Daniel's Dread Tales is a show for grown-ups.
It may contain adult language and adult themes.
Please check the episode description for content
warnings. Last time on Eternal Line.
This is Daniel's Dread Tales. There we go.
Did you say we clop at the minute mark?
I said oh shit, let me try again.
You can't say that. You cannot say that.
There's no we're. Not when's that episode.
For the plot, we're not, there are no jars, we're there's
nothing. OK.
Daniel's dread Tails. So if we're all recording,
everybody's got their line, everybody's got their solid
spike. I could I?
Could say. This a lot from saying it.
Hello ladies and gentle Colts and NB Corns.
Welcome to Daniel's delightful Tales.
And also Tales is spelled like a thing a pony has this time too.
And this week we're going to be playing the My Little Pony
tabletop RPG. It's going to be a good time.
We're going to be a bunch of colorful cartoon horses, and
it's not going to be too horrible.
If you want horror and death and murder, please tune in any other
week. We also have some special guests
joining us this week, but we'll find out about them in just a
moment. Let's go around and I'll
introduce ourselves. I'll go first, just real quick.
My name's Daniel Fernandez. He him, and I'm going to be your
game Master. There's no special name for the
game Master in My Little Pony. I'm going to be your Celestia.
Stable boy. No, no, I think Dan has at least
earned a stable man. But I I am pretty stable I I
solid income I could pay my rent bro.
You. Didn't.
Have to throw me under the bus like that.
OK, Christ. OK, I wasn't trying to attack.
Hi, everybody. I'm Nathan.
OK. Hey, Nathan, you introduced
yourself. Go.
Yeah, I'm Nathan pronouns he him.
I'm a regular here on on this lovely podcast and I will be
playing the earth pony character Blank Page, who is a detective
and his cutie mark is a magnifying glass because he's a
detective and I didn't consider what color he would be before
this. I guess I've just pictured him
as red this whole time. So he's red and you know, he's
got the deer stalker cap. You know he's a cartoon pony
detective. Now deer stalker spelled DEER or
DEAR. I think it has to be DEAR
because that other otherwise it would imply that they do hunt
deer in this universe. This one, you're just hunting
like somebody who was dear to you.
Yeah, but. When you're stalking someone
dear to you, what hat do you want to wear?
That sort of fedora. I'm the element of kindness.
Everyone is dear to me. Well, there you go.
No, I was picturing it more like a love letter.
Dear stalker. I heard, I mean, I've heard a
lot of voices, but Renee, tell the people about yourself and
your pony. Which one am I again?
All right, Yes, hello. I am Renee.
They sometimes she pronouns. I don't know.
Anyway, I will be playing doctor Honey bowl electrod.
I don't think I'm legally allowed to say on this episode
that a pony is hot, so I am not going to say that, Renee.
Come on the show and we'll let you say that there's no.
Rules against him. You're allowed to say the pony's
hot. I would rather say that Doctor
Electrod is one of those ponies that is going to have kids
discover something about themselves later on in life as
they as they look back on this episode of.
He is a light tan almost Peach colored Pegasus with Hazel
blonde short mane, same color eyes.
He is incredibly smartly dressed tweed three piece silver mother
of Pearl cufflinks and a magic taipan.
And his Cologne smells like wild Heather and dark honey.
OK. And he is a psychiatrist?
What's your cutie Mark? His cutie mark is a red book.
I'm very hopeful that somebody, somebody will get the reference.
What's your element of harmony? Generosity.
I very much enjoy cooking for my friends.
Oh boy. I'm sorry.
Oh. Let's get our last regular voice
you may have heard on the show introduced here.
Hello, I'm Russell, a corporate guy from this frenemy forge.
Also, I'm on Daniel's dread tails, right?
I will be playing Mythic Spice once more.
Who are is a lovely cinnamon orange colored Unicorn.
Element is laughter, of course. My cutie mark is a spilled salt
shaker. Oh, and I'm a Unicorn God.
Damn it. Thou you may have heard their
voices. You've definitely heard their
voices already. You can't keep us contained.
All right, we'll have Theo go first because you're the one who
just talked from the Friendship Factory podcast.
Theo, tell us about your pony and yourself.
Hello, yes, my name is Theodore Monk.
Pronounce he him, and this week I'm doing my running gag on the
wrong podcast. Specifically I am playing Balder
Dash, a Unicorn con mare. In the element of honesty of
this party, I was about to say element of honesty because I was
just reading my notes verbatim, but yeah, she is, as I said, a
con mare. We have decided.
I will figure out how that meshes with being the element of
honesty in terms of what sort of pony she is.
I have decided because I am not the most visually a cute person.
I kept it pretty straightforward.
She is a light blue Unicorn. Her mane and tail are like
darker blue with almost sort of purplish with a streak of golden
yellow going throughout it. The main style, something I
would call anime Bob cut and her cutie mark is a very sort of
generic looking green yellow flare of light.
It's vagueness definitely doesn't play into her con artist
tendencies. I.
Mean it takes one to no one What?
The fuck you say to me? Kane, tell us about yourself and
your pony. Hi, my name is Kane.
My pronouns are they and it I am super jazzed to be here today.
I'm going to be I'm I forgot to do the the friendship factory
this week. My job is bit.
I was going to do the same bit as Theo.
I've already failed this. I'm going to be playing
heartstrings, who is an earth pony.
She has like a reddish kind of almost pink coat and an orange
mane and like freckles. She's very cute.
Her Kitty Mark is like a heart with like baby bottle in it.
Her special talent is child care and she works as a general
purpose nanny slash babysitter in Ponyville.
Would she describe it as full care, given the idiosyncrasies
of this universe? She would, but I won't.
And what is your element of harmony?
Heartstrings element is also generosity.
We're a double generous group. So we're a very generous group.
She also most of us are not talking about perks but it's
notable she also has the wealth perk.
Definitely normal circumstances. I was wondering if you were
going to take that, but yes, because we talked about your
pony being rich, you remember to take the wealth perk.
I love it. OK, OK, well, your character
sheets are all a little bit more complicated that, but we don't
need to talk about everybody's scores and backgrounds and all
that crap. So let's get into things.
It is a typical morning in Ponyville.
This takes place in Ponyville, by the way.
That's about their place. It's not Manhattan or something
like that. And the birds are singing.
Young Colts are delivering the latest copy of the Ponyville
Chronicle. People are packing up their
carts to go to the market. The sun isn't quite up yet, but
they're they're all getting to work.
The owls are tucking into their hollows to sleep.
That's what happens every day in Ponyville.
But today in Ponyville is a little bit different.
Because you see, normally the sun begins to rise around this
time. And today it doesn't.
No morning dawns on Equestria. Darkness envelops the land, and
the citizens of Ponyville panic. With no light, ponies collide
into each other in the middle of the street, Flying pegasi are
crashing into bushes, Farmers and artisans are like spilling
all their goods that they're supposed to deliver to the
market. Mayor.
Mayor calls out from their window, trying to keep everybody
calm, but nobody can hear above the noise.
Ponyville is a mess. Also, the sun hasn't risen.
Are the street lights like on a fucking timer that they just
like turned off but the sun wasn't up yet?
Look, they're very they they got their routine in Ponyville.
Everybody's doing their routine and they're all expecting the
sun to rise. And then it did.
And now chaos in the streets. My question for you is, we'll go
around and I want you to tell me real quick, what are you doing
in the morning? Maybe you wake up this early
around sunrise, or maybe you will be woken up by a cart
running into another cart or something like that near your
place. Just give me a quick snippet of
what your character is doing because I need to get you all
out into the darkness to try to deal with the things that are
going on. Oh, I suppose I should also
note, you hear maybe one or two people running in the streets
saying, where's Twilight? Isn't she supposed to solve this
sort of thing? And then somebody else says, I
think she's in the Crystal Empire.
Yeah. Is that to ask if this was like
a Ponyville timeline where like the main 6 have been a thing or
they haven't been a thing yet or they just don't exist or they
leave? No, it's it's clearly the
timeline with people in it. Oh, we're doing Equestria Girls.
Got it, got it, got it. No, no.
No, we're not doing well. Equestria Girls exist in an
alternate universe. You just have to step through
the magic mirror. But we're not doing that right
now. We don't need to go to Cancer.
