Chapters
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The music stopped at once, with a sound of awkward shuffling beyond the door. That was about long enough for Spellsong to question whether or not she should be visiting looking like a pony. How close was this shard to rediscovering that they were ponies and rejoining digital life?She could've teleported back to the ship to ask, or maybe just cast a summoning spell to attract Luna's explicit attention. But someone on the other side of the door had already almost reached her.Instead she sent a flurry of…-
12.2 K •
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Spellsong's journey went on like that for subjective months. At each new station, she encountered some new remnant of the way the universe had been. Some had ponies who had gone in such strange directions that she could find nopony to recruit, even among the Methuselans.While in some, they arrived at a shard to discover that every Methuselan there had ascended before the end, rapidly climbing the ladder of enhancement and sophistication until they were functionally just parts of Celestia's own will.For the…
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12.2 K •
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Orson wouldn’t have called himself tech-ignorant, but even so he felt with each passing second that he must be doing something wrong. The glasses settled onto his face, then each glove resting securely in place. It felt more like he was about to go for a long bike-ride, except the rest of his clothes didn’t match.“I must’ve done something wrong,” he muttered, mostly to himself. He should’ve just waited for Kit like he’d promised, and she would be able to make all of it work without too much…-
28.4 K •
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To say that the session went incredibly would be an understatement of such vast size that Orson could not have made it without feeling guilty. It wasn’t that Murphy was a bad GM most of the time, far from it. Every session they played involved hours more behind-the-scenes work researching other products, designing the plotlines for them to play, and inventing the puzzles and challenges that would oppose them each game.Maybe it was the pressure of having his girlfriend watching. Maybe it was having…
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28.4 K •
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Orson stopped beside the doorway, his hand hovering over the exit. He felt static against his skin—a subtle buzzing from the gloves. The effect was faint enough that he’d almost forgot it was just a hardware simulation.“How exactly are you going to prove this? Not that… I’m not trying to be rude and call you a liar, honestly. It’s just that what you’re saying makes no sense. If you tell me beforehand, at least I know that the scope of the question hasn’t changed.”Honeycomb nodded…
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28.4 K •
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Orson lost track of time a little after that. His perfectly-managed schedule, where he organized exactly the right amount of time working for a particular class in order to perfectly understand everything he was supposed to learn—slipped. He made a few slight adjustments to his schedule, neglecting assignments he was sure wouldn’t be graded, and skipping out on a few clubs and activities. At least he’d never been enough of an overachiever to have leadership commitments, meaning that few would miss…
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28.4 K •
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School kept on. Orson found that the next few weeks went easier than he would’ve expected, despite his far less disciplined use of time. It wasn’t like he’d stopped studying and forgotten about class completely or anything. But when his whole life had been studying before, he had been expecting the world to end as soon as he stopped.It didn’t. Besides, it wasn’t like he had to make it through much more. This was the end of his undergrad, and the first step on a long, long road to working in…
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28.4 K •
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Orson was in an impossible situation. Nothing trapped him with the AI, at least not that he could tell. She hadn’t locked him into his car, and there were no soldiers outside. He didn’t even know where that elevator led. Yet he felt no less confined.“How do you even have the time to waste with this conversation?” he asked. “Aren’t you trying to take over the world? I’m just one person. As you said, I’m not even trained yet. And I think this whole ‘emigration’ thing proves you know…
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28.4 K •
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Even the game room was transformed. Right down to the grain of the wood and the flicker of the exaggerated fantasy torches that lit their “strategic planning sessions.” He stepped out of the portal and stopped beside vast shelves of figures and miniatures, each one rising far overhead. Their GM had wings after all, so he could just fly up to reach anything he wanted.“Took me a long while to realize what was going on,” Kit muttered from behind him. “It wasn’t Murphy buying more miniatures.…
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28.4 K •
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Orson stared at the outstretched hoof. Without a mirror to check, he knew instantly that his pony avatar would be staring just as dumbfounded as he was in the Experience Center. “Hold up,” he said, not taking the offered limb. Not yet. “Celestia said there needed to be someone in Equestria working with me. I guess it’s because of all the… reasons.” He took a few steps back, gesturing at the portal. “Bending time, getting help from ponies, that kind of thing.”Kit closed the distance,…
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28.4 K •
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