“What was that.” Daring asked herself, panting from her long run. She had run all the way back to the hotel from the mansion. She walked a slow pace down the dusty road, the stars still providing a dim light to walk by. But by now, the stars would normally be out. It was approximately seven at night by the time she found her way back.

Daring peered in the windows of the shops as she passed the by, trying to purge her mind of the horrifying scene she had witnessed. It didn't scare her as much as disturb her. In all of her days of archaeology, she had seen hundreds of corpses. Some were brutally destroyed and mangled, some with nothing but a few patches of skin and organs. Some were even more disgusting than the one she had seen earlier that day. But all of them had been dead, still, unmoving. None of them had ever moved, let alone spoken to her. Daring racked her mind, wondering what it could be. She kept telling herself that stuff like what she had seen only existed in fairy tales.

“It must have been some kind of magical side effect of the pearl.” Daring assured herself, looking down at the bulge in the pocket of the black jacket she was still wearing.

Come to think of it, she was still wearing everything from before. Daring Do pulled off the sunglasses and threw them across the road. The tie was now loosely around her neck, with one button of the shirt undone to let her breath better. The black jacket was now covered in dust from the long run.

Daring Do walked silently into the hotel, sliding the door shut behind her. Mustafa was standing behind the desk again, but did not see her come in. He had his face buried in a magazine again. Daring really did not want to talk to him, because he always said something he thought was clever, and she was too tired and focused on the creature to deal with his humour. Daring kept her eyes on Mustafa, hoping he would not look up as she crept along the wall to the stairs. She practically tiptoed her way over, and Mustafa still didn't notice her. When she arrived at the stairs, she sighed and raised a hoof to the first step, which creaked loudly under her weight.

“Miss Daring Do!” Mustafa cheered as Daring practically deflated from the personal loss. “I did not see you there. How was your day? Were you at a fancy party today?”

“No.” Daring responded flatly, still staring up the stairs to her room.

“Do you still have your keys?” Mustafa asked, checking his rack.

“Yes.” Daring grumbled.

“You know this is your last night here, Miss Daring Do.” Mustafa noted. “Unless, that is, you are planning to pay for another night?”

“I don't have any more money, Mustafa.” Daring Do growled.

“So will you be packing and leaving tomorrow?” Mustafa asked.

“Yes, Mustafa. Unless I can find something else you can take off of me to pay for the room.” Daring hissed.

“Enjoy your last night, Miss Daring Do.” Mustafa added innocently as always.

Daring Do grumbled dozens of four letter words as she climbed the stairs to her room. As was normal, she fought with the lock for too long before finally gaining entrance to her room. Daring Do dumped the black jacket and other stolen clothes on the floor. As she did, she heard a loud thump that caused her to look over. She saw the Moon Pearl lying on the floor, almost glowing in the dim light. She did not want to teach it, thinking it might summon the horrible apparition again. She used the white shirt to cover her hand as she picked up the pearl and lay it next to the gold disc on her night table.

She turned on the hot water and stepped into the shower. She thought about all that had happened since opening the tomb, and how to put an end to it. Suddenly, a thought hit her. She had not wanted to think about it, but the idea flooded into her mind like a bursting dam. The creature had looked so familiar to her, and she hadn't known why. But now she knew what it was with absolute certainty. The creature was the mummy of the Lunar Pharaoh. She had no idea why she hadn't put it together before, thinking how an idiot would have been able to tell just by looking at it. Daring was filled with an urgency to put the mummy back in its sarcophagus. If the mummy being able to rise from the grave was any indication, she was in a world of trouble. If it could come back to life, that could mean that the other curses, stories and inscriptions were true as well. Perhaps it did have control over the elements. Maybe, just maybe, she was what was causing the perpetual night of Egypt.

Now, Daring was full of an urgency to get the mummy back into the tomb. Her mind began to race, thinking of how she could put down the cursed creature. First, she thought she could simply return the stone to the jar she had initially found it in. That may work. But, perhaps she could use the stone to summon the creature like she may have that day, and force it back into it's sarcophagi.

At any rate, by that time she felt like she had been in the hot water long enough, and turned the shower off. Stepping out of the shower, Daring shivered. It had definitely gotten much cooler than when the sun had been in the sky. She dried herself quickly and slipped into her normal clothes which she had laid on the bed. Turning to her nightstand, she noticed that the pearl was on the ground, but quite far from the table. Not as if it had rolled off, more like it had been pushed off or thrown off. The only other object on her nightstand was the gold disc. Her curiosity had been peaked. Daring took up the disc with the ruby glinting in the centre and used her other hoof to take up the pearl.

Daring Do peered at the two objects she held before her. One symbolized the moon, and may contain magical powers she did not know how to control, and the other, she was not sure what to make of it.

“Here goes.” Daring mumbled as she was about to bring the two objects together.

Suddenly, her window blew open and sand blew into the room. Daring abandoned her current task for a minute and stared in shock and horror as the sand began to bind together. It crawled up an invisible presence, forming hooves, then legs, then a body, and culminating in a head. The sand burst away like a mold shattering, and there, standing in her hotel room, was the Mummy of the Lunar Pharaoh. It screeched its Egyptian as it saw what Daring was holding.

