Pubs stink.
The fragrance of the Nasty Cloak was just as the title described, a rancid mask of beer, ale, yeast, and, unsurprisingly, vomit. Ponies drowning their sorrows in drink were sprawled on pool tables, rolling on the floor, moaning in either faint pain or faint pleasure, sometimes both, if they had been binging for the second, third, or fourth time this week. It was a poor neighborhood, save for the pub owner, who was swimming in coins and petty change almost as much as the bar’s clientele were swimming in alcohol. That is, of course, if he didn’t gamble it all away at the casino farther downtown.
Absently, Daring Do wondered why in the world she still came here.
In the midst of all the drunken antics of fifteen stallions and the occasional mare being shared amongst them, nopony would suspect a major handoff being made, which may have been the reason for her presence in the joint. Either that, or perhaps it was nice to just sit for once, wine cooler in hoof, and not wonder if your saddlebag full of treasure was going to get pilfered by one of the mugs who so fervently overused the term, ‘it’s just business.’
As for the smell, well, Daring had her sense of it blasted out a few years ago by the flames of the modestly ancient Spazarak temple, among other grievous injuries, both to body and mind. She preferred not to think of it.
Taking another sip of her strong, sweet drink, Daring Do once again rubbed the side of her bags, feeling a small, hard stone inside. It was the fruit of her latest labor to the Crystal Kingdom, which had apparently reappeared just a few weeks ago. After a quick ‘vacation’ to the depths of the citystate’s library, she determined there was, in fact, treasure to be had in the alternate universe that was the Kingdom Crystál.
That, however, is a tale for another time.
Tuning out the casual drunken melodies mashed together by the drinkers and the drunkards as one particularly artistic pony smashed his head on the piano for others’ amusement, Daring hunched over the bar and took another sip.
The bartender, a tall, well-built stallion with a handsome face and a wry grin, walked up to her. He was a good friend of hers (though in this case she used the term ‘friend' rather loosely), and he negotiated all her deals. “Hey, Depeche,” she said, greeting him with a nod. “It’s getting late.”
“Hope you weren’t planning on leaving so soon? S’only about nine,” Depeche stated, wiping off the counter with a cloth that may have been dirtier than the bar itself.
“Rough day. I want to get this off my hooves and home as soon as I can,” she replied.
He nodded. “They just arrived, and they’re waiting out back. You have the... ‘this?’”
Daring nodded, reaching into her saddlebags and pulling a stone wrapped in cloth. Despite its insulation, a faint blue glow still permeated the fabric. After turning her head to check whether or not anypony was watching, she pulled just enough cloth off the jewel for Depeche to see.
The first time she had showed him one of her treasures, his eyes had widened and nearly burst out of their sockets. Now, after a few years of working together, he merely examined it, appraising its worth. He moistened his lips. “Do, I think I might’ve underpriced this little piece of history.”
Daring laughed, quickly covering it again. “Like it?”
“My opinion doesn’t matter as much as our buyers’. They’re out back, gimmie a minute and I’ll come back with the cash,” Depeche said before quickly levitating the cloth parcel and jogging to the back of the alleyway.
Daring Do didn’t directly work with her buyers, and neither did Depeche, actually. They operated through a black market trade with the most valuable jewels, selling the artifacts to Canterlot barons or the occasional noble. A representative of the Lewry, as the market came to be called, met them and exchanged the cash for whatever Daring managed to dredge up from ancient ruins or temples that were too dangerous for your ordinary archeologist, or those that simply weren’t open to the public at all.
Depeche was her second business associate of his kind, actually. There had been one before him, also a good friend of Daring’s. However, a big-time baron of the Lewry thought he could get away with playing unfair. He didn’t realize that Daring’s primary line of work was breaking and entering, and lost his fortune because of it.
Again, though, that is a story for another time.
Depeche returned after a few minutes with a heavy set of saddlebags. Daring didn’t need to ask what was inside, and Depeche had already checked.
“How’d it go?” she asked, her eyes once again darting from side to side, searching for anypony who possibly had their eyes on the bulging bags.
