LoHAV: Can We Really Be The Hero?

by LoHAV Collabs

First published 24th of April, 2015

Eight souls (and counting) trapped in one body was the result of reincarnation gone wrong (right?). Said souls happen to be zealous, vengeful beings who went under the banner of LoHAV. Being stuck in one body, however, won't deter them by even a bit!

What happens when you reave eight beings of their souls and trap them into one body? The result would be awful, but you can wager that they'll want revenge on whoever that did that.

And you can wager whatever is left that they'll wreck most if not all of equilibrium trying to attain their goals.

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This is a collaborative effort between eight LoHAV authors. Feel free to join in--the only prerequisite being that you must have to contribute a LoHAV character.

Prologue. Greetings

“This is complete lunacy,” the words spoke themselves, no physical tongue conveying them vocally. Just exactly where the voice came from, was a spherical orb. The atmosphere surrounding this ‘orb’ cascaded with strong magic due to the residue of a mage’s intense magical trace.

This spherical light hovered around gently in the air, boasting an ominous pitch black aura. The middle of the orb’s aura was lit afire with a fervent red glow.

The orb, illuminating the surface lightly with the red luminescence, added, “We all died… and we actually have the chance of reincarnation. But… why the hell do we need to share just one damned body? Just- did they run out of bodies or something?”

“I’m not sure, what lies after death has never been something I’ve researched in my studies…” An orb of solid gold spoke, a whisp of clouds following its wake as it drifted in its surrounding.

“I think I remember you…” the Summoner spoke warily. “You’re that other mage guy. Uh. Jamal Jared? Right?”

“I know I’m already dead but I feel like I just died a little inside... Again…” The golden orb sighed, the clouds beginning to turn gray as small droplets of water fell from them. “It’s not Jamal, It’s Ral. Ral Zarek.”

The current terrain was quite lifeless, actually. There was nothing for miles on end- no; there was absolutely nothing here. Whatever naturality of the ground was replaced with white tiles that seemed to ripple with water-like waves every now and then despite there not being a breeze. The sky, if one could call it that, was substituted with a pale white ceiling--much like the texture of a blank canvas. The horizon held nothing promising; simply the same dull, dreary tiles of white for a perpetual distance.

It’s unbelievably boring here as our ‘heroes’ have recently discovered.

In the middle of the planes of utter listless nothingness, stood one lowly human. He stood there, mindless--quite literally, actually--gazing throughout the white void that stretched for as far as one’s eyes could see.

The human held a neutral expression--and it held it for quite some time now. Specifically, an hour long now. Reality rippled around him, as if the spirits of dead entities whose powers could distort actuality itself. Oh wait--that was actually happening right now.

The human’s visage was as boring as his looks. Running down his scalp was a rather unruly, long hair; quite cliched, really.

Spherical, glowing, faint orbs of light circled around the human. These orbs observed their would-be body, their glances scrupulous, astute, and… among other things, apathetic.

“Beats me,” another one with a bright dark purple ethereal glow spoke as he faded in alongside him. “But at least we got a few hits in and I managed to destroy my cap before she was able to use it.”

“Who’s ‘she’ again?” a voice resounded like a knell. The origin of said voice was from a gaseous sphere of blue. “My… memory is a bit blurred.”

“I guess dying will do that to you…” a dull brown orb floated. It seemed larger than the others.

Another orb soon joined in, this one black at the core, and engulfed in a red aura. A pitch black smoke engulfed this aura, leaving a trail of stifling smoke screen as it bolted around frantically.

"Guh... holy... What...? Ow, my... head..? Where the Hell is my head? Where am I?! When my fucking uncle-in-law hears about this, heads are gonna roll!" The aura screamed, vibrating with anger. “Wait! I remember now! I know the voices of you guys… We all died or something, didn’t we?”

“Yup,” one of the previous balls of aura replied in a deadpan tone. “Ah… that irate tone mingled in fury and a signature venom of hatred--you’re Malideus.”

“Yeah… and you,” the aura streamlined towards the other, orbiting around it with an observant gaze. “You’re the inferior mage…”

“That’s not my name,” the offended aura replied with an agitated sigh. “Hint; it ends with ‘er’. I’ve a feeling that you’ve forgotten. It seems that a portion of our recollection has faded-”

The purple one zipped in front of the red orb. “It’s the Stripper, right? Probably not, but I know for a damned fact that it started with an ‘s’.”

The red orb sighed. “No. And look, I can even remember your name! It’s Batty.... uh- right?”

“Other than the weird pronunciation, you’re correct… phonetically, at least. It’s Vaati.” The purple orb swished around in front of the red orb. “Notice the prolonged ‘a’ there? Idiot.”

Another orb poofed in existence near the group, interrupting the conversation. The dark-grey soul of the formerly alive villain rolled a couple of times, leaving a trail of blue lightning as it groaned.

“That… Hurt…” The ball said with a deep, slightly echoing voice as it came to a stop.

The Overlord decided to lurk in the background, only saying anything when he had what to say. Someone had to be stoic and a voice of reason, after all. Or a tactical commander...

“-Fuck.” A brown ball of magical energy materialized, looked the scene over and then sighed. “Great, not even in death can I escape. Hello, everybody.” This orb was larger than the other orbs, and rather plain in spite of it all.

Author's Notes:

Do not click the below link if you wish to avoid spoilers vvvv

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_-AreaNM2J2zUHqCl2OhjoZbq96xEFN1JEpKG0nia1Y/edit

That's the commentable, (mostly) unedited version of this story! And it's all uncut--up to the part where we decided to divide the behemoth of a chapter into smaller chapters...

Provide commentary! Do whatever! Spoil people! We at LoHAV don't give much of a care!

Chapter 1. Character Creation

“Alright! Alright! Everyone! Shut up!” the Summoner yelled out, his voice echoing throughout the nothingness strangely enough. “We have to go through this oddity of a ‘character creation’ sequence,” he spoke, nudging at the lone human in the middle of them who was still staring at nothing with a literal absentminded state.

“The hell is this?” Malideus’ form fissured like an earthquake, sending off embers from his ghastly aura towards several directions. “Dark souls?”

“Darksouls- you could remember that game, but not my bleedin’ name?!” the Summoner exclaimed, shaking as well uncontrollably.

“In my defense, that game was more memorable than you,” Malideus retorted.

“He does have a point. I got acid reflux from that game.” The Friar interjected.

The Summoner wriggled around in the air, his non-existent mouth managed to mumble a few incoherent grumbles, but he was unable to ultimately make any intelligible sentences to be uttered from himself. “Fine,” the Summoner let out in a hushed tone. “That’s actually a valid alibi. In fact, the mental trauma from that game still is present in my recollection. Even in death, Dark Souls will always haunt me.”

“So…” Vaati muttered, looking directly at the unmoving human. “His height is a bit problematic… I’m not so used to being tall. How about we we make him shorter?”

The clean slate of a human began to shrink--in a rather comical fashion as it was as if he just deflated. The human stopped at half of his former height.

“No! What the hell!?” Audrey bellowed, “Revert it back! Revert it back! I’m not willing to be bound to a midget!”

Promptly, the unfazed human attained his former height in a similar fashion. The human now stood at an average height once more in the span of a split second.

“Yeah, you’re right. Ugh, being dead fucked up my memory more than it already was. Really wish I could reincarnate as that white haired guy from Aria of Sorrow, I think that’s the game’s name.”

Just as those words rang throughout the vicinity, it seemed as if reality itself obliged to the aura’s whim and began morphing the human accordingly. The human, engulfed in actuality’s yoke, became warped and distorted. The sight of the human being reborn was similar to that of an egg yolk being beaten into a spiral.

Just as the distortions dissipated, the human was birthed anew with a new form. The human now idly stood with a white coat complimented with a powdery snow, slightly silver hair that was both unruly and lengthy. Hanging loosely by the human’s new white fur coat was a scabbard, complete with an actual sword.

“Holy shit!” The dark purple aura continued “I was kidding when I said that, doesn’t the cosmos know sarcasm?” The aura closed in on his physical form’s successor, zipping past around his ‘character’.

“Magic is fickle. There’s a reason why I have a sword as well.”

“Nope, we’re not going to be using that body,” Ral sighed, his imaginative eyebrows squinting as he looked the figure over. The aura then courtly shrugged by bopping left to right rapidly. “He looks too gothic for my tastes. How about removing some of the make up?”

The human’s upper extremity flashed for a second, revealing a new face. Well, it was the same exact face just minus the overdone makeup. The face looked much more natural and with a much more crisp texture.

“Hm… I guess that’s a little better...” Ral grunted.

“Better!? I hate anime! Let's go with something more presentable..." Malideus trailed off, moulding the character before him into a tall, armored figure, his face concealed by a cage-like helmet, adorned with an absurdly large crest, and massive stone armor, chains dangling from the waist and wrists.

"There! Havel the God-damned Rock! Now we can actually keep ourselves from getting smoked by Senile-lestia again." The red-and-black orb declared, quite pleased with his creation.

"By all means, explain how being encased in several inches of armor would make us look more 'presentable'?" the Summoner spoke out, quivering furiously. "More importantly, how are we supposed to move?"

The Summoner blurred his wisp's image as he began circling the remarkably accurate Havel the Rock replica at an unrivaled speed. Consuming the Rock's body whole in a red mist-like shroud, the Summoner let out a few singsong hums as he threaded and fabricated a new body, fluttering in and out of the foreboding mist every few seconds of so.

“Hey, what’s wrong with a good defense!? Those are freakin’ everlasting dragon scales, for cryin’ out loud! You guys just don’t know efficient when you see it…” Malideus sighed, glaring at the Summoner with increasing intensity.

“If efficiency is to death then you’ve done a mighty fine job, you pretty much turned us into a living pressure cooker, waiting for Celestia to turn on the dial.” Ral tsked, irritation reaching his voice.

Malideus gestured dismissively by swishing around a bit. "Feh.”

"And here we go!" The Summoner declared as he vacated himself from the confounding fog of red he had just made, "Something much more deserving of our interests, eh?"

Standing motionless, swathed in a refined two-piece suit of a pitch black fabric complemented with a black tie, stood a relatively aged man with a slightly short, but appealing haircut. The man kept his arms low, sporting two identical sidearms finished with a black, glossy surface outfitted with suppressors.

"John Wick?" -input whoever this is here- spoke out, his/her face forming a pseudo-glower and grimace.

"Not only that, but I'm pretty sure I've altered his presence so that whenever we have to kill something, techno blares in the background."

"That would be both advantageous and harmful for stealth... The surprise techno could distract them long enough for us to sneak in a swift stab or two... but on the other hand, it would make our presence obvious," Ral remarked, eyeing the suit.

"Hell no. I'm not playing as some old dude, much less one with a techno battle theme." Malideus’ voice whined, the pure abhorrence clinging into his tone still lingering in the atmosphere as his form flared and shuddered unpleasantly.

“I demand we change it back! The lack of defence was what got us killed last time... I think!” Malideus finished, butting the Summoner’s orb out of the way.

“You know what? Fuck it.” Vaati irritably commented “Whatever the hell works is fine for me, I don’t care what it is. I’m not gonna give it much use anyway.”

“I concur.”

"Stuff it, you little garden gnome. Feel free to pitch in when YOU have a good idea." Malideus smugly shot back, his glare more felt than seen.

“Everybody, for the second time, shut up!” the Summoner’s words echoed at a near-deafening volume. Just as his voice evanesced, silence instilled itself once more into the vicinity. Pointing himself towards the ‘template’ the Summoner spoke out, “Undo all of the changes!”

Adhering to his whim, the unforeseen force began to tether the human in its spacial vice once more. Rending space and time, ripples of reality began to flow outwards from the human, obscuring his figure. Finally, the eclipsing mishmash of static-like blurs surrounding the human disappeared.

Once more, the human appeared in his former appearance--generic, half-naked, and looking rather pale and feebly toned .

“Let’s be sensible about this,” the Summoner spoke as he visually gestured by doing a few loops in place. “Why not we give him our natural abilities?”

The other auras simply glanced at the Summoner blankly, all of them collectively giving of an eerie silence as they continued to stare at him. The Summoner fidgeted around, a bit unnerved.

"I, for one, agree. Some intelligence would suffice, for starters. Let's start with that." Malideus started, and soon, a little bar marked 'INT' appeared over the blank slate, followed by several others marked with several other attributes; dexterity, vitality, strength, endurance, speed, size, and sex appeal.

"Now... everyone, put your numbers on these. This should help the Summoner out a bit, as well as get us back into the fight faster. Now, who's first?" Malideus asked, sneaking a smug glance at the crew before him.

“Well, my magic was a bit odd, but it definitely relied on my own vitality.” The Fat Friar said, tapping the Vitality bar.

“Sex appeal? Really?” Vaati commented disgusted.

"Hey, don't blame me; blame Saint's Row 3." Malideus replied, shrugging.

“Say- what happens if we max that stat out?” the Summoner dashed forwards towards the large ‘stats sheet’ screen. Unceremoniously, the Summoner’s aura bolted towards the side of Malideus, shoving him off. He flicked the ‘slider’ of the sex appeal stat to the utmost right with a single flourish.

Suddenly, the human became enshrouded by light, his figure being molded once more. Finally, the light dissipated, revealing the human’s newly formed physique that was too immensely astounding to be described to the point that it was emanating an illustrious golden aura.

“My eyes!” the Summoner yelped at the intensity of their player character’s aesthetics. “This was a grievous mistake!”

“You fool! Are you trying to mentally scar us!?” Malideus shouted, taken aback by the sudden marvel, yet still remaining composed enough to convey his raw ire. "Turn it back! Turn it back before I catch the Gay!!!"

“Oh. I’m mentally scarred alright… but in a good way,” Audrey’s aura spoke, a bit of a lusty drawl clinging onto her tone.

“I have no eyes, why does this burn so much?!” Vaati’s voice was heard as he wringed around in the air.

“Fascinating…” Ral muttered, feeling the urge to question his sexuality come onto him.

“Huh. Well, I do believe I’m bisexual now.” The Fat Friar gave the impression of shrugging.

“No… Just no.” The Overlord growled as his orb moved behind Ral’s, using it to shield himself from the sight. After all, that was what allies were for...

Finally, Malideus mustered up his energy, and breaking his sight with the unfathomably handsome character they just created, he flipped the Sex Appeal slider to the dead middle, ending the ordeal there.

"You..." Malideus growled to the Summoner, venom dripping from his voice, "You will not touch another stat slider for as long as you live. Got it?"

“Ha! I accept those terms,” The Summoner wiggled around ecstatically for a second. “After all, we’re not technically living at the moment and I doubt that we’re going to find any Stat Sliders after our rebirth.”

Malideus paused a second, the gears turning in his nonexistent head, then, finally, made a quick retort.

“I hate you.” Malideus curtly replied, his red aura dimming.

“Alright, alright. Obviously, we need a higher “INT” stat so that us mages,” Ral gestured to both the Summoner and Vaati, “can retain our potential.”

“Yes,” the Summoner interjected. “The procedures on how we cast our spells--they’re still quite present in our heads, though they’re a bit blurred, so don’t expect them to be too overpowered.”

“Pft.” Ricky suddenly butted himself into the conversation with a disparaging tone. “I don’t detest the use of magic, but I certainly don’t want to be dependent on it.”

“Shut up, you. If we hadn’t used even a sliver of our magic during that final boss fight against Celestia, we’d have been done for in the first few seconds of that fight,” the Summoner remarked.

“Fine, whatever, cap out the magic stat--or whatever,” Ricky retorted.

As the INT bar began surging to its zenith, the human began to ripple with magic, the atmosphere became damp and heavy with magic. Waves of reality began to flow like waves of water as the human stood with a brazened aura of magic, distorting reality itself.

Accordingly, the INT gauge displayed on the “stat screen” began to rise alarmingly, stopping at the uppermost edge. Now, the INT stat meter was quadrupled in size.

“Woah-” the Summoner recoiled back as the cascade of arcane energy struck him in the face like a banana cream-filled pie. “That’s a bit too overwhelming don’t you think?!” his words rang out a bit frantically.

“Damn straight this is too overwhelming!” Malideus yelled out, his appearance seemingly growing in size accordingly to his anger. “Look at the other stats!” Malideus, without no more than a cautioning swish, dove at the stat display screen. “Look!” he exclaimed as he pointed at the STR bar. “It’s tinier than our dignity right now!” He complained, gesturing at the STR meter displayed as a tiny speck of a line of red.

“True… We wouldn’t be able to even lift a fork with that laughably low STR stat,” the Summoner added.

“I actually used magic to enhance my strength while fighting, but only in short bursts.” Ral commented. “I feel it would be more effective if we took the cumulative of all our intelligence together, our knowledge should give us the power necessary to cast our spells.”

With a nod of agreement from the others, the INT began to recede, stopping at a leisurely height of the center, before raising again till it rested well above normal. The aura around the figure was still thick with magic, sparks jumping from his skin every now and then from the power.

“God I love storm magic.” Ral mentally grinned.

“Alright!” Malideus chirped out, jerking upwards. “Now we can raise the STR stat much higher now that INT is out of the way!” With an effervescence only known to Dark Souls players getting their own moonlight greatsword, Malideus bolted towards the human, stopping just a moderate feet away from him.

“Yo!” he shouted upwards into the blank sky at no one in particular, “Give this idiot the power to pierce the heavens! But not literally, though- Gah! You know what I mean, oh great cosmos gods!”

Suddenly, everything blinked with a red flash, causing everybody to flinch somewhat at the suddenness. Once it was done, well-toned muscles, not too large, but certainly not too small, enveloped the blank slate, and with another flick, Malideus rose the dexterity up a bit, too, just for good measure, and quickly turned to his comrades.

"Yeah, I leveled DEX. But don't tell anyone I leveled that up... fgts." Malideus said, glowering at his comrades.

“Are you a casul, or something?” the Summoner reared himself at Malideus as he spoke.

“In spite of the fact that I want to murder you--and drag you out of hell to kill you again--I shall avoid doing so since my dignity is already at a low… and the fact that we’re already dead.”

“I actually agree with increasing the stat as I am used to using my hands for complex crafting.” Ral reasoned, siding with Malideus.

“Balance is crucial for a shared body.” The Overlord added his own two cents in. “With good Strength, Magic and Dexterity we will have more options open when we finally get out of this accursed place and start to make our mark in the world anew.”

“I can agree with that reasoning…” the Summoner muttered audibly. “Anyways, now that we have adequate stats, I say that we proceed on what our ‘equipment’ is.”

Chapter 2. Preparing For War

Just as the Summoner’s words departed from his mouth, the “Stat Display” screen began to dissipate, dimming itself out of existence. As the once-occupied space was cleared, another display screen popped up, lighting up the surroundings a bit.

This time, the display read “Equipment Terminal.”

The Summoner gasped as he shivered a bit, “You mean- you mean we get to pick anything?!” Just as the Summoner began to grin--mentally, mind you--like a madman, his eyes swivelled to a number displaying the figure “nine” at the bottom right of the screen. Beside the number were the words “Equipment Limit.”

“Dammit!” the Summoner let out an exasperated sigh of defeat as he yelled out. “Oh well. We can cope well with just nine, can’t we guys?” Malideus grumbled, though, not pleased.

The Fat Friar seemed to glare at the Summoner. “You just had to say it, didn’t you. Don’t jinx us too much.”

“My cap!” Vaati called out, rushing his way to the Summoner’s side--in fact butting him away from the display screen, actually. “My cap! Does this thing have my damned cap!?”

Suddenly, the search bar present on the top right corner of the display screen began to type itself. Engraving the words “Minish Cap” on the search bar, the list of items were narrowed to just one item--”The Minish Cap”.

“Yes!” Vaati cheered out, his triumph basically radiating from his echoing voice.

“Not so fast!” Malideus swiftly confronted Vaati, placing himself directly in front of Vaati. “Do you not have eyes, midget gnome?” Malideus promptly gestured towards the right of the Minish Cap. There stood proudly a figure of a “ten” alight with a red glow. “We can’t get it with just nine points!”

“No!” Vaati hovered downwards in an almost a butterfly-like flutter, but the depressingly slow descent coupled with his involuntary convulsions made it appear much less vivace. “NooooooOOOOOOOooooo! “Ah, whatever.” He suddenly calmed down in a strangely quick mood swing “We’ll get to break the game later on then.”

“With that settled…” Malideus commented, disregarding Vaati, as he made his way towards the “Equipment Screen”. “Let’s see…”

“Unlimited pizza machine!” the Summoner suddenly yelled out as he shoved Malideus out of the way of the display screen’s presence, causing Malideus to yelp out as he suddenly found himself careening out of control, courtesy of the Summoner’s shove. “Search for that!” the Summoner added!

“Nice thinking!” Audrey yelled out as well, blurring towards the display screen as well. “That’s the greatest thing in non-existence!”

“Morons…” The Overlord muttered as he followed them. One could almost see the impression of his glowing eyes glaring at the two from the otherwise featureless surface of his orb.

The “Minish Cap” typed in on the search bar became blue before it suddenly evanesced into nothingness. Replacing the cap was now the words “unlimited pizza machine”.

Soon enough, the “Search Results” page displayed an image, along with its respective descriptive name on its side, of a simple, cube like machine with a crudely drawn image of a pizza plastered onto its surface.

“Yes-’ the Summoner’s triumphant cheer suddenly fell flat as the Summoner inspected the “Equipment Cost” for the coveted item--it was infinity. “No…” the Summoner let out a soft, but harsh gasp as he began to crumble to the floor. “It- it can’t be…”

“Why, great cosmos, why?” The Fat Friar sobbed, floating down with the Summoner.

“Why is life cruel to us even when we’re dead…” Audrey too began to deflate, spiraling downwards towards the floor, soon joining the Summoner and Vaati in their defeated lamentative conditions as her aura’s color began to gray out, though Malideus just laughed at the three on the tile floor as he regained control.

“Hm… If the reasoning for that were to stand…” Ral muttered, taking his place in front of the screen. “Elemental Gauntlets.” He spoke, the words “unlimited pizza machine” being replaced by “Elemental Gauntlets” It showed of several variations of the item Elemental Gauntlet until it showed the one that he was looking for.

“Thought so…” He sighed, seeing the number read 50.

“Alright then, how about Personal Journal of Ral Zarek: Notes about the Multiverse and it’s Many Theories.” The long name was eventually inputted in and eventually came up with a worn out journal that was thick with notes and other tabs of reference. The number 1 was next to its cost.

“Excellent, I’ll be taking that then.” Ral grinned, the book magically appearing in the character's hand. Suddenly, Malideus butted Ral aside, a malicious air about him now that his turn had begun.

"Keh heh heh... oh, this should be fun..." Malideus laughed, searching the bar with the word 'Staff of Vodahmin'. Quickly, the picture of the staff appeared; a long, thick staff, with a metal coating, and at the tip, a long, sharp, red gem surrounded by four blade-like struts in the depiction of roaring dragons. The cost only read three, making Malideus flare and giggle like a schoolgirl.

"Aw, yiss. Come to papa..." Malideus said, downloading the weapon before anyone could stop him. Soon, the staff was also within the avatar's grasp, crackling with maddening and borderline horrifying energy.

“Eh… What’s that supposed to be?” the Summoner asked, his form still shaken by seething sorrow. Malideus, ever one to explain things, then turned to The Summoner, a sly air about him.

"Oh, this? Just a little something my uncle-in-law showed me once. Said it belonged to a really powerful sorcerer named Vodahmin the forgotten. Supposed to be super powerful, and double as a spear or something." Malideus explained, still giggling a bit.

“Whatever… now that we have a pointy stick,” the Summoner dismissed. “Let’s move on to the next concern, we’re lacking armor. Not that I’m complaining, though… Armor always made me feel too cumbersome. Something tells me that we’re going to need it, however.”

“Something light may work, anything heavier would dampen us… Perhaps we just have some enchantments placed on normal clothes?” Ral voiced. “I was originally able to cast whatever enchantments I wanted to before, but I am unsure as to our current ability when we’re just being born again.”

“Screw it, let’s just search “Armor” onto the search-bar-thing,” Audrey spoke, practically appearing out of thin air just behind Ral.

As such, the search bar was now displaying the text “Armor” onto it. A little loading loop popped up, circling in a set rhythm as the word “Searching” was shown below it. Soon enough, the loading screen had vanished, it being replaced with a number of search results.

Appearing on the display screen was myriad protective gear of various flourish and craftsmanship. Conveniently enough, the description of said armor along with their respective stats were shown as well in the side. Malideus quickly butted in, seeing the set he wanted: giant's armor, mask of the father, and grass crest shield.

"That one. Get that one." Malideus egged on, practically drooling.

“I feel that would be a bit expensive… We only have five points left to spend…” Ral hummed.

“Wait- look at that one,” the Summoner pointed at a lone, casual-looking silk-fabric hat. “Pyromaniac’s hat. Causes the wearer to combust randomly aflame. No additional penalties or bonuses… Minus one equipment cost?” He continued gawking at the off-putting hat. “I guess we get one point back if we wear this?