Daring dropped the two gems she had been holding to the floor, causing the pearl to roll. As if guided by a higher power, the pearl rolled straight into the golden disc. A flash as bright as the sun emanated from the two gems, and they flew apart, like two magnets with the same poles facing each other. When Daring looked up, she saw the Mummy recoil as if it had been burned. In fact, it had been burned. The Mummy's right foreleg was black and glowing red, like a burning log.

Daring quickly put two and two together and took up the two gems again. The Mummy began to charge at Daring as she brought the two items together. The flash exploded from the two gems again as the two collided. Daring squinted to see past it, trying to see the Mummy. The creature screamed an unearthly shriek as it recoiled in pain. Daring held the two objects together, though they tried to repel each other. The Mummy quickly realized that it would not survive if it remained any longer, turning into sand and streaming out of the hotel window.

Finally allowing the two objects to repel each other, Daring Do let her forelegs fall limp. She now stood alone in her hotel room, the red carpet was sand-covered with burn marks where the creature had stood. Panting from the encounter, Daring celebrated by hoof pumping into the air and sitting down. She looked down at the golden disc in her hoof and finally made the connection.

“Ra!” Daring shouted as she looked down at the disc. “The symbol of Ra!”

She now realized why the little trinket looked familiar. The disc with the ruby was a copy of the symbol used to write Ra, the god of the sun, in hieroglyphics. Daring now understood the repulsion between the pearl and the golden disc. They represented the sun god and the night god. The disc held a blessing from the sun god, while the pearl held a dark magic that the pharaoh had bestowed upon it. Daring now knew what she could do to finish the creature once and for all.

Charging down the stairs, Daring Do decided that she needed to get back to the tomb and end this. But as she came into the lobby, she was met with nearly a dozen stallions in suits. Mustafa was being held at knife point by one of them. Out of the shadows walked Richmond and the mob boss.

“Professor.” Richmond greeted with his usual twinge of hate.

“Miss Daring Do.” The mob boss grinned. “How nice of you to join us.”

“What do you want?” Daring asked, slowly stepping off of the last stair. She knew exactly what they wanted, but wanted to hear it from the horses mouth, so to speak.

“I want what you have stolen from me.” The mob boss ordered, holding out his hoof for Daring to drop the pearl into.

“Do you have any idea what that thing can do?” Daring shouted, growing tired of Richmond.

“I know it can make me rich.” Richmond sneered, stepping towards Daring and pulling out a knife of his own.

“I know it will make my collection even better.” The mob boss added. “And that is all I care about it doing. Now, give it to me.”

“Don't you realize that this could destroy the world?” Daring tried to reason with them, but to no avail.

“I want what is mine, Miss Do.” The mobster ordered. “Give it to me now, or I will kill the clerk.”

“As nice as that would be...” Daring looked at the helpless Mustafa and reached into her pocket. She pulled out the pearl, wrapped in cloth and dropped it into the mob boss' hoof.

“Much obliged.” He bowed, reaching into his own pocket. He pulled out a stack of cash and handed it over to Richmond. “I am a man of my word.”

The mobsters released Mustafa and filed out through the door of the hotel. Daring did not have time for small talk with Mustafa, and barrelled out through the door. She wanted to catch them off guard and take back the pearl. She wanted the whole ordeal to be over.

Daring Do kept to the shadows, her eyes trained on the mob boss and Richmond as they trotted through the streets. She kept to alleys and side streets so she would not be noticed. She kept dead silent and moved quickly.

Finally, the mob boss and Richmond stopped. They assumed that they were far enough away from the hotel that they would not have to worry about Daring. They spoke quietly to each other for a moment before the mob boss removed the cloth covered pearl from his pocket. Rolling it in his hooves, he must have been deciding whether or not to take it out of its wrappings. He must have decided quickly, because he threw off the rag it had been wrapped in and held the glowing Moon Pearl in his outstretched foreleg. Holding it to the sky, he admired the glow and beauty of the craftsmanship. His praises were short lived, as Daring heard the wind pick up and she braced for what was to come.

The creature reformed from the sand before their very eyes. As soon as the beast became whole, it charged at the mob boss, screeching in Egyptian. The stallion screamed in terror and threw the pearl behind himself as he turned to run. And eerie blue glow enveloped him and the Mummy as he started away, and he froze in place. While the pharaoh was busy with the mob boss, Richmond scooped up the pearl and darted down the road, in the direction they had originally been heading. The creature used its magic to bring the mob boss close to it, before realizing he no longer had the pearl. When the realization came to the Mummy, it shrieked as it had before and threw the quivering stallion into a few of his gang members.

“Kill it!” He shouted as he stood up and dusted himself off.

Several gang members pulled out pistols and began unloading into the creature. Unfaltering, the Mummy menacingly marched towards them, enveloped in its blue glow again. Daring watched in horror as the creature magically wrenched the guns from the mobsters' hooves and turned them against their owners. Learning quickly how the machines worked, she unloaded the remaining bullets into the unprepared stallions of the mob.

Before the creature could leave, Daring started off in the direction Richmond had run in. She had no idea where he was going, but she knew she needed to get the pearl before the Lunar Pharaoh could get her hands on it.

Author's Note

So now we near the climax of the story. I hope you've enjoyed it thus far, and will keep on enjoying it even after it's done. Thank you for reading.
-Cog out.