“A quarter millions bits in Solar notes,” Depeche grunted, softly lowering the bags onto the table. “Still think we got ripped off. Twenty-twenty hindsight, right?”
Daring shrugged, taking a final sip of her cooler. “It’ll pay the bills. Thanks, Depeche.”
“No problem. One more thing before you rush off, though,” Depeche said as Daring slung the packs onto her back effortlessly and began to make for the door. “The mare said something as soon as she saw it.”
“Yeah?” Daring asked, verifying that she was, in fact, paying attention.
“‘Watch out for the green,’” Depeche recited. “That mean anything to you?”
Daring swallowed, thinking. “...No, not really.”
“Well, just take care,” Depeche said, frowning, though he picked up his rag and began to wipe the filthy countertop again.
With a shrug more confident than she felt, Daring said her farewells and exited the pub, straddling her burden into the dark Manehattan streets. It was about a fifteen minute walk from the pub to her home in the uptown suburbs.
With her semi-legitimate earnings, she had managed to secure one of the newest in a line of cookie-cutter MacMansions, built by the Estate family. She had just moved in a month ago, though, and even though her sense of direction was sharpened to the point of absurdity, every second out in the open was nearly as torturous as the journey to get the bounty itself. Luckily, there were streetlights to light her way.
Confidently strutting into the open with her saddlebags nearly bursting with cash, Daring strolled down the road to her destination, using the public beacons to guide her path. It was a cool night, but because it was so late, no pegasi were bothering to clear the thick clouds that blanketed the sky, as if even the moon itself had to take a quick snooze.
She was about two minutes into her walk before she heard a crack behind her, like a bolt of lightning. She had heard the sound so many times in her journeys it was starting to become almost familiar, but she stopped dead in her tracks when the lights suddenly faded to black.
The power lines must have shorted.
Now, with the roads steeped in darkness so deep she could barely see her own hooves and not even halfway to her home yet, Daring Do would be forced to trek all the way to her house, at night, carrying saddlebags brimming with cold hard cash.
Great, she muttered under her breath. I wonder what could go wrong?
In the dark, Daring Do knew, every sense was magnified to compensate for the lack of sight. Her ears began to twitch from overstimulus; she could hear every creak, every crack, every one of her hoofsteps, and every heave of her saddlebags as she inched forward, waiting for her eyes to adjust.
This wasn’t the best community, she knew. The schools were terrible. That, and any pony with saddlebags or even a fancy manecut was target for being mugged, or worse. Daring knew she could fight off any band of thugs without sustaining injury herself, she had done so several times in the past—just not in the dark.
Bad things tended to happen to her in the dark.
Tentatively, she stepped forward, hearing her hoofstep echo off the empty alleyways, rebound through the silent streets. She considered returning to the pub, but spending the night in there was almost as horrifying a prospect as getting the pulp beat out of her and losing a modest fortune.
Money didn’t grow on trees, she had once told a companion who had his head lopped off by an axe a few minutes later. Money fermented in the depths of ancient temples and historical sites. And she knew that if her prize escaped her now, she would have to go prospecting again, and, eventually, inevitably, share the same fate as her twelfth adventuring associate. Namely, to be lost and never seen again.
She made a habit going over how each of her cohorts had perished up until current day. All attracted to her wealth of knowledge (or so they said; she suspected the primary reason they stalked her was the first word rather than the latter two), those in the know came to her and offered their services whenever she took an abnormally long vacation. Once, out of whimsy, she took one to Corral Beach that one time she actually did decide she needed a break from it all. Somehow she still managed to find a new species of carnivorous plant a mile or two underground. That was her fifth cohort.
Refining her already iron nerves into steel, she started to walk, reciting the list to keep herself busy. She didn’t care about the individuals themselves, but the reminders helped her keep her guard up. Poisoned, by dart. He fell to the ground and was probably dead within the hour, though she didn’t stick around to check. Busy outrunning angry natives and all. She was sure he understood.
