Another mind-numbingly boring morning of history continued to suck the life out of Paperback. The everlasting minutes stretched on to infinity as the professor continued to lecture in a strangely hypnotic voice that attempted to convey excitement, but rambled on in such a monotonous way that any enthusiasm in it flew right over his head. Paperback spared a half glance at the wall behind him, where the clock was. Still another forty-five minutes to go of Early Equestrian Colonization. With a mental sigh, he tried futilely to turn his attention back to the lesson on Buffalo Migration and some of the earliest contacts with pony settlers.

He slowly realized that he was beginning to zone off again. This happened to him every now and then, when he wasn't doing enough with his mind. His thoughts began getting fuzzy, so he tried to reset his brain, blinking his eyes rapidly to kick-start it with activity.

Blink. Blinkblinkblinkblinkblinkblinkblinkblinkblink.

Damn it. I promised myself I wasn't going to do this anymore he thought, as the brief surge in energy allowed him to refocus on the endless slew of words drifting around his ears. Crinkling his nose, he forced his glasses up a bit farther on his face, staring at some of the information written on the board. He looked down, managing to use his levitation to pick up a pencil and jot down a few notes.

He already knew most of the facts being spewed at him by the shadow blue unicorn, so he put his pencil down, his right hoof propping his chin up as to resist the urge to sleep at his desk. He spared a brief glance at the other thirty-odd students sitting in desks around him. Not a single one had their eyes closed, or their heads propped up. The various mix of unicorns, pegasi, and earth ponies, to a one, were all listening in rapt attention with their eyes on the professor or studiously taking notes.

Was it just him then? Was he just so incapable of giving a single damn that he could now be certifiably classified as an asshole? He could feel himself slowing down again. His thoughts were starting to get sluggish and connect less often. Gotta kick-start his brain again.

Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink... Bli- Damn it...

His eyes refused to open again on his command. He had to reach up with the hoof he was using to rest his chin and push up on his forehead, and they snapped open.

Bright light filled his eyes as he stared down the hill. Down at the other end of the valley, the native buffalo known to be part of the militant group led by Sitting Bull prepared to move. His commander, Lieutenant Colonel Custard, was preparing the force for the surprise attack.

Around him were the thirty-odd stallions he was fighting with, dull armor barely reflecting the light of the early morning sun. Swords holstered on sides were ready to be drawn. Paperback beat at the ground with his front hoof nervously, eager yet terrified to begin. He rolled his dark orange shoulders, which shifted the shoulder armor he was wearing around uncomfortably.

The horn sounded, leading the entire force over the hill in a spectacular charge. Paperback himself was located in the front of the right column, shouting his battle cry with the rest of the forces. He glanced towards the central column, and saw golden-maned Custard gleefully galloping in front of his forces, already a length in front of the rest of his soldiers. It figured that the stallion's vanity wouldn't let him be anywhere else but at the front where everyone could see him.

The panicked buffalo blew trumpets of their own, and formed up far quicker than expected to mount a counter-charge. A hundred feet before the two armies connected, Paperback reached to his side and grabbed the hilt of his sword in his mouth, pulling it free as others around him did the same. Slowly the equestrian army spread out to surround the buffalo as the front line took the brunt of the attack. Thirty feet away, and Paperback already had his first target picked out. A bead of sweat ran down his cheek as he slowed down for a half second, gathering up all of his strength in his feet as he made a triumphant jump, intending to dispatch his foe with an easy blow...

His eyes opened. He found himself staring at the blackboard at the front of the room, his right hoof pressing into his jaw, with the dusty professor continuing on with his lecture. Paperback could feel minute amounts of adrenaline pumping through his body, urging him to run, jump, do anything to get active. Trying to calm down after the intense daydream, he turned to look at the clock. Had that much time really passed? Only five minutes were left of the class. Gritting his teeth silently, he forced himself to levitate his pencil and write out facts and dates, even if he already knew the information being given to him...

------------

Sweet Celestia, he was finally free. Paperback was one of the first to throw on his saddlepack and trot merrily out of the door. The whole daydreaming bit was embarrassing, but at least he hadn't woken up to find that he had accidentally charged the teacher. He used to have a bout of sleepwalking for a few years when he was a young colt, but luckily he hadn't had an episode of that since middle school.

