Daring Do and the Secret of the Fourth Wallby Ultra-the-HedgeToasterChaptersChapter 2 - Of pegasi and predatorsChapter 3 - ExpositionChapter 4 - Instincts and cave-insChapter 5 - SeparationChapter 7 - Daring Do and the Balanced BreakfastChapter 8 - Under suspicionChapter 9 - ExplorationChapter 10 - FamiliarityChapter 11 - The HoleChapter 1 - Welcome to the jungleChapter 6 - The end of the tunnelChapter 2 - Of pegasi and predators This chapter is available as a "synthesized" audio book: [click here] - no background music [click here] - with ambient music loop [overview of all chapters] . . . . As usual, Daring Do woke to the first rays of the morning sun with a groan. She yawned, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. Even after all these years, she'd never quite accustomed to rising early. It was simply an unpleasant necessity in her life as an adventurer. After all, traveling at night – with predators on the loose, in the dark – wasn't exactly the smart thing to do. And in turn, making use of every minute of daylight was the logical consequence. Apparently, her newly-fetched rainbow-maned companion didn't quite agree with her reasoning. “Gimme five more minutes,” the mare slurred sleepily. For the sixth time, she edged away from Daring's prodding hoof. Daring Do shrugged. This pony sure could sleep like a rock. “Yeah, I know that feeling.” She sighed. “Ah, what the hay.” Giving her five more minutes probably won’t hurt. Daring Do stepped outside the small cave that had provided them with shelter for the past couple hours and took a deep breath of fresh morning-air. It smelled like... a lot of sweat and mud and dirt. Daring looked down at herself. Yesterday's trek through the underbrush had left its marks. While she wasn't one to bother much with her physical appearance, even she could agree she needed some cleaning. She needed to refill her water-reserves anyway, now that there was another pony to take care of. Working her way through the thicket, years of experience kicked in, telling her where to find the nearest source of water by following the subtle hints Mother Nature had to offer. That, or just follow the distinct sound of water splashing as it snaked its way around the local plant-life. After a couple minutes, the adventurer reached a larger clearing, a wide, calm river crossing in its center. The water seemed fine, so she took a long sip before refilling several empty bottles she had stored in her jacket. Before she got around to clean herself, however, she heard a sudden rustle coming from the other side of the river. She raised her head just in time to see a fully grown leopard step into the clearing. For a total of ten seconds, they both just stared at each other. Oddly enough, the predator seemed to be just as taken aback as she was, surprise clearly written across its features. It probably had only come here for the same reason she did – water. Now it was confronted with the extra bonus of a pony-snack. Still, the expression struck Daring as odd. However, she did not get any chance to further dwell on this thought. Ten seconds was all it took for the big cat to bare its teeth and leap into the water, quickly on its way to the other side of the stream. Daring did not hesitate any longer, and did the smart thing – she turned on the spot and ran. The athletic pegasus may have been able to deal out some bucking, but leopards in general had sharp senses and without the element of surprise on her side, would likely dodge most attacks she threw its way. Instinct told her to take flight, but she immediately regretted doing so. Almost instantaneously, she got herself tangled in the vines hanging low from the all-encompassing monster-trees. This prompted some rather unflattering curses from the pegasus-adventurer regarding the unusually clingy plant life in the area. Twisting and turning, Daring Do stretched her muzzle to bite down on a vine wrapping itself around her right hind-leg. Breaking free of the flora's clutches, she glanced back only to see the leopard barely a few pony-lengths behind. Restraining herself from pursuing the literal approach of “fight or flight”, she zig-zagged through the underbrush. Daring snapped back a tree branch to hit her pursuer – the leopard ducked under it. She kicked a rock in its general direction – the predator dodged that as well. She kicked up dirt in the leopard's face – that only agitated it. Daring Do was proud to call herself a swift flyer. Back in the day, she’d even won her fair share of competitions. On hoof, too, she was quite agile – and she certainly had improved that skill throughout her adventures. Despite this, as well as her attempts to slow its advance, the leopard was beginning to close the gap. Daring grit her teeth and pushed herself to stay ahead in their deadly competition. Her eyes darted across the landscape, searching for an opening in the forest's canopy. She needed a place for take-off! She winced – something sharp had cut a gash across her foreleg. “Eyes on the ground, Daring.” She couldn't risk tripping. Or smacking head-first into those nasty tree-branches herself. Oh, and of course, she had to avoid the quicksand. Wait... quicksand? Her hooves met resistance, stopping her dead in her tracks. Before she had fully registered what was going on, it was already too late. “Urk! Are you buckin' kidding me?!” She groaned. “Of all the – why is it always quicksand?” Rapidly, she flapped her wings, trying to escape – but the quicksand just wouldn't let go. Was there a way to reach the edge and get out to safety? Of course not. She had practically galloped into the center of what could count as a small quicksand-lake. A growl from behind reminded her of the other pressing matter at hoof. An icy chill went down the adventurer’s back. She was stuck. The predator had won this race. It would come to collect its price any moment now – if she couldn't think of something, and fast... But it was already too late. There it was. Just a few meters away. Daring could see the hunger, the glint in its eyes as it crouched, preparing to leap. But it didn't. For some reason, it just kept growling at her, pacing back and forth. Something kept it from attacking her. The quicksand! The leopard wasn't too keen on taking its chances with the other force that his potential prey had fallen victim to. It couldn't reach her. Well, that at least solved one of her problems – which ironically would be the cause of her untimely demise in its stead. That certainly put things into perspective. At least now she wouldn't die a quick, gruesome death. Not that the alternative of slowly drowning in sand was any better. Now all she would have to do would be to somehow come up with a daring escape plan. Trouble was, she barely ever made plans. She just acted on impulse, or made due with what the situation presented her with. And right now, she had nothing. She was already stuck knee-deep in – any attempt to move would only accelerate her descent at this point. Of course, now that low-hanging vines or tree-branches would have come in handy, there were none to be found. Her wings were useless in this situation – and even if she did make it, the leopard could easily cycle around the quicksand-lake to pick up the hunt. As if to crush her hopes of surviving even if she could get out of her sticky situation, a second leopard stepped into view. Even worse – it was then followed by a black panther. “Oh, it's one of those days again,” Daring grumbled. The first leopard snarled a greeting, and the two large cats' focus fell on the trapped pegasus. They were smiling. Realization dawned on her. These weren't just ordinary predators. No, now the first leopard's expression of surprise when stumbling into her made perfect sense. “You're working for Ahuizotl!” She grit her teeth in barely suppressed anger. This caused the cats' grins to grow even wider. Of course. Her adversary would often pay locals to do his bidding. Getting rid of her – whatever the means – would get them quite the paycheck. She was surrounded on all sides. She was already half-submerged in quicksand with no means of escape. She was out of options. She needed a miracle! What she got was a rainbow. The only forewarning she had was the high-pitched whine of air-displacement – then a streak of rainbow quite literally burst through the underbrush. The next thing she knew, two blue forelegs wrapped around her midsection, and with a slurping “plop”, the quicksand let go of her. Instinctively holding onto her hat, Daring Do and Rainbow Dash zipped right past one of the leopards. The predator's gaping expression would've sent her into a laughing fit, had Daring herself not been so baffled by her last-minute rescue. “You alright?” the blur of cyan and rainbow addressed her. “Huh? Oh, yeah! Thanks for the lift!” Daring shook off her surprise. Still being dragged along by Dash at break-neck speeds barely above ground level, she could hear the trio of predators roar far behind in frustration. Darn, this pegasus was fast! But her speed wasn’t even the most impressive feat. It was completely insane how this pony could just fly straight through the underbrush seemingly not even having to dodge any – “Look out for that tree branch!” Daring yelled, prompting Dash to just look at her in confusion. “What are you talking abou–” *SMACK!* “Outsch... Hey, where did that thing come from?!” Dash groaned, picking herself back up from the ground. Daring found herself upside down – the impact had sent her rolling several meters. Trotting back to the other pegasus, she adjusted her hat and dusted off her jacket. “Thanks again, Rainbow Dash. How did you even find me out there?” she asked, while helping her companion back to her hooves. The other mare smirked sheepishly at the mention of “thanks” and opened her mouth to reply – only to close it again and blink a couple of times. A roar in the distance caught both pegasi's attention. Looking back to where they had come from, Daring cringed. In the heavily moist forest air, a still fading rainbow trail was clearly visible. This would lead those blasted cats right back to them! “Well, I guess we'd better be off.” She leaped straight into a gallop, only to be halted when the other pegasus exclaimed in alarm. Somehow, Rainbow Dash had managed to get herself wrapped up in vines from head to hoof-tip, two feet above ground-level. Daring turned to help the pegasus get herself unstuck. Undoubtedly, she was allowing their pursuers ample time to catch up. But there was no way she'd ever leave anypony behind – not to mention Dash had just saved her hide! As the two pegasi ran side-by-side, followed by constant growls growing nearer, Daring Do hastily sorted through their options. Outrunning three leopards? Well, they could always try to, though their opponents had the obvious home advantage. And at least one of them had proven itself a rival to Daring's own running skills. The both of them versus three predators – direct confrontation? She couldn't be sure of Dash's fighting skills, and their only chance would be to take them by surprise. However, the surprise factor was long-since gone, and an ambush required a decent hiding spot. Not like leopards could follow their scent or anything. Oh wait. They could try to lay a trap... No, there were three of them, a single trap would at best only catch one, two max. If they had more time, yes, they might have been able to place more than one trap, but another howl – dangerously close – quickly made her discard the option. Unless of course they could steer the predators to jump off a cliff. Then again, if they found a cliff, they could just fly over and leave their pursuers behind. Not that she had seen a cliff anywhere nearby, obviously. However, she saw something else. Through the thick tree cover, she caught a glimpse of a hill – just high enough to pierce above the line of monster-trees (and mushrooms). This would be their place to take off! “That way!” she shouted to Dash, heading towards the hill. . . . “That's not what I expected,” Daring cursed to herself as the hill came into sight. It was steep, impossibly steep, sticking out of the ground menacingly like a spear. Only its upper part was anywhere close to moderate in incline. It was practically not physically possible to climb to the top without proper equipment. Which she didn't have, because usually, pegasi didn't need it. The unusually dense plant-life was, somehow, even more dense here. The entire lower half of the hill was completely covered in vines, overgrown in exotic plants and moss – even trees wrapped their roots and branches around the base of the hill. Flight to the top was impossible. As if she had read her thoughts, Rainbow Dash voiced a complaint of her own. “Ah come on! You've got to be buckin' kidding me! Where did all that stuff even come from!?” She gestured at the all-encompassing vines in frustration. A paw snapping at her tail sent both Dash and Daring scurrying forward. “Quick! There's a cave!” Dash pointed at a spot at the hill's west-side. And indeed, Daring could just make out the slightest difference between the regular moss-, flowers-, and vine-covered stone wall and what seemed to be just vines hanging loosely supporting the other plants growth. With the predator right on their tails it wasn't like they would be able to hide, but Rainbow Dash was already running towards the cave, and Daring Do had little choice but to follow. It was dark, wet and gloomy, but Daring didn't hesitate for a moment. With barely a thought, she pulled out an oil lamp from her jacket and ignited it while the leopard – it was the one Daring had run into first – was still hot on their trail. A sudden yelp from behind her caused the adventurer to falter. What was that? Against better judgment, she turned her head – which turned out to be a fatal mistake. By a cruel joke of fate, the heroic adventurer, who had challenged death in every corner of the world, who had shattered villainous schemes countless times, had defied dangerous dungeons, perilous crypts and trap-filled tombs... tripped over a tiny rock she had not seen in the dark. Daring's head slammed into the ground, hard. Pain shot through her skull, her eyes clenched shut from the impact. The oil lamp clattered to the ground some ways off. Everything went fuzzy. Through her eyelids, all she saw was the flickering light of her oil lamp. The only things she heard were the sounds of her heart pounding wildly in her chest, and hectic, ragged breathing. Except... it wasn't her own breathing. A tirade of curses slurred together into an indecipherable mumble as she blearily opened one eye – only to see the predator come into focus just bare hoof-lengths away. Muscles tense, the familiar surge of adrenaline washed away her weariness. She readied her stance to give the leopard a hard time for its meal. She wasn't gonna go down without a fight! Then she got a good look at the predator. Eyes wide, ears pinned down, one paw held up as if frozen mid-trot, it stared off at something behind Daring Do, its face almost completely drained of color. It… no, he was scared. Scared for his life. Daring’s mind drew a blank. The expression of primal fear was so out of place on the apex predator, she didn’t know what to think. The other two hunters stepped into the cave, snarling and ready to leap. Then they saw their fellow predator, huddling on the ground, shaking with fear. Their demeanor changed, just as quickly. First, signs of recognition, disbelief, and then just sheer and blank terror! And then, the three big cats just turned and ran. With their tails between their legs. And if Daring didn't know any better, it seemed the other two were trying to stay away from the first one. As if touching him could carry a deadly curse. Daring Do felt a cold chill running up her spine. Where exactly had they stumbled into? What had they seen? What could possibly warrant such a reaction?! Slowly, very slowly, Daring Do turned around, steeling herself for the worst... ...And then looked at a dumbfounded cyan pegasus. No big dragons or anything of the sort looming behind her, either. There was nothing. Nothing, except for a carving on the wall. Four simple geometric shapes. It was both a positive surprise as well as disconcerting. It was the ancient Mareican civilization's symbol for “death”. She had found an entrance to the temple she had been looking for. . . . . . . . . . . Author's Note Special thanks to Meta Four and Litho for help with editing. Chapter 2 revision performed: July 2016. Updated December 2016. Chapter 3 - Exposition This chapter is available as a "synthesized" audio book: [click here] - no background music [click here] - with ambient music loop [overview of all chapters] The two mares walked through the dark tunnels of the cave in silence, the only source of light being the adventurer's oil lamp. With Daring Do in the lead, and no immediate threats in sight, Rainbow Dash found some time to reflect on recent events. Her thoughts drifted back to last night, when everything finally had fallen into place. At first she had just stared at it, trying to blink herself awake from what she just had come to terms with wasn't a dream. Closed her eyes, opened them again, thinking that she'd imagined it. But there it had been, undeniably – the Mare in the Moon. And, just like that, getting back home or even sending a message to Ponyville had become a lot more difficult. Not enough that she was in some far out jungle in Luna-knows-where, now she'd also have to add time travel to her schedule. And then she'd remembered something. It didn't come up too often – but the “Daring Do”-books were set sometime mid-last century, not in present day. Now Dash had two possibilities to consider. Both were equally unlikely, but one of them just made sense. As much sense as it could, anyway. Either, she somehow had been flung into the past, into a distant jungle she couldn't remember seeing on any maps, waking up right next to a pony that wasn't supposed to exist, or she had mysteriously entered the world of the “Daring Do”-book series. Now she could even recall why the name “Mareican jungle” had struck a cord. She vaguely remembered it being mentioned in the preview for the latest book, the one she had been about to read before reality had decided to play a prank on her behalf. It was too bad that the preview had been all too hazy – the foreknowledge certainly might've proven useful in her situation. And come to think of it, that was another thing that had been bothering her, ever since Daring Do had unintentionally pointed it out. How did she even find her? How had she even known Daring Do had been in danger? She'd jerked awake, whisked away from sweet dreams of flying with the Wonderbolts, and just known Daring Do was in a precarious situation with no way out. Without second thoughts, she'd flown straight out of the cave to come to her aid. And that brought up another detail. Where did all those vines suddenly come from after she had rescued Daring Do? She had been able to fly just fine before! “So, Rainbow Dash, where are you from, exactly?” Daring Do's attempt at small talk shook Dash out of her musings. “Ponyville,” she answered without giving the question a second thought. Wait, did Ponyville even exist yet? Dash cringed. Apparently, the name didn't strike Daring Do as familiar. “Uhm... near Canterlot. Right next to the Everfree Forest.” “Oh,” was all Daring said at first. “Pretty long way from here,” she added after a pause, involuntarily making Dash cringe yet again. She didn't need to be reminded of how far away from her friends she was right now. Or half a century away. Or in another plane of reality altogether. “So... what brings you here?” This gave Dash a pause. She didn't have the faintest clue how and why she was here. And somehow, it struck her as unwise to tell the pony standing before her that, where she came from, they were just a character in a book-series. Generally, if you told somepony that, they'd label you as insane. Which was pretty much the last thing she wanted Daring Do to think of her. Best to omit certain details of the truth, then. “Well, uh, I dunno... magic mishap, or something.” She shrugged. “One moment I'm off to visit one of my friends in town, next thing I know I wake up in a jungle.” “And 50 or so years in the past. In another universe” was what she didn't say. Judging by Daring's expression turning from surprise to sympathy, her earlier “odd” behavior was now excused. “Woah. Never heard of a unicorn powerful enough to teleport you across half the world.” Great. Another reminder of how far away she was from home. “Yeah, Twilight's got quite the thing for magic. Magic itself is her special talent,” she responded almost automatically. “Although... It can't have been Twi, she was still at the library when I went to Sugar Cube Corner,” Dash thought to herself. “Still, wow. I mean, wow. I sure could use somepony who does teleportation spells like that.” For a moment, Daring Do's expression darkened. “Certainly could use the head start...” That last comment threw Dash's impulse-response off for just long enough to realize that casually name-dropping Princess Celestia as Twilight Sparkle's personal teacher might not be such a great idea after all. Asides from the obvious bragging, it was still half a century before Twilight Sparkle – or any of her friends, or herself for that matter – were even going to be born! If they even were going to be born in this... reality or whatever the hay this was. The thought once again gave her the chills. And things could get awkward if Daring Do started pointing out holes in Rainbow Dash's story. Pointing out holes in her story... Dash pondered for a moment, and curiosity got the better of her. What if she asked Daring about something that wasn't mentioned in any of the books? “Say, how did you get your cutie mark?” She pointed at the depiction of a compass rose imprinted into the adventurer's hindquarters. Daring Do's perplexed expression made her realize how blunt and out-of-the-blue the question must have come off as. Of course you didn't just randomly ask somepony how they got their cutie mark. “Horsefeathers!” Dash silently cursed to herself. ”So much for making a good first... err, second impression.” “Urk, Dash, what's gotten into you?” She face-hoofed inside her mind. “This is Daring Do, for crying out loud! Don't blow this!” “Uhh... I got mine, when I did a Sonic Rainboom...” Somehow, this riveting retelling of a pivotal moment in pony history utterly failed to instill the appropriate sense of awe in her conversation partner. “Uh, you know?” Dash gestured wildly with her hooves for emphasis. “The Sonic Rainboom? Breaking the sound barrier? Giant rainbow explosion in the sky?” When that still didn't break up the awkward gap in their conversation, Dash elaborated. How she had stood up to defend her timid friend, Fluttershy, against some bullies in flight camp. The race challenge, and how she had not only won, but pulled off a move prior to that day only heard of in legends! That her talent lay in the very nature of flying itself, the love for the feeling of air under her wings, the need for speed, and the amazing stunts she could pull off! Daring stayed silent for a moment, then gave a rather brief answer. “Happened when I first got my hooves on a very precious artifact. Had to evade all kinds of dangerous critters and stuff.” Dash sensed there was more to it – there was just something about the way Daring had said those words – but Dash decisively didn't press the issue. After all, a cutie mark story was something very personal, and not everypony liked to share theirs. But at least the awkward silence was over. Her cutie mark... It had been a while since she had thought of that. The image of a golden compass rose against a dark green background was so omnipresent in her everyday life that it hardly even registered anymore. Daring's thoughts drifted back to childhood memories, her father who she barely had known. It had been a dark and stormy night, when she set out on her quest, and – She was shaken out of her reveries, when Rainbow Dash slammed her body into her side with full force. “Hey! What are you –” ZZZZZINNNG! The characteristic noise of a spike trap closing in right behind her cut Daring Do off. “Woah!” Daring's eyes widened in surprise, inwardly scolding herself for letting her guard down. “Thanks, I totally didn't see that one coming.” Rainbow Dash silently stared at the spikes. “...Neither did I,” she quietly muttered to herself. Daring wasn't sure what to make of the remark. Probably stress, considering their near-death encounter. . . . From this point on, the narrow tunnels of the cave became more easily discernible as the entryway to an underground temple, laced with traps every couple of steps. And what nasty traps there were! In her time, Daring had seen the inside of many forbidden catacombs, countless holy and probably less holy shrines – when the cult that had built it had served the god of Chaos and Disharmony, it wasn't “holy” in her book – and this temple had everything. (Well, almost everything. She honestly doubted she'd ever again encounter a pitfall filled with flesh-eating piranhas swimming in steaming hot chocolate, while razor-sharp candy-cane spikes were descending from the ceiling, which itself was covered in some dripping goo that had incapacitated her flying abilities at the time.) From the classic spike-traps, spears shooting out of the walls, the ground opening up to reveal a pit filled with hungry alligators... You name it, it was all here! Daring knew of several different temple archetypes. Asides from different construction styles, layouts or traps to be expected when facing a specific type of temple, there were those that were designed to 'test' anypony that dared to enter... and then there were those that just tried to keep everything and everypony out no matter what. This definitely was one of the latter kind. A wide gap in the ground filled with lava made her pause to consider where exactly the lava might be coming from. The thought was quickly dismissed as the two pegasi simply flew to the other side. That was strange. Whoever had built this place clearly didn't want any intruders to get through, yet, it didn't seem to be built with pegasi in mind. Pegasi taken aside – considering that she had heard rumors about a few feral griffon tribes living somewhere in the southern parts of the jungle, the lack of security against winged intruders struck her as rather inconsiderate. The solution to at least part of this mystery turned out to be rather simple, and non-lethal for once. At one point, the tunnel suddenly came to a stop, only a very small crawlway allowing for passage. No adult griffon would be able to fit – but a pony could squeeze their way through just fine. With the two of them working their way through the tight corridor single file, Daring Do was constantly on edge. Should there be yet another spontaneously opening floor tile or a set of spikes springing up in front of them, they had no real way to evade it. Still, she urged Dash to keep behind by a few meters, in case any of them should require some extra space to dodge something. A number of suspicious rills in the walls did not go unnoticed, but passing them didn't seem to trigger any traps. The narrow tunnel stretched on for quite a while, interspersed with the occasional random turn, rather more of a concession to natural circumstances than intentional design. “Geez, how long is this thing?!” Daring muttered out loud. Lucky for her, she found out when the next corner revealed an exit to a larger chamber, this time dominated by brick architecture as opposed to naked stone walls. “Phew, I thought my wings were going to fall asleep.” The pegasus wearily flapped the sore appendages and stretched her back, briefly leaning against the wall for support. A sudden “CLUNK” from behind made her spin around. The tunnel space she had just crawled out of had been sealed off by a solid rock wall – and Rainbow Dash was still inside! A muffled shout of “Hey! What gives?” coming from the other side pretty much confirmed that Dash was alright, but Daring asked her anyway. “You okay, Rainbow Dash?” “Urk! My tail's stuck,” Dash shouted back. “Some rock or whatever came shooting out from the ceiling! ...It's hard to tell in the dark.” Wait, so there was more to the trap than just this wall at the end of the tunnel? But what good was a trap that only got triggered from the outside? Unless... Daring looked over the wall she had previously leaned on, and indeed – one of the bricks in the wall stuck out slightly. A small push, and the rock-wall slid back up, soon followed by a dust-covered pegasus entering the room. “It's a sealing mechanism.” Daring Do pondered out loud. “Whoever built this place had wanted to have the option to shut everypony out when inside – as if the death traps weren't enough already!” “Heh.” She couldn't help but chuckle. “Clever placement for the trigger, actually. If somepony managed to follow one of the monks – or whoever used to serve in this temple – up to this point, they could still trap the intruder in the tunnel.” On a whim, she searched for the trigger to shut the entrance. With a resounding “CLUNK”, the only apparent exit was closed. “Hah! Let's see how Ahuizotl's gonna get in here now.” Turning her lamp towards the room, Daring took notice of several torches sticking out from the walls. Most of them were soaked – water was dripping in from some point in the ceiling – but she managed to find a usable one. She ignited it, and gave it to Dash, who accepted it wordlessly. Holding up her own light-source, she inspected her surroundings. To her left, there were several intricate carvings, etched into the canvas of a row of stone tablets embedded into the wall. Most of the carvings had been damaged to some degree or another; the water running down from the ceiling was ever-so-slowly eating away at the art. The first carving showed a group of ponies to the right, taking a protective stance against a group of indistinct creatures to the left. Curiously, to the ponies' right, there was a depiction of their symbol for “death” that Daring Do had already noticed at the cave entrance. There was also another symbol Daring Do did not recognize. It appeared to be a flag, probably the symbol of their society, waving in a non-existent breeze. The next picture was not a very pleasant one. While the details had been washed away by a flowing river of water drops from above, and the entire lower half of the image was missing, it clearly depicted a devastated battlefield. Groups of ponies, griffons, and even one or two grown dragons could be seen – apparently lifeless, or otherwise incapacitated. And looming over everything, there was, again, the symbol for “death”. Daring grimaced for a brief moment, then moved on to the next picture. It probably wasn't a good sign that the first thing the Mareicans wanted somepony to see upon entering was an illustration of ponies going to war. There was a gap in the wall, and some debris on the floor indicated that part of the stone tablet had fallen off. The rest of the tablet showed a group of ponies wearing masks and ceremonial robes that covered the entire body. What caused Daring Do to groan and apply her left front-hoof to her face was the detail that every pony shown in the carving was carrying a small orb either depicting the deadly symbol, or what appeared to be their national flag. Within just a couple of minutes, her opinion of the “Great and Wise” Mareican civilization had dropped significantly. The impression she got from this did not match up with her research at all. Okay, there was always the chance she wasn't getting the full picture, or was misinterpreting things. Maybe the flag even had a different meaning altogether. After all, she couldn't rightfully judge this entire civilization on the spot, at the very least not just by looking at the first three stone carvings she came across. And indeed, the next image broke the chain of death and other questionable symbolism. Or, rather, the image after that or perhaps the one thereafter, as a huge chunk of the wall had slumped down into a pile of rubble on the floor. Scratching her head, she noticed the absence of pegasi in the picture. None of the pony-shapes were specifically carved to resemble unicorns either. Going back to the previous images didn't show any pegasi or unicorns either, not that she could tell for sure with the many broken pieces and water-damage. A closed society of earth ponies, perhaps? Come to think of it, this would indeed line up with her research. Just recently, new dating methods had revealed that artifacts found in the Mareican mainlands were much older than previously thought. Eight thousand years at the very least, if not more. As such, the Mareican civilization predated not only the union of the three tribes, but even the three tribes themselves. Not much was known about those early days of recorded history. But one thing was certain. The Mareicans had been... exceptional. In an era when many scattered groups of ponies had just been using the most basic of metal tools, they had already mastered mechanical contraptions the likes of which had only been rediscovered mere centuries ago. Some of the traps she had just escaped from were perfect proof of that. One of the discovered artifacts that was causing historians' brains all around the world to overheat was, in fact, a pony-sized mechanical clock, gear wheels and all. So far, nopony had found an explanation for the spectacular – no pun intended – anachronism. And then, on top of that, there were legends of a powerful artifact. It was just so exciting! At heart, Daring Do was an adventurer, always out for a thrill, no doubt. But also, she often found herself amazed by cultures that had come and passed, long before Equestria was even founded. Sheepishly, she remembered a time when a young daredevil wannabe-adventurer desperately had tried to hide her interest in archeology, believing it to be “nerdy”. Nowadays, she was even publishing her own articles on the subject. Shaking herself from her reveries, she strove for the next stone tablet. The carving showed the same general scenery, except that the ponies had vanished. The image entirely focused on nature – meaning mostly trees and giant mushrooms. There may have been birds, too, but the well-preserved condition of the previous carving did not apply here. Over all, there was a huge circle, straight lines splaying out from it in a circular pattern identifying it as the sun. The next tablet gave Daring pause. It was the same landscape, but the mood of the first few carvings had returned. There were no ponies, no trees, no vegetation, nothing. Looming over everything was, once again, the Mareican symbol for “death” – this time taking the place of the sun itself. Daring wasn't entirely sure what to make of this. The Mareican civilization had vanished at some point, likely fallen victim to a disease. At least, that was the working theory. Whatever carvings had come after that had not stood the test of time. All that remained was a pile of rubble on the ground, where the small river of water droplets vanished into unseen holes in the floor. Daring Do decided to move on, and see what lay ahead of them. Only then, she realized that she hadn't heard a single word from Rainbow Dash for quite a while. She turned to see the other pegasus standing at the opposite side of the room, staring off at nothing in particular. “Rainbow Dash, are you coming?” she addressed the absent-minded mare. “Hmm? Yeah, sure...” Dash replied, apparently shaken out of her thoughts. It still bothered her how she had even gotten here, how it was even possible that she was walking side-by-side through some buried underground structure with her favorite fictional character become flesh. But as they resumed trotting deeper into the temple, Dash's thoughts kept going back to that first trap. She really hadn't seen it coming. There had been something, like a strong itch at the back of her skull, a sense of unease pushing itself to the top of her mind from the depths of her subconsciousness. And then she had jumped to shove Daring Do out of the way before the spike trap could squash them both. It was almost like... “No,” she told herself, sternly. “That's... that's not it.” She almost would have compared the experience to her hyperactive, party-enthusiastic friend's “Pinkie Sense”. But she had seen something out of the corner of her eye. She hadn't been able to grasp what it was at the time... but now, it was crystal-clear. It had been... letters. Words. A sentence. Something along the lines of “... the characteristic noise of a ... spike trap closing in right behind ... Rainbow Dash slammed her body into ...” And then she had acted, before the trap was even visible. She had known what was going to happen, before it happened. She... she had read the next paragraph. