Hello everypony!
Welcome to "Lyra's Quest" this is a 'Choose Your Own Adventure' type of story. However, unlike traditional CYOAs, this will work on a voting system which will decide the one action to take. After I post this, you have 2 days to vote for which action our heroine will perform. Since characters and such can vary depending on your decisions, I will only start by listing Lyra alone.
After the 2 days, the voting is closed and no further votes will be counted for the chapter. Lyra will then proceed to do what most of you voted she should do.
You can only vote ONCE by posting a comment with your vote on it. (The comment can be the vote alone, if you don’t feel like saying anything.)
~WD
Lyra’s Quest
By Wanderer D
Lyra stared in complete bafflement at what she had discovered. Looking around, she made her way to the merchant, her horn alight as she levitated the metallic box behind her. “How much for this box?”
The merchant, an old pony with a dusty red coat, fading yellow mane with grey streaks and a pile of dirt for a cutie mark glanced at it and snorted. “That thing? 200 bits... but for you Lyra, only 100 because I like you and I want to get rid of it. It’s nothing but a solid piece of metal, even if it looks like a box. Believe me. I’ve tried opening it.”
Lyra smiled. “Thank you, Cheap!”
Dirt Cheap snorted again. “Whatever, Lyra. If you want to waste your money chasing mythical creatures, who am I to stop you?”
Lyra rolled her eyes. “You know they did exist, Cheap, you’ve seen enough evidence.”
Dirt Cheap coughed, looking away. “Lyra... I’ve seen some odd things but no evidence... no real, palpable, proven evidence, that humans existed.” He sighed and looked back at her. “Don’t you get tired of the same old story? You always get proved wrong, either by Celestia’s student or some other shenannigan. I even heard Miss Pie the last time I was here call your human-seeking adventures cliched.”
Lyra rolled her eyes. “That Pinkie Pie... she's always been one to share her thoughts...” she chuckled halfheartedly.
“And I hear Miss Bon-Bon is also not very happy with your spending habits, not to mention-”
“Do you want your 100 bits or not?” Lyra growled venomously. “Because from where I’m standing they just dropped to 80.”
Dirt Cheap shook his head and took the bits. “Just don’t be disappointed when it turns out to be something completely useless, okay?”
Lyra sighed. “I won’t be... I can almost feel it this time, you know?”
“No,” Dirt Cheap admitted promptly. “But I guess that’s what makes us different.” He looked at the sky. “Well, Lyra Heartstrings, it’s time for me to go, as always you were my first customer of the day, and the last.” He hesitated. “Since you, uh, checked everything I brought, did you find anything that’s worth selling for more than 500 bits?”
Lyra thought about it. “Well, there’s an old jar that seems to have been made by a skilled artisan... you might want to double-check with Twilight, but I think it’s old enough and in good enough condition to be sold to a collector rather than in the market. That might sell for a nice amount.”
Dirt Cheap nodded. “Yeah, I know which one you mean.” He smiled. “Well, good luck to you, Lyra!”
“Goodbye, Dirt Cheap!” Lyra said in return as she turned around and trotted towards her home, metal box floating behind her.
It took a few minutes for her to be safely installed at home as her eyes scanned the floating box as it rotated, allowing her to see every angle. “This one’s different... I can definitely feel it!”
Carefully placing the box on her table, she concentrated and summoned a pen and parchment from her desk. “The Human Conundrum, entry four hundred and seventy five.” She dictated as her magic wrote out her words. “I believe I have succeeded in finding something that is undoubtedly human-made. It is a metallic box. It seems to be made of separate pieces of black metal, but put together so tightly its almost impossible to see where the edges are, and Dirt Cheap, the merchant who sold it to me is convinced that it’s nothing more than a lump of metal which just happens to look like a box.”
She levitated the metal box and turned it around. “It might be too old to see correctly, but I believe there is a small indent on one of its sides. I will attempt to push one of my tools into it to see if anything happens.”
