1.- Prologue “South Zebrika”
Prologue
“South Zebrika”
The sound of jungle animals filled the air over the great jungle of South Zebrika. Not many ponies dared to go in that place, and of those that dared even less managed to get out. Many returned from it with horrible stories of gigantic pony-beasts that wanted to eat them piece by piece while still alive. There were others that spoke of tribes of zebras that ate ponies for breakfast, and also pony tribes that did the same. How could an species of herbivores do that remained a mystery. Many were obviously far-fetched stories, probably caused by the usual things, mostly trauma while being there. Of all the stories there was one thing in common, though.
No one returned sane from that jungle, no matter how prepared those ponies were, or how ready for anything they were. The jungled spared none and forgave none. It took its toll on all its travellers, allowing only it´s outer reaches to be populated by civilized ponies and zebras, though how civilized they were was a little uncertain. There were not many ponies that ventured all the way to Zebrika from Equestria, and even less went to those small Celestia-forsaken settlements. The terrible truth got hold of anypony thinking in visiting those places: Do so at your own risk.
Of all the settlements there was one a little more known, though. One that was famous for the riches it gathered from the jungle. The most daring ponies and zebras lived there and dared to venture mor into the jungle, bringing with them precious stones and precious fruit that served as food and income for the small village.
The name of that village was, in Zebrikan, Al´herab.
Its streets were full of merchants traveling that had stopped a little to sell from of their alien products, and its market was a mixture of all cultures. Almost all languages were spoken there, and there were creatures all the way from the crystal empire. For a first-time tourist, that location surely astounded even the most prepared pony that knew of those places, since that city was never mentioned in any text describing its full splendor.
It´s walls were not compared to any others, since the wealth of this little village was enough to make much bigger and thicker walls than any other city every existent, and the golden domes of the religious sites and the government palace proved their wealth as the pure gold shone against the desert sun, the jungle a standing less than a hundred meters away from its walls.
This city was different from any other city, since it was small yet incredibly rich, and its type of government was seen nowhere else.
It was here that a pony stood still in the middle of the crowd. Normally one wouldn´t pay any attention to a single pony standing in the middle of a mass of creatures of all races, yet he was easily distinguishable from any common inhabitant of the city.
First off and what made him contrast from the inhabitants of Al´herab was his hat. It was a typical equestrian hat, normally worn by appaloozians, also known as a fedora. Many considered that hat to be cliched by explorers, but this one didn´t cared.
And yes, he was an explorer.
The pony was a male Dark brown unicorn, his mane being a dark yellow tone with black stripes on it. His tail was exactly the same as his mane and was shorter than a normal pony´s. His eyes were brown as well, though much lighter than his coat. He was wearing a worn-out leather jacket and had a satchel. He had strapped around his belly a small scabbard carrying a short sword. Its dull grey color didn´t shone with the sun, which was something the pony preferred so that, in case he was using it in plain light, it wouldn´t reflect it and give his position to the enemy.
He seemed to be waiting for somepony as he checked a pocket watch he had on one of his leather jacket´s pockets. He placed the watch back inside and looked around. He didnt´waited long enough for him to spot a zebra making gestures not far off at him. He clearly understood that the zebra wanted him to follow. He sighed and walked towards the zebra.
Once he was close, the zebra entered a store. The pony stopped and looked up at the sign of the store. Even though it was written in zebrikan, he could see that it was an antiquities shop. He looked around and saw that nothing or nopony was watching, and then proceeded to open the door and enter.
Inside it was just as he had imagined it: Old-looking bookcases filled with books and scrolls from many parts of the zebrika area and the south zebrikan jungle. He saw many artifacts that ignited some of his curiosity, since he was deeply attracted to all ancient things. A quick gaze around the placed gave him a perfect overview that he analized with an expert eye.
There were two more entrances, which could work as possible escape routes should he need to use those types of means. He hope he wasn´t going to, though. If his contacts hadn´t betrayed or had been replaced by a changeling, he was pretty sure he was going to meet somepony he hope could help him in his quest.