“And enduring the pain of being set on fire randomly would be worth that?” The Overlord growled, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

“Easy! We just wear something that negates fire damage!” Malideus suggested, his voice brimming with prideful triumph. “How’s that for cheating the system, eh?”

“But then we just spend a point to negate it, and chances are the equipment to negate it will be more than one.” Ral mentally frowned.

“That is true…” the Summoner noted. “Hey- I wonder, are there any equipment that has no cost whatsoever?”

Without even acknowledging it, the Summoner inputted “No-cost Armor” into the search bar.

Suddenly, Malideus chuckled, and pointed the cursor at one of the items in question; the Speedo of incombustibility.

"Well, seems the universe is one step ahead... look, immunity to fire, +10 sex appeal, -10 dignity." Malideus noted, greatly amused.

“All this stuff either gives us nothing or a negative buff…”

“And the penalties are compensating us with more equipment points,” the Summoner noted idly. “Hey- look at that; negative five equipment cost.” Towards the Summoner’s gaze was a rather questionable piece of apparel that will remain undescribed as to avoid having this story being rated ‘Mature’.

“Wait, can’t we just drop the negative stuff when we start?” Vaati suggested, mentally arching his figurative eyebrows.

“Doubt it, those slots are probably permanent, so this’ll be the equivalent of having a pair of shoes but not knowing what to do with them and wearing them on your head.”

"Then what about the stuff that you DO wear on your head?" Malideus joked.

“You wear them on your feet-” The Summoner then cut himself off, “Screw it. We’re getting sidetracked here. Let’s scroll down for more equipment options…”

The Summoner began perusing through the wide dossier of armor. “Armor of the Dead… Dead Armor… Undead Armor- why the hell is there a crap ton of armor like this?”

“Isn’t that, like, the most massively known type of armor in the RPG genre?” someone said, mentally sighing.

“Alright, screw it.” Ral tsked. “We need something specific, let’s just request it. Mage Armor, Light Weight, Cost of five or less.” He listed, and Malideus butted in;

"And made of everlasting dragon scales and latex!"

“Belay that!” Ral shouted, headbutting Malideus to the side. “And bring up parental controls, block Malideus-”

“Don’t mistake me as a mere child!” Malideus bellowed, diving himself towards Ral, causing the both of them to bolt off into the ground with a resounding thud.

“Let’s see what we have here…” The Summoner absentmindedly hovered towards the display screen. “All of these ‘Mage’ armor are so generic… We need something with flair-” suddenly, something caught his attention--a grandiose piece of equipment with a cost of a mere ‘two’.

For the sake of being concise, it was a lightly plated, scale-vested robe, complete with cape, and fully-custom color scheme of red. Complimenting it was a scarf that flickered from one color to another. Appropriately titled ‘Rainbow Madness’ this piece of clothing shifted from color to color every few seconds.

“Got any in Izzet colors?” Ral glanced over The Summoner, causing him to recoil back, startled.

“Oh, uh-” Swiftly, the Summoner flicked the screen a bit, causing the ‘Rainbow Madness’ armor to go out of sight. “Um, nope. Nothing so far.” He let out a suspicious sigh of relief.

Ral stared flatley at him. “Uhuh...I was talking about a variation for the Rainbow Madness, quote unquote.” He mentally frowned.

“All of you guys this picky about clothing,” Audrey mentally burrowed her nonexistent palm onto her face, causing a reactive “hmph” from Malideus.

“Not clothing, woman!” Malideus protested. “Armor! Armor; there’s quite a difference there!”

“Hold on, let me skim this.” Ral then began to scroll at an impossible rate, the screening beginning to blur.

“Are you even reading it? We may be missing the funny armours.” The Fat Friar said, trying to get in closer.

“Uhuh.” Ral muttered, scrolling faster.

“You are not!”

“There!” the Summoner exclaimed, causing Ral to cease his absentminded browsing. “I saw something sick a few back! Scroll back!”

“Was it the apprentice Star Swirl robes?” Ral asked. “Because they were by far the best so far, but I wanted to see everything first.” He scrolled back up until the page became clear.

“Hell no!” The Summoner thrusted himself towards Ral, pushing Ral off the screen’s view. Scrolling a bit upwards, the Summoner figuratively grinned like a mad man. “Necromancer Robes! Not just generic Necromancer Robes, but the ones from Fire Emblem-”

“Bleh. Whatever; they still look generic,” Malideus commented.

“Guys, it only costs three--we’d even have two points left to allocate!” the Summoner jerked upwards. “Gives us a forte in dark magic, which I’m actually well-versed in, “Five percent increase in INT, a bit more power in summoning, and amplified dark magic damage output--I’d say that this is the one for us.”

“So the equivalent of Black mana… If I think on it like that…” Ral muttered, deep in thought.

“It’s decided then!” the Summoner yelled out. “It’s time to don this sick piece of armor!” The Summoner reared himself at the screen display. “Give us the power, oh glorious screen display; give us that sweet Necromancer armor!”

Once more, a haze of distortion enveloped the template character, causing him to blur out of view. The haze began to dissipate,

Replacing the human’s casual wear was now a much more drastic-looking cloak. Epaulets of white laced with gold was now apparent on the template’s shoulders. Endowing the human’s back was a cape of purple mingled with a padded, silvery fabrics that almost lengthed to the floor. Swathing the human was a robe of leather clothing that was dyed in purple that was also outlined in gold.

“Nice,” the Summoner noted.

“Hey, I got an idea for the last bit of points.” Ral spoke. “Bring up Izzet Keyrune.” The item list then brought up the item, the equipment cost being three.

“Ironic how its cost is the same as its mana cost, huh?” Ral muttered before changing his attention to the rest. “If we take this, then we should be able to access the magic that I could use when I was alive, and thanks to the robes we can also cast other spells that require black mana instead of only red and blue. Mind if we grab it?”

“I don’t see why not.”

“You’d be worthless without it, so yeah. Go ahead,” Malideus spoke.

“Humph, because of our natural abilities being added I already give us the benefit of using lightning, this just makes us that much more powerful in the end,” Ral remarked. “Alright, add that on. I guess put it on a chain as a necklace I guess since our hands are full…”

Rending the winds, the unforeseen entities shrouded the template in a haze of warped reality once more. Disappearing from view, the surroundings of the human reverted back. On the human’s neck was now a chain with a totem of a strange creature, or weird to be precise, colored in simple blues and reds. In the middle of the keyrune was the symbol of the Izzet League. The eyes of the weird glowed an eerie blue with magic.

“Finally. We’re set!” Audrey let out a cry of relief. “Let’s go blow stuff up already.”

“Not so fast!” the Summoner yelled out. “Terminal,” he faced at the display, “search freebies.” Once more, the screen went white with a little loading loop in the middle before displaying a menagerie of “zero cost” items. “There are still stuff here for free! You can’t go wrong with free stuff.”

“Used tampons… Nope, there’s everything wrong with free stuff!” Malideus retorted with an aggravated tone.

“Ugh… wait. Look at that one,” the Summoner pointed out. “Anime cat ears. Gives a subtle, and by that I mean exactly by one point, boost to DEX and plus a couple of points to Sex Appeal-”

“No!” Malideus roared out, causing tears of wind to turbulently shoot out from him. “I. Hate. Anime!” he added with a convulsive shake of anger.

“Gah!” The Summoner replied to Malideus with a convulsive irate shake of his own. “It’s free! And it’s somewhat helpful, so I say we get it!”

“You can’t be serious…” Ral deadpanned. “I’m all for getting free buffs, but if its something as meager as anime cat ears then I say skip it.”

“Damn all of you…” the Summoner began to deflate once more.

“Yeah, well, I feel that we’re good, the freebies are just stupid anyways.” (Enter someone here)

“Next phase, for whatever’s sake!” Audrey shouted into the sky. “I’m tired of waiting for all this crap!”

Suddenly, everything began to dim with an eerily red glow ominously eclipsing everything. Appearing in the form of a display were the words “Combat Training” with a countdown of five seconds below it.

“Eh… ?”

“We’re going to be thrusted into the body already?”

“About time…”

“This is…”

“This’ll be hard… Who’ll be controlling the body first?”

With the lack of attention on the display, the countdown reached zero faster than everybody anticipated. Suddenly, everyone felt nauseous as they were all plunged into one body. The template began to twitch and jerk back several times before everybody collectively said random curses.

“Fuck! Shit! What happened? Don’t move! I’m confused! I was sleeping--sorry!” the template spoke out in a weird mishmash of everybody’s voice.

“By whatever lunacy does this adhere to that our voices still retain their tone?” the “template” spoke in the Summoner’s voice. “We must have one messed up vocal chord…”

Chapter 3. Combat Tutorial

“Whatever, let’s try moving,” Malideus spoke.

Suddenly, the template began flailing his extremities while trying to move simultaneously left and right, looking with much semblance to a wacky inflatable tube man.

“God dammit! I knew it’d end up something like this!”

“I’m not used to this!” The Fat Friar yelled. “This is like being a teenager, only I’ve lost a tonne of weight!”

“Hold up, let me try out my lightning-” The template tried to raise an arm, but before it could lift it all the way it released an electrical explosion, throwing the body off its feet and hitting the ground hard. “That hurt…”

“You kidding me? That was nothing,” Audrey stated.

“You’re right, I didn’t feel that at all- oh wait. The adrenaline is wearing off, I can definitely feel it now.”

Standing back up, rather wobbly thanks to the dissonant fact that everyone was trying to control the whole template’s body was brought back up.

“We can avoid being clumsy if we just assign each of us to one function,” the template spoke in Malideus’ voice. “Or for an alternative, we can control the body one at a time.”

“I feel that learning to control it together would definitely help our combative prowess, but as a fall back we should have a single individual control it. Whose first?” Ral voiced his opinion.

Several feet away, the ground of pallid white began to break, forming a hole-like rift. The rift was seemingly endless as there was no end visible within it. Suddenly, a large figure clad in some sort of static began to emerge from the rift--rather slowly, actually.

“I got this!” the human character shouted in the Summoner’s voice as he took stance. “I just require a book for a medium.”

“Will this suffice?” The avatar grinned, speaking this time as Ral. He opened the journal in his right hand, the pages flowing like water. “Anything specific you need?”

“Oh--I’m just going to use the pages as ammunition. Pretty basic stuff.” The Summoner chirped, “Basically a book machinegun.”

“W-wait, What!?” Ral flinched at the Summoner’s statement. “Fine. My book can repair itself anyways.”

“Got it. So it’s fine to use your diary-”

“Journal,” Ral corrected.

“It’s a diary.”

“Whatever. It’s time to see if my abilities are still responsive. Guys, refrain from controlling the body for a while, got it? Otherwise… we’re going to end up writhing in pain.” With a reflexive brandish of the book, the Summoner aimed the book’s end at the incoming figure.

Suddenly, the static bursted, leaving the large figure’s imposing visage. The figure was humanoid, but was roughly four times the height and size of one. It was clad in a black, glossy armor of steel. A visor was integrated on its helmet, masking its face. With one hefty heave, the large knight brought upon a large cleaver-like sword two times the length of an average human.

“Uh- are we going to die the second time?” Vaati’s voice came from the human’s mouth.

“Shut it!” The Summoner’s voice replied. “I need to focus here.”

Channeling much of the magic into Ral’s journal, the book itself began to shimmer a foreboding dark purple glow. Suddenly, the pages began to rip themselves out of place, sending themselves speeding towards the heavily armored knight.

The knight shrugged off the attack as the pages simply ricocheted off its armor, sending a display of torn paper everywhere like fireworks.

“That didn’t work… Weird. I could pierce through a ship’s hull with that attack.” the Summoner nonchalantly muttered. “Oh well. Since most of my other techniques are costly, I think I’ll pass the baton onto one of you guys. Good luck.”

“Whoa- Wait, don’t just back off after nearly ruining my book!” Ral gasped, instinctively taking control of the body, jumping back to dodge a wide swing from the sword.

The knight went motionless for a few seconds before it began to settle its sword for another blow.

“Alright, lets see… Lets see…” Ral muttered, grabbing the totem around their neck as it began to glow blue.

Blustersquall! He shouted, a violent maelstrom of gusts forming like a barrier around the character. Pushing off the knight with heaving gale, the iron behemoth began to stagger backwards, rendered immobile by the kinetic discharge as he was knocked down to but one knee.

“Alright, that’ll hold him off for a few seconds, but he’ll attack again soon. Anyone else have any abilities that I am not aware of?”

“Hey! He’s pinned down! It’s time to do a crushing blow on him--I don’t see the prompt that usually pops up though…” Malideus muttered.

“What does this look like to you? A damned game?”

“Yes,” Malideus simply replied.

“At this point, Im not surprised our lives are little more than a game.”

“Leave the finale to me!” Audrey yelled as she suddenly took control, etching a grim smirk on the character’s face. Gripping hard against the lance-staff combo weapon, she rushed at the staggered knight. “Finally, I can do something,” she spoke out as the winds dragged along her as she continued rushing towards the defenseless target.

“I’ll back you up with some electricity.” Ral remarked. Soon enough, the lance-thing-weapon began to trickle out sparks of electricity.

With a flying leap, Audrey swung the lance-thing around her body as she descended upon the targets head. With a nigh-imperceptible flick she launched the lance-thing straight through the targets armored head, burying the weapon in the not-quite-ground.

“That was a good shot, actually,” remarked the Summoner. “Wait- do we even have enough STR points to pull that off?”

“Why are you complaining?” Malideus snarled a bit. “That was freakin’ awesome.”

“I do aim to please,” Audrey boasted.

“With him gone-” Ral found himself cutting himself off. “Oh wait. He’s not gone; he’s quite alive actually.” Ral gestured at the knight-like being simply shrugging off the excruciating agony that is embedded into its head as he suddenly rose up, clutching the handle of the lance.

Pulling it out, there came a shriek-like sound of metal grating against metal as he plucked off the lance from his front cranium, revealing an abysmal depth present in where its head should be.

“Crap… We basically gave it a weapon.”

“I wonder…” Audrey muttered as she went silent.

“His handguards shouldn’t be all too problematic,” the Summoner noted the apparent lack of plates on the leather-like gloves swathing the knight’s hands. “I can probably force him to drop our lance.”

“Then do that, idiot!”

“Yeah,” the Summoner withdrew his ‘borrowed’ book, letting it up towards chest height. “I’m on that- Woah!”

The knight had surprisingly closed the distance between our ‘heroes’ as it was now standing mere couple of feet away. With a glint reflecting from the tip of the Staff of Vodahmin, the knight raised it high above his head.

“Sidestep!”

“Dive towards the back!”

“Jump to the side!”

Failing to compute all of these commands, the human vessel simply flopped to the ground, flailing somewhat weirdly. With the sound of gales being cleaved, the lance buried its way into our ‘Main Character’s chest.

‘Oh bleedin’ hell!’ the Summoner thought.

“Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!” Vaati’s own words resonated in his mind.

‘The pain is not within the realms of this world…’ Malideus spoke to himself mentally.

‘Not surprising…’ The Overlord thought through the agony.

‘This is almost as painful as dropping a greatsword on my foot,’ Audrey thought in a non-plussed way.

Faultily recognizing these excerpts of thoughts, the human vessel ended up saying, “Hell is not within the surprising fuuuuuuuuuck of this greatsword.”

There was an eerie sort of silence as the great knight swirled the “Main Character” around in the air, still skewered onto the--stolen--spear-staff-combo. Flicking off our “Main Character” towards the floor, there came a disturbingly crisp sound of blood being expelled from the body violently as our “Main Character” found himself soaring towards the floor.

Deflecting off the floor, our MC plopped to the ground several feet away from where the knight stood. With a combination of pained wails, grunts riddled with pain, and sobbing-like noises from the Main Character, he finally stood up, clutching the very visible, wide puncture wound present on his chest with both hands.

“Now what?! Our blood is flowing from us like a damned waterfall!” Vaati yelled out via the Main Character’s voice. Sorry. Needed to point out to our future readers that we’re having a hemorrhage.

“I highly doubt that the mysterious entity that brought us here is THAT much of an asshole. Or maybe they are. Mysterious beings are often like that,” Audrey commented.

“They mysterious entity is giving us the chance of reincarnation,” the Summoner pointed out. “But the question is--for what reason?”

“I got a better question,” Vaati spoke again “Why did it only gave us ONE body for the thousands of us?”

“There’s really just about nine or so of us-”

“Enough of the unproductive discussion!” Ral yelled out. “Here he comes!” Controlling the body, Ral extended the MC’s arm, pointing a finger at the hulk of metal charging at the MC’s footing, the earth seemingly quaking with every step the metallic behemoth took.

Reflexively taking full control of the body, Audrey spun the pseudo legion around the knights incoming attack and grasped its wrist. Placing another hand near its elbow, she twisted the appendage down and forwards, utilising the mass and speed of the knight against it and launching it several metres away.

“Are you goddamned stupid!?” the Summoner yelled out. “Our blood has been sprayed everywhere now thanks to your flashy attack!” The Summoner promptly took control and extended both arms, gesturing at the mass of blood mantling the used-to-be white ground. “Thankfully… I still remember a good regenerative spell.”

“You act like you’ve never beaten a hydra to death with your own severed leg,” Audrey said in a belittling voice.

“The majority of us haven’t,” the Summoner responded in a hushed, hasty tone. “With the minority being only you.” Engulfing Ral’s diary- journal in a listless manifestation of scornful, black magic, the shadows began to manifest into flames, swirling around the MC like a torrent of a turbulent river.

“Are you trying to roast us into a well-cooked meal or something!?” Vaati yelled out, flailing his arms around as the flames continued on enveloping the MC’s body.

“Maybe he’s trying to pull a Natsu from Fairy Tail and eat them for heals?”

“No! You’re both wrong! These fires stitches the flesh, mends the bone--unfortunately, it doesn’t replenish lost blood,” the Summoner hissed out.

The gash apparent on the Main Character’s body began to rejuvenate, the flesh forming shape as the dark flames persisted on licking the MC’s figure. Soon enough, the blood ceased from seeping from the MC’s body as the wound simply evanesced.

“I felt as I- we’ve been molested,” noted Ral.

“Shut up. I know--they feel like tentacles. Know my burden.” The Summoner scoffed a pained hiss. “We must regain our magic-”

“I’m pretty sure our magic just gradually accumulates.”

“Sorry. Force of habit.”

"Bah, enough magic, let's have some real fun!" Blurring past the side of the unaware knight, Audrey launched herself towards the back of her prey, leaping off the knight’s steel with a resounding thump, causing the knight to bite the dust, clanging his helmet against the ground with a resonance. Launching herself several feet in the air, Audrey whirled around a bit, doing several spiral flourishes with the entire body of the avatar as she finally aimed the lance.

She corrected her aim as gravity began pulling her down. Launching the Staff with impeccable propulsion with her arm, the lance pierced through the breastplate with relative ease, bounding the knight into the ground.

"He's down for good! Let's end this fucker!" Malideus chanted out, “Fatality! Fatality! Fatality!”

“Alright, prepare for some nausea, I’m going all out on this thing!” Ral shouted, raising his hands into the air.

“Eat lightning!” He shouted, electricity charging up around their body and launching from their hands. The line of lightning arced and changed direction, heading straight for the lance as it acted as a lightning rod. As the lightning hit, the knight convulsed as it pierced its very being. A feeling of fatigue began to vice the Main Character as he stood poised, unrelenting the channel of lightning that was coursing and piercing through the knight.

Eventually, Ral finally cut it off as the knight was left as a charred mess.

“I think that took care of- oh god here it comes-” Before he could finish they all bent over and proceeded to dry-vomit, shaking as if having ran several hundred miles.

“W-what the hell was that for!?”

“Oh god, this reminds me of the first time I had a Jaegerbomb…” The Fat Friar said, wincing in sympathy as the character collapsed before finally starting to move.

“Sorry… This was like the first time when I tried using my lightning so much as well…” Ral gasped, spitting some of the bile from their mouth.

"Ew... let's not do that again... ever." Malideus sighed, grabbing the Staff of Vodahmin from the charred remains of their former opponent.

“I-It should get better the more we use it, it’s somewhat like a muscle I’ve noticed when I first arrived in Equestria…” Ral sighed, wiping their mouth with a sleeve.

"So... what now?" Ricky asked, everyone looking around the blank world for a clue.

Suddenly, flaring itself brazened in the middle of the air, was a suspended display with the words: “Tutorial Completed” in shining gold with confetti seemingly materializing around it, falling towards the ground below in a spiral-like fluttering pattern. The atmosphere also resounded with a very generic RPG victory theme that shall remain unnamed and undescribed.

"Oh cool, real confetti this time!" Malideus said, chuckling.

“Finally… we can get out of this damned purgatory,” the Summoner let out a breath of relief as he spoke.

The display purged its “Tutorial Complete” slate, turning blank. Soon enough, more words began to fill the display--”Select Spawn Location” followed by a rather well-textured map of the entirety of Equestria.

"Aw, what, a map? I thought we were gonna start in Pallet town or something." Malideus fake-pouted.

“Jesting aside, I’d say we start off in Canterlot.” The Summoner’s aura became grim with darkness. “Vengeance….”

“I’m afraid I’ll have to disagree…” Ral shook his head, sighing. “We were thoroughly defeated against True Celestia, without having done hardly anything in return. As we are now, we’re even more vulnerable than ever. We need to train, practice, working in one body.” He clenched their fist. “If my lightning will give us that much of a backlash, think of what other abilities may do more harm than good at the moment?”

“True. But if I had to guess, I’d say that this Celestia isn’t the “True” one,” the Summoner responded, shrugging off his darkening veil. “But--I guess I’ll have to agree with you. We have to grind like bastards until we’re like level 99 or something.”

“I agree, it would be like trying to fight Lavos right when you first get to the end of time in Chrono Trigger, on your first playthrough.” Vaati commented shuddering at the memory.

Ral looked up at the map, using several hand motions to bring up a much larger area than Equestria.

“Since we’ll be training to fight Celestia, I advise we find supporters for our cause, which means we’ll have to look other than Celestia.” He hovered his hand over towards the southern region of the map; it was quite far away from equine civilization.

“The Dragons are very powerful and could teach us much, and will make good partners to train with. The downside though is that in order to even enter their territory we need to fight right off the bat with a dragon knight to prove that we are worthy to enter. Furthermore, they are in a treaty with Equestria so I doubt they’ll outright break it.” Ral pulled up an image of several peaks.

“No!” Malideus yelled out defiantly. “No dragons!”

Ral nodded and continued. “Very well… Next would be the Changelings, not quite as far south in the Badlands. Though despite how much they hate ponies they’re quite weak if I remember correctly…” Ral mused.

“No!” the Summoner yelled out this time. “No changelings!”

Chapter 4. You Will Respawn In...

Ral quirked an eyebrow. “Really not giving me much to work with here…” he muttered. “Alright then, may I ask if there are any other particular races that we have a grudge with, and maybe the why?”

Silence. Dull, listless silence.

“We could learn some sort of mind control spell and turn the entire town against Celestia.” Vaati suggested.

“Sigh… Very well. Alright, next would be the Zebras, though they’re quite friendly with Equestria so they might fight us on sight, so I advise against them the most. Same with the Minotaurs, the Merponies and anything else pony related-”

“We do not need the help of mere mortals!” The Main Character suddenly rose his fist, posing in the signature stance of Malideus.

The Main Character suddenly drooped as he spoke in the Summoner’s voice, “We are mortal… given, that we are very, very difficult to kill.”

“Silence!” Malideus yelled out.

“Who said that we’d be getting their help?” Ral smirked, bringing up the last location.

“The last are the Gryphons, but I actually would rather not… I’ve had a bad experience with them in my past.” He frowned.

“That’s make three of us then,” Malideus clarified with a rather stoic tone.

“Wait! Wait!” the Summoner interjected. “Don’t forget that not every Equestria is identical to each other. In my Equestria, they were aligned with those pony bastards.”

“Hm… Let’s take a look then.” Ral spoke, zooming out so that both Equestria and the land of Griffons was shown, as well as a clear view of their borders.

“Oh look!” Malideus pointed out. “This isn’t just a map, it’s actually a live surveillance feed or something!” Noting the strange ships moving in the ocean and the large clouds slowly spinning around the planet. “Quick! Zoom in on this world’s Celestia!”

Obeying his whim, the map’s perspective began to shift, moving towards Canterlot. Pinpointing the Canterlot castle in its central point, it began zooming in directly into the castle’s interior.

“Let’s see what this biatch is doing…” Malideus muttered, forcing the Main Character to lean in, glowering at the map display.

“This is a bit… stalkerish even if it IS Celestia we’re spying on,” Vaati commented.

As the camera-like view phased through the walls, it finally stopped dead on Celestia, just above her to be more accurate. Following this was a dead silence.

“This is…” the Summoner trailed off.

“I’ve seen something incredible…” The Fat Friar breathed, absently noting down the details.