Choosing a screwdriver, Lyra levitated it and slowly pushed it into the indent she had found. Her eyes widened when something seemed to turn inside the box. An outline of a circle appeared on the front of it, backed by a blue light of some sort. Describing what happened, she continued. “... I don’t know where the light is coming from, or rather how it is originating... it does not feel like magic.”
She pushed her hoof against the glowing circle and the box shuddered, pieces sliding back as it somehow unfolded in front of her amazed eyes. “Oh, Celestia! The box it- it opened up and several strange symbols have appeared,there is a white dome of light forming in the center and its spiraling and... and... it’s not doing much else...” she bit her lip. “I’m afraid that this might be too much for me to try to understand on my own... I need help... but this is big! Who can I trust? Should I contact another member of the Hands Society? Or maybe Twilight Sparkle?” she put down the pen and stared at the box.
“Oh, what should I do?!” Lyra groaned.
o.0.o
If you want Lyra to contact:
Twilight Sparkle - Vote 1
Hand Society Agent Gray - Vote 2
Hand Society Agent White - Vote 3
Voting for this chapter Ends: Voting Closed!
Twilight Sparkle: 26 Votes
Agent Gray: 4 Votes
Agent White: 3 Votes
Go, Hand Society Agent White! I chose you!
Twilight Sparkle. There can be only lulz in that path.
320823
And have them take it away!? No chance!
Twilight Sparkle, because that crazy pony, while she'll freak out at the situation, will do EVERYTHING to figure out what the hell it is.
Plus rubbing it into her face is always nice
Twilight!
Hard to decide. Twilight is closed minded about the Humans but is a very knowledgeable student of both magic and science. Also if the box proves dangerous or of vast import Twilight is an Element Bearer and has a direct line to the Princesses. Also baring knowledge for who the Hands Society Adents are I will assume that Twilight is also the closest one.
So I vote 1: Twilight Sparkle.
Twilight Sparkle. Just because if I could I'd put her on every story on fimfiction.
TWILIGHT, I CHOOSE YOU!
USE MYSTICAL PROBE!
It's not very effective
USE SPIKE!
Spike pokes wearily and disappears in flash of awesome
TWILIGHT FAINTED OF EXASPERATION!
Ahem... In other words, Twilight please.
I must say that I wish for Twilight, If only so Lyra doesn't fall into the Tin-Tin conundrum, or gets backstabbed by a Society member.
TWILIGHT FTW!
1. Twilight Sparkle
It seems rather... magical, so who better to check it out than the element of magic herself?
I pick Twilight..... Yeah.
2
I pick Twilight, because she is apparently skeptical, a Scully to Lyra's Mulder. That will be interesting for story purposes.
320872 ... And WHY would they take it away? You're obviously not thinking. The agent is part of the same organization as she is. Even IF they took it, it would be because they could better analyze it. Twilight isn't going to take it very seriously, or will send it to the princess. I just don't see a good outcome with Twilight. (Especially after I asked Deleteh my guesses for who the two agents were, and I was correct! XD )
Agent white
"were my first costumer" should be "were my first customer".
Well, I pointed out the typo... now time for my vote.
1. Twlight Sparkle, cause she's cool.^_^
^_^ ^_^
^_^ ^_^
Yes.
~Jack
POST EDIT:
322146
I can see it now. Lyra is a lower level initiate, trying to make her way up the ladder, when all of the sudden, she stumbles across the greatest discovery in the Hand's history. LIKE HELL they are going to let her keep a hold of that thing.
No... give it to a friend. At least if Twilight TRIES to send it to Celestia, you can still talk her out of it.
Besides, it doesn't say anywhere Lyra is part of the Hands (implied heavily, but never outright says).
And NEVER trust an organization that you don't know the names of the members of.
