Dankworld
(Pony Edition)
{Written By Phom}
~Act One~
~Part Four~

You drift in that odd half-asleep-half-awake state you may have experienced, on some fine day-off from work or school, when you have gotten a good nights sleep and have no reason to get up early so your body gets to decide when to wake up.
Your semi-conscious mind is aware of some sensory input, but has deemed it nonthreatening enough to wake you up so you can find out, so that input sometimes bleeds through into your dreams.
Currently, you are running down some snowy hill, flames in one hand and electricity in the other, drinking mead and shouting at wolves and deer in some odd, short-phrased language. You notice some bandits up the path, preparing to rob you for all you have. You decide you will kill them all with your bow for sport, but are interrupted by far-off voice from the sky...

“Spencer? Spencer, wake up!”

You feel a hoof shaking your shoulder, so you open your eyes a crack to asses the situation. Twilight is waking you up early for some reason, because you can see through a window that the sun has barely risen. You figure Twilight was excited to help you so she got up earlier than normal or something. You know she’s an egghead like that, and you think it’s kinda cute.

>Get up

You sit up in bed and rub your eyes as Twilight continues.

“Sorry to wake you, but I can’t really advance in my research until I’ve asked you a few questions. I made some breakfast, care to join me in the kitchen?”

>Go eat some carbon

You pull your pants on (all the cool people sleep in a t-shirt and boxers) and follow Twilight into the kitchen. Sure enough, breakfast is well-burnt, and you can’t tell the difference between... Well, whatever is on the table. Twilight can’t help but notice the look on your face.

“Oh, I knew it was bad! Sorry, I’m a terrible cook, Spike usually makes the meals but I didn’t want to wake him up so early...”

>Check cooking skill

You have a fairly high cooking skill, due to all your stoner culinary experiments over the years. Making your own munchies while you are high is a tricky business, because you think of many new foodstuff combinations which may or may not work out, so you have a good understanding of what goes well together. Also, living on your own in an apartment with a goal of staying healthy had taught you to make meals from raw ingredients fairly well.

>”Would you like me to cook breakfast? I can cook pretty good.”

She corrects you. “Pretty well.”

>”I know. I intentionally used the wrong word for the humors sake.”

“Well I don’t think it’s very funny...”

>”I guess it’s a human thing. Ill just take that as a yes.”
>Cook breakfast

She agrees to let you make breakfast. You turn up a clean burner and happen to find a clean pan in the first cupboard you check. While the pan heats up, you beat six eggs in a bowl and Twilight cleans the burnt whatever from the table. You add chopped peppers and olives to the bowl, and a pat of butter to the pan. Twilight finishes her job and watches the butter melt.

“Oh, the butter will act as a lubricant so the eggs won’t stick to the pan! I always wondered why spike put butter in eggs, but I never watched him close enough to see why! Now... Now I feel kinda dumb!” She smiles.

>Pat pony on head.
>”Oh, it’s okay, you will learn someday.”
>Put eggs in pan. No wait, get spatula first.

You pat her and she looks sheepish. You grab a fresh spatula from a utensil jar and pour the omelet mixture into the pan. They make a nice sizzling sound and the smell of cooking eggs permeates the air. Twilight levitates two glasses of orange juice from the table, setting one down near you and saying “Well, I didn’t burn these. Here, before it gets warm.”

>”So, you had questions?”

Twilight thoughtfully sips her orange juice. “Yes, though I believe I have condensed them down into two simple ones. First, point to where you came from on this map.”

She levitates a map from close by and unrolls it to reveal exactly what you expected: Not Earth.

>”Sorry, I’m not even from this planet. So that would be nowhere on this map.”

“Oh. Well, okay, next question. Do you remember what happened before you woke up in the forest?”

You hesitate. You coulda sworn you already explained this.

>Well I don’t actually know, so
>Explain

You explain that all you can really remember is that you came home from... somewhere, and for some reason you decided to go for a walk, which you do every once in a while. And then you woke up in the forest.

Twilight slumps her head onto the table in frustration. “Is that really all you can remember? I’m sorry, but that is really unhelpful.”

You flip the eggs and realize you had totally failed to notice the cyan ring on your finger. You have no idea where it came from or how you got it, but for some reason you can’t seem to make yourself care about it for too long, so you don’t mention it to Twilight.

>Mention it to Twilight

Ok but we literally just said you can’t make yourself care about the ring so you don’t mention it.

>Mention it, you prick! Obviously I do care about it!

You as a player care about it, but your character does not, so deal with it. Wanna argue more or get back to being in your favorite tv show?

>-_- okay fine, when you put it that way. Finish the eggs.

The eggs just so happen to be almost done, so you grab a block of cheese and find the grater with Twilight's help, then serve the eggs onto three plates and grate a nice covering of cheese over each one.

Twilight's mouth waters, but she manages to contain her hunger long enough to explain that Spike will eat his once he gets up and thank you so much for cooking for him she had totally forgot, then levitates her plate over and promptly burns her tongue on a forkful of omelet.

“Mhh, haww!” She saves her mouth from further damage by taking a pull of juice. She then realizes how disgusting omelet, cheese, and orange juice taste together, so she hastily swallows it, cringes, and sticks her tongue out with a “bluh” sound.

She turns her head to realize you witnessed the whole thing, and looks back down to her plate, blushing hotly.

>”Oh Twilight, I think it’s a bit early for you, I don’t think you are quite awake yet!”

She jumps to her own defence, still quite embarrassed. “Well I was only trying to help you! Would you rather wait around until noon while I slept in?”