Somewhere in the maze of ponies that made up the student body of Saddleside Community College were his friends, few as they were. Traversing the sprawling campus was a chore, taking a good twenty minutes to walk from one end to the other. At last he spotted his friends, the four of them sitting at a table; books were out, but no one was really studying, instead choosing to gossip over the latest happenings in the gaming and cinema world.

“Gentlecolts.” Paperback said simply, nudging a cream-coated pegasus over a bit to make room for him. Rough Sketch complied, wordlessly shifting the sketchbook that he was doodling in to the left, not even taking his eyes off of the page. Despite being a good artist, Rough Sketch's cutie mark was actually a bottle of Mr Pepper soda. It was no mystery that he liked the stuff, often going through a two liter bottle every day, but as to why it was his cutie mark remained unknown to the rest of the group.

Rough Sketch often called Paperback's cutie mark of a blank, open book too mainstream, at which point Paperback's retort would come that Sketch refused a mark of a pencil or some other symbol denoting an artist simply because he was a hipster. Rough Sketch would vehemently deny such accusations, and the verbal blows would trade back and forth for another minute before both refused to speak to each other for a whole half hour. Good friends make up however, and unspoken apologies made sure that the two never stayed enemies for long. Besides, they gamed together. The group would flounder if a rift drove any of them apart.

To the right of Paperback sat the unofficial 'Leader' of the group, which was kind of stretching it since they mostly decided on whatever they did as a team. Story Roller was a light blue unicorn that really only got the title because they met at his house every Saturday to roll dice, and he ran quite an engaging tale as a dungeonmaster. The evidence was further backed up by the image of a gold twenty-sided die adorning his flanks, the universal image of the tabletop fantasy game they all enjoyed.

Across the table from Story Roller sat Sweet Nothing, who were both fiercely dismantling and criticizing the ending of the newly released game Magic Effect 3, and completely ignored Paperback's entrance. Sweet was a rather pessimistic, and at times nihilistic, yellow earth pony with a white mane; the perfect colors to contradict his negative and sometimes abrasive personality.

“-I'm just saying that the ending totally didn't live up to anyone's expectations!” Story Roller said, an edge of hysteria in his voice, throwing wildly into the air. Paperback didn't bother to buy the new Magic Effect game, and now that the endings were spoiled for him by the group there really wasn't any point to it.

Sweet Nothing looked ready to throw his face into his hooves in exasperation as he replied, “I know! I've been saying that I agree with you this entire time! Why are we still talking about it!?!”

A very awkward pause followed this statement as the two of them stared past each other for a moment, refusing to make direct eye contact.

Paperback cleared his throat, signaling that he was now going to start a new conversation. Both faces turned towards him. Story Roller's with that small angry frown he always wore when he felt like he lost something, Sweet Nothing with his head on one of his hooves and a sarcastic and condescending smile on his face. Pausing for the appropriate second-and-a-half, Paperback continued. “So, Roller, are we gonna game this weekend?”

Story Roller let that stretched out 'Hmm' out of his frown as he thought about how to deliver his words. When he finally decided to start speaking after a few seconds, the news he delivered was not good. “Well, we can't really do anything this weekend because my dad finally got me that internship at his company... So between that and my homework we're going to have to put off D&D for a couple of weeks until I can figure out how to balance everything out.

Paperback gave out groan and threw his head up, tossing his messy, medium length brown mane that almost reached his eyes behind his head as he rolled his green eyes around. “Oh c'mon! I need to game! I've beaten all the video games I have to the point of dullness, and my book list is empty. I'll be dead from boredom by Monday.”

“You still have those bits that you were saving for an occasion like this, right? Just spend those and buy Magic Effect or something.” Story Roller countered, giving a shrug.

“Yeah, I do, but you guys have already bought and spoiled the ending of every game worth playing that's come out in the past six months, not to mention all the others.” Paperback sighed, giving in to his fate of misery that was coming up. Story Roller shrugged again, unsure or not caring enough to say anything.