Darkness seemed to stretch the roads, bend the buildings, throw everything out of perspective. She wasn’t afraid of the dark, she used to tell herself. She was afraid of what hid inside. But, after an extensive therapy session with her seventh cohort as they traversed the Tomb of Rot, she had to admit that the dark could be slightly frightening, in the right circumstances. The dark played with the mind, created things, phantoms, apparitions to plague whoever dared invade its depths. Every corner was a mob boss, every trash can a mugger.
And it didn’t help in the least when she saw a bright green light blink quickly on, then off, in her peripheral vision.
Whipping to the right, she ordered, though it sounded more like a yelp, “Show yourself!”
She heard nothing in response.
Taking a deep breath, she tried to compose herself, though in her heart she knew she just alerted every gangster within three blocks to her position. Most of them learned the hard way to stay away from her, but with her sounding so frightened, and with her saddlebags full to bursting the way they were only after a cash deal, they might just risk it. The dark didn’t phase them, they lived in it; they were used to it.
Stabbed in the back, that was the way her second companion went, though she had done that herself after he pulled a sword on her. Then he got distracted by the rapidly flooding mine. She had tried to make off with the treasure, but gold doesn’t float, so she swallowed a few gems before riding the current out. The burning in her lungs paled in comparison to the effort it took passing them the next day.
She picked up her pace. Her eyes had adjusted and she could now see her way on the dimly moonlit roads, but she had the sinking suspicion she was being followed. To keep herself busy, she racked her mind for the method her third partner perished; it was usually so easy to remember.
Oh. Shot—by a cannon—into a wall. She grimaced, remembering why she was so eager to repress that specific image.
She was about ten minutes away from her home now. The city was beginning to thin to suburb; she lived right on the outskirts. Often she was asked by companions if she ever showed her recovered artifacts on display. She had two answers to that question: If the pony in question didn’t know of her trading operation, she said that the artifacts were much better off being examined by leading archaeologists in order to advance ponykind’s understanding of the ancient world. If they did know, she said that it was stupid to keep money outside her safe or her bank account.
Back when she was a mere cat burglar rather than tomb raider, Daring had often stolen artifacts from the rich, sold them to the rich in a different city, then pilfered them again in order to reset the process. She got caught eventually, of course, but not for theft; she was too skilled for that. Rather, when she knew her jig was up, she fessed to trespassing, for which she usually paid a hefty fine. She had never done jail time. The courts in Equestria were exceptionally lax and inefficient; back when she did occasionally go to jail, she paid bail, skipped town, and didn’t come back until the statute of limitations had been surpassed, usually five years.
After a while, though, her enemies began to overwhelm her, often working in tandem; after narrowly escaping two simultaneous attempts on her life, she had decided it would be slightly wiser to steal from those already dead. Though ancient guardians could sometimes be bothersome, it beat the hay out of drinking a glass of wine at a high-end party and then finding out later that the reason it tasted so bitter was because the two poisons placed inside had neutralized each other.
However, to this day, her eyes were peeled for danger and her nerve endings were trained to spark at the slightest provocation; she was always on high alert. After ten years of failure, most of her victims would have given up trying to hunt her down, but for some of them it was more a matter of pride than money.
Skewered, crushed, poisoned. Ancient nations, she found, were fond of chemical warfare.
Now she was worried; quite worried, in fact, that her latest deal could be her last. She was about seven minutes from her house when the green flashed again, this time to her left, and she quickened her pace as fast as her bouncing bundle would allow without it splitting apart utterly. She couldn’t risk having to pick up hundreds upon hundreds of notes when she knew she was being pursued.
Imploded, shredded, crippled and left for dead. That last one she regretted a bit, but she’d rather donate a few hundred thousand bits to charity and change a few hundred lives than save one measly teen who went in over her head. She would do that at some point. Donate to charity, that is. Perhaps if she made it home alive.
Five minutes. The green light flashed again, and she nearly stumbled over a stray rock. It was getting closer, and she could hear hoofsteps nearby.
