Fireball says dragons don't do birthdays because they have this condition called "greed growth." If they get too many things too fast, their hoarding instinct goes wild, which affects their magic and turns them into, if I understand him right, Godzilla. He knows one dragon who gets birthday presents, but it's usually stuff he doesn't really care for.
Who knew it sucked so much to be a winged fire-breathing lizard?
Anyway, Starlight is finishing up a second batch of chips now. We're going to polish off the tater cake (because as successful as it was, none of us wants it for leftovers tomorrow), munch chips, and enjoy a TV rerun marathon. After a bit of discussion, we decided that Dukes of Hazzard was our favorite. (In all honesty, the ponies vastly prefer Partridge Family, even now that they understand the words, but they're having mercy on me because it's my birthday. And I'm having mercy on them and not subjecting them to Kolchak or Barney Miller.)
Tomorrow it's back to work. We can't finalize the design for the new saddlebags until we know for sure what we are and aren't hauling in them, and the engines might not make the trip either. So the only action item left we can do without NASA input is adding two of the Hab's hydrogen power cells to Rover 2. We'll tackle that tomorrow. It'll mean losing the passenger bench, but I think we can still haul our harvests in the remaining space. It just means Fireball will have to ride on top and Starlight inside while the others trot alongside.
After that? I dunno. Hab maintenance, probably. Possibly assist Starlight with more experiments on those funky lava-lamp crystals.
Speaking of, here she comes with the chips. Time for flying cars, cutoff jeans, and a celebration of cringe-worthy borderline-racist hillbilly culture.
Author's Notes:
Yes, most of them have run out of things to do, or nearly so.
The producers of Dukes of Hazzard realized after the first season, "You know, we've got an all-white cast in the South. This is a problem. We need to drop some black characters in here and there, and they can't be comedy characters or else we'll catch hell for it."
This resulted in a few black one-episode characters, usually heavies— like the FBI agent investigating Boss Hogg once, for example— and one occasionally recurring character, the black sheriff of the next county over. (That's right: a black sheriff in Georgia in 1980. Not impossible, but certainly not how I'd bet.) Unfortunately, not only did this character almost never get any dialog, but the only character development we ever get is that he's just as corrupt as Roscoe... but more competent.
And then, of course, there's the thing with the rebel flag on the roof of the car, etc.
Anyway, enough justifying the last line. I need help. I know that at one point I wrote up a description of all the chambers of the Site Epsilon crystal cave... but I can't find it. And I need it to move on with the chapter I was working on today. I assume I posted it somewhere that you all could read it, so I'm hoping someone remembers and can find it for me. Otherwise I'll have to make it up all over again, and I'm sure one of you would find it after I posted that.
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Sol 328
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AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE — MISSION DAY 333
ARES III SOL 328
"Well, look at the bright side," Cherry Berry said. "No one's died yet."
"Death would be a relief," Fireball rumbled, but quietly.
The four of them— Cherry, Fireball, Mark and Spitfire— sat or leaned by The Stump, watching from a distance as Starlight Glimmer focused her full concentration on enchanting the seven remaining jumbo mana batteries. Dragonfly, as usual, stayed as close as she could to the battery projecting the magic field required for the operation, soaking up all the magic her still-weakened system could absorb.
Spitfire growled softly and said, "Don't know how long I can take this."
"I don't know about you," Mark said, "but I'm enjoying myself. I'm learning so much about your home world with every game session."
"But it so stupid!" Spitfire protested. "Go to pirate town, there Rainbow... I mean Mo-No-Chrome. Stupid name. Go to sea-ponies, there Pinkie. Go to griffons, there Rarity. Go to big city, give up quest, get regular job, and Zoe the Great and Powerful, not Tricky oh no of course not, shows up and burns city down. No escape!!"
"Like I said," Mark said, "I'm learning so much about your world."
"Death would be better," Fireball said. "So she never lets us die. She embarrass us all every session until we do what she wants. Remember the changeling pirate ship? How many things broke?"
"Dragonfly and I were winning that one until the canopy ropes snapped," Mark said. "Starlight couldn't break things fast enough."
"The sea-pony synchronized swimming initiation thing?"
Mark blinked. "You remembered how to say synchronized swimming?"
"The shame is burned on my soul forever," the dragon replied darkly. "And the day of work she put us all through?"