At that moment, the fourth pony, sitting across from Paperback, conveniently decided join the conversation. Java Bean, a shorter brown earth pony that was the brains of the group, looked up from his laptop and whatever piece of code he was writing and spoke up. “Y'know, Paperback, if you need a new game to try, there's supposed to be this really high-tech MMO that comes out tomorrow.”

“A new game coming out, and none of you are talking about it? Have you all replaced yourselves with changelings when I wasn't looking?” Paperback said in mock disbelief.

“You know that MMO's in general aren't really our thing, Paperback, much less fantasy ones. We did discuss the technology that this one is using in the group forum though, if you remember.” Of course Paperback didn't. Whenever the group geeked out over a new piece of hardware he usually stopped paying attention, not being a tech pony as some of the others were. Java Bean continued. “Well, this game is supposed to be using state of the art Virtual Reality technology, something that's still supposed to be at least ten years away. How they finished it this early, I'll never know, but we're all getting one of the headsets because it's compatible with a lot of the new games they're releasing.”

Paperback looked disbelieving as the concept of functional VR technology.“Virtual Reality's supposed to be one of those urban legends of the technology world, isn't it? What's this game called, anyways? I might as well look it up.”

------------

Opening up a search bar, Paperback's horn lit up in a red glow as he used his telekinesis to type in the words. Equestrian... Earth...

This certainly looked like a promising game. The graphics were some of the best around, and if this Interactive Pony Visor thing was to believed, the virtual reality would maintain three-dimensional realism while allowing massive open-world exploration. In a massive multiplayer game, too. Paperback could only imagine the amount of data space required to operate such a thing. Magic was certainly involved in one way or another. What kept the system running mostly glitch free? Did they have a team of a hundred moderators working around the clock to ensure that nothing broke?

A few clicks later, and he found the trailer teaser. Sweet Celestia, the cinematic looked amazing. It seemed that a main plotline of the game or a final villain of sort was being hinted at, but it was rather vague and ambiguous. Not to mention that it was completely overshadowed by the various characters on the screen swinging swords, casting confusing cantrips, and performing amazing aerial acrobatics. Whatever it was, it would probably show up in a release update in a couple months, when enough ponies reached whatever preset level they determined.

Another click later, and he found himself staring at a video of the gameplay. It started out looking out into the distance, as the horizon of far off mountains slowly moved. The character recording from first-person perspective must have been a pegasus, because it suddenly took off, zooming off of a ledge to the ground below, only to swoop up at the last minute for the viewer to see, an entire city flying and being pulled by dragons. As amazing as that is, there is no way that is physically possible. The pegasus soared back up, above the city spires, and gazed down at other players and NPC's littering the streets below. Other pastel ponies flew the skies with the recording pony. All of them were dressed in fantasy armor that looked so real that Paperback refused to believe that graphics became this good almost overnight. This was obviously just some elaborate hoax to fool him, right?

There was only one way to find out. He emptied out his emergency gaming fund from the lock box underneath his bed, and piled all the bits into a bag which he placed in his saddlepack. He could just walk from his apartment in suburban Las Pegasus to the game store just a few blocks away, place an order, and come back to get it tomorrow afternoon.

As he rounded the corner of the street to the game store, his jaw dropped. A line of ponies, already stretching forty to fifty long, were camped out in front of the store in an orderly line going around the game store corner, nearly two. No other games were scheduled to be released tonight, so this entire line of college age gamers must be here for this new game, this Equestrian Earth. Looking at the front window of the shop, he saw posters covering all of the windows, more than half of them advertising the new game, and the other half advertising the Interactive Pony Visor. Whoever runs the company that made these will have so much money by tomorrow, that it might even rival the royal treasury.

He made his way around the sides of the store, falling into line behind a green earth pony lounging on a lawn chair with a pair of shades over his eyes. Paperback had a hard time figuring out whether the stallion who looked to be the same age as him was awake or asleep. He stared for another moment, until sighing and sitting down next to him, marking his spot in line. It was only one fifteen or so. It would be a long wait till the midnight release, but he might as well. If he waited until tomorrow, they might sell out. Who knows how many people planned on showing up later?