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Author's Note Special thanks to Meta Four for help with editing. Chapter 3 revision performed: July 2016. Updated December 2016. Chapter 4 - Instincts and cave-ins This chapter is available as a "synthesized" audio book: [click here] - no background music [click here] - with ambient music loop [overview of all chapters] Okay. Okay, alright. Just when Dash thought she had gotten the hang of the situation, things had taken a turn for the weird. Again. Well, this settled it. She definitely was inside a “Daring Do”-book. And she somehow had managed to peak ahead in the story. Rainbow Dash sighed. The situation had reached critical “Pinkie Pie”-levels of insanity, and it was time to just shrug and accept reality without question. This reality, anyway... Aarg! Okay. She could do that. After all, she had managed to get over that one time when her pink earth-pony friend – somehow – managed to out-compete her while Dash had tried literally everything just to get away from her. Out-competed her! The fastest pegasus in all of Equestria! A cold drop of water hitting her muzzle brought Dash back from her thoughts. Dash had not paid much attention to where Daring Do was leading them. The larger room had given way to a series of narrow corridors snaking their way through the earth, it's walls once again fading from brick-architecture into barren stone. Soon, only a number of reinforcing pillars and the occasional torch, hanging useless on walls glittering with water, served as a reminder that this route led deeper into the temple. The ground was a muddy mess that would have given Rarity a fit. Their own shadows were wavering, dancing across the walls in the uneven light provided by the flickering flames of her torch and Daring's oil-lamp. It gave Dash an eery feeling she could not explain. Even the shining water-droplets seeping in from cracks all around the cave-walls conjured up the mental image of a hundred tiny pairs of eyes scrutinizing their every move. A cold shiver ran up her spine. The entire area just gave her this strong sense of foreboding... Wait! Did that mean...?! Dash instinctively looked up, only for ... a drop of water to hit her spot-on in her left eye. Other than that, there was nothing up there. Blinking the water out of her eye, Dash anxiously examined her surroundings. Still nothing. A false alarm? Not like she had any idea how this new “sixth sense” of hers actually worked, or if she could trust it blindly. But she just could not shake the feeling she had come to associate with some rather unpleasant occurrence in her immediate future – and the feeling was only getting stronger with every passing second! The strange sensation of seeing danger coming, but not knowing what it was or where it would be coming from was... unsettling. Unconsciously, the cerulean pegasus' wings unfurled, and she took a defensive stance against an unknown threat. As her eyes kept glancing over the area, she caught a glimpse of Daring Do staring at her. “Uh, Rainbow Dash, is everything okay?” Apparently, her sudden change of behavior had not gone unnoticed by the other pegasus. What should she tell her? “Daring! Look out ...for, err, something!” Yeah, sure. Dash gave a frustrated sigh. She knew something was up, but there were no words to explain the feeling to somepony else without sounding like a complete lunatic! Eventually, she bit her lower lip and forced out a weak “I'm fine! It's just that I –” *CLICK.* Both Rainbow Dash and Daring Do instantly froze. Dash looked up – but contrary to her expectations, neither did she see falling rocks, a descending wall, shattered debris, hungry crocodiles nor a cave-in coming her way. Then she looked down. Reflecting the light of her torch, there was something peaking out from under the floor's dirt-cover, right under one of her front-hooves. Without taking her hoof from the ground, careful swipes with her other fore-hoof revealed a floor-tile with the depiction of a crocodile on it. Oh. Crocodile. Funny, only a second ago she had expected a crocodile to fall on her head... err. Further effort revealed that, in fact, the entire floor ahead was covered in animal-themed tiles. Leopards, griffons, crocodiles and so on, but also birds, mice and other small forest critters. They just had not seen them below the accumulated smudge of several millennia. And the worst part about it was, that the pattern was mind-numbingly simple to decipher. Predator, predator, predator – prey, predator, prey. It was just like the puzzle in “Daring Do and the Quest for the Sapphire Stone”... Except this one was so simple in it's design that even a school-filly could've figured it out. But nooo, of course she had to step on the crocodile. The main question was why it hadn't triggered any traps yet. That was... surprisingly very considerate of whoever had built this place. Death-traps that could kill you instantly everywhere, but this one would give you time to think about what you'd done. Great. Daring Do seemed to be wondering the same thing, as she kneeled down to examine the image-covered floor-tiles. “Okay, I've seen something like this before, but... hmm. I guess we're supposed to step on the tiles with the predators?” she pondered out loud. “Seeing that it's the only thing all these have in common, and that nothing happened when you stepped on this one.” What?! Wait... That... made sense. Why did the idea of simply not having triggered the trap not occur to her earlier? Reluctantly, the cyan pegasus lifted her right fore-hoof from the floor. The very moment her hoof was up, Dash already knew that it had been a mistake. The next minute or two became a haze, as several events occurred in rapid succession. First, a rumbling noise from above announced a rapidly descending ceiling. The next thing Dash knew, she was already up and dodging falling rocks and debris from the trap-mechanism that apparently had not stood the test of time and was now fulfilling it's duty of killing them in a slightly different manner as it had been intended – namely by spilling it's spiky, razor-sharp mechanical guts everywhere at bullet-speeds, and destabilizing the underground tunnel they were currently trying to escape from. The patterned floor-panels forgotten, both pegasi bolted through the near-darkness of the collapsing corridor – Dash's torch having been extinguished somewhere along the way, and Daring's oil-lamp flickering hectically as she ran making it extremely difficult to see anything. Rock. Dash dodged to the left. All Dash could discern were shapes flying all around her, yet she found herself barely scraped by any of them. “Guess it's my lucky day,” Dash dodged to the left, avoiding a large chunk of rock impacting right next to her. The cerulean pegasus ducked. Gear wheel. Cut off a few strands of her rainbow mane. Dash heard a whirring noise coming up from behind, and the cerulean pegasus ducked just in time to avoid an out-of-control gear wheel zipping right over her head – That was close! Dash could've sworn the gear even had cut off a few strands of her rainbow mane! ...Déjà vu? No time for that. Halt. ...cutting off her path. Left. ...boulder toppling over. Dash came to a screeching halt, as a large boulder came down right in front of her, cutting off her path. Her ears perking up to some unheard noise, she almost instantly regained her momentum as she darted to the left – just barely avoiding getting squashed by the boulder toppling over to where she had stood merely a second ago. Slide. Metal piece soaring right past... Jump. Finding her balance... on only two legs. Hay. Impossibly, she crouched down and slid right beneath another out-of-control metal piece soaring right past her face. The image of two huge magenta eyes staring down at her with a mixture of shocked disbelief and confusion burned itself into her mind. It had been her reflection. Dash didn't have any time to really think about what was happening, she was purely acting on instinct now. Muscles tensing, she prepared to jump straight from her crouched position. She landed, hind-legs first, on a slab of rock. For a moment, she had trouble finding her balance – it felt as if the rock was shifting beneath her hooves – but she managed to steady herself on only two legs. The familiar feeling of winds blowing in her face, the sensation of speed was a welcome change, comforting in this otherwise utterly confusing situation. “Wait, what the...?” The wide chunk of rock she had landed on was, for whatever reason, shooting sideways through the tunnel, covering a good distance before embedding itself in a wall. Dash's only thoughts in that moment were “What the hay?!” and “What the hay what the hay WHAT THE HAY?!!!” Despite lacking a light source of her own, Dash practically – for lack of a better term – danced through the rain of stone and metal debris clattering from the ceiling. A sharp turn here, a jump purely on instinct there – she barely received so much as a scratch! For the most part, all she felt were gusts of wind as she passed through the mostly dark, and undoubtably hazardous obstacle course. Concerns for her life soon turned into an adrenaline-fueled euphoria. In defiance of danger, Dash couldn't help but grin. This was crazy awesome! Daring Do. With a start, Dash remembered that she wasn't alone in the collapsing tunnel. She turned, only to see Daring Do having fallen far behind. The other mare was doing her best to work her way around the deadly debris, but it was obvious she lacked Dash's inexplicable “sixth sense” and uncanny brand of supernatural luck. She was making due with the regular five senses quite well, mostly dodging whatever came her way. Mostly. Daring Do's oil-lamp gave her a clear indication, where Daring was going. And she was heading right for disaster. She had to help her! But as Dash looked back the way she had come, against the flickering light shining into her general direction, she could see the actual scope of the situation. “Rain of stone and metal debris” wasn't entirely appropriate to describe the sight that lay before her. “Storm” would have been more befitting. Sharp pieces of rubble were flying everywhere, and not just from the ceiling, a significant number of shards – some of them as large as a pony – were bouncing off the walls and ground as well! “How in the world did I make it through there?” Dash stared at the spectacle in morbid fascination, with Daring Do caught in the middle of it all. She shook her head, and made up her mind. Galloping back into the inferno, she yelled: “Daring Do! Look out for the –” ...And then the floor gave way beneath her hooves. Daring Do was in hell. Well, that's what it felt like. She generally hated it when ancient catacombs decided that her visit happened to be the best time to come crumbling down, but this was one of the trickier ones. She could barely see anything, and despite years of training and experience with similar situations – although training-sessions on escaping from a collapsing temple had only been the occasional oddity on her schedule – she found herself in quite the sticky situation. Everything was flying, all around her. And in every direction. Except for her, she wasn't flying. Her left wing still hurt, it had been hit by some of the flying debris. She couldn't discern the severity of the injury right now, but the pain was bearable as long as she didn't stress the appendage. Darting to the left side of the tunnel, the adventurer evaded a gaping hole in the ground that just so happened to open up right in front of her – only to nearly get squashed by the wall itself crumbling to the ground, obscuring her path with more wreckage. Forced to reduce her speed as she carefully made her way over the unstable pile of rubble right next to what might easily have been a fifty meter drop, Daring caught a glimpse of a rainbow blur shooting by over-head. “Huh? Was that Rainbow Da-AAARGH!!” Daring held back a yelp of agony behind clenched teeth, as she took yet another blow to her back. The path ahead was dangerous enough on it's own, and while Daring certainly enjoyed a good challenge, she sadly lacked the second pair of eyes on the back of her head that would obviously be required to evade the ricocheting shards and metal bits striking her from behind. She would have to tend to her wounds later, for now, all she could do was to canter onwa- “...aaand there goes my balance.” Daring groaned inwardly as the slab of stone she was currently standing on began sliding away from under her hooves. She just barely managed to jump off to the side, before the stone-plate rushed down the slope and fell into the pit to her right. Once she was back on stable ground, she picked up her pace back to a quick gallop. Only moments thereafter, something hit Daring from behind, this time in her right hind-leg. Luckily, it hadn't struck too hard, merely causing the adventurous mare to stumble momentarily, before quickly regaining her balance and resuming her gallop. Daring had no illusions about her situation. As much as she hated to admit it, she couldn't hold this up for much longer. There was simply too much going on all around her, and she could not dodge these things forever. The light blow to her leg had just put more emphasis on this fact. The moment she injured her leg, got struck down, or maybe even just tripped – the instant she stopped, she'd be as good as dead. Somewhere up ahead, Daring could make out a pathway that split off from the main tunnel. It had not yet succumbed to the destructive chain-reaction, and she made a dash for it. A deformed piece of metal scrap that at one point might have been a cog-wheel shot down in front of Daring Do. She dodged, just as another part of the wall to her right burst to bits succeeding the impact of a large boulder. Zigzagging through the resulting chaos over to the other side of the tunnel, she encountered an incredibly fast-spinning metal plate rebounding between both walls near ground-level. This warranted a raised eyebrow from the adventurer, as the odds for a setup like this to fall into place completely by chance seemed somewhat small. Regardless, there was no time to waste, and Daring did not hesitate to risk a jump that could easily end with getting cut clean in half if timed improperly. Upon landing, a small explosion right overhead caused a shower of rocks to come down right above Daring's position. She managed to evade the larger chunks of stone, but the majority of them were to small to make out in the dim light, and the pelting rubble too widespread to dodge. Daring took the blows to her back, merely protected by her trademark jacket and pith-helmet – the latter of which served her well in preventing any serious head-injuries – and galloped on. She was almost there! The sudden outcry of “Daring Do! Look out for the...” took her off-guard. Daring's ears shot up straight, her pupils shrinking into tiny pinpricks at the realization – amidst all the chaos, she had completely forgotten about Rainbow Dash! Jerking her head to the source of the exclamation, she briefly lost track of where she was going – and her brisk gallop came to an abrupt end as her face reconciled with the dirt on the floor. As fate would have it, this misfortune wouldn't cost, but instead save her life. There was no forewarning, other than a hissing noise easily lost amidst the cacophony of a cave-in. Specs of mud splattered all over her face, as a large object soared right over her head and then dug its way into solid rock only inches away from her muzzle. Opening her eyes again, the adventurer stared at a wall of metal, a razor-sharp blade sticking out of the ground at an odd angle indicating it had come shooting down from behind where she could not possibly have seen it coming. Out of reflex, Daring raised a hoof to check on her trusted pith-helmet, but quickly reasserted her priorities as she noticed a stone-pillar hurdling towards her general direction. Swiftly rolling to her side, the bruised pegasus tensed as her body-weight pushed down on her injured wing. Ignoring the unpleasant sensation, she quickly got to her legs and resumed her escape at a brisk pace. Finally having reached safe territory, Daring Do gave an audible sigh. “Phew, now that was some exercise!” She wiped her left front-leg against her forehead, which didn't really do much to alleviate her sweat-soaked coat from countless stains of mud. Back in the main tunnel, the noise was already dying down, and the endless stream of rubble falling from the ceiling was coming to an end. “That last one was a close call.” she chuckled to herself, examining her helmet for damage. Relieved to see that it had not sustained anything major beyond a few new scrapes – a surprising feat considering the condition its owner was in – she put her headgear back on with a satisfied smirk. But really, that was close! If Dash hadn't shouted at her at that very moment, she... might... not... Daring Do smacked her left hoof across her own face as hard as she could, ignoring the sharp pain and a bleeding nose that followed. One stupid little brush with death, and she forgot about her companion?! What in Tartarus was wrong with her?!? But just as Daring was about to come charging back into the tunnel, there was a loud, almost comical “CRACK”-sound, as – oh, now that was just great timing – the entrance through which she had come was sealed shut by the last few chunks of rock that the cave-in had shaken loose coming down right in front of her. No matter how hard the athletic mare pushed, shoved, or slammed the whole weight of her body into the boulders blocking her path at full force, they did not budge. “Dash! Rainbow Dash!” Daring shouted, her hooves pounding wildly against unmoving rock. “Are you okay in there?!” There was no response. “Celestia-darnit, Rainbow Dash! Say something, anything!” “Just gimme five more minutes...” Dash moaned, stirring in her sleep. The feeling of something sharp poking her in the back however kept the pegasus from returning to her peaceful slumber. Daring Do was safe. So why couldn't she just keep dozing for a couple more minutes? However, sweet unconsciousness proved elusive, slipping away ever so slowly. Her blanket turned into a pile of rubble and dirt, and her fluffy cloud-bed felt hard and uncomfortable. Add to that the horrible taste in her mouth, and she just couldn't get back to sleep anymore. Dash slowly opened her eyes, but the darkness didn't budge. “Stupid darkness, go away,” Dash slurred, and tried to find the light-switch on her bed-lamp. As her hooves struck metal, she remembered that her bed-lamp wasn't made of that material, and was inclined to reconsider her surroundings as not being her comfy cloud-home in Ponyville. Then, the memories of the previous day came back to her. Meeting Daring Do, being chased through the Mareican jungle by predators, discovering an underground cave-system / ancient temple, a cave-in... and the ground suddenly disappearing. Dash frowned at that last bit. The ground hadn't just been gone, it had dragged her with it. How else would a skilled pegasus like herself be unable to keep level, even with the ground beneath her hooves gone so suddenly? Was it an air-current that had pulled her through the hole in the floor? That particular detail was missing from her memories. Still, with everything that had happened, this only added to the pegasus' confusion. Especially considering her newfound... abilities, which had decided to stop working in that crucial moment. Granted, all the other moments before it had been crucial too, probably even more so. It was still a miracle she didn't find herself buried below a heap of dirt and rock, and she certainly was glad for – ...What the hay was that taste in her mouth? Dash realized with a start that she was lying face-down in a clod of dirt. And some of that dirt was also now in her mouth. Jumping to all four hooves, she spat profusely, and then futilely tried scrubbing her tongue with both of her front-hooves. As they, too, were caked in a layer of dirt, her attempts to rid herself of the vile flavor were in vain. The pegasus' wings flared in agitation, only for a sharp pain in her right wing to instantly distract her from the bitter taste in her mouth. Dash turned her head to examine her injured wing... only to remember that she couldn't see a darn thing in the utter and complete darkness she had found herself in. Exclamations of “Buck!” and “To the moon with this!” were interspersed with Dash wincing in pain, as she folded her wing back into a more comfortable position. “Great. Just great. My wing hurts, I can't see anything, I have dirt on my tongue and I'm probably stuck down here forever. Great! Just great!” Rainbow Dash grunted in frustration. As Dash flailed her hooves in a gesture expressing her general dissatisfaction with the current circumstances, she once again heard a quiet “clank”, and then the clattering noise of metal against metal. Apparently, she had toppled some of the metal debris to fall onto another metal surface. The interesting thing however was a tiny red dot that had burned itself on the back of her eyelids. It had been a spark. All she needed were a couple sparks to light up her torch. Dash had most definitely never been to the filly scouts, and asides from some things she had picked up from Fluttershy's extensive knowledge of animal care-taking, her expertise concerning nature for the most part stopped before reaching ground-level. However, she had learned a useful trick or two from reading... well, heh, a “Daring Do”-book. Who'd have thought she'd ever get hooves-on-experience in that very field? She placed the torch on the ground, and began banging the two metal pieces together atop it. It turned out to be more difficult than she had anticipated, the first signs of a fire not going past a mere glimmer before dying down again in a matter of seconds. The cerulean pegasus certainly wasn't one to start fires – if anything, as a weather-mare, she had to extinguish them in the rare case there ever was one. Realizing she was missing something, Dash paused. What could help her starting a fire? She didn't have any dry grass or tree-branches. Nor did she have a lightening cloud. Nor a stove. And those were just about the only things she could think of at the moment to start a fire. Well – how did she extinguish them? Maybe she could... err, do the exact opposite of that? Although, the opposite of a rain cloud... well, that'd be a clear sky. Okay, so that particular train of thought wasn't going anywhere. ...Wait, why a stove? Dry grass, tree-branches, lightening clouds, yes – but why was one of her first ideas to start a fire through natural means to use a stove? Yeah, sure, but... Oh yeah, that one time Derpy set her kitchen on fire. Something about “muffins with hot sauce” and an exploding stove. And it had been a particularly sunny day, so there hadn't been too many rain clouds to pump for water. Of course there was the well, but that was on the other side of town. Sure, she could've flown there and back in ten seconds flat, but there had been an even faster way. Dashing in at top-speed, and robbing the fire of the air it needed to spread. “Oh yeeaaah, that!” Dash smacked her hoof against her forehead. Having found the missing key-component to her cunning plan of starting a fire, Dash's next attempt was a success. After finding the torch and the two metal plates again in the dark, Dash carefully blew on the tiny glowing spot, which soon grew into a healthy fire. Dash smiled at her – admittedly relatively minor – accomplishment, and picked up the lower end of the torch with her mouth ... only to spit it back out right afterwards with a startled yelp. “Yuck! Pew! Ugh, gross!” Dash spat and tried to rid herself of the foul taste of centuries-old wood. “And I thought the dirt 'round here tasted bad, urgh!” Picking up the torch with a front-hoof, Dash started examining her surroundings, but stopped after only two steps. ...How had she been holding the torch before? When she was up there with Daring Do, she obviously had had other things on her mind. And now, she... she couldn't remember. It was such a minor detail, she hadn't given it any thought at the time. She most definitely hadn't been using her mouth to hold it. She'd remember that. Hay, she could even recall using one of her fore-hooves to uncover the alligator-themed floor-tile and firmly holding it down with the other – while she had still been holding the burning torch! If it hadn't been for the torch, she might not even have seen the floor-tile! ... Wait, where did the torch even come from?! She certainly didn't remember holding it anymore when everything around her had gone haywire. Though she couldn't remember dropping it either. It just ... she just hadn't thought of it anymore up till right now, and now she was holding it in her left front-hoof. Dash just blinked a couple of times at the jarring inconsistency. Again, even though she had already dismissed the idea twice, this was like a dream. The moment when you realized “Wait, why does Twilight's pet-owl suddenly have the head of Applejack's pet-dog?” or “Wait, hold on, why would the famous Spitfire be a clown on my birthday party?” was usually the moment when you woke up. Except she didn't wake up, things were just making less and less sense by the minute. Dash moaned in resignation, and flopped onto the ground, ears drooping. She had thought she could deal with this kind of stuff. She had dealt with Pinkie's antics for years, even before they had become close friends. Pretty much everypony in Ponyville had dealt with Pinkie Pie breaking the established laws of physics at one point or another. But Pinkie Pie had always been... well, “the exception to the rule”. It would have been so much easier to accept this entire scenario and all it's oddities if Pinkie had been there. Then... well, then she could just dismiss the whole thing as “Pinkie Pie being Pinkie Pie” and be done with it. She had come to terms with Pinkie being random, the very rare relapse taken aside... But seriously! How did Pinkie manage to stay ahead when she had tried to – “Okay, okay, chill down Dash, you're over that now.” She took a deep, calming breath. Now that she thought back to her episode of “crazy insane awesome luck” back in the collapsing tunnel, the idea of “Pinkie Sense” seemed even more appropriate. Or, in her case, “Rainbow Sense”. “No, no, no!” Dash shuddered and vigorously shook her head to dispel the thought. There was just something fundamentally ... wrong about the mere concept! She couldn't put her hoof on what it was, but she vehemently refused to believe that “Pinkie Sense” and what she had experienced were anything alike, regardless of any similarities that presented itself. Now that she recalled the event, a wild jumble of words and sentence-fragments came floating up to the top of her head, but seemingly without any context or structure. The flustered mare massaged her temples to counter the beginnings of an oncoming headache. “Urg, now I know how Twilight felt when she tried to make sense of Pinkie Sense,” she mumbled out loud, before burying her face in her free front-hoof, still consciously keeping a firm grasp of the torch she was holding in the other – even if just to make sure it wouldn't spontaneously disappear. However, the thought of her studious friend sparked a recent memory. The wedding of Twilight's brother, Shining Armor – and all the havoc that had gone down during the wedding-ceremony. What if the “Daring Do” she had met was actually a disguised changeling? Dash snorted, and then burst out laughing. Just a few hours ago, this would have made sense. Heavens, it would have made so much sense. Much more sense than any other explanation she had come up with so far could have made. The Mare in the Moon? An elaborate trick. The Mareican jungle? Another elaborate scheme, being dragged away from pony-civilization after having fallen unconscious, whatever the reasons for doing so may have been. Granted, Daring Do would have been the nicest, and most awesome-est changeling she had ever met, but still, even that would have made sense. It would have, in fact, definitely been the most reasonable and simple explanation, the perfectly logical conclusion, for everything. But now? By this point, the idea was so far removed from reality that Dash just couldn't help but roll on the ground in a barely controlled fit of laughter. After Dash had more or less composed herself, she stood back up. She really had needed a good laugh after all of this. “Okay, Dash... let's figure out where you are first, and solve all the mysteries of the universe later.” She wiped away a few tears of mirth. Holding her torch high in her left fore-hoof, Dash took a closer look at her surroundings. In contrast to previous narrow corridors and tunnels, she found herself standing in the center of a wide and open space. Her torch's light reflected off from irregular, yet smooth stone-walls in the distance, sprinkled with the occasional gemstone here and there. The rough terrain gave a clear indication that this part of the cave had grown naturally, and didn't seem to be part of the temple's structure. Small pools of water were scattered all about, and now that she was paying attention to it, she could hear water flowing somewhere in the area, and the faint “pling”-noises of waterdrops falling. Looking up to see where she had fallen from, Dash was surprised that she couldn't see the ceiling. The cave went up so high that the light of the torch didn't reach far enough to illuminate it. Her body's instinctive reaction to move its wings only served as a painful reminder that she didn't have the option of flying back up the way she had come from. Without any prominent direction to take, Dash followed the sounds of water splashing. She soon came across a small underground river, stretching into the darkness in both directions. With a shrug, Dash wandered off in the direction of the water-current. . . . . . . . . Author's Note Thanks to BethanyBubbles for last-minute help with editing. Chapter 5 - Separation This chapter is available as a "synthesized" audio book. For this chapter, I went the extra-mile and added situation-appropriate background-music for the audio-book. I even took care to ensure correlation between musical climax and the specific moments in the story when something actually happens. Headphones are strongly suggested. [click here] - RECOMMENDED, with situation-appropriate background-music [click here] - no background music [click here] - with ambient music loop [overview of all chapters] Daring Do was not a very happy pony. The fact that one of the pegasus' wings was currently wrapped in bandages was not even on the forefront of her mind. After nearly getting beheaded by a trap gone rogue, she had just barely escaped a collapsing tunnel, the exit sealed shut right behind her – only to realize that Rainbow Dash was still on the other side. After making her way through the labyrinth and escaping several relatively harmless or ineffective – and decidedly less self-destructive – traps, Daring was getting exhausted. Oh, getting out of the labyrinth had been easy. What had taken her so long had been her attempt trying to find another way back in. She had spend hours trying to find another way that led back to the main corridor and a possibly injured rainbow-maned pegasus, exploring just about every possible path until it hit a dead end. As it turned out, the darn labyrinth didn't even connect to that particular corridor! Realizing this, she had painstakingly backtracked her steps all the way back to the side-path that had led her into the labyrinth initially, trying once again to lift the debris out of the way. As before, entry was denied. She had shoved. She had pulled. She had shouted. She had punched the rock. ...Not that the last one had helped, nor did it have any chance to do so. In fact, her right forelimb still hurt a bit. But it had relieved at least some of the stress. Disgruntled, in the end she was left with no other choice but to move on, left with nothing but to hope that the other mare had managed her own escape. She seemed capable enough, judging by how she had fared so far. “Oh, who am I kidding?” Daring thought to herself. Surprisingly enough, the cerulean pegasus had possibly saved her flank twice already! Twice! Once from drowning in quicksand, and the other time from a pair of spikes she had not noticed herself. Three times, even, if one counted Dash's warning that ended up saving her from a fatal razor blade to the head. It went against her ego to openly admit it, but credit where credit was due. And she had failed to return the favor. It was her fault. She should have kept an eye out for Rainbow Dash – and now her companion might be... No. Daring couldn't suppress a cold shiver running down the length of her body. She shouldnotthink of it like this. “Never give up hope,” and all that. She had not seen what had happened. Rainbow Dash's lack of response to her initial shouts might just mean that the cerulean pegasus had been unconscious at the time, and maybe then wandered out of ear-shot while Daring was trying to find another way in. Or maybe the wall of rock and debris that had cut off the tunnel simply had been to thick for sound to carry, or... or... any number of things, really. Maybe – maybe she was just fine. Daring Do certainly hoped so. On the back of her mind, Daring took note that thanks to the cave-in she'd have to figure out another route back to the surface later on. Not that this currently was all-too high on her list of priorities. In any case, Daring did not feel particularly chipper about the whole thing, seeking to distract herself with whatever secrets of the Mareicans would present itself to her. Problem was, there was barely anything there. It had been almost a day since she and Rainbow Dash... It had been almost a day since they had descended into the depths of what the Mareicans had decided would be the ideal place to worship their gods (or whatever they had done down here). Daring had been certain she had correctly solved every last riddle carved into the walls at each of the labyrinth's junctions, and by that reasoning, she should be on the right way – but doubt was ever-so slowly chipping away at her confidence. For the last two hours, she had just been following a single corridor, barren of carvings or traps. The only thing reassuring her that she wasn't entirely lost were the wooden torches attached to both sides of the tunnel in more or less regular intervals. The