He remembered sending that letter over to her… It seemed a long time ago that he had received an answer, codified to make it more interesting (really it was codified so that no unwanted eyes could see its contents) and telling where the two would meet along with directions and a couple of names he could trust.
Being an explorer and treasure hunter were dangerous business and he couldn't trust anypony, now could he?
He looked around for the zebra and found that he wasn´t there anymore.
Suspicious…
Maybe she hadn´t make it on time, or something had delayed, or her message had been decrypted before it got to him first…
His muscles tensed as he slowly moved his right forehoof towards his short sword. He calmed his beathing as his battle senses got ready. His ears moved around, searching for any sound of incoming enemies, or of his nemesis…
Instead he heard a feminine chuckle.
“You know,” said the voice, which he immediately recognized. “For being one so acclaimed you get nervous easily.” Slowly, out of the shadows, a female pegasus walked forward.
The pony stared awkwardly for a couple of seconds before blushing slightly. He knew here, and it was something any pony with some small reading habits would recognize, too, for in front of him was a legend.
Daring Do.
“Hi Daring. You got me worried for some seconds. I thought we had been discovered or something,” the pony said. Daring smiled and walked forward.
“You think I´d be so careless? You know me better, Bright Blaze.”
The unicorn, Bright Blaze, shrugged.
“Who knows, it´s been many years. Since, college, I think. No?” That got a nod from the famed explorer. Daring looked around and picked on of the artifacts laying around on the store.
“Yes. I remember you didn´t accepted my petition to come with me for my very first discovery.” Daring looked at him, her smile gone. “I thought you would have liked to do that.”
Bright Blaze looked away, his face a little darker as he tried to shrug off the anger that was slowly rising.
“You know I had a duty with my brother. I couldn´t just leave, you know.” That made Daring sigh.
“I guess that is true. Family is first, no?” Blaze noticed her ears a little low. He regretted a little he had reminded her of her own family, but he tried to ignore it. He was still angry because she didn´t seemed to understand how important family was to him.
“Still, you shouldn´t have waited from me to have a dire situation to answer to my letters.” That got Daring´s attention back. “I think we should forget the past and focus on the present, no?” He walked to a table and took out from his jacket a piece of terribly worn paper. It was completely yellow and its sides were clearly burned and torn apart. He opened it and revealed a map. Daring walked over and looked.
“I can´t believed it... “ Daring said in awe. “You actually found it!” She realized she had just shouted and immediately covered her mouth. Once both were sure nopony had heard them, she continued. “This map was lost long ago… How did you came across it?”
Blaze looked at her, then back at the map.
“I came upon it on a digging site up north almost on the crystal empire frontier with Equestria. It was on one of the temples you made Ahuizotl leave.” He looked at her. “Good job getting rid of that little pest, it helped to increase out digging sites.” Daring smiled.
“My pleasure, though let´s not talk about him right now. I don´t think he´s a problem we should worry about right now.” Blaze nodded.
“Right…” he said slowly.
Daring looked at the map and passed her hoof over it. She grinned.
“It´s authentic.” Blaze looked hurt.
“What do you think it would be?” Daring shrugged.
“You never know.” She looked around it. “It is clearly from the zebrikan jungle, that is for sure.” She furrowed her brow. “Though I´m not sure what all this marks represent.” Blaze looked closely.
“From what I could see…” Blaze began. “...this marks represent ruins of an ancient civilization not unlike the ones we found in northern Equestria. If I´m not mistaken, this one here…” he said, pointing at one of the marks in the border of the jungle. “...is right here, in Al´herab. Itás a stone located within the government palace. I took my time to make sure of that.”
Daring looked suddenly excited.
“That means…” she began.
“That we can go on searching for that relic right now!” Blaze finished. Daring smiled and picked up the map. She folded it and was about to place it in one of her own pockets before Blaze took it with his magic.
“Hey!” she exclaimed. Blaze shook his head.