Electrocuted, retired, lost and never to be seen again. Her second-to-last cohort got out ahead. She wondered why that didn’t happen more often. Then again, her third-to-last cohort had been so much a genius that he thought it a good idea to march into the treasure room without throwing some rocks ahead of him first. She mused that his death would also fit into the category of ‘stabbed,’ but then again, electrocuted seemed much more descriptive of his fate.
Four minutes. Daring resisted the urge to drop her pack and make a break for it. She knew that, on one hoof, her life was worth more to her than a quarter million bits, if only slightly; on the other, she knew that if she gave up the money, she’d have an equal, if not increased, chance of death or injury in whatever historical site she chose to visit next. The temples she stole from would only get more dangerous with time.
Two minutes. It also occurred to her that maybe there were no more ancient religious centers to raid. In that case, the money would be worth even more. She saw her shadow on the ground in front of her, outlined in green.
She could see her house in front of her as she cantered toward it, nearly at a gallop. She heard the light hoofsteps of an assassin behind her, but she dared not turn around. She knew from experience that it was most rewarding to see the look on your mark’s face before you pick them off the planet, and she wasn’t going to give whoever was chasing her that satisfaction.
Just a few steps left. Her pursuer was walking nearly right next to her; she knew it. Why aren’t I dead yet?
Panting, she made it to the front door, opened it, and slammed it behind her, turning on all the lights in reach. Her breathing labored, she collapsed to the marble floor, sighing with relief. So I guess I really was just seeing things. I’ve got to go see that doctor again, I—
She turned around and was suddenly face-to-face with a tiny orange pegasus hanging from her ceiling, looking her straight in the eye.
“Hiya!”
Daring yelled, leaping backward and crashing to the ground, covering her face with her forelegs. She scrambled to her hooves and demanded, “How did you get in my house?!”
“Oh,” the pegasus said. She was wearing bright green nightvision goggles, a black jumpsuit, and an all-purpose toolbelt. She was suspended in the air by a cord connected to a grappling hook latched to Daring’s upper balcony. “Your door was unlocked.”
Slowly gaining confidence in the fact that the filly likely wasn’t here for the express purpose of murder, Daring asked, “Who are you?”
“Oh, my name’s Scootaloo. I find ponies. Here, have my card,” the little pegasus said, reaching into her little toolbelt and pulling a piece of cardstock out.
Daring hesitantly took it and read aloud, “Stalkerloo Enterprises: We find ponies so that you don’t have to waste your valuable time! Contact Sweet Apple Acres in Ponyville for details.” She shook her head. “Kid, you realize that I could sue you for trespassing and harassment if I wanted to, right?”
Scootaloo shrugged. “Yeah, and I could go to the press about how I saw you carrying a hay bale worth of notes around the neighborhood. You actually dropped a couple. Here,” she said, pulling a couple hundred-bit notes out of a pocket and offering them to Daring.
“No, just—just keep them,” Daring sighed, raising a hoof to her forehead. “Look, what do you want?”
“A friend of mine wanted me to give you this,” Scootaloo said, reaching into the back portion of her belt and retrieving what looked like a hoof-written letter. She tossed it to Daring. “She probably just wanted to get rid of me, or send me on a wild goose chase or something. Anyway, thanks for the tip; I can’t wait to see her face when she sees I actually delivered it.”
Daring glanced at the letter, then back to Scootaloo. How do two ponies know about me... without me knowing them back? “Thanks, kid. Now scram.”
Scootaloo nodded, then cut the rope on her grappling hook. She fell to the floor with an “Oof!” then scampered out the door, venturing into the darkness and vanishing within.
Once she had stowed away the cash, Daring once again glanced at the letter. The envelope was bright blue, sealed with some kind of rainbow lightning bolt. It smelled faintly of cheap perfume. She decided it’d be best to read it in bed, after she took a warm shower, had a quiet dinner, and was finally able to recuperate from the somewhat stressful evening.
However, though she didn’t know it yet, the letter itself was going to be the most potent and terrifying experience of her night by far.
Author's Note
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