“Despite her being the enemy,” the Overlord grumbled, his voice barely being audible, “I am somewhat intrigued.

“This would make great blackmail… Too bad we lack a camera,” the Summoner remarked, still a bit taken aback as a very unsubtle drawl of… peculiar feeling was laced with his voice.

“Heh… Luna would take a picture of this too…” Ral commented.

“Map! Return to default view please!” Vaati’s voice yelled out from the MC’s mouth.

Returning to the original perspective--a very wide, comprehensive view of the entirety of Equestria--the camera zoomed out from the rather indescribable sight.

Sighing, Ral continued on what he was getting to previously. “Returning to the previous issue-” Ral mentally glanced in Malideus’s direction, “it does look like they are allied with the ponies, which is odd… They currently have trade routes all over Equestria, possibly due to some rare export that they have.”

“Looks like we’re out of options I’m afraid.” Ral frowned.

“Hold on, hold on. Let’s examine the changelings in this place.” The Summoner reluctantly took control of the body. Flicking on the map, he motioned towards the Everfree. “They normally cluster themselves here. Nearby pony civilization means a close food supply- Ah. Spotted them already.”

The camera was now directing its view towards a changeling entrance. It was more or less a hole in the middle of the ground camouflaged with foliage. Hinted of its existence was that there was a rather pseudo-illuminant patches of fungi surrounding the general area of it.

“The fact that there is little to no sentries confuse me… They’re within proximity with an equine-occupied territory.” The Summoner darkened somewhat suddenly. “That might mean they’re inclined with the ponies. Inconvenient.”

“Agreed.” Ral frowned. “Though easy to detect once the right spell is cast, we’re at the level where we wouldn’t tell if anyone was a changeling till the last moment.”

“We checked up on the gryphons and changelings,” the Summoner pointed out. “We might as well make ourselves acquainted with the rest of the inhabitants here…” Gesturing the screen with a hand motion, the Summoner swooshed the view towards the ocean.

“Oof. Heavily polluted seas… the mermaid-things won’t be liking that.” The Summoner glanced towards Canterlot, noticing a few alterations of its usual archetype.

“Noted: the ponies here are much more industrialized,” the Summoner spoke.

“I don’t care if they even have mechas wielding rocket launchers and miniguns!” declared Malideus, posing once more in a determined stance. “They won’t be escaping my- our wrath!”

“Oh look, they really do have mechs with rocket launchers.”

“Really!?”

“No.”

“Hey- they have factories,” the Summoner pointed out as he glanced at Canterlot through the map-camera-thing. “Maybe they DO have mechas with rocket launchers.”

Ral blinked before grimacing. “Well this is starting to look like my Equestria a little with all their technological advancements… I highly doubt they have mechs, but when I was Starswirl, I… Uh…” Ral went quiet, unsure how to continue.

“What exactly did you do?” The Fat Friar asked, curious but cautious.

“I.. Heh, granted this was while I was working for the Princesses… I may have drawn up plans for magically powered tanks… Some of those cannons were strong enough to level cities.”

“Why the fuck would you design those FOR THE ENEMY!?” Vaati snapped.

“Well first, I was working for them in the beginning. The second, why not?” Ral shrugged sheepishly. “Besides, I scrapped the design for most of them anyway… I think.”

“Irrelevant. You did that in YOUR Equestria.” Malideus scoffed a sigh.

“Anyways, we won’t know for sure that the existence of rocket launcher mechs is real or not here unless we go into these factories.” Gesturing the MC’s hand, the Summoner zoomed into the factory.
As the camera’s feed descended into the metallic corridors of the behemoth-like buildings, the lighting was significantly dimmed, but the scenery was still very visible. Hanging from the walls were bolted-down plates of some sort of ominous black steel. In the middle of the room was a very spacious conveyor belt--at the moment, it was empty as it was not turning nor was it transporting anything of notable property.

“Pity.” The Summoner kicked the floor, taking control of the MC for a brief moment. “Nothing going on here. Should we decide on where to spawn now?”

“Not yet,” Ral suddenly spoke up. “We still have to identify the current political standing of the dragons. Who knows? They might be inclined to help us?”

Suddenly, the MC’s body became shallow and was now displaying a grimly anxious face as Malideus took control. “Please. Please. Please. Please let them be allied to those dimwitted ponies…” ‘

Snapping the MC’s vice of Malideus, Ral Zarek extended his arm towards the map screen. With a flourish, he zoomed out the perspective.

“Now.” Ral Zarek cleared his- the Main Character’s throat as he began to speak, “Dragons normally live in the rigid mountainous regions…” Moving the camera’s angle a bit, he began to direct it towards the Northeastern portion of Equestria.

Emerging into view as Ral magnified the zoom were mountains outfitted with metallic frames and steel scaffolding. Suspended by the sides of the mountains were crevices extending themselves deep into the mountain. Metallic flooring and walls were apparent within the mountains.

“What the-” Ral caught himself cut off as suddenly the Summoner took control.

“Huh. Dragons here are more adept at technology here,” he began to scratch his chin, “That’s peculiar. They’re more like brutes in most Alternate Equestrias.”

“By logic…” Malideus regained control, “if they’re competent at industrialization like this, that means they must be allied with those sissy ponies!”

The Summoner once again claimed control over their vessel. “This guy really, really hates dragons, huh?” Shrugging, the Summoner brought his hand upon the map, defaulting the view once more.

“So--our only chance for allies are with the mermaids, so we should spawn…” the Summoner began scrolling through the map, zooming onto the shore of the great Equestrian sea, “...here. If we’re to find some willing meatshields- assistance, it’d be them.”

Malideus took control, folding the Main Character’s arms. “Nope.”

“What do you mean ‘nope’?” the Summoner questioned.

“A pony is still a pony,” Malideus protested.

“Aren’t there some kind of sirens or something that want Equestria dead as we do?” Vaati interjected.

“Doesn’t matter; they’re still ponies,” Malideus adamantly replied.

“We don’t have to befriend them, just recruit them and leave them this hellhole when we’re done.”

“Whatever… we’re still going to at least attempt to reason with them,” the Summoner began zooming onto the ocean shore.

“Our attempt of ‘recruitment’ should be that we guise ourselves with the robes of a messiah promising their oceans to be purified from the wastes…” Ral stated.

“So… everyone good?” the Summoner asked. “We’re going to spawn here… seems like the most optimal currently.”

“For now, yes.”

“Oh, fine.” said Malideus.

“Agreed, let us move out.” Ral nodded.

“Most logical.” The Overlord nodded slightly. “Do it.”

“Aye, aye.” Ricky stretched out the MC’s limbs as he yawned. “It’s gettin’ a bit boring here anyways.”

“Ha… ha ha ha...” Audrey began to violently tremble, joy overwhelming her. “I can finally kill things again!” she roared out, pumping her fist high into the air.

“Here we go then,” the Summoner began as he started narrowing down the camera’s view on a relatively empty patch of sand on the shore. “Gods of the cosmos, some unforeseen power, whatever--spawn us here!” the Summoner’s voice resounded like a knell.

“Let the insanity and chaos begin.” Vaati commented.

Chapter 5. Seashells By The Seashores...

An aura of thick, hazy smoke began to veil the MC’s body. The MC’s sight was completely eclipsed with a pitch black as a choking feeling of trance began to overwhelm the Main Character’s mind.

“I can’t see crap,” Malideus spoke with a bemused tone.

“I think that’s the point-”

Suddenly, a feeling of disorientation overwhelmed the MC’s footing, causing him to stagger somewhat in a wobbly fashion.

“Hey- our vision is clearing,” the Summoner noted.

As the eyes of the MC began to normalize, the clear view of the beach’s scenery became clear. The stretch of ocean seemed to carry out for miles on end, its vastness frequented with the waves of water. The scent of sand, palm trees, and the salt from the sea was pervasive around the atmosphere. Around the golden sand beach were shells with spiral-like designs, laying up straight or recumbent.

The skies were as seamless as clear glass--the clouds were scarce and the blue canvas of the sky was easily perceptible.

“I like the beach,” the Summoner spoke with a certain type of cheer.

“I concur,” Ral stated.

“I concur. Do you concur?” The Fat Friar remarked, spinning an arm idly.

“I concur,” Ricky finished.

“Nice, now we need to find something Madileus likes.” Vaati chuckled.

“Those giant shells look decent,” Malideus pointed out using the Main Character’s arm. “In fact, the ones with the spines protruding off them look even better,” he spoke as he gestured once more to a nearby shell that was at least twice the length of the MC and was also mantled in spine-like protrusions that seemed razor sharp.

“They look metal,” Malideus let out a devious smile as he brought forth the MC’s hand, creating the iconic “Devil’s Horns” symbol with them.

“In fact, let’s put it in our inventory,” Malideus suggested, his eyes gleaming somewhat of a malicious stare. “Maybe they’ll end up as some sort of crafting ingredient-”

“Malideus,” Ral cut him off.

“Yes?”

“Please elaborate on how we’re going to carry a shell that is twofold our height? Along with the fact that we have nothing to store it in?” Ral asked.

“Easy!” Malideus pumped his head high skywards. “If we got to create this character through some character creation screen, I bet that we have game logic levels of inventory.”

“That would be convenient, now wouldn’t it?” Ral sighed. “Fine. Go poke at it or something. Maybe it’ll magically fit into our pockets.”

“I don’t need your permission!” Malideus let out a wayward war cry as he bolted towards the rather imposing shell.

Closing in on the distance between it and him, Malideus fired away his- the MC’s hand, poking it. The Main Character’s finger made contact with the shell. The shell’s somewhat warm surface permeated into the MC’s finger as it simply stood there.

“Ah… what a disappoint…” Malideus found himself questioning his- the Main Character’s vision as he swore he saw the shell starting to twitch somewhat violently, “...ment. Hey, guys. Am I the only one seeing the shell moving… weird?”

“You’re definitely not the only one, unfortunately,” the Summoner began to take control of the body, backing off from the turbulent shell with a few pensive steps.

“What are you waiting for?!” Ral shouted. “We need some distance! No idea what it can do!” Asserting control, Ral jumped backwards, placing several feet of ground between the MC and the shell.

The sand was upheaved as the shell suddenly sprouted several arachnid-like legs. With a fell growl, the shell began turning around, facing the Main Character. Rearing its beady eyes, it unsheathed its long mandibles as well as its claws.

“I think you shouldn’t have poked it like that!” the Summoner, in a frantic state, began to shift through the many pockets of the Main Character, retrieving Ral’s journal, igniting it in a dark sort of magic.

“I can see that I pissed it off, dumbass!” Malideus, with a flourish, began to brandish the Staff of Vodahmin, waving it in front of the hermit crab beast.

“Well… we came here to ‘train’ right?” Ral took control of a portion of the MC’s mind, silently citing incantations of runic, arcane properties. Lighting began to sizzle around the footing of the Main Character, sending out crackling embers of blue.

“So this is level grinding to us? I’m gonna go play the cliched RPG music then," Vaati spoke sitting on the back.

“Focus this time…” the Summoner muttered in a hush tone, well examining the hermit crab behemoth. “Guys, make sure you tell everyone what you’re planning to do. We don’t wanna end up flailing on the floor again.”

“Whatever!” Malideus snarled. “It comes!”

Gales began to warp around the hermit crab as it began to relentlessly charge, its thin, carapace-plated legs seemingly blurring as it ascended its claws, heaving it high.

“It’s open for a parry--go for it, you damned madman!” the Summoner stated a bit too hastily. suddenly, with a rebellious yell, Malideus swung his staff forward, and the tip exploded with red light, firing a beam of terrible energy at the crab, launching it several feet away.

"Woah..." Malideus mumbled, revelling in the stunned feel of his companions. "I told you guys this thing was awesome." He finished as the crab struggled to get up.

“Yes, I admit that was awesome but what exactly did it do?” Ral questioned, watching as the crab got back up, unharmed. “It didn’t do anything! It only knocked it down… Perhaps it has magic resistance? Intriguing, what if-”

“We can hypothesize about the crab later, right now we need to dodge!” Vaati shouted as they barely missed a claw that reached out towards them, barely managing to just slash through the air instead of their face.

“To be precise, it seems to be a rather large version of a hermit crab...” Ral added.

"I'm so sorry, Pinchy..." the Summoner muttered in a rather melancholic tone. "I'll have to kill your greatly distant cousins too..."

"Who the hell-" Sidestepping to the left absentmindedly, Malideus inquired, "-is Pinchy?"

"My pet hermit crab..." the Summoner spoke with a reminiscent tune to his words.

"Can we avoid talking about irrelevant topics while we are currently being accosted by a giant crab?!" Ral yelled.

"Yeah, I like that plan. The thing is immune to magic, though, so..." Malideus said, mentally looking at Audrey, Ricky, and The Overlord.

“Magics aren’t viable then?” the Summoner regarded the incoming, massive claw rapidly making its way towards the Main Character’s face. Sidestepping accordingly, the claw made its way through the now empty space, merely inches away from the MC’s face.

“Such…” the Summoner, marionetting the MC’s hand, he flourished the journal, grasping it tight. Aiming down the book vertically, the Summoner kindled dark energy into the book. Like a torrential wave of water, the pages from the journal began detaching themselves from the book and launching themselves at the hermit crab’s arm.

The pages tore through the appendage, sending out an emerald fluid-like blood in a constant spray as the limb gradually deterred. The crab beast shrieked out a tremor-causing cry as the constant volley of paper going about a couple thousand miles per second from Ral’s journal did not relent, cutting and scathing the leg further.

“Hey- I thought magic didn’t work?!” Malideus shouted.

“This isn’t magic--sorta!” The Summoner bit his lip, keeping a steady aim on the crab. “I’m just sending masses and masses of paper that’s going at about two thousand MPH at the crab thing! Of course it’s gonna cut it!”

“Dead by a thousand papercuts?” Ral mused, intrigued.

“Exactly-” the Summoner trailed off abruptly as the hermit crab leviathan suddenly withdrew into its shell in a mere split second. The pages simply deflected upon impact, scattering themselves towards multiple directions.

“Oh come on!” the Summoner yelled out, his arm still extended, directed at the giant crab. Unrelenting to stop the volley of pages, the Summoner cursed aloud as he deemed his attacks were nullified, “Dammit! That’s not…” a feeling of descent tugged on the Summoner’s--and everybody else’s--attention. Looking downwards, they all took notice of the ground seemingly swirling and apparently sucking them in, “...fair. Crap!”

Flailing wildly, the Summoner began to pull up, but the MC’s legs, half-devoured by the sand, were arrogant to budge.

“What is this!?” Malideus took control, motioning the MC’s eyes towards the crab once more, noticing something off-putting. Imprinted were magic runes that were emanating a red glow from the crab’s shell. It ran across the shell in many patterns--somewhat awe-inspiring had it not been overwhelmingly terrifying at the moment. “The damned crab knows how to use magic too?!”

“I have no words,” Ral commented.

“As a mage, I’m somewhat-”

The Summoner cut Vaati off, “Not now! We’re going to get suffocated by the sand below us!”

Suddenly, the shell began to shift and rumble about once more, scattering the sands around it slightly. Legs began to emerge from its crevice one more, taking itself up. Poking its head out, the crab let out a menacing glare as it began approaching the MC, claws poised wide apart from each other, indicating an attack of some sort .

“Oh shi-” before the Summoner could finish his profanity, the crab suddenly bolted towards the Main Character, its legs melding into the air as it was seemingly sprinting at a ridiculous speed. Closing the distance, being mere inches away, the crab brought forth its left claw, encompassing the Main Character as it began clenching it.

Cutting through the Main Character’s body with little to no effort as flesh began to sever, the Main Character spontaneously bursted into a display of flashy lights. Plopping down towards the ground as the crab instinctively let go, the Main Character staggered downwards.

“Gah-” Malideus began to regain control--albeit, their vessel was somewhat stiff on the controls as Malideus had trouble regaining their footing. “What- what the hell happened?” Malideus slightly tilted the MC’s head upwards, noticing a very small, subtle display screen. The display screen was written on with red font: “The Summoner’s Soul was disrupted!”

“Oh… I guess that what happens when our HP goes down to zero.”

“Is he going to be okay?” Ral questioned. “I can’t hear him anymore… and his presence is faint now.”

“He’ll be fine after we finish off this crab.” Malideus smirked. “Most RPG’s would do that if they had this ‘system’.”

The crab launched itself once more towards the Main Character. As it went airborne, it swung its claws overhead. Diving down onto the ground, it smashed the ground, the attack landing just a few feet off from the Main Character. A fissure came from where attack from the crab connected, sending out a tidal wave of sand.

Engulfed by the sandy tsunami, the Main Character was stifled and choked by the grainy bits of white as he was dragged away several meters away.

Spitting out the sand, Audrey promptly took control, wiping the sand of their face. “Okay… nobody, and I put much emphasis on ‘nobody’, makes Audrey bite the dust… literally.”

Swirling the Staff of Vodahmin around with a circular brandish, Audrey set her footing firmly, asserting her stance as she prepared a countering stance.

“Come on…” she peered into the hermit crab’s soul with a cold glare, “Do it now! Kill me! I’m here! Do it!” she shouted, her eyes widened and imbued with bloodlust.

As Audrey’s taunting reverberated throughout the vicinity, the hermit crab let out a growl, Audrey’s words seemingly getting into the crab’s head.

The crab began to bolt past through the sandy ground once more, its leg much like after images. Extending its right claw further back, it let out a piercing war cry. Lunging forth to bring down a crushing blow, the crab swung its claw to the right.

Audrey, through impeccable reflex, managed to jump and grasp onto the arm that was attached to the claw. Hanging by the arm with only two hands, she settled herself upon the arm, placing her footing onto the arm, she affirmed her hold by grasping the arm with her hand as well.

Thrashing about uncontrollably, the crab attempted to shake of the MC off its arm. Audrey was not shaken off, however, as she simply clenched her teeth against each other in tension as she held firmly onto the enraged arm.

Audrey raised the Staff of Vodahmin, preparing to sever the appendage of the crab. She smugly grinned, preparing to let the blow strike through, but she was interrupted before she could so.

“I think I’m gonna get sick…” Vaati commented

Shrugging it off, Audrey brought forth the lance-staff-thing into the extremity. The metal of the Staff sliced through the appendage with ease, dampening it with a coating of emerald blood.

The Main Character began falling down safely back to the ground with the now amputated arm. Stepping off from the still twitching appendage, Audrey yelled out in a triumphant manner, “Hell yeah! Now you’re screwed like hell, buddy!”

Seeing the crab being occupied convulsing in agony at the lost of its limb, Audrey adjusted her posture with the lance-staff, gripping the base of the Staff. Aiming down onto the crab’s head, Audrey inched the lance backwards a bit before launching it forwards, sending her arm ahead of her as she threw it with remarkable velocity.

Rending the air as it spiraled towards the crab’s face, the Staff began to emanate a red light due to the ridiculous amount of force behind its propulsion. Sickeningly making some sort of gory, crunching sound, the Staff impaled the head of the unfortunate crab.

The crab, under the presumably incomprehensible excruciation of having one’s head being stabbed very violently, writhed and flailed its arachnid-like limbs in a frenzy as they waved around desperately.

The Staff suddenly went aglow once more, letting out a fierce scarlet aura. Beginning to envelop the whole crab, it shone out as it let out a humming sound. Its red radiance becoming blindingly bright, it suddenly detonated, enshrouding the beach with a massive fireball of condensed energy.

As the explosion faded, the dissipating fires of magic gave a clear view of the morsel that was once a behemoth-sized crab. The corpse of the crab was entombed by glass as the explosion from the Staff had apparently soared through such temperature that it actually converted the sand below it into glass.

Currently agape and a bit taken aback at the whole spectacle before them, the Main Character began to stammer out a series of incomprehensible words.

“That explosion was pointless…” Ral Zarek let out a sigh. “It’s impervious to magic.”

“I can still see it struggling to cling to life,” Vaati spoke, narrowing the MC’s eyes to get a clear view through the settling flame, seeing the crab barely being able to move its limbs, trying to escape its sand-glass coffin.

“Aghh!” The Main Character began to swing his arms wildly as the Summoner was suddenly resurrected. “What the hell!? What happened?!”

“According to the display screen some time ago, your soul was ‘disrupted’.”

“What? What does that even mean?” the Summoner stammered. “Sorry- sorry. I still feel weirded out… I felt as if I died and was brought back to life so suddenly again...”

Chapter 6. Making Friends

The fires finally vanished as the magic fueling them trickled out. The sand were relatively spared; a few charred patches and a few mounds of blown over sand here and there, but the beach was relatively clean--excluding the potentially dangerous shells that may or may not have living behemoth mutant crabs residing within them littering across the shore.

“Alright… alright. I think I’ve calmed down now,” the Summoner spoke, wiping a sweat glistening on his forehead.

“Good, ya whimp.” Malideus scoffed. “Anyways, let’s get the Staff of Vodahmin back. I don’t want it to be overly soaked in weird, green crab blood.”

“That’s off…” Ral muttered as they began walking towards the now motionless carcass with the Staff protruding from its head. “Crab blood isn’t green. It’s supposed to be blue.”

“As an avid researched of most departments,” the Summoner cleared his throat before continuing, “I can attest to that. Perhaps there was some artificial alterations to this crab?” the Summoner, with dull but curious eyes, stared at the carcass before them.

It was surprisingly left not charred to cinders and was actually cooked rather finely, permeating a miasma of aromatic seafood.

“Bleh. Who cares.” Malideus reached for the lance, manipulating the MC’s hand in order to reach for it. But as Malideus motioned their vassal closer, the crab suddenly exploded in an array of white light. “Oh god! It has come back from the grave to-” Malideus flinched, swinging the Staff in a frenzied state, trying to batter away the white light. Suddenly, the misty light seeped into the MC’s body, seemingly fading into him. “Oh. Cool. Dark Souls style experiencing gaining.”

Appearing just above their heads was another display screen. This time, it read: “Triumph” followed by a number of statistics such as ‘experience gained’ and ‘loot’.

“Yes!” Malideus shouted as he shot both of his arms towards the sky. “So we do have an inventory!”

“Let’s see here… wait… what.” The Summoner went deadpan, looking at the display with incredulity. “It says we’ve gained ‘a moderate amount’ of experience, and that our amount of experience required to level up is ‘not a lot more’.”

“Disregard the apparent impudence of the cosmos who designed this ‘game’.” Ral Zarek added, “At the very least we survived that ordeal.”

“The fact that we’d have to ‘die’ eight or so times to actually get a ‘game over’ makes surviving against things very, very easy for us,” the Summoner responded.

“What is this, a Shin Megami Tensei game?” Vaati spoke dumbfounded.

“After all that trouble, we got…” the Summoner leaned in over the display, shooting out a rather over analyzing glare. Suddenly, his neutral expression darkened to a grimace, “...a shell. Well, at least Malideus got what he wanted.”

“Had I known that we actually had to do a fight to the death with some fuk that looks like from a Souls game.” Malideus grumbled a bit. “No zweihander? No awesome spells? Ugh.”

“Hey, guys… don’t you have the feeling of...” the Summoner began turning the Main Character, causing him to face to the right--just directly towards the ocean, “...being watched.”

Roosting like a bird was a very eerie silence as the MC swivelled his head, gazing upon the ocean shore. Swaying from left to right was a very large tail, mantled with teal scales. Connected to this tail was a rather bored looking pony who was glaring at the MC rather… dully.

‘Do we say ‘We come in piece’ or something?’ the Summoner mentally noted.

‘By the way it’s looking at us, I’d say no,’ Vaati replied to the Summoner’s thoughts.

‘Her look… indicates of… bewilderment.’ The Overlord concluded, ‘As to be expected.’

‘She’s looking at us... with such… a flummoxed state.’ Ral began pondering, ‘What if she can read minds-’

“I can read minds, actually.”

‘Oh my god.’ The Summoner began, taken aback, ‘Did you just say that outloud, or did she actually-’

‘Impossible,’ answered Ral. ‘No matter where I went, my studies proven one thing--merponies don’t have the natural ability to read minds. One would require to be a very powerful mage, or much more rare-’

“I have ESP,” answered the merpony that was still about several feet away.

‘Uh… That.’ Ral finished.

“Oh wonderful, do you have mind control powers as well?” Vaati asked sarcastically.

“I read minds, not control them,” the mer replied, remaining stoic.

‘Could somebody tell me what the hell ‘ESP’ is?’ Malideus mentally spoke.

‘Well…’ the Summoner sheepishly began, ‘I know what ESP is, but I forgot the unabbreviated title for it. Uh… Was it… Extra… Super Power?’

‘No…’ Ral mentally shook his head. ‘It’s Extra Special Perception.’

“It’s extra sensory perception,” corrected the mer.

‘Ack.’ Ral let out an incoherent babble of words throughout the MC’s mind.

‘What’s our course of action… ?’ the Summoner asked, a bit dazed.

‘She can read our minds, pretty sure that whatever our plan is she’ll know it.’