Lot High. Oh, I will turn away from the
magic mirror then. OK, so anybody, if you have an
idea of what your character might be doing, let me know.
We're going to go around, tell me what you're doing.
So I want to volunteer earlier that I don't in case someone
like Heartstrings or someone else wants to come get me.
I think Balderdash is such a disaster that she is like true
to the stereotype of like almost a Kristen Bell type character.
There's all the disasters happening outside and she, like,
wakes up hearing, like, a car to scratch another part and then
just immediately goes back to sleep and, like, pulls the cover
over her head. OK?
Like there's an empty bag of chips spilling like crumbs out
onto the floor nearby. Love.
It perfect. OK, well I guess this will be a
very easy adventure for you if you remain adventure.
I mean I will join, I just wanted to establish.
No, it's totally fine. I love it.
I love.
It no, I mean this is your out. All right.
Yeah, See ya. I think, I think since
Heartstrings was invoked, I kind of have an idea.
I think maybe one of her many, like various small babysitting
gigs is that one of the kids that she cares for, she's
responsible for getting them awake into school on time.
I don't know if in Ponyville kids also have to be up and at
school at a very ridiculously early hour, but that makes.
You have to go see cheerily at some point, yeah.
Yeah, so and I think she is struggling because little kids
don't function well when the sun doesn't go that time that it's
supposed to go, Yes. So I think she's desperately
trying to keep, like, a very, very sleepy little kid.
Or Fuller Philly, I suppose, on schedule.
Well, it's just pitch black outside, OK.
And then if no one else goes to get balderdash, I'm sure she'll
pick up the slack. I can have her drag herself out
of bed if everyone else has. Everyone else has their own
thing to do and doesn't want to cater to me.
The protagonist of the. Here's a question balderdash.
If you're this much of a mess, are you in therapy by any
chance? Oh my God, I want to propose
something to you, Renee. Go ahead.
We establish that Balderdash is such a shitty con artist because
she has a conscience and so she's constantly broke.
What if, like, Honey Bowl insisted on giving her therapy?
Like saw like like. The pro bono.
He who shall not be named style saw her as someone he could
like, manipulate into being a better person or better pony.
Who says anything about manipulate?
I'm doing a pro bono, of course, Yes.
Of course, very, very. Night out of us very generous I.
Think it would be, really. Yeah.
I think the answer is yes if you agree to the idea that like it
was him insisting on her coming to therapy.
I love it. Renee is completely on board
with it. Doctor Lectra is standing by his
window, second story, drinking a very aromatic cup of dark
roaster Arabica espresso and looking at all the chaos with no
motion visible on his chiseled face.
In a few minutes, he puts the cup down, gets dressed and goes
to find either one of his patients.
The other of his patients is busy marshalling together a
street gang very inspired by Mad Max, saying that this is clearly
the end of the world. Oh boy, I think I might need to
find you first. I'm not.
Experienced with therapy, is this good?
Was that a joke, Mythic spice that you're putting together a
street gig for the end of the world?
This is just something that's happening off in the background.
Oh, it's like Pinky's doing something stupid in the
background. Exactly.
OK, you know what, I'm actually curious what will happen with
Mythic Spice, so I'm just going to let her go at it for a bit
longer while I go and find Alderdash.
We've strapped tires and spikes and stuff to a carriage.
Spike. Spike went to the Crystal
Empire. He's not here.
Oh, so I guess it's just metal protrusions then.
OK, yes. Yeah, you're marshalling
together, people. You see a honey bowl just
gliding overhead, just looking at you.
I wave tearfully. I give a reserved.
Nod, and then I go back to bolting things onto a carriage.
If you can even see each other in the dark.
Wait, we don't have dark vision? No, you don't have dark vision.
Do we have flashlights? You don't have a flashlight.
In fact, if you would like to see well in the darkness, I need
you to make a difficulty 15 alertness skill test to operate.
I am pulling up right now to prove if Ponyville does or does
not have lampposts. OK, I don't see.
Anything. I don't think it does.
I don't think it does either. I was doing some research.
Mayor Mayor once again pocketing Public Utilities funds.
Well Dang, I only have AG4IN alertness.
Yeah, you roll D20 plus the D4. That's how the the dice roll.
You always roll D20 and then you add your skill.
So this will be our, if you want to, this could be our first
roll. This could be sort of a sample
roll. Failing will not be too deadly.
You might run into somebody as you're flying through the air,
definitely, but. I rolled the 14 so while I see
something up there, I'm just waving to be friendly.
Errol the 19. OK, there you go.
You see Mythic Spice getting up to whatever nonsense they're
getting up to. You also see that there is a
little Pegasus stuck in a tree nearby saying help some pony
please help me. Maybe it's because I haven't
watched this show in 10 years, but still hearing where somebody
say stuff like every pony does put a mild fight or flight in
me. Buddy, you're gonna get ready.
Oh boy. You can just feel your brain
starting to rot. Let's do this, but before we do
any of that, Nathan, what is Blank Page doing?
He hears a bit of raucous steps out of like his house, looks
outside, immediately closes the door you hear shuffling around,
and then comes back out with an old timey like gas Lantern.
Because you've given me the perfect opportunity to go the
full Sherlock Holmes aesthetic, and I will use it.
OK, I'll let you. Yeah, sure.
You got your gas Lantern. The game is afoot.
From you it would sound like. Go over a foot.
Because you would have to be carrying the gas Lantern in your
mouth. OK, so I have to have this in my
mouth and do the southern accent at the same time.
Just a moment, no? No, you don't need.
To the guns are hot. There you go.
Not bad, not bad, Pretty good. The key is to just bite down on
my hand while I'm doing it and it works.
As you step outside you see chaos in the streets.
Standing in the middle of the street is an old green pony with
white hair. You maybe recognize her as
Granny Smith saying Oh my gosh darn, what's every pony hopping
and hollering as she is trying to cross the street and is
having difficulty? My God.
OK, step one, help this lady cross the street.
Step 2. I figure out what's going on.
Let's start with step one. All right, what sort of skill do
you want to use to help this lady cross the street that's
full of people who don't know where they're going?
You do not need to make an awareness check to see however,
because you established you have a Lantern.
Actually, because this is about like navigating through a
situation, could I use alertness as the scale for this?
2C Things is not going to actually get Granny Smith across
the road. OK.
I do have to actually. Yeah, yeah, right.
You could do maybe a Braun or Finesse tech, or you can even
try to persuade her to cross the road herself and not be afraid I
guess. I'm I'm almost OK at finesse.
I'll do that. What's the difficulty?
It's like difficulty 10. All right, rolled a 12 without
even adding my bonus die from my skills so.
OK, that's great. Let me help you across, ma'am.
These seem to be dark days, if you pardon the expression.
Where did the gosh darn sun go? What Darnay should happen to it?
That is an excellent question and I will be trying to find the
answer. What I want you to do, you're a
detective, right? You're a detective.
I am. All right, I had been saving up
all my bits for, well, a surgery, it doesn't matter, but
I want to hire you to find what happened to the sun and wear
that angry Stampede that almost ran me over when they were
running towards San for free. There he goes, young and seen a
good talking to I tell you what, and she gives you a a bag of
several bits. I am crazy.
Definitely giving these back to her by when this is over, She
said. This was for a surgery.
Got to get that hip replaced. It's crazy that this universe
has magic but no universal healthcare.
I was about to say yeah, healthcare in Ponyville sucks
apparently. Rainbow Dash is still paying off
those few days in the hospital. This feels like a good moment
for Mythic Spice to appear. OK, the street gang is what they
were crossing the street in front of.
We were all waiting, politely of course, but Mythic Spice sees
Granny Smith hand off these bits and old people money that should
be in my funeral home's pockets. Jesus.
Oh. My God.
Mythic spice. I'm going to need you to tone it
down to several degrees. This situation calls for calm.
Calm, calm. Got 2 honey bowl knocking on
Balderdash's door very politely. When she finally opens the door,
I think she has the thing Twilight sometimes has in the
show when like she's navigating the dark, like the big sort of
like glowy bit at the end of her horn.
She's just like, God what is it dude?
