Daring slowly stepped into the tomb. The tomb held unhappy memories, but not just those of Daring Do. She now understood why the last few hieroglyphics were so rushed and messy. They were scratched into the wall after the pharaoh was dead to make sure they remained. Or, perhaps, they were scratched in to make sure that the pharaoh who was just locked into three boxes stayed in them.

The thought of being locked away like that made Daring cringe. She almost gagged as she caught a whiff of vinegar from the annex she had escaped from. Looking over to the small room, she still saw puddles of the distilled liquid on the floor, still slightly eating away at the limestone door. Upon closer inspection, there were small limestone deposits forming on the floor where the vinegar had evaporated. Tearing herself from the annex, she turned back to the antechamber, where she had found the golden disc. Everything was right where it had been when Daring had left it.

“Obviously Richmond hasn't been back yet.” Daring shook her head as she moved about the room. “He would have cleared this place out.”

Daring still wasn't sure what it was she was looking for in the tomb, or what she would find. What she did know was that she needed answers, and the tomb seemed to be the place that would have them. The room was quiet, and she took out a light to scan the walls for any more inscriptions. It did not take long to find another quickly scratched curse on the wall. There were at least half a dozen of curses in the room. All of them were to the same effect of how the pharaoh must remain undisturbed, or the world would fall into chaos. Daring Do tried to be brave, but each curse wore on her courage, replacing it with dread and worry. She did her best to shake off the worry, and moved from one to the other. Finally, her head turned to the burial chamber.

The sarcophagus was as it had been before Daring had come to the tomb. Each layer had been put back on top of the other. Daring moved into the room and eyed the gold-plated outermost layer. The scratches and scrapes from the henchponies being so rough with it were still there.

“Richmond must have closed it up to make the discovery look authentic when he returned in a week.” Daring assured herself, though the curses on the walls had gotten her into a mindset of worry. Though she hadn't said it, in the back of her mind Daring feared the worst.

Scanning the lid, it didn't take Daring long to find an inscription scratched into the gold. She pulled out her notebook and started translating. Her eyes jolted back and forth from the book to the sarcophagus as she turned pages to find a translation. The work took time, but she eventually translated the words.

“As from dust we turn to dust.” Daring read aloud to herself. “As from sand we turn to sand. As from water we are as blood. As from death we return to death. But as this soul was not noble or pure, it shall not return to the land. May the body be held by this coffin, until the world has turned to sand.”

The words did not comfort Daring at all. Her mind immediately got to work on what the curse meant. Dust, sand, blood, death, noble and pure. What did it all mean? Why go through the trouble of writing such a cryptic verse on the sarcophagus? Daring took several approaches to the phrases, until she found one that worked.

“So, we return to what we come from.” Daring mumbled, pacing around the room. “That much is clear. But...” She turned in revelation to look at the scratched words on the gold. “But she did not. The purpose of the sarcophagus was to keep her from returning to nature, where she came from. The ancient Egyptians must have been worried that if she returned to the soil, she would taint the world. That was the whole purpose of the sarcophagus! Not to keep people out, but to keep her body in. They needed to keep her body bound in physical form, separate from the earth!”

Daring was pleased with her theory, and decided to move on to the next level, and find out what other curses or explanations lay beneath the gold and sparkle of the pharaohs sarcophagus. She reached up her forelegs and pushed against the golden lid of the outer layer. It slowly scraped along the bottom, making an unpleasant noise as it moved. Daring shuddered as the lid fell to the ground as it had before. She really did not want to damage this important historical find, but she needed to move it now. The lid below the first was still gold, but less detailed than the first. There was yet another inscription scraped into it. Daring immediately started translating, taking just as long, if not longer than the first time.

“Our magic is of pure descent.” Daring read aloud again. “Given from the gods above. Our powers were a gift, and we use them with reverence. But she who called herself pharaoh, had no regard for your grace. Let the power she has stolen from you, remain trapped in this place.” Daring took no time easily connecting this one like the first. “They thought magic was a gift from their gods. They gave thanks whenever they used it. They used it sparingly so as to show that they respected their gift. But the pharaoh had no restraint and used it to bend the world to her will. They wanted to keep her magic sealed in these ruins so she could never again use it to do evil.” Daring remembered one of the endings to the tale of the pharaoh. “She could not die of disease or old age. What if breaking this seal would allow that power to return to her?”

Daring could almost wait no longer, and hurriedly pushed the next golden lid off of its bottom. The final coffin lay before her. It was a simple wooden box, but now she noticed its significance. The entire face of the lid was covered in scratched in hieroglyphics. All from different sides, as if magicians had worked together to get these curses written in as soon as possible. She had committed several different hieroglyphics to memory by now, and moved through some of them with ease before noticing a pattern.