‘I’m pretty sure she’s going to be more concerned as to how we have several minds stuffed into one body,’ the Fat Friar regarded.

‘If she is, then we’ll have to spill it.’

‘Yeah, I guess we have to,’ the Summoner admitted, closing the MC’s eyes as he brought up his hand below his chin. ‘We have to clear up that we’re-’

‘Here to fuck shit up?’

‘To murder Celestia--this world’s Celestia, anyways?’

‘Enslave Equestria and destroy it to build a better city?’

‘That I want sushi right now?’ Audrey, without much regard to anything, nonchalantly spoke in the mental IRC chatroom.

‘Those are… somewhat correct, save for enslaving Equestria. We can’t do that right now… we have to find True Celestia and-’

‘Fuck her shit up?’

‘Stab her throat with her own horn?’

“You got me at ‘murder Celestia,” the mer, once more in a stupor of stoicism, answered. “Talk.”

“We are many, you are but one!” Malideus declared. “We’ll talk when we want to talk!”

“Yeah!” Audrey took control, pumping the Main Character’s face into the air. “Just who the hell do you think we are?”

“Some odd being that surpasses ‘Multiple Personality Disorder’?” the mer answered.

‘I want sushi even more now…’ Audrey glowered at the mer.

“Since you’ve read our thoughts prior,” Ral steeled his glance at the mer--whose glance was as cold as a barren, cold wasteland, “I don’t think we need to punctuate on our intentions.”

“It’s fine.” The mer shuffled her tail around, kicking up sand. “I want Celestia dead as well.”

‘That… makes things less complicated,’ the Summoner thought.

‘I still want sushi.’ Audrey reluctantly lowered her stance.

“Oh.” The Summoner fumbled with words, uttering out incomprehensive blurbs. “Very- very well then! Uh… Why do YOU want Celestia dead?”

“Our distant cousins of the Southern sea has been nigh completely eradicated due to Celestia’s ponies gratuitously polluting the the se..” The mer somehow gained an even more chilling, ominous aura. “It won’t be long before we too will die.”

“Rather… blunt.”

“I’ve told you mine,” the mer spoke. “Finish the exchange.”

‘By that I’m guessing she wants us to tell her why we want to-’

‘Fuck Celestia’s shit up?’

‘Yeah…’

“It’s a very long story-”

“I have time,” the mer stated.

“Fine then!” Malideus abruptly took control.

“Get the popcorn, we have a lot of stories to tell,” Vaati spoke to her.

“Some time ago, all eight of us in our respective separate bodies--wait or was there nine of us? I’ve lost count…” the Summoner sighed as he spoke. “While collaborating, we accidentally stumbled on an Equestria--an alternate one thanks to dimensional transportation.”

“This Equestria… was hectic… but organized, deadly so.” Ral interjected. “Naturally, the one leading this Equestria was Celestia. She, however, prefers to be called ‘True Celestia’ as she regards her counterparts to be inferior and mere defective copies.”

“After we found that out, we went on, crusading about and freeing the races she’ve enslaved in her Equestria,” the Summoner continued.

Suddenly, there was a very conspicuous pause as the MC suddenly went quiet, an atmosphere of embarrassment beginning to overwhelm the vicinity.

“And then what?” the mer asked.

“We died, unfortunately.” Ral sighed. “We were then reincarnated, for whatever reasoning behind some sort of deity. Catch was that we’d be stuck in just one body…”

“That’s stupid.”

“I know, right?!” the Summoner yelled out in vehement agreement. “Why couldn’t they have gave us more than one body-”

“I was referring to how supposedly eight of you died to one Celestia.”

The MC’s body stood motionless, still in his exact same posture. Seething inside, however, were the several different screams of anguish. Suddenly, Malideus regained control, eyes blazing with hate.

"The fuck do you know about it!? I have to work with THESE idiots, of course I was going to get killed! Were it up to me, I'd have just summoned Nicol Bolas and been done with her!" Malideus cried, gripping his face.

“We love you too Madileus.” Vaati remarked, eliciting a sigh from Malideus.

“You don’t seem to understand what the situation was.” Ral began. “This world’s Celestia? We’ve seen her, and she couldn’t hold a candle to the ‘True Celestia’. It is a fact that most, if not all of us have fought our own versions of Celestia and won. But the ‘True Celestia’...” Ral shuddered. “She does anything, and I mean anything to further her own goals. Even if it means enslaving her own ponies, doing genetic experiments on her enemies, and sacrificing whole worlds just to grow stronger.” He emphasized.

“And this one could be next.” He finished the statement with a dark tone.

"That's why we need some help this time. This Celestia may be a massive knobgobbler, but she can be beat with a small party. We need a worldwide ambush, or a godlike, homosexual robot named Terridax to even weaken 'True' Bitch-lestia. And since I see no homo-bots around, the honor falls to your ilk, hippocampus." Malideus gave his speech, puffing out the MC's chest for intimidation.

“Under the tense that I were to believe all of this,” the mer spoke with a surprising hint of emotion behind her words--said emotion being indignation, “by what assurance do you provide that, assuming that you can even fulfill killing this world’s Celestia, we mers will be spared from the inevitable crumble of this Equestria as the Celestia here is a high ranking authority.”

“If need be, we’ll also kill the other world leaders too!” Vaati clapped his hands. “Problem solved.”

‘Wait- god dammit, Vaati.” The Summoner mentally glared cold, stabbing eyes into Vaati. ‘That’s not-’

“Fair enough,” the mer stated, still remaining that emotionless mien on her face. “Additionally, will you disregard the fact that we merponies, ensuing after the murder of Celestia, will in fact establish tyrannical rule over Equestria?”

“Sure!” Malideus half-mindedly answered.

‘Hold on!’ the Summoner yelled out. ‘What-’

“Very well,” the mer nodded her head as she began to slither back towards the ocean. “I shall provide you adequate enough resources.” Slipping into the clear waters, she let out one last call, “I’ll try to be utmost punctual. Give me a few minutes.”

With that, she delved into the ocean, slipstreaming into the blue abyss of the ocean floor.

With an idle blink, the MC turned around, facing opposite to the beach, gazing upon the golden, glistening sand of the beach.

“Now what,” the Summoner deadpanned.

“Now?” Malideus evanesced a breath from the MC’s mouth. “Now we kill some more hermit crabs.”

“What?” Ral emitted out a disparaging sigh. “We nearly died from the one crab alone.”

“We gotta start somewhere,” Vaati added “If there’s anything I learned from playing Golden Sun it’s that to stand a chance against True Bitchlestia we need to do every single side-quest ever. Every. Single. One.” He ended emphasizing the last words.

“I’ve no qualms with that since I’m a perfectionist in regards to these things,” the Summoner answered, wiping off a sweat from the MC’s head. “Very well then. We should probably do a pre-emptive strike on them while they’re still unaware,” the Summoner muttered out audibly as he faced the uncountable amount of spiny, colossal black shells resting about on the soft blanket of sand.

“Alrighty then.” Without much regard, Audrey began to spin the lance, seamlessly spinning it with her one hand as she began to raise it. Firmly gripping the base of it as she reared it way over her head, she threw it.

Lunging at its target, it reft the winds of its peaceful stillness as it began to cut through them. Finding its way into the base of the shell, the Staff lanced its way into it, burrowing deep into the crab as it cracked out the shell, flinging bits of it away as it made a sickening crunch.

Chapter 7. Grind Away The Levels, Dood!

With a roar of pain, the shell tremored itself violently as the crab within it started to sprawl its legs about. Basking its limbs into the sunlight, the crab peered its head out, its peridot-sized eyes holding a burning grudge within them as it began to twitch and move about in multiple directions, constantly going back and forth unpredictably as it snapped its claws at the MC’s direction.

“Nice shot… it seems that this one’s a bit more brittle than last time. It’s even smaller than last time,” the Summoner spoke of his analysis. “Let’s see if it’s still impervious to magic.”

Withdrawing the journal of Ral with a swift flick of the arm, the Summoner drew it upon the crab. “Death by a thousand papercuts!” Kindling the malice of forbidden magic within the book, individual pages of the book began to squall themselves towards the crab.

Peppering the crab’s several legs with searing, cutting parchment, the hermit crab lowered its claws, covering its face with them. The pages still cut through the claws, soon enough, green ooze from before began to seep out from them as the papers lashed out at them.

“Vaati, you’re up.” The Summoner relinquished control, the Main Character losing its vivace as his face suddenly went blank along with his actions. “Train up your magic a bit.”

“I’m flattered, I assure you that I won’t give out any fuck-me eyes weak spots.” The Main Character suddenly shifted from a pallid gray to a purple as he promptly let a sinister grin etch on his face. Vaati stabbed the Staff into the sandy surface, making it stick upright.

Bones clicking into place as he cracked his knuckles, Vaati began chanting mystic citations underneath his breath as he flared his palm wide open. His hands began to emit a purplish aura of magic as the winds suddenly moderated, turning into wild gales.

Forming from thin air were pitch dark orbs. They all began to circle around the MC--who was still muttering out incantations subtly and silently. Forming a barrier, the shadows consistently encircled the Main Character.

With a fell glare, Vaati flung his arm at the crab’s general presence.

Following the gesture were shadowy orbs mingled with blood scarlet color appearing once more from nothingness. These orbs began to seek out the crab, steadily making their way towards it as they homed in.

Burying themselves into the crab, they all left tongues of black fire as they passed through the crab. As they passed through, these dark spheres made U-turns towards the hermit, striking the crab once more in succession.

The crab, shooting its limbs in a frantic pattern in several directions, attempted to extinguish the lingering flames.

Two more orbs appeared around Vaati. Circling around a bit high above the air, they began to stream out a steady ray of black arcane energy. The crab, seared by both laser and inferno, drew out green blood, dying the sand a repugnant green color.

“Anyone else that wants a chance is free to take over from here.”

“Wha-” the Summoner trailed off suddenly. “Of all times, you decided to do that now.”

“What? I thought you all wanted to get some more fun.”

“I can’t do much since I’m used to swords and rifles… so…” Ricky nervously spoke.

“I only specialize in either swords or bludgeoning weapons.” The Overlord exhaled in annoyance. “I cannot participate in the murder of this crab.”

“Meh. I ain’t feeling it--killing a wee crab seems too boring for me,” Audrey let a sigh escape from the MC’s lips as she said that.

“I’ve a feeling I’ve already showcased enough…” the Summoner muttered idly. “Malideus. Have a go at it, will you?”

“Fine then,” Malideus spoke.

With a swipe of his staff, Malideus simply gazed at the beast a moment, then rushed over, fast as lightning, and grabbed the crab in a vicelike bear-hug, using his legs to lift the crab over his head.

"Gonna... snap you... into a Slim Jim!" Malideus roared, lifting the crab, and with a grunt, Malideus bent backwards, suplexing the crab, then spinning around, and preparing for another. And with two consecutive slams into the sand dealt, the crab simply laid there, limp, before exploding into white light and Slim Jims.

“Well then…” the Summoner let out a soft whistle as he spoke. “That took care of that,” he uttered out almost inaudibly as he continued staring at the thoroughly obliterated viscera of the formerly-a-crab thing. “And we gained a level… and with that…”

Skimming through the display screen, the Summoner slipped out a hiss of agitation. “What a pain… We gained a meager one Equipment Point. What a pain, but still, it’s something.”

“Yeah… and we still have several crabs left to kill.” Ral motioned towards the shells simply reclining on the beach. “Surprised that merpony still hasn’t arrived yet, however.”

“Forget her… for now, let’s focus on purging this place of crabs.” The Summoner shrugged slowly, withdrawing Ral’s journal once more as he faced the myriad shells.

...In which they kill ALL the crabs offscreen as to not bore the readers with crab battles...

“Last… one…” Panting, the Summoner’s voice rang out from the Main Character who was well drenched in sweat. “Last… bloody… crab.”

“In the end… we received an additional four levels…” Ral’s voice spoke with fatigue, causing him to stop abruptly. With a deep inhale, Ral continued through a somewhat hoarse tone, “I don’t think that was worth it…”

Vaati shrugged off the fatigue, managing to blurt out, “At least… it’s a damn start.”

Suddenly, the echoing sound of clapping came from somewhere near the shore. Turning the right, the MC’s glare was greeted with the mer from some time ago.

“You…” the Summoner managed to barely say.

“You!” Malideus rose his finger, pointing it at her.

“You,” Ral spoke with not much emotion--presumably, he was drained much from fighting the same enemy over and over again.

“You?” Audrey spoke out with slight confusion, scratching the back of her head, having already forgotten who she was--this was presumably because she nearly lost it to utter bloodlust when they had to simultaneously fight ten crabs at once.

“What took you so damned long?!” Malideus rose his fist, violently spinning it around in the air. “We had to kill crabs just to avoid being suffocated by boredom!”

“Actually, it was for the exp-”

“Shut up!” Malideus spat back.

“Well. Seeing that you were busy killing the mutants-”

“Ha!” Ral shouted out. “So I was correct; these crabs aren't natural.”

Chapter 8. Progress

“As I was saying…” The mer cleared her throat. “Seeing that you were busy killing those crabs, which is convenient for us as they make troublesome nocturnal predators for us, I decided to not disturb you.”

“Predators? Hm…” the Summoner spoke with a calculative mien. “Not to disturb us, or for the convenience that we’d eliminate them for you?”

“Spare me the complaining,” the merpony spoke with outright sternness. “I’ve went out of my way and made several arrangements and to give you…” she began motioning her hooves together, forming an illuminant orb of energy.

A pool of water, just about the size of a person, began to swell up from the ground, it's waters faintly permeating a blue glow. Emerging from the waters was something metallic, protruding its tip from the crevice of foreboding waters. It was as thick as a stick, but not so much that it'd be effortlessly snapped--it was about the size of a lance's base.

It finally emerged from view, the triple pronged skewering tips that was without a doubt a trident's. The multi-pronged weapon casted off the luminescent liquid from it, revealing its golden surface laced with blue crystalline shards embedded into it.

Seaweed with an unnatural pigment of yellow hung loosely from it, seemingly binded in knots as to prevent them from falling off. These water indigenous strips of plants appeared to let out sparks of lightning from them in a timed interval of a couple of seconds.

Where the prongs meet with the handle was some sort of gem that was much bigger than the shards present around the base of the trident. It was much more bigger and was opaque with a blue hue.

"...that. Behold." The merpony slithered towards it, leaving a trail behind her. Grasping it within her hooves, she rose it high, causing it to reflect the sun rays much more intensely causing it to emanate a golden luster. "One of the marvels of the Merponies."

Casually, she arced it down, grabbing it by the middle of it. Stretching her hooves back, she tossed it at the Main Character's direction.

With a flinch of eight or so people, excluding Audrey since she has an innate habit of disregarding danger, the Main Character stiffened his stance.

The trident simply landed before them, piercing deep within the ground, sticking upright, ready to be used.

Grasping the base of it, Ral spoke suddenly as the sensual feeling of lightning suddenly grasped around the Main Character, "Compatible with the element of lightning... This. Will. Be. Amazing."

"W- wait!" the Summoner spoke out towards the mer who was turning around, heading towards the ocean. "This... this is nice and all, but what we really need are allies-"

"What do you think I'm doing?" The mer began to descend into the waters, her shoulders being barely able to reach the surface. "I'll get you willing soldiers. Give me time."

"And... she's gone," Malideus announced, seeing that the mer has already delved into the abysmal waters. "We'll have to come back here later on for that promised army."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah-" Ral suddenly gained control, wielding around the trident around, swishing it from right to left , up and down in one hand. "Staff of Vodahmin," Ral spoke, looking at the Staff held in a firm vice within the Main Character's left hand, "return to inventory."

The staff lit afire with a pure white light, completely being engulfed by it. Completely obscured within the radiance's stretch, the Staff disappeared, leaving behind dissipating embers of light from where it once existed.

"Wait- voice commands?" Vaati spoke out. "How did you know that the inventory thing responded to voice commands-"

"Lucky guess," replied Ral, before returning his attention to the staff.

“I say its time for… An experiment!” he shouted out, somewhat giddily as he was suppressing his urge to rapidly shake around like a schoolgirl.

Chapter 9. Random Encounter

The ground chiseled and broke, depressing under the weight of the Main Character’s foot as the Party breathed in the zephyrs of livening air pervasive around the coast. Around them were sand. Sibilating, the golden grains of sand were scattered as whirls of wind brushed against them.

Scaling up an ascending earthen pathway of brown dirt, the Main Character smirked, wielding the Trident just leveled with his head.

“Are… you sure this is wise, lesser wizard? Because it’s not that I don’t trust you, I just… don’t trust those hippocamps is all…” Malideus vocalized as the body raised the trident, eager to try it out.

Stepping onto the edge of the cliff they had discovered recently, they viewed their surroundings. Scattered among the left side of their view, say fifty meters or so, were trees. A menagerie of trees by the looks of things.

These trees were merely outskirts to an even thicker, denser forest riddled with thorned, charcoal-black foliage.

There was an undoubtedly sinister aura emanating from this particular forest.

Magic surging around the Trident as the MC raised it high, it lit afire, shooting out arcs of electricity between its three tips.

“We’re not exactly in a position where it would be wise to refuse aid,” the Friar vocalised. “But yes, we should still remain cautious.”

“Oh right, I forgot!” Vaati mentally slapped himself. “To sum up, I did a Death Egg mk.II on the Equestria Girls world of my Equestria. Please fucking remind me to destroy the system of that shit as soon as possible before Trollestia takes that too.”

"Death Egg? Really?" Malideus deadpanned, casting a mental glare at Vaati.

“It was the lesser of two annoyances. So, what exactly are we doing with this… oversized fork made of gold?” Vaati spoke out.

The MC grinned as Ral guided their hand down to a strong grip. “Intriguing, the merponies are aquatic beings but they have a magical treasure that is lightning attributed.” He muttered, twirling the spear a few times.

“Logic doesn’t really play much of a role in our…” The Summoner fumbled a bit, uncertainty lacing his hesitation, “...escapades.” The Summoner hummed to himself, bringing the MC’s hand upon his chin. “Now that I think about it, actually. There are marine creatures capable of low-rate electricity, right?”

“Normally, I would like to find the properties of the Trident; abilities, type of metal used to make it, its flexibility, and many other aspects… None of which I can test, except for one.” He grunted as he drew their arm back, aiming the tip of it towards one of the nearby cliffs beside theirs.

“Audrey, mind seeing if you can break that cliff over there?” He asked, the trident suddenly dimming, the sparks of it vanishing as the crackles of electricity died out. “I wish to see how much damage this can potentially deal without any magical imbuement.”

“With my former body?” Audrey smirked as she spoke out, twirling the Trident around like a lance as she stepped towards the direction of the cliff just, say perhaps thirty or so feet away, yonder right to them. “Without a damned doubt. Not sure about this one though,” she stated as she leveled the Trident just above her head, poising it to be thrown.

“Eh.” Ral nonchalantly muttered, “If we break the Trident, chances are that we’ll find someone capable of fixing it. You just have to see what the blacksmiths that I’ve encountered in my travels are capable of.”

“Let it cleave through the winds, comrade!” the Summoner sing-songed, prompting Audrey to widen the smirk on the MC’s face.

With a bit of a revving shrink, the posture of the Main Character shrunk a bit as Audrey clenched the handle of the Trident a bit tenser.

Hurling the Trident forwards with a coordinated throw, the golden weapon pierced through the wind, whistling out as it spiraled towards the side of the cliff.

Embedding itself deep as shattered rock flung out from where it struck, the Trident let out a chilling resonance as it stuck itself to the cliff.

“Pft.” Audrey shook her head a bit, conveying her disappointment as she peered her head forward, squinting at the result of her throw. “Not amused. Should’ve at least obliterated half of that cliff with that throw.”

“Yes, yes.” The Summoner puppeted the MC, walking in a circle as he spoke, “Question is how are we going to get it back now?”

“Obviously, we use telekinesis.” Ral shot a smug smile as he turned to face the Trident--still afar in the distance and still suspended by the cliff. “And as I am an accomplished mage, I can pull this off without no arcane assistance.”

“Sure, sure.” The Summoner, bemused, flaunted his hand, gesturing Ral to proceed. “Go ahead.”

Expanding the Main Character’s footing, Ral steeled his posture as he extended an arm towards the direction of the currently-embedded Trident.

Tensing his mind, a fleck of sweat began to trickle out from the MC’s temple as Ral struggled and wavered, his mentality waning as he gnashed his teeth, his hand trembling from over-working it.

“Agh.” Ral drooped down, a feeling of dread and depression wringing out from his figure. “Can’t perform telekinesis… our INT level must be too low.”

The Summoner rolled his eyes as he spoke out, “Recall: Trident.” He extended his hand forward, displaying his palm.

Afar, the Trident crackled with thunder, enveloped by a blanket of magical light. Blaring out thunderclaps, the Trident dissipated from existence, vanishing into glowing dusts of fluttering, evanescing bits of magic.

The Summoner idly stared at nothing in particular, remaining motionless, his hand still expanded wide, as if expecting something

Flashes of bolting lightning began to sizzle within the opened palm of the Main Character, more or less, flaring the surroundings with blinding light.

Forcing his clutch close, the Summoner felt a cold surface within his palm as he gripped the radiance of crackling sparks. Flourishing away, swinging his arm to the right, a lengthy pole began to materialize, engulfed in running electricity.

Cascading, the electricity began to disperse as the Trident fully took shape, but still eclipsed by the flashes of lightning.

The cackling lightning finally dissipated, leaving the Trident viewable--completely untarnished and still somewhat emitting sparks of lightning.

“Pft.” Ral mentally dismissed. “A simple weapon-return spell?" He pondered for a bit, seeming hesitant. "Why didn’t I thought of that…”

“Anyways, we got what we haphazardly just threw at the side of a cliff,” Malideus stated. “What now, proto-brainiac?”

Ral shrugged off as he opened his mouth to retort, but before he could, he stopped himself, the Main Character’s mouth just hanging awkwardly open.

“Do you… hear that?” Ral spoke out as he began to walk towards the source of the noise--the end of the cliff, the pool of water below them.

It was a frothing sort of noise, much like intense bubbling.

“It’s sounds like sibilant water frothing violently…” the Summoner answered, their steps toward the end of the cliff wary and slow.

Audrey suddenly regained control. Yanking away the controller from the rest of the group, she began sprinting towards the end of the cliff. Stopping just at the edge, she peered at the bottom, spotting the vastness of azure water welling below them.

“I don’t know what the hell he just said!” Audrey exclaimed her statement, forming a gleeful smile. “But I did hear ‘water’ and ‘violently’ in the same sentence! And that means...” she trailed off, her giddy figure not bothering to finish her sentence.

Gazing down, she indeed spotted the patch of water that was seemingly suspicious--welling and spiraling like a miniature whirlpool, filling itself with bubbles. “Yes!” Audrey pumped her fist high. “I called it! Sea monster!”

“Oh good,” Ral muttered out with a straight-face riddled with annoyance. “More to hinder us of our travels.”

“Who cares?!” the Summoner psyched himself, stancing the Main Character’s figure, drawing the Trident. “We’re gonna get experience points--and maybe rare loot!

A tumor of water spreading out from the frothing bubbles, a texture of greenish black appeared. Towering over the patch of water were large, yellow eyes that seemed to have no irises and were just simply two analogous spheres.

“Wow.” The Summoner widened as he stepped back a bit, somewhat unsure what to make of out of the peculiar-eyed beast. “Googly eyes would’ve been better on that thing.”

Finally, the sea beast’s upper half finally emerged out of the blue depths, presenting itself brazened. It was some sort of serpentine fish. Its green scales rough and plating its skin like armored plates. Its snake-like body seeped out some sort of clear fluid.

However, upon its surface were clusters of exposed flesh, darkened and decaying with parasitic moss-like colonies nestled within them.

Its maw was guarded with a mandible, barely concealing its rows of fangs lining against its mouth cavity. Its face also had very lengthy whiskers.

“Damn!” The Summoner stepped back. “And I thought it couldn’t get any worse! Ral, what the hell is that?” The Summoner pointed the triple prongs of the Trident at the idle beast upon the water.

“It looks like some sort of eel.” Ral leaned a bit closer towards the eel creature that was waving around expectantly. “A very large and deformed one, that is.”

“Yeah? Deformed is a very large understatement-” The Summoner staggered back, interrupting himself, as the eel suddenly splashed forward, jumping high into the sky.

“What the hell!?” Malideus cursed out as he sprinted back off the cliff.

The eel smashing the ground with tenacity, the hill splintered and trembled, cracks forming across the base of the hill. The eel wriggled fanatically, ooze being splattered across the earth, the terrain being murked with slime, as it flailed.

“It jumped at us?” Vaati spoke in disbelief. “That doesn’t seem sensible!”

“Look.” Ral pointed at the eel’s body, pointing out the colonies of parasitical entities blotting the eel’s flesh with mossy bubbles. “Parasites… This eel must be under the influence of them!”