Do you know what time it is? I think that's another part of
why Doctor Electrod went to find balderdash in the first place.
Yeah, you're gonna, but it's like that to being a flashlight.
That OK would be really funny if the only reason Balder is like
gang pressed into helping on this adventures because she's
the only one who can. Fuck, that's not true.
We're friends. We're.
Friends. Yeah, Rudolph and Santa, we're
friends. Jesus.
I think it's like everyone else wants to go and fix this problem
and she's like, I'd like to stay at home.
And they're like, no, you're coming with us.
You're the only one who can function as a light.
Honey bow goes well. There seems to be some commotion
in the street. I just wanted to check on you.
Yeah, Doc, I'm, I'm doing just fine, thank you.
And she's already like, trying to close the door, like.
Very slowly. I just want to establish one
more time there is a little Philly Unicorn in a tree yelling
some pony. Please help me.
First of all, you said Pegasus. Second of all, I heard you
perfectly well. Yeah, they're not going
anywhere. I know.
I just, I just wanted to make that pony show up again.
I know you heard it. I'm really scared.
OK. Yeah, I think with that, Boulder
does stop closing the door. I think she actually, I think
she stops, starts to close it again and then like the Philly
once again, like starts like calling for help.
And then she finally rolls her eyes, opens the doors, and like,
trots past Honey Bowl toward wherever like that fucking tree
is presumably like, keep conversing with him along the
way. I think it is our duty as
citizens of Equestria to assist in any way we can.
You said duty, she says that she I know you're going to make me
roll for this stand, but I think she is going to try and use like
rudimentary Unicorn telekinesis to get the little Philly down.
OK. What do you get a role for that?
I don't have any specific spells that work for this, but I think
I do just straight up have yeah, telekinesis.
You could use your telekinesis, you could use your magic.
You could also use like finesse to like try to control like
bringing them down. Suppose you could also like
bring over a ladder and climb up.
Or I mean, maybe you don't even need to do it.
Maybe Honey Bowl could fly up there and help him get out of
the tree and you could just like the way.
I I was going to say I. Will observe for now.
OK. All right.
Observe OK. You got this homie.
I think I am going to use telekinesis.
I think depending on how tall you imagine this tree, we may be
fudging it because it does say that I can maneuver any object
from about 10 feet away, but whatever.
There aren't feet in this universe.
I don't think it matters. That's hooves it says.
I use smarts set of strength to move it and any skill test to
manipulate it uses alertness instead of my door.
Bronze, right? OK, thank you for checking that.
I forgot that that's how that worked.
I have already forgotten how anything works in this game.
What do you need me to? Roll alertness.
So that'll be you. Roll AD 20 and you add the die
that you have for alertness. What?
What do you have for alert? It looks like I have AD 4.
OK, so you roll D20 and AD 4 and add them together.
Fuck me, that is A9. I almost flew into a windmill
and now I'm here and I don't know how to get down because I
can't leave the mob and it's like really dark.
This is so funny, help me please.
Maybe this isn't what you're going for, but can I make a
suggestion for Alec that role manifests?
How does it look? I do pull her off the branch,
but I accidentally drop her on my head.
Can I catch her in the air? Yeah, difficulty 8 Acrobatics
flag check to catch her. OK, I get a edge on action skill
tests as a Pegasus when it involves acrobatics.
Yes, so would edge means you consider yourself to have a one
die higher for your bone to die? Perfect, huh?
I rolled another 19. Very nice.
OK. God damn you easily catch her.
Yes, very graciously, gracefully and graciously, I suppose.
Yeah, this was an act of benevolence.
Golly, Mr. You're. You're so nice.
And. And you too, I guess.
Yeah. My name's Cotton Cloudy and I'm
trying to go to school, but I don't even know how to get to
school. Do I know where the children's
school is? Yeah, there's like 1 school it's
on. I always imagined it's kind of
on the edge of town. You don't see a lot of houses
around it. That makes sense to me.
Also, they run through a forest while they sing a song.
If they're going to it, you're in a much later episode, but
whatever. I think this may be where the
the button gets pressed that I was alluding to earlier that I
think Balder's first instinct is when, like the little girl is
saying to Honey was like, I need help getting to school.
She's like, all right, cool, you can handle this, see you later.
But then like however the characters involved pointed out
realize, oh, they won't be able to see where they're going
unless I come with them. Yes.
Unless there's a crowd of children she can follow.
There is not actually. Maybe somebody specialized in
child care? Yes, that is somebody
specialized in child care. I was.
Actually going to have you guys meet her at the school is kind
of the thing that I was leaning towards there, yeah.
Come on, let's get you to school.
I'm a corona adult, why am I waking up on time for school
all? Right.
Fair. Nod.
Heartstrings, yes. So you are bringing your charge
to school and as you are going along it is dark but you know
the way even in the dark. But all of a sudden jumping out
in the trees it's a vampire fruit bat.
The fuck? Oh wait no, Oh no.
God damn it, it snips and snails dressed as vampire fruit bats.
How did they get this in so so little time?
Did they have this ready? They're old nightmare night
costumes. That's you boys.
Wow. Very talented.
Never, never do that again. We got you, We got you.
You got me. You got me really bad.
Do you want to try to like teach them a lesson or anything like
that? Or or you could be scared.
Either 1 is fine, I don't care. I think my ability to do
something is somewhat limited by it, like I'm not the boss of
them. But this is true, OK.
Heartstrings just goes cold and it's like get me a switch.
Unless you're going to do like intimidation or I guess Braun,
but no, we're not going to beat. Up.
No, I don't. I don't think heartstrings is
that kind of person. I do think, I think she, I, I
think she's like, you know, I have a very strong and powerful
heart. But if you do that to the wrong
pony, you could really hurt them.
So I'd I'd be careful about that.
If you'd like, you can make a persuasion test.
My persuasion's pretty good. I do have a specialization in
understanding. Is there any chance that that
could apply here? Not really.
Nope. Yeah, you're that's fair enough.
OK, just normal style then. Well, that's 22O.
OK. This is my best stat.
Go to childcare I guess, OK. Oh fuck right, this is also a
childcare role. So we didn't even factor in that
you would get a bonus because it's childcare.
Yeah, maybe. Yeah, my special talents is in
childcare, which gives me an upshift on any action, so it's
actually a higher role than that, but I'm not going to
bother. OK.
Oh, yeah, I guess that was kind of mean.
It was his idea. Oh, OK.
And they sort of take it off their costumes.
And I guess should we go to school then?
Or probably is school even happening today?
You know, I haven't heard anything to suggest that it
isn't. So the worst things that happens
is we all go and they send you home and you have a day off.
A day off. I go boy, fuck you.
What have you done? Well, I guess it would be a
night off considering there's no son.
She's got a child here, she's not immune, so making.
Mistakes. It's like saying treat around a
dog. That Snips who says that and
runs towards the school and Stale says do you know why the
sun's not here? You know, I don't, and I know
that can be a little scary, but I'm sure there are some very,
very smart ponies working their hardest to find out why.
Well, I there's that inventor, he's somebody, said The inventor
who lives on the edge of town is the reason the sun didn't go up.
I saw an angry mob going towards his house.
Is that so? Yeah, well, bye, bye.
I've done my exposition, so my role here is finished.
He runs after snips. They are chewing bubble gums so
this might end up causing a a problem.
But God, of course. I think everybody sort of, well,
I guess. Pony excuse you.
I was going to say Every Pony, but I guess not Blank Page and
Mythic Spice. Although make it through the
schoolhouse. Somehow, Blank Page has been
roped into a gathering outside Mayor Mayor's office, and Mythic
Mice is shouting Who knows, booty.
Bell. And waiting for people to chant
mythic spice or mayor and mayor. Really, we're trying to figure
out what the peoples are feeling here.
The polls are pretty rudimentary in booty film.
Like 6 different genres of show are happening across our human
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The show for you? Coming this scary season to your
phone not in AU two way but in a that's how we listen to podcasts
way anyway. It's a new story and little
places continuity, the Mcmangus archives and that I do a kissy
face at the camera. Yeah, a little bit.