Mareicans wouldn't have wasted their time putting up torches everywhere if the tunnel didn't lead someplace important, now would they? Right? This certainly was one of the temples – or underground-cave-systems, for that matter – she had spend the most time in, and there was no telling how far it still was to the central chamber. Most temples just had a bunch of traps in them, and then they got to the point... instead of stretching on for miles with empty corridors that didn't contain anything. And why in all that was holy did the Mareicans have to build their holy place so deep underground? Daring gave a frustrated sigh. The path ahead of her seemed to go on forever, reaching far beyond what her measly oil-lamp could hope to illuminate. When, after all this time, Daring finally saw a dim shine in the distance, she at first believed it to be a trick of her eyes. However, turning off the oil-lamp for a brief moment confirmed that there was, indeed, a light at the end of the tunnel. Squinting ahead, Daring could make out a steady purple glow and the faint shimmer of a reflective surface, likely metal. A... lightsource, down here? That could only mean one thing. For just a brief moment, the sides of Daring's mouth twitched, displaying her trademark confident smirk. Finally, she would uncover the ancient secrets of the Mareicans. Exhaustion forgotten, the adventurer began trotting faster, and soon found herself galloping towards the light. She was so focused on making out the details on the distant glow that she almost didn't notice the stark irregularity in the stone-wall to her right. Screeching to a halt, the promising glow still a good distance ahead, she turned and inspected the gaping hole in the wall, leading straight into what unmistakably was a small chamber carved from stone. The hole itself was on chest-level and zig-zag shaped, making it obvious not to be the intended entrance. With a last glance over to the light ahead indicating the most obvious path to take, Daring decided to take a small detour, and jumped through the hole. As she had learned from experience, sometimes you could make the most interesting discoveries if you chose the path nopony expected you to take. The first thing she noticed about the room was the air. Naturally, everything was coated with thick layers of dust. But upon hitting the ground, she had involuntarily set off what seemed like a literal dust-avalanche. It took a lot of coughing and waving her hooves in front of her muzzle before Daring Do could see anything again. As her sight cleared, she saw several rows of wooden benches, accompanied by wooden pedestals in front of each bench. At the other end of the room, a stone altar shined bright in the light of her oil-lamp, towering over the other pedestals. To her right, Daring was surprised to actually find something that resembled a bookshelf – albeit without any actual books or parchments. Or, nothing that could be recognized as such, anyway. What remained of what might have given an invaluable insight into Mareican culture had been reduced to piles of dust and scraps of paper that crumbled as soon as Daring so much as laid hoof on them. Her inner archeologist had to wince at the thought that she probably had inhaled several irreplaceable scrolls upon entering the room. Glancing around, Daring pondered the room's purpose. Considering the immense distances one had to overcome just to get here, Daring had already deemed the idea of monks frequently attending services in the temple as rather unlikely – perhaps coming down here only for special occasions? This chamber seemed like the place to hold a ceremony for a small group of ponies... Literally. On closer inspection, Daring noticed that the benches' proportions were off – they'd be rather uncomfortable for grown mares and stallions to fit in. As the light of her oil-lamp illuminated different parts of the room, Daring noticed the symbol of a waving flag on the shrine up front. Immediately, Daring was reminded of the carvings she had seen earlier, showing this symbol in the context of a devastated battlefield. Daring Do shook her head in dejection. She had seen her fair share of early ponykind's darker sides that history classes seemed to be all-too happy to just gloss over. Reminiscing over some of the less-than-pleasant aspects of some of her earlier adventures, in combination with her already sour mood, Daring's expression grew grim, as dark thoughts entered her mind. The shrine up front had just about the right dimensions. It could easily have been used for magical rituals of a... highly questionable ethical nature. As Daring stepped closer to the altar, her hooves struck something lying on the ground and sent it skidding through the dirt. Picking it up, the light of her oil-lamp revealed it to be a oddly-shaped wooden contraption, just about the size of her hoof. It was longer than it was wide, and it's lower half was flat, while the upper half was smooth, with a large bulk at one end. Two tiny pairs of wooden knobs were attached to either side, and through a hole at what Daring assumed was its back, she could just barely make out the metal reflection of a number of tiny cogwheels. All in all, Daring didn't know what to make of the device. But suddenly, something at the back of her mind screamed “familiarity” at full-force. She couldn't tell where this strong sense of familiarity came from. She had been in dozens of temples, naturally, some of those would remind her of others. Still, this was different. Scratching her head, Daring absentmindedly placed the contraption on the stone-altar in front of her. A quiet sound caught her attention immediately afterwards. Daring tensed. Had she triggered a trap? But no. The wooden contraption merely had rolled over the altar's flat surface and fallen down on the other side, likely due to a slight incline. Chuckling to herself, she trotted behind the altar and picked up the object of her momentary lapse. As Daring stood back up, taking in the room from a different perspective, Daring Do just... stopped. Her mind came to a complete and total halt, and then did a 180° backflip. Her mouth worked silently, yet barely so much as a breath escaped. Eyes glancing over the rows of seats and tables in front of her, Daring had a hard time putting the new tidbits of information that were coming in into a coherent picture. The adventurer had seen many things. Breath-taking feats of architecture, powerful magic and treasures of legend, which many-a-pony would consider naught but old-mares-tales. Rarely Daring Do could be found at a loss for words. This was one of those rare times. “B-But... But... Wha...? This – this doesn't make any sense!! What would this be doing here?” Glancing back and forth between the wooden object firmly grasped in her hooves and the small wooden desks and chairs filling the room, each of them showcasing previously unseen symbols like tiny hearts, horseshoes or flowers, she just couldn't reconcile the image with her expectations of what a temple was supposed to contain. The feeling of familiarity had been right. She had been here before. Not exactlyhere, of course, but in a place just likethis. And it had not been a temple. It had been an elementary school. This was a class-room... a class-room for foals – miles below the surface, protected by countless death-traps, and built sometime about eight thousand years ago. The supposedly ritual altar she was now clinging to was the teacher's desk. The object she was unconsciously crushing inside her left fore-hoof was a toy. This definitely defied her expectations, and had been pretty much the last thing she had ever imagined to find in a temple. Daring found her mind reeling, buzzing with questions upon questions as to how this particular scenario could possibly be made sense of. Why would they have built a... a class-room inside of their heavily guarded temple? They couldn't possibly have sent colts and fillies down here every day just for study. Then where would they have lived? Down here!? Where would they have gotten their food from? Then, Daring realized that it wasn't just her mind reeling – in addition, her surroundings had started to spin. Slowly, she was getting light-headed. “Must be something about the dust in the air... I gotta get out of here!” Stumbling towards the entrance she had come through, Daring noticed an indentation in the shape of a door to her right. Her mind was getting hazy at this point. Later, she couldn't have explained what possessed her to try opening the door instead of heading straight for the hole in the wall. With her last reserves, she managed to slide the stone-door aside – and was rewarded with not-exactly fresh, but definitely less hazardous air instantly flooding her lungs, while an all-encompassing violet light momentarily added to her disorientation. Exhaustion from her trek in combination with an assault on her health – embarrassingly enough by dust-bunnies, a detail Daring would gladly omit in future retellings of her adventures – finally claimed her. Before she blacked out, she still had time for a moment of introspection as she took in a sight which in itself would also have been breath-taking, hadn't she already been robbed of her breath seconds prior. She had to correct her previous assumption that a class-room for foals would be the last thing she'd have expected to find down here. On a side-note, this answered the question as to where the little colts and fillies had spent their time outside from school. The cavern ahead was enormous. The ceiling alone must have been hundreds of meters high, scattered with some kind of magic crystal providing a steady illumination for what lay below – an entire city. After several uneventful hours of trotting through the seemingly endless expanse, Dash was beginning to feel the first signs of exhaustion slowing her down. While the athletic pegasus was built for speed, and her physical endurance was not to be taken lightly – given that she had a good night (and several mid-day breaks) of sleep – the lack of food and the sense of isolation in a deep, dark, and overall creepy cave were getting to her. The passionate flyer's wings already itching from disuse, the pegasus carried herself through the ever-repetitive landscape of rocks, rocks, scattered gemstones every now and then, and more rocks, growing more and more frustrated – and, oddly enough, bored. In stark contrast to the day's previous excitement, there was simply nothing interesting going on now. Like, at all. Asides from the river's quiet gurgling and the echo of her own hoof-steps, Dash couldn't hear a thing, and the scenery itself had lost its charm after the first twenty minutes. She didn't have anything to bandage her right wing that had taken the brunt of her fall, and every now and again, she'd have to consciously restrain herself from flexing the appendage to avoid further injury. To top it all off, she was getting mixed signals from her body's internal clock, insisting on it being both deep in the night as well as the middle of the day, judging by the time she had last seen the sun outside. With nothing else to do, the cerulean pegasus let her thoughts wander. She didn't feel too comfortable thinking about what had happened back in the collapsing tunnel. Contemplating her new-found super-powers and the steady increase of bizarre events just made her feel uneasy and seemed to be a quick way to get a headache. She had read her fair share of science fiction comics, and wasn't a stranger to the concept of parallel dimensions. It wasn't like she could openly talk about this kind of stuff anywhere near Twilight, least she'd dive right into lecture-mode – but even despite a lack of knowledge in the field of “quantum metal-psychics” or whatever, she knew that something didn't add up. She could easily have convinced herself that she had been propelled into another dimension that – no matter how slim the chances for that were – matched up exactly with the world described in the Daring Do book-series... if it weren't for the inconsistencies. All those small things that simply refused to obey common sense... Worse, it seemed to be centered around her. No, nothing was wrong with her – something was wrong with the world around her. It just didn't make sense. Wait... “not making sense” – where had she...? “...Oh feathers, no.” Could this be Discord's doing? Could the spirit of chaos and disharmony possibly have escaped from his stone prison? But dropping her off in her favorite book-series and giving her super-powers? Causing torches to randomly disappear and re-appear on demand? Unconsciously, Dash once more tightened the grip on the torch wrapped in her left foreleg, reassuring herself of its continued existence. No, Discord had been far from subtle about plunging the whole of Equestria into chaos. This wasn't his style. Dash breathed a sigh, but the tension didn't fade. The cerulean pegasus turned around and stared back into the empty darkness, the way she had come from. Holding her torch high, she glanced over the nearby walls, and then the cold stone-surface. Gemstones were glistening in the light of her torch, stalactites were growing on the ceiling. Still, the river she had been following remained the only true landmark. As Dash resumed her trek, her thoughts once more drifted back to her friends back home. She had been gone for more than a day now, maybe even two, and they would definitely have noticed her absence by this point. They might have gone so far as to organize a search party, but even so, they certainly wouldn't find her here. There was no way to inform them where she was, or even that she was okay. Hay, she still didn't have the foggiest clue how she had gotten here, or how to get back. Maybe Twilight's magic could do the trick, if only there was a way to contact her... Horsefeathers, she was stuck in the story of a book for crying out loud! She was literally cut off from her own world...! Hold on a minute there. Her own... world? Hmm... She may not have been able to contact Twilight, but maybe she could talk to somepony else. Twilight Sparkle was, without a doubt, the most powerful unicorn Dash knew – but there were others. Others that might be able to help her. Well, oneother, anyway. Princess Celestia. From what Dash knew of the series, Daring Do's world had its own Equestria – and if Dash wasn't gravely mistaken, this “other” Equestria was also ruled by the immortal goddess of the sun... or, rather, an alternate version of her. If anypony could help, it had to be her. Getting a private audience with the princess might be a tad more difficult, considering that Daring's Celestia didn't know her, but she'd deal with one problem at a time. Of course, getting to this “other” Equestria in the first place was going to be a task in and of itself, especially considering her current location in an empty tunnel miles below the surface of a jungle on the other side of the world. But knowing that there at least was a potential way home put her mind at ease. The pegasus paused for a moment, ears swiveling. She listened intently to the quiet sounds of the river making its way through its bed, smoothed over untold amounts of time. Dash shook her head, uncertain what had prompted her stop. Although, now that she thought about it, she could go for a drink. Actually, come to think of it, she could also use some food... The last thing she had eaten had been a bowl of hayflakes for breakfast – back in Ponyville, before this whole thing had started. Afterwards, there never really had been the time or an opportunity for a meal. As if on cue, Dash's stomach made a rumbling noise that could easily have rivaled that of a dragon. (Granted, Spike was still a baby-dragon, but he was a dragon never the less, so that still counted.) Wistfully, Dash remembered that half-eaten pizza from the day before, her mouth watering up... Oh, what she'd give for a slice of that now! The water was cold, but that only made it all the more refreshing. Still, she couldn't help but feel her stomach demand food, of which the barren tunnel sadly was devoid of. Oh crud, had she fed Tank before she had left? The poor little guy must've been half-starved by now! Hopefully somepony had remembered him and was taking care in her absence. Dash scratched the back of her twitching ear, shooting a glance off to the side at nothing in particular. Hmm... What was Daring doing right now? Dash couldn't help but think she was missing out on some serious adventuring business! Instead, she was stuck in this drastically dull, brutally boring, excessively empty and endlessly... uh, endless tunnel of... terrible... uhm, terribleness. Urg. Now she was resorting to alliteration, and she was too tired to even do it right. Hitting a lull in her thought-process, Dash found herself staring at the ceiling, the pegasus' keen eyes taking in the numerous gemstones that could be found strewn all over the place. Her gaze shifted down to the nearby wall, which also was littered with gems of the same type. All of them were unusually small, just barely the size of a walnut. They were a dull shade of red, almost brown. She was certainly no expert on gemstones, but these didn't exactly look like anything her fashionista-friend Rarity would use for her designs. Maybe Spike might enjoy their taste, not like she knew much about what kind of gems dragons preferred over others. She only vaguely recalled something Spike had said about rubies and sapphires, but she had no clue what type of gem this one was. Her sharp, scrutinizing eyes kept wandering over the wall of gems shining in the light of her torch, as if searching for something. Dash tilted her head, examining a gemstone up close. She could see small tears and imperfections, the uneven sides smoothed over time. Dash stared at the gemstone. The reflective surface of the gemstone stared back. It was only when Dash could no longer suppress a yawn that the cerulean mare broke eye-contact. Blinking her eyes a couple of times, she realized that she had been standing in place for at least five minutes, and how tired she actually was. Exhausted, Dash plopped herself on the ground. She threw a glance over her shoulder into the empty void... Yeah, a quick nap would do wonders for her now. Suddenly, despite the rough terrain, the dark and relatively silent tunnel proved to be a peaceful and quiet resting place. Perfect tranquility. She had her mind all to herself. No distractions, just a calm river quietly splashing along-side her, and even that was barely audible at the moment. Everything went blurry as her eyes grew heavy, a content yawn escaping the cerulean mare. Dash smiled, already feeling the gentle embrace of sleep coming that would wash away her drowsiness, all her worries... ... . . . ... With a start, Dash jumped to all four hooves and spun around in a circle. “Who's there?! Show yourself!” she shouted, eyes searching hectically for whatever was following her. Jumping onto her hindlegs and performing boxing motions, Dash growled threateningly. “Come out! I know you're there! Come out right now and face me like a real mare, or I'll buck you straight to next week!” Turning about on her hind-legs to face her pursuer head-on, the pegasus' wings flared instinctively, causing Dash to lose balance as a stab of pain reminded her of the injury. After unceremoniously falling on her rump, Dash just sat there, her rapid breathing slowing down to a regular pace. What had just happened? She had been sosure somepony... orsomethinghad been there, watching her. It hadn't been a dream. No, she hadn't even gotten to dose off. But there was nopony there. There couldn't be. After all, she was in the middle of an underground cave-system, nopony had laid hoof here in what must have been hundreds of years, if even ever at all... Who could possibly be watching her...? Rainbow Dash slumped down on the cold stone-ground. “I'm... I'm getting paranoid. I... really need to get some sleep.” But as tired as she felt, sleep wouldn't come. She couldn't help it. No matter how irrational the thought, she felt like... something was out there, just...staringat her. It was extremely disconcerting. After twisting and turning for what felt like hours, Dash raised herself back to her hooves and slowly proceeded down the seemingly never-ending tunnel. The gemstones embedded in the walls reflecting the flickering light of her torch gave her the impression of hundreds of eyes lurking in the dark, following her every step... It was unsettling, to say the least. In an attempt to calm herself, she halted her trek once more, standing perfectly still. Her eyes wandered methodically from one side of the cave to the other, ever so slowly. In the near-perfect silence, Dash held her breath, her ears swiveling to catch any unfamiliar sounds. There wasn't anything there. Nothing gave cause to assume she was being followed. There was nopony watching her – it was impossible. She was completely alone. But then, why couldn't she shake the feeling that she was not? Rainbow Dash could feel the hairs stand up on the back of her neck, a prickling sensation that ran down the length of her spine. There was nothing to be seen, nothing to be heard. And yet she knew it was there. It was as if whoever or whatever it was... was everywhere and nowhere at once. She wasn't even sure if it was just one entity, either. The cerulean pegasus' shoulders slumped, as she raised a front-hoof to massage her temples. She had walked for hours with no end of the tunnel in sight. Her wing hurt and she hadn't eaten in over a day. The repetitive landscape was driving her nuts, and she was disoriented from sheer exhaustion, her energy drained by fatigue. All she wanted to do was to take a nap. And now there was... something there creeping her out, apparently stalking her, even though that made absolutely no sense at all, like so many things in this strange “book-world” she had ended up in. In sheer frustration, Dash turned back and yelled into the empty darkness. “LEAVE ME ALONE!” . . End of chapter 5. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Author's Note Thanks to VunderGuy for suggesting specific soundtracks from “The Elder Scrolls” as part of the music used in the audio-book version of this chapter, and special thanks to Axquirix and lupin the vapour for pre-reading. Music credit (in chronological order): The Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion - Dungeon 3 (0:00 to 9:15) [75% speed] The Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion - Dungeon 1 (8:30 to 10:30) Inception - The dream is collapsing (long version) excerpt from track starting at 3:55 Portal 2 - Overgrowth (~13:45 to 23:40), (occasional addition of "Inception - We Built Our Own World") Doctor Who - Time of Angels (23:30 to 25:15) Inception - 528491 (25:15 to 26:20) Portal 2 - 999999 (reverse) (during author's notes) Fun-fact: Dash's scene here took four complete revisions from scratch and then a re-write of the ending after getting confused responses back from test-readers. I wanted this to work. I wanted it to be just right. There are so many stories that hint at the core-subject of this scene, yet there never is a build-up. I wanted to make a proper build-up for that instead of just stating it out of nowhere. I sincerely hope I managed to pull off the build-up to the climax without being either too subtle or too obvious about it. ...And if you're still scratching your head why this scene is so important or what its “core-subject” is – I'll leave you to ponder this: Who was Rainbow Dash yelling at? Chapter 7 - Daring Do and the Balanced Breakfast This chapter is available as a "synthesized" audio book: [click here] - no background music [click here] - with ambient music loop [overview of all chapters] Rainbow Dash woke up with a content yawn, stretching on the warm, comfortable surface of the bed. She blinked sleepily, as her mind re-constructed the last events in conscious memory. She vaguely recalled entering the building in search for a resting place, eventually stumbling into two bare wooden beds on the upper floor. Having placed Daring Do in one of the beds, Dash still remembered hesitating if she should dare to unbutton Daring's trademark jacket to use it as either a blanket or a pillow for the unconscious mare to sleep on, as any blankets or other such cloth had long since dissolved into nothing. In the end, she had decided against it. From what she had read, Daring Do could get quite upset if somepony messed with her helmet or jacket. While not particularly inviting, the smooth wooden surface of the bed was still better than sleeping in the dirt or on the cold stone-ground. Dash furrowed her brow. Something about the bed she was lying in seemed a tad off, although she couldn't quite put her hoof on it just yet. Dash glanced over to the other bed, only to find it empty. Another yawn escaped the cerulean pegasus, as she straightened her posture once more. In doing so, she noticed that her injured wing had been bandaged, wrapped tight to her body in a white piece of cloth. As she looked down at her back to examine her wing, she noticed a thin layer of cloud-vapor on the bed. So this was what had felt strange – the bed had been far more comfortable than it could've been otherwise. Hm. Where had this come from? Did Daring make this? It wasn't much of a challenge for a single pegasus to conjure cloud-vapor from water in minor quantities, although it didn't have many practical applications in modern Equestria due to industrialized cloud-manufacturing. Then again – this wasn't modern Equestria, this was Daring Do's world, lagging about 50 to 60 years behind. Did pegasi in Daring's... “time” still rely on manual labor to create clouds? A growl from her stomach derailed any further thoughts Dash might've had. Jumping off the bed, Dash decided to go exploring for potential sources of food, and possibly for Daring Do's location as well. Downstairs, the pegasus instantly found her senses assaulted by the smell of cooked carrots and several flower-salads. Not giving the sensation a second thought, Dash rushed to what she assumed to be a kitchen table, her mouth watering up to the point that she had to swallow down in order to prevent herself from drooling as she laid eyes on the various plates and culinary concoctions thereon. Without further hesitation, Dash bluntly stuck her muzzle in a bowl filled with flowers of various types swimming in a thick brown sauce that, under different circumstances, might not have appeared to be very appetizing. To the moon with it – for all she cared the sauce could've been glowing bright green with purple dots in it, she was hungry. “So... tastes good?” came a sudden voice from behind her. Swirling around, muzzle still dripping with sauce, Dash's eyes came to rest on the other pegasus in the room. And what she saw made her mouth drop open. There stood Daring Do, the most amazing, most awesome-est adventurer ever, who laughed in the face of death, who bucked danger in the flank and who's profession was, well, adventure itself – doing something Dash never would have even expected to read in the books, let alone see it with her own eyes. “You're ...cooking?” Dash stated in a flat tone, still stunned by the fact. Daring Do clearly didn't seem the type to be caught dead tending to a stove or an oven. The rainbow-maned pegasus herself didn't cook. She remembered Pinkie getting her into trying to bake a cake at Sugar Cube Corner once, and... well, meh. It hadn't been good, it hadn't been bad... It had just been sorta bland. Why bake a cake yourself that didn't taste any good when you could just go grab a bite at Sugar Cube Corner or Applejack's place? She mostly conformed to a diet of salads anyway, to keep herself fit and in top flying-condition. For the most part, those didn't need to be cooked. Other than that, whenever she had a craving for something warm that wasn't made of sugar or apples, she usually just dashed out for one of the many restaurants in town. ...Yeah, okay, she also found herself indulging in the occasional visit to the local fast food chain, lazing off on a cloud munching on a bag of hay-fries or daffodil burgers from time to time. (Admittedly, she didn't always eat healthy, especially when she didn't feel like waiting for restaurant service.) But in either case, there was no actual cooking involved on Rainbow Dash's part. Not that cooking was uncool or un-radical or anything, of course not. But... This was Daring Do. Standing at a stove. Cooking. The mental image just... didn't fit. The gold-yellow pegasus merely reacted to Dash's comment by raising an eyebrow. “Uhm... yeah, so?” There was an awkward moment of silence, Dash uncertain what to say and Daring seemingly confused. “You're... cooking” Dash finally repeated her previous statement. “I'm just... uh... surprised, is all.” Daring tilted her head quizzically, her mouth open as if to ask a question, but closing it a few seconds later. “Eh. When you can show me a restaurant in this place or any other temple or jungle, I'll be glad to pay the expenses.” The adventurer shrugged. “Gets kinda dull if you just eat the same rations over and over again for weeks. I mean, I've been stuck looking all over the Mareican mainlands for this... err, 'temple' for the last five weeks, ya know?” Dash blinked rapidly. That... actually made a lot of sense. Wait, hang on a second – Daring Do had been in the jungle for five weeks? She had never even considered how much time Daring might've spent trekking through the jungle on her own before they had met. After all, they had practically stumbled into the cave-entrance by sheer chance while on the run from predators the very next morning. Now that she thought about it, the books didn't elaborate on Daring wandering through the jungle for weeks, either. That was usually just mentioned in the opening paragraph or later skipped in a single sentence. It probably would've been boring to read about, but... “Uh, you better eat up, this stuff doesn't taste half as good if it's cold,” Daring commented, redirecting Dash's attention back to the steaming bowl of delicious brown sauce with flowery bits in it. Wordlessly, Dash returned to eating her meal. After turning to check on the metal stove she had been tending to, Daring Do dragged a stool over to the table and seated herself as well. Rainbow Dash could barely believe her taste-buds, as an explosion of aroma send her to the proverbial cloud nine – especially after what had felt like days with no food. The only thing souring the experience was the deafening silence hanging about the kitchen table. The pegasus on the opposite end of the table began fidgeting with her hooves, looking anywhere but at Dash. After a while, Daring was the one to break the silence with a single word. “Thanks.” “Mwha? Thanksh for what?” Dash queried, still chewing. For a brief moment, Daring's face went utterly blank, her expression unreadable. The corners of her mouth twitched, lifting upwards into a smile. Had Dash been paying less attention to refilling her stomach, she might have noticed the slight strain on Daring's facial muscles. “Heh... For saving my flank two... no, three times, I suppose? You're pretty cool, Dash.” Rainbow Dash almost choked on her flower-soup right there and then. It took several strong pats on the back – in the most literal sense – from Daring Do before Dash managed to recover from the ensuing coughing fit. “You're pretty cool, Dash” – the thought kept bouncing back and forth at the corners of her mind like Pinkie Pie on a sugar-high, as Dash had a momentary relapse into fan-filly mode. Oh my gosh! Daring Do just said she was 'pretty cool'! Oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh!! It took all of her self-restraint to refrain from giggling like a school-filly and to keep herself from grinning like a mad-mare. It took Dash a moment to notice that Daring had gone silent, and seemed to wait for a her to say something. Trying to come up with a witty comeback on the spot, Dash racked her brain but found herself unable to find anything appropriate, still in girlish glee about one of her heroes – albeit a fictional one – calling her “cool”. Realizing that the silence was dragging on and was about to get straight into awkward territory, Dash composed herself, before answering in a laid-back tone. “Eh, it was nothing. You would've done the same for me. And besides, you're more than repaying me with this awesome breakfast.” ...Wait, arg, that was stupid! Why did she have to talk about food now? Despite another growl from her stomach answering her own question, Dash forced herself to smile confidently, while Daring Do just blinked a few times before her posture relaxed and the mare returned a smile of her own. “Well, thanks for the compliment! Though I guess it's more kinda lunch.” Daring looked off to the side, where Dash noticed a metal clock hanging on the wall. Both it's hour- and minute-hooves were missing, apparently broken off ages ago by some form of corrosion which for some reason had left the clock itself intact. “Though I kinda lost track of time.” Daring chuckled to herself. “So let's just call it a brunch.” Relieved to have mastered the situation, the cerulean pegasus continued her meal. However, Daring's brief show of attention to the room's interior had gotten Dash's own curiosity peaked. Last night (or mid-day or whatever time it had been), she had not found the time to go looking into any details other than where to find a good resting spot for the both of them. Glancing over the area as she chewed on some carrots, she took stock of what apparently was a living room. It looked almost ...normal, albeit not particularly modern in its design. There was the stove, a bulky black thing with a couple of valves at it's front, four separate heating plates separated by a layer of stone, and a steady fire crackling on inside as sheets of wood were being burned. A rather typical stove – not too dissimilar from the ones she had seen back home. There were a number of wooden cupboards of varying sizes, one of which slightly askew as it had been opened forcefully, revealing it's contents to be... several plates and dishes made from clay, as well as what looked like broken drinking-glasses. From her current surroundings, she could never have guessed that they were miles underground in what was supposed to be an ancient temple or “lost city”. For all she could tell, they had entered somepony's home. Several minor additions to the room, such as an ornament-decorated vase that at some point might have contained flowers that had long since withered and turned to dust, a large wooden desk that bore a striking resemblance to the one Twilight used for a writing desk as well as an empty picture frame – it's canvas broken and the image faded beyond recognition – only added to the effect. “What is this place anyway?” Dash vaguely gestured with a foreleg all around her. “Well, this clearly isn't the holy chamber of a priest or a monk, that much I know. Looks to be the home of a sculptor.” Daring shrugged. “There's a whole bunch of vases and some half-finished statuettes over in the other room.” And that was that. Silence fell over the room once more, hers and Daring's chewing the only sounds to be heard. Finishing her current bowl, Dash grabbed it between her teeth and put it on the kitchen desk... Yep, that was an ancient kitchen desk. Looking down at her bowl, she realized that it was actually one of the clay-dishes from the opened cupboard. Dash suddenly became very self-aware that they were, essentially, sitting at a kitchen table underground in what was supposed to be an ancient civilization's lost city, dining from plates that were older than Equestria itself. That, and she was eating breakfast/lunch