Chapter 19
Reunion
The bone warriors parted, and the double doors creaked inwards, opening to the party. Spike and his friends stood on the threshold of the Squizzard's third castle. This one was much more opulent and architecturally impossible than the others. A blast of cold air washed over them.
"Are you sure this is not a trap?" Discord asked.
Spike blushed a little and answered, "Yeah. There is no way that the Squizzard would use those kinds of words when addressing me."
"I would have," Discord scoffed.
The little dragon gave a sharp nod. "Yeah, but this is not you as the game master. I think we can trust this."
"Even though it's a side quest, it sounds like the best quest!" Pinkie sang.
The party carefully topped in. The entrance hall was completely devoid of another soul, alive or undead. The only bone warriors were the ones at the door. As they walked in, lights along the walls blazed to life, ignited through a magical means. Spike and the others felt their eyes drawn up a wide staircase where five unexpected figures stood.
"Twilight!?" Spike shouted.
"Fluttershy!" Discord exclaimed happily.
"Applejack?" Big Mac said in awe.
"Starlight! You're back!" Pinkie screamed, utterly relieved for her friend's safety.
"Rarity, how on earth did they get you into this game?" Rainbow Dash asked incredulously.
"Well darling, I can tell you that I really took little pleasure in crunching all those numbers to design this character, but designing this dress was simply divine!"
Rarity sported a flowing dress of deep violet and hemmed with pearls and gems. She had all the trappings of diplomatic character. Utterly useless in a fight, but possessing enough charisma, intelligence and wisdom to make even a bard blush.
"Yeah, it took a lot longer to get back into this game than expected," Starlight explained, cantering down the stairs. "Whoever activated the spell designed it with brutal efficiency and ingenuity. We could only get in where it would fit the general story that is being played out. I could only go to that tavern where we met until we found another way in using your original quest idea, Spike. We had Rarity play the role of the princess and convince the Squizzard to meet!"
"Y-You did?" Spike stuutered, both pleased and absolutely petrified. He felt like such an idiot.
Rarity shook her head. "He was such a brute! No wonder you guys have to defend the princess from him. He positively wanted to get his tentacles wrapped all over me!"
"That's an image I did not need in my mind," Rainbow Dash muttered.
"Me neither," Applejack agreed, coming down to join Starlight. Like her brother, she had taken on the character of a knight, also dressed in rugged and spiked black armor, though she had forgone a unicorn's horn. It also appeared as if her weapon of choice was a lasso.
Big Mac blushed a little as his sister approached. "It's good to have back up," he said weakly.
"Yeah, we figured that you lot could use some help!" she said.
"Well, we actually had an entire plan revolving around sneaking into the castle and placing traps everywhere before fighting against the final boss, a Gazer," Discord told her.
"A Gazer!" twilight exclaimed, appearing right in the middle of the group with a magical poof. "They're one of the trickiest monsters in the entire game!"
"Aha! I am not the only one who studied the monster manual!" Pinkie said, as if this vindicated everything she had been doing up until this point. No one would have argued with her on that by now, anyway.
"Yes, but we think we know how to defeat him, but now that we have everyone here! This will be perfect!" Spike said quickly and excitedly. "We can form a party of ten players and overwhelm the Gazer!"
"Right! There are ten of us and each one of us can take out one of his eyes and defeat the final boss," Pinkie replied, catching on.
"Now that is a plan I can get behind!" Dash said, flaring her wings out.
"I don't rightly follow," Applejack said. "I thought the whole idea of us coming in here was so we could break them out. Twilight, didn't you have some kind of fancy recalling spell?"
"Yes, I do! Let me just get that underway," she said, her horn lighting up. Like Spike, she had selected to be a sorcerer. She wore robes that emulated her idol, Starswirl the Bearded. Though she had omitted the beard.
"I don't think it's going to work," Starlight began saying cautiously.
Discord nodded. "I quite agree with my friend here. Whoever is pulling the strings did block my chaos magic after all!"
"No, I got th-"
BOOM!
Twilight was thrown back in a magical explosion. She crashed into the staircase with a sickening crash. Her wings were crumpled and her eyes spinning like mad. She had paid a high price for trying to break the rules of the game and exit prematurely. Now that they had entered, they were subjected to the same expectations as the original party.
"Oh dear! Let me help!" Fluttershy said, flying down and touching her friend. There was an aura of white light and the Princess of Magic was instantly healed.
"Yes!" Discord said, pumping a fist. "I knew that she would be a cleric!"
Fluttershy was dressed in robes made of bright, green leaves. She had gold trim and cords that kept her clothing in place. The soft-spoken pegasus was every part the healer that the party had been missing out on their entire journey.
"It just seemed like the nicest class in the end, though I really, really wanted to be a summoner! Imagine being able to call all of little and big animal friends to me in an instant!"
"Yeah… I don't think that would be very helpful in a fight," Rainbow Dash muttered. "At least not with Fluttershy! She would avoid sending any of her summoned beasts into combat for fear of them getting hurt!"