“My map, I take it.” Daring seemed shocked for a second and then smiled, daring him to say more.
“You were always like this at school.” Blaze chuckled.
“You thought I had changed?”
Daring ignored him and whistled. Seconds later, three zebras arrived. They looked at Daring. The famed explorer looked at Blaze, then back at the zebras.
“I need you to get supplies, we are leaving as soon as it dawns.” The zebras nodded and walked out of the building. Blaze watched as the last zebra left. He then turned and looked at Daring. She was inspecting a metal case that was laying on a table. He chuckled and looked around. Why not? He could spend some time looking around.
It was still a long time before dawn, after all…
*** *** ***
It wasn´t long before everything was ready for the trip. Daring had payed a group of zebras to help them as guides for an strangely costly sum of money. He had asked why and Daring had seemed a little reluctant on saying it.
“I´m afraid,” she began, “that the jungle is filled with superstitions and such. You know how the natives behave at this type of things. They can turn tail and run away the moment they imagine they see one of their gods or something.” Blaze nodded.
“True, I´ve had my share of those things.” Both laughed together while packing the bags. Daring packed in a saddle bag while Blaze on his satchel. Daring looked curiously at him.
“You still use that?” She grinned. “A saddle bag is more practical.”
Golden Blaze shrugged. “I prefer a satchel. Can´t I have my own style?” Daring chuckled.
“If there´s enypony here present that doesn´t know anything about style, Blaze, it´s your. Blaze looked at her venomously and the looked away. Daring chuckled and strapped her saddle bag. Blaze put on his satchel and looked at Daring.
“Ready?” he asked. Daring looked at him with a confident smile.
“I was born ready.”
Both left the building they had been and walked towards their small caravan of six zebras. They didn´t uttered a words as Daring passed by. Blaze followed and only then did they moved. They followed them all the way to the city gates, which were close to closing. The got out and Daring stopped and looked at Blaze.
“This will be one of the most dangerous adventures, Blaze.” She smiled. “Are you ready? I understand you´ve never been one of difficult adventures.”
Blaze looked surprised. “I am prepared! What makes you say that?!” Daring shrugged.
“Don´t know, I´m used to ask ponies that go with me on adventures that question. It sticks to you, I guess.” Blaze looked forward. Daring and Blaze kept walking side by side with their caravan close behind. The two walked fast, but not as fast as they would like. The caravan seemed to go at their own pace, which was slow compared to what the two explorers were used to.
Soon they were in front of the great mass of trees that stretched all the way to the horizon on both sides. It wasn´t something anyone of the two was not used to, but it still felt strange for some reason. That jungle gave off an air of something bad, like if it was warning them… no, not warning, ordering them not to enter. The two suddenly had an impulse to go back but, being the explorers they were, they didn´t turned back of course. The zebras where and entirely different problem.
Soon, the moment they were inside the jungle and barely a few meters off the dessert, one of the zebras began to shout something in their language. Daring went to see what was going on.
“Spirits, lady,” one of them said. Daring looked at him. “They are warning us not to enter or else we´ll be punished.” Daring looked at Blaze and sighed.
“Look, I know you think there are real spirits here, but it´s not true what they say about this jungle. It´s not gonna be the jungle which kills us, or drives us mad.” The zebra that had shouted was whimpering loudly something in zebrikan that Blaze managed to understand. He was saying that they were al gonna die.
Daring seemed to get a little bothered now. “If you don´t stop, we will die. You whimpering will attract every type of beast and hunter that lives in the jungle, so shut it!”
The zebra stopped immediately. Daring nodded. “Thank you…” She walked back to Blaze. “Let´s keep moving.” Blaze nodded and both resumed their walk. Soon the desert and Al´herab could no longer be seen and, though the zebras seemed uneasy, they were not whimpering or shivering in fear anymore. Daring seemed to be the cause of that, since she apparently knew how to handle scared natives. Blaze wrote in his brain that he needed to pay more attention on how she acted since it could help while on diggings. Natives were always a problem when digging in their lands or when they were helping. Superstitions were abundant and that slowed down excavation progress.