cooked by, and in the company of Daring Do. But at least, just for once, she wasn't the only one weirded out by the situation. Daring herself was staring down at her own emptied plate with an expression caught somewhere between confusion and amusement. “You know, my associates in the archeologist community would be horrified if they knew I'm using eight thousand years old dinner-ware as... well, dinner-ware.” The adventurer chuckled. “I can already hear professor Vintage Ceramic nagging” – Daring Do changed her voice to sound like an elderly stallion whining – “Miss Do, as archeologists it is our Celestia-given duty to label, date, categorize and archive each and every single piece of rubble, every tiny wooden splinter and each miniscule shard of broken glass we come across! Now, go and pick up those cans, I must determine if they predate the era of today's lunch break.” Daring rolled her eyes and snickered to herself. “There was that artifact, an apparently cursed diamond, said to have brought down the old diamond dog clans of the South. So I escape from the cave, just before it all comes falling apart. I bring him the diamond – and he tries to fill a formal complaint against me because the thing collapsed while I was in it! Geez! If I had told him about the traps, he would've asked me to pick up every single dart and arrow that's been flung at me while I was getting to the artifact, and have me 'label, date, categorize and archive' every single one of them!” Rainbow Dash blinked. She knew of “Daring Do and the Diamond Curse”, but not of the aftermath that had come after the story had ended. “This 'Vintage Ceramic' guy sounds like a total dork,” she commented, unable to keep a hint of amusement from her voice at Daring Do's imitation, which earned her a snicker from Daring Do in return. “You don't know half of it! I swear that stallion is obsessed with filling out forms for everything he does! He practically sits in his office all day, scribbling down random numbers and area-codes and what-have-you. And if he does show up to a dig site, he just stands off to the side taking notes about every little detail the entire time. Brrr. That guy isn't an archeologist, he's a bureaucrat.” Daring took another sip from her bowl, before once again addressing the cerulean pegasus. “So... you said you live in the general Everfree area? Pony-something... what's it called again?” Daring asked in a conversational tone. “Ponyville.” “Ah.” Daring smirked. “Is it safe to assume that 'Ponyville' is a village?” “Town, actually,” Dash corrected her. “Huh.” Daring Do scratched her head with her left foreleg. “I thought I knew all the towns around Canterlot. Meh.” Daring shrugged, grabbing another spoonful of sauce. Dash grimaced inwardly, reminded once more of the differences between Daring's Equestria and her own. The adventurer absentmindedly drew circles in her soup with a celery-stick, while munching on a carrot, before speaking up once more. “Doesn't it ever get boring in a place like that?” “Ponyville? Boring?” Dash couldn't suppress a snort of laughter. “Lemme see. There was that parasprite infestation, the incident when the ursa minor attacked the town, the time when we had to deal with some diamond dogs who kidnapped a friend of mine – big mistake on their part. Then there was that time when Spike had his growth-spurt – Spike's a baby-dragon, by the way – so that meant a dragon like four times the size of a building on a rampage through town. Not to forget when we had to deal with that other dragon to get him to settle someplace else... Which reminds me of the time Spike joined the dragon migration, and we kinda-sort-of followed him in disguise to keep an eye out for the little guy. Not to mention Nightmare Moo-...” Dash just barely had caught herself in time before mentioning the return of princess Luna as Nightmare Moon. This was, after all, an event of historic proportions – which, in Daring's world, had not (yet) taken place. Daring Do would be able to spot the discrepancy immediately. “Err, I mean... Nightmare Night... uh... which is... always especially... nightmare...ish in Ponyville, uh, yeah,” she finished lamely. Daring Do just sat there, blinking a number of times as she processed the information Rainbow Dash had provided. She evidently had not expected an answer like that. “That's... quite the town-history, I suppose.” she briefly tipped her pith-helmet as a show of respect. “History?” Dash barely stifled a laugh. “That's stuff that happened in, like, the last two years!” Daring gave her a flat stare. “Okay, now I know you're just pulling my tail.” “Wait, what? Of course not!” The cerulean pegasus gawked, her wings flaring instinctively, before hissing at a mild stab of pain from her injured wing, which had strained against its bandages. Daring just gave her a strange look, her eyes narrowing against Dash's own unwavering gaze. After a couple of seconds, Daring sat back in her chair, stunned. “You're... serious?” she stated, disbelief clear in her voice. “Of course I'm serious!” Dash huffed indignantly. “Wow. You really are serious. Heh. Ursas and dragons, eh? That's definitely not boring.” Daring Do shook her head, chuckling. “Guess small-town-life isn't necessarily as boring as I thought.” Dash's frown turned into a grin. “You don't even know half of it!” “Although,” Daring mused, raising a hoof to her chin, “I guess building a town in the middle of a wild, untamed forest full of deadly monsters sort-of is an invitation for all sorts of crazy horse-apples.” “Uh...” Dash tilted her head, her face scrunched up in confusion. “It's not in the middle of the forest. It's at the edge.” “Same thing.” The adventurer shrugged, then shook her head in bewilderment. “Hardly seems the best spot to settle down. But I gotta admit, your townsfolk must have guts to pull that sort of thing.” “I... uh... thanks... I think?” Dash scratched her head at the odd statement. “What about you? Where do you live?” “Ah...” Daring's eyes grew unfocused for a second, staring off into nowhere. “You know... here and there.” The adventurer shrugged. “Got an apartment in Cloudsdale... Sometimes stay at the archeologist academy in Canterlot... Eh, I'm on the move most of the time anyway.” Swallowing a piece of celery whole, Daring's eyes wandered down over the various foods set up on the kitchen table. “Ah, Dash, could you pass me some of those flower-petals?” The yellow mare leaned over the table, forelegs stretched out, but not quite able to reach the desired treat. “...No, not those, I meant the red ones.” “Oh, okay.” Dash pushed a larger bowl from her side of the table over to Daring's – though not until after helping herself to a healthy portion of the red flowers as well. “Mmmmm,” Dash gave a content sigh. “These petals taste amazing! What kind of flower is that?” “You like it? Heh, can't argue with your taste! It's a local specialty, I think.” Daring scratched the back of her head. “Can't remember what it's called, though. Some impossible-to-pronounce name, I guess. Was actually quite surprised to find this down here, haven't seen these grow in the jungle.” Dash nodded along, but then gave the adventurer a questioning look. “Wait, what do you mean, 'down here'? Do these flowers grow in caves, or...?” “Well... There's actually gardens outside some of the buildings.” Daring's expression turned into something of a thoughtful grimace. “Don't ask me how that works. Haven't got a clue.” “Huh.” Dash raised a quizzical eyebrow at the new information. Plants growing all by themselves? It was a concept not entirely alien to Dash, although the only place she knew of where no earth ponies were needed to tend to the local plant-life was the Everfree Forest. But in the abundance of sunlight, not to mention inside a cave? How did that work? Then again, she shouldn't really be surprised by something as trivial as underground cave-gardens by now. . Dash felt something stuck in her throat, shaking her from her thoughts. After a short coughing fit, she managed to get it loose, but was momentary left staring at the seven plates and bowls she had already emptied standing in front of her. “Woahh... The food's awesome, but I think I need a minute...” The cerulean pegasus leaned back on her chair, stretching her hooves and wings. Though at this, Dash had to involuntarily cringe as a subdued sensation of pain shot through her injured wing. This earned her a sympathetic glance from her fellow pegasus, who absentmindedly soothed her own bandaged appendage. Dash looked down at her right wing with a frown on her face. Memories of the last time she had injured her wing this badly bubbled back up to the forefront of her mind. Well, at least she wasn't stuck to a hospital bed this time. Then again – if it hadn't been for her hospital stay, she'd never have read “Daring Do and the Quest for the Sapphire Stone”, which got her hooked on the series pretty much right away from the first paragraph. ...Daring Do had had injured her wing, grounding her for several days. Rainbow Dash – rather ticked off with her own wing-injury at the time – had instantly been able to make a connection with Daring. Dash glanced over at the other pegasus, who was staring down at her own bandaged wing with a distant expression, seemingly lost in her own thoughts. Hmm. It gave Dash an odd sense of déjà-vu, seeing how the both of them had an injured wing, just like back then. ...Weird, now she was thinking of that part in “Daring Do and the Quest for the Sapphire Stone” like an event that had taken place at the same time as her hospital stay. Probably hard to keep things separate when the protagonist of said story sat on the other side of the kitchen table. “Hey, Dash,” Daring spoke up, bringing the cerulean mare's trip down memory lane to a halt. “I just remembered something you said earlier, and I was wondering... how did you know about the Sapphire Stone and the Griffonian Goblet?” “Oh, I read... oh.” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Author's Note In case you don't remember when Dash mentioned the Sapphire Stone and the Griffon's Goblet to Daring Do... That happened all the way back in chapter 1. A special thanks to MeglifKaddy and Frobman for last-minute help with editing! Chapter 8 - Under suspicion This chapter is available as a "synthesized" audio book: [click here] - no background music [click here] - with ambient music loop [overview of all chapters] “Hey, Dash – How did you know about the Sapphire Stone and the Griffonian Goblet?” It was as if the room's temperature had suddenly dropped by several degrees within the mere ten seconds it had taken Daring to speak that single sentence. Dash could almost feel her blood turn to ice, her expression frozen onto her face like a mask. Daring herself was blissfully unaware of Dash's reaction, sipping down the last of her soup. When had she ever mentioned the Sapphire Stone and the Griffon's Goblet to Daring?! ...Oh. Oh, right. Right in the first five minutes of her arrival. Pony-feathers. 'I've read about every single one of your adventures in a popular book series, where you are the protagonist.' Despite knowing it to be the truth, it still sounded crazy, even in her head – she could not say that. She'd sound like she was insane – pretty much the last thing she wanted Daring to think of her. Hay, it had been hard enough to swallow that pill herself! Rainbow Dash shot a glance over at Daring, who was happily chewing on another batch of red flowers. Taking a deep breath, she regained her sense of calm. In the past two days, she had come a long way since the awe-inspiring adventurer had decided to 'let her tag along' because she 'didn't have time to bring her back to wherever she had come from'. Certainly, Daring wouldn't just write her off as a mad-pony – she was sure she could trust her to give her at least the benefit of doubt. Yeah, it may have sounded insane – but she had proof. She could give Daring the run-down of what she knew of the series, details about her adventures and bits of trivia of her life. Things that she, as an avid reader was strongly familiar with. Having made up her mind, Rainbow Dash turned to face Daring, who was still eating. She opened her mouth to address the other mare – and hesitated, realizing that she didn't know what to say, exactly. How should she go about telling her? Looking at the golden-yellow pegasus sitting at the other side of the kitchen table, who thought she was “pretty cool”, who had just shared her meal with her and told anecdotes about her colleagues – she simply couldn't bring herself to tell Daring Do straight to the face that she was a fictional character. When she had gotten here, she had had a hard time wrapping her head around the concept of her favorite fictional character having become flesh. It was still a mind-boggling thought – but now, it was for the opposite reason. When she looked at Daring, she didn't see a character from a story, she saw a pony. A real pony. An overall amazing individual she was glad to have made an acquaintance with. Perhaps... even a friend. Just from talking to her in the last ten minutes she knew there was more to Daring than just a few pages in a bunch of books. Thinking of her as “fictional” didn't do her justice. And yet, Dash found it hard to deny the facts. She had more than enough evidence to think that this wasn't some kind of wacky science-fictiony “parallel universe” that just happened to coincide perfectly with the novels in the “Daring Do” series. The brief glimpses she'd had at the story itself seemed as good a proof as anything, and that wasn't even considering any of the other oddities. This was a story. And Daring Do was a character in this story. A story written by some anonymous author, who... who had essentially created both Daring Do and her entire world, who had written her into existence. Rainbow Dash had to take the mental equivalent of several steps back. The thought didn't seem to register properly. She understood what it meant on some level, but she couldn't wrap her brain around the concept. The mere idea just sounded so... alien to her. In a rare moment of insight, Dash attempted to grasp the repercussions of telling Daring Do the truth about the nature of her reality – and utterly failed. She really wasn't much into philosophical topics. Twilight would probably have been more suitable to handle those kind of things. Then again, if she were here in Dash's stead, she'd probably have had a mental breakdown about every tiny little thing that escaped common sense and logic, of which there had been plenty right up till now. Not that her own reaction had been all that smooth either – but that was besides the point. The entire notion simply seemed too outlandish to comprehend. Rainbow Dash stared down into her unfinished bowl. The viscous, brown soup sloshed around in it as it slowly absorbed the spoon sinking into it. Bits of lettuce swam on top, each a sickly pale yellow color sprinkled with splotches of brown – suddenly, the food seemed anything other than appetizing. Dash felt a brief surge of bile rising from her stomach. She hastily averted her eyes. What – what was she to do? All she knew was that telling Daring Do that she didn't exist, that her entire world wasn't real and her whole life had been the product of a... a... a story... That... that was just wrong. There were no words to describe it. It– It was just– Just– No. Just... no. She wasn't going to tell her. She couldn't. She couldn't possibly tell her. Rainbow Dash wasn't the Element of Honesty – telling a more or less convincing lie wasn't beyond her abilities. Maybe she could come up with something using her extensive knowledge of the series? Having read every “Daring Do”-book several times over might prove useful for the task. Let's see... The Sapphire Stone, Daring Do had gotten that from a temple in a jungle. What was that jungle called again? Hmm... Wait! It was later mentioned the Sapphire Stone had been a part of some Zebrican legend when it was stolen from the Canterlot Archives in “Daring Do and the Sapphire Statue”. (Not to be mistaken for “Daring Do and the Quest for the Sapphire Stone”, a lot of ponies often got the two confused.) She could say that she heard the legend from Zecora, the resident zebra of the Everfree Forest. And – superficially at least – she knew enough about Zebrican culture to back up her statement. (They spoke in rhymes and had a peculiar taste in interior decorating.) And... she could just say she had been in Canterlot when the theft took place, overheard some of the guards talking, and put two and two together. Yeah. That might work! But... the Griffon's Goblet? Oh. Oh horse-apples. The Goblet had been a sacred artifact, able to temporarily grant anypony who drank from it great magical strength, unicorn or not. The Goblet was fiercely protected by a tribe of griffons that had settled in the Thunderbeak Mountains – and kept a secret for generations. Until Ahuizotl came along trying to steal it. However, after Daring Do had befriended the griffon elder's daughter, she had managed to convince him to play a part in a massive gamble – totally awesome chapter! – which had ended with Ahuizotl grabbing the wrong goblet in sheer ignorance, but Daring and her new griffon allies giving pursuit anyway and destroying the false artifact in the process. With Ahuizotl misled to believe the Goblet to be lost forever, the griffin tribe was back to guarding the powerful artifact. The point was that nopony – nor griffon – was supposed to know of the Goblet. And Dash had let slip that she, in fact, did know of it. Well, buck. There was no explanation for how she knew things nopony besides Daring and the members of a secret griffin-society should know... except for the truth, and the truth was not an option. She couldn't even say that she'd met those griffons too. The twenty-something members of the reclusive tribe were hiding away in a deep cave near the top of a blizzard-ridden mountain-range that was supposedly impossible to climb and deadly just by its temperature. Even Daring and Ahuizotl had just barely made it there alive, and only, because they'd been taken in by the tribe. Were she a unicorn, maybe she could've come up with some shaky excuse, like... having special psychic powers or– “Ahem.” A decidedly faked cough from Daring brought Dash's train of thought to an unscheduled stop. It was only now that she realized that her mental excursion had likely taken longer than anticipated. The other mare had stopped eating. Her bowl lay off to the side, still a third full. “You... kinda spaced out on me there, Dash.” The corners of her mouth twitched up into a smirk at her own remark – but it didn't last. Her expression became utterly neutral, as she addressed Rainbow Dash. “Now... I'm rather intrigued to know where you heard of the Sapphire Stone and the Griffonian Goblet.” Dash had to swallow a lump in her throat. She couldn't tell her... but she didn't have a convincing story to tell either. And if she just made something up on the spot, Daring would tear it apart in less than a second. She was trapped. Rainbow Dash's shoulders slumped in resignation. This was going to get awkward. “I... I can't tell you.” For just a fraction of a second, she saw a crack in the mask. It was too short of a time-frame to associate the face with an emotion, though what came afterward was easily identifiable enough. The other mare's eyes narrowed into thin slits, suspicion evident in her expression. “I see... And why would that be?” she spoke with an icy tone. “I'm sorry... I really am!” Rainbow Dash shook her head. “But I just can't tell you.” Daring did not say anything, her expression unmoving – yet the accusation hung in the room, as subtle as a neon-sign in Los Pegasus. Daring Do uttered a single word. “...Why?” “I... I can't...” Dash gulped. Somehow, Daring's stern glare gave her the feeling of being in flight school again, trying to wiggle her way out of a confrontation with the principal after a prank had gone wrong. She visibly had to cringe at the memory. He'd been one of the few ponies able to really get under her skin when she was a filly. That stallion had had this air about him that told you “Young lady, I hold your future in my very hooves. And I do not like what I am seeing here.” This was just like that. “Where did you learn about it? Who else knows??” Dash remained silent, biting her lower lip. She couldn't really do much else. “And just why can't you tell me? Look, it's one thing if you don't want to talk about it – but why won't you talk about it? What's keeping you?” Daring Do slammed a hoof on the table that rattled the plates, her good wing flaring out to its full extent. Rainbow Dash cringed back at her outburst. 'If I tell you what I know, it will shatter your understanding of reality', Dash thought to herself. Yeah, right, if she told her that she'd be pressing even more. “The... knowledge of how I... err, know, is... uhm, really... bad?” Dash grinned awkwardly at the clumsily bludgeoned attempt at an answer to Daring's query. Daring Do's expression didn't waver in the slightest. She didn't even blink. Dash could tell that Daring wasn't buying it. Engaged in a fierce staring competition, beads of sweat were beginning to form on her forehead. Under the scrutiny of Daring's eyes, time seemed to have slowed down to a crawl. It was one of her intimidation techniques, Dash realized. She'd used it against the guards in “Daring Do and the Diamond Curse”, and then again in “Daring Do and the Seapony's Trident” to get the Sea Stone Key. Daring expected Dash to fold, and wasn't going to back down if she saw a way to get the truth out of her. Why did Daring's staring make her so nervous, anyway? ...Yes, she had something to hide. But she wasn't doing so for selfish reasons – she was doing this for Daring Do! Rainbow Dash steeled her resolve and raised her shoulders. Holding her head high, Dash's eyes narrowed as she matched Daring Do's stern gaze. Her sudden change of posture and demeanor did not go unnoticed, but Daring's only reaction was a momentary widening of her irises. After another immeasurable length of time had passed in silence, Daring Do spoke up. “Listen, and listen carefully. I don't know who or what your sources are or how much you know. But I can tell you one thing – if word gets out of the Goblet, then ponies' lives are going to be at risk. And I cannot allow that to happen. Do you understand that?” Dash reeled back in surprise. Ponies' lives? What?! Daring looked her straight in the eyes. There was the expected fierce, determined glare... but there was also something else in those eyes, a sense of urgency, that really got to Dash. This is real. Rainbow Dash gulped. The Griffin's Goblet... It wasn't just words on a page anymore. That deadly mountain really was out there, somewhere, she realized. And if word of the Griffin's Goblet got out – or the fact that it still existed... Yes, that would be bad. Very, very bad. Least of all, Ahuizotl would hear of it, sooner or later. It was no wonder, why Daring would be alarmed to hear a pony she had never met before randomly blurt it out straight in her face. She... she hadn't even thought of it like that. “I'm sorry, Daring, I...” Rainbow Dash faltered. “Look, I... get that this knowledge is dangerous, I promise I won't tell anypony–” Dash had to wince the moment she said it. Of course she'd already told somepony. She'd told pretty much all of her friends. Not that Twilight hadn't read the book too. Heck, everypony who read “Daring Do” knew of the “Griffin's Goblet”. It was the second book in the series, after all. “I won't tell anypony in this reality,” she mentally added. Daring's glare intensified at her slip-up, causing the rainbow-maned pegasus to flinch. She looked at the other mare with a pang of guilt. Daring Do was concerned for the well-being of others. That was what this was about – not simply to satisfy her curiosity. And ironically, Daring had given her the perfect opening. Dash took a minute to sort out her thoughts. When the cerulean mare spoke next, her voice was firm and determined. “I'm sorry I cannot tell you how I know of the Goblet, but you have my word nopony, griffin, or anything in this world is going to find out about it from me.” Daring Do was about to speak up, but Dash raised a hoof to forestall any objections. “And I can't tell you how I know of the Goblet, because that knowledge is dangerous too.” Mainly to Daring herself, but she didn't need to know that. Daring Do cocked an eyebrow. Her mouth opened, no doubt ready to deliver a sharp-witted rebuttal to the mention of “danger”. But then she paused, seeming to reconsider her words. It was only for a single moment, but for the first time in the interrogation, Dash seemed to have gotten through to her. “Dangerous... how, exactly?” Drat. Burying her face in her hooves wasn't even a conscious act. Daring just kept on asking the hard questions. “There... there are just some things that a pony isn't supposed to know,” she sighed tiredly. Only belatedly, she realized that it had been a “Daring Do”-quote. “Daring Do and the Blood Diamond”? Or was it from “Temple of Discord”? Somehow, the details eluded her at the moment. “Oh.” Dash perked up at the utterance. Daring was still looking in her direction, but her eyes betrayed a faraway glance and an expression Dash couldn't decipher. It took a while, before Daring spoke again. “What about your sources? If you could find out about it, then...” The adventurer trailed off deliberately, letting the question hang in the air unspoken. Dash actually had to snort at that one. Her mind had somehow conjured up the mental image of Derpy, delivering the latest “Daring Do”-novel to Ahuizotl by accident. “Heh. Don't you worry about that,” she snickered, glad for the breather. Daring Do did still seem plenty worried, however. “Hehe... Sorry. But seriously, you don't have to worry about that. Trust me on that one.” Rainbow Dash smiled reassuringly at Daring Do. Daring didn't say anything. “...No, seriously. I can promise you that the secret is safe with me.” She reassured the other pegasus with a confident grin and a disarming hoof-gesture. “Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake... err.” Dash interrupted her routine with a sheepish expression when Daring gave her a blank stare. “Err... Never mind. It's a, eh, Ponyville-thing. Ehehe.” Daring Do hesitated. “And the Sapphire Stone?” she asked, still skeptical. “Huh? Oh. Yeah, same thing.” Huh. Completely forgot about that one. There was a long silence after that. Rainbow Dash didn't know if it had been minutes, or merely seconds – but eventually, Daring broke eye-contact. Closing her eyes, she took one long, deep breath. Another tedious moment passed, before Daring Do spoke. “Ooooo-kaaaay.” She stretched out the word, slowly and deliberately pronouncing each syllable with emphasis. Daring stomped a hoof on the ground in irritation as they exited the building. Her hoof hit dirt, and did therefore not produce any audible noise, robbing Daring of the desired effect of venting her frustration. Even despite this, the adventurer couldn't suppress a slight shudder, remembering the all-too familiar words Dash had spoken in another context entirely. 'There are certain... things in the world, things forgotten by history, even by legends. None but the timeless ones may even remember, and even among them, it is but myth. Even then, they are kept secret, and for good cause. No power is to be gained, no wisdom to be obtained therefrom. The mere notion alone... That way lies only madness. There... there are just certain things a pony was never meant to know.' Briefly, Daring felt a cold chill running down the length of her neck. That... had been eery. She did not for a second believe that Dash was privy to anything alike – but it had been a sobering reminder. Daring Do chanced a look over at Rainbow Dash, who didn't even try to hide her relief. Well, she didn't outright lie. Instead, Dash had openly admitted she didn't want to tell her how she knew of the artifacts. Despite the lack of answer being suspicious to no end, Daring begrudgingly had to admit that this held a point in her favor. She didn't have a reason to doubt Dash's story about ending up in the jungle through a magical accident – even the bit about being teleported straight from Equestria was not entirely implausible. But getting stranded right next to the only pony in the entire jungle? That was more than a little hard to believe – unless the spell that had brought her here had been directly aimed at Daring Do specifically. Though as far as she could tell, that would only have been possible if she had been carrying an item that had previously been enchanted by the same unicorn who had performed the teleportation-spell... Not that Daring herself was an expert on unicorn-magic, but she had to know a thing or two regarding magic-based trap-mechanisms and all. But... As much as she tried, Daring honestly couldn't picture Rainbow Dash having some ulterior motive for sticking along. She just didn't seem the type. In a way, the other mare even reminded her of herself. And not just for the obvious reasons. But, on the other hoof, there was just... something that bothered her about Rainbow Dash, something that seemed more than just a little off. Several things, in fact. But despite that, she seemed genuine. The troubled expression on her face when Daring had told her ponies' lives were at stake... That was what had sold it. You just couldn't fake that convincingly. And on top of all of that, she really owed Dash one for saving her sorry flank. Well, more like that she owed her three, really. (That part with her falling unconscious totally didn't count.) After spending the last couple months in the less-than-thrilling environment of Canterlot University, had she really been letting herself get this sloppy? “Thanksh for what?” Daring Do grumbled to herself, irritated. That had been all Rainbow Dash had responded with when Daring had shown her gratitude – and with a full mouth, at that. Yeah, 'thanks for what' indeed. It made some sense though, now that she thought about it. It seemed Rainbow Dash had gotten a lot of practice, having the creatures of the Everfree right at her doorstep. Perhaps she'd visit sometime. It might make for an... interesting stay. All things considered, as much, as her curiosity as both an adventurer and an archeologist demanded an answer to the riddle... She had to accept that Rainbow Dash had a secret, and it seemed she had her good reasons for keeping that secret. Not that she liked it – but she could understand it. Daring threw another glance over at Rainbow Dash. She was stretching her free wing, probably in some unconscious attempt to compensate for the discomfort in her bandaged wing. Daring Do instinctively brushed a hoof across her own injured appendage. Yeah. She'd... trust Rainbow Dash. . . . . . . Author's Note A very special thanks goes to my new editor, lightfox lowell! Consulting him has certainly helped me plenty! Turns out that talking openly to somepony who's invested in the story but at the same time doesn't care about massive spoilers can be quite productive indeed! Always could use more people like him. UPDATE November 2016: Still true... Actually, I could really use that for a later chapter in the story. For extensive author's notes on chapter 8, see this blog-post. Subjects include but aren't limited to some thoughts on the episodes "Daring Don't" and "Power Ponies", as well as a silly one-shot story I never posted on fimfiction (because of reasons), intelligently titled "Spike and the Curse of the Mouse Cursor". Chapter 9 - Exploration This chapter is available as a "synthesized" audio book: [click here] - no background music [click here] - with ambient music loop [overview of all chapters] The two pegasi silently trotted through the empty streets, their hoof-steps muffled by a thick layer of earth on the ground. As such, hearing the sound of hooves clopping against a wooden surface loud and clear gave Daring Do cause to turn. Dash had stepped on a slate of wood lying on the ground, evidently a door that had fallen off its hinges. A pair of symbols – a pick axe and a hammer – carved into the door's wooden surface caught Daring's eye. The symbols were each encased in a circle, clearly separating them. The building itself, unlike the sturdy home where they had spent the night, had collapsed into a heap of rocks and wooden splinters. The next couple of buildings had not fared much better, though this was not the case for the homes on the other side of the road. An a whim, she trotted over to a small wooden cottage, taking note of the markings etched into its door. A formation of crystals and... a carrot? Huh. Examining further, Daring took stock of a variety of symbols set in various arrangements. They mostly shared themes of metal working tools or farming equipment, but also different types of edible plants, stylized mechanics, several variations of the “waving flag”-symbol – often super-imposed on some kind of gemstone – as well as a large variety of images depicting crystalline structures. Many doors shared more than two symbols, although on some, the respective circles were left empty. It didn't take much brains to figure it out. These were cutie-marks. Each of the carvings on the door represented the marks of its inhabitants. The houses showcasing multiple marks had been home to families, the empty circles likely meant that a colt or a filly who hadn't earned their mark yet had lived here. Daring Do looked at the buildings all around her. Even besides the differences in construction-materials, barely two buildings were entirely alike. In most cases, the nuances in design were subtle enough not to spot them immediately, but closer inspection would reveal a curling vine-pattern carved into wooden planks, a small window crammed right under the edge of the roof allowing for a good view on the surrounding area or an additional window sill holding an assortment of empty vases. Each home came with its own, individual quirks. One of the buildings she could see further down the road was, bizarrely enough, even sculpted to resemble a giant loaf of bread. Daring Do simply couldn't think of it as anything other than a bakery. As an archeologist, she studied ancient cultures and history – but she usually wasn't among those to investigate a dig site, or to painstakingly reconstruct broken ceramics to take a wild guess at the general living conditions in the First Griffin Kingdom. She was an adventurer, and her unique talents were best put to use in the more demanding aspects of the job. Without a doubt, this “job” met the typical requirements for her intervention: Death traps, widespread underground tunnel-labyrinth, collapsing caves, and legends of a powerful artifact. But this was a place where regular ponies had lived their everyday lives. Why then had it been sealed off from the outside world, to the point that anypony trying to get in – or out, for that matter – would have to pass through multiple layers of death traps? “Scrunch!” Surprised, Daring craned her neck to look down at her right hind-leg. She'd stepped into a type of purple cabbage, growing in the middle of the road. Preoccupied with examining the architecture, she had not payed any mind to the street itself. Every few buildings, she would come across patches of wildly growing flowers, vegetables or other vegetation, some of which did not stay strictly confined to its designated garden-area, covering buildings or spreading out into the side-alleys. Brightly lit by one of the many luminescent crystals, a patch of particularly rebellious carrot-growth had ventured forth all the way up to the middle of the main road, where