Mark and Cherry Berry both looked blankly at Fireball. "What about it?" Cherry asked.
Fireball looked a little confused. "All the stupid customers... the bad, horrible, rude ponies... the boss abuse..."
"Hate to break it to you, Fireball," Mark said, "but low-end day jobs are all like that."
"The job in the game was better than several I really had before the space race," Cherry said. "Let's just say Ponyville isn't always the bright, shiny, smiling friendly face the tourist board makes it out to be."
"Oh," Fireball muttered. "I'm so glad I'm dragon. No day job."
"That game put my retire off five years," Spitfire struggled to say.
"But she's just not getting the message," Cherry said. "I'm not going to order her to make a new campaign, but you'd think she'd get the idea that we don't want to do a campaign with ponies we know as the bad guys!"
"All right," Mark said. "I admit she's building plot rails faster than a bullet-train company. But she's not bad enough to justify going Old Man Henderson on her."
Four ears and a pair of scaly eye-ridges popped up. "Old Man Henderson?" Cherry asked. "Who's he?"
"Ooooooh, no no no," Mark said. "I am not giving you Old Man Henderson to use as a weapon against Starlight. Old Man Henderson drove the DM he was used on out of the game, it was that bad. We have to live together for the next two hundred and twenty sols. No Old Man Henderson for you!"
Spitfire and Cherry Berry slumped in disappointment, but Fireball grinned. "Old Man Henderson character who wreck game?" he rumbled. "That gives me idea."
"Oh, no," Mark muttered. "Oh, no, no, no. Don't do this, guys, whatever it is."
"Dawn Light stands between you and the statue," Starlight Glimmer said, unconsciously wiping sweat off her forehead. "`I shall not let you unleash the demon of the past,' she says. `My queen shall reign FOREVER!' And she surprises you all with a magic blast. Roll to dodge, everyone."
"Seventeen."
"Twenty-one."
"HA!" Fireball bellowed. "Natural 20! I duck past Dawn Light and stand next to the statue!"
"Wha-bu-but you can't!" Starlight gasped. "Dodge doesn't work like that!"
"Also tell me," Fireball said, grinning a most draconic grin, "how much chaos does it take to let Entropy out of statue?" He leaned forward and added, "What die roll?"
"Um... er... let me check my notes..." Starlight scrolled frantically through the document on her own computer, finally finding the notes she'd made on the strange statue in the abandoned garden of the former Royal Palace of Skykeep. "Um... critical success for those trying to revive him, critical fail for those trying to keep him sealed. Nothing else."
"Grm." Fireball looked at the others. "Don't think I get another natural tonight. You?"
"What about bonuses?" Cherry Berry asked. "Isn't there some kind of ritual we could perform to improve our chances?"
"What? No! No, no ritual!"
"But this is Entropy! Chaos! Disorder!" Cherry insisted. "If we make more chaos, he must get stronger, right? He has to!"
"But he's held in place by the Elements of Harmony!"
"You mean the piles of dust we carry in our saddlebags?" Dragonfly asked. "I don't think they're holding anything anymore."
"Quick, we need a ritual!" Cherry Berry said. "Something, anything, so wacky, so stupid, so nonsense that it can't help but break the seal!"
Mark had been mostly silent up until now, having been outvoted three to one (and then four to one when Dragonfly had been brought up to date) on the whole plan. But, as the other players looked to each other in vain hope of inspiration, he began to smile, as an old, old song popped into his head. Without warning he slapped the table four times— whap whap whap whap!- and begin singing on the fifth beat:
I told the unicorn we had to defeat you (whap whap whap whap!)
I told the unicorn your evil days are through (whap whap whap whap!)
And with this simple spell we're gonna make you blue
And his voice jumped two octaves into a horribly strained and pinched falsetto as he sang:
Ooo, eee, ooh ah ah
Ting, tang, walla walla bing bang
Ooo, eee, ooh ah ah
Ting tang walla walla bang bang
The others pitched in at once, singing the "Ooo-eee" chant through again as Starlight's jaw threatened to knock a hole in the tabletop. Then, with four more sharp beats to the table, Mark delivered another lyric:
I told the unicorn it's time for Entropy
I told the unicorn we'd wake him, wait and see
To beat the unicorn everybody sing with me (here we go)
The players jumped up from the table and began dancing around, stepping lightly through the Hab's potato plants and chanting the silly, squeaky witch-doctor chant twice more, before Mark shouted, "Now the bridge!"