“How unfortunate.” Malideus jerked his hand, the Trident responding as magic began to envelope it, becoming nothing more than a figure of light. The Trident vanishing into embers of light, Malideus held his hand forward, summoning the Staff of Vodahmin. “Still. No pity for you, damned fish!”

The Staff of Vodahmin drafting into the opened palm of Malideus from non-existence, Malideus aimed it at the eel.

The eel desperately swivelled left and right, inching itself closer towards the Main Character.

Malideus smirked maliciously as he tapped upon the Staff’s mechanisms. The Staff’s tip suddenly kindled out a visible fire, its intense warmth filling the atmosphere feverishly.

“Wait.” The Summoner sighed out. “The Staff could change elements?”

Malideus blinked blankly. “Uh. Yes. Did I not tell you guys that before?”

Ral answered for the Summoner, “No. We do not recall you mentioning the multi-element of that staff.”

Malideus shrugged. “Meh. Whatever.”

Brandishing it across overhead, Malideus once more extends his arm forward, pointing the Staff exactly at the eel’s face.

“Fried fish!” Malideus yelled out as he channeled magic into the Staff. The Staff growing volatile with arcane torrents, it brimmed with power, its flame enlarging. The Staff at its zenith, unleashed the unwieldy amount of flame stored within it.

Infernos unrelented from the Staff, bathing everything in crimson fire. The dirt itself even began to sizzle, melting into thin lava. The air sizzled and distorted, Malideus still grinning madly as sweat profusely exited out of his face.

The eel beast’s silhouettes was obscured by the ludicrous amount of flames engulfing the area whole. Everything was consumed in purging flames as Malideus continued on perpetualizing the stream of flames.

Sending off the Staff with a flick, Malideus regarded the beast as cooked finely and ended the flames, still sporting his insane grin.

As the flames extinguished themselves, however, the eel’s body was seen once more, untarnished and relatively unharmed.

As such, Malideus hung his jaw loosely in astonishment as he drooped down in incredulity.

“What kind of fish is that?!” Malideus shouted out spitefully.

“Perhaps its the slime coating it?” Ral suggested. “Though, I have not exactly one explanation for why a marine animal would need fire resistance.”

“Whatever.” Malideus shrugged off. “Who’s next?”

“I’d like to try.” Ral stood a bit more finely, fixing his composition as he sported a determined smirk. “I think I still have access to one of my better skills.”

“Go ahead.” The Summoner nodded as he gestured at the still writhing fish. “I can’t do much without a more magical book yet.”

Nodding, Ral retracted his hand to his neck. Tapping the Izzet Keyrune hanging loosely from a chain swathing their neck, the Rune flashed out light in a blink. Suddenly, emanating magic from its sanctity, the Rune cascaded magic.

Absorbing the magic, Ral hummed out in satisfaction, “Right. Much, much better.”

“You didn’t tell us that either.” Malideus folded his arms together.

“Hey!” Ral defended himself, “Didn’t I tell you that this thing could give us mana?”

“Yes.” The Summoner nodded, looking downwards with closed eyes. Rearing his head leveled forward once more, he flared open his eyes once more. “But you didn’t say that we needed to tap it to gain mana from it.”

“Oh.” Ral titled his head a bit. “My mistake.”

Shrugging off that short incident, Ral positioned himself once more, staring the eel. Reaching forth, into the empty space before him, Ral summoned the Trident. As he flourished the Trident in whirls, he unequipped the Staff, causing it to vanish from sight.

Drawing the Trident high, lightning sparked from it, arching from each prong to the other as it flashed out violently. Suddenly, arcing out down, the trail of sparks followed it as the Trident was suddenly pointed at the eel.

“Good bye, foul fish,” Ral sing-songed as he stabbed the Trident downwards. A strike of lightning enveloping the Main Character, spouts of electricity protruded from the ground as dirt was coarsing with electricity. Even the air itself was cleaved and pierced with stabs of lightning emanating from the Main Character as a deafening, resonating piercing sound played out continually.

The fish actually being affected this time, its aegis of slime ineffective and was dried away by the searing bolts, was pierced and forked by the unrelenting electricity. Smoke coming from it, it suddenly went limp without no more than a struggle.

Still, the assault of electricity unrelented, spikes and spirals of lightning still pervading the atmosphere around the Main Character.

Finally, the electricity dimmed down as Ral felt a pang of fatigue running through his body. Seeing that he’s straining himself, he ended the display of sparks. Everything going back to as they were, the menagerie of lightning ended.

Panting in exhaustion, Ral stepped back from the Trident he has impaled straight into the ground. Looking around, eyes darting back and forth, head turning left and right, he was somewhat stunned.

Chapter 10. This Was Not Obviously Finished

Everything laid within ruins; ground was upheaved, displaying the foundations of the grass twaned and shattered, pallid boulders of soil were now displaced and strewn upon the desolated land. Even the trees in the distance, now blackened and embellished with still-burning cinder, had their leaves respectively layered upon the darkened ground, burnt into crisps and beyond recognition.

Suddenly, the loot-interface flared up before the Main Character. The Summoner giddy, expecting whatever to have dropped from the eel to be worth it, was promptly disappointed as he was met with the text ‘No Loot Gained’ apparent on the interface. “Aw!” The Summoner frustratedly stomped the ground. “We gained nothing, and we didn’t even level up.”

“Woah… kinda puts Vodahmin’s staff to shame, huh?” Malideus asked, only a little sarcastically, still surveying the ruined environment as the interface window flickered out of existence.

“You know what, Malideus? It does put it to shame.” Ral grinned, pulling the Trident out of the ground with a grunt.

“Only because we’re not Vodahmin. Supposedly, he’s the only one who knew how to really use the damned thing… Hmm…” Malideus snarked, drifting off into thought.

Suddenly, Ral stared at the Trident, realizing something as he scratched his chin with his hand.

“You know, I don’t think we actually got a name for this…” Ral frowned as he motioned his way towards a nearby charred boulder.

Closing the distance between the MC and it, careful as to avoid the still burning, smoldering rocks on his way, he sat upon it.

“Lightning Channeler’s Trident!” Malideus blurted out, before anyone could speak up, flaring his arms overhead as he sat.

“No!” Everyone cried in unison, causing Malideus to mentally flinch, forcing him to shrink back a bit.

“Only joking…” Malideus muttered almost in a whisper. “Fine then. Why don’t any of you scrubs try naming it?” he motioned both the MC’s arms in a circle in a casually slow swirl.

“Why not ask the friggen merpony what the name of the thing is?” Vaati suggested.

The embers waltzed vivace with their glow as they fluttered into the air, ascending from the ground--only to dissipate in the cooling, evening air. The skies have dullened their color, falling into an abysmal shade of black--still, the slight hue of blue were still apparent; it wasn’t night, but it was soon to be.

“Nyet, elf! I would keep forced contact with them to a minimum, if you please!” Malideus growled.

“Maybe someone should keep an eye on them… you know, to make sure they do as we say?” the Overlord suggested, borderline suspiciously, but the others nodded solemnly, knowing it had to be done. But how?

Suddenly, the Summoner popped in, an idea in his head.

“Hey, I’ve an idea! Since the rules of video games apply here, let’s boot him!” the Summoner, without much emotion in his tone save for optimism.

“... What?” Malideus said, dumbfounded.

“I shall repeat what Malideus just said,” Ral stated. “What?”

“Threaten me with exclusion, and I shall threaten you with pain.” The Overlord growled, taking slight offense.

Quickly, The Summoner corrected himself.

“No, no, not exclusion, per say, just temporary bifurcation. You leave the host to take over a pony and watch through them, and we do this by basically voting you out.” The Summoner explained, only to be cut off by Audrey;

“I vote Malideus!”

“Shut it, cake whore!” Malideus snapped back, his snarl-like tone threatening to initiate another round of banter.

However, it was soon interrupted by The Summoner, in all his wisdom. “While I think the majority of us would all love to see the two of you have a go at it with words, now’s not the time. We have to go on with my suggestion.”

“... By kicking one of our teammates for no reason?” Malideus asked, earning a facepalm from The Summoner

“We’ve not much of a choice…” the Summoner retorted . “We need someone to not only oversee our dominion here, once we establish it anyways, we also need someone to maintain our army here.”

The Overlord quickly spoke up, agreeing with him. “I agree, then. If this plan is to succeed, we need assurance. And I volunteer to be that assurance.”

“In summary,” the Summoner spoke up, “What we’re doing is going to random Equestrias, establish an army under one collective banner, kill the Celestia of that Equestria, repeat that process until we’ve amassed so much that we can actually threaten True Biatch.”

The Summoner courtly bowed. “I know, I know. I should be given a nobel award for sheer cunning.”

Vaati spoke up with furrowed brows and a hint of skepticism in his voice, “You should receive a nobel award for being a narcissistic idiot.”

“Hey!” The Summoner instinctively jerked a bit.

“I agree. All you suggested was something any RTS player could think of with their brain turned off.” Malideus snarked.

Ral spoke up, “Expansion would be helpful in our endeavors…”

Next, came the Fat Friar.

“Indeed. It seems quite a sound strategy, if not the only one we have left.” Audrey just shrugged.

“We can probably recruit more people somehow…” the Summoner hushedly muttered.

“But how? We barely figured out how to get YOU back when you passed out.” Malideus said.

“We have an inventory system, a party system, and a leveling system.” The Summoner concluded affirmingly, “If we have all that, then by all means, we’re going to be able to recruit more party members.”

Malideus was silent, as were the others.

“... Seems a sound thought.” Malideus concluded, only a little fazed.

Ral struggled with himself, uttering out snippets of unintelligible words. Shrugging, he spoke up, “I want to argue with that. But it seems to… be too logical. It’s illogically logical!”

“Don’t care. Can we eat soon?” Audrey said, earning an indirect glare from a few party members.

“Enough wasting of time,” the Overlord’s voice thumped like a bass drop. “Boot me already, and let’s be done with this.”

“Let’s see if this works…” the Summoner muttered half-heartedly as he delved within his mind, closing his eyes. Opening his eyelids, he exclaimed, “Commence vote to kick Overlord out of body!”

“All in favor, say aye!” Malideus said, kicking the process off.

“Aye,” the Summoner pitched in his voice.

“Aye,” The Fat friar said, shifting a bit.

“Pie!” Audrey exclaimed, her figure flaring a bit. “Oh--whatever. That was my hunger talking.”

“Aye…” Vaati trailed off, somewhat bemused by Audrey.

“Aye. You’ve got my vote.” Ricky said, eager to boot the Overlord.

“Aye!” Malideus exclaimed, happy to be involved.

“Aye,” Ral finally added.

“Good, motion is unanimous. It carries,” The Summoner said, and in a blinding flash, The Overlord’s presence left the body, and text filled the vision of the rest: “Player The_Overlord has left your server”

Resonating, light engulfed the MC’s body, bathing everything in a tempest of white flames. Suddenly, the MC’s body twitched, convulsing and wringing rapidly. The Overlord’s wick began to die out, his presence vanishing from the presence.

Forming like a sphere of charcoal-black fire with bright orange embers running along it, the Overlord hovered around in front of the MC.

“I will need to ‘borrow’ some unfortunate being of its body.” The Overlord, in his usual evil tone before hovering off into the distance, gradually disappearing from sight.

“Now… What next?” Malideus asked, confused, while The Overlord whipped away from the MC, eager to find himself a host. Suddenly, an arrow whizzed by them, answering the question for them.

“Right. Running now!” Ricky said, and the MC took off running, hopefully away from whoever was trying to kill them.

Chapter 11. Suddenly, We're In a Forest.

“Anybody has a map?” the Summoner thought aloud, his words ringing throughout the MC’s mind as he gazed throughout the area, incredulously and calculatively. “We could’ve at least attempted to think of an alternative rather than go.. in here…”

The Summoner audibly shuddered as he placed a grimace on the MC’s face.

The forest’s thicket of ivy and foliage ran deep, seeping into crevices within the ground, the eerie winds scattered and dispersed, swaying the leaves shadowed by the darkness. There was an ambient dread in the atmosphere--as if the entirety of the forest itself was restless… and terribly angry.

Roots ran deep within the ground, stemming off from the pitch black-shaded barks of trees, appearing as if they were bundles of serpents.

Leaves strewn within the air, adrift, fluttered down towards the ground in spirals, joining the heaps among heaps of decaying, ashen brown discarded leaves upon the pallid soil.

“No one has a map. We didn’t even take one, stupidly enough.” Vaati said, grumbling, swishing the opened palm of the MC as a smoke-like mist began to envelope them the further they went. “What the hell is up with this fog?!” he exclaimed, raising his fist high--just barely missing grazing the loosely-hanging vines of trees just inches away from the MC’s head.

The pathway of dirt, leaves, and vines became narrow. Choking, the mist seethed within the throat of the MC, causing a fixating cough from them.

“Bleh,” the Summoner blurted out, hanging a clenched fist just below to cover the MC’s mouth. “This mist is quite troubling indeed… but if we were to ignite a light right now, I bet they’ll catch us.”

Ral spoke up, warily darting the MC’s head left and right to scan whatever was left unobscured by the hazing fog--unfortunately, he could only make out silhouettes of trees and vines. “True. Our pursuers are no doubt so dead set on finding us--and promptly killing us--that they too have probably blindly delved into this place… just as we did.”

“For once, however, I agree with short round.” Malideus snided a chuckle. Vaati responded accordingly as he folded the MC’s arms in agitation. Malideus added, “It’d have been a wise move to take a map while we had the chance.”

“Well, maybe you shouldn’t have spent all our points on a dumb staff, Malideus.” Ral pointed out, causing Malideus’ sprite to flare up.

“It was a versatile weapon! I was looking out for the team! You’re the one who was bitching about your dumb book!” Malideus retorted, his sprite increasing in size and intensity as he argued with Ral Zarek.

“My book has proved far more useful than your damn stick! And even if you say its all powerful, since we aren’t this Volederemis-whoever we’re better off with an actual stick!” Ral snarled.

“Oh yeah? Well, at least it has power! You’re dumb book is pretty useless unless you plan on BORING SOMEONE TO DEATH!” Malideus bellowed, quite angry.

“Enough, Both of you! You sound like a couple of schoolgirls!” Audrey at last intervened, silencing the two before they came to psychic blows.

“... Pfft, you would know.” Malideus retorted, invoking the girl’s ire.

“Bitch,” Audrey spat out bitterly, stomping the MC’s foot towards the ground as she halted their pace, kicking off dirt, buried leaves, and a few pebbles as she clenched the MC’s fist shut, “If I could, I’d rip out your throat… with nothing more than my pinkie finger.”

“Your throat is our throat…” reasoned Summoner, shrugging a bit as he did. “You’d kill all of us in the process.”

Audrey growled a bit, letting out mumblings of curses and other hushed angry words. “Fine. I’ll piss off from these idiots for now… but don’t blame me if they end up drawing attention to us with their bitching.”

Vaati choked once more, staggering a bit as he placed a palm on the MC’s throat. Rubbing it a bit, he attempted to relieve the sting of the mist.

“Dammit! What’s up with this!?” Vaati yelled out as he looked around--nothing more than a black ink-like smoke for as far as he could see. “The fog got worse!”

“This feels familiar… Where’s the basilisk?” Malideus grumbled.

Choking, Ral spoke up, albeit coarsely, “I feel as my--our throat is going to dry out.” He stifled a choke before continuing, “There’s no helping it. We have to dissipate this fog somehow.”

Summoner added weakly as he faltered in steps as he resumed the MC’s pace forward, trembling in each step he took, “Or else we risk either getting nauseous enough to faint, have our throats become critically injured, or if this fog is anything more than just a nuisance, we may die from inhaling it excessively.”

“We gotta find the source of this ominous air,” the Fat Friar concluded, his voice scathed as well by the choking mist. “I’d figure this kind of stuff isn’t just made naturally.”

“Oh.” Ral flared up, attempting to grin--but the suffocating air coerced him to otherwise frown. “There are a lot of natural mists like these, actually. But… most of them are fatal upon inhalation--so this one is very new to me.”

“Wait,” the Summoner interjected abruptly, causing the MC to stand still amid the darkening pitch of rasping wind. “You knew that this mist could’ve killed us the moment we inhaled it, but you didn’t forewarn us anyways.”

“Oh…” Ral shrunk back a bit mentally. “For two reasons of course,” Ral defended himself, feigning fervor in his tone. “One: because the killer mists that I’ve read up always need some sort of catalyst for their existence, and aforementioned catalysts are not apparent here.” he stated with an affirming vocal flourish. “And two--I somewhat forgot while we were running away?” He finished sheepishly.

“That’s… somewhat underwhelming.” The Summoner deadpanned a facepalm as he sighed. “Anyways… we don’t have much of a choice; we need to use a form of lightning to find either the exit or whatever is exuding this black air.”

“Very well then.” Malideus nodded in agreement with a nonchalant wave of the MC’s hand. “We can use the no-name Trident… You know, spark it up a bit; use the electricity as a torch or something.” Without more than a warning, Malideus gestured the MC’s hand to his back.

Gripping onto the cold, tingling metal of the trident’s handle, he arced it forwards, presenting the Trident in front of the MC’s view. Brandishing it with a swirl, Malideus added, “Ral… not so sure on how to activate this. You do it.”

Shaking his head a bit in skepticism, Ral took control. “Not the nicest way of asking for something…” Ral lifted the Trident high, channeling magic within it as he raised it, its tip trickling with sparks. “Anyway, here goes nothing.” Slamming it down, the Trident’s three tips kindled with electricity as it thumped against the ground.

Cascades of lightning ran through the prongs of the Trident, dancing like turbulent waves as it illuminated the darkness, melting away the shadows--and also searing into the eyes of the MC.

“Ow. Ow. Ow!” the Summoner crined as he hissed out. “It’s like staring into the sun!”

“Paf.” Audrey cursed out. “Reminds of that one time that I had to-”

“Yes!” everyone’s voices, save for Audrey, shouted in a cursing menagerie--sounding not too far off as a chorus.

“We get it,” the Summoner stated. “You kicked a lot of ass.” The Summoner shrugged a bit stoically. “So what? We all kicked ass in some way… I shot down flying dreadnaught ships… while riding a damned zombie dragon.”

“Yeah, and I was Duke Nukem for a day…” Malideus snarked.

Vaati responded, “I blew up the entire Crystal Kingdom in my Equestria.”

“Mmm… Point made…” Audrey murmured.

“Ugh…” Ral, brushing off the freshly made tears of the MC, blinked. The MC’s vision returning as, Ral swiftly examined the surroundings. “Wait.”

He was stunned for a moment as he spotted what was in the middle of where they were at. He blinked his eyes once more--attempting to see if it was merely a trick from their minds.

Unfortunately, however, Ral, and subsequently the others, have found out that it’s in fact not a phantasm casted by their minds.

Within where they stood, an arena-esque ring surrounded by forked trees whose jagged leaves were like knives. Charcoal-painted wood, the trees had spiked protrusions instead of branches. These protrusions were needle-like and were thorned with even more spines.

They, without mention, looked menacing.

The middle of the arena, however, stood stationary a behemoth version of this tree. Its trunk was roughly just wider than a skyscraper’s, and it stood just relatively just perhaps half the length of one as well.

Hollows upon the tree were apparent--seeming as if they were crevices. Black mist was pumped out of these crevices, spiraling into the atmosphere like billows of smoke as they melded into the air.

Running across from its base were vine-like roots that were perhaps larger than the MC’s body. Spiraling across its trunk were slits, apparently. The tree itself retracted and expanded--as if it was breathing. Pounding from within the colossal tree, rhythmic and continual, was what seemed to have been a heartbeat.

Chapter 12. Bad End. Try Again? Y/N.

“Holy fucking shit,” Vaati muttered.

“Ditto,” the Summoner replied, staring blankly at the living tree before him.

“Well,” Audrey brought her fists just to chest height. Clenching her hand onto her fist, she cracked it, audibly sounding out a bony joint popping into place, “We found the the source of this stupid mist. Time to kill it.”

“Are you insane?!” Ral shouted out in outrage, swishing the Trident, which still radiantly sparked out electricity from its ends, left to right frantically. “We’re even lucky that we didn’t manage to provoke it somehow!”

“While I may be worried for our… well-being,” the Summoner coughed out before continuing, “We must kill it.”

Ral stared at the Summoner--but seeing as he was not physically tangible and not visible, he simply stared incredulously at nothing in particular. “For what reason?” Ral jerked a bit as he questioned.

“Duh.” The Summoner extended both his arms sideways, opening their palms as he did. “For the experience points.”

“I dunno…” Malideus muttered out. “I’m conflicted about this.” Malideus brought his hand upon his chin. Scratching it a bit, he muttered out, “On one hand, presuming that we’re following RPG logic, we can probably kill it by flinging a few explosives at it while slashing it to bits… On the other hand, this boss looks way beyond our level.”

“I say we go for it,” Vaati answered nonchalantly, his tone laced with a casual ring to it. “I mean--we’d have to die like more than five times. Should be enough for us to chop off this tree.”

“Well,” Ral began moving towards the right, intending to bypass it entirely. “It seems that we’ll just have to-” suddenly, mid-sentence, Ral stepped upon something thick and… starchy.

Looking down, Ral was reasonably appalled--upon his foot was a wriggling root that was exposed a bit above the surface.

“Oh look,” Malideus pointed out jokingly as he extended his finger towards the large tree creature, “You triggered the boss fight.”

“Oh for-” Ral cut himself off as the root below him suddenly trembled violently as it raised itself high, appearing itself more like a ravenous serpent rather than a root.The root burrowed itself into the ground, retracting from sight as it flung out pebbles and dirt as it retracted from view.

The MC glanced towards the large tree.

The tree behemoth’s slits, formerly closed, were now widened and opened, revealing large, red eyes whose irises were like that of a snake; aforementioned eyes, of course, were fixated all collectively on the Main Character.

“Well,” the Summoner spoke up with deadpanned voice, “It’s rude to stare… didn’t anyone tell this big tree thing that?”

Its roots began to uproot, revealing themselves like poised tendrils of a jellyfish, as they all pierced out from the dirt, frenziedly shaking about in place. The ground shattered and quaked as dirt upheaved, spiraling out of the holes were tendrils of roots, their pronged tips poised at the MC.

“Prepare yourselves everyone!” Ral shouted out as he took a stance, struggling do so as the earth did not relent on shaking.

Suddenly, the soil became turbulent as a whirring sound played out from the ground.

“Guys?” Vaati spoke up, wearily looking around, however, nothing more than mist-obscured silhouettes of trees were within his eyesight. “What the hell is making that creepy noise?!”

“The soil!” the Summoner exclaimed as he strafed backwards, pointing the still-ignited Trident at the ground before them.

Towards the direction of the end of the Trident was a long line of mound of soil, serpentine almost, constantly being upheaved and expanding as it stretched towards the MC.

“Under control,” Ricky resounded deeply with an asserting voice. Positioning his footing, he awaited whatever was burrowing their way to the MC.

As the trail of dirt closed in on them, mere inches away, the MC dodged in the last second, the trail of dirt sailing past them, and quickly, Malideus took over, getting an idea.

“Aight, let’s send this overgrown fag to hell!” Malideus shouted. With a flick of his wrist, the Trident degenerated into nothingness, vanishing in a display of glowing particles of gold. Shifting his hand just over his head, he flicked his wrist once more.

Flashing into view and into reality, the Staff of Vodahmin began to materialize within the opened palm of the Main Character. Clutching it tight, Malideus fidgeted the staff’s elemental properties. Magic surging and changing, the Staff went alight with fire.

Swinging it to the left as the MC landed on the ground, resounding out an audible thump within the ghastly space of the forest as they touched the ground, the Staff parted the winds as it flung out fire. Cascading like a whirlwind, cinders and torrents of fire surged at the tree.

Engulfed, the flames ran forth through the Behemoth Tree, leaving a trail of scorched ground--dirt layered with specks of molten stones and embers. Crackles of fire sounded persistently throughout the atmosphere as the flames died out gradually.

The flames having extinguished, the view towards the Behemoth Tree was once more clear. The tree, layered with still-burning ash, had some of its eyes shut, presumably due to damage, as it wriggled about frantically in agony. Hazes of burning cinders fluttered around it, dissipating into the wind.

The Behemoth Tree let loose a roar, inducing a tremor-like shake upon the ground. The deafening screech pierced through the listlessness with ease.

“Dammit!” the Summoner yelled out, staggering back as he plummeted the Staff into the ground, causing it to stand still. Putting both hands on each ear, he cursed out, “That’s disorientating us!”

As the roar died out, the MC turned his glare forward once more, spotting the Behemoth Tree.

“Uh oh. Dodge!!!” Vaatii said, and the MC threw itself to the side as the tree blew a column of gritty smoke at them, causing Malideus to laugh.

“Ha! I knew there was something familiar about this tree! It’s got cursed breath!” Malideus shouted out, still mid-jump, as the Main Character finished strafing to the side with a jump.