Suddenly, the apparently sleeping pony next to him shifted up his shades, and gave Paperback a goofy grin that stretched across most of his face. “'Sup?” he said, in an languid tone. “You here for the game too?”

Paperback shuffled his front hooves pensively, trying to think of a way to edge himself out of conversation without hurting this easygoing pony's feelings. Social contact was not his strong point. While he had a social phobia when he was a younger colt, now it was just a plain introverted personality with a deep dislike for conversation with unknown people. “Um. Yeah. Only heard about it today.” He would have said more but was suddenly cut off by the pony

“Only heard about Equestrian Earth today? Aw dude, where have you been living for the past six months? Under a rock farm?” Genuine surprise stretched across the green pony's face, oblivious to the fact that not everyone kept up with the latest happenings in the gaming world.

Paperback rubbed one of his front legs with the other in a rather embarrassed manner as he hung his head. “Well, I don't play video games that much. Usually I read or I play dugedadagon...” He started mumbling incoherently. He was loathe to say the name of his tabletop RPG around people, it being the trademark of nerds everywhere.

“Whoa dude, Dungeons and Dragons? That is the game, the grandaddy which spawned all the cool stuff we play now, including the game we're waiting for.” Paperback's ears perked up. This laid-back cool colt knew about his game and the history of it?

“You know about the game?” Paperback said with mild surprise, no longer with his head looking down. Next to him, the green pony had the cheesiest grin plastered all over his face at that moment.

“Know the game? Mate, I lived and breathed that stuff for a few years back in middle and high school. I'm kinda over it now, but everypony's gotta know the roots of all their hobbies. I still keep all the old rules for 3.5 and Pathfinder tucked in right back here.” At this he tapped the back of his head with a hoof, pushing his messy black mane everywhere. “I played a rogue. Eventually learned all the talents and feats needed to min-max that sucker until the DM almost kicked me out of the group.”

“M'names Rusty, by the way. Rusty Nail.” The green pony said, holding out a hoof from where he was reclined on the lawn chair.

“Mine's Paperback. Pleasure to meet you.” Paperback said, taking the hoof in a firm shake. Anyone who shared the hobby of the eldest fantasy game deserved respect. There was much that they could discuss together.

------------

“- So max damage from sneak attack dice using underhanded? There's almost no situation where that talent would be useful!” Paperback countered.

“Normally, yeah, but you're forgetting about the max ranks in stealth combined with being a small creature. Not to mention the stacking bonuses from a Chameleon Ring and Glamored Armor.” Rusty Nail explained, the smirk on his face having barely left even once during the conversation

“Yeah, but even so, most DM's will catch on quick and roll surprise encounters on you, then you won't get to hide and won't get the bonus.”

“You've never played a rogue have you? First rule of being an assassin rogue, always dip in Shadowdancer for Hide in Plain Sight.”

“At a minus ten penalty, even with stealthy sniper, you still have to be spotted sometimes.”

“It happens, but you have to understand that by the time I was level fourteen I was getting a stealth bonus of forty eight.”

“I call bull. There's no way.”

“Hah! Do the math. Seventeen ranks in sneak. Fifteen from the bonus from item enchantments. Four for being a small creature. Eight from my dexterity modifier, and another six from skill focus.”

Paperback was already mentally adding all the numbers as Rusty listed them off. He groaned in frustration, for Rusty was right. Rogues were the easiest class to break in the Pathfinder variant of Dungeons and Dragons. “I concede defeat this time. Rogues are indeed overpowered.”

The two of them had been going back and forth about Dungeons and Dragons for quite a while now, and had covered most of the aspects of the game; from how to make Paladins viable, to how all DM's are cruel, and even a hilarious story told by Rusty Nail about the time the DM ran them through a railroad plot for three sessions before all the players threatened to quit. Now they were back to the topic of Rusty's min-maxed rogue, and Paperback was eagerly taking mental notes to use against Story Roller sometime.

Rusty suddenly turned around and stared off into the distance, concentration intently on something that Paperback couldn't see or hear. “What is it, Rusty?”

Rusty turned back to Paperback and groaned in frustration. “It's three thirty, mate. The peace and quiet is gonna be over soon. The schools just let out, and I know that all the gamer colts are gonna be charging down here with their allowance money from the past four months to buy this game.”