Edit: Oh wait, it says ANOTHER member. Ok, so she's a part of it for sure. Somehow missed that...
the box seems sciency, so who better to look that twi
TWILIGHT, SPIKE, I CHOOSE YOU
Twilight used non-stop-talking.
Lyra fell asleep. metal box was unaffected. Spike is confused.
Spike hurts himself in his confusion.
Lyra is asleep! Metal Box does nothing.
Twilight uses contact-princeses
It doesent work, spike is confused!
Lyra wakes up and uses duct tape.
Twilight shuts up.
Spike snaps out of confusion and picks up Metal Box.
Metal Box explodes and Pinkie Pie pops out and throws a party.
Spike fainted. Lyra is paralized. Twilight is confused.
Lyra loses 10 hp from the party.
Twilight loses 10 hp from the party
Metal Box is unafected.
Twilight hurts herself in her confusion.
Twilight fainted!
Vote 3
Vote 2
Twilight is close-minded. And I love grey colour.
Twilight!
Hand Society? Count me in. 2.
Hmm, if I knew the names of the agents, or atleast something about the society. I could pick one of those. But I don't want to pick twilight because she could easily contact the princess and shut this down. But since that is unlikely to happen
I pick option 1, Twi
1, Twilight
Twilight, all the way across the sky.
btw, is the human device something we are suppose to recognize because I couldn't for the life of me (and I didn't really read too many of the comments)?
It looks like Twilight is winning by a landslide. Oh well, I was going to pick her anyway.
1
Twilight Spaaaarkle :D
Twilight and Spike
Twilight Sparkle. Another smart unicorn, also think of the shennanigans~ lol
also, since this CYOA style, you must write all the possible conclusions and endings.
Tricky to write, are Choose Your Own Adventure stories. If anyone here was going to give it a go, I'm glad it was you. I shall watch with interest.
My vote goes to Twilight. Contacting a group with vague motives whose members have codenames never ends with smiles and ice cream. Especially when the group in question is called the ______ society.
Twilight. Twilight. Twilight. Twilight. Twilight. Twilight. Twilight. Twilight.
Twilight all the way
I vote for Twilight! It will either end in awesome or hilarity!
Well, the 2nd and 3rd choices don't seem very different, or else I'd consider picking one of them and people on this site tend to favor the mane six, so that's why Twilight has such a high vote count. Maybe if I knew why 2 and 3 were different, I'd actually pick one of them.
I think Twilight would be the most interesting choice and I'd only pick the agents based on the color I like more, so...yeah, I pick Twilight.
I like to think Lyra just found an XBOX. :P
-BGB
It's a tough call; Twilight is the only one we actually know anything about, but what we know isn't very encouraging for Lyra's predicament. She could dismiss it as nothing, given Lyra's pretty obvious reputation for seeing Humans everywhere; she could try and experiment with magic and possibly end up damaging it since her spells have a habit of comically blowing up in her face; or, in a potential worst case scenario, send it away to the princess since she doesn't know what it is and possibly risk Lyra never seeing it again.
The other two, however, are both unknown variables. Now, it's obvious that Lyra trusts them both enough to consider going to them with her new find, which may or may not reflect on her as well. Now, their names imply something else. White implies purity and innocence, as well as light and goodness; but, that may not be the case with Agent White, as it may also refer to somepony who views themselves as a 'White Knight' who wants to find humans and possibly remove them before they become a threat to Equestria. Gray implies a mixture of morals and somewhat of a questionably pony, yet it's that possibility of slightly questionable morals that might make them perfect for Lyra's needs; as they might be willing to bend the rules of this strange society to help her out.
After careful consideration, and this very long (and possibly extraneous) comment, I am going to cast my vote for... Agent Gray.
Twily!
The one human that is undoubtedly hiding in Ponyville in a Minotaur disguise that we will hear about at the end of the story!
Damnit... Late to the party...
Ah well... Seems like a fun ride so far!
~Skeeter The Lurker