it was vehemently fighting for what little resources there were with the local patch of those delicious red flowers she and Dash had had at breakfast. At what came into sight when the two pegasi turned the corner, Daring Do had to do a double-take. In the center of the square, there was a tree, of all things. Not a particularly large or thick tree, nor even a still living one – but a tree non the less. What was it doing here? On second glance, it wasn't even the only tree. Further down the road, the pegasus' keen eyes could make out another – no, two more trees. Okay, this was odd. Sure, carrots and cabbages and all that growing by themselves unattended for centuries probably had some sciency mumbo-jumbo explanation, but trees? Daring was perplexed. Earth pony magic was subtle – putting the lack of sunlight aside, not even the strongest of earth pony magic, even if a hundred earth ponies gave their all, could cause trees to grow on solid rock. It needed soil, at least a few pony-lengths deep. There was no way a tree could actually grow here, unless – Daring's hoof scraped at the ground, digging a small hole in the dirt. It didn't reveal any stone beneath, just more earth. Thinking back to the tunnels, in the vast majority of the tunnel-system the ground had been covered with a thick layer of earth – despite the fact that they were miles below the actual surface. It hadn't occurred to her at the time, but like the walls and ceiling of the cave, the ground should have been solid rock. Daring Do shook her head in puzzled disbelief. The implications of this were absurd! The only possible explanation was that the Mareicans had actually taken the time and effort to transport ridiculous amounts of fertile soil to a location as far removed from ideal farming conditions as you could get short of trying to set up an orchard inside an active volcano. And then they had filled up this central cave until the soil was deep enough to even support tree-growth. The amount of effort that had gone into building this settlement was insane! What could possibly have justified all of this? Even if the carvings she had seen were any indication of hostile tribes in the area, the Mareicans could've just moved someplace else – the Mareican mainlands were huge! Going underground just didn't make sense! . Caught up in her thoughts, Daring hadn't even noticed when Rainbow Dash had stopped following her. Turning around, she saw the cerulean mare linger far behind, still at the bread-shaped building she had spotted earlier. “You coming, Dash?” she shouted. “We just ate, and I doubt they have anything that's still good anyway. Heh.” Her chuckle awkwardly petered out with no witty retort forthcoming from the other mare. Dash caught up to her quickly, but still remained silent. Odd. Talk about a mood-swing! The adventurer raised an inquisitive eyebrow. “A bit for your thoughts?” “Huh? Wha? ...Uhm,” Dash floundered. She opened her mouth – then bit down on her lower lip. “It's nothing.” Daring frowned. After a second, she turned to face Dash again, but the other pegasus had already trotted on without so much as a glance back. She watched the other mare walk down the road. Dash kept looking all about, examining each building she passed – as if she was looking for something specific. Daring Do shook her head. The adventurer couldn't help it – she couldn't, for the life of her, just not think about it. Even though she had her hooves full investigating the ancient ruins of a long-lost underground city, the mystery-mare presented enough of a conundrum all by herself. How did Rainbow Dash know of the Goblet? If it hadn't been for her initial slip-up, Daring Do would never have suspected a thing. It presented their first encounter in a worrying new light. What was she hiding? What was the big, scary secret Dash was refusing to tell her? Twice now, Dash had alluded to her source of information as – What was it? – ah yes, a book. When pressed, however, she remained tight-lipped about the details. On the other hoof, she'd been very firm in reassuring Daring to keep word of the Goblet to herself. However, if Dash had gained her information on the adventurer's involvement with the Griffonian Goblet from a book, that presented a rather worrying issue. It meant, that whoever had written the book also knew of the Goblet. This in turn posed an urgent question – who was the book's author? What was to stop that author from spreading word of the Goblet? Rainbow Dash certainly seemed dismissive of the risk, despite the severity of the stakes. Now that she'd entertained the thought, there was another tid-bit about Dash's story that didn't fit. Even baring that Rainbow Dash had been teleported across half the world just to be dropped off practically at the hooves of the only other pony in a 500-mile radius – what completely had her baffled was the fact that the multi-hued pegasus was a fan. The sheer improbability of running into a fan, in the middle of a jungle – it should've occurred to her earlier. Dash had mentioned being friends with a powerful mage. What was her name again? Twinkle? Sparkle? Granted, she didn't at all know that “Twinkle Sparkle” character, although she had pretty good reason to believe Rainbow Dash's teleportation accident had been anything but. Dash herself was completely oblivious, it seemed. Otherwise, their initial encounter would've gone quite differently. For one, it would've been less riddled with slip-ups on the hapless mare's behalf. The corners of her mouth curled into a grimace. What had Rainbow Dash gotten herself involved in? Daring sighed. Chancing a glance over at the mare in question, she took note that Dash had once again come to a halt. This time, her wrapped attention was held by a two-story building. Rainbow Dash didn't even notice, when Daring Do walked right up to her side. Curiosity overtook courtesy, and Daring took a peek through one of the broken glass-windows. What she saw was the interior of a store – a wide desk that spanned the width of the room, a large open space for customers, and a bunch of shelves at the walls, notably one larger shelf behind the counter. She couldn't quite recognize the items from where she was standing, though the gleam of metal reflecting the light pouring in from outside gave her a hunch. But Dash wasn't looking at the store's interior. She was looking up at the wooden store-front and the large, ornate oaken sign that hung at its side. Daring Do didn't need to understand Mareican script to grasp its meaning. Judging by the pictogram, this store specialized in... clocks and horseshoes? Huh, what an arbitrary combination. Who'd ever heard of a shop like that? Rainbow Dash's expression was unreadable. The question was on the tip of her tongue. Daring decided against it. Bringing up the “big scary secret” in casual conversation didn't seem the right way to approach this. The way Rainbow Dash had acted, she needed more than just one argument or just one question to get information out of her. She needed more time to think about this. Besides, it wasn't like Dash was going anywhere. Glancing around, the adventurer took stock of the area. The general layout of the buildings was different. While before, their size would vary from small cottages to five-story apartments, here, they conformed to a two-level structure with few exceptions. Most of the buildings spotted signs similar to the one on the “Clocks and Horseshoes”-store. A market district, perhaps? One structure in particular caught Daring's interest. The wooden facade stood out amongst a row of brick buildings, as it was. Daring ran a hoof across one of the many deep grooves in the wood. They had been crafted with great care, but the meaning of the pattern eluded her. Straight lines ran outwards from the entrance door, across the entire facade, turning left and right, up or down in sharp angles. At odd intervals, short wooden planks were attached to the outside walls, angled either horizontal or vertical to the ground in such a way that the grooves in the wooden surface would only intersect underneath them. On examining the interior – asides from the standard furnishings and pottery – she found several small-to-medium sized wooden and stone tablets with carvings of a design similar to the building-front. But also, she found carvings depicting various symbols – a crystal and a scroll, a book with a flower on it, a gear wheel encased in a gem, a crystal tiara, a spoon and a fork... The geometric designs made no sense to her, though from the myriad displays of cutie-marks she would judge this to be the work-place of an artist. She even found a large oaken door propped up against the wall – not fallen off its hinges, not inside a door-frame, but actually leaning against the wall – with two empty circles on it. At a glance, she'd even wager the artist as responsible for the marks she'd seen all throughout the city. The upstairs was a living area, though it was a bit smaller than the home they had stayed in. The artist had lived by themself, it seemed. Upon exiting the building, she realized Dash had wandered off yet again. She didn't see her down the road in either direction. Where had that pony gotten to now? “Hey, Daring! Come check out what I found!” . The room clearly had been used as an armory. Swords and spears were lined up on the walls on one end, metal shields and some kind of crossbow on the other. Daring Do picked up the wooden crossbow and looked it over. The string was broken, but it was otherwise in a remarkable condition for its age. Even the hoof-band, used to achieve a steady aim for non-magic users was still intact – the Mareicans had all been earth ponies, she reminded herself. What caught her interest was the odd design, though. There was a small metal tube on its top, right above the arrow-slot. It was coupled with a second, smaller tube with a piece of cloth in the shape of a fin attached. After rubbing off some dust, she could identify a glass lens on each end of the lower tube. Daring whistled, recognizing its use. The lenses had a magnifying effect, allowing the archer a better aim at its target. Far, far ahead of its time, as it seemed to be typical for the Mareicans. Experimentally, she pulled her hoof through the elastic band at the bottom, intending to take aim in order to gauge the strength of the lenses' magnifying effect. While fumbling around with the hoof-band, however, there was a quiet clicking sound, and a thin ray of light emitted from the upper tube on the crossbow. At first, Daring Do was a bit confused as to the mechanics of this, but she quickly caught on. There was a miniature version of the luminescent crystals enclosed in the upper tube. A small metal circle shape on the front end had slid to the side, allowing the light to shine free, albeit concentrated into a thin line through yet another glass lens. The adventurer scratched her head. What would be the use in putting a tiny light on top of the crossbow? It wasn't good for seeing anything in the dark, that much was sure. Curious, Daring steadied the weapon and took aim through a nearby window. The magnifying effect certainly was impressive, but what surprised her was the tiny white dot she could see in the distance, evidently projected from the crossbow's light-source, marking her target. Pretty clever. Sure, it wasn't perfect, the light dot kept moving away from the center, but – Wait, that was actually because the fin on top moved whenever there was an air current. Daring Do blinked. This was not a flaw, it was a feature. The fin measured the wind-direction, and this would indicate adjustments the archer would have to make before shooting. “Woah. Now I am impressed!” Daring looked at the 8000-year old crossbow in astonishment. “GAH! Look out!” Daring barely had turned around to the source of the cry, when a streak of blinding white light suddenly filled her vision. The adventurer cried out in alarm, as she stumbled away backwards. It was over as quick as it had begun, leaving her momentarily dazed. For several seconds, she had trouble seeing anything other than the after-image of whatever it was that had just passed her by. Her face suddenly felt warm – just a tad above what would be comfortable, like she was sitting too close to a fire. When she could see again, Daring startled at the flames in front of her nose. With a start, she once again took several steps backwards, but the flames kept following. It took her panicking mind a couple of seconds to realize that she wasn't on fire. It was the wooden crossbow that was still strapped to her hoof that was burning, it's front-half having turned into char-coal. “What... what was that?” Daring turned to the other pegasus, who was gaping back at her, clearly shocked. Dash was holding something in her hooves, but began struggling with its hoof-strap immediately after Daring had looked her way. Eyes widening by the implications, Daring's healthy wing flared out in an instinctive reaction. “HEY! What the buck!? You shot at me!” She pointed an accusing hoof at the mare, only to take note of the burning crossbow that was still attached to it, its aim now directed towards the cerulean pegasus as indicated by the white dot dancing over Dash's face. Daring quickly pulled her hoof down. “I didn't mean to shoot at you!” the cerulean-blue pegasus shrieked, her voice shaky and slightly higher pitched than normal. “How the hay was I supposed to know these ancient ponies had friggin' laser-weapons!?” “Layzer-what?” Daring questioned, as she wiggled her way out of the hoof-strap to discard the charcoal weapon. “Laser weapons! You know, like, weapons that shoot lasers, and stuff! Like in 'Ponytales from Space'... Uh... you know, comics? Like, what aliens or future-ponies have?” “I... don't think I'm familiar with those. I was always more a fan of...” Daring trailed off, noticing a hoof-sized, faintly glowing red spot on one of the metal shields hanging on the wall behind her. Grimacing, she pushed the thoughts of 2nd to 1st degree burns from her mind. She only half-listened to the other pegasus' stammered apologies, as her eyes were irresistibly drawn to the weapon itself. Wordlessly, Dash hoofed the apparition over to Daring. It mainly consisted of a thick metal tube about twice the length of a fore-leg. The mechanism itself was not immediately apparent, and Daring didn't care much for looking straight through the weapon's barrel to find out. At a sideways glance, she just caught the last of a fading glow emanating through a densely packed array of yet more crystalline lenses. Hefting the heavy apparition over her shoulder, her hoof easily slid around an elegantly carved wooden handle next to the hoof-strap. A small tube at the side of the weapon provided an analog to the crossbow's aiming aid, albeit with darkened lenses to protect the wielder's eye-sight. It was, quite simply, a typical example of Mareican hoof-work. And it just kept raising more questions. “What is going on here?” Rainbow Dash spoke out loud, swiping a hoof in a wide arc that encompassed more than just the room they were standing in. Bit of an odd way to phrase it, but Daring couldn't agree more. Regular homes, schools for foals – and spike-traps, lava- and crocodile-pits. Carrot- and cabbage-gardens, trees – and a hundred-mile tunnel system twisting into the depths of the earth. Bakeries, shops, lawn ornaments – and legends of an ancient, all-powerful artifact. Swords and arrows – and weapons shooting searing hot rays of light. These types of things generally just didn't mix. How they had gotten intertwined with each other in Mareican culture was a complete and utter mystery. “I don't know,” Daring spoke out loud. She looked at the apparition Rainbow Dash had identified as a “laser-weapon”, then ventured a side-ways glance at the mare herself. Dash's attention had already shifted. Now, She was intently fixated on an ornamental vase. Some half-broken thing – a large crack ran straight through the trio of smiling flowers painted on its side. There was that far-off expression on Dash's face again. Eyes unfocused, she muttered something under her breath, too quiet for Daring Do to understand. The corners of Daring's mouth settled into a grim line. “But I'm going to find out.” . . . . . . Author's Note Special thanks go, once again, to my editor, lightfox lowell. Chapter 10 - Familiarity [Click here for a SUMMARY / HIGHLIGHT REEL for chapters 1 – 9] (A quick refresher for returning readers. Also available as an audio book. ) This chapter is available as a "synthesized" audio book: [click here] - no background music [click here] - with ambient music loop [overview of all chapters] Dash made her way through vacant streets, barren alleys and deserted boulevards. What made it all worse was the silence. Sure, there was the creaking of wood, the whistle of wind, the rushing of a waterfall somewhere in the distance, and if she strained her ears, she could hear all the little sounds of an old house; wooden planks creaking in the wind, amplified by a hundred-fold, audible just at the edge of her hearing. And yet, at the same time, the silence was deafening. At every turn, Dash almost expected somepony to come trotting down the road giving a friendly greeting, to hear sales-ponies enthusiastically advertising their wares, or the sounds of colts and fillies playing. Even her own hoof-steps were barely audible on the dirt-road. The subtly flickering, off-color light gave everything the quality of a fever dream. It truly was a ghost town, as close to the literal sense of the word as you could get without having any actual ghosts in it. But that wasn't what was disturbing her. No, Rainbow “Danger” Dash could take any regular old ghost town any day of the week. This wasn't just a regular ghost town. The road had opened up to a wide, empty plaza, bits of debris scattered all about. Off to the side, Dash saw a pile of wooden boards – the broken remains of a wooden cart, and what once had been a market-stall. With some imagination, she could still recognize the faded image of five coins and a fruit on one of the wooden boards. She had to look twice to reassure herself that the fruit wasn't an apple. A shiver ran down her spine. Quickly, she left the abandoned marketplace behind. She almost stepped on a sharp piece of debris, noticing it only just in time. It was part of a metal frame, smashed and twisted beyond recognition. Yet something about it seemed vaguely familiar. Dash looked up to her right. The cottage was in pretty bad shape. The roof had collapsed, and a good chunk of the wall was missing. Through the hole, Dash could see splintered furniture, and the bent and broken metal frames of several bird-cages. Or animal-cages. Her breath caught in her throat when she saw the mark of three pink butterflies on the cottage's door. ...No, they weren't butterflies. It was a mark of three pink birds. Her eyes were just playing tricks on her. This time, at least. She'd already discarded the notion of “unlikely coincidence” when she'd seen the “Quills and Sofas” knock-off. That by itself already had been downright uncanny. It had only gone straight down into “creepy town” territory from there. For the umpteenth time, Rainbow Dash asked herself the same question: “Just what is going on here?” “Alright, that's enough. What's wrong?” Dash startled at the mare's voice. She'd completely forgotten Daring Do was even there. “Huh? What?” “That look on your face. And this is about the tenth time you've stopped in the last five minutes.” “I, uhm, err...” Dash floundered. Daring's question had completely taken her off guard. “N-nothing”, she responded automatically. Daring gave her a level stare. Dash winced. She clearly wasn't buying it at all. ‘Yeah, this place looks like... like... uh... with Ponyville... err...’ She didn't even know how to phrase it in her own head! What would she even tell Daring Do? How could she possibly phrase that to not make it sound crazy? Dash glanced around nervously, racking her brain, trying to somehow find an answer in the scenery. “What are you looking at?” Daring asked inquisitively, just as Dash's eyes fell on another familiar sight. “That's the Ponyville clock-tower!” She blurted out loud without thinking. Within the next five seconds, Rainbow Dash realized two things. For one, the bell-tower with its well-recognizable clock-face also doubled as a water-mill. Thin streams ran down its sides, onto a large, deteriorated water-wheel, glaringly contrasting against the tower's otherwise familiar features. That, and Dash could practically hear Daring Do's eyebrows shoot up, as high as they could go. “Oh... nevermind!” Rainbow Dash's voice came out with a tiny, squeaky quality to it. There was a fatal silence that said more than words. Slowly, Dash turned to face the adventurer. Daring Do was looking at her with a strange expression, as if she was a complicated mechanism that needed to be solved to get at a treasure. Dash recoiled. Daring frowned. “Have you... been here before?” “What? No!” “But you do recognize that tower over there?” “Well... kinda.” Dash fidgeted nervously. Daring Do scratched her head, seeming uncertain. “...Are you homesick?” “Yes! Wait, I mean – no!” Dash shook her head vehemently. “That's not the point!” “So... What's the big deal, then?” “Everything here looks like Ponyville!” Dash blurted. There. She'd said it. It all came spilling out after that. Sugar Cube Corner, Fluttershy's cottage, the “Quills and Sofas”-store, the familiar cutie marks. All throughout her explanation, Daring's expression remained blank. "So, you're trying to say... your hometown looks just like this place?" Daring ventured, sounding more bewildered than incredulous. “Yes, I–” Rainbow Dash stopped, and looked at the buildings all around her as if seeing them again for the first time. It took her a moment to spot, but Dash recognized the crumbled remains of what looked like one of Ponyville's restaurants, the “Clover Café”. Except that this one was made from solid rock instead of wood and bricks. And further down the road, one of the buildings had an extravagantly curved roof she'd seen before, on a house – or was it a store? – next to... Ponyville's bowling alley. She'd never bothered to check what it was, but here, it seemed to be an inn, or maybe a tavern. But those were only two buildings out of maybe two dozen. She'd been so focused on what had reminded her of home, she'd barely payed attention to anything else. Here stood a home with planks made of metal, there stood a shop with a gemstone-motif. She saw a tower covered in strange geometric markings, and a wooden cottage twice as wide as any of the other houses. Many more buildings that had collapsed – partially or completely – of which she could only guess their appearance. And of those, none of them reminded her of anything in particular. Dash stumbled on her words. “Uh, no – I mean… uhm, it kinda does... well, only some of the buildings do, but not exactly the same. Some of them look totally different than the ones in Ponyville! But you can still tell totally what building it is, and... the cutie marks! There's... there's a whole bunch that are the same as... as some of the ponies back home! Well, okay, not exactly the same, but some of them were, and... and..." Dash groaned, realizing she was talking gibberish. “Look, I can't explain it. I don't understand it. I don't even know how any of this could be possible!” There was silence. Dash slumped. "Urgh. And now you think I'm crazy again." Daring closed and opened her mouth a couple more times. “That's...” She blinked, then shook her head. “That's... strange, I'll give you that.” Dash jerked her head up so fast she almost sprained a muscle. “You... believe me? You don't think I'm crazy?” “Crazy?” Daring Do seemed surprised. “That... wasn't what I was thinking, no.” She narrowed her eyes for a moment, then sighed. Dash looked at her with a mixture of hope and apprehension. If not her, then perhaps Daring Do could solve this mystery? The adventurer's expression was unreadable. “Nopony's been here in... a very long time.” Daring absently kicked aside a discarded floorboard. “So it's not like they could've gotten their inspiration from this place. There's obviously something very strange going on in your hometown.” “Huh?” Dash was taken aback. What was Daring talking about? Upon voicing her confusion, Daring gave her a strange look. She blinked, seemingly confused. “The... similar architecture? The cutie marks? That's what we were just talking about.” “What? No, nothing's wrong with Ponyville, it's this place that's all weird!” Daring Do's reaction was an exasperated hoof to the face. “Dash, you just told me your hometown bears a striking resemblance to an 8000-year old city from a long-dead civilization.” Daring Do crossed her forelegs smugly. “Now, how old is Ponyville?” Dash opened her mouth to respond. Then she closed it. “Thought so.” Daring smirked. “So... Has anything... strange been going on in Ponyville lately?” “Eh.” Dash shrugged. “Not more than usual.” This was a pointless line of inquiry anyway, Daring Do was wrong. Clearly, Ponyville wasn't what was strange here. “You told me the town got attacked by... ursas and dragons.” Daring Do raised an eyebrow questioningly. “What about that?” “Oh, you mean that sort of thing. Ursas, dragons, parasprites, diamond dogs, three headed dogs, giant timberwolves... Yeah, we get those.” Rainbow Dash interpreted the expression on Daring Do's face as a prompt to elaborate. She skimmed over a few memorable events that stuck out, mindful to leave out anything big, like the changeling invasion or the return of the Crystal Empire. She was just in the middle of recounting one of the more recent events, the magical duel between Twilight Sparkle and a particularly boastful unicorn, when Daring Do cut her off. “Woah, woah, woah”, Daring Do interrupted her. “Alicorn Amulet? The Alicorn Amulet?” Daring Do looked at her in shock. Rainbow Dash froze up. Daring Do knew of the Alicorn Amulet. Of course she did. Dash quietly cursed to herself for forgetting. After all, it was only because of the “Daring Do”-books that she had even remembered what the amulet was called. The same amulet Trixie had used was the one that had been mentioned in the last two “Daring Do”-books. Had she just screwed up? Maybe not. The Amulet had been mentioned – but it had never actually shown up in any of the books. Not yet. She vaguely recalled fan-speculations on what would happen with the Amulet in a future book. Many had been expecting the Amulet to appear in – well, this book. It was the 15th anniversary of the series, after all. Didn’t seem likely though, now that she was here. “What do you know about the Alicorn Amulet?” Daring asked with a frown. Hastily, Dash regained her composure. “Well, it makes a unicorn super-powerful, able to cast all sorts of crazy spells – and it makes whoever wears it go completely nuts. Like, the 'mwhahaha, I shall now take over the world' kind of nuts.” “What happened to it? Where is it now?” Daring Do pressed on. “Uh, I think Zecora has it.” Rainbow Dash scratched her head. Only a split-second later did it occur to Dash that giving Daring any info about the whereabouts of the Alicorn Amulet wasn't gonna be of use to her, since it wasn't the same Alicorn Amulet. She didn't get much time to ponder this, as Daring urged her to go on. “Zecora? Who's that?” “She's a zebra who lives in the Everfree Forest”, Dash explained. “...So it never occurred to you to bring the Alicorn Amulet to, oh, I don't know, the authorities?” Daring burst out. “So they could lock it up? In a guarded magic-proof vault?” Dash opened her mouth to respond, but Daring Do cut her off. “Do you have any idea what the Alicorn Amulet could do in the wrong hooves?” Dash returned Daring's accusing gaze with a level stare. “Yeah, I got a pretty good idea actually.” Dash monotoned. “As I was saying – the 'Great and Powerful' Trixie used it to take over Ponyville.” Daring Do blinked. “Hold on, back up a bit, I think I'm missing a story here.” So Rainbow Dash told her. “So, Twinkle – uh, Twilight Sparkle tricked that, ah, Trixie-character into giving her the amulet?” “Twinkle?! Hahaha!” Dash laughed out loud. “Oh, I gotta remember this, that's a good one.” But Daring didn’t even smile. “I... see.” She said, simply. Then she went quiet. And then she stayed quiet. Rainbow Dash shot her a quizzical glance, but Daring Do seemed to be lost deep in her own thoughts. After a minute or so, Dash's eyes inadvertently began scanning her surroundings again. Sure enough, it didn't take long for her to spot a familiar sight. The facade was painted in what once must have been bright, frilly patterns and plastered with decorative ornaments. Even if the building's shape was completely wrong, there were enough similarities for it to be easily recognizable as Carousel Boutique, mainly due to a near-replica of its decorative style. The pony-shape on the sign might've also been a hint, even if Dash was hard-pressed to tell if the displayed equine wore a dress, or a piece of armor. One of the windows was broken, and, thanks to a growth of brightly glowing crystals right outside, Dash caught a good look of its interior. The inside looked... extremely cramped, cluttered with various odds and ends, and indeed a few pieces of ruined cloth hung up on the walls. It bore absolutely no resemblance to Rarity's workplace at all. Not even in the slightest. “Huh.” Somehow, she'd not expected that. “Wait,” Daring's voice startled Dash out of her thoughts. “What was that about a three-headed dog earlier?” “Huh? What?” Daring's outburst had caught her completely off guard. “I only just realized what you said. You mentioned a three-headed dog attacking the town?” “Uh...” Dash scratched her head. “Oh yeah, that. Cerberus escaped and Twilight had to take him back to Tartarus that one time.” “You're pulling my tail.” Daring Do stated flatly. “What? No I'm not!” Dash bristled. Daring Do stared at her as if she'd grown a second head. And perhaps a third. “What in the hay was the guard dog of Tartarus doing in your hometown?” Dash wrinkled her nose and blinked. “It... escaped from Tartarus.” “Yeah, yeah, I got that.” Daring scoffed in annoyance. “But what was it doing in your hometown?” “Uh...” Dash blinked, confused. What was Daring Do trying to get at here? Daring rubbed the bridge of her muzzle with a hoof. “Please don't tell me they build Ponyville wedged in-between the Everfree and the gates of Tartarus.” “What? No, of course they didn't.” Dash scoffed. “Really, now?” Daring gave her a bit of a funny look, but didn't say anything. “Huh? Hey, what's that supposed to mean?” Dash huffed indignantly. Another odd glance. “How close is Ponyville to the Everfree, exactly?” “Huh?” The seeming non-sequitur took Dash by surprise. “About two minutes of flight?” Daring seemed taken aback by this. “That close?! Why in the hay would... Wait, is that speed-flying or casual flying?“ Dash shrugged. “I dunno, casual? It's not much in terms of a race-course.” A sly grin crept over her face. “Well, heh, I guess it's casual for me.” “Okay... that's slightly less insane.” “Insane? What?” Dash reeled, utterly bewildered. “Are you kidding me?” Daring snorted, shaking her head. “Who in their right mind settles right next to the most dangerous forest in Central Equestria?” “What? Wha...?” Dash’s entire face scrunched up in confusion. She blinked a couple of times, then shook her head. “...I thought we were trying to figure out why this place looks so much like Ponyville?” “We've been over this already.” Daring Do rolled her eyes exasperatedly. “Obviously, Ponyville design was inspired by Mareican architecture. Since nopony's been here in at least a few thousand years, the only way this is possible I can think of so far is that either Ponyville was founded by descendants of the Mareicans, or somepony in your town council has access to Mareican architecture designs and used them in city-planning. Whatever their reasons are, I don't think they did it just because 'it looked nice'.” Daring bristled, then seemed to deflate. “Urgh... Sorry.” She sighed. “I think we need to take another approach to this.” Daring Do started saying something, then thought better of it. Instead, she took a few seconds to compose herself. “Listen... About that teleportation-accident...” “Hmm?” It took Dash a second to catch on to what Daring meant. “I don't want you get worked up about this, but...” Daring hesitated, looking Dash straight in the eyes. “Could it be that it wasn't an accident?” Before Dash could even respond, Daring Do pressed on. "Think about it.” Daring urged. “The way we met. The only two ponies in the entire jungle.” She shook her head emphatically. “And you're not even just a random mare. You're a fan.” For some reason, Daring Do glanced up at Rainbow Dash's mane. “What are the chances for that?” “Preaching to the choir, sister.” Rainbow Dash sighed. Her shoulders slumped. There was an awkward silence. Eventually, Daring Do was the one who broke it. “What about Twinkle Sparkle… err, Twilight Sparkle?” “Hehe, Twinkle Sparkle…” Dash snickered at the unintentional nickname. Her chuckle ended in a surprised choke. “Wait, what's Twilight got to do with this?” Daring Do cocked an eyebrow. “You said she was an extremely powerful mage.” Dash stared at her for several seconds, uncomprehending. “Sending somepony across continents...” The adventurer spoke, in a carefully measured neutral tone. "That sort of thing requires a very powerful spell-caster..." Daring Do paused meaningfully. Rainbow Dash bristled. “Hey, wait a second, what are you trying to say here?” Daring Do had her hooves raised in a defensive gesture even before Dash had finished her sentence. “Easy there! I'm not trying to say anything.” “Good.” Dash narrowed her eyes. “Because Twilight Sparkle is one of my closest friends.” “Well, who else could have sent you here, and had the magical resources to pull it off?” “It was not Twilight Sparkle!” Dash growled. From one moment to the next, her mood lightened considerably. “And besides,” she smirked, “it couldn't have been her. Twi was still back in the library when it happened.” “Oh?” Daring perked up, suddenly interested. “Say... What's the last thing you remember before the teleport?” “I was flying to Sugar Cube Corner. I think I... crashed, and then I woke up with a splitting headache and you were there.” “And... what's a 'Sugar Cube Corner' again?” “It's Ponyville's bakery. Looks like a giant gingerbread house. Kinda like that bakery back there,” Dash gestured in the direction they had come from. “Only... well, ginger-bread, not regular bread.” “So. You were flying to the... bakery.” Daring's eye twitched, ever so slightly. “And on your way there, you magically got teleported to the jungle, thousands of miles away.” Daring's sarcasm wasn't lost to Dash, but she couldn't help but add her two bits. “Uh... Actually, I think I made it into the bakery before everything went dark.” There was that eye-twitch again. Hmm. Now that Dash thought about it, hadn't there been somepony shouting? Something about a cake? “Oh no, not the... cake?” “Was the bakery at least closed to the public?” Daring Do asked, a sliver of hope audible in her voice. “Uh... No...?” Dash shrugged. “The Cakes always open shop early in the morning during weekdays.” Daring's face fell, shoulders slumping. Dash, on the other hoof, was lost in thought. The last thing she'd heard had been somepony – probably Pinkie Pie – shouting “Oh no, not the... cake!” It seemed trivial, yet she couldn't shake the feeling there was some important detail she was forgetting. Something in those last few moments before everything went dark that might be relevant. There was some large pile of junk in the middle of the road. Without paying it any mind, Rainbow Dash swerved off to the right by reflex to get around the obstacle. “Oh no, not the... something-something cake.” A birthday cake? If so, then for whose birthday? Not hers, for sure. Though that would've been one heck of a birthday present, under other circumstances. No, not a birthday cake... But she knew it had to have been something like that. She just couldn't quite put her hoof on it. Rainbow Dash grimaced, brows furled in concentration. Why did the occasion for the cake seem so important? It felt like the answer to it all was just out of reach. If only she could remember... With a sigh of frustration, Rainbow Dash shook her head. Idly, she threw a quick glance over at Daring Do – only to see a wall of rubble immediately to her left. Disoriented and shaken from her thoughts, Rainbow Dash looked around in bewilderment. The road now seemed much narrower, and curved off to the right. To her left was an entire row of collapsed buildings, right up until a natural rock-formation rose from the ground – and up, and up, and up, until it formed an insurmountable wall that went on to merge with the ceiling somewhere in the distance. She squinted. There was something else, far down the road. Too regular to be natural, the dark silhouette of a massive structure towered over the city. Shrouded in shadow against a darkened backdrop, it was too far away to make out any details. “Rainbow Dash?” Daring's voice sounded off from behind her, prompting Dash to turn, just as Daring walked around the bend. The road had split straight in the middle, she realized. “Ah, I figured you'd walked down the wrong path.” Daring noted. “Come on, there’s something I want to– woah.” She broke off abruptly, as her eyes wandered past Dash into the distance. “Well. Seems I'm not the only one who found something.” . Daring Do's own discovery wasn't quite as big and looming, but its sheer size and shine made it stand out amongst the houses and shops. Dash couldn't make out much detail, the building was, again, too far away. There was, however, one thing she could tell with certainty, even at a distance. The entire multi-story building sparkled and glittered, as if the whole thing had been positively smothered in precious metals, and... it easily dwarfed a nearby clock-tower – which, again, looked suspiciously similar to Ponyville's own. Rainbow Dash looked back at the cross-road. Daring Do stood there, eyes flicking back and forth, silently weighing their options. She frowned. “What's wrong?” Dash asked, thinking to return the favor Daring had provided earlier. The other mare looked up at her sharply, startled by the question. For a few seconds more, she just stared blankly at her. Then Daring Do shook her head. “It's nothing, Rainbow Dash.” She fell silent again. It very clearly wasn't “nothing”, and Dash was about to object – when her attention was diverted by a familiar sight. There, next to what appeared to be a union between a toy- and a candy-store that vaguely looked like somepony had put a giant jester's cap on Sugar Cube Corner's roof, stood... a second “Carousel Boutique”-like building. Unlike the first, this one definitely had the right shape down to a T – but all its decorations indicated that it was a flower-shop. It even had – Wait, wasn't that Cheerilee's cutie mark? ...Weird. Dash turned back to face Daring just in time to catch an exasperated sigh. The adventurer took a few moments longer, then came to a final decision. “We need to split up.” