brown robe and a green stocking cap that hangs all the way down to his waist, and is leaning on a knotty walking stick. He’s so short that his head barely comes up to your waist.
“Mr. Moochick at your service.” He removes his hat and bows to you. You can’t help but notice that the ears which were peeking through his hat are still somehow attached to his hat.
“What do you want?”
“What do I want? Oh, I’m just here to help an old friend, but magic is in short supply, both friendship or otherwise, and I need your help. Now, now run along–” he pauses and looks around. He even looks under his feet.
“Oops… wrong dimension!” He then jumps up and bonks you on the head with his cane.
“Owch!”
“Sorry about that, but making choices can hurt, especially when all of them seem like the right one.”
“What choices? Where am I?”
“Not where you were before, my friend. Not where you were before.” As he speaks, the world around you swirls and shifts in strange hypnotic patterns. Occasionally you see something you think you recognize, but it’s gone before you can focus on it further. “Now pay attention. We’re going back to the beginning, to meet the first. It’s her crucial year, and I need your help.”
The twirling dance of colors lifts away like stage curtains, revealing a cozy farmhouse and horse stables.
“What is this?”
“Just a little ranch dressing.” He quickly pushes you from behind towards the entrance to the stables. “Come along, come along, tall creature.”
“What’s going on?”
“Just go on, go on,” Moochick says.
As you enter the stable, you can hear the whimsical voice of a young girl. “...and was the last time the girl Wendy ever saw him. For a little longer she tried for his sake not to have growing pains; and she felt she was untrue to him when she got a prize for general knowledge. But the years came and went without bringing the careless boy; and when they met again Wendy was a mother, and Peter was no more to her than a little dust in the box in which she had kept her toys.”
Off in the distance, you see the source of the voice, a human blonde girl wearing blue jeans and a faux leather vest. She’s seated on a pile of hay, reading a book to a horse. Not one from Equestria, a common earth saddle horse.
Mr. Moochick says, “Please talk to her for me.”
“For you? But why can’t you–”
“She no longer has eyes that can see me, or ears that can hear any Pony.” He frowns. “She is losing the ability to believe.”
The brown horse near the girl suddenly trots over to Mr. Moochick and nuzzles him. “But you can still see me, can’t you. How are you, old friend?” Moochick ran his hand along the top of her muzzle.
As you watch Moochick and the horse greet one another, you hear a gasp. “Who are you?” The girl is now on her feet.
Moochick asks, “Do you know who she is, [USERNAME]?” He continues, motioning with his hand, “That girl there, Megan, is the first human to ever meet Ponies… a long time ago.”
You ask Moochick, “What do you want me to say?”
“Who are you talking to?” Megan asks.
“Go on,” Mr. Moochick says. “Say hi.”
“I’m [USERNAME], and you’re… Megan?”
“Alright, how do you know that?” she asks, feeling a little uneasy.
“Mr. Moochick told me.”
“Moochick? You know– wait, no. How could you?” She scowled. “Oh, Danny put you up to this, didn’t he?”
“No.”
“Molly then. No, Molly wouldn’t do that. That’s too mean for her.”
“Mean?” you ask. “Why would it be mean?”
“They know what this means to me.” She looks sad. “But, how else could you know I am?”
The horse now nudges you towards her and whinnies.
“Well, T.J. seems to like you, and he’s never been wrong about someone,” she says.
You notice the book she was reading, now pressed to her chest. “What were you reading?”
“Peter Pan. First edition, actually. I was just… looking for wisdom, I guess.”
“Wisdom on what?”
She points at you with the book still clenched in her hand. “Moochick, you said?”
You nod.
“This is going to sound weird.”
“Try me.”
“There are many of these stories about kids who go to other worlds. But they almost never stay. Well, I’ve been to one. At least I think; I’m not sure anymore. It was years ago. I really don’t know. Maybe I just imagined it all? But, now I’m wondering, if I could go back, would I? Should I? It was all so wonderful, like a dream. But you always have to wake up, right?”
You can see tears in her eyes just before she wipes them away with her arm, and in this moment, you see a page in her book gleaming with an ethereal light; one of the pages from the Book of All Stories!
Megan continues, “I’m supposed to go away to college after summer is over. I’m studying to be a farm vet. But I keep second guessing myself. I feel like this is my last chance. If I leave, I’ll never see any of them again. Or maybe it’s already too late. I don’t know. I feel like I belong to two different worlds. Does that sound crazy? Anyway, what would you do? Would you run away from everything to another world?”
[CHOICE]
> Show her the convention (Hero)
> Tell her she's delusional (Villain)
> Tell her to merge the two worlds (Chaos)