He remembered some of the excavations he had been managing. Many were famous ones, mostly the pyramids. He was a little ashamed to say that he had not discovered the first, though. Daring was always one step ahead and, for the first time, he seemed to be ahead of her with the finding of the map. If he was right, the map would lead them to something far more precious than anything else Equestria… no, not just Equestria, but the entire world had ever seen. If they found the artifact that the map led to, they would have made the greatest discovery in the very history of the world. He knew Daring was fully aware of that, and he knew that she was concerned of what could happen should that artifact fall on the wrong hands. That was what none of them wanted.
The jungle slowly turned more and more dark as they went deeper and deeper into it. The trees grew thicker and the moon light grew dimmer. Soon they were barely seeing where they were going.
That was when Daring decided that it was enough walk for the night. She called in a night and the caravan began to unpack the tents. Blaze was arming up his own when he noticed that Daring was not doing anything. He wondered what was going on through her mind, so he decided to approach her. He sat beside the famed explorer, curious as to what could be going on inside her head.
“Something bothering you?” he asked. Daring looked at him slowly.
“I supposed the same things as you, no?” Blaze looked at her confused. “What if somepony finds it before us. I made sure ti was kept a secret, but out foes have just the same amount of contacts, if not more, than us. They could easily infiltrate our own group of trusted contacts and learn what we are looking for. They´s immediately know how important it is and how valuable it could be in the black market.
Blaze nodded. “Yes, I have the same thing in mind. I´m confident that we are going in before anypony else, so I guess there´s not much worry in that. What worries me is that our foes let us do the dirty work and simply take it from us.” He looked down. “He had done that to me many times.” Daring saw his ears go flat. She nodded.
“I understand the feeling. That has happened to me many times as well.” She sighed. “It´s sad that the bad ponies always have the money and we have nothing with which to fight off their own personal expenses.” She looked angry all of a sudden. “I want to kick thos type of ponies so hard!” Blaze chuckled.
“Me too, but I´m afraid that would not be good, and we are in no position to do that.” He sighed. Suddenly, he remembered something.
His brother.
Of all his family, his little brother was the most enthusiastic about his older brother´s work though he was sure he didn´t know all that he did. He was a big fan of the daring do books, and Blaze was pretty surprised that his older brother admired his friend so much.
Well… he himself admired her, but it was clear it was hard to compare to her. She was the legend of exploration. He was just one of the many ponies hired by the Canterlot national institute of archeology to find things and direct excavations.
It wasn´t bad, but he sometimes wished he was freelancer, just like daring. Problem was getting out a living off of that. At least working for the CNIA he had a stable job and stable income. Being a freelancer was something you couldn´t rely on, and Daring´s series probably saved her a lot of monetary problems. Add to it that she lived in a remote place… She didn´t really wasted lots of money.
Both laid down and fell asleep with their own troubles in the heads.
Hopefully the next day would help to cure them…
*** *** ***
The march had resumed as soon as the sun had risen a little over the trees. Blaze and Daring were again at the front of the column, guiding the way. The zebras seemed a little calmer than the day before after realizing that they had not died in the night by some strange demon, which helped since now they were moving much more rapidly and surely. Daring noticed that too, and she was in a good humor. It wasn´t going to take them long to reach the first mark in the map inside the jungle, and that was lifting their spirits high. They were almost on the mark, and that meant they were closer to the relic…
Soon they reached a clearing. The least thing any of them had been expecting was a clearing, and this clearing seemed to be pretty large. In it they could easily fit the village of Al´herab plus a little more. What caught the attention of the explorers though, wasn´t the size, but rather a rock that stood in the middle. The two explorers approached the large rock with a lot of warnings from the zebras. They kept calling that rock a death augur, and that demos crawled all around. None of the explorers believed in such stories, so they proceeded. Soon they were touching the stone and looking aorund.