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Author's Note There. Chapter 10. Finally. Chapter 11 coming "soon". After that, back to the waiting game, though hopefully not quite as long as this time. ....Longer author's note maybe sometime later in the week, exhausted now. SPECIAL THANKS TO MY PROOF-READERS, TEST-AUDIENCE, AND EDITORS: EDITORS – Smiling Armor and Mitsubishi Colt TEST AUDIENCE – tsaukpaetra PROOF-READING for chapter 1 and 2 revision – Litho and DCLeadboot PROOF-READING & EDITING ADVICE for chapter 2 and 3 revision – Meta Four and Litho And a very special thanks goes out to Smiling Armor, who stayed with me as an editor for like 1.5 years or so on chapter 10 and 11 alone. Yikes! That's some dedication! ...And resilience to tedious mind-numbing tasks. And I know already you're gonna say "nah, it was nothing ; I didn't do enough ; ", but you did and you helped a lot. Thanks, if it wasn't for you (and also all those other people of course, eheheh), I'd still be stuck here. Speaking of which, Smiling Armor is seeking help with translating two comics from Russian and Ukrainian, respectively, into English. Not a native English speaker himself, he wants to make sure to get the phrasing right. Anypony up for that, contact him at his userpage. Chapter 11 - The Hole This chapter is available as a "synthesized" audio book: [click here] - no background music [click here] - with ambient music loop [overview of all chapters] The indistinct structure had resolved into three towers, one of them shorter than the other two, and connected by... something. At least that was what she thought it might be. Rainbow Dash had been traveling for nearly two hours, yet the towers still seemed distant, casting a long shadow over the city. At this point, she was seriously wondering if she was gonna make it back to their meeting point in time, or if she'd have to turn around before even reaching her goal. Noticing an obstacle coming up ahead, she squinted her eyes trying to make out details. The dim light provided by the glowing crystal structures all around made it hard for even the pegasus' keen eyes to see, but coming closer, she recognized the obstacle as an... enormous tree that had fallen over on its side, blocking off the path. The toppled tree's trunk was positively massive – nearly as thick as a one-story building was high! Her first instinct was to take flight, eliciting the familiar unpleasant sensation of pain as her bandaged wing failed to stretch out. The grounded pegasus once again sighed frustratedly, as she realized that, no, she could not fly over the obstacle. “Aww, come on! This has got to be some kind of sick joke!” Rainbow Dash groaned unhappily. Just yesterday, she hadn't been able to fly back up after she'd fallen through a hole in the ground, then she'd nearly fallen off a waterfall-staircase, now this. Geez, was this an obstacle course? Trying to scale the tree trunk quickly proved an equally invalid option, as the bark of the dead tree gave way, depositing a flailing rainbow-maned mare on her flank. Rubbing her back, Dash stood up and examined her surroundings for anything that might help in overcoming the obstacle. There didn't seem to be anything that came into question for constructing a makeshift ladder. However, she noticed something else. The house to her left had a balcony on the second floor going out to the side where the tree had crashed, hanging just high enough that it would allow her to jump down onto the tree-trunk, and possibly find her way down to the other side from there. It took her a few seconds to spot the building's entrance, as the otherwise omnipresent light-sources were mostly obstructed by the tree, casting the entire street in deep shadow. There was barely just enough light that she could see a symbol on the door. A waving sheet of paper, or perhaps a flag. Dash could vaguely recall having seen it before somewhere in the city, but didn't pay it any mind otherwise. The athletic pegasus tried to pull, then to push open the door, but to no avail. It appeared to be either locked, or simply stuck. A brief glance to her sides confirmed the lack of windows or other potential points of entry. Dash put her weight against the unyielding door with full force, her free wing flapping instinctively in an attempt to increase her thrust. “Open up, you stupid door...” Dash grunted in frustration. Rearing up on her hind legs, she slammed the full brunt of her body into the obstacle. It was at this exact moment the door gave way. Rainbow Dash stumbled forwards into a pitch-dark room at high speed, and subsequently crashed into some unseen part of the furniture, which then proceeded to fall over with an ear-piercing creak. It was followed by a cacophony of noise as the rest of the room's interior decided to follow its example, and everything fell into chaos. It took Dash a few seconds to recover. Coughing, she sat up, waving away the almost tangible clouds of dust, certain that at least half of which had settled into her lungs. The door had fallen shut right behind her, cutting off what little light the outside had to offer. She couldn't even see her own hooves in front of her. To top it off, her right hind leg had gotten stuck on something. For nearly a minute, the hapless pegasus flailed around in complete and total darkness before getting herself unstuck. Once free, Dash used the opportunity to rub a hoof across her face with a groan. Standing up on all fours, she winced, shaking an uncomfortable cramp from her legs, briefly turning to massage a particularly sore spot. Around her, the smell of paper filled the air. Several dozen wooden shelves lay toppled on the floor, and strewn about all over the ground lay a number of tattered objects that, at one point, had been books. All that remained now were the shredded husks of empty front- and back-hardcovers. The question as to what may have happened to the rest of their contents was answered, when she took a step forward, instantly rewarded with the “crunch” of dry scraps of paper being crushed to dust under-hoof. Trying to pick up the remains, they, too, crumbled right in her hooves. Rainbow Dash winced reflexively, reminded of her repeated crash-landings in “Golden Oak Library”. “Good thing Twilight isn't here,” she thought. She almost expected the unicorn-librarian to burst into the room horn blazing in fury to avenge the destruction of the library – Library. This was a library. Well, it had been one, anyway – now it was just one huge mess of wooden splinters and small papery bits lying all over the floor. Great. Daring Do had told her to be on the lookout for important stuff, and here she up and went wrecking an entire library that would no doubt have proven useful in their quest. Just great. Grumbling, the grounded pegasus tip-hoofed through the mess, careful to avoid sharp pieces of wood and shards of broken glass. She was about halfway through to the other side of the room, when, sticking out amidst the debris, a single, seemingly intact book caught her attention. Dash picked up the thick tome, intent on examining the faded cover-art for any indication of the book's contents. Said contents promptly fell to the floor as a papery cloud of scraps. Groaning, Dash dropped the remains and threw her hooves up in the air in defeat. Great. Those books were so fragile, everything had been utterly destroyed. Fantastic. What Dash wanted to do now would have been to vent, and swiftly stomp towards the stairs, further pulverization of already destroyed books be darned. And she certainly would have done so – had she not also been trying to avoid stepping on scattered shards of glass mostly hidden amongst the rubble. As it were, Rainbow Dash was instead forced to agitatedly tip-hoof toward the stairs instead. The stairs themselves were mercifully free of debris, and the door to the upstairs opened easily enough. Once unlocked, the library's upper floor was revealed as... only marginally less worse off than the lower one. Wooden shelves rose high on the walls, most either empty or filled with piles of dust that once had been scrolls. An oaken desk lay toppled on the floor with a broken leg. Light poured in through a massive hole in the wall, books and various detritus littered the floor. Much like the single tome amongst the rubble downstairs, the ancient texts literally fell apart at the seams in her hooves. “I guess the books downstairs would've been useless either way.” Oddly enough, the thought filled her with a sense of relief. Slowly, Dash made her way around sharp pieces of shattered wall, ruined books, a few artistic examples of post-shatter pottery, and various other odds and ends. At least, with light coming in through the hole in the side-wall, she didn't need to rely on her torch anymore. Rainbow Dash turned her head very, very slowly to look at the flickering orange light. Her eyes came to rest on a brightly burning torch, firmly grasped in her right foreleg. . . “GAAAAAH!” She didn't strictly speaking drop the torch – rather, she threw it on the ground, startled. Immediately afterwards, Dash was in a mad scramble to pick up the burning object, somehow still managing to avert the bone-dry parchments from catching fire and burning the entire library to the ground. Rainbow Dash glared venomously at the offending object that had so violently disrupted her sense of relative normalcy. Sadly, this proved to have little effect on the piece of charcoal wood, burning brightly in defiance of logic. Just where in the hay had this thing come from? She distinctly didn't remember bringing it with her. Rainbow Dash turned to look back towards the stairs to the lower level. Complete and utter darkness. No windows, and the front-door was still shut closed. How could she have seen anything downstairs, if not for the torch? Dash's muzzle scrunched in confusion. The last time she remembered even having the torch was way back when she'd just entered the central cave. She'd stood on the cliff overlooking the city, spotted Daring Do passed out, and jumped into a... lake. Filled with water. Water that should've extinguished the fire. Come to think of it – she had lit up the torch after she'd twisted her wing, back in the tunnels – and that had been yesterday. How was the torch even burning still!? The torch's very existence seemed to laugh in the face of common sense! It was just a burning lump of wood! It shouldn't be able to teleport right into her hoof, somehow at the exact moment that she both needed and wasn't thinking about it. It was just a piece of wood! Daring Do had just grabbed it off a wall somewhere, there was nothing special about it! “Just pretend it's 'Pinkie being Pinkie' and ignore it.” Dash told herself, taking several steadying breaths. But a simple wooden torch wasn't “being Pinkie Pie”. It couldn't, it was just a piece of wood, it could not do those things! It simply could not – Just accept it. Just accept it and move on. If you don't let go, it'll drive you insane. Dash continued her breathing exercises – had she picked those up from Twilight? – until she'd regained her cool. Once calm, Rainbow Dash's focus returned to the matter at hoof. Slowly, through piles of rubble, she made her way towards her goal – the balcony-door at the other end of the room. It really looked like none of the library's books had stood the test of time. Some of the covers themselves were still legible though, and Dash found herself trying to make sense of what she saw, picking up a few to get a closer look. Most of them seemed to be either technical, showing depictions of cogwheels and abstract diagrams, or about gemstones and crystals. As such, one of the books stood out, and Dash examined it closer. The cover showed a galloping pony-silhouette carrying a spear, with a few trees in the background. The sky was dominated by a comparatively simplistic sun, and some weird, misshapen blobs. It suddenly hit Dash that those blobs were supposed to be clouds. Clouds, as drawn by somepony who had never seen them. It sent a chill down her spine, and the pegasus' wings twitched involuntarily. She'd been stuck below ground for two days, she couldn't conceive of the idea that somepony would willingly spend their entire life underground. She opened the book. Of course, there was nothing inside. Nothing, but scraps. Dash stared at the book. This could've been anything. It could've been somepony's life-story. It could've been their history. Or... it could've been a work of fiction. Dash felt the sensation of the book's withered, wrinkled hardback-cover against her hooves, and her nostrils took in the smell of dry parchment. It was a small, fragile thing. Even as she held it, tiny bits flaked off of its back. To think that a book, not too much unlike the one she was holding in her very hooves right now contained the entire world around her… The mere thought was... was... Dash didn't know what it was – she had already exhausted her vocabulary for the absurd. A book containing an entire world, a world created from the written word. While most definitely completely bonkers, in a way, Rainbow Dash had to admit that the idea also sounded... somewhat poetic. It probably was symbolic, although Dash wasn't sure what for. But then again – what about all the other copies of the book that had been published alongside it? That kinda threw a wrench into the symbolism of a single book containing an entire world. Not to mention all the other books in the series. In the now 15 years of its run, the “Daring Do”-series had grown immensely popular. With thousands of copies sold for each book in the series, it had spawned several dozen localized and Equestria-wide fan-clubs. A few of those organized their own meetups – there were even rumors of an upcoming “Daring Do”- convention – and one of them also made their own quarter-yearly club-magazine with news, speculations on upcoming books and short fan-written stories. Naturally, Dash had subscribed as soon as Twilight had told her about the magazine. When Dash made it out of this story, she was gonna have one heck of a fan-story of her own to write. And this time, they'd totally print it, too! “Hah!” The rainbow-maned mare had to chuckle bemusedly at the stray thought. They just couldn't handle her awesomeness, that's why her stuff never showed up. And Twilight always kept insisting she should ditch the “self-insert”-character. Well, what do ya know – she really was part of the story, after all! It wasn't a “self-insert” if it was “official”, right? Though at this, Dash's brow furled in confusion. Hang on. When she had... “read” the story, at least at one point her own name had come up. What did that mean? From what she had gathered, what was happening now was actually the story from the most recent book in the series. The one Twilight had gotten an early copy of. The one Pinkie had then gone and snatched up before any of them could read it. The one she had dashed over to Sugar Cube Corner for to get it back... The one she was in right now. But if this was that same story – how could she be in the story? Okay, duh, she was here, and that was still a complete mystery. But the book had obviously been written before she had been transported here. An interesting question presented itself – what would she find when she got back to Ponyville, and actually read the book for real? How could the anonymous author of the Daring Do series have written a story that included her – before she even got here? Argh, none of this was making any sense! Wait – if there really was an... an author, writing about these very same events that were going on right now – including herself being here – then... did that mean that she... played a role in the story? Dash shook her head, deciding to abandon this train of thought before it reached its destination of giving her a headache. Suddenly, Dash felt herself violently jerked from her reveries, as nothing happened. Wait, what. That can't be right. Dash looked about in confusion, as several internal mental checks, inherent to every living creature and honed over the course of a lifetime, failed to provide the source for the sensory input that had reported the disturbance, or the nature thereof. What was that just now? Had she... heard something? Seen something? Her ears flicking about wildly, Dash turned her head this way and that, looking about the immediate area. Rainbow Dash's eyes wandered over the empty streets below, scanning for anything out of the ordinary, her ears swiveling from side to side trying to catch the unheard sound. Slowly, very slowly, a sensation trickled its way into her conscious thoughts – first a concept, then an inclination, then certainty. There was that feeling again – the feeling that she wasn't alone anymore. The last time she’d felt this way, back in the tunnels, she'd simply chalked it up to fatigue. She wasn’t fatigued now. There literally couldn't have been anypony back in that seemingly unending tunnel. And surely, there wasn't anypony other than herself and Daring down here now… Right? A minor itch caused Dash to raise her left foreleg to scratch – but she stopped halfway, as she noticed some of the papery bits still clinging to it. She easily scraped them off on the floor, but paused, glancing between the scraps of paper lying on the ground and one of the empty hardback-covers she had just checked. Unbidden, a thought came to mind, causing the cerulean pegasus to snort and roll her eyes. “No... that's crazy,” she muttered out loud. The cerulean pegasus threw a glance between the deteriorated books lying on the floor and the desolate streets below. Nopony was here. And yet... Her brow wrinkled, as she gazed back up to the empty streets outside. She had an idea. It was a crazy thought. The mere notion was laughably insane. But... it kinda made a weird sort of sense, all things considered. She was inside a book. Somepony was watching her. Somepony was reading the story. For a few seconds more, Dash simply stood at the edge of the building, at the large hole in the wall, and stared dead-ahead with eyes glazed over. This... this was so... crazy! And yet... it simply made too much sense. “Hello?” Dash asked hesitantly, addressing the empty streets. “Hey, you! Whoever you are!” she shouted. “Help me! It's me, Rainbow Dash! I'm trapped in this story!” The cave remained silent. No response. “Go get Twilight Sparkle, she'll know how to fix this!” Silence. “Argh! This isn't a joke!” Dash urged. “It's really me, I got sucked into this book, somehow!” More silence. ...Was she just making a foal of herself?! “Come on!” Dash threw her forelegs up in frustration. “Say something!” Nothing. Just the rustle of papers strewn about on the floor behind her. Rainbow Dash blinked. Then she face-hoofed. “Yeah...” She snorted in irritation. “How should somepony even respond to a character in a book anyway.” Of course, as per usual for comical timing, it was right then that the pegasus displaced from reality was knocked out cold by her supposed “audience”. The diamond dog hefted the unconscious pegasus over his back, chuckling to himself. “Ahuitzotl-boss will be pleased...“ . End of chapter 11. . . . . . . . . . . . Author's Note ...I planned this scene, while I was writing chapter 5 in 2013. Early 2013. Heh. Hehe. Hahaha. MUHUHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAH, lol. By the way, I finally consider the story cleaned up enough that it holds up to even my own perfectionistic standards, and finally got around to submitting this story to Equestria Daily. SPECIAL THANKS TO MY PROOF-READERS, TEST-AUDIENCE, AND EDITORS: EDITORS – Smiling Armor and Mitsubishi Colt TEST AUDIENCE – tsaukpaetra PROOF-READING for chapter 1 and 2 revision – Litho and DCLeadboot PROOF-READING & EDITING ADVICE for chapter 2 and 3 revision – Meta Four and Litho And a very special thanks goes out to Smiling Armor, who stayed with me as an editor for like 1.5 years or so on chapter 10 and 11 alone. Yikes! That's some dedication! ...And resilience to tedious mind-numbing tasks. And I know already you're gonna say "nah, it was nothing ; I didn't do enough ; ", but you did and you helped a lot. Thanks, if it wasn't for you (and also all those other people of course, eheheh), I'd still be stuck here. Speaking of which, Smiling Armor is seeking help with translating two comics from Russian and Ukrainian, respectively, into English. Not a native English speaker himself, he wants to make sure to get the phrasing right. Anypony up for that, contact him at his userpage. Chapter 1 - Welcome to the jungle DARING DO AND THE SECRET OF THE FOURTH WALL This story is also available as a "synthesized" audio book. MP3-downloads are available on chapter-release. [click here] - Chapter 1, no background music [click here] - Chapter 1, with ambient music loop [overview of all chapters] DISCLAIMER: This story was conceived long before the episodes "Daring Don't" and "Power Ponies". For the sake of this story, Daring Do remains a fictional character. Also, there is no such thing as a store selling "enchanted" comic-books. Chronologically, this story takes place in the middle of season 3. Rainbow Dash groaned, rubbing the back of her head. What exactly had just happened? Her whole skull was throbbing something fierce, as if she'd crashed headfirst into a brick-wall at rainboom-speeds. The last thing she could remember was flying into Sugar Cube Corner to get the new book back from Pinkie Pie. Then there had been a shout – something about a cake, maybe – but anything after that was a blank. Since when was Pinkie into Daring Do's adventures, anyway? With a grunt, Dash brought a hoof to her left ear. The headache was bad enough, and the ringing in her ears made it hard to understand what the other pony was saying. She opened her eyes, only to shut them again immediately. Why were there paper and squiggly lines everywhere? “Hello? Are you alright?” The voice sounded familiar, though she couldn't quite place it. “Yeah, uh, I think I hit my head on something,” Dash replied intelligently. She sat up, steadying herself on muddy ground. “Wait, what's this dirt doing on the floor of Sugar Cube Corner?” Dash blearily opened her eyes. Her sight still blurry, she could just barely make out the colorful shape of a pony in front of her, but the dancing squiggly lines were gone. “Sugar cube – what?” the pony in front of her asked. All she could recognize for the time being was an outstretched gold-yellow hoof. “Pinkie Pie's hooves aren't yellow,” was the first thought her thoroughly rattled brain cobbled together, swiftly succeeded by the realization of “that's not Mister Cake”. Only then, the actual words the pony had said registered. “What do you mean, 'Sugar Cube what'?” Finally, her sight cleared. The other mare was indeed of a golden hue, and a pair of wings sticking out the sides of a leaf-green jacket identified her as a pegasus. Seemingly out of place in the moderate climate of Central Equestria, she wore a tropical helmet. The other pony's most distinct feature however, were her mane and tail – five different shades of gray, and a streak of dark black. Dash recognized her immediately. “DARING DO!?” she blurted out. Dash just gaped. What she saw was impossible. She had read every book from start to finish dozens of times, including the editorials and back-covers to get a glimpse on future installments of the series. Not only that, but she was also a proud subscriber of the “Daring Daily”, going so far as to borrow Twilight's old copies for reading material in-between book-releases. She had practically devoured the fifteen-page article “Daring to Do the impossible”, describing how the anonymous author had come to write “Daring Do” in the first place. Anything there was to know about the series, she knew it. First and foremost, the most important fact: Daring Do wasn't real! And yet here she was – her favorite fictional character, the protagonist of sixteen adventures and counting, in the flesh and very real indeed. . . . . . . . . The cerulean pegasus was now just staring at her as if she had seen a ghost. Granted, Daring Do was a bit spooked herself. The similarities in appearance were eery! The twisted rainbow-reflection of her own mane taken aside, they shared the same athletic body-type, even the same facial structure. Stars above, for all she knew, this could be her long-lost twin-sister! The pony seemingly had appeared out of thin air – a few meters to the left, and the mare would've dropped straight on her head. She'd not even seen her coming! This couldn't have been a coincidence. Her first suspicions were confirmed when the pony stopped talking nonsense about “sugar cubes” and revealed that she knew the adventurer's name. Eyes narrowed, she pointed an accusing hoof at the mare. “Okay, now I'd really like to know. Who in Celestia's name are you?” For a few moments longer, the other pegasus gaped at her, jaw hanging open in a comical expression. When she snapped out of it, her next words made even less sense. “This isn't possible! How can you be Daring Do!? You don't exist! And I should know! I'm your biggest fan!” Daring was taken aback by the distraught mare's nonsensical ramblings. Her eyes seemed to flash through a spectrum of emotions even more colorful than her rainbow-mane, all in the blink of an eye. There was disbelief, excitement, confusion, adoration, amazement, disorientation, fear. Sure, she knew her reputation had become somewhat of a “legend” among certain circles, but statements like “you don't exist” and “I'm your biggest fan” generally excluded each other. Well, didn't seem likely she worked for Ahuizotl, at any rate. Seeing the pony smack a hoof across her own face, Daring Do shook her head. Walking over to the mare, Daring placed a hoof on her right shoulder. The pegasus looked up, while still mumbling something that vaguely sounded like ”I don't feel asleep” and “this can't be real”. “Look, I don't know what you've heard about me, but let me assure you, reports of me being a 'legend' have been greatly exaggerated.” She put a hoof to her chin, pondering for a bit. “Or just not been recorded very accurately.” “I've read all your books!” The mare shot back her response. “My... books?” Daring Do raised an eyebrow. Sure, she had published quite a number of articles for archaeologist magazines – but a whole book? Not so much. Adventuring was a full-time job, writing a book would only get in the way of that. Was the mare referring to her articles? But if so, how could she have doubts about her existence? “Yeah, totally! 'Daring Do and the Quest for the Sapphire Stone' and 'Daring Do and the Griffon's Goblet' were my first ones.” The pegasus' mood suddenly shifted completely, as she practically squealed: “That was sooo awesome!” Now it was Daring's turn to gape in shocked disbelief. Within a split-second, Daring Do was up in the other pony's face, glaring her right in the eye. “How do you know of the Goblet? Who told you? Who else knows?” The pegasus sunk back on her hindquarters, blinking a couple of times. It was only now she seemed to realize she had said something wrong. “Uh... I read your books?” she hesitantly repeated her previous statement, giving an awkward smile and shuffling her hooves on the ground uncomfortably. “Fine, whatever.” Daring gave an audible sigh. She wasn't gonna get any reasonable response from this oddball, at least not right away. She resigned not to press the issue further and to keep an eye on her for the time being. “So, just who are you anyway?” At this, the rainbow-maned pegasus visibly brightened as she leapt a few feet in the air, flying a quick loop before striking a pose. “I'm Rainbow Dash.” She grinned, then leaned back casually against empty air. “Only, you know, the fastest young flyer in Equestria.” Daring Do cocked an eyebrow. “Okay, Rainbow Dash – and what are you doing here, so far from home?” Dash dropped her confident pose. “What.” Then she looked around, taking in her surroundings, as if only just noticing them for the first time, before stating the obvious with not a single trace of sarcasm. “We're in a jungle.” This time, both of Daring's eyebrows shot up. She had been following a trail deep into the heart of the Mareican jungle for weeks now. There was no civilization to be found for miles. There was no way this pony could just have crash-landed in the middle of the jungle without ever glancing down at it during flight. Turning back was definitely not an option. She was just about to make a breakthrough, she could feel it! Even by flight, getting this “Rainbow Dash” someplace safe wasn't gonna happen until she got her hooves on the artifact. Daring Do gave a reluctant sigh. If anything, the company of this pony was going to be... interesting. . . . . . . . . Dash silently cursed to herself. The entire absurdity of the situation totally had made her lose her cool. And in front of Daring Do, of all ponies! Okay, it still made no sense she was even having a conversation with her in the first place, but if she got to introduce herself to her favorite fictional character, she darn-well wanted to make a good first impression! Obviously, she had failed spectacularly. Regardless, the adventurer had let her come along, on grounds of “I don't have time to get you back to wherever you came from”. It was absolutely embarrassing, and Dash had to grit her teeth just thinking about it. Following Daring Do's lead through the thick underbrush, she took a closer look at her surroundings. In the past, she and her friends had ventured into the dangerous grounds of the Everfree Forest near Ponyville a number of times. As such, she had at least some experience with the wild. Still, this was different. Huge leaves brushing against her sides, she was trotting on uneven ground, roots stretching all over the soil like veins. Unfamiliar animal noises could be heard in the distance, exotic birds calling out nearby. She found herself surrounded by massive trees that easily dwarfed Ponyville's Golden Oak Library, and some enormous plants which surprisingly enough resembled giant mushrooms. The treetops blocked out the sky almost completely. Slivers of sunlight shined through the thicket of leaves, bathing everything in an eery green-brown-ish aura. This made the whole scene even more surreal than it already was. It certainly didn't help her settle in with her new surroundings that the air was dripping with heat, staining her coat with sweat. Or perhaps that was due to the increased humidity. Probably both. Once again, her thoughts ran wild. How did she get here? How could this be possible? Where had Daring Do come from? How could she be real? Was this really happening? A nasty thought struck Rainbow Dash. She faltered, nearly stumbling over another tree-root, barely catching herself in time. Perhaps she really had hit her head on something. Hit it hard. Really hard. Perhaps she was imagining the whole thing, and back in reality, her body lay unconscious in Ponyville Hospital with her friends worrying their own little heads off for her well-being. Dash shuddered – it was a frightening thought. If she was actually in a really really deep sleep and couldn't tell fantasy from reality, then how could she be sure she would ever – “Ouch!” Her left front-hoof instantly snapped to the back of her neck, where the stinging sensation had come from. As she pulled it back, she saw a red-brown mush and the sorry remains of a squashed insect. “Okay, now I'm imagining myself getting shaken out of my thoughts about imagining the whole thing by an imaginary mosquito,” Dash mumbled to herself. Admittedly, that seemed off. If this was a dream, it was certainly the darn-most realistic one she'd ever had in her life. Her train of thought was interrupted yet again when Daring Do turned to address her. “Alright, this is where we'll stay for the night.” Nightfall came quick in the jungle. Dash couldn't tell for certain how long she had been out cold, but she was pretty sure that it hadn't been an entire day. Her internal clock thrown off and her mind still ablaze with questions, sleep would not come easy. Alright. She had accepted that this was for real. Daring Do was fast asleep right next to her in the cave. So, Daring Do was real. Wow... That was quite something to wrap your head around! Next issue – she was in a