Paperback shuddered involuntarily. It's not that the middle and high school student population was bad, necessarily, it's just that there happened to be several thousand of them. Even if a fraction of them wanted the game on the opening night, and split themselves into equal groups among all the game stores in Las Pegasus, there was still going to be several hundred if not more cackling, hyperactive, swearing colts lined up behind them.

“Mate, I figure we got about fifteen minutes before the little demons of Tartarus start arriving, so I'm going to pop over to the nearest sub shop and get me enough food to last the rest of the night. You want me to grab you anything?” Rusty said, finally detaching himself from the lawn chair that he had been almost glued to for the past two-plus hours.

“I have twelve extra bits on me. Grab me two sandwiches?” Paperback said, levitating out the coins and dropping them into a pack that Rusty had hanging from his shoulder. Rusty Nail nodded, and wandered off to the sub shop down the road at a leisurely pace. Paperback breathed a sigh of relief. He rather liked this Nail fellow, but talking with him could be exhausting. The pony could just keep on going until the stars were out, and then keep chatting some more. At least the conversations were intelligent.

Rusty's prediction turned out to be accurate as fifteen minutes approached and already the first group of gabbling colts approached the game store, happily squealing about how awesome the game was going to be. Thank Celestia that some other groups had arrived before the colts did earlier in the day, so that Paperback did not have to be in their immediate vicinity. A half hour went by from when Rusty left, and the line now stretched over a hundred and fifty long, winding around three and a half sides of the store and now working on going down past the street.

Finally, Rusty Nail could be seen meandering down the street, several sandwiches, bags of chips, and bottles of soda threatening to burst his overstuffed sack. It seemed at first that he was just passing by, with no intention of jumping in the line, until suddenly he spun around and a sandwich launched out of the sack, directly at Paperback's face. “Catch!” being the only warning given.

With the highly tuned reflexes of a sloth and the grace of a hippo, Paperback suddenly leaned backwards to avoid the flying lunch, managing to trip over his own back hooves and fall over on the ground. The sandwich flew three feet to the right and two feet above where Paperback's head had been a moment before.

“Heh. You could have just used your fancy magic to catch that, you know.” Nail said, chortling merrily as he slid his way back into the line. Many of the squealing colts that saw this immediately began vocally expressing their complaint, with choice words that would make their language teacher put them in a corner. Rusty Nail promptly responded by turning around and facing the accusers, giving them a hearty salute and a descriptive suggestion about where they could put their game once they got it.

“Colorful.” Paperback responded simply to the display of egregious language that just transpired. More poorly constructed insults issued forth from the challenging colts, but most were simply resigning themselves to the fact that no one was coming to pull this obvious line cutter out. Most of the older gamers, the college level ones and even some of the high school colts, were giving knowing nods. The unspoken gamer code decrees that friends may hold spots for each other for cases of snack foraging and bathroom expeditions.

“Anyways, I'm not really the greatest at magic. So, yeah. I don't catch things well when they're flying at my head.” Paperback continued, dusting himself off of dirt that he just collected from the concrete.

“Good to know. I'll keep that in mind for when I want to see you trip over yourself again.” Rusty said, giving a sardonic grin. He pulled out the rest of the food, and the feast began.

------------

The day wore on and soon Celestia's yellow sun turned to red and disappeared over the horizon, giving way to Luna's moon, which shone a brilliant silver crescent over the camping gamers. Stars which would normally be vibrant in the sky were dimmed by the light pollution of streetlamps and whatever lanterns and flashlights the gamers brought with them to keep their card games going on late into the evening. Paperback and Rusty had spent the rest of the afternoon playing gin rummy with the trio of ponies in front of them, and the later part of the evening when it was too dark out to keep play was spent with the two of them telling each other stories about their life.

Rusty Nail, despite being a rather bright colt, had decided to not go to college after graduating high school. Instead he opted to join a garage, where he could tinker with wagons and all other sorts of machinery and get paid for it. Nothing kept him occupied like finding a new piece of machinery, taking it apart, and then trying to figure out how to put it back together again. He had struck out on his own a few months ago, and now rented a small flat next to his workplace. Rusty was full of stories about things that he had 'accidentally' broken, sometimes with hilariously disastrous outcomes. The only thing that he enjoyed as much as fixing things was playing games, and winning at them.