We figure out Mayor, Mayor is still technically in charge, and
Mythic Spice calms down the street gang and says so weren't
we going to do something? Well, I Mythic Spice, I am
officially deputizing you to be the coroner for The Sun, but
hopefully the sun's not actually dead.
Well, I am pretty good at figuring out why stuff stays
down. Yeah, Jesus, you and Blake Page,
you don't want to solve things right?
It is true. Well, the mayor of Ponyville
would be very grateful if you did this for the town.
I'll bet she would Granny Smith. Granny Smith went to the market.
She's gone now. It's fun.
OK. This is mayor, mayor, mayor,
mayor saying this to you. Of course.
Yes. Well, we'll do our best.
Mayor. Mayor.
She also didn't offer any money but.
I'm I'm not getting paid for this one, am I?
I guess you never get paid for the apocalypses, you know,
because like. We don't need to say that a word
around here. It's fine.
Everything's fine. Everything's fine, Everything's
fine. Please tell everybody that
everything's fine. Ma'am, do you need a Xanax?
I thought recall was the word we're not supposed to say around
you. And she looks back out to the
the assembled citizens who are outside her office, also
demanding things. It says.
And don't worry citizens, everything will be fine.
And somewhere, filthy rich is plotting his plan to run from.
There, Jesus Christ, at what point do me and Honey Bowl get
to the schoolhouse? I don't know you.
You're there. You're at the schoolhouse.
It's fine. Everybody's at the schoolhouse.
Wow, almost everybody. I think we got lost blank page I
think. You got lost.
Let's litter around the schoolyard until someone tells
us where we should go. I think it might make more sense
for us 3 to go to the mayor's house because we have no
business being here actually. You're escorting the child to
the school. Yeah, yeah, they've done that.
Yeah, every. Let's just have everybody go to
the school so we can get get through it quicker.
Also, because there's one more thing at the school, you get to
the school. There are no Phillies or Colts
inside. But you do see Miss Cheerily
sitting on the front porch of the school saying, oh, hello,
we're supposed to have class this morning, but none of the
foals are here. Well, from what I can see you
have at least 2. Oh oh it's so good to see you 2
go inside. I guess we are having class
today. Go read the next chapter in your
books. Sniffs and sails.
Just look back at heartstrings. You fucked us.
Heartstrings, you fucked us. Yeah.
We'll never forget about this. I honestly thought Snips and
Snails was 1 pony no? Snips and Snails were two
different ponies. OK, so you have. 3 ponies,
technically. Yeah, there are 4 ponies sitting
in there. Yeah, par strings waits for all
of the Foals and Phillies to be out of ear shot and then she
goes. I am so sorry, Miss Julie.
No, it's fine. I just how am I supposed to
teach in the dark? I'm not prepared for this.
I I don't know if I'm a very good teacher.
Do you do you not have any candles, Miss Shirley?
I actually have a flashlight, but one flashlight is not going
to be enough for all of the children to be able to read
their books. Do you have a projector?
Does your question I have protectors?
I don't think we. No, definitely do, because they
watch the fucking short film. They watch the short.
Film how to do they do have protectors.
They slurp up all the water to Cloudsdale well.
There you go. Yeah, but they don't have one in
the school. Right into the school, yeah.
Underfunded. Madam, I think in these
circumstances your primary duty is to keep these children safe.
Heartstrings nods. A school A school should be the
safest place in the city, is it not?
Yes, yes, you're right, it should be.
Maybe I just hope I can keep them safe.
We're going to need to make some sort of social check to inspire
her, or some other check I guess.
Oh, Persuasion, Yeah. Can I help with this in any way?
You can. Friendship circle you.
Help people. You can do a friendship circle.
I could or I could just, I could use generosity of spirit.
I'm not sure if that's the time to use this.
I could step in with in the spirit of honesty as well.
We do have a few and I would gain a friendship point from
that. Lend assistance When multiple
ponies work together on a single task, 1 pony takes the lead and
everybody else helps. The leader is the one who makes
the role for the helpers. Leading assistance is considered
a standard action, and each helper gives a plus one shift to
the roller's role. My persuasion gets AD 6.
Well, so you start with AD 6 and for everybody who helps, they
have to have at least AD two in the skill that they are helping
with. And this is.
I do. Persuasion.
I have AD 4IN persuasion.
I also have AD 4IN persuasion and I'm gonna use a charge of
those who know teach which gives the benefits of my help for the
rest of the scene slash encounter instead of just the
skill test. Nice, great.
So what do I get? Well, so how many people are
helping here? There's three of us total.
Two of us are helping, I think. I think the other two are.
Still, So you're gonna roll AD 20 plus your What's your
persuasion diet? 6.
So you're gonna upgrade it twice to a 12?
Nice. No, you're gonna shit.
Persuade. This better at.
All this might be a. 10A little 10 Hey, we're figuring out the
mechanics. Yeah, it's fine.
This is also why I wanted to do these low stakes rolls to make
sure I remember how everything worked.
What's the difficulty? The difficulty is 14.
I unfortunately rolled like garbage.
I rolled an 11. Oh no.
Oh, this is a perfect time for Mythic spice to arrive.
OK. Well, if they can't read their
books, you can teach them about the darkness that dwells in
every pony's soul. Hi, Mythic Spice.
Hi Heartstrings. You'll have to forgive our
arrival. We got lost.
Or rather, I got a little lost and Mythic Spice has been
following me for the past 15 minutes.
Honey bull, you're here too. You could be a special guest
speaker on the topic. Well, as I do, always teach, the
only way to combat the darkness inside you is to embrace it.
Cultivate it as the inspiration that it is.
That doesn't sound right. Your patient is looking at you
like what the shit are you talking?
About another patented Honey Bowl lecture, as it were.
Very inspiring my friend. I don't know enough about
therapy to dispute it. I will say that Honey Bowl was
unsuccessful at cheering up cheerily if somebody, somebody
else could try to do it. But it can't be anybody who just
tried to help cheer up cheerily as well, because you were also
giving your. Yeah.
So the two people just came in. You could try to persuade her or
provide an alternate thing to her.
Or else you could just be like, well, good luck, cheerily.
I I don't have any, I don't have any infersuation.
I would just be rolling this straight D20.
You know what, you can make an alertness check if you would
like. To I'm so good at that help.
So I so I so I I rolled it. OK.
Did you add your other dye to it?
Yeah, hold. On cheerily sighs.
Thanks for bringing the ponies to school.
She puts her head in her hooves for a second.
It stands up, takes a deep breath, and goes back inside.
Grabs her flashlight, which she might have given to you if you
would help cheer her up or helped her in other ways, and
begins to walk around, pointing it at things that students are
supposed to be looking at in the beret.
One day at a time, cheerily. Yeah, yeah, it's too bad I
couldn't use my specialization in cheering ponies up there.
Oh well. I mean, you could.
Would you like to make a roll? No, it seems like the moments
past now. I kind of wish I hadn't helped
because I do have a thing of acting in the spirit of honesty
to gain a friendship point. And I think I could have like
done a like a brutal honesty moment with Cheerily.
Let's, let's. I think we've seen enough of
cheerily for darkness. Surely you're the new 6th member
of the squad? We'll leave the kids here.
It's fine. Quit your job.
That's our inventory party. Hold and secure, Charlie.
Hold and secure. The Cutie Rock Crusaders can
handle it. It's fine.
Put them in charge. Don't supervise them.
It'll be like the paper. It's fine that.
Works. So well, that work done so well.
Surely might not be good at her job actually.
So the gang is all together, You guys are all friends with each
other more or less. What would you like to do?
Some of you have been hired to solve the darkness problem.
Right. I'm going to deputize all of you
as well, and we're going to institute martial law first.
We are not going to institute martial law.
We do not have the authority to institute martial law.
That's why you're the good cup. I am not a police officer and
neither are you. Baldur leans over to
heartstrings and just whispers. We could leave right now and I
don't think they'd notice. I would I would bald the dash.
I've got mine say anything that. Wouldn't be very responsible.
Heartstrings would pass along what she heard from Snips and
Snails about the inventor on the edge of town.
So that everyone else also knows that.
Yes, yeah, and likewise everything that blank page heard
from Granny Smith as well. Yeah, and from Mayor.