“There seems to be some sort of ancient writing on it…” Daring muttered. Blaze nodded. “It seems… ancient zebrikan, but a little different.” Again Blaze nodded.
“I don´t think it´ll be easy to translate this.” Daring kept inspection it around. Blaze took out a notebook and began to scribble down some of the writings in the rock. He had written at least a hundred words when Daring suddenly stopped moving. Blaze noticed her ears going all the way up, which cause him to tense as well.
Whatever was going on wasn´t good.
Blaze looked around and turned to where the zebras had been.
They were gone.
He was about to report that to Daring when loud, ear-piercing screams broke through the jungle. It was clear they were the zebras. Both Daring and Blaze jumped beside each other. Blaze unsheathed his sword and prepared to fight off whatever was coming. Daring didn´t seemed to be carrying anything, so she simply prepared to smack with her hooves. She was very good at it.
Blaze saw a gorupd of ponies walk towards them and he immediately cursed under his breath.
Great…
It had to be her…
In front of the group of ponies, a dark red female unicorn was walking towards them. Her cutie mark was hidden behind a long garment that seemed oddly like the ones mares used in zebrika. She was smiling as she approached the two. Behind here were two ponies Blaze recognized but couldn´t recognize their names. They were both brothers, one male the other female. They were grey, though the female was darker than the brother. They both where unicorns. The ones behind where some ponies Blaze didn´t recognized.
The group of ponies stopped a couple of meters away from the two. Daring and Blaze waited for them to speak.
Finally, the red one spoke.
“What a happy surprise, if I may say. It´s been long since I saw you last Blaze.” Blaze grunted.
“What do you want Dark Gaze.”
The pony chuckled. “Isn´t it obvious? I want the map.” She extended her hoof. “Now give it to me before anything bad happens to you two.”
Daring grinned angrily. “You don´t know who you´re messing with…”
“Yes, yes… The famous Daring Do,” she interrupted. “I don´t have time for presentations. I need that now, or I´ll have to take it by force.” Blaze lifted his sword with his magic and Daring unfurled her wings menacingly.
“You´ll have to take it from us,” Blaze said. Dark stopped smiling.
“So be it…” she said. She turned to the ones behind her. “Get them. I don´t care if you kill them or not. I only want the map.” She looked at Blaze. “He has it.”
The four ponies began to walk. In a matter of seconds, Daring and Blaze knew what needed to be done.
Both knew that there was no way they could win, soe they had backup plans in their minds. They had a similar idea in mind now.
A soon as the four ponies attacked, Bright Blaze threw the map up. Daring jumped high and was soaring now. One of the other ponies was a pegasus, so he jumped after Daring.
Grave mistake…
Soon he was on his back, knocked out.
Blaze was having it harder, though.
He was using his sword to keep off the ponies, but he couldn´t maintain jumping out of the way of the magic blasts. He looked at Daring.
“Leave!” Daring shook her head, unsure of what to do.
Grave mistake, since Dark Gaze saw that she still had the map in her hooves. The unicorn tried to take it form Daring. The famed explorer didnt let it go and instead it fell down into the mass of ponies fighting with Blaze. Blaze saw one of the ponies reaching for the map. He didn´t thought nor did he considered what he was doing. He just did it.
With one quick slice down, he cut the map in two, then three, then four parts… Soon he was in the floor pinned down by the ponies and he had a broken and unreadable map. Dark looked at him with venom in her eyes. She looked up at Daring, but she was already flying away. It was clear she couldn´t do much for Blaze now. Dark Gaze looked back at him.
The last thing Bright Blaze remembered was a sharp pain in the ribs as she shot him a magic blast and then a crack as some of his bones broke against the central stone.
Then, everything turned black...
Author's Note
Here´s a reupload of my first story. I´m afraid The other one was really crappy... I hated it, so I decided to write a new chapter and start it again.
I´m not really concentrating on this one for the moment, which is why I´ll wait to see how much views this prologue gets. I hope you guys enjoy it and comment if you see any mistakes. I have no editor for this story yet =P
Red-