In return, Paperback told Rusty about his quiet, socially sheltered life. His overprotective mother who kept him from having fun outside was the main cause of him turning into an introvert who spent more time with books than with friends. He didn't really have much of a plan for his future, he was thinking he'd get a major in film and then try his luck being a cameraman for the booming movie industry. He saw gaming as more of an escape from a rather tedious life, and eagerly turned to it with obsession.

As it neared closer to midnight, Rusty Nail had finally slowed down on talking, and now the two of them were resting; Rusty Nail in his chair, Paperback curled up in a reasonably comfortable position on the ground. All the food had been eaten hours ago and Paperback had thrown away the trash in a dumpster, Rusty Nail protecting his spot as per the gamer code.

Now Paperback felt simply drained. He didn’t think he had talked this much with anyone in quite a few years. The social pony inside of him was currently holding the energy bucket upside down, shaking it while saying, Well, time to go read a book. Paperback hadn't let anyone get into his personal space ball of social activity this quickly before, but the green pony lounging next to him had that sort of infectious personality that got inside you.

Finally, a clock tower nearby struck midnight, and the front doors of the game shop swung open. A wide cheer erupted from many of the gamers, the earliest of which had shown up eighteen hours ago. Paperback himself was too tired to cheer, but let himself wear an exhausted smile. Rusty Nails jumped up and was already back to his indefatigable self, wearing a grin of excitement that stretched from ear to ear.

The line moved quickly. Ponies were shepherded in and out of the store by an assistant in groups of five, and Paperback and Rusty Nails managed to make it to the storefront in less than twenty minutes. As they entered the front door, Paperback had to squint his eyes to adjust to the sudden light, and as his vision returned, he saw the glorious sight of the far wall behind the cashier. Stacked with boxes to the ceiling, every single one of them contained an Interactive Pony Visor and a copy of Equestrian Earth for direct download to a machine.

Silently, with an ironic humor, he realized that he had come to the store early in the afternoon with low expectations, and had let himself be caught up in the hype of the game. Now here he was, letting himself shell out the last of his gaming bits until he could find a job and have his parents stop supporting him financially.

As he exited the store with a shiny box held within his levitation magic, he couldn't help but feel a bit giddy, even with how exhausted he was. Rusty Nail came out right beside him, his box doing a balancing act with one corner in his knapsack and the rest of it balanced on his back, grinning like an idiot all the while.

“Think I should tell all those foals in the back of the line that there's no way that there's going to be enough for all of them?” Rusty Nail said, a malicious glint in his eye.

“Rusty, I do believe that you just delight in causing misery and a touch of chaos.” Paperback said, eying his new friend.

“Of course! They'll be able to come back in a few days when they restock anyways, and this way I save them the trouble of standing in line for another half hour.” Rusty laughed.

“You're terrible. Do what you want, I'm going to go home and sleep. Need help getting your lawn chair balanced with the game?”

“Nah. Ratty old thing wasn't even mine anyways. Found it sitting on the sidewalk in front of somepony's house on the way here. Somepony can take it home as a consolation prize. Don't get mugged on the way home, and I just might see you on E.E. tomorrow.”

“It's a plan then. You have what I'm making my username as?”

“Yep. You still have mine, so eventually one of us will find the other. See you in the morning.”

The two of them finished their goodbye's and went off in their separate directions. Rusty Nail went to go break the bad news to the middle school students still waiting in line, and Paperback headed back to his apartment to catch up on some much needed sleep.

As Paperback locked the door behind him, he carefully lowered the game onto the desk next to the computer, where he could gaze at it, and open it up for the game. He planned on letting it download throughout the night, and would figure out how the Interactive Visor worked in the morning. Sliding the disk into the CD tray, he was given the silent satisfaction of seeing the downloading bar pop up onto the screen, moving at a reasonable pace. It would be done in a few hours, but he had no intention of staying up that long. Collapsing into his bed, he quickly surrendered himself to dreams.