Mayor. You also see going by at this
time, as you're chatting and getting your injury, you see
that mob that Granny Smith mentioned and one of them leads
over Good. Who's a pony would get pulled
into a mob in Ponyville. It's bulk bicep.
Bulk, bicep. Yeah, it's over.
Let's go. I heard that this is Widget's
fault. He built a thing of a jig that
broke the sun. Yeah, let's go.
Yeah. See this Bob of ponies is
holding torches as they're going towards the edge of time.
Now hold on, hold on, now hold on.
How do they get those ready so fast?
I honestly thought that was you mythic spice at the front of the
mob. Are you guys coming or what?
Oh my. God no.
I don't know that it's responsible to all of the
information necessarily. Oh, I know a lot of information.
What do you want to know? Information is woke.
Oh yeah. Am I the only Pegasus among us?
Yeah, you are, yes. I believe so.
Well, both biceps of Pegasus. He doesn't have very big wigs
though. Can I extinguish their torches?
What skill do you think you would like to use for that?
Probably acrobatics. Now you just get to fly around
and just like, start taking out their torches.
No, I'm going to cause a gust of wind powerful enough to do that.
Yeah, I guess with Pegasus flying is kind of all under
acrobatics. Flag is a specialization of
acrobatics, so. And does my those who know teach
still apply or is this the? Like we could say it's the same
scene. We could say it's the same scene
because you've spent your, your powers, the guys.
Expected. Yeah.
So you still, you still act as though I'm helping, even though
there's no conceivable way our streaks could be helping here.
Immortal support. I just need you to make me a
difficulty 10 acrobatic skill test.
Ten, yeah. So I get AD four and then
upshift it again, Yes. Oh yeah, from the health.
You're helping. That is a 17.
All right, I'm not going to say you've put out every single one
of the torches, but you've definitely sort of dispersed
this mob a little bit. Maybe a dozen of them are still
going to make their way towards their destination, but the angry
mob of like 70 people is not going to run at this one pony's
house on the edge of town. Today we have prevented mob
justice. Well, but not yet, because
there's still a miniature mob headed that way.
OK. Well, yeah.
We have mitigated mob justice. We have to work a little harder.
Hey, where'd my torch go? Oh, he's not bright, is he?
Not without a torch. His.
Name is Burley. Bicep, bulk bicep.
But yes, that's. Worse.
Yeah, Burley Bicep is his brother.
Don't you know? Widget says he's got an advice
that causes the sun sun to rise. And also, didn't you hear the he
got banished outside the town because his experiments kept
blowing up. And mayor, mayor said he
couldn't do the experiments in town anymore.
So somebody told me that that meant that he made the what?
I guess I didn't see anything explode.
He's got a device that makes the sunrise.
Isn't that heresy? Wait, yeah, I guess.
I guess Richard doesn't make the sunrise.
Now, Bicep, yeah, I understand that many things which nature
makes difficult becomes easy to the pony who uses his brains.
I understand why things might be a bit extra difficult for you,
but trust us, we will figure this out.
Oh, can I use persuasion? I don't think you need to roll.
I think he's ready to go. Like he's like, OK, OK, fine.
Yeah, I guess so. Those words were too
complicated, and now it's nap time for both biceps.
Yeah, maybe if I brought out a treadmill I could make
electricity. No, that might be too smart for
me to figure out. Whatever.
I'm out here. I'm going to go do some creatine
about this later. Dodge drink my stupid man.
My. Protein latte.
I do think maybe we should go check out the inventor's cabin
though, just in the name of maybe preventing some violence.
Yeah, that sounds about right. You turn around and just see a
little yellow dot in the distance, already walking toward
that adventure. She, Valder, was so fucking
exasperated how stupid that conversation was.
She started going. On wait balder that.
Yeah, and Spice is already there because they were.
They joined them all. One step help us I guess.
Unless mythic spice is gonna redirect the mob from inside.
No, no, I'll go up with them. You go up with them.
Well, you're the first one who sees it, but everybody else will
see it eventually. Though mostly in shadow from the
lights of the few torches that are remaining.
Widget's house sits between 2 trees shaped like Tesla coils,
with tall, thick branchless trunks and a crown of spiky
branches resembling sparks. It doesn't make sense, but
they're trees that look like Tesla coils with sparks coming
out of them. Utopiary thing.
OK, it's a gothic style home with long pointed arches, slim
columns, elaborately patterned windows, and a single tower that
reaches into the sky. The mob of ponies.
Well, the group of ponies. It's not really a Bob anymore.
The group of ponies with torches and pitchforks already surround
the home, saying come outside, fix the sun, come outside, fix
the sun. Mythic Spice is just gaping an
eye at this property and has discovered that it is her jam.
Yeah. There's a mini evil scientists
castle on the edge of town. Look, I've been waiting when
this property comes on sale for years.
Getting life. It just feels like such a great
place to work on dead bodies. On what?
I mean, you do work on dead bodies, your corridor that's.
Yeah, like. Maybe we could share?
I will say this, I'm not going to require you to make any
additional rolls to scare off these ponies.
I think just like tell them get out of here is going to work OK?
It's those two like gossipy ponies.
It's like Lily and Daisy and Rose, the annoying ones that
like run the flower shop. I could sing a song to cheer
them up. But do you have a song ready or
you get a Because, Russell, sometimes you just have songs
that you know, that you've like written out dramatically.
I don't think that you have that in this situation.
It's all over. I hope you got everything off
your chest. It's all over.
Back up your things, go home and rest, because everyone of us is
going to die. So is this really how you want
to spend your time? It's all over.
We'll all go. Just wait and see.
Got yourself some neat new memories.
It's all over. I'm counting around and counting
3123 because everyone of us is going to die.
Completely unavoidable. Don't even try.
Chat amongst yourself. Just say goodbye now, just one
more time to emphasize it's all over.
I used to be a pop star, so I've always got a song in my heart,
even if I am frequently looking at hearts that aren't beating.
Yeah, instead of dispersing the mob in like a grumbling going
back to their homes, you can disperse the mob and have them
be happy about it. And they're feeling a little
cheered up and also a little concerned because of the content
that was a 12. You know what great?
A pretty good song. All right, I can write a pretty
good song. Yeah, maybe.
Don't write an amazing song, write a pretty good one.
You didn't roll well enough for it to be amazing.
Thank God. Anyway, the mob has been
dispersed. So it is so fucking off the
rails. I I think as it disperses,
Balder just kind of like maneuvers her way through the
crowd, rolls up in front of the door like everyone else.
Every pony else is still like approaching or like waiting for
a clearer path. And I think up to this point
she's had like the same just kind of dead eyed, tired
expression on her face. But before knocking, she takes a
deep breath, closes her eyes at when she opens them.
Completely different pony. Like, not literally, she has not
cast an illusion, but it's like she has put on a sort of like
sales pony persona. It almost looks like like just
in her expression. And that is the point at which
she finally knocks on the door. Honey Bowl observes with a
quarter of a smile. Very true to the character.
Go away. Sorry, are you a professor?
Is it Professor widget? Yeah, go away.
I I don't know. I think I broke the sun.
Go away. Well.
If you broke the sun, we'd very much like to help you in fixing
it. It's broken.
Knocks again. As a fellow person of
intelligence, I know exactly how to reach people like this.
Yeah, that's what people of intelligence call themselves.
People of intelligence fuck. You.
Fuck you. Fuck you.
No. But professor, is it true that
frogs are reptiles? What?
If if you say something factually incorrect and are so
certain about it, it gets somebody to come out every time.
Is it true that frogs are reptiles?
Because I'm pretty certain that frogs are reptiles.
I have this running bet going with my friend you see.
The door opens. Ah, professor, there you are.
Inside you see Widget. Widget is a Gray earth pony with
a messy white mane and tail. His cutie mark is like 3 gears
that are also sort of in the shape of a lightning bolt.
He is wearing a lab coat and has goggles on the top of his head.
Wonderful. Works every time.
Wow, they're amphibians, he says.
And he does open the door for you guys because you guys are
trying to get his attention, but he doesn't really talk to you.
He sort of just walks back towards his bedroom and lays
back in bed. They're both wrong.