“Whatever! Time to die, shrub!” Audrey roared out like a war cry as she sprinted towards the Behemoth Tree, sidestepping and dodging the incoming vines obstructing their way. Closing on the distance with a pounce, Audrey brought herself up into the air. Crashing down on the tree, she pierced through the tree with her fist.

“That…” The Summoner remarked with a deadpan, but pained expression on the MC’s face, “That really hurt our fist…” Attempting to retract their fist, the Summoner was adversed as their fist stubbornly remained within the breach they had placed within the Behemoth.

“Oh crap…” Vaati muttered out, his eyes widened with both panic and anxiety. “Don’t tell me that it’s stuck.”

“It’s-” Ral grunted as he brought his foot upon the trunk of the Behemoth, attempting to push themselves out of the hole. Panting, Ral resigned from attempting to struggling free, his lowered postured indicating fatigue. “It’s definitely stuck….”

Shooting from the ground just mere steps away from them, myriad roots emerged from the charred soil. Styling themselves as if they were serpents, they observed their victim--swaying to the sides rhythmically as they idly gazed upon the MC.

The tendrils wrapped around the MC’s arm, and lifted them into the air, just below the base of the Behemoth Tree. Revealing itself with a scraping creak, a maw appeared within its base, bared with thorn-like, wooden spines within its orifice--all too eager to devour its prey.

“Uh oh.” Audrey said, more than a little fazed by this as she stared at the hanging maw of thorny death poised just a few feet below them.

“Oh hell! No, this is NOT okay!!!” Vaatii screamed, followed by the others as they all collectively struggled within the vices of the vines, shaking themselves violently at their viney shackles.

“This is not good! This is not good at all!” Ral said, struggling even further.

“God damn iiiiiiiiit!!!!!” The Summoner cried as the MC was flung into the maw, and the said spike-filled orifice closed quickly on the MC’s body, resulting in a sickly, wet crunch, followed by silence and a steady stream of blood as the eldritch tree chewed its victim, contentment on its wooden face.

Chapter 13. Now Go, Oh Brave Luka

“Where the fuck are we…” Malideus managed to utter out, his voice vocally battered and coarse.

“We appear to be,” the Summoner coughed a bit as he stood up, “In some sort of white area of nothingness… just like Character Creation.”

“Wait!” Ral shouted out as he too bolted upright in a panicky frenzy. “We have our bodies back!”

Vaati, just aside from Ral, spoke up as he examined himself, “Fuck yeah! You’re right… but why?”

“To taunt you animals, of course,” a voice resonated. A very familiar voice to be exact; it was feminine, but cruel. A malice unrivaled complimented with a grimly cold tone was parsed within the voice.

It was the voice of True Celestia.

“You…” the Summoner hissed out.

“Inhale my dong enragement bitch!” Vaati, his teeth gnashed against each other, soared his fist high, flailing them wildly at the illuminance of the incandescence before him.

“Lovely. Just when I was enjoying being myself again...” Malideus sighed, preparing to lunge at the direction of the voice.

“Malideus, if we die again I will beat you into the next life myself if I have too!” The Friar shoved Malideus back. “She beat us once, and we’re nowhere near tough enough to get into a fight right now. Besides, she’s probably using weird mind magic to talk to us.”

“This is the afterlife, fools…” A pillar of light descended from the endless stretch of white above, blazing into the white, plain flooring before the LoHAV-ers. “I thought all of you would be familiar of it by now.”

“Yes, and we were all having fun minding our own damn business until you came here.” Vaati added.

"On the contrary, you were being devoured..." A pondering, prolonged hum faintly sounded off from the blank stretch of nothingness. "Well, perhaps it's that you're a masochist, maybe? Hahaha ha...."

The ray of sunbeam dimmed a bit, lowering from blinding to just barely bearable, as a figure casted down from it. Descending slowly, casting down a shadowy silhouette upon the ground, the figure was ablaze with infernos.

It was equine in form. Slender and tall, its body slowly approached from the ground. Its coat, emblazened with fire, was purely white. Its red, crimson mane held an ethereal, wavy flow, flourishing within the wind like fabric.

Tapping against the ground as it landed slowly, it reared its head, revealing blood-like eyes complimented with a grinning, maddened smile.

“True Celestia…” Ral muttered, standing in place a bit wobbly as some sort of paralysis numbing him to the bone.

“Hey…” The Summoner snarled as she approached him. “Did you gain weight?”

Like an infernal demon bathing in Hellfire, True Celestia merely scoffed with a mocking laugh, her pupils wringing out a battering, continual flow of condescension.

Stilling herself as she closed the distance between her and the LoHAV party, she stomped her foot. Thumping resoundingly, the flames were casted away as a sudden breeze fanned them into mere embers.

“Pitiful as ever, loathsome wastes of life.” Finely, True Celestia stood. Despite having the flames emanating from her dissipated, small kindles of fires ran through her pale orange coat.

“Look who’s talking.” Vaati smirked and not caring about whatever fancy entrance she’s giving. "You're an abomination of someone's semen, you pompous sicko."

“How…” Ral muttered to himself. Facing Celestia, he demanded, clenching both of his fists. “How are you here?”

True Celestia rolled her eyes in amusement as she shrugged nonchalantly. “Oh? Haven’t you noticed it by now?The reincarnation? The perpetualization of your lives? This amusing system’s rules that you have to play by? The random Equestrias you’re being plunged in?” True Celestia lowered her head, furrowing her brows lightly as she grimly smirked. “All of this is my doing.”

“What?" more or less, the entire LoHAV party spoke out, their synchronized, but off-tune, voices melding into one, dissonant chorus.

“We don’t want any,” the Summoner muttered audibly, teeth visibly clenched as he glared at the smiling equine before him.

“Want any of what?” True Celestia tilted her head as she glared at the Summoner with a malicious smile.

“Any of the bullcrap you’re spewing,” the Summoner stated.

“Oh…” True Celestia whirled a bit, feigning a pouting face. “So you don’t want to be resurrected again?”

“Much less when YOU'RE the one doing it, we’re not stupid to do a devil’s gambit you know.” The purple mage sneered, his lips contorting, displaying sheer contempt.

“Little elf,” True Celestia spoke out. “You already played the role of the puppet… Unfortunately, the puppet ended up… torching itself into ashes.”

“Forget it.” Ral shot his hand from one side. “If we had known that our reincarnation was your doing, we’d have stopped whatever it was we were doing and just decided to dick around for all of eternity!”

“First time hearing you say ‘dicking around’ there…” Summoner noted with an arched eyebrow.

“Is now the time?” Ral shot back a leer at the Summoner.

“After everything I’ve done up until this point,” True Celestia sighed--hinting disappointment, “This is the mistreatment I get.”

“For all the lives you’ve ruined, all the worlds that have been plunged into your insanity, all the blood and ashes laid on desolate battlefields that were under your name…” the Summoner clenched his mouth tight, quivering in place out of anger as he stared deep into Celestia, “Yeah… I guess you deserve that mistreatment, don’t you think?”

“Pft.” True Celestia trudged a bit back. “Well, you do know that I’m giving you an opportunity to get one more chance to kill me, right? After all, you’re traveling through Equestria after Equestria--you simply need to kill the ruling Celestia in those Equestrias to proceed. And since the Equestria that you are given is random, you have the chance, albeit a slim one, of arriving in my Equestria.”

She placed some distance between herself and the LoHAV party. She flared her wings, revealing plumes ignited with flames. “Like a phoenix, birthed from radiant sunlight, I shall give life.”

“For the majority of the part… all you gave was death,” the Summoner uttered out, barely suppressing his spite. “But… what do you mean ‘another chance’?”

“Get the hint asshat, we don’t want to be your puppets! Plus, my mother units and all the inhabitants of Elysium died when I passed away, I don’t have a reason to come back.” Vaati screamed at her.

“But you do want to kill me, right?” Celestia cradled her neck, leveling her condescending face with Vaati’s.

“For the last time: Fuck. Off.”

“Cool it, Santa’s little helper,” Malideus brought his hand to the right, gesturing towards Vaati’s enraged figure. “If we ever want the chance to somehow return to what we once were, we’ll have to take the opportunity and hope to Bolas that we kill her.”

“Good boy!” True Celestia exclaimed, clapping both her front hooves together in mocking fashion as she smiled with a grimly giddy mien. “At least this one doesn’t bark at its owner.”

“I’m more bite than bark, you Ulfiik.” Malideus sneered, the last word of his resonating slightly.

“Good! Good!” True Celestia cheered. “Because it would be otherwise boring with you stopping your quest on killing other Celestias.”

“You… you’re spectating us?” the Summoner inquired, his voice a bit dulled as the paralysis intensified. “For what reason?!”

“Bleh.” True Celestia dismissively waved her hoof around. “It gets awfully boring being an almighty tyrant with power beyond comprehension.”

“You ever tried community service? Smough and Ornstein seem to have fun doing that.” Malideus said, shrugging.

“Fine.” Ral shrugged off the numbness, dispelling the tremors of his body. “We’ll play by your ‘game,’ just send us off already.”

“Ah-ah.” True Celestia shook her head slightly. “Not yet. Not just yet. While all of you are here, I’d like to give you some new… options.”

“Options?” Ricky repeated, putting up a scowl. “And by that you mean…”

“One: allow you to gain another Soul of a dead combatant under your… categorization. I won’t do it for free…” True Celestia blinked, her grin displaying a glimpse of utter deviance. “Since however that one of you left that body I gave all of you, I shall make this a one-time exception and thus grant you another practitioner of your… professions; free of charge.”

“Being nice to us, huh?” the Summoner snarked out in a snarl. “Won’t get you far, but we are taking that free Soul.”

“Alright.” Celestia nodded, showing a devoid of emotion--despite her convincing smirk. “You shall receive a randomly chosen Soul once you are given back life. And for the second option,” True Celestia composed herself straight once more, “I shall give you a portion of your memories back--might allow one of you to regain some of your powers.”

“You’re giving us a free sample of this as well, True Bitch?” Vaati snarked.

“I was considering it,” she shook her head as she closed both her eyes. She promptly grimaced. “But then I’d rather not if you’re that rude to me.”

“Mother fucker…” Ricky muttered out in a harsh, but silent hiss-like whisper.

“Finally, the third option,” True Celestia positioned herself finely once more, keeping a firm glance on the LoHAV group as she opened her eyes, “I will give you additional information about your current task, should it prove too difficult for you, like, say, making a sandwich, or learning some manners, but only for a price.” True Celestia said, still grinning in her smug little way.

“Right, so we get to pay you to patronize us?” Malideus deadpanned, wondering why he was even talking to True Celestia.

“Depends on my mood, kid.” Celestia said tauntingly.

“I swear to god, if Nicol Bolas was here right now…” Malideus growled, ready to tear the pony in front of him in half.

“Fine, fine.” True Celestia feigned an agreeing nod. “If all of you are this disgruntled, I might as well give you some ‘tips’ on fighting that little sapling that is currently munching on your corpse.”

“We don’t need your help,” the Summoner resolved with a steeled stance and furrowed brows. “We can handle ourselves finely.”

“Pft. Sure, sure. Enjoy whatever fallacies you whisper to yourselves.” True Celestia rolled her eyes once more, albeit more subtly. “But here’s a tip for you monkeys the next time you fight the oh-so menacing sapling: don’t, for the love of common logic, strike the damn thing with your fist, or use any other form of melee combat. It’s apparent to you mindless idiots by now that you’ll get countered with tendrils if you do so.”

“...Seems fair.” Malideus replied.

“Maybe Audrey should remember we’re not invincible like she was, first.” Ricky’s tone was scathing.

“Oh fuck off, you backwoods boy!” Audrey shot back with an equal intensity.

“Moving on…” True Celestia raised herself. “The next thing you were probably too unperceptive to notice was the fact that the eyes of that sapling can be forced to be shut, should it be injured. It can’t hit you if it doesn’t know where you’re at; still, should trip over its exposed ingrained roots poking out of the ground, you’ll undoubtedly alert it of your positioning.”

“Seems obvious enough.” The Summoner folded his arms together.

“Alright then; I don’t think I’m forgetting anything.” True Celestia cocked her head a bit. “Time to send you off! Farewell for now.”

Author's Notes:

Fellow readers! If you haven't noticed by now that Dark Souls and Monster Girl Quest are quite prominent in this story, don't fret; the writers have their sanity intact!

...or do they?

Chapter 14. Hello, Internet People

“We’re back…” the Summoner noted, glancing around the area. They were indeed within the realm of the living once more--their heartbeat thumped frequently, their breaths shallow but calm, and their senses keened.

Like prior, the atmosphere was choked by a pitch black blanket of mist hazing throughout the area, enveloping the whole forest in its mantle.

Wielding the Trident with a swirling brandish, Ral placed it down upon the ground, slamming it into the dirt. As expected, sparks shot out from it, illuminating a good portion of the area. Just like before, there stood--alive and breathing--the Behemoth Tree.

Ral looked down, spotting the root they had stepped upon just before they died. “Ah… how convenient. We were sent back in time.”

“Didn’t that True Bitch mention about us getting a new Soul or something?” Vaati questioned, his eyebrow arched.

Suddenly, popping up in red font just before the Main Character’s view were the words: “Vaas_Montenegro is joining your session.”

“Oh,” Vaas uttered out, pained and almost in a wailing sort of fashion as he was forcefully laced within the Main Character’s mind.

Suddenly, the presence of a maddened individual pierced throughout the mind of the Main Character, with a resonating bellow-like roar, the individual finally spoke out, “NO! I don’t want to make that a combo! I JUST WANT IT WITH A DRINK! Why the fuck would I get your-”

Vaas paused, seemingly confused at not being where he was a few seconds ago.

“This is… weird,” He said as the Main Character flexed the fingers on his right hand experimentally. “Where am I? What’s going on?”

"You, my friend, are dead, and now stuck in world of ponycraft like the rest of us." Malideus said, in a deadpan voice.

“Dead!?” Vaas repeated in both disbelief and jest, etching a grim smile upon the MC’s face. “You gotta be kidding me.” He suddenly, gazed upon skywards, planting his hand upon the right side of his head, “Wait--now I think remember what went down; that bastard bartender pulled a gun on me.”

“And then…?” Vaati prolonged with a dull slur in his tone.

“You said I was... dead?” Vaas paused, chuckling as he spoke out those words. Readjusting the posture of the Main Character. “I’ve gotta say I’m pretty disappointed that I got wasted by a fucking bartender.” he pouted his lips sarcastically as he shrugged, “I’m thinking that’s not what happened though. I’m thinking the bartender turned into a dragon or something and beat the living shit out of me.” He shrugged sarcastically once more, still bearing the same pouted face that brazened out sarcasm.

“But enough of that shit,” Vaas stomped his foot as he raised both his hands, stilling them in the air, “Why the fuck am I here?”

“Our current excursion to terminate a particularly irksome authoritative entity of false deityhood and detestable panache,” the Summoner stated firmly, folding the MC’s arms together.

Vaas arched the Main Character’s eyebrow as he slanted his glance towards the desolate darkness of the forests--peering at the decaying, shadowy trees emblazoned upon the pallid dirt, grassless soil.

Vaas coughed before asking, “English please?”

“Oh,” the Summoner uttered out with a blank, abrupt expression. “For simplicity’s sake, we’re on a quest to find and promptly murder an annoying bitch.” The Summoner flared his eyes open as he pointed at nothing in particular, extending the MC’s index finger. “Oh. And said annoying bitch is also the reason why you’re here.”

Vaas gradually looked towards the ground, shaking his head as he did. “Motherfucker… So this ‘annoying bitch’,” he paused, repositioning his head forwards, “placed not only you assholes, but also me--in this fucking single body?”

“In summary…” Ral nodded subtly, “yes.”

“Fuck.” Vaas casually stated. “Well,” bringing forth both hands clenched in a fist--save for the hyper-extended middle fingers apparent within them, Vaas cursed, “Fuck… FUCK! Do any of you. Any of you what this means!?”

“Um... “ the Summoner muttered out. “We’re just nine-thousand and nine-hundred ninety-two away from having enough souls like Ermac?”

“No!” Vaas flared his hands upwards, flailing them in a frenzied state, much like a berserker of the Nordic warriors of old. “My dickhead pirates, that asshole Jason Brody, my cache of drugs--my fucking drugs! What do you think is going to happen to all of them!? I might as well have just been pissing into the fucking wind, man!” He kicked the ground, stirring up dirt into the air.

“Join the club bro,” Vaati added. “I lost an entire planet.”

“Bet you didn’t lose your virgnity,” Vaas shot back, hinting a snarl-like growl growl behind his tone. “I was a king on those fucking islands!”

“Okay, okay,” the Summoner swiftly butted in. “We get it; you’re pissed. Nay; that must be an understatement. You’re apoplectic. Yes?”

“Do I need a dictionary or something for when I talk to you, or... ?” Vaas replied, his growling anger randomly dissipating.

“No… not really.” The Summoner scratched the back of his head, feeling somewhat awkward. Coughing out, he proceeded, “Anyways… I suggest that you be more… cautious on where you step. That kick could’ve killed us.”

“Really, hermano?” Vaas tilted his head in amusement. “Wherever the hell this is… a kick can kill us?” He smirked smugly.

The Summoner took control of the MC, turning him around. Raising the still blazing Trident, he gestured the light over the Behemoth Tree, still undisturbed and hibernating. “Apparently,” the Summoner pointed at the massive, breathing tree with his index finger, “yes. We can get killed if we simply kick the ground.”

Vaas, understandably enough, staggered backwards a bit, gaping the MC’s mouth open. “What the fuck is that?”

“What do you think it is?” Malideus retorted. “It’s a damned pine tree.”

“No.” Vaas lowered his arms a bit, forming an opened hand as he asked once more, “What the hell is that?”

“That, my friend, is a dungeon boss.” The Summoner nodded. “But since you’re a pirate, I doubt that you’d know anything about-”

“RPG games?” Vaas widened a grin on the MC’s face. “Shit! Of course I know RPG games. Drugs aren’t the only shit landing on the Rook Islands. Sometimes we loot off ships that have some modern pieces of cargo. Cameras, consoles, laptops--you name em’. I got em’ in my stockpile.”

“What,” Malideus said outright, not displaying an ounce of emotion in his stoic words. “So… they really aren’t kidding when they say that everybody plays video games in this generation.”

“I guess so.” Vaas muttered out idly as he glared upon the stilled beast of lumber before him, his eyes analyzing the thorned branches, the grooves running across it, its breathing--it was as if he was a predator assessing his prey. “We’re stuck in a hell… that follows game rules?”

“Pretty much, stupid I know.” Vaati responded uninterested “Say, you wouldn’t happen to find some android or cyborg girls in your island, would you? One’s white, the other black and the last one’s blue.”

“Can’t say that my pirates did…” Vaas muttered out. “Though, I’m pretty sure they’d make good substitutes. The local prostitutes in the island are getting a little-”

“Anyways,” the Summoner butted in once more, ending the conversation abruptly as his voice resounded within the Main Character’s head. “What are your proficiencies… Sorry, I’ve not a single idea who you are still.”

“Vaas Montenegro.” Smiling, he shifted around the Main Character’s figure, fidgeting around a bit in reflex. “Aw shit… no smokes.”

“We’d rather not inflict further harm to our body…” Ral mentioned, waving his hand dismissively. “We’re already good at doing that.”

“Whatever…” Vaas eyed upon the sparking Trident, gawking at it as he has finally realized that the MC has been holding that for more over than an hour now. “What the hell is this thing?”

“That is the Lightning Channeler’s-”

“The Trident,” the Summoner answered. “Or--that’s what we refer to it for now, anyways. We’re not really sure about the name of that thing.”

“My name sounds cooler.” Malideus pouted.

“This isn’t the only thing we have at our repository of weapons though…” Unsheathing the Staff of Vodahmin, phasing it from non-existence into the palm of the Main Character, the Summoner wielded it around within the left hand. “We also have this… thing.”

“The staff! Of Vodahmin! Is it really that difficult to say the whole damn thing?!” Malideus shouted, hugging the staff.

“Two sticks.” Vaas furrowed his brows for a bit, inspecting both the Trident and the Staff. “Nah man. I can’t do much with sticks.”

“Ah.” Ral nodded in understanding. “You must be more proficient in other weapons… I feel as if it have been a while since we’ve purchased another piece of Equipment from the Equipment Terminal.”

“Maybe True Celestia can sell some more equipment to us?” Malideus offered.

“Why would Celestia sell anything to us? Why would she even waste time being anywhere we can reach her?” Vaati asked.

“That is a valid point,” the Summoner thought allowed, soothing his aching eyes with his fingers. “She is True Celestia. She must have her ulterior motives... “

“Guys, how long have we been talking?” Vaati added. “If I breathe in any more of this crap, I think we’re going to suffer from some serious lung damage.”

The Summoner coughed out as he fidgeted around in the air, making swatting gestures with his arm. As if tapping an interface, a screen popped up. More notably, it was a Menu. Within it were everything quintessential to an RPG menu--Inventory, Stats, Skills, and a strange option, ‘Shop’.

“Oh?” Ral uttered out in amusement at the suddenness of the appearance of the previously unknown feature. “How’d you know that you could do that, Summoner?”
The Summoner blinked blankly. Shrugging, he answered with deadpan, “Well… I saw the anime SAO and figured that we could do the same.”

Everyone went silent for a bit--evoking an eerie silence for a bit, leaving only the breathing of the Tree Behemoth as the only source of ambience.

“Ha, you watch anime!? NEEEEERRRRRD!!!” Malideus shouted, breaking the silence, his condescendment echoing throughout the desolate forest like a bell. Suddenly, just yonder ahead of the Party, the slumbering Tree Behemoth twitched and whirred to life, its eyes slowly opening, revealing the scarlet, bloody irises behind them.

“Oops.” Malideus finished with a flat tone.

“Even though I agree with Malideus, god damnit Malideus.” Ricky sighed.

“Aw this aint good.” Vaas groaned.

“Dammit!” Ral hissed underneath his breath. “It’s stirring awake!” He swiftly tapped upon the ‘Shop’ option. The screen flaring, it flared blankly. Searing into the empty canvas of the interface, three options became available:

Equipment Terminal, True Celestia’s Divinity, Tips 4 Skrubs.

The Summoner instinctively lowered the MC’s jaw as he glared at the last option. “Really? Wow. Can you be even more of a total prick, T.C?”

“I don’t know, I like it. Very direct.” Malideus said, scratching his chin thoughtfully.

“At least she has a bit of a sense of humour.” The Fat Friar shrugged. “And at least she isn’t being all passive aggressive politician.”

“I’m with Mal on this one,” Vaas chuckled. “Maybe I kinda like this T.C bitch.”

Shrugging off the pointlessly annoying antic of True Celestia, Ral jammed his finger against the first option--’Equipment Terminal’.

Suddenly, the screen’s text were replaced by a search bar and a list of myriad, uncountable items for sale. Displayed in bold, stylized font shining red was the amount of Equipment Points the Party currently possessed.

It was a measly eight. The figure eight stood in place beside the Equipment Points.

“Eight?!” the Summoner, aghast, shouted out in agitation.

“Eight, huh? Well, I’m not sure if I should be either pissed or relieved.” Vaas said, lightly optimistic. “But, seeing that someone just yelled out in horror, I’m thinking I should be pissed.” Stomping the ground, Vaas yelled out, “Fuck!” The group flinched.

“Stifle it, pirate! We don’t want to wake the tree further!” The Fat Friar said.

“Vaas--whatever the hell your last name was,” Summoner spoke up. “What do you say is your most favored choice of weapon?”

Vaas folded his arms as he shrugged. “Pft. Guns. Seriously? Guns… are everything, hermano.”

Flipping to the “Firearms” category, the list was removed off all items, save for the exception for an uncountable menagerie of guns.

“Wow.” Vaas’s eyes lit up like kindling submerged in fire as he perused through the dossier of guns. “Now this is something.” He whistled, clearly impressed.

“Yeah, it’s pretty cool. Now hurry and pick something, amigo.” Malideus snided.

Vaas pointed at a large shotgun with a drum-style magazine. “That street sweeper is pretty badass, but it looks like we can’t afford it… shit.”

“Hey, Summoner, can you add some filters to this thing? I wanna see what they have for pistols.” Vaas said, addressing the mage.

“I believe so, yes.” He replied, opening a small menu and checking a box text to the word ‘Handguns’

“Oh… yeah.” Vaas exclaimed, a smile growing on his face. “This one will work.”

“Are you sure?” The Summoner asked. “We can’t change this later.”

“Yep. I’ve always been in love with this fucking gun!” Vaas exclaimed. “It’s a G18 with an extended thirty-three round magazine. I can fire it in full or semi auto depending on how accurate I wanna be but I’m a hell of a shot, I can assure you. Plus, it’s only four points, we can probably get something else later!”

“Okay, that sounds good, but how are we going to acquire more ammunition?” The Summoner asked, cokcing an eyebrow.