“All of them are praising different gods.” Daring whispered. “Asking them-begging them... Not to let the pharaohs soul enter the afterlife.” Daring took off her helmet and ran a hoof through her mane. “They were worried that she would kill the gods and take their powers. Then she would return to earth and reclaim her throne.” Daring was scared by the words she had read, but not scared enough to stunt her curiosity. By now, she really did not care about whether the curses were real or fake, she just liked solving the riddles of them.

Daring wanted to see the pharaoh again. She wanted to see the body she had been forced to identify, but on her own terms this time. She pressed her forelegs against the wooden lid and knocked it loudly to the floor. She wiped her forehead and looked down into the coffin. Her mouth hung open and she stared down into an empty coffin.

“Where's the body?” Daring shouted, not caring who heard. Odds were that no one was around for miles.

Daring sat, seething in a cafe just down the street from the hotel. Her mind still on the empty sarcophagus that lay in the tomb. The sky was still full of stars. Now that she was out of the tomb, her thoughts were no longer tainted with ideas of ancient curses. She reminded herself that they were bedtime stories. She was not scared now, she was angry. As it always did when she was faced with a shocking situation, Daring's mind snapped to the most logical explanation.

“I can't believe he would do that.” Daring growled to herself. “He would steal a mummy, thousands of years old, from the tomb in order to play on simple superstitions? To make ponies take an interest in his find and pay more for it.” She practically spat out the words “his find” it made her so angry. “We know magic exists. Unicorns are everywhere. So there is such thing as magic. Obviously that pearl wasn't a useless trinket. It definitely holds some power. Power that Richmond is using to make the whole of Egypt look like night. All of this just to put money in his pocket.”

“More coffee, miss?” A waiter looked worried as he came over to Daring's table.

“No, thank you.” Daring grumbled. It almost came off as angry, though she was trying to hide her emotion. At any rate, the waiter walked away, leaving Daring alone again. “If I ever get my hooves on that slimy son of a-”

Daring was interrupted as her coffee cup hit the ground and shattered. She had angrily reached for it and accidentally knocked it to the floor. The entire restaurant stared n her direction as she pulled down her pith helmet to cover her embarrassment. Another waiter came over to clean up the broken cup and spilt coffee.

“Rough day at work, miss?” The beige coloured Pegasus who was cleaning asked.

“Yeah.” Daring Do replied, resting her head in her hooves. “You could say that.”

“We're all feeling it, miss.” He said, brushing the broken ceramic into a small dustpan. “I'm sure it's just a fluke. The princesses will be able to handle it, I'm sure.”

“You must be an optimist.” Daring looked up at him.

“Why shouldn't I be?” The waiter shrugged. “Everything has seemed to work out in the past, why no now?” Then, getting up, he added, “Head in your hooves is no way to go through life. Keep your head up.”

“Thanks.” Daring said sarcastically as the waiter walked away. “I'll remember that.”

Her mind turned back to Richmond. She wanted to find him and ring his neck. She just needed somewhere to start. But where in Egypt would someone like Richmond be hiding?

She decided to ask around town, seeing if anyone recognized the name or the description of the grave robber. The work was long, and occasionally people would respond rudely to the foreigner asking them questions. But nothing could discourage Daring. She needed to find Richmond and bring the pearl back to the tomb. She thought that, if the pearl was put back in the enchanted pot, its powers would be nullified, and the day and night would return to normal. It was simple, really. She had no idea why she had been so nervous earlier.

Finally, she found someone that recognized the name and description of Richmond. The pony who recognized him is one Daring would not have even considered speaking to under normal circumstanced. He was a shady looking character, with a dagger hanging off of his belt, and he was missing a few teeth. Daring assumed that this was a sign of being in fights, and more than likely losing honestly, or winning dishonestly. More likely to be dishonest, thought daring as she eyed the dagger.

The stallion told her that he had heard of someone named Richmond looking into some pretty powerful ponies in town. The kind who had a lot of money, and would be willing to spend a little for a golden trinket. These were the kinds of ponies who got where they were because they either knew someone, or killed someone else. They were really no more than mobsters. For the names of some of these powerful stallions, Daring had to pay off the shady looking one. She gave him everything she had left in terms of cash, and he gave her five names and addresses she could use to find them.

Daring decided that she would just scope out each of the houses. If Richmond was going to sell the pearl, or the mummy, he would sell it as soon as possible, while everyone’s interests were peaked. She decided to go straight to the fourth name, seeing as Richmond had a head start. If he wasn't there when Daring arrived, he would be there soon.

Author's Note

Thank you for reading, same things apply. If you have any comments, feel free to share.