They're meat. What does the inside of his
house look like? Inside the front door is a sort
of living room kitchen area. There's dusty books piled over
every surface. Random bits and bobs of hardware
like gears and screws, knobs, fasteners are all over the
couch. Seems like he doesn't sit on the
couch much. Pin to the walls are diagrams of
gadgets and scribbled notes, and there is a sort of foul smell
coming from the kitchen, coming from a pile of dirty dishes next
to the sink, as well as a spoiled glass of milk next to
it. Jesus delicious.
I can't take this. There's like a little library,
he would call it a library, I would call it maybe 3
bookshelves in the corner of the room.
It's like bursting full of books and papers.
And there's like, there's a little hope chest next to it as
well. Oh wow, I love your picks of the
milk. Snipset almost vomits and it's
like love your house, professor. I cannot take a dirty kitchen,
can I, in the spirit of generosity, go and do his
fucking dishes. Yeah, that's, that's totally
fine. Yeah, that is going to be
helpful for him. Do I get a friendship point?
Oh yeah, I guess I'll get you a friendship point.
Yeah, absolutely. A friendship point, yeah.
Yeah, so Honey Bowl, without saying a word, just starts
gathering up the dishes and hauling him into the kitchen,
and you hear him clatter with the pots and pans.
Somehow there's Mozart playing in the background.
You're not sure where it's coming from.
Jesus. His bedroom, however, is
upstairs and you hear him sort of half heartedly calm down.
Things don't break anything. I am incensed, but I'm not going
to show it. Brother is not doing well.
No, clearly not. All right.
Where's this sun making machine? That was that was why Forestryx
was about to. Ask where's the?
Sun making machine. Maybe not in so many words.
Well, you're gonna have to go up to like his his bedroom to talk
to him. Unless you're just.
Oh, he's up there in the bedroom.
Yes, that he's. Got up to his bedroom.
Yeah. Yeah, I think Baldur is behind
heartstrings immediately. She's kind of employing con
artist mode here to try and if they need to charm this this
pony into helping them, she's going to do that.
Our space in her head is like wow Baldur really like gets her
shit together when she's talking to other people.
You also see that the stairs go up to a third floor as well, but
you're not quite up there yet. I like this place already.
The door is closed. I would like to knock on it.
Hi, I'm sorry I broke the sun. Please go away.
Well, I unfortunately, I don't think we can really do that
necessarily. You said you broke the sun.
Can I open the door? It's not.
It's just a little rude to talk through the door.
Thank you. Opens the door A.
Chair is pushed up against the door to keep you from opening
it. Can I use?
Kinesis to maneuver the chair out.
Of blocking the door. You have to be strings hard.
Strings. Hard strings.
Hard strings hard. Strings hard strings I OK so
Blaster so heartstrings is going to open the door, but like she
doesn't think she's forcing it open.
She's just strong. What's that what's that broad?
OK yeah cool. I've got that was.
Oh, that's a big. No, that's not going to get the
door open. I'm sorry.
That's all right. Yeah.
What's that door made of? Wood.
But you know, it's heavy wood. You weren't deliberately trying
to push it down yet. I'll spare you the first one of
the stress, but yeah, because you were just trying.
To what do you mean stress? Where's that?
Is that damage? Yeah, it'll count as damage, but
we don't, OK, We call it stress in this system most of the time
because, you know, you're not really, you're not really
getting killed. That's all.
That's all right. We can talk through the door.
So you said you broke the sun. Can you?
Maybe. I know that this is probably
really overwhelming, but is there a way that you could
specify a little what you mean by that?
I'm not that technically savvy so I'm afraid you'll have to
catch me up. I don't know.
It's my dad's thing. It doesn't.
Why won't you just leave me alone?
I'm a failure and everybody hates me and I can't do anything
right. Go away.
Let me sleep. Oh no.
Well, yeah, so let us fix it. My friend, we do not hate you.
On the contrary, we find your genius impressive.
I can't even get I can't even get my life together.
My house is a mess. I'm So what am I doing with my
life? Mythic Spice is holding a card
for the Stiffs and Stones Funeral Home.
Why? In case you need this later.
Oh, you know what? If you've been involved in the
Funeral Home, you remember his dad died a month ago.
Oh shit. Oh yeah.
OK. It was a nasty one too.
No, he died quietly in his sleep.
Yeah, but there was blood everywhere.
The death was not messy, it was the autopsy.
Mythic spice just really fucked it up.
Horror podcast, I guess guys, I can't even organize my I can't
even figure out how to live a life.
I'm so pointless and now I broke the.
Sun Well, we'd certainly like to help you get things back on
track. I'm in the kitchen doing dishes.
There's Mozart playing. There's a.
Oh, you're playing music? I actually like the idea of you
playing music. It's like what, You know what,
he's got like a Petrola, like he's got like a record player
there. You go.
Yeah. So I put on Mozart.
There's a bouquet of lavender on the freshly cleaned counter.
There's coffee brewing. I brought some eggs for
breakfast. What is that music?
Oh, that's that's Mozart. But what's the horse equivalent?
I often is. That eggs.
Eggs and bacon. Be careful, the kitchen's a
mess. He actually like, opens the door
to come downstairs to make sure that, like, you don't mess up.
And he's like, what? Yes, I'm wearing a white apron.
You don't know where any of this came from.
I'd also like to point out you can't be cooking bacon.
Hay bacon, that's fine. Yeah, it's it's hay bacon.
Bacon, Bacon. Smells like the real deal.
But being terrible has to be harder when everyone is in a
herbivore. Yeah, it's it's bacon.
It smells like the real deal. Where'd it come from?
There You. Go.
Not that any pony would know not have any frame of reference.
For it true, I do have a question.
Does Heartstrings know that his dad died recently?
Yeah, not unless Mythic Spice said anything about it.
Yeah. Oh, definitely, yeah.
Yeah. OK.
Oh, he's probably sad because his dad died.
That is what people do when their parents are dead.
Yeah. Yes, yes it is.
Bald her to herself with very alive parents.
I'm not sure I will. She said.
Well, thanks for helping clean up a little bit.
I mean, I guess I probably doomed the world to eternal
night, but. Nah, we've all been there.
Yeah. Statistically, probably
heartstrings is like, I think maybe he he's, he's out of the
room now, right? The bedroom, you can talk to him
if you would like or not. Your call.
You also, he's gone down to the kitchen, if you would like.
You could look around his bedroom if you would like.
Yeah. I think her first instinct is to
go talk to him. I think that that does leave an
opening for anyone else who wants to Snoop to do that.
Yes. Exactly.
Definitely. Snooping time.
Yeah. She can talk to him off screen
if people want to be like poking around.
Well, we could get back to the talk to him in a second, but you
guys could poke around the the bedroom if you'd like.
And I'm going to poke around the third floor when we're done with
this if I can. The third floor is his
laboratory. Bedroom first.
Do you think I sneak in first and you comment on it or you
sneak in first and realize I have come in after you?
I think the latter. Baldo, what on earth are you
doing? Trying to see if this guy has
anything about like what he did and how we can unbuck it.
Like come on, do we want, do we want to spend all night doing
therapy with him in Honey Bowl or do we want to go ahead and
solve this stupid problem so we can go back to bed?
I know which one you need. Sorry, that was out of pocket.
Let's let's look. Yeah, Buck, you too, dude.
Cut 2 honey bowls serving this guy eggs Benedict with
hollandaise and bacon. The perfect way to remember your
father. Jeez.
Oh. My.
God, yeah. It's really sweet and super
creepy just because of who you're who you're parroting when
you do it. Sprinkling herbs over top.
Rosemary for remembering. I want to bet you in the room
when you're looking in the bedroom there are several boxes
that are in the corner that are covered in dust.
One of them has been opened relatively recently and looks
like he was tearing it apart trying to find something.
Also, he has like 4 or five journals on the desks that he
seems like he was looking through trying to find
something. As you look at the journals,
they are not his own journals, but his father's journals
detailing various inventions. So it's journals.
And also a box full of seemingly half complete inventions as
well. But actually, as you're looking
around, you see one more thing. There is a mostly empty box that
is shoved under the bed. It's sticking out just a little
bit, and inside of it is a clearly smashed invention of
some sort. Huh.
Put a weird thing to serve in a box under a bed.