“Fuck me, I never really thought of that.” Vaas groaned.

“Maybe enemies drop ammo? Like, as common drops?” Malideus offered.

“Sounds good!” Vaas exclaimed, a grin plastered to his face.

“Alright, then, let’s do this the RIGHT way, Shall we?” The Fat Friar said, ready to begin the fight.

“On it!” Malideus beamed, and without warning, he spied a root, and stomped on it at least three times in rapid succession.

The root retracting into the ground as Malideus withdrew his foot, the Tree began to convulse and roar, shaking the ground as it let out deafening roars of excruciation.

Quelling its monstrous, otherworldly shrieking, it flashed opened its slits, revealing its scarlet eyes. Tendrils began to unburrow, encompassing the tree as they shook off the dirt riddling their serpentine visages, poising at the Main Character like feral snakes.

Author's Notes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-wn4ytEy-I

Chapter 15. Dark Souls Up In Here.

Extending, bolting out from the ground, the vines shot at the Main Character, their barbed tips directed at his throat.

Strafing to the left, Ral felt the air distorting as the vines missed their mark, simply careening off further into the darkness. Lowering the Trident’s prongs at the bases of the hyper-extended vines, he discharged magic into it, sparking it up with blinding lightning.

The vines sizzled and disintegrated, flailing all the while, as the Trident radiated out searing, scorching rays of electricity. The Tree Behemoth wailed in pain as it shook itself. Leaves began to fall, fluttering into the ground in spirals, as gigantic, black fruit landed as well.

“What the?” the Summoner uttered out, briefly inspecting the strewn fruit now present within the area. One by one, these fruit thumped against the ground, battering it thoroughly as juices oozed from the their twaning skin.

Puddles of off-putting black seeping out of the cracked fruits were burning into the ground itself, corroding through it as if it was merely nothing.

“Watch out for the damned fruits! We’ll be melted away if we get too close as they impact!” Diving to the left, the Summoner barely caught glimpse of another fruit combusting kinetically as it shattered against the ground on where they once stood.

Regaining the Main Character’s composure, the Summoner dusted himself off, shooting a firm glare at the many-eyed beast several feet away from him. “Alright!” The Summoner looked around for certainty--noting that the rain of corrosive fruit has ended. “I think it tired itself out! Now’s our chance!”

“Target the eyes! Despite being a plant it uses sight as its main form of detection, but also be careful of the roots.” Ral coughed, pulling out the new gun at the tree, strafing to the right this time. “Vaas, you know how to use this, you’re up!”

“Alright, watch this shit!” Vaas exclaimed, as the MC ducked under a vine and aimed the pistol at the behemoth.

With two deft clicks of the gun’s trigger, the pistol bursted out fire from its muzzle, letting out a burst of two bullets. Crackling in the air, cleaving the winds, the two bullets closed the distance between it and the large eye.

The couple of bullets blurring into the eye of the beast, the eye promptly shattered, sickeningly resonating glass shattering coupled with flesh being sundered. Blood, viscera, and eye matter shot out from the socket as the eye bled out profusely.

The reaction was instant. The monster bellowed in pain as the light went out and quickly brought a collection of vines up to protect the eye that was still intact, oozes of blood-red, glowing fluid trickling out of the vines where the eye should be.

The Tree Behemoth closed its myriad of eyes, its slits clenching tightly. Only the mere red glows could be seen from where the eyes were located, dimly piercing through their eyelids.

“Oh come on now, don’t be a little bitch!” Vaas growled, angry that his other target was now obscured, “This is bullshit!”

The Summoner stanced himself, finding a clear route, and by that a route where there were relatively low amounts of vines, staring at the Behemoth Tree. “It’s blinded itself… we can go for a swift melee blow now!”

The Summoner rose his leg to sprint, but as the ground shook as a tremor suddenly instilled itself within the battlefield, he stopped himself to examine the tree that was shifting and convulsing.

It revealed its large maw once more, displaying its intimidating, black spines that were its teeth.

“It can’t constrict us with its vines… It’s blind, so it can’t coordinate its vines with precision, so using that cheap one-hit kill move is out of the question for this bastard, so-” the Summoner stopped himself as a putrid, pungent scent began to pervade around the atmosphere as the Tree choked and gurgled, letting out sap colored as pitch black from its maw. “Oh,” the Summoner simply uttered.

“It’s going to regurgitate out its sap!” Ral exclaimed, faltering back, his steps hesitant and worrying. “By the looks of it, it’s going to let out a lot!”

“I got this.” Malideus dispersed the Trident out of existence, summoning the Staff of Vodahmin. The lightning provided by the Trident receding, everything went pitch black as Malideus flicked the elemental setting of the Staff, setting it to fire.

Aiming at the somewhat, eerily glowing red interior of the Tree Behemoth, he unleashed a whirl of flames as Malideus smiled wildly.

The burning torrent singeing everything in its wake, vines and dirt alike, the Behemoth Tree cringed and wailed a bit, spitting out a few droplets of sap as it did.

The inferno managed to score a clean hit, burning itself deep into the jaws of the beast, lighting up the tree in a display of fire.

Its barks plastered with streaks of ash, smoke billowed from its jaw. The Tree clenched its jaw shut, an unsavory gurgling noise emanating out of it as the fires suddenly died out within it, stopping the billow of smoke from hazing out of it. Still, embers laid fleckered upon the tree.

“Damn!” Malideus cursed a bit as he switched out the Staff for the Trident. Clutching the Trident, he rose it high, igniting it once more, revealing much of the battlefield as it basked much in its light. “I was hoping for that to deal more damage!”

"The sap seemed to have extinguished the flames..." the Summoner pointed out.

The Tree settling once more, it opened its eyes in a split second. Its pupils were frantically shaking--as if it was enraged.

Ingraining its roots into the ground, a large upheaval of dirt was making its way towards the Main Character at an insanely fast rate.

“We’re not going to avoid it in time… “ the Summoner muttered out despairingly. Switching out the pistol for Ral’s journal, he opened it wide, displaying its pages. “I have but one way to counter this… Question is, do I still remember how to use it?”

“Whatever it is, just do it!” Ral shouted out, stepping away from the speeding vines that were traversing their way towards the Main Character underground. “We don’t have much time before they emerge!”

“Very well then.” The Summoner raised the book to neck-level, chanting out murmurs of arcane runes. The book suddenly went aglow with purplish light. Its pages being overwritten with archaic text of magic, pages from the book ripped themselves out of it and spiraled across the Main Character.

The pages suddenly flickered with flames, and soon enough, was engulfed in purple fire. Whirling around the Main Character, an aegis of infernal flames began to take shape, the pages did not relent their burn.

“Alright… it worked. Thank god that wasn’t exclusive to only Summoners.” The Summoner sighed a bit, feeling a tad relieved. “Guys, we don’t have much control over these flames, so I suggest we don’t move at all until they die out so that we may avoid immolating ourselves.”

“A fair command…” Ral spoke out.

“Will it work, however?” Malideus commented, spectating at the burrowing vines beneath them that were yonder ahead of them few steps away.

Suddenly, the vines stopped mere feet away from their footing, bursting out of the ground and snaking their way at the Main Character. However, as the first vine touched the barrier of flames, it disintegrated into mere ash, dispersing into the wind.

The other myriad vines followed accordingly, they too vanishing into the wind as mere cinder. The vining wall still unrelenting at the Main Character, they were met with failure as they all burned their length to null.

The Summoner scoffed a laugh as the remnants of the vines retracted back into the ground as the Tree distortedly cried out in agony.

“Oh. This went better than-” The Summoner fell down a bit as a migraine thumped against their cranium, the flame-like aegis dissipating into waning ashes. “Okay, okay. No worries… This headache is symptomatic of magical overexertion.”

“Yes,” Ral barely uttered out, rubbing the palm of the Main Character against his head. “I could tell.”

“Man,” Malideus paused as he gained control over the Main Character, “I hate it when this happens… Dammit, we need to expend more on INT next time.”

“Whatever!” Vaati managed to spoke out as he stared at the Tree, switching out Ral’s journal for the G-18 handgun. “Vaas! You’re up… and this time, please try to aim for more than one eye.”

“You’re the boss, hermano.” Vaas cracked a smile as he raised the pistol, lining up his shots with fortitude. With a calm breath, he tapped the trigger multiple times, unleashing a wall of lead. All the while, he switched from target to target with utmost precision.

The bullets flashing out from the barrel with a blinding flare, they all sped through the air, reaching forth at their designated targets.

One by one, the eyes cracked and shattered as the multiple bullets drove into them, unleashing their kinetic force as they cracked the brittle coverings of the Tree's eyes. The blood of the Tree seeping out from its now-bloodied sockets, it frantically shook, the sound of fruits falling once more sounding out.

“Damn! Fruits!” The Summoner cringed as a fruit from the tree landed just ahead of them, its splattering juices barely missing them. “Watch out!”

Strafing and diving, the Main Character performed somewhat of an insane waltz as fruit after fruit battered the ground, unleashing their contents.

The hail of fruit stopping, the Main Character once more confronted the Behemoth Tree with their glance.

“Damn.” The Fat Friar noted the vines completely covering the tree, providing some sort of cover for it. “It’s completely encased itself…”

“Yeah.” Ricky dully replied, “We can see that." Dodging as a fell vine swoop at them, Ricky continued, "Though, there are always more ways than one to beat the crap out of a tree-”

Emerging out of the ground with a quake, a very, very large root that rivaled the length of a building revealed itself, towering over the Main Character.

“Holy shit…” Malideus feebly uttered out. “What the hell is that, its dick?” He pointed the Trident at the monstrous root waving about mere meters away from them.

“That… If I must guess,” Ral spoke out with a bit of fear clinging onto his tone, “is the tap root of this tree.”

“The hell is a tap root?!” Vaati yelled out as the large Tap Root slammed itself horizontally towards the Main Character.

Sidestepping far to the right just before they got smashed, Vaati continued as he staggered back up, “Seriously?!”

Vaati, more or less in a dazed stupor, glared at the ground that has depressed and shattered against the weight and impact of the Tap Root.

"Yup." Audrey nodded in both adrenaline-induced craze and amusement. "That'll break more than just bones," she stated as she pointed at the semi-chasm the Tap Root had just burrowed.

Withdrawing back hastily in a dash as the Tap Root swerved and wriggled vehemently against the ground, strewing jagged rocks and dust, the Main Character brought a defensive arm up to his face.

“A tap root is the most dominant and largest root of a plant…” Ral trailed off as the Tap Root regained its positioning, once more upright. "Oh... come on!"

Sending itself at the Main Character, Ral dove away just in time to avoid being impaled by the tip of it. Catching his breath, Ral returned to finishing his statement.

“What’s strange is that most trees don’t even have tap roots; usually, only flowers have them,” he finished, letting out a much-entailed gasp for breath.

Audrey, taking control, backflipped several feet away as the Tap Root swerved down, bringing its weight crashing down in a swing. Dusting herself off, Audrey chuckled a bit. "I eat chumps like these in salads... Well, before I was nerf'd to bits, anyways."

“Agh!” Ral whined out as he was suddenly flung back into control. “Oh. Thanks, Audrey. Anyways, as I was saying… Tap Roots usually run deep and usually collect the most amount of minerals… and I can see why this tree is larger than the others now.”

“Wait, so Taproots gather minerals!? That explains the curse breath! The minerals!” Malideus exclaimed.

“All roots gather minerals…” Vaati mentally facepalmed.

“Something must be buried deep underneath this tree to have caused it to grow like this.” The Summoner arched back as the Tap Root flicked itself at the Main Character, it's spinal tip just grazing the space inches away from the Main Character.

Retracting itself back, it recovered its poise as it swung once more, administering much more force as the winds themselves cleaved and crackled at the blurring Tap Root.

Barely missing its target as it idly landed on the ground, seemingly tired out. “But for now, we have to eradicate this damned thing!”

Malideus merely sniffed, smiling. "Now... I can feel it! It is my time to show off!"

"Any minute will do," the Summoner quipped, hesitantly strafing left to right, keeping a sharp watch on Tap Root.

“On it.” And with that, Malideus switched to the Staff of Vodahmin, changing the element to poison. “Hey, Groot! Absorb THIS!!!” Malideus yelled, casting a gargantuan cloud of semi-liquid poison at the downed tap root.

Vile toxic seeping into the Taproot, it winced and twitched, flinging itself back upright as it began to tear away. Still, it remained relatively unharmed.

“You’re going to need a lot of poison for this bastard…” the Summoner muttered out in a curse. “All those minerals, liquid, and whatever compositions within it… it’s most likely diluting the poison.”

“Aw, what!? That’s fucked up, man.” Malideus pouted, shifting control to another character.

“We can try to dry it out, I suppose… I mean, plants do hate heat, right?” Vaati suggested. “They wither and stuff…”

“If only I knew that this was gonna happen,” Vaas pointed out his finger, “I’d have brought molotovs…”

“We apparently cannot bring items from when we were alive.” Ral shrugged. “Whatever. If we have to dry it out, we’d need to make it still… but how?”

“I have an idea…” The Fat Friar said, scratching his chin thoughtfully.

“Well, out with it! I don’t think I have the DEX to dodge anymore!” Ricky cried, prompting the Friar to act.

“Vaati, what magic do you specialize in?” The Fat Friar asked.

“Wind, duh. And Darkness, but…”

“That’s all I needed to hear. Malideus, pull out the staff and switch it to the dark element! Vaati, try and cast something to hold that root down!” The Fat Friar commanded, and despite their doubts, Malideus and Vaati obliged.

Vaati, stabbing the Staff down into the ground, staying it still, flickered magic within his free hand, darkness swathing within it. Directing magic towards the Taproot, his head ached a bit.

“Not a lot of magic within us left… I can still pull this off… hopefully.”

The winds morphing in ripples, began to rampage around the air, forming tidal waves of winds. Sending them at the Tap Root, the deluge of wind collided against the root, its kinetic discharge dispersing against it with a resounding snapping sound.

The Tap Root, barraged by a wall of dark wind, began to flail and twitch. The whirlwinds of black magic immobilized it, however, causing it to remain somewhat stationary.

With a grunt, Malideus then plucked the staff from the ground, and glared at the immobilized tap root, thinking of his best one-liner to date.

“Let’s bake this potato, folks!” Malideus cried out, switching the Staff’s element to fire, but not before some criticism from his teammates.

“Never had I seen a potato this large and dangerous…” the Summoner exasperated.

“Should’ve gone with something related to spicy salad.” Vaati sighed.

“Oh, stuff it, I’d like to see you guys come up with something on such short notice.” Malideus growled, hurling a great whirlwind of fire at the immobilized tap root, causing it to burn to ashes… or that’s what Malideus expected.

The Taproot simply shrivelled down in size twofold. The barricades of winds breaking due to lack of magic put into them, the Taproot broke free--ashen black and appearing withering, but free nonetheless.

“Holy fucking shit!” Ricky cursed out in disbelief. “What in the bleedin’ hell is this root made of?!”

“A lot of water and minerals… and presumably artificially crafted chemicals Ral pointed out. “No understatement there.”

“Not fair, that was my best one-liner… and move! I call hax!” Malideus cried, shaking the MC’s fists at the tree.

“Ugh. What is this?” the Summoner exclaimed. “This is supposed to be the first boss, for crying out loud!”

“Now we’re stuck with absolutely no magic left…” Vaati noted. “How the hell are we going to win this now?”

“That shit… doesn’t… fly with me!” Malideus roared, getting significantly angrier. Suddenly, he noticed that nothing was happening. “Crap! My bomb-ass technique isn’t working.”

“I’m thinking that we need to use that stupid ‘Regain Memory’ option that True Bastard is offering,” the Summoner stated.

“We don’t need magic. Dammit!” Audrey sprinted at the burnt Taproot, equipped both with the Trident and Staff.

Closing on the distance of the Taproot, she buried both the blades of the Trident and the Staff into the Taproot. Retracting both of her weapons, she let loose a frenzy of blows, hacking away at the Taproot, sending out flecks of biomatter from the Taproot.

“Don’t get so damned close!” the Summoner yelled out as the Taproot countered, sweeping away at the vicinity. Nimbly dodging, the Summoner dove to the ground, far from the Taproot’s length.

“Grah! We still can’t hit it!?” Malideus grumbled.

“What about the puddle of fruit juice on the area?” the Summoner pointed at a particularly welling pool of corrosive fruit innards just yonder left of them. “It should burn away the root, right?“

“Yes… It should!” Ral lit up. “We just simply need to taunt it into slamming into the puddles of acid… I’m thinking that the tree is using sound as its primary way to hit us, so it should work.”

Sprinting towards the puddle of acidic juice, the Summoner’s footsteps echoed, causing the Taproot to turn accordingly towards the Main Character.

“Hey!” the Summoner yelled at the Taproot, flailing his arms around. “Your mother was a fern, you lowly wheat plant!” The root took great offense to that, and flung itself at the MC. However, The Summoner dodged at the last second, causing the tendril to hit the acidic puddle.

Bathed in liquid that was akin to hellfire, the Taproot writhed in pain as it began to dissolve. The Behemoth Tree’s base too flailed and shook, pain laced within its roar.

Suddenly, its maws opened once more. This time, however, it revealed a rather large, glowing sphere glowing with red.

“There!” The Summoner extended his arm, pointing at the jarringly obvious weak point. Shifting the Staff into the pistol, the Summoner added, “Vaas, shoot it there!”

“You got it, hermano!” He lowered the tension of his shoulder as he raised the gun. However, before he could shoot, Malideus stopped him, with one last piece of advice:

“Don’t forget the one-liner!” He advised, unsurprisingly.

“Uh…” Vaas hesitated a bit as he went into deep thought. “Let’s blow this poppyseed stand--I don’t fucking know; I’m not a comedian!”

Pulling the trigger, the bullet deafeningly flared out from the gun, delving into the maw of the
beast within a split-second. Piercing into the heart of the beast, it burst into a display of blood.

The Behemoth Tree, still bleeding from its jaw, shriveled and began to wither--as with its Taproot. Thudding against the ground, the Taproot blistered out oozing liquefied minerals from its scalded skin, melting away into withered remains.

Seemingly being eaten away, the Behemoth Tree and its roots began to fade. Fully consumed by the ground, it decomposed rapidly, leaving a wake of vibrant flowers upon its grave.

The billow of ghastly smog emanating from the tree stopped as the atmosphere suddenly becoming clear, the sun peering from the dispelling smokescreen.

“Aww yeah, son, that’s how you kill a boss!” Malideus said, pumping his fist into the air.

Author's Notes:

Keep Calm, Parry On, And Roll the hell out of those cheap-ass attacks!

Chapter 16. Dungeon Cleared!

Suddenly, the loot-window appeared before the Main Character, allowing them to see what they had earned;

Listed upon the blue screen’s interface were the following: “Corrupted Vines (Unorthodox Weapon), Fifty bullets, and one Damned Sapling.”

“Fifty bullets! Yes!” Ricky cried.

Soon enough after that interface disappeared, another one took its place. This time, it was red in interface, with a slightly larger font on its upper corner reading: “Level up: x5. Earned Five Equipment Points. Gained x1 Favor.”

“Favor?” Malideus gawked at the peculiar text.

“I’m supposing that these points are for exchanging services with True Celestia.” The Summoner grimaced somewhat.

“Then I suggest to call them ‘Bitch Points’ for now.” Malideus grimaced as he glanced at the interface.

“I am more suspicious about the ‘Fifty Bullets’ rather than that last item…” the Summoner noted. “Why would a tree have bullets- oh right. This is following the ludicrous law of ‘Video Game Logic’.”

“Indeed.” Ral Zarek noted, as the path forward opened up to the Main Character. Just beyond the flowerbed that ingrained itself over the grave of the Behemoth Tree, was a pathway--trees have apparently disappeared into nothingness, leaving a trail of green grass towards the inner glades of the forest.

As the atmosphere began to normalize, the trees shaped themselves, twisting and morphing. Their branches no longer spined and pronged, they flushed out leaves from them rapidly. The bases of the trees receded their black hues, opting for a more lively brown.

Vining and upheaving themselves from the ground, lush foliage of vibrant green began to encircle the whole forest, making it ubiquesent with life. Still, however, there were no animals around.

The rays of sun pierced through the canopies of leaves as the smog fully vanished, bathing the greenery in its warming embrace.

“Talk about rapid change in the climate…” The Summoner hummed to himself as he inspected the change of scenery. “At least now we’re not in risk of getting lung-related complications.

“Bleh.” Vaati scoffed out a grimace. “Too lively for my tastes.”

“Well… nowhere else but forward.” The Fat Friar stated, and the Party walked forward, brushing past the flowerbed that was more or less acted as the sepulcher of the tree beast.

As the Party stepped upon the glowing flowerbed of various colors, the flowers suddenly flared into life, brilliantly dispersing off magical embers.

“Oh?” Ral uttered out, inspecting the plants around him. Leaning towards a particularly exotic sample, he inspected it. “These plants… contain magic around them? Of course.

“No crap, brainiac.” The Summoner chuckled a bit. “They rooted on a gigantic tree monster’s grave--the instant said tree monster died. So it wouldn’t be much a surprise that these flora are magical.”

Ral shrugged off that sarcastic remark, craning towards the large, blooming plant. He arched an eyebrow as it held many colors of the spectrum; its upper petals were azure, its left petals were yellow, and its right petals were of a crimson red hue.

As Ral picked it, it seemingly disappeared as he plucked it out of its stem. Promptly, a pop-up window lit up in front of his eyes, awaiting its text to be read.

It simply read in simple font: “Obtained: Elemental Flower.”

Ral blinked in surprise.

“Huh.” The Summoner muttered a bit audibly. “Strange. They gave us another reward for clearing out the boss.”

“What are you complaining for?” Malideus replied. “Free stuff is always good.”

"Maybe it was a secret item?" Vaati suggested.

"A poorly hidden secret item," Ricky stated.

The Summoner nodded. “I suppose… but just to be certain that it isn’t too suspicious.” Clearing his throat, the Summoner spoke out to nothing in particular, “Check item description: Elemental Flower.”

Promptly, another window materialized in front of the MC, displaying the following text: “A blooming plant with three different colors within its petals. Fire, lightning, and ice magic all reside within each petal--respective to their colors. Don’t blow yourself up with this, monkeys.”

“What?” the Summoner uttered out as he finished reading the text. “Did True Celestia write that?”

“Well either way, I’m grabbing a few more.” Ral said, plucking a few more choice flowers till he had a bouquet. “And done.” He smiled, pressing one of the flowers into his book while the rest went into the inventory. “These’ll make for some very interesting experiments later on.”

(Later, on the path to Canterlot)

“This sucks…” Vaati said, panting as the MC trekked along the long, hot path out of the forest, the MC sweating profusely beneath their robes..

“There are many ways this could be worse. Imagine if we’d been given a body with no experience points or weapons and then thrown at that thing.” The Fat Friar spat bitterly.

“Yeah, but that’s a quick death. This fucking heat is a long, excruciating one.” Malideus whined, pulling out the Staff of Vodahmin, and switching it to wind element, pointing it at the MC and using it like a fan.

“The ozone layer here must’ve been chipped away considerably here.” The Summoner sighed out a dull exhale.

“I have to agree with Malideus here, for once.” Ral Zarek panted. “The forest was preferable to this. Has the pollution really done all this to the world?..” Ral looked up, along with the others, at the sunny, harsh sky. The heat of the sun rippled the sky somewhat.

“Not even a bird or a cloud up there… Man, no wonder this world needs this Celestia gone.” Ricky noted, as the others continued to walk, still using the Staff of Vodahmin as an improvised air-conditioner. Suddenly, though, upon the road, a monstrous, mandibled wurm appeared, startling the group.

“...Please tell me we’re not on fucking Arrakis. I do not want to deal with a Muad-Dib Celestia right now.” The Fat Friar muttered, slowly trying to back the body away.

“Nope.” Vaati sprinted past the unaware, worm-like creature. “Not dealing with that right now. Too tired for this crap.”

“I agree.” The Summoner sighed out, sweat profusely dropping like a squall from the Main Character’s face. As the brushed past the dirt road of the forest, he leaned the Staff a bit closer to his face, ravenously hogging the air it was expulsing. “I’d rather not waste more time as it is. We already managed to beat a boss, for crying out loud.”

As they progressed through the seemingly boundless acres of trees and foliage, something thudded against the ground beside the Main Character, making a flat, fleshy thumping noise.

“Ha?” The Summoner craned his neck to the side, spotting yet another worm-like creature. “Is it raining larvae, or something?”

“Don’t jinx us you-” Malideus cut himself off as yet another worm fell from the branches of the trees, kicking up dust and dirt as it landed before the Main Character. “God dammit! You jinxed us!” he exclaimed with a mildly frustrated face as he strafed swiftly to the side, avoiding on stepping on the stray larva.

Without no more than a warning, a large cluster of worms fell from the trees. Wriggling and idly strewing ivy and bushes as they flailed aimlessly, they layered the surroundings like a spreading plague--countless of them began to pop us as more and more fell.