You know that you're railroading us just like you were a choo-choo
And I admit we are not very brave
But if you keep on going then we'll have to make it silly
Because we have another world to save
I told the unicorn the world is at an end
I told the unicorn she'll need a new campaign
But because it feels like fun let's sing the chant again
The players didn't need to go through the sixth repeat of "Ooo, eee," and so forth before Starlight's magic made a tiny holographic white flag appear over her head, but they did it anyway, because it was fun.
And then, after a bit of laughter and some words about how a D&D campaign had to be fun for everyone involved, Mark told them the legend of the sixth force of nature: gravity, electromagnetism, the strong force, the weak force, magic, and Old Man Henderson.
Starlight listened, and took the lesson to heart...
... but she also took notes.
Author's Notes:
Starlight is making ALL the newbie DM mistakes, right down to Giving Your Players Ammo to Use Against You and Admitting You Have Notes of a Thing You Suddenly Don't Wish to Have In Your Notes.
Re: the pirate airship: so many things spontaneously broke that it could have been the ride for an airborne version of Barrett's Privateers. And it still wasn't enough for two engineers who have spent three hundred plus days marooned on Mars. Better luck next time, Starlight.
All in all, I think Starlight Glimmer needs some parchment so she can write a letter that begins Dear Princess Celestia, Today I learned...
I had to do some inventory today, and the tendons in my right arm kept flaring up, so no writing got done today. I'm glad I got the buffer in when I had a chance. I should be able to rebuild it tomorrow, since I now have nothing to do but clear away things in the house, load up the van, and head out Thursday to Kansas City for Sausomecon.
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Sol 330
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AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE — MISSION DAY 335
ARES III SOL 330
"'They've cut it down!' cried Sam. `They've cut down the Party Tree!'"
Spitfire squirmed on her sleeping roll. Normally she was glad for Dragonfly's turns at reading. (Truth be told, she was glad for anyone else other than herself to take a turn.) But the longer Dragonfly went into this section about the aftermath of the Battle of Bywater, the more stilted the changeling's reading became, as if, for some reason, she was suddenly having as many problems with Mark's language as Spitfire did. And that couldn't be right.
But there she was, squirming and squinting and stammering her way through the very last act of the War of the Ring. Was there something wrong? Was this some side effect of Dragonfly's two months in that cocoon?
"There was a... surly... hobbit... lounging... over the low wall of the mill-yard. He was grimy-faced and... black-handed. 'Don't 'ee like it, Sam?' he sneered. 'But you always was soft...'" After a second of silence Dragonfly pushed the computer away, muttered, "Excuse me," and trotted away, heading for the back of the cave with increasing speed.
"Dragonfly!" Mark was on his feet almost instantly.
"No, you keep reading," Spitfire said. "I go talk." After all, she was the fastest one there, and the only trained fighter, if this was Dragonfly about to go buggy again. She couldn't fly much better than a chicken in the haze-thin magic of the farm, but with her suit off she could use that tiny bit of magic plus her wings to catch up to Dragonfly.
By the time Spitfire was past the farm and galloping along the water runoff trench, Dragonfly had ducked behind the curtain of insulation that covered the entrance into Tangled Hallway. Getting through the cluster of crystal shafts wasn't as hard as it used to be, since two of the biggest had been sliced neatly out for the giant battery project, but it still forced her to slow down for a minute, until she could work her way into the more open Lunch Buffet.
When she got there Lunch Buffet was empty, but Spitfire could still hear a faint sound of hooves from deeper into the cave. She galloped on, the magic of the farm a bit fainter but still enough to give her wings a bit of boost. It took seconds to cover the length of the Buffet, and then it was through the Crack and into the Orb.
Starlight had made multiple solar relay crystals for the Hallway and Lunch Buffet because of their frequent trips to mine for battery crystals or Fireball's meals. But the ponies very seldom had any reason to go through the Crack, and so the Orb, with its flattened almost-sphere shape and its irregular bands of every color imaginable— the single largest space without crystal pillars in the cave— had only one light. And this far away from the sources of heat and magic, Spitfire began to feel distinctly uncomfortable, pulling in her now-useless wings and slowing her running speed a bit.