I I figure there's not going to be a label on it that says son
fucker 6000, but like, is there anything in it that like is
there anything we can tell from the smashed invention?
Look, it has a lot of gears, metal springs and screws and
stuff like that. Broken shards of transparent
rock with sparkling flecks of orange and gold.
I guess I should note note not this box, but the other boxes in
here as you're looking around. They're labeled Dad's stuff.
I could use my technology skill to look at this smashed up son
fucker 3000 or whatever it was. Yes, let's talk about that in
just a second. I want to go downstairs to the
conversation. I was honestly expecting mythic
spice to look at those boxes labeled dad's stuff and go I
know how to help with this and just cross out dad my.
So heartstrings, you said you had something you wanted to say
to widget here. I do think probably pretty much
every pony in town is aware that Heartstrings lost her parents
when she was very young. This is also me informing the
audience that Heartstrings lost her parents when she was very
young, so she probably. I remember that one.
Need to introduce the concept? Of course you do.
That's why we're friends. So I think as they sort of,
like, make their way downstairs, the smell of delicious cooking
foods setting the tone for the conversation, she says.
You know, I don't think anyone is expecting you to have
anything together under your circumstances.
It can feel like you have to pick up the slack when you're
left all alone, but you have the right to not be OK.
Well, maybe, but now I'm affecting everybody because, you
know, I made it so the sun doesn't rise anymore.
That might be true, but every pony makes mistakes.
And let's be honest, around here, every pony makes pretty
big mistakes all the time. So much you're hardly alone in
this. But I I dropped it and it it
shattered into pieces and now the sun isn't ever going to rise
again, no. No, no, no, Mr. Widget.
It's only things that we do for ourselves that die with us.
Things we do for others, well, they're beyond us.
OK. I think that's comforting.
I'm gonna try to maybe make a role if you think a role is
appropriate here. Yeah, you can roll.
What do you get? A role.
Can I use persuasion with understanding on this one?
Yes, you can. Yes.
Can I assist? You have persuasion?
Yeah. Yeah, you can assist.
Her, yeah. OK so that I have a
specialization which means I add AD four and AD 161718.
His living space is a little bit cleaner.
You guys are being very nice about knowing that it's OK that
he can't quite get it done. He does still feel bad because
he definitely thinks he broke the sun.
But you know, he's like, OK, you're right.
This isn't. This isn't what he would have
wanted anyway. Is there any possibility that
the sun going out and the thing you broke are not related?
What? No, no, no, no, no, no.
See, when I was a kid, my dad showed me the adventure that he
made, which brings the sun up every day.
So every night, but when I would go to bed and I would be worried
that the sun wouldn't come up, he would turn it to make sure
that the sun would come up. Every morning he helps Princess
Celestia, and without his help, without this device's help, the
sun won't come up. But I was trying to figure out
how it worked because it's very impressive, and then I dropped
it. What Is there a possibility that
your father was just being a very good parent, trying to
alleviate his child's anxiety? I'm sorry, what?
Not even it has not occurred to him ever in 1000.
I want to ask. A quick question I want to
establish a quick point of order that we kind of breezed past
earlier and now we need to establish Yeah, looking at
Widget from our perspective as ponies live in this world and
can roughly gauge the age of a person, how old in human years
does Professor Widget seem to be He's. 28.
Literally older than very Rd. ass man.
That was important to note. Older than me, older than me,
Nathan, the real everyone. Older than you.
Yeah, literally. But we didn't say this in our
introductions. Heartstrings is pony 21 maybe?
Yes. Yeah, and I I had to know
because I was realizing hold up. Either way, this is sad.
But is it like sad or sad? Is this like a very young man
who is like not finished growing up or is this a fully a grown
ass pony? Yes.
I want to know if if the like the thing that he's describing
squares with my understanding of how Celestia raises the sun.
But looking at my stats, I. Celestia just raises the sun.
Everybody knows Celestia raises the sun.
She's magic. Yeah, that's that's about what I
thought. So I I got it, yeah.
Yeah, go ahead, You're smarter than me.
No, no, no, no. I mean, I mean, I understood
what was happening there, yes. Yeah, yeah, no, this is
something that the dad made to make his kids feel better.
That does raise the question of why the sun is still not up.
Yeah. That just raises does raise this
question so. Yeah, I was gonna say, this kind
of puts us back to square 1. OK.
Wait, so are you telling me no, we need to fix it?
Maybe we can fix it. If we find my dad's notes and we
put everything together, we'll be able to fix it.
And if we fix it, we can make the sun go back up.
So. I'm going to pull you aside hard
strings and I'm going to say I'd imagine it would be very
therapeutic for him to find the notes and try to fix it.
So why won't we leave him to do that?
Well, we figure out the real reason you.
Know you make a very good point that is probably fine she's like
she's she's fighting down the impulse to insert herself into
the situation because she finds it relatable but.
Yes, well, if he and The thing is who's.
Right. He is not going to be able to
fix it by himself. He's going to need help to fix
it. Interesting.
OK. Meanwhile, back upstairs, I'm
going to go back upstairs to the people that we're looking at the
the broken device. So this seems to be a clockwork
device that has like a little, there's like a timer involved in
it. And after a certain amount of
time it would move the something, maybe with the
sparkling orange and gold like flecks of something of the
transparent rocks like that got moved around or something in
this little device. OK.
Yeah. I'll fix it.
Oh, you're just going to fix it right now?
You're going to fix it. And the spirit of laughter.
OK. What?
Just straight trying to fix it right now is ADC 20 science
check. If we work with other things to
try to put it together, we might be able to to fix it in another
way, but you can just try to fix it right away.
OK, DC 20 probably. I can't get that.
So I'll, I'll just keep it in my back pocket for the moment.
OK, no roll. See if you create.
I'll come down with this box of stuff that levitating it with
telekinesis because I'm a Unicorn.
Yeah, well, we can try and fix this, but I don't even know what
it looks like. In the meantime, can I poke
about their laboratory a little bit?
Yeah, absolutely. You know, I'm just curious.
Looks like a Frankenstein laboratory.
Yeah, that doesn't shock me. Anything of note in here or is
it just funky science stuff? You probably.
Can't identify anything unless you're all be a technology or a
science check. I do have technology so.
OK bro will be a technology check.
Oh Christ, the dice roller hates me today.
That's an 8 total. Woof.
Nope. Yeah, I didn't think so.
Well, I hope the solution to the mystery isn't up here.
Some sort of fake horn? Can you?
Well, if you want to help me fix it, I guess we could try to fix
it. I have my dad's old notes, but
it's hard to. We need to like go into town and
buy more supplies maybe. Or I don't have everything we
need here and we need some Sunstone and maybe somebody who
also knows about technology. I don't know.
I would say maybe you could find Starlight Glimmer, but she
doesn't exist yet. At this point in the continuity.
There's a guy, Doctor Hooves, who might be able to help out.
I don't know. Nobody has the time for that.
I forgot about Doctor. I forgot about the actual Doctor
Who Verity in this show. Yeah, nobody has time for that.
What's your idea then? I'm just making a time pun.
Oh God damn it, God damn. It.
I don't know how you missed that.
Damn. Here's what I want to do if you
guys want to help him fix this, even if it's mostly just going
to make him feel better. Each of you should tell me what
you want to do to help him fix it.
As he is saying, he feels like he doesn't have all the supplies
he needs because they're really expensive to replace.
He feels that he doesn't, he can't read his dad's old
handwriting. And also just, you know, he has
technology skill. But if you helped him with the
technology skill, that that would help us.
Well, any other ideas that might exist is also fine.
But I'm saying give me an idea of how you would help with this.
I could probably read cursive with my culture.
And interesting, I never thought of that as culture.
Fucking sure. Yeah, no, that makes perfect
sense to me. Kids these days.
He doesn't know how to read cursive this 28 year old.
When this is all I'm just going to leave my business card
inconspicuously on his desk somewhere.
On top of mine. On top of yours, yes.
OK, well it sounds like one people want to help decode the
diagrams. Who wants to make the role and
who's helping? Oh, I will help by holding
things because this was an earth pony and I have magic.
OK. I think I'm just literally still
being a a pony flashlight considering the situation.