“There’s a bit too much ahead of us!” the Summoner warned, glaring ahead of them as he extended his arm forwards unsteadily, his rapid inhales throwing off his speech somewhat.

True enough, as gestured by his extended index finger, there was a figurative wall of larvae obstructing their path. This barricade of worms were tall--seemingly several feet higher than the Main Character.

Approaching steadily, steps faintly resounding off the earthen road, Ral grimaced as he rose the Staff directly at the barrier of larvae, switching the Staff’s configuration to fire, embers emblazoning the tip of the staff, brilliant trails of fire running across the Staff’s end as he continue darting at the wall.

“Oh. I just know the smell is going to be absolutely awful…” Shrugging, he gnashed his teeth as he unleashed a piercing stream of flames from the Staff.

The stream of searing infernos embedding themselves into the living wall, the larvae disintegrated and melted into mere puddles of a sickly green, ashen black.

Closing on the distance between them and the now-melted larvae, the Summoner remarked as he jumped over the puddle of viscous green liquid, “Good work-” suddenly, he stayed his own tongue as he brought his own hand to his nostrils, “Okay. Dammit. You weren’t kidding when you said that the scent would be awful.”

“Ugh!” Vaati gagged slightly, coughing. “Let’s just get out of here!”

“I can agree with that imperative.” The Summoner darted off into the abysmal glades and bushes, dissipating into nothing more than a shadowy silhouette.

Chapter 17. Climate Change, Bruh.

Suddenly, the trail of effervescent leaves and swaying trees abruptly met an end as the entire path before the Party was seemingly engulfed in snow, a steady sleeting, gentle rain of powdery white touching the ground below the skies.

It was as if two borders just collided with each other; on the end where the Party stood, countless trees lush with greenery were present, foliage and flowers pervasive and stretching forth seemingly endlessly; on the end beyond the Main Character were of trees blistered with thick layers of sleet, stalactites of clear ice

“What? Just how-” The Summoner trailed off as he inspected the area they had just passed, noting the searing sun beaming down into the clear green glades of trees. Looking forwards once more, he noted the trees swathed in frost and blankets of snow, the grass being replaced with a perpetually stretching ice.

“Damn…” Malideus muttered out. “The climate change must be intense over here.”

“At least it’s colder here now.” The Summoner withdrew the Staff of Vodahmin, causing it to blink out of existence in an array of light.

Stepping into the frozen verdures, Vaati squinted as he caught glimpse of a consistent, flame-like light stationed just mere mile away from them. “Hey… I can see something through those frozen branches over there.”

The Summoner glanced yonder at where Vaati narrowed his vision at. “Yes,” the Summoner lit up a bit as he saw a light through the narrow chasm of branches with hanging icicles on them, “That’s definitely something.”

“Care to investigate it?” Ral suggested, their breath turning to frost.

“Not much of a choice seeing that whatever it is, it’s blocking our way…” Malideus stated, resigning to walking towards the eerie light.

Ducking slightly as they traversed through the frozen, unthawing orchard of trees, they reared themselves towards the light. The lighting began to dim as the darkening nimbi above the Main Character were threatening to squall out a blizzard, appearing grimly dark.

The Summoner examined the area around, cocking his head left and right as he continued walking through the thick snow. “This place doesn’t seem so friendly-”

Suddenly, a heap of snow suddenly fell on them, splattering across their unprotected figure. Shaking off the stinging, melting snow off their head, they shivered a bit.

“Nope.” The Summoner shoved off the clinging bundles of snow upon their shoulders. “Not friendly at all.”

Emerging out of the frostbitten foliage, the Party sighed out in relief as they found that they made out of the rather short woods of frozen trees.

Shimmeringly softly amidst the veils of blue, misty fog of winter, the Summoner noticed the dotting streaks of light in the distance. “There it is; the thing that’s emanating light.”

“Seems as if it’s an establishment of some sort…” Ral took notice of the silhouettes of concrete and wood.

“What are we waiting for?” Vaati flared both hands open as he asked. “Let’s go.”

“Yes.” The Fat Friar nodded as he began walking towards the village. “The less we linger in this sheer cold, the better.”

Chapter 18. Ghost Town

Just planted upon the outskirt of this town was a relatively large slate of decaying, half-buried of stone. The word “Ponyville” was simply engraved onto it--rather coarsely as its font was slightly crooked, and its marble stone flecking out small fragments of it, embedding cracks upon it. Likewise the rest of the objects here in this area, it too was partially engulfed in snow.

Staring at the establishment before them, the Summoner spoke out in slight disbelief. “Wow. Ponyville? Classic… just classic. So what? We exited out of was none other than the Everfree, then?”

“That’s just a bit too convenient for my taste.” Ral shook his head a bit.

“Wow. I remember the time I was in jail here,” Ricky said with no small bit of nostalgia.

“At least we didn’t fought or killed a Manticore on the way here.” Vaati added.

“Whatever.” Malideus flatly stated, “Let’s burn this place down into the ground already.”

Vaati casually remarked, “Let’s get some marshmallows to roast first.”

“I’m afraid that won’t be an option.” Ral shrugged a bit as he began walking towards the entrance of Ponyville--a large archway gate constructed coarsely of unrefined logs. “Not only do we need the information regarding about this Equestria from the inhabitants, we might also need what they’re selling.”

“What?” Ricky retorted, aghast. “What could they possibly have for us to buy from them?”

“This is an RPG.” The Summoner stated as they finally entered the vicinity of the large wooden gate leading into Ponyville. “This is a town. Most towns in most RPG’s have shops that sell useful items… And they sell them in unlimited quantity.”

Ricky nodded slowly. “Whatever, I never played damned RPGs anyways. I’ll trust you.”

The Summoner gawked into the distance, his eyes fixated on the emptiness of the snow. “What? So a pirate managed to play RPG’s, but not you?”

“That’s really sad, hermano.” Vaas mournfully shook his head, feigning remorse.

Faint silhouettes through the fog of snow began to appear, the vague frames and structures of buildings coming into view as nothing more than shadows. A melancholic wind pervaded around the town as dull and listless as possible, a vagrant sensation of grief filling the area.

“Aaw yeah, daddy needs some new health potions… and a Trinket for Mizzy.” Malideus commented as he spotted a store just several feet away from them, moving the character forward.

Ral chuckled, grasping the Izzet Keyrune around his neck. Drawing out a warming breath, the frost was shoved off from its metallic, arcane surface. “Then let us make haste, we need to find shelter as well,” he finished as he bit his lip close, a bit tense.

Their steps waning through the unrelenting winds of frost, the Main Character was finally greeted by the firm pavement of broken asphalt as they went pass underneath the decrepit, coarse wooden gate’s archway.

It was a town. That was certain, but it was lingering just above ‘ruined remnants of civilization’.

The streets were streaked with embedded particles of ice. Within their cracks were water, frozen and stilled, branching across the road like vines. The houses were… seemingly decrepit; either that or the artisans here have given up completely.

The earth has been upheaved, several formations of earth piling up upon the streets. Foundations of buildings lay sundered and razed, these geological deformities.

The houses untarnished by these pillars of earth, laid barely erect. Their wooden frames were eroded, the decaying markings and depressions within their lumber indicating weather-related damage.

These houses shared an identical building composition; their surface were logged with pitch black wood, a dreary look within them inspiring nothing but depression to all who gaze upon it.

The doors were made of the same material--black wood presumably from the Everfree.

As their steps grew close to the equine establishment, the decrepit buildings riddled with frost became clear to view. Furnaces and forges, emitting choking smoke, flames roosted within their wicks, presented themselves in the distance.

Several a chimney, seemingly every single house had one, were pervasive--all of them letting out trails of smog from their orifices.

Eerily, however, from the crevices from the earthen cracks, came blackened roots. These roots enveloped much, constricting the whole districts. Roots peered into the shattered windows of abandoned houses, disappearing into the abysmal dark of shelter.

These roots have also binded myriad of furniture, strewing within them were crates, tables, and a miscellany of other woodwork.

“Huh.” The Summoner looked around the vine-infested streets. “At least there’s a reason why there’s nobody around walking outside.”

“These roots…” Ral muttered out audibly. “They’re from that tree beast we’ve just eliminated not too long ago, correct?”

“Whatever it is, it’s too quiet. I’m getting serious Silent Hill vibes, yo.” Malideus noted, noticeably shaking.

“The reason for the silence is probably because the inhabitants of this place have decided to not linger around, waiting to get molested by tentacle-vines.” Vaati shrugged with a roll of his eyes.

Suddenly, the Summoner flustered a bit. Shrugging off a demented thought in the back of his mind, the Summoner dismissed, “Y- yeah. Who would want to get molested by tentacles, am I right?”

“Anyways, we have to get rid of these roots if we want to progress any further…” Ral closed his eyes, entering deep thought as he exhaled deeply. “Now then, I’m quite certain that we’ve received an item subsequently after beating that boss. Anyone remember what it was called?”

“Let’s refer to the inventory then.” The Summoner gestured at the blank air before him, raising his palm forward. “Open inventory!”

Lighting up before them, a small panel of slight translucency appeared before the Main Character. Within its upper left corner was a simple word engraved in small black font; “Inventory.”

Humming to himself, Ral noted as he began perusing through the list of items they’ve so far collected. “That really is convenient too…”

‘Trident, Staff of Vodahmin, Corrupted Vines, Izzet Keyrune, Elemental Flower, Colossal Crab Shells, Damned Sapling’ the Summoner vocally went through the list of items they had procured. ‘Wow. This is really disorganized.’

‘True Bitch didn’t even give us a proper inventory!’ Malideus exclaimed in outrage. ‘Whatever. I’m thinking that the Damned Sapling is what we’re supposed to use. After all, we got that from that stupid tree.”

Tapping the icon of the Damned Sapling, the Summoner nodded as he extended the free hand of the MC slightly forward and opened. Receiving the Damned Sapling as it materialized directly on top of the palm of the MC, the Summoner pondered out loud, “What I’m not getting is how that tree managed to ingrain roots all the way here…”

Ral Zarek furrowed his eyes forward, noticing an alarming detail of the roots. The roots were in fact not blanketed with ice unlike the buildings around them. “Look,” Ral pointed the other arm of the MC towards the cluster of vines pooling themselves among the streets, “Not a single mound of snow among them… whereas the other things around them are just encased with snow. Don’t tell me that these roots have appeared just recently.”

“Looks like it, man.” Ricky noted dully.

“Perhaps when we killed it,” the Fat Friar retracted the pointing hand, placing it upon his chin, “it made a desperate gambit and thus expanded its roots everywhere in hopes to survive?”

“Plants don’t work like that at all…” The Summoner cautiously hummed to himself. “Well, this place is Equestria, a world where magic is latent. Perhaps that might be true.”

“Then that blasted tree might still be out for vengeance.” Ral coughed a bit, the cold choking his figure. “Ugh. Now I wish we had that ridiculous blazing heat back… Let’s get this over with,” Ral craned his neck, curiously glancing at the Sapling nestling upon his palm, “Let’s see what this specimen can do.”

Withdrawing his hand as he tilted it downward, the Sapling fell listlessly towards the snow-engulfed pavement of shattered asphalt, thudding inaudibly as it flung out a bit of snow as it landed.

Suddenly, the sapling went aglow, its roots once withered and decaying, sprung back to life, nutrients seemingly materializing within it, causing them to thicken. The dried up, lone leaf of the Sapling ripened, its black pigment now no longer limp and was standing brazened against the cold gusts.

The sapling’s roots twisted and jolted to life, ingraining itself into the ground. The ground slated with ice upheaved and exposed to the winter wind, the Sapling did not relent, stilling itself sturdy upon the freezing ground.

Um…” the Summoner uttered out, his head turned towards the Sapling with eyes of both hesitation and worry. “That was probably a mistake.”

“Maybe we should’ve checked that thing’s description…” The Fat Friar noted, concern in his voice.

“Don’t worry, It won’t kill us. What sick game, besides Dark Souls, would make an item that KILLS you?” Malideus asked, forcing a nervous chuckle.

The Sapling, now sturdy and affirmed within the ground, its roots pierced through the concrete. Magic was pulled into it from its roots as it rapidly grew, metamorphosing into a young tree. Stemming off it were offshoots of branches. Darkened leaves sprouted from these branches, retaining the radiance of magic from within their leaves.

“True Celestia or a Souls game,” the Summoner uttered hesitantly, wiping down a straying drop of sweat from his forehead. “I can’t say for sure on which one’s more… sadistic.”

“Uh, I keep hearing you guys talk about ‘Dark Souls’ a lot. Are either of you two ever going to explain it for me?” Vaati asked, still keeping his eyes on the growing sapling.

“When you’re older.” Malideus snided.

Vaati stomped upon the ground as he clenched his fist, trembling in ire a bit. ”I am over one thousand years old. Stop treating me like a baby.”

“But Vaati, you are a babby. A salty one, at that.” Malideus joked, causing Vaati to turn red.

Audrey stifled a laugh, mantling her mouth with a hand.

Vaas responded as well, chuckling maliciously as he shrugged off the giddy feeling.

The Summoner just facepalmed. “Guys, now not the time for infighting.” He warily began walking backwards, glare fixated upon the young tree now having stopped its erratic growth, still glowing faintly with magic. “We might have to deal with something soon enough.”

“Pft.” Audrey dismissed with a wave of her hand. “What’s the worst thing that could pop out of that little plant?”

“I dunno, the same thing the TREE did?” Malideus snarked.

“It’s nothing more than a sprout for now, but still-” the Summoner was caught off guard, his words falling short as the young tree suddenly dispersed, fading into nothingness as leaves spiraled across from where it stood.

“It’s evolving! Press B! PRESS B!!!” Malideus cried, terrified of what was happening.

Author's Notes:

Apologies for the delayed releases of chapters.

Been playing Terraria 1.3; blame that game--not me.

-Trolleroids

Chapter 19. RPG Trope No. 34234: For Every RPG, There Must Be An Elemental That May or May Not Be Allies With The MC.

A wake of vines lay sprawling as the sapling was nowhere to be seen. Amid the vines, however, stood a lone figure clad in a carapace of wood. It was equine in stature, mane running along to the ground. Its mane, however, was of black vines, and were as if living as they whipped slowly back and forth, much like snakes. The exposed portion of her coat not layered with blackened wood were of a dull, blackish green.

However… this elemental of nature was… somewhat small, being only up to the length of the Main Character’s knee.

“Finally…” the figure muttered, her voice being feminine, harsh and crisp. “Finally… I’m awake from that damned sleep…”

“Oh, it’s a spriggan…” The Fat Friar noted, drawing everyone’s attention.

“A what?” Ricky asked, followed by Audrey and Vaas.

“A Spriggan, you dunces. You know, like a Dryad, but meaner… and shorter.” Malideus marked.

“I am a Dryad, damn you.” The Dryad hissed a bit, her snake-like mane hissing as well, spewing out a bit of venomous sap from their fangs. “And I am not short!”

“Aww, looks like the babby is getting salty.” Vaati snarked, only to be casually waves off by a dismissing scoff.

“It was only funny once, babby. Now go back to the Woolie Hole where you belong.” Malideus corrected, causing the elf’s face to redden again.

“Very well,” the Dryad stepped a bit forward, bowing courtly as a gesture to the Party. Leveling herself straight once more, the Dryad glanced at the Party once more, “you’ve awakened me from that awful sleep. I might as well ask what you want of me.”

“Show us yer bewbs!” Malideus spouted before anyone else, before laughing hysterically, unable to take the situation seriously.

“I- uh. What?” The Dryad stammered out, cocking her head to the right in confusion.

“Disregard that request,” the Summoner said in a sigh. “Please, could you just remove these vines plaguing this place?” The Summoner once more pointed at the streets coiled by myriad vines.

“These vines…” the Dryad muttered audibly. “They have the signature of the tree that kept me imprisoned.”

“So that tree monster we just killed is actually still alive…” Ral frowned a bit, feeling somewhat pressured as his chest constricted, obviously upset.

“That same tree should be dead, indeed.” The Dryad nodded. “However, very faint, I can still feel its presence.”

“So it lives… Damn, and here I was hoping never to see that shit ever again.” Ricky sighed, crossing his arms.

“So… can you recede these vines?” the Summoner questioned, a bit tense as he raised his shoulders subtly.

“Of course I can.” The Dryad stanced herself as she turned towards the vines, facing the uncountable clusters of them.

Springing forth her own magic, sigils and runic imprints suddenly engraving themselves upon her own skin, magic began to ripple from her presence, distorting the ambience.

Magic brimmed at the maximum from her body, the glowing glyphs attached to her own body intensifying, she winced as she focused, feeling somewhat of a dulling pain drilling itself into her head.

Suddenly, the vines began to wither--rapidly, as they shriveled twofold their size, becoming no more than threads of decrepit, withered fibers.

Shrilling up further, the vines, brittle and snapping, turned no more than ashen, powdery specks of dust. The unmerciful gusts of winter carrying them off, they evanesced into nothingness, the town once more relatively spotless.

“Good work.” The Summoner clapped both his hands in cheer, his mouth etched to a smile as he did.

“Oh, save me the flattery,” the Dryad responded in an endearing slyness as the runes among her coat began to recede, dimming themselves out of sight, the magic emanating from her once more becoming dormant.

“Twas nothing more than mere exercise…” She yawned slightly as she extended her limbs, stretching.

“Right, right. Whatever you say your majesty,” the Summoner drawled his last words with sarcasm on that sentence, sneering lightly as he glanced over the now-unburdened town of decrepit-looking houses. “Oh. Look; seems as if the locals are coming out to greet us…”

The Main Character fidgeted in both anticipation and uncertainty as the houses, distraught with shattered glasses and breached walls courtesy of the vines, but were still nonetheless unrazed, their doors swinging outwards, revealing the abyss-like, unlit interiors they bore.

Figures crept out of the myriad, brittle manors, their postures of equine physique and swathed with ragged cloaks.

One by one, the once-solitary streets were occupied to the fullest extent, crowds among crowds of ponies in cloaks began to glance around, their heads swivelling left to right, their body language absentmindedly conveying both curiosity and relief.

Finally, they took notice of the Main Character as they began to stare at him.

‘Looks like we’ve been noticed, peers.’ The Summoner’s instinct tethered him. The Summoner readjusted the posture of the Main Character, appearing more brazened and upright than before as he dusted off the powdery snow off the MC’s shoulders. ‘I do hope they’re friendly.’

Vaati arched an eyebrow at the incoming horde of cloaked ponies, a tinge of worry blotting his chest slightly. ‘This,’ he gestured at the horde, ‘looks like a scene from a Resident Evil game.’

‘A true enough analogy,’ the Summoner nodded, his face as well contorting to an unsure, sheepish smile.

Finally, the mass of ponies confronted the Main Character, being mere feet away, their faces seemingly obscured whole by a wispy black casted by their cowls.

Malideus, deviously smirking, stepped forward, raising the Staff of Vodahmin high. The mechanisms of the Staff churning at his wheel, it shifted to Dark element, spewing off a nightmarish mist, hazing the Main Character’s figure in an imposing, blotting aura of darkness.

“Bow before us, filthy casuals!” Malideus resonated his voice with magic, making himself intimidating as he bellowed out his words, the resulting magic emanating from the Staff causing the Main Character’s eyes to go aflame with darkness.

Sweeping the rather somber, listless complexion of the atmosphere away by the raw intimidation that was exuding from both figure and vocals, the crowd of ponies staggered back a bit, visually trembling in place as they stilled themselves.

Soon enough, they adhered to Malideus’ command; kneeling by one frontleg, they bowed down--still quite shaken up as they were still quaking in their footings.

“Was that really necessary?” The Dryad sighed as she looked back at Malideus, who was trying to stifle a bout of laughter--as made apparent by him biting down his lip while sporting a widened grin.

Malideus shrugged. “You kidding? Of course it was!” He smirked once more, appreciating the flock of ponies bowing down to him. “That was hilarious.” He swept a figurative tear from his eye with a sarcastic brush from his finger.

“You could’ve aggro’d them!” The Summoner rose both his hands in the air, cancelling the magic that Malideus has projected, reverting much of the atmosphere back from an ominous black to a much more depressing, drear. “Then how could we complete the potential quests they could’ve given to us!”

“Hey, they didn’t aggro, did they? Besides, I’ve gone too damn long without terrifying any villagers. I needed this.” Malideus responded, raising the MC’s head in a gesture of haughtiness.

“Alright. Enough idling, we’ve not much time before we get sick from this harsh cold.” Ral rolled his eyes as he stepped forward, somewhat shivering.

“Raise yourselves, ponies!” Ral ordered sternly, his footing steeled. “We’re not here to herald any trouble… We simply want transport to Canterlot.”

The dense crowds of ponies shifted, fumbling themselves in discomfort as they settled their heads straight. A wince of slight pain came from the crowd as they shifted even more.

Soon enough, a lone pony, still quite indiscernible as this lone one was cladded in the same cloak as the rest of them as well. Almost as if coerced, a pony was shoved into the front--mere steps away from the Party.

The Main Character arched an eyebrow as the multitude of souls stitched within him collectively examined this pony.

‘A long, velvety mane of green.’ The Summoner hummed to himself in intrigue as he inspected the still distraught mare before him. ‘A mare--if it wasn’t obvious enough.’

‘She stands out from the rest of generically colored equines,’ Ral noted. ‘Perhaps she’s going to be a major character as well?’

“P- please,” she stammered out as she approached the Party. “F- follow me. I am- am the innkeeper of this distraught town.”

“Thank god.” Vaati sighed in relief as he drooped down. “We’ve been walking for days, for crying out loud!”

"Please pardon any impudence we might be imposing on your ilk, fair one." The Dryad sighed in agitation as she brought one of her serpentine strand from her mane to her face. Planting her face into it, she conveyed what seemed to be a facepalm.

“T- then. Please.” She arched down her neck, bowing in respect--or fear, most presumably out of fear. “Follow me.” She nodded as she turned away from the Party, making her way towards the mass of ponies once more.

Tailing behind her closely, the Party stepped towards the crowd of ponies before them.

Parting like waves, the mass segregated into two divisions, making a clear, widened path for the Party; brazened, but stoic like objects, the ponies were as if statues, paralyzed by fear, no doubt.

Vaas chuckled at this a bit. “Wonder if I could get my clusterfuck of idiots back in my island to do this.”

“Hell yeah.” Malideus pumped his fist a bit as he walked further into the interior of this town. “I could get used to this.”

“Meh.” Audrey let out a yawn of boredom as the Party continued walking. “Nothing interesting here. Question is: do they have chocolate?”

“As flummoxing as it is, this place seems…” The Summoner glanced around a bit, head turning left to right, spotting the eerie, shadow-clad buildings burdened with crevices and sleet, “...off. It’s not just the atmosphere casted by the snow. It’s something else, but I just can’t seem to pinpoint what it exactly is.”

“Yes; yes. I agree.” Ral nodded inconspicuously as he examined his rather languid surroundings of coarse, withering buildings. “I feel something amiss here, definitely. But I can’t tell what’s wrong with this place, either.”

“Perhaps it’s just phantasms of our questionable sanity trying to con us, huh?” The Summoner shrugged off the off-putting ambience in the air--looking forward, taking notice of the equally lethargic nature of the buildings circumjacent to them.

“How tragic.” The Summoner grimaced at the poor conditions of the houses around them. “Roofs either partially cracked or completely breached… Walls crippled and threatening to fall… Gah. It’s depressing just being here, even.”

“Right.” Malideus interjected, “Let’s get out of here as soon as possible to avoid getting more sad.”

“Dunno about that-” Ral looked to the side as he spoke. Soon enough, he readjusted his head forwards once more, spotting the rather large manor of the inn. “Oh look, we’re here.”

Its foundation stood emblazoned upon the snow-coated pavement below, standing high, towering over the other structures of this place threefold. Its concrete, rigid and stable, were still paved with a thick layer of translucent ice--making the structure itself appearing somewhat crystalline.

Its canopy, crafted and seemingly weaves out of some sort of metal, was burdened with a mound of snow; a mound of snow that seemed to be thicker than the length of a human.

“Sweet.” Vaas lit up a bit. “Something that isn’t so putrid in this town and we get to stay in it.”

“P- please.” The mare went up to the doorway. The mechanisms of the doorknob clicking into place as she turned it, the door opened, revealing the rather large, but ghastly feeling emanating from the inn’s interior. “This way.”

Through the darkness, one could see the counter--empty and unmanned, a few miscellaneous items placed upon it such as a cash-register, a desk behind it, and a flower pot harboring a withered plant. And the lighting, which was next to null, provided an even more sinister aura from it as well.

Foreboding at best, really.

“Finally…” The Summoner sighed once more in relief. “A place to rest in. Felt like it’s been a full day since we had any rest.”

“We actually did go a full day without sleeping,” Ral pointed out.

“Then… please, do come in.” The mysterious pony vanished into the inn as she entered through the wide-open door.