>”Hey, calm down, I don’t mean to make fun of you, and I really appreciate your help, but there’s no rush, I don’t mind it around here.”

“Yeah, well, you... Oh, you don’t? Well, I guess that’s good, but don’t you want to get home as soon as possible?”

The question sends a shiver down your spine. For some inexplicable reason, you can’t even stand to think about the possibility of going home. Home was boring, you worked, played videogames, smoked, and slept. And home wasn’t Equestria! Screw being anywhere but here! Besides, anywhere else wouldn’t have Twilight Sparkle...
It strikes you as odd how she is a large part of why you like it here, but you quickly dismiss it as “Twilight is best pony”.

>”No, I actually would rather stay here! Where I come from is boring, Equestria is way more fun. There’s dragons and magic and manticores and the Apple Family and all sorts of stuff! Really, I like it here.”

Twilight tests a forkful and finds out that her eggs have cooled enough for her to eat. A silence falls over the room as you ravenously eat your food, both of you noticing how hungry you really are. Twilight pauses between mouthfuls to thank you for the wonderful breakfast. She’s right; in fact, this might just be the best breakfast you have ever had. Then again, this is Equestria so you can’t really tell.

All too quickly your meal is finished, and Twilight searches for something to say, now that her questions have been asked. It has been bothering her that you have decided you prefer Equestria, despite the fact that all you have done here is talk with Applejack and spend the night at her house. Was it possible that you had already... developed feelings for her or her friend?

She berates herself on such a childish idea. Such things only happened in books, ponies didn’t just start liking eachother right off the bat, so there was no way. Besides, you are a human, that would be totally weird. You are like, five hooves taller than she is. Nevertheless, she was interested.

“Are you sure you would rather stay here? You really haven’t seen any of Ponyville or met anypony, what tells you that you will like it here?”

>”You do.”

You watch as her eyes widen.
That was exactly what she was afraid you were going to say something like. You save yourself by saying:

>Uhh
>”You, Spike, and Applejack.”

Okay good, never mind, she had nothing to worry about.

You are confused, and wonder why she had that panicked look on her face. Was it something you said?

“What do you mean, Applejack, Spike, and I?”

>”Well, I guess I just want to get to know you guys better. You and...”
You stop yourself, you almost mentioned her friends, which would definitely be awkward, seeing as you should know nothing about them.

>Okay well, I guess it’s good that you keep editing my sentences to keep me from fucking up, thanks I guess. Just don’t edit out any good things, ok? I’ll just say them again if you don’t have a good reason.

Ooh, look at the player making demands to the pre-programmed game! Look, we’ll do our best, okay?

>Ok

Ok good. You gonna finish?

>“I dunno, you any any other nice ponies here, I guess. This is just looking more and more like a really nice place that I would like to be part of.”

Twilight was sketched out again. She was sure Applejack acted normal, she was a brave pony, and Twilight was certainly trying to act as normal around her strange guest as possible. Either you were developing feelings, or she and her friend were just likable ponies.
It wasn’t like they didn’t have enemies... They weren’t perfectly likable... Oh, well, they had plenty of friends, so you were just another of them! You happened to like their personalities, so now you were friends. Friends, after not even knowing each other for a full day.
Hm, still weird, but she figured, “Okay, I’m enjoying his company, and he is enjoying mine... I think... But that’s what I mean, I need to stop over-thinking everything! He is just being friendly because he is totally lost in this world... Well that’s a morbid way of putting it...”

“You are just a nice creature from some other planet, and I need to get to know you better!”

She notices your suddenly confused expression and realizes she said that last bit out loud.

>”Exactly! If I am going to stay here, I need help getting to know how everything works. It sounds to me like you would be interested, so, would you like to be my guide pony of sorts?”

She honestly couldn’t tell what she thought about that. There were many ways of thinking about you, and she was unsure which one she wanted to stick with.
1) Spencer is an alien and must be studied.
2) Spencer is a nice alien and a good friend so far, he should meet my friends.
3) Spencer has developing feelings for Applejack or me.
3a) If it is Applejack, what do I do? Does she like him like that too?
3b) If it is me... would it really be that bad to see how it plays out?
3b*) Of course it would that would be so weird what am I even saying
3b**) But he is nice, smart, he seems to have a good grasp of Equestrian, and he can cook...
3b***) But he is also not a pony. And I don’t even need a relationship. Okay wow, moving on!
4) Spencer needs my help to make it in Equestria.
5) I might be developing feelings for Spencer?
5*) Where did that even come from, I am so not!
6) Spencer wants to get to know me better, and the feeling is mutual.

Twilight decided that her subconscious didn’t know how to handle this very well for some reason, so she would just leave it at a mixture of the entire list, leaning more towards numbers 2, 3b**, and 6. It all didn’t really matter anyway, fact of the matter was that she was excited about this new development in her life, and she wasn’t about to let it shift to someone else.

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Meanwhile, unbeknownst to the player for the sake of the game, but revealed for the readers
enlightenment and intrigue, a certain goddess grinned with a tricksters gleam in her eye, for her plan was going off without a hitch and it was nearly time to move on to the next step.

[Authors note: I honestly didn’t expect the text message format this story was in to be very easy to write as a story, but I guess I was wrong. You guys are lucky, Xaxus only got to read what other ponies did and said, he had no idea what anypony was thinking. I only dropped hints every now and then, but you guys get to know everything. It’s nice to write the whole story.
Also, I realize I deviate from Xaxus’ original style. Sorry, I hope you guys don’t mind.]

[Feedback is much appreciated.]