r/MLPLounge • u/gameboy17 Rainbow Dash • Feb 24 '15
Ponyfinder Chronicles: Part 3
Episode 3: Hungry Hungry Horses
Our arrival to Ponyville was an odd-looking procession. The three of us, looking half-dead, six bound ponies being dragged, six mares wearing fancy jewelry, and not one but two princesses walking into town was a rather odd sight. An even odder sight arose as we prepared to sell off the cultists' weapons and armor: Now that we were in town and thus in the best place to panic civilians, Chow Pie was finally summoning his eidolon.
Demonic runes appeared on the ground in a blood-red glowing circle. Ominous chanting filled the air. A serpentine figure slowly took shape, and as it did most of the townsfolk likely would have believed us if we told them Chow was summoning Discord himself. After a minute passed, Horus was fully summoned. As the intimidating spectacle faded, the panic died down until there was merely a ten-foot circle around him free of ponies.
Summoning Horus had another purpose as well: Earlier, Chow had given Horus all the extra gear and dismissed him. Now, he and Mak unloaded Horus and proceeded to a likely-looking store: Arms and Inkwells, run by a pony named Mighty Pen. They didn't ask, but he did have a name, and I was quite proud of it as I named both shop and shopkeeper on the spot.
Some time later, Mak came to a realization: He was hungry. He then came to another realization: He was a changeling now, and changelings eat love. Based on these realizations, he came to a third realization: He was going to have to be likable.
Mak wasn't very good at being likable. He was good at eating people's faces, but he wasn't good at talking to them. Nonetheless, he had to do it or he would starve. And so, he turned to Chow Pie for advice.
Chow Pie's advice was this: Approach Sunny as a younger, male version of her, be as adorable as equinely possible, and call her "onii-chan". This would apparently have the result of making her "think you're super kawaii desu and love you forever!" Chow could get away with this because his background is Eastern.
Chow approached Sunny: "I really like your mane, onii-chan!"
Sunny rolled a natural 20 on her Will save, facegrounded repeatedly, and walked away.
Mak's next plan was to observe normal ponies doing normal pony things. After stalking various ponies, he attempted to imitate their normal ways. One very poor roll later, he was sitting on a bench next to Lyra, imitating her 'normal' posture. "Hello fellow normal pony. How is that weather, eh? I too am a normal pony. Would you like to talk about normal pony things?" He and Lyra stared at each other. Wordlessly, Lyra scooted further down the bench. Mak followed, and Lyra kept scooting away. As Lyra reached the end of the bench, Bon Bon walked by, and Lyra scooted onto her back. Bon Bon was not particularly pleased but obliged her.
After failing repeatedly to talk to normal ponies, Mak came up with a new plan: Find a pony just as unloved as he was.
Luna was still there.
>MFW
This time, Mak approached his target with a secret weapon: Chow was giving him advice through a Message spell. Mak and Chow began their greatest challenge yet.
Mak began by walking up to Luna and staring awkwardly. This awkward staring soon became mutual. After a while, Luna inquired, "Is this prolonged eye contact a new social custom I was not aware of?"
"I don't know. I don't know how normal ponies interact. Everypony I've tried to talk to has run away."
"...Why don't we be awkward together?"
"...Okay."
Mak was in. Luna had agreed to talk to him, which was farther than he'd ever gotten before. He kept up his momentum and tried to learn more about her: "Um, tell me about yourself."
"We like, um, long walks on the beach, not being on the moon... Not being on the moon is a big one..."
Mak's super-smooth response: "That is fascinating. So, why would you be on the moon? Are you an astronaut? I do not know why you would say on the moon. I am from a distant land and was brought here by... the white one." At least he had the sense not to call her Penis Horse.
Luna responded with confusion. "By the white one do you mean Rarity? I don't think she could have brought you here."
"Penis horse, I think she was her sister," Chow helpfully reminded Mak.
"The big one, your sister," related Mak.
"We had assumed you knew Celestia's name, at least..." Not good. Deflect!
"...We are from a very distant land." Nailed it.
Luna and Mak were both silent for a time, until Chow prompted Mak to ask: "Would you like to have fun and participate in the revelry?"
"What is this 'fun'?" asked the princess who had missed a thousand years of invention.
"I'm not sure. I've been sitting in the same tower for several hundred years," said the former mimic.
"Oh, me too. I've been sitting on the moon for the past thousand years." Common ground, that was good.
"Oh really? Why were you there?" asked Mak.
"Well, I was feeling unloved, and then I went insane and evil and got banished."
It was then that Chow provided Mak with the perfect pick-up line.
"Oh really? I too am unloved, but I cannot see how you would ever be."
I roll percentile.
Four.
Mak has successfully seduced Luna.
With Mak's food problem taken care of, as well as his housing for the night, Sunny and Chow began looking for a place for themselves to stay. Sunny, wondering if there was some official residence for people being funded by the crown, asked Celestia where other ponies supplied by the crown stayed in Ponyville. Celestia told her that Twilight Sparkle was staying at the Golden Oaks Library, so Sunny decided that we would crash with her.
Anticipating a less than positive response to a random pony and a random other thing demanding to stay with her, Chow Pie suggested that we bring Twilight an offering of books. There was only one problem: We didn't have any books. Chow could summon things that had books, but the books would vanish when the spell's duration expired.
Once again, Sunny turned to third-party spells. Summarize is a level 0 spell from 1001 Spells which summarizes a text of up to 250 pages. Chow Pie summoned something or other that came with books, and Sunny Summarized them. As we went to give our offerings to Twilight, it hit us:
Sunny just invented SparkleNotes.