Story time! by Nomine

 

(23/05/2022)

 

 

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The colt smiled to himself as he awoke one Saturday morning. The sun was shining, the air was fresh and clear, and it was the first day of a long weekend, woohoo! He had plans, alright. It was going to be an amazing and awesome day!

 

First on the list, Breakfast! The most important meal of the day! A nice mixture of eggs, an orange, toast, and some of his cereal. Mom said the cereal wasn’t healthy, but he always ignored her. The commercials said it was part of this complete breakfast, so it had to be healthy!

 

Then, chores. He had a room to clean, and trash to take out. His homework still needed to be finished, so he did that too, grumbling all the while. Finally, though, after all that extra work, it was time! Time to go and enjoy the Sunshine and…

 

CRACK!

BOOM!

 

Went the clouds in the sky right as his hoof touched the door. And as he watched in horror, a sheet of water came washing down, drowning his hopes of playing outside for the rest of the day.

 

The colt gpaned to himself. Great. Another weekend rainstorm. Why didn't anypony tell colts and fillies when the Weather Teams were planning storms?! He could have taken his time with his chores…

 

Sighing, he turned and shut the door again, plodding back into the house. Then he perked up! Board games! This was perfect Board Game weather!

 

The thought parent to the deed, he ran to the garage where Dad kept the games, darting inside and grabbing his favorite one. As he carried it back in, he grinned. He just hoped he could convince Mom and Dad to play with him. Really, the game needed four players but they made it work.

 

As he set his copy of Betrayal down on the table, he rubbed his hooves together. Maybe this time he would get to be the traitor. Maybe even get to be the Ouroborus...that one was awesome!

 

Pulling the cover off the box, however, revealed a horrifying sight.

 

Mold. Mildew. Covering all of the pieces! All the tokens...ruined!

 

It was too much for the colt, and he slammed his hooves down on the floor. "Ohh…" he said, about to say a naughty word before his Dad's head poked in.

 

"Something the matter, son?" He asked, the stallion striding inside.

 

"It's our Betrayal game...it's ruined! Some water must have gotten into the box…" the colt said, sniffing. It was his favorite game…

 

Dad took a look in and winced. "Jeez...yeah, that doesn't look good. Teach us both to store things like that a bit higher on the shelf, huh?" He said.

 

As his son nodded, Dad smiled. "Fortunately, I think I have a solution. Wait here." He said, then walked off.

 

As his son waited, carefully touching his old friends, his Dad returned with a bag of game pieces.

 

"Here we are...I picked up these replacement tokens a few weeks ago. Got them for a song...they can't grow mold and mildew on them." He said, passing the bag to his colt.

 

"Wait, no matter what? How did you manage that?" He asked, opening the bag and carefully beginning to sort them out.

 

Dad took the old tokens, carefully stacking them to clean them off later. "Well, about a year or so back, there was a unicorn who figured out a spell that could prevent mildew and mold from growing on things. Handy spell, but there was a catch...it was very magic intensive. And it only worked on small objects like game pieces." He said.

 

His son nodded, looking over the new ones. "They're warm…" he said in surprise.

 

"That's how the spell works. It keeps them warm enough that the spores can't take root, too dry." Dad said, then chuckled. "Actually, it caused a bit of a craze for a while. Ponies were paying top bits for pieces with their face on them, or custom game art for their favorite board game. And the pony who created the spell kept saying it would be the next big thing too...that he would expand it to disrupt the entire industry of cleaning." Dad continued, bagging up the old tokens and setting them aside.

 

"So what happened? You said you got these for a song…" his son asked.

 

"Well, it got to the point where ponies were paying thousands of bits for these things, just because it was a novelty, no mold or mildew on them. There were massive investments in them, all sorts of shenanigans. Then, one day, one pony just stood up and said "Wait...why are we all paying lots of bits for these silly little tokens, just because they can't get mildewed and have our pictures on them?!" Dad said, chuckling.

 

"That pretty much brought everything to a halt, as everypony realized how stupid they'd been. The ponies who were charging lots of bits to create the things were left high and dry, no one was willing to pay that price for them anymore. That's how I got these for a song...the guy was desperate to get what he could for them."

 

The son looked down and nodded. "I guess that makes sense...but isn't this supposed to be a spanking story?" He asked.

 

"What? Did the knuckleheads who invested in Non Fungi-ble tokens not get spanked enough for you?