jungle. According to Daring Do, she wasn't even in Equestria anymore. Mareican jungle – never heard of that. Couldn't recall seeing it on any maps either. The name sounded familiar, though. How she had gotten here? No clue. How to get back? Equally clueless. Lots and lots of flying until she got back to Ponyville. Or at least some of the outer settlements in Equestria, then hitch a train-ride back home. She'd have to ask Daring Do for a map or something tomorrow. Idly, she rubbed her neck with a hoof. Hold on – why was she thinking about going home? This was an opportunity! Daring Do had offered her to come along – admittedly not on the best terms imaginable – but it wasn't like she'd ditch the once-in-a-lifetime-chance to team-up with the mare of adventure herself! But her grin slid right off her face once more as her thoughts drifted back to her friends. They must have been worried sick, with no clue of where she had suddenly disappeared to. Dash sighed. She'd at the very least have to send them a message, somehow. Then, in good conscience, she could go on her adventure with Daring Do and find her way back to Ponyville afterwards. As soothing moonshine pierced its way into the cave, Dash realized how late it had gotten. Involuntarily, she yawned, as she looked up at the lunar orb above. And then her entire world came crashing down. The Mare in the Moon was back. . . . . . . Author's Note Thanks to Litho and DCLeadboot for help with editing. Chapter 1 revision performed: December 2015. Only major difference narrative-wise being the reveal in the last line happening early. Chapter 6 - The end of the tunnel This chapter is available as a "synthesized" audio book: [click here] - with human narrator! [click here] - no background music [click here] - with ambient music loop [overview of all chapters] Dash gaped down at the sight below. Whatever she had expected to find at the end of the tunnel, if even anything at all, this had not been it. Before her lay an enormous cavern, with rows upon rows of buildings of various sizes and shapes scattered everywhere on ground-level, framed by a network of dirt-roads and alley-ways. She had emerged at the peak of a high formation of rocks, reaching up halfway to the enormous cavern's ceiling, where the river she had been following rushed down across the smoothed stone like a waterfall. Even from this vintage-point, it was hard to tell how large the place actually was, and Dash was unsure whether to classify it as a “town” or a “city”. Though for the most part, this was due to the settlement's unorthodox layout. Having been built into the cave's expanse, the settlement had to adhere to its natural shape. While it seemed that a lazy fifteen-minute trot would be more than enough time to cross the gap between the cavern's left and right walls respectively, from Dash's viewpoint the “town” / “city” stretched far on into the distance, the city-limit obscured by the cave's curvature. Light poured down from a number of magic crystals in the ceiling above, bathing the mixture of wooden and stone architecture in a ghostly pale, violet light. There was no discernible pattern, crystalline clusters of different sizes and density were strewn all about overhead, as well as on some parts of the encompassing cave-walls. There were also a few dim light sources on ground-level, though one of them in particular caught Rainbow Dash's attention. Positioned at the edge of the cavern, it was significantly brighter than the rest, illuminating a splotch of yellow that stood out in the otherwise dull gray-ish white and brown environment. Could it be a pony? ...Could it be Daring Do? “Hey, Daring Do!” Dash shouted, waving her torch over her head with her left foreleg. The yellow blob that may or may not have been Daring Do did not react to this. “Hey! Daring! Up here!” she yelled with increased volume, yet with the same result – none. Taking a deep, deep breath, Dash hollered an exclamation of “Over here!” at the top of her lungs. No reaction. Dash frowned. Wasn't she loud enough? She would've figured she'd been loud enough to hear, but alas, it seemed she would have to get closer to get Daring's attention. Well, it wasn't too far, and she'd be there in less than a minute... Okay, no need to rush while exhausted – a couple minutes on hoof, then. Except... she was a few hundred meters up, and she couldn't fly down. For the umpteenth time, the disgruntled pegasus cursed her right wing's injury, and the forces of fate that undoubtably had been conspiring against her. Peaking over the edge, Dash's gaze was drawn to the river splashing down over the smoothed rock-formation that very roughly – if interpreted generously – resembled a water-staircase. It only led down two thirds of the way, from there on, she'd have to jump into the basin of water below. With an annoyed grunt, Dash began making her way down. One awkward, slippery and on several occasion nearly fatal climb down the cliffside later, as well as a soaking wet coat and mane, Rainbow Dash had reached ground-level. At least she wasn't cold, the lake she had landed in had been surprisingly warm – especially compared to the low temperature of the river flowing into it. Weird. There must have been something at the bottom of the lake heating it up. Making her way through the streets in the direction of the bright light source, Dash passed by buildings in varying states of decay. Some of them had collapsed entirely, while others in turn seemingly had remained perfectly intact. The materials used in their construction were just as varied. Some of them were built from wood, others from brick, others again appeared to have been built from solid walls of rock leaning against each other – or a blend of each of the designs. After a ten-minute trot, Dash had reached the outer wall. Off to her right, she saw a large set of double-doors, probably the main city-entrance. And to her left, illuminated by the light of an oil-lamp, she saw a number of rooms that appeared to have been carved directly into the cave's stone itself. And on the ground in front of them lay ...Oh no. Dash tensed at seeing Daring Do's limp form lying on the ground, legs sprawled into every direction. Rushing to her side immediately, she was relieved to realize the other mare was merely unconscious, albeit badly bruised, small cuts showing all over her body and one of her wings bandaged. But she was breathing strong, steady breaths. That meant she was okay, right? “I could use some advice from Fluttershy right now,” Dash murmured worriedly, examining Daring's wounds more closely. She couldn't see anything serious other than the injured wing, and Dash didn't want to disturb the bandages. After all, those seemed to have been done somewhat professionally, and she didn't want to risk making things worse. Well, at the very least, she couldn't let Daring Do keep lying on the cold stone-floor. But where else to go? Looking around for a more suitable location, Dash quickly realized that she, in fact, had a fairly large selection to choose from. There were houses everywhere. Carrying Daring Do on her back, it didn't take her long to reach a nearby stone-building. It was two stories high, and looked stable enough. In there, with any luck – her own fatigue once again reasserting itself after the momentary rush of adrenaline had faded – they'd find a resting place. . . . . . . . . Author's Note A special thanks to MeglifKaddy and Frobman for last-minute help with editing! :-) Please tell me what you think of this chapter's human-narrated version of the audio-book. It was kind of an experiment.
Chapter 2 - Of pegasi and predators This chapter is available as a "synthesized" audio book: [click here] - no background music [click here] - with ambient music loop [overview of all chapters] . . . . As usual, Daring Do woke to the first rays of the morning sun with a groan. She yawned, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. Even after all these years, she'd never quite accustomed to rising early. It was simply an unpleasant necessity in her life as an adventurer. After all, traveling at night – with predators on the loose, in the dark – wasn't exactly the smart thing to do. And in turn, making use of every minute of daylight was the logical consequence. Apparently, her newly-fetched rainbow-maned companion didn't quite agree with her reasoning. “Gimme five more minutes,” the mare slurred sleepily. For the sixth time, she edged away from Daring's prodding hoof. Daring Do shrugged. This pony sure could sleep like a rock. “Yeah, I know that feeling.” She sighed. “Ah, what the hay.” Giving her five more minutes probably won’t hurt. Daring Do stepped outside the small cave that had provided them with shelter for the past couple hours and took a deep breath of fresh morning-air. It smelled like... a lot of sweat and mud and dirt. Daring looked down at herself. Yesterday's trek through the underbrush had left its marks. While she wasn't one to bother much with her physical appearance, even she could agree she needed some cleaning. She needed to refill her water-reserves anyway, now that there was another pony to take care of. Working her way through the thicket, years of experience kicked in, telling her where to find the nearest source of water by following the subtle hints Mother Nature had to offer. That, or just follow the distinct sound of water splashing as it snaked its way around the local plant-life. After a couple minutes, the adventurer reached a larger clearing, a wide, calm river crossing in its center. The water seemed fine, so she took a long sip before refilling several empty bottles she had stored in her jacket. Before she got around to clean herself, however, she heard a sudden rustle coming from the other side of the river. She raised her head just in time to see a fully grown leopard step into the clearing. For a total of ten seconds, they both just stared at each other. Oddly enough, the predator seemed to be just as taken aback as she was, surprise clearly written across its features. It probably had only come here for the same reason she did – water. Now it was confronted with the extra bonus of a pony-snack. Still, the expression struck Daring as odd. However, she did not get any chance to further dwell on this thought. Ten seconds was all it took for the big cat to bare its teeth and leap into the water, quickly on its way to the other side of the stream. Daring did not hesitate any longer, and did the smart thing – she turned on the spot and ran. The athletic pegasus may have been able to deal out some bucking, but leopards in general had sharp senses and without the element of surprise on her side, would likely dodge most attacks she threw its way. Instinct told her to take flight, but she immediately regretted doing so. Almost instantaneously, she got herself tangled in the vines hanging low from the all-encompassing monster-trees. This prompted some rather unflattering curses from the pegasus-adventurer regarding the unusually clingy plant life in the area. Twisting and turning, Daring Do stretched her muzzle to bite down on a vine wrapping itself around her right hind-leg. Breaking free of the flora's clutches, she glanced back only to see the leopard barely a few pony-lengths behind. Restraining herself from pursuing the literal approach of “fight or flight”, she zig-zagged through the underbrush. Daring snapped back a tree branch to hit her pursuer – the leopard ducked under it. She kicked a rock in its general direction – the predator dodged that as well. She kicked up dirt in the leopard's face – that only agitated it. Daring Do was proud to call herself a swift flyer. Back in the day, she’d even won her fair share of competitions. On hoof, too, she was quite agile – and she certainly had improved that skill throughout her adventures. Despite this, as well as her attempts to slow its advance, the leopard was beginning to close the gap. Daring grit her teeth and pushed herself to stay ahead in their deadly competition. Her eyes darted across the landscape, searching for an opening in the forest's canopy. She needed a place for take-off! She winced – something sharp had cut a gash across her foreleg. “Eyes on the ground, Daring.” She couldn't risk tripping. Or smacking head-first into those nasty tree-branches herself. Oh, and of course, she had to avoid the quicksand. Wait... quicksand? Her hooves met resistance, stopping her dead in her tracks. Before she had fully registered what was going on, it was already too late. “Urk! Are you buckin' kidding me?!” She groaned. “Of all the – why is it always quicksand?” Rapidly, she flapped her wings, trying to escape – but the quicksand just wouldn't let go. Was there a way to reach the edge and get out to safety? Of course not. She had practically galloped into the center of what could count as a small quicksand-lake. A growl from behind reminded her of the other pressing matter at hoof. An icy chill went down the adventurer’s back. She was stuck. The predator had won this race. It would come to collect its price any moment now – if she couldn't think of something, and fast... But it was already too late. There it was. Just a few meters away. Daring could see the hunger, the glint in its eyes as it crouched, preparing to leap. But it didn't. For some reason, it just kept growling at her, pacing back and forth. Something kept it from attacking her. The quicksand! The leopard wasn't too keen on taking its chances with the other force that his potential prey had fallen victim to. It couldn't reach her. Well, that at least solved one of her problems – which ironically would be the cause of her untimely demise in its stead. That certainly put things into perspective. At least now she wouldn't die a quick, gruesome death. Not that the alternative of slowly drowning in sand was any better. Now all she would have to do would be to somehow come up with a daring escape plan. Trouble was, she barely ever made plans. She just acted on impulse, or made due with what the situation presented her with. And right now, she had nothing. She was already stuck knee-deep in – any attempt to move would only accelerate her descent at this point. Of course, now that low-hanging vines or tree-branches would have come in handy, there were none to be found. Her wings were useless in this situation – and even if she did make it, the leopard could easily cycle around the quicksand-lake to pick up the hunt. As if to crush her hopes of surviving even if she could get out of her sticky situation, a second leopard stepped into view. Even worse – it was then followed by a black panther. “Oh, it's one of those days again,” Daring grumbled. The first leopard snarled a greeting, and the two large cats' focus fell on the trapped pegasus. They were smiling. Realization dawned on her. These weren't just ordinary predators. No, now the first leopard's expression of surprise when stumbling into her made perfect sense. “You're working for Ahuizotl!” She grit her teeth in barely suppressed anger. This caused the cats' grins to grow even wider. Of course. Her adversary would often pay locals to do his bidding. Getting rid of her – whatever the means – would get them quite the paycheck. She was surrounded on all sides. She was already half-submerged in quicksand with no means of escape. She was out of options. She needed a miracle! What she got was a rainbow. The only forewarning she had was the high-pitched whine of air-displacement – then a streak of rainbow quite literally burst through the underbrush. The next thing she knew, two blue forelegs wrapped around her midsection, and with a slurping “plop”, the quicksand let go of her. Instinctively holding onto her hat, Daring Do and Rainbow Dash zipped right past one of the leopards. The predator's gaping expression would've sent her into a laughing fit, had Daring herself not been so baffled by her last-minute rescue. “You alright?” the blur of cyan and rainbow addressed her. “Huh? Oh, yeah! Thanks for the lift!” Daring shook off her surprise. Still being dragged along by Dash at break-neck speeds barely above ground level, she could hear the trio of predators roar far behind in frustration. Darn, this pegasus was fast! But her speed wasn’t even the most impressive feat. It was completely insane how this pony could just fly straight through the underbrush seemingly not even having to dodge any – “Look out for that tree branch!” Daring yelled, prompting Dash to just look at her in confusion. “What are you talking abou–” *SMACK!* “Outsch... Hey, where did that thing come from?!” Dash groaned, picking herself back up from the ground. Daring found herself upside down – the impact had sent her rolling several meters. Trotting back to the other pegasus, she adjusted her hat and dusted off her jacket. “Thanks again, Rainbow Dash. How did you even find me out there?” she asked, while helping her companion back to her hooves. The other mare smirked sheepishly at the mention of “thanks” and opened her mouth to reply – only to close it again and blink a couple of times. A roar in the distance caught both pegasi's attention. Looking back to where they had come from, Daring cringed. In the heavily moist forest air, a still fading rainbow trail was clearly visible. This would lead those blasted cats right back to them! “Well, I guess we'd better be off.” She leaped straight into a gallop, only to be halted when the other pegasus exclaimed in alarm. Somehow, Rainbow Dash had managed to get herself wrapped up in vines from head to hoof-tip, two feet above ground-level. Daring turned to help the pegasus get herself unstuck. Undoubtedly, she was allowing their pursuers ample time to catch up. But there was no way she'd ever leave anypony behind – not to mention Dash had just saved her hide! As the two pegasi ran side-by-side, followed by constant growls growing nearer, Daring Do hastily sorted through their options. Outrunning three leopards? Well, they could always try to, though their opponents had the obvious home advantage. And at least one of them had proven itself a rival to Daring's own running skills. The both of them versus three predators – direct confrontation? She couldn't be sure of Dash's fighting skills, and their only chance would be to take them by surprise. However, the surprise factor was long-since gone, and an ambush required a decent hiding spot. Not like leopards could follow their scent or anything. Oh wait. They could try to lay a trap... No, there were three of them, a single trap would at best only catch one, two max. If they had more time, yes, they might have been able to place more than one trap, but another howl – dangerously close – quickly made her discard the option. Unless of course they could steer the predators to jump off a cliff. Then again, if they found a cliff, they could just fly over and leave their pursuers behind. Not that she had seen a cliff anywhere nearby, obviously. However, she saw something else. Through the thick tree cover, she caught a glimpse of a hill – just high enough to pierce above the line of monster-trees (and mushrooms). This would be their place to take off! “That way!” she shouted to Dash, heading towards the hill. . . . “That's not what I expected,” Daring cursed to herself as the hill came into sight. It was steep, impossibly steep, sticking out of the ground menacingly like a spear. Only its upper part was anywhere close to moderate in incline. It was practically not physically possible to climb to the top without proper equipment. Which she didn't have, because usually, pegasi didn't need it. The unusually dense plant-life was, somehow, even more dense here. The entire lower half of the hill was completely covered in vines, overgrown in exotic plants and moss – even trees wrapped their roots and branches around the base of the hill. Flight to the top was impossible. As if she had read her thoughts, Rainbow Dash voiced a complaint of her own. “Ah come on! You've got to be buckin' kidding me! Where did all that stuff even come from!?” She gestured at the all-encompassing vines in frustration. A paw snapping at her tail sent both Dash and Daring scurrying forward. “Quick! There's a cave!” Dash pointed at a spot at the hill's west-side. And indeed, Daring could just make out the slightest difference between the regular moss-, flowers-, and vine-covered stone wall and what seemed to be just vines hanging loosely supporting the other plants growth. With the predator right on their tails it wasn't like they would be able to hide, but Rainbow Dash was already running towards the cave, and Daring Do had little choice but to follow. It was dark, wet and gloomy, but Daring didn't hesitate for a moment. With barely a thought, she pulled out an oil lamp from her jacket and ignited it while the leopard – it was the one Daring had run into first – was still hot on their trail. A sudden yelp from behind her caused the adventurer to falter. What was that? Against better judgment, she turned her head – which turned out to be a fatal mistake. By a cruel joke of fate, the heroic adventurer, who had challenged death in every corner of the world, who had shattered villainous schemes countless times, had defied dangerous dungeons, perilous crypts and trap-filled tombs... tripped over a tiny rock she had not seen in the dark. Daring's head slammed into the ground, hard. Pain shot through her skull, her eyes clenched shut from the impact. The oil lamp clattered to the ground some ways off. Everything went fuzzy. Through her eyelids, all she saw was the flickering light of her oil lamp. The only things she heard were the sounds of her heart pounding wildly in her chest, and hectic, ragged breathing. Except... it wasn't her own breathing. A tirade of curses slurred together into an indecipherable mumble as she blearily opened one eye – only to see the predator come into focus just bare hoof-lengths away. Muscles tense, the familiar surge of adrenaline washed away her weariness. She readied her stance to give the leopard a hard time for its meal. She wasn't gonna go down without a fight! Then she got a good look at the predator. Eyes wide, ears pinned down, one paw held up as if frozen mid-trot, it stared off at something behind Daring Do, its face almost completely drained of color. It… no, he was scared. Scared for his life. Daring’s mind drew a blank. The expression of primal fear was so out of place on the apex predator, she didn’t know what to think. The other two hunters stepped into the cave, snarling and ready to leap. Then they saw their fellow predator, huddling on the ground, shaking with fear. Their demeanor changed, just as quickly. First, signs of recognition, disbelief, and then just sheer and blank terror! And then, the three big cats just turned and ran. With their tails between their legs. And if Daring didn't know any better, it seemed the other two were trying to stay away from the first one. As if touching him could carry a deadly curse. Daring Do felt a cold chill running up her spine. Where exactly had they stumbled into? What had they seen? What could possibly warrant such a reaction?! Slowly, very slowly, Daring Do turned around, steeling herself for the worst... ...And then looked at a dumbfounded cyan pegasus. No big dragons or anything of the sort looming behind her, either. There was nothing. Nothing, except for a carving on the wall. Four simple geometric shapes. It was both a positive surprise as well as disconcerting. It was the ancient Mareican civilization's symbol for “death”. She had found an entrance to the temple she had been looking for. . . . . . . . . . . Author's Note Special thanks to Meta Four and Litho for help with editing. Chapter 2 revision performed: July 2016. Updated December 2016.
Chapter 3 - Exposition This chapter is available as a "synthesized" audio book: [click here] - no background music [click here] - with ambient music loop [overview of all chapters] The two mares walked through the dark tunnels of the cave in silence, the only source of light being the adventurer's oil lamp. With Daring Do in the lead, and no immediate threats in sight, Rainbow Dash found some time to reflect on recent events. Her thoughts drifted back to last night, when everything finally had fallen into place. At first she had just stared at it, trying to blink herself awake from what she just had come to terms with wasn't a dream. Closed her eyes, opened them again, thinking that she'd imagined it. But there it had been, undeniably – the Mare in the Moon. And, just like that, getting back home or even sending a message to Ponyville had become a lot more difficult. Not enough that she was in some far out jungle in Luna-knows-where, now she'd also have to add time travel to her schedule. And then she'd remembered something. It didn't come up too often – but the “Daring Do”-books were set sometime mid-last century, not in present day. Now Dash had two possibilities to consider. Both were equally unlikely, but one of them just made sense. As much sense as it could, anyway. Either, she somehow had been flung into the past, into a distant jungle she couldn't remember seeing on any maps, waking up right next to a pony that wasn't supposed to exist, or she had mysteriously entered the world of the “Daring Do”-book series. Now she could even recall why the name “Mareican jungle” had struck a cord. She vaguely remembered it being mentioned in the preview for the latest book, the one she had been about to read before reality had decided to play a prank on her behalf. It was too bad that the preview had been all too hazy – the foreknowledge certainly might've proven useful in her situation. And come to think of it, that was another thing that had been bothering her, ever since Daring Do had unintentionally pointed it out. How did she even find her? How had she even known Daring Do had been in danger? She'd jerked awake, whisked away from sweet dreams of flying with the Wonderbolts, and just known Daring Do was in a precarious situation with no way out. Without second thoughts, she'd flown straight out of the cave to come to her aid. And that brought up another detail. Where did all those vines suddenly come from after she had rescued Daring Do? She had been able to fly just fine before! “So, Rainbow Dash, where are you from, exactly?” Daring Do's attempt at small talk shook Dash out of her musings. “Ponyville,” she answered without giving the question a second thought. Wait, did Ponyville even exist yet? Dash cringed. Apparently, the name didn't strike Daring Do as familiar. “Uhm... near Canterlot. Right next to the Everfree Forest.” “Oh,” was all Daring said at first. “Pretty long way from here,” she added after a pause, involuntarily making Dash cringe yet again. She didn't need to be reminded of how far away from her friends she was right now. Or half a century away. Or in another plane of reality altogether. “So... what brings you here?” This gave Dash a pause. She didn't have the faintest clue how and why she was here. And somehow, it struck her as unwise to tell the pony standing before her that, where she came from, they were just a character in a book-series. Generally, if you told somepony that, they'd label you as insane. Which was pretty much the last thing she wanted Daring Do to think of her. Best to omit certain details of the truth, then. “Well, uh, I dunno... magic mishap, or something.” She shrugged. “One moment I'm off to visit one of my friends in town, next thing I know I wake up in a jungle.” “And 50 or so years in the past. In another universe” was what she didn't say. Judging by Daring's expression turning from surprise to sympathy, her earlier “odd” behavior was now excused. “Woah. Never heard of a unicorn powerful enough to teleport you across half the world.” Great. Another reminder of how far away she was from home. “Yeah, Twilight's got quite the thing for magic. Magic itself is her special talent,” she responded almost automatically. “Although... It can't have been Twi, she was still at the library when I went to Sugar Cube Corner,” Dash thought to herself. “Still, wow. I mean, wow. I sure could use somepony who does teleportation spells like that.” For a moment, Daring Do's expression darkened. “Certainly could use the head start...” That last comment threw Dash's impulse-response off for just long enough to realize that casually name-dropping Princess Celestia as Twilight Sparkle's personal teacher might not be such a great idea after all. Asides from the obvious bragging, it was still half a century before Twilight Sparkle – or any of her friends, or herself for that matter – were even going to be born! If they even were going to be born in this... reality or whatever the hay this was. The thought once again gave her the chills. And things could get awkward if Daring Do started pointing out holes in Rainbow Dash's story. Pointing out holes in her story... Dash pondered for a moment, and curiosity got the better of her. What if she asked Daring about something that wasn't mentioned in any of the books? “Say, how did you get your cutie mark?” She pointed at the depiction of a compass rose imprinted into the adventurer's hindquarters. Daring Do's perplexed expression made her realize how blunt and out-of-the-blue the question must have come off as. Of course you didn't just randomly ask somepony how they got their cutie mark. “Horsefeathers!” Dash silently cursed to herself. ”So much for making a good first... err, second impression.” “Urk, Dash, what's gotten into you?” She face-hoofed inside her mind. “This is Daring Do, for crying out loud! Don't blow this!” “Uhh... I got mine, when I did a Sonic Rainboom...” Somehow, this riveting retelling of a pivotal moment in pony history utterly failed to instill the appropriate sense of awe in her conversation partner. “Uh, you know?” Dash gestured wildly with her hooves for emphasis. “The Sonic Rainboom? Breaking the sound barrier? Giant rainbow explosion in the sky?” When that still didn't break up the awkward gap in their conversation, Dash elaborated. How she had stood up to defend her timid friend, Fluttershy, against some bullies in flight camp. The race challenge, and how she had not only won, but pulled off a move prior to that day only heard of in legends! That her talent lay in the very nature of flying itself, the love for the feeling of air under her wings, the need for speed, and the amazing stunts she could pull off! Daring stayed silent for a moment, then gave a rather brief answer. “Happened when I first got my hooves on a very precious artifact. Had to evade all kinds of dangerous critters and stuff.” Dash sensed there was more to it – there was just something about the way Daring had said those words – but Dash decisively didn't press the issue. After all, a cutie mark story was something very personal, and not everypony liked to share theirs. But at least the awkward silence was over. Her cutie mark... It had been a while since she had thought of that. The image of a golden compass rose against a dark green background was so omnipresent in her everyday life that it hardly even registered anymore. Daring's thoughts drifted back to childhood memories, her father who she barely had known. It had been a dark and stormy night, when she set out on her quest, and – She was shaken out of her reveries, when Rainbow Dash slammed her body into her side with full force. “Hey! What are you –” ZZZZZINNNG! The characteristic noise of a spike trap closing in right behind her cut Daring Do off. “Woah!” Daring's eyes widened in surprise, inwardly scolding herself for letting her guard down. “Thanks, I totally didn't see that one coming.” Rainbow Dash silently stared at the spikes. “...Neither did I,” she quietly muttered to herself. Daring wasn't sure what to make of the remark. Probably stress, considering their near-death encounter. . . . From this point on, the narrow tunnels of the cave became more easily discernible as the entryway to an underground temple, laced with traps every couple of steps. And what nasty traps there were! In her time, Daring had seen the inside of many forbidden catacombs, countless holy and probably less holy shrines – when the cult that had built it had served the god of Chaos and Disharmony, it wasn't “holy” in her book – and this temple had everything. (Well, almost everything. She honestly doubted she'd ever again encounter a pitfall filled with flesh-eating piranhas swimming in steaming hot chocolate, while razor-sharp candy-cane spikes were descending from the ceiling, which itself was covered in some dripping goo that had incapacitated her flying abilities at the time.) From the classic spike-traps, spears shooting out of the walls, the ground opening up to reveal a pit filled with hungry alligators... You name it, it was all here! Daring knew of several different temple archetypes. Asides from different construction styles, layouts or traps to be expected when facing a specific type of temple, there were those that were designed to 'test' anypony that dared to enter... and then there were those that just tried to keep everything and everypony out no matter what. This definitely was one of the latter kind. A wide gap in the ground filled with lava made her pause to consider where exactly the lava might be coming from. The thought was quickly dismissed as the two pegasi simply flew to the other side. That was strange. Whoever had built this place clearly didn't want any intruders to get through, yet, it didn't seem to be built with pegasi in mind. Pegasi taken aside – considering that she had heard rumors about a few feral griffon tribes living somewhere in the southern parts of the jungle, the lack of security against winged intruders struck her as rather inconsiderate. The solution to at least part of this mystery turned out to be rather simple, and non-lethal for once. At one point, the tunnel suddenly came to a stop, only a very small crawlway allowing for passage. No adult griffon would be able to fit – but a pony could squeeze their way through just fine. With the two of them working their way through the tight corridor single file, Daring Do was constantly on edge. Should there be yet another spontaneously opening floor tile or a set of spikes springing up in front of them, they had no real way to evade it. Still, she urged Dash to keep behind by a few meters, in case any of them should require some extra space to dodge something. A number of suspicious rills in the walls did not go unnoticed, but passing them didn't seem to trigger any traps. The narrow tunnel stretched on for quite a while, interspersed with the occasional random turn, rather more of a concession to natural circumstances than intentional design. “Geez, how long is this thing?!” Daring muttered out loud. Lucky for her, she found out when the next corner revealed an exit to a larger chamber, this time dominated by brick architecture as opposed to naked stone walls. “Phew, I thought my wings were going to fall asleep.” The pegasus wearily flapped the sore appendages and stretched her back, briefly leaning against the wall for support. A sudden “CLUNK” from behind made her spin around. The tunnel space she had just crawled out of had been sealed off by a solid rock wall – and Rainbow Dash was still inside! A muffled shout of “Hey! What gives?” coming from the other side pretty much confirmed that Dash was alright, but Daring asked her anyway. “You okay, Rainbow Dash?” “Urk! My tail's stuck,” Dash shouted back. “Some rock or whatever came shooting out from the ceiling! ...It's hard to tell in the dark.” Wait, so there was more to the trap than just this wall at the end of the tunnel? But what good was a trap that only got triggered from the outside? Unless... Daring looked over the wall she had previously leaned on, and indeed – one of