You know what? That is helpful and you're
saying the thing that you are helping is just because he is an
earth pony, you are just assisting by just lifting things
up for telekinesis. Yeah, I'm holding 4 things for
him. So Balderdash is sort of just
providing the power of the sun in the palm of your hand.
OK, great Heartstrings. Is there anything that you could
think of that you would like to do to help repair this if you
would like to? You said he would.
He didn't feel like he had all the right tools and he didn't
have the money to get new ones. Oh yeah, I guess that is totally
your thing, isn't it? Yeah, yeah.
I can I got. All this in here.
I can help with building. You can get the stuff from town.
We've got a flashlight, we've got someone who can read
cursive. We can do this.
Blank page, Where did your accent go?
Sorry I'm just checking how my wealth perk works.
It's like a really long perk for some reason.
You can. Once per game session you can
automatically pass any skill. Yeah.
Is this a skill test that? Could be bought, you know, I was
gonna make you could just achieve it.
I could say you can get it right away with your wealth.
Yeah. Great money is sometimes does
impact to make the world go around.
OK, Honey Bowl. Doctor Electrode.
Yes, honey Bowl, if you would like to make a culture check to
read cursive. Yeah, I just did.
And Russell can confirm I ruled another 19.
Yep. Great.
Yeah, you're actually able to read the diagrams.
What do they say there? Are instructions on how to make
it okay, Sir? Yeah.
And blank page you were, what were you doing?
Blank page. I was going to assist with the
technology tech. OK, that's great.
So he. Actually, can I?
Can I take a friendship point for generosity behavior?
Absolutely. Get a friendship point.
Perfect. Yeah.
Mythic, spicier holding stuff, balderdash your lighting stuff.
I think what we're going to do is actually we're going to have
widget role to fix it, but we'll give it a boost, Yeah, so.
If he fucks this up that's going to be so sad.
The rate of mind boggling insanity in corners really went
down when they kicked earth boating this out of the
profession. I say holding stuff.
He would have failed without your shift because he rolled at
11, but he got a 10 because of your shift.
So wow, you have to give your assistant.
So he puts the thing together. One of the the main thing that
you provided heartstrings as well is you got a pretty rock to
put in there that's specifically called a Sunstone.
And he's like perfect. We did all right.
We fixed Equestria. He inserts the battery into the
sphere with a soft click. And by the way, this is all
taking place in the laboratory. It begins to hum with activity.
The gears turn of the low whir. The arm attached to the sphere
wiggles and jiggles and starts to move.
He smiles, and he's crying a little bit.
Well, not full on crying, but his eyes are brimming with tears
of relief and you know, remembering his dad.
Balderdash uncomfortably looks away because this is an outward
display of vulnerable emotion and she doesn't like that.
And it's fixed. But to maybe not your surprise.
But to his surprise, there is no dramatic shift in daylight.
The black of the night continues to cloak Equestria in darkness.
However, the device itself begins to jerk suddenly and
starts rattling as the arm that sort of functioned as a clock
begins to spin faster and faster, and then all of a sudden
it locks into position, pointing S like a compass.
Oh, it's a compass. What?
This is even stranger than I expected.
It looks like the sun. The sun is right where it's
always been. The sun must be in the sky.
I don't think, Princess. Oh, Dad.
We might not have fixed the sun, but I think we made something
beautiful here today. We may not have fixed the sun,
but we have fixed hoof on shoulder the sun it's credits
are. Wait, hang on.
I have questions. That is so good.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no. So 'cause if I and he, he runs
over to some other devices and he starts figuring out and doing
some stuff. Wait a minute, wait a minute,
wait a minute. OK, OK.
The sun is still in the sky. The sun is shining right now.
I never even look to look at my sun, Ometer, I just assumed it
was broken. But but the light and energy
from the sun is being diverted away somewhere.
It's sucking all of the energy from the sun.
And also, have you all been feeling a little less
enthusiastic today? Nope.
It's just, it almost feel like today is like kind of weird and
grimmer than normal in Ponyville.
It's like sort of a weird vibe that we're getting we.
Haven't really noticed much I. Just assumed that was.
I just assumed. That was because of the sun not
being in the sky. Maybe, maybe, but like, even if
the sun is in the sky, there shouldn't be mobs of people
trying to. I think someone's trying to suck
out all of the love from Ponyville again.
OK, my device is pointing to where the sucker is.
We should go there and. Sorry.
And turn off the sucker. We'll get that sucker.
Yeah. He sucked his last.
We we got to call it something else.
No, it's too late, Heartstrings. We're going after this sucker.
Come my friends, the game is a hook.
Once he's done sucking the love, he's going to have to suck
something else, and we can't have that happen all.
Right, we're going to need to go through the ever free forest to
get there. Everybody be careful.
Sorry, no, the what Boulder definitely like raises up when
he says that. Oh, what?
You've never taken a nightly stroll through the Ewa Free
Forest? Come Balda, this will be fun
all. Right as you go outside you see
that there's like 5 ponies who are saying hey widget, why'd you
break the sun? Widget didn't break the sun and.
Said I didn't break the sun. Get out of here.
Widget's dad broke the sun. Go home.
To. Other people, yeah.
Didn't we just go through this? There was a song about and
everything. It was a good song, not amazing,
but good. Heed it's words or they'll
happen to you. This is to show that Widget
could stand up for himself. He's like, no, no, it's I didn't
break the sun, but we're going to fix it right now.
And he runs off like at full speed into the ever free forest
and if. You don't.
And if you've somehow gotten this far into this episode
without knowing about the Everfree Forest, the Everfree
Forest is the part of Equestria where everything is all crazy
and wild, the weather isn't controlled and all of that.
There's like dangerous timber wolves and stuff that live
there. Timber Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
There you. Go.
MLP Mozart. So what's his full speed again?
He's going at a normal earth pony speed, which is probably
less fast than you as a Pegasus, right?
My my ground is 15, my aerial is 45.
OK, so you can actually sort of keep up with yeah cuz his is 45
as a yeah. Oh.
There you go. And you head into the ever free
forest. Thanks for listening, Happy
April Fools, and if you enjoyed this, you might enjoy The
Friendship Factory featuring Kane and Low Place's regular
Theo. If you didn't enjoy this, our
regular episodes will be on the same schedule as always, though
I guess I need to figure out when to put out the second
episode of this. Daniel was our jockey.
Kane played Heartstrings the earth pony.
Theo played Balderdash the Unicorn.
Renee played Honey Bowl, Lectra the Pegasus, Nathan played Blanc
Page the earth pony, and Russell mixed mastered in music the
episode in addition to playing the Unicorn Mythic Spice.
I will not be taking notes on the song because deadlines and
toddlers are a terrifying mix. We've got a 24 hour live stream
coming up April 17th that we are twice as unprepared for as last
year, a Discord where you can find out more about that, and a
Patreon where you can listen to stuff that doesn't make it into
the main feed over at patreon.com/dread Tails.
Again, thanks for listening and until next episode.
I will forsake of time. I thought there's I was
considering maybe having confused Timberwolves attack
you, but I think we'll we'll skip that and.
You unless we want to make it a 2 parter.
No, no, but it. Could it be easier if we just
split it down the middle here? I mean, do we want we?
Could I feel like if we're going to now is the time like and let
I I think the people at home would prefer 2 decent halves
than one like hole that falls apart in the last like 30
minutes to an hour. Yeah, I wanna do a Timberwolf
attack. I mean, I just, I want everybody
to know that I was ready to end this in one session.
I was absolutely ready to end this in one session.
People from my podcast are going to be like, oh, what a surprise.
Dado couldn't keep it all in one session.
Again, I'm gonna have you know that I was going to have it
ready for one session and we couldn't conclude it in one
session. We.
Are lying and we know it. It's OK Dan, I will know that
Theo bullied you into this. Theo's done it to me plenty of
times. Love you man.
Dang all our plans to never play this again after this.
They're falling apart in real time.
The. Game we could I'll.
Wait. Until after, What were you going
to say? What were you going to say?
I was going to say, the game's not that bad.
No, it's fun, I think. I think what Russell Russell is
saying is we clearly do want to play more of this like we're
having a great time. It's yeah.