"Which is precisely why I didn't go with that class? Feeling better Twilight?"
"Yes. thank you, Fluttershy."
"Oh, she is a heaven-send!"
"Discord, your crush is showing," Big Mac whispered out of the corner of his mouth.
"Hey if Spike can-"
Discord was cut off as Spike shoved the head of his staff into Discord's face and said overly loud, "Well! Since we are all here together, and stuck in this game until we can win, let's make a whole new strategy to try and escape!"
"All this planning," Rainbow Dash groaned.
"No, this time it will go over even better because we now have the balance of characters that we need for this kind of a fight," the dragon said eagerly.
He called for them all to enter a huddle. He explained to the others exactly how they had gotten trapped in the game by the Gazer taking over the Squizzard's first palace and forcing them to go on a quest. With their powers checked and with no way else out, the party had had to track down and fight four boss monsters and collect magical tokens or figurines from the. Spike happily left out the bizarre subplot of working villains from other worlds in an epic battle. Thankfully Pinky caught on with a look and didn't interrupt to try and fill them in. It would have been too awkward and out of place.
Next, he unfolded to them what their plans had been for defeating the Gazer. Originally, they were going to count on him being true to word and freeing them after giving him the black figurines. It was an idea that appalled Twilight and the others, but Spike allayed their fears by saying how they would use boobytraps to pin the Gazer down and deliver the knockout blow. But now that they had more pony power, they could come in charging.
He told them that this would put them all at pretty great risk, because the Gazer was smart and would prepare for them. But with ten party members, trying to sneak around the castle and set up traps was an untenable plan at the moment. So it would be better to rely on their combined strength and abilities to overwhelm the Gazer in one final battle.
"Like I said, I am wholly in favor of this plan!" Rainbow Dash declared.
"Of course you are, but this feels extremely foolhardy," Applejack cautioned.
"But charging in with at least some plan has worked for us most of the time," Big Mac countered. "And we have the numbers on our side now."
"I would feel a lot more comfortable with this idea if we still had those magical bracers you were talking about before," she said. "Any chance you've come across another pair since then?"
"No and it would take some time to craft them," Spike explained. 'If we took too long in returning, that Gazer might know that we are up to something shady. We suspect that he has kept an eye on us the entire time and is making sure that we don't deviate too much from the quest."
"Wouldn't this count as a deviation?" Twilight asked.
"Not really," Starlight said. "We are here together, aren't we? I think it is because the one who hijacked Spike's story is still using it as a template for supporting the spell. So long as we play according to that, we are all okay, though it is pretty incredible to think that there is a spell like that. It's deviously crafted."
"that is a delicious word, darling, but when the word devious is used against us that makes me feel a little faint of heart," Rarity sighed. "What makes us even think that defeating this Gazer will be the end of it all and that we can return to Ponyville? It sounds like a leap in logic to me!"
"It's what the Gazer said," Pinkie chimed in. "And it would make sense. There are all kinds of stories where ponies have to play their way out of a game in order to return to their normal lives."
"Really? Name one," Dash challenged.
"Now is not the time for this," Applejack began saying, but she was quickly overridden by Pinkie.
"There's Manji-Gu! Where the young fillies get stuck playing a bord game that puts them through a magical, dangerous safari! And then there is Yes Game, Yes Life, where a brother and sister get called to another world to play in a series of games to see if they can become the new, benevolent rulers of this other world. Or the story Trot! When a game designer gets trapped in his own game and he has to play his way out! And-"
"Okay, I get it! There a lot of stories where people have to play their way out of a game!"
"You need to read ore than Daring Do!"
"I have a bunch of other books to read, Dash, if you want!"
"Twilight, I think we should be more focused on getting out of here!"
"GUYS!" Spike shouted. "It's great being back together and going through all of this banter, but the more time we spend bickering is more time that we give to the gazer to know that something is possibly up and for him to prepare against us!"
The others looked humbled and he continued, "We might not be able to craft magical items quickly, but we do have plenty of supplies for traps. We just need to alter our idea a little and make them so they are useable in the moment. Ten of us against his ten eyes is a great strategy, but Gazers rely on other methods to fight and defend themselves. Our numbers play to our advantage, but we have to make sure that we use everything in our arsenal!"
"Oh, I am ready to use everything in my arsenal," Pinkie said in a tone of voice so intense that the others suddenly got the heebie-jeebies.
"Well, I…" Twilight trailed off.
Starlight stepped in. "Twilight, we know that you like to have a plan, but I think we should rely on the veteran players in this game. From everything we have heard, they could take down this Gazer by themselves. I think we should listen to Spike and go along with his idea."
Twilight smiled down at her little assistant and friend. He looked so strange in that beard! But she had to agree with Starlight. This was the right call to make.
"Alright every pony, let's go and beat this Gazer! Spike, lead the way!"