the bricks in the wall stuck out slightly. A small push, and the rock-wall slid back up, soon followed by a dust-covered pegasus entering the room. “It's a sealing mechanism.” Daring Do pondered out loud. “Whoever built this place had wanted to have the option to shut everypony out when inside – as if the death traps weren't enough already!” “Heh.” She couldn't help but chuckle. “Clever placement for the trigger, actually. If somepony managed to follow one of the monks – or whoever used to serve in this temple – up to this point, they could still trap the intruder in the tunnel.” On a whim, she searched for the trigger to shut the entrance. With a resounding “CLUNK”, the only apparent exit was closed. “Hah! Let's see how Ahuizotl's gonna get in here now.” Turning her lamp towards the room, Daring took notice of several torches sticking out from the walls. Most of them were soaked – water was dripping in from some point in the ceiling – but she managed to find a usable one. She ignited it, and gave it to Dash, who accepted it wordlessly. Holding up her own light-source, she inspected her surroundings. To her left, there were several intricate carvings, etched into the canvas of a row of stone tablets embedded into the wall. Most of the carvings had been damaged to some degree or another; the water running down from the ceiling was ever-so-slowly eating away at the art. The first carving showed a group of ponies to the right, taking a protective stance against a group of indistinct creatures to the left. Curiously, to the ponies' right, there was a depiction of their symbol for “death” that Daring Do had already noticed at the cave entrance. There was also another symbol Daring Do did not recognize. It appeared to be a flag, probably the symbol of their society, waving in a non-existent breeze. The next picture was not a very pleasant one. While the details had been washed away by a flowing river of water drops from above, and the entire lower half of the image was missing, it clearly depicted a devastated battlefield. Groups of ponies, griffons, and even one or two grown dragons could be seen – apparently lifeless, or otherwise incapacitated. And looming over everything, there was, again, the symbol for “death”. Daring grimaced for a brief moment, then moved on to the next picture. It probably wasn't a good sign that the first thing the Mareicans wanted somepony to see upon entering was an illustration of ponies going to war. There was a gap in the wall, and some debris on the floor indicated that part of the stone tablet had fallen off. The rest of the tablet showed a group of ponies wearing masks and ceremonial robes that covered the entire body. What caused Daring Do to groan and apply her left front-hoof to her face was the detail that every pony shown in the carving was carrying a small orb either depicting the deadly symbol, or what appeared to be their national flag. Within just a couple of minutes, her opinion of the “Great and Wise” Mareican civilization had dropped significantly. The impression she got from this did not match up with her research at all. Okay, there was always the chance she wasn't getting the full picture, or was misinterpreting things. Maybe the flag even had a different meaning altogether. After all, she couldn't rightfully judge this entire civilization on the spot, at the very least not just by looking at the first three stone carvings she came across. And indeed, the next image broke the chain of death and other questionable symbolism. Or, rather, the image after that or perhaps the one thereafter, as a huge chunk of the wall had slumped down into a pile of rubble on the floor. Scratching her head, she noticed the absence of pegasi in the picture. None of the pony-shapes were specifically carved to resemble unicorns either. Going back to the previous images didn't show any pegasi or unicorns either, not that she could tell for sure with the many broken pieces and water-damage. A closed society of earth ponies, perhaps? Come to think of it, this would indeed line up with her research. Just recently, new dating methods had revealed that artifacts found in the Mareican mainlands were much older than previously thought. Eight thousand years at the very least, if not more. As such, the Mareican civilization predated not only the union of the three tribes, but even the three tribes themselves. Not much was known about those early days of recorded history. But one thing was certain. The Mareicans had been... exceptional. In an era when many scattered groups of ponies had just been using the most basic of metal tools, they had already mastered mechanical contraptions the likes of which had only been rediscovered mere centuries ago. Some of the traps she had just escaped from were perfect proof of that. One of the discovered artifacts that was causing historians' brains all around the world to overheat was, in fact, a pony-sized mechanical clock, gear wheels and all. So far, nopony had found an explanation for the spectacular – no pun intended – anachronism. And then, on top of that, there were legends of a powerful artifact. It was just so exciting! At heart, Daring Do was an adventurer, always out for a thrill, no doubt. But also, she often found herself amazed by cultures that had come and passed, long before Equestria was even founded. Sheepishly, she remembered a time when a young daredevil wannabe-adventurer desperately had tried to hide her interest in archeology, believing it to be “nerdy”. Nowadays, she was even publishing her own articles on the subject. Shaking herself from her reveries, she strove for the next stone tablet. The carving showed the same general scenery, except that the ponies had vanished. The image entirely focused on nature – meaning mostly trees and giant mushrooms. There may have been birds, too, but the well-preserved condition of the previous carving did not apply here. Over all, there was a huge circle, straight lines splaying out from it in a circular pattern identifying it as the sun. The next tablet gave Daring pause. It was the same landscape, but the mood of the first few carvings had returned. There were no ponies, no trees, no vegetation, nothing. Looming over everything was, once again, the Mareican symbol for “death” – this time taking the place of the sun itself. Daring wasn't entirely sure what to make of this. The Mareican civilization had vanished at some point, likely fallen victim to a disease. At least, that was the working theory. Whatever carvings had come after that had not stood the test of time. All that remained was a pile of rubble on the ground, where the small river of water droplets vanished into unseen holes in the floor. Daring Do decided to move on, and see what lay ahead of them. Only then, she realized that she hadn't heard a single word from Rainbow Dash for quite a while. She turned to see the other pegasus standing at the opposite side of the room, staring off at nothing in particular. “Rainbow Dash, are you coming?” she addressed the absent-minded mare. “Hmm? Yeah, sure...” Dash replied, apparently shaken out of her thoughts. It still bothered her how she had even gotten here, how it was even possible that she was walking side-by-side through some buried underground structure with her favorite fictional character become flesh. But as they resumed trotting deeper into the temple, Dash's thoughts kept going back to that first trap. She really hadn't seen it coming. There had been something, like a strong itch at the back of her skull, a sense of unease pushing itself to the top of her mind from the depths of her subconsciousness. And then she had jumped to shove Daring Do out of the way before the spike trap could squash them both. It was almost like... “No,” she told herself, sternly. “That's... that's not it.” She almost would have compared the experience to her hyperactive, party-enthusiastic friend's “Pinkie Sense”. But she had seen something out of the corner of her eye. She hadn't been able to grasp what it was at the time... but now, it was crystal-clear. It had been... letters. Words. A sentence. Something along the lines of “... the characteristic noise of a ... spike trap closing in right behind ... Rainbow Dash slammed her body into ...” And then she had acted, before the trap was even visible. She had known what was going to happen, before it happened. She... she had read the next paragraph. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Author's Note Special thanks to Meta Four for help with editing. Chapter 3 revision performed: July 2016. Updated December 2016.
Chapter 4 - Instincts and cave-ins This chapter is available as a "synthesized" audio book: [click here] - no background music [click here] - with ambient music loop [overview of all chapters] Okay. Okay, alright. Just when Dash thought she had gotten the hang of the situation, things had taken a turn for the weird. Again. Well, this settled it. She definitely was inside a “Daring Do”-book. And she somehow had managed to peak ahead in the story. Rainbow Dash sighed. The situation had reached critical “Pinkie Pie”-levels of insanity, and it was time to just shrug and accept reality without question. This reality, anyway... Aarg! Okay. She could do that. After all, she had managed to get over that one time when her pink earth-pony friend – somehow – managed to out-compete her while Dash had tried literally everything just to get away from her. Out-competed her! The fastest pegasus in all of Equestria! A cold drop of water hitting her muzzle brought Dash back from her thoughts. Dash had not paid much attention to where Daring Do was leading them. The larger room had given way to a series of narrow corridors snaking their way through the earth, it's walls once again fading from brick-architecture into barren stone. Soon, only a number of reinforcing pillars and the occasional torch, hanging useless on walls glittering with water, served as a reminder that this route led deeper into the temple. The ground was a muddy mess that would have given Rarity a fit. Their own shadows were wavering, dancing across the walls in the uneven light provided by the flickering flames of her torch and Daring's oil-lamp. It gave Dash an eery feeling she could not explain. Even the shining water-droplets seeping in from cracks all around the cave-walls conjured up the mental image of a hundred tiny pairs of eyes scrutinizing their every move. A cold shiver ran up her spine. The entire area just gave her this strong sense of foreboding... Wait! Did that mean...?! Dash instinctively looked up, only for ... a drop of water to hit her spot-on in her left eye. Other than that, there was nothing up there. Blinking the water out of her eye, Dash anxiously examined her surroundings. Still nothing. A false alarm? Not like she had any idea how this new “sixth sense” of hers actually worked, or if she could trust it blindly. But she just could not shake the feeling she had come to associate with some rather unpleasant occurrence in her immediate future – and the feeling was only getting stronger with every passing second! The strange sensation of seeing danger coming, but not knowing what it was or where it would be coming from was... unsettling. Unconsciously, the cerulean pegasus' wings unfurled, and she took a defensive stance against an unknown threat. As her eyes kept glancing over the area, she caught a glimpse of Daring Do staring at her. “Uh, Rainbow Dash, is everything okay?” Apparently, her sudden change of behavior had not gone unnoticed by the other pegasus. What should she tell her? “Daring! Look out ...for, err, something!” Yeah, sure. Dash gave a frustrated sigh. She knew something was up, but there were no words to explain the feeling to somepony else without sounding like a complete lunatic! Eventually, she bit her lower lip and forced out a weak “I'm fine! It's just that I –” *CLICK.* Both Rainbow Dash and Daring Do instantly froze. Dash looked up – but contrary to her expectations, neither did she see falling rocks, a descending wall, shattered debris, hungry crocodiles nor a cave-in coming her way. Then she looked down. Reflecting the light of her torch, there was something peaking out from under the floor's dirt-cover, right under one of her front-hooves. Without taking her hoof from the ground, careful swipes with her other fore-hoof revealed a floor-tile with the depiction of a crocodile on it. Oh. Crocodile. Funny, only a second ago she had expected a crocodile to fall on her head... err. Further effort revealed that, in fact, the entire floor ahead was covered in animal-themed tiles. Leopards, griffons, crocodiles and so on, but also birds, mice and other small forest critters. They just had not seen them below the accumulated smudge of several millennia. And the worst part about it was, that the pattern was mind-numbingly simple to decipher. Predator, predator, predator – prey, predator, prey. It was just like the puzzle in “Daring Do and the Quest for the Sapphire Stone”... Except this one was so simple in it's design that even a school-filly could've figured it out. But nooo, of course she had to step on the crocodile. The main question was why it hadn't triggered any traps yet. That was... surprisingly very considerate of whoever had built this place. Death-traps that could kill you instantly everywhere, but this one would give you time to think about what you'd done. Great. Daring Do seemed to be wondering the same thing, as she kneeled down to examine the image-covered floor-tiles. “Okay, I've seen something like this before, but... hmm. I guess we're supposed to step on the tiles with the predators?” she pondered out loud. “Seeing that it's the only thing all these have in common, and that nothing happened when you stepped on this one.” What?! Wait... That... made sense. Why did the idea of simply not having triggered the trap not occur to her earlier? Reluctantly, the cyan pegasus lifted her right fore-hoof from the floor. The very moment her hoof was up, Dash already knew that it had been a mistake. The next minute or two became a haze, as several events occurred in rapid succession. First, a rumbling noise from above announced a rapidly descending ceiling. The next thing Dash knew, she was already up and dodging falling rocks and debris from the trap-mechanism that apparently had not stood the test of time and was now fulfilling it's duty of killing them in a slightly different manner as it had been intended – namely by spilling it's spiky, razor-sharp mechanical guts everywhere at bullet-speeds, and destabilizing the underground tunnel they were currently trying to escape from. The patterned floor-panels forgotten, both pegasi bolted through the near-darkness of the collapsing corridor – Dash's torch having been extinguished somewhere along the way, and Daring's oil-lamp flickering hectically as she ran making it extremely difficult to see anything. Rock. Dash dodged to the left. All Dash could discern were shapes flying all around her, yet she found herself barely scraped by any of them. “Guess it's my lucky day,” Dash dodged to the left, avoiding a large chunk of rock impacting right next to her. The cerulean pegasus ducked. Gear wheel. Cut off a few strands of her rainbow mane. Dash heard a whirring noise coming up from behind, and the cerulean pegasus ducked just in time to avoid an out-of-control gear wheel zipping right over her head – That was close! Dash could've sworn the gear even had cut off a few strands of her rainbow mane! ...Déjà vu? No time for that. Halt. ...cutting off her path. Left. ...boulder toppling over. Dash came to a screeching halt, as a large boulder came down right in front of her, cutting off her path. Her ears perking up to some unheard noise, she almost instantly regained her momentum as she darted to the left – just barely avoiding getting squashed by the boulder toppling over to where she had stood merely a second ago. Slide. Metal piece soaring right past... Jump. Finding her balance... on only two legs. Hay. Impossibly, she crouched down and slid right beneath another out-of-control metal piece soaring right past her face. The image of two huge magenta eyes staring down at her with a mixture of shocked disbelief and confusion burned itself into her mind. It had been her reflection. Dash didn't have any time to really think about what was happening, she was purely acting on instinct now. Muscles tensing, she prepared to jump straight from her crouched position. She landed, hind-legs first, on a slab of rock. For a moment, she had trouble finding her balance – it felt as if the rock was shifting beneath her hooves – but she managed to steady herself on only two legs. The familiar feeling of winds blowing in her face, the sensation of speed was a welcome change, comforting in this otherwise utterly confusing situation. “Wait, what the...?” The wide chunk of rock she had landed on was, for whatever reason, shooting sideways through the tunnel, covering a good distance before embedding itself in a wall. Dash's only thoughts in that moment were “What the hay?!” and “What the hay what the hay WHAT THE HAY?!!!” Despite lacking a light source of her own, Dash practically – for lack of a better term – danced through the rain of stone and metal debris clattering from the ceiling. A sharp turn here, a jump purely on instinct there – she barely received so much as a scratch! For the most part, all she felt were gusts of wind as she passed through the mostly dark, and undoubtably hazardous obstacle course. Concerns for her life soon turned into an adrenaline-fueled euphoria. In defiance of danger, Dash couldn't help but grin. This was crazy awesome! Daring Do. With a start, Dash remembered that she wasn't alone in the collapsing tunnel. She turned, only to see Daring Do having fallen far behind. The other mare was doing her best to work her way around the deadly debris, but it was obvious she lacked Dash's inexplicable “sixth sense” and uncanny brand of supernatural luck. She was making due with the regular five senses quite well, mostly dodging whatever came her way. Mostly. Daring Do's oil-lamp gave her a clear indication, where Daring was going. And she was heading right for disaster. She had to help her! But as Dash looked back the way she had come, against the flickering light shining into her general direction, she could see the actual scope of the situation. “Rain of stone and metal debris” wasn't entirely appropriate to describe the sight that lay before her. “Storm” would have been more befitting. Sharp pieces of rubble were flying everywhere, and not just from the ceiling, a significant number of shards – some of them as large as a pony – were bouncing off the walls and ground as well! “How in the world did I make it through there?” Dash stared at the spectacle in morbid fascination, with Daring Do caught in the middle of it all. She shook her head, and made up her mind. Galloping back into the inferno, she yelled: “Daring Do! Look out for the –” ...And then the floor gave way beneath her hooves. Daring Do was in hell. Well, that's what it felt like. She generally hated it when ancient catacombs decided that her visit happened to be the best time to come crumbling down, but this was one of the trickier ones. She could barely see anything, and despite years of training and experience with similar situations – although training-sessions on escaping from a collapsing temple had only been the occasional oddity on her schedule – she found herself in quite the sticky situation. Everything was flying, all around her. And in every direction. Except for her, she wasn't flying. Her left wing still hurt, it had been hit by some of the flying debris. She couldn't discern the severity of the injury right now, but the pain was bearable as long as she didn't stress the appendage. Darting to the left side of the tunnel, the adventurer evaded a gaping hole in the ground that just so happened to open up right in front of her – only to nearly get squashed by the wall itself crumbling to the ground, obscuring her path with more wreckage. Forced to reduce her speed as she carefully made her way over the unstable pile of rubble right next to what might easily have been a fifty meter drop, Daring caught a glimpse of a rainbow blur shooting by over-head. “Huh? Was that Rainbow Da-AAARGH!!” Daring held back a yelp of agony behind clenched teeth, as she took yet another blow to her back. The path ahead was dangerous enough on it's own, and while Daring certainly enjoyed a good challenge, she sadly lacked the second pair of eyes on the back of her head that would obviously be required to evade the ricocheting shards and metal bits striking her from behind. She would have to tend to her wounds later, for now, all she could do was to canter onwa- “...aaand there goes my balance.” Daring groaned inwardly as the slab of stone she was currently standing on began sliding away from under her hooves. She just barely managed to jump off to the side, before the stone-plate rushed down the slope and fell into the pit to her right. Once she was back on stable ground, she picked up her pace back to a quick gallop. Only moments thereafter, something hit Daring from behind, this time in her right hind-leg. Luckily, it hadn't struck too hard, merely causing the adventurous mare to stumble momentarily, before quickly regaining her balance and resuming her gallop. Daring had no illusions about her situation. As much as she hated to admit it, she couldn't hold this up for much longer. There was simply too much going on all around her, and she could not dodge these things forever. The light blow to her leg had just put more emphasis on this fact. The moment she injured her leg, got struck down, or maybe even just tripped – the instant she stopped, she'd be as good as dead. Somewhere up ahead, Daring could make out a pathway that split off from the main tunnel. It had not yet succumbed to the destructive chain-reaction, and she made a dash for it. A deformed piece of metal scrap that at one point might have been a cog-wheel shot down in front of Daring Do. She dodged, just as another part of the wall to her right burst to bits succeeding the impact of a large boulder. Zigzagging through the resulting chaos over to the other side of the tunnel, she encountered an incredibly fast-spinning metal plate rebounding between both walls near ground-level. This warranted a raised eyebrow from the adventurer, as the odds for a setup like this to fall into place completely by chance seemed somewhat small. Regardless, there was no time to waste, and Daring did not hesitate to risk a jump that could easily end with getting cut clean in half if timed improperly. Upon landing, a small explosion right overhead caused a shower of rocks to come down right above Daring's position. She managed to evade the larger chunks of stone, but the majority of them were to small to make out in the dim light, and the pelting rubble too widespread to dodge. Daring took the blows to her back, merely protected by her trademark jacket and pith-helmet – the latter of which served her well in preventing any serious head-injuries – and galloped on. She was almost there! The sudden outcry of “Daring Do! Look out for the...” took her off-guard. Daring's ears shot up straight, her pupils shrinking into tiny pinpricks at the realization – amidst all the chaos, she had completely forgotten about Rainbow Dash! Jerking her head to the source of the exclamation, she briefly lost track of where she was going – and her brisk gallop came to an abrupt end as her face reconciled with the dirt on the floor. As fate would have it, this misfortune wouldn't cost, but instead save her life. There was no forewarning, other than a hissing noise easily lost amidst the cacophony of a cave-in. Specs of mud splattered all over her face, as a large object soared right over her head and then dug its way into solid rock only inches away from her muzzle. Opening her eyes again, the adventurer stared at a wall of metal, a razor-sharp blade sticking out of the ground at an odd angle indicating it had come shooting down from behind where she could not possibly have seen it coming. Out of reflex, Daring raised a hoof to check on her trusted pith-helmet, but quickly reasserted her priorities as she noticed a stone-pillar hurdling towards her general direction. Swiftly rolling to her side, the bruised pegasus tensed as her body-weight pushed down on her injured wing. Ignoring the unpleasant sensation, she quickly got to her legs and resumed her escape at a brisk pace. Finally having reached safe territory, Daring Do gave an audible sigh. “Phew, now that was some exercise!” She wiped her left front-leg against her forehead, which didn't really do much to alleviate her sweat-soaked coat from countless stains of mud. Back in the main tunnel, the noise was already dying down, and the endless stream of rubble falling from the ceiling was coming to an end. “That last one was a close call.” she chuckled to herself, examining her helmet for damage. Relieved to see that it had not sustained anything major beyond a few new scrapes – a surprising feat considering the condition its owner was in – she put her headgear back on with a satisfied smirk. But really, that was close! If Dash hadn't shouted at her at that very moment, she... might... not... Daring Do smacked her left hoof across her own face as hard as she could, ignoring the sharp pain and a bleeding nose that followed. One stupid little brush with death, and she forgot about her companion?! What in Tartarus was wrong with her?!? But just as Daring was about to come charging back into the tunnel, there was a loud, almost comical “CRACK”-sound, as – oh, now that was just great timing – the entrance through which she had come was sealed shut by the last few chunks of rock that the cave-in had shaken loose coming down right in front of her. No matter how hard the athletic mare pushed, shoved, or slammed the whole weight of her body into the boulders blocking her path at full force, they did not budge. “Dash! Rainbow Dash!” Daring shouted, her hooves pounding wildly against unmoving rock. “Are you okay in there?!” There was no response. “Celestia-darnit, Rainbow Dash! Say something, anything!” “Just gimme five more minutes...” Dash moaned, stirring in her sleep. The feeling of something sharp poking her in the back however kept the pegasus from returning to her peaceful slumber. Daring Do was safe. So why couldn't she just keep dozing for a couple more minutes? However, sweet unconsciousness proved elusive, slipping away ever so slowly. Her blanket turned into a pile of rubble and dirt, and her fluffy cloud-bed felt hard and uncomfortable. Add to that the horrible taste in her mouth, and she just couldn't get back to sleep anymore. Dash slowly opened her eyes, but the darkness didn't budge. “Stupid darkness, go away,” Dash slurred, and tried to find the light-switch on her bed-lamp. As her hooves struck metal, she remembered that her bed-lamp wasn't made of that material, and was inclined to reconsider her surroundings as not being her comfy cloud-home in Ponyville. Then, the memories of the previous day came back to her. Meeting Daring Do, being chased through the Mareican jungle by predators, discovering an underground cave-system / ancient temple, a cave-in... and the ground suddenly disappearing. Dash frowned at that last bit. The ground hadn't just been gone, it had dragged her with it. How else would a skilled pegasus like herself be unable to keep level, even with the ground beneath her hooves gone so suddenly? Was it an air-current that had pulled her through the hole in the floor? That particular detail was missing from her memories. Still, with everything that had happened, this only added to the pegasus' confusion. Especially considering her newfound... abilities, which had decided to stop working in that crucial moment. Granted, all the other moments before it had been crucial too, probably even more so. It was still a miracle she didn't find herself buried below a heap of dirt and rock, and she certainly was glad for – ...What the hay was that taste in her mouth? Dash realized with a start that she was lying face-down in a clod of dirt. And some of that dirt was also now in her mouth. Jumping to all four hooves, she spat profusely, and then futilely tried scrubbing her tongue with both of her front-hooves. As they, too, were caked in a layer of dirt, her attempts to rid herself of the vile flavor were in vain. The pegasus' wings flared in agitation, only for a sharp pain in her right wing to instantly distract her from the bitter taste in her mouth. Dash turned her head to examine her injured wing... only to remember that she couldn't see a darn thing in the utter and complete darkness she had found herself in. Exclamations of “Buck!” and “To the moon with this!” were interspersed with Dash wincing in pain, as she folded her wing back into a more comfortable position. “Great. Just great. My wing hurts, I can't see anything, I have dirt on my tongue and I'm probably stuck down here forever. Great! Just great!” Rainbow Dash grunted in frustration. As Dash flailed her hooves in a gesture expressing her general dissatisfaction with the current circumstances, she once again heard a quiet “clank”, and then the clattering noise of metal against metal. Apparently, she had toppled some of the metal debris to fall onto another metal surface. The interesting thing however was a tiny red dot that had burned itself on the back of her eyelids. It had been a spark. All she needed were a couple sparks to light up her torch. Dash had most definitely never been to the filly scouts, and asides from some things she had picked up from Fluttershy's extensive knowledge of animal care-taking, her expertise concerning nature for the most part stopped before reaching ground-level. However, she had learned a useful trick or two from reading... well, heh, a “Daring Do”-book. Who'd have thought she'd ever get hooves-on-experience in that very field? She placed the torch on the ground, and began banging the two metal pieces together atop it. It turned out to be more difficult than she had anticipated, the first signs of a fire not going past a mere glimmer before dying down again in a matter of seconds. The cerulean pegasus certainly wasn't one to start fires – if anything, as a weather-mare, she had to extinguish them in the rare case there ever was one. Realizing she was missing something, Dash paused. What could help her starting a fire? She didn't have any dry grass or tree-branches. Nor did she have a lightening cloud. Nor a stove. And those were just about the only things she could think of at the moment to start a fire. Well – how did she extinguish them? Maybe she could... err, do the exact opposite of that? Although, the opposite of a rain cloud... well, that'd be a clear sky. Okay, so that particular train of thought wasn't going anywhere. ...Wait, why a stove? Dry grass, tree-branches, lightening clouds, yes – but why was one of her first ideas to start a fire through natural means to use a stove? Yeah, sure, but... Oh yeah, that one time Derpy set her kitchen on fire. Something about “muffins with hot sauce” and an exploding stove. And it had been a particularly sunny day, so there hadn't been too many rain clouds to pump for water. Of course there was the well, but that was on the other side of town. Sure, she could've flown there and back in ten seconds flat, but there had been an even faster way. Dashing in at top-speed, and robbing the fire of the air it needed to spread. “Oh yeeaaah, that!” Dash smacked her hoof against her forehead. Having found the missing key-component to her cunning plan of starting a fire, Dash's next attempt was a success. After finding the torch and the two metal plates again in the dark, Dash carefully blew on the tiny glowing spot, which soon grew into a healthy fire. Dash smiled at her – admittedly relatively minor – accomplishment, and picked up the lower end of the torch with her mouth ... only to spit it back out right afterwards with a startled yelp. “Yuck! Pew! Ugh, gross!” Dash spat and tried to rid herself of the foul taste of centuries-old wood. “And I thought the dirt 'round here tasted bad, urgh!” Picking up the torch with a front-hoof, Dash started examining her surroundings, but stopped after only two steps. ...How had she been holding the torch before? When she was up there with Daring Do, she obviously had had other things on her mind. And now, she... she couldn't remember. It was such a minor detail, she hadn't given it any thought at the time. She most definitely hadn't been using her mouth to hold it. She'd remember that. Hay, she could even recall using one of her fore-hooves to uncover the alligator-themed floor-tile and firmly holding it down with the other – while she had still been holding the burning torch! If it hadn't been for the torch, she might not even have seen the floor-tile! ... Wait, where did the torch even come from?! She certainly didn't remember holding it anymore when everything around her had gone haywire. Though she couldn't remember dropping it either. It just ... she just hadn't thought of it anymore up till right now, and now she was holding it in her left front-hoof. Dash just blinked a couple of times at the jarring inconsistency. Again, even though she had already dismissed the idea twice, this was like a dream. The moment when you realized “Wait, why does Twilight's pet-owl suddenly have the head of Applejack's pet-dog?” or “Wait, hold on, why would the famous Spitfire be a clown on my birthday party?” was usually the moment when you woke up. Except she didn't wake up, things were just making less and less sense by the minute. Dash moaned in resignation, and flopped onto the ground, ears drooping. She had thought she could deal with this kind of stuff. She had dealt with Pinkie's antics for years, even before they had become close friends. Pretty much everypony in Ponyville had dealt with Pinkie Pie breaking the established laws of physics at one point or another. But Pinkie Pie had always been... well, “the exception to the rule”. It would have been so much easier to accept this entire scenario and all it's oddities if Pinkie had been there. Then... well, then she could just dismiss the whole thing as “Pinkie Pie being Pinkie Pie” and be done with it. She had come to terms with Pinkie being random, the very rare relapse taken aside... But seriously! How did Pinkie manage to stay ahead when she had tried to – “Okay, okay, chill down Dash, you're over that now.” She took a deep, calming breath. Now that she thought back to her episode of “crazy insane awesome luck” back in the collapsing tunnel, the idea of “Pinkie Sense” seemed even more appropriate. Or, in her case, “Rainbow Sense”. “No, no, no!” Dash shuddered and vigorously shook her head to dispel the thought. There was just something fundamentally ... wrong about the mere concept! She couldn't put her hoof on what it was, but she vehemently refused to believe that “Pinkie Sense” and what she had experienced were anything alike, regardless of any similarities that presented itself. Now that she recalled the event, a wild jumble of words and sentence-fragments came floating up to the top of her head, but seemingly without any context or structure. The flustered mare massaged her temples to counter the beginnings of an oncoming headache. “Urg, now I know how Twilight felt when she tried to make sense of Pinkie Sense,” she mumbled out loud, before burying her face in her free front-hoof, still consciously keeping a firm grasp of the torch she was holding in the other – even if just to make sure it wouldn't spontaneously disappear. However, the thought of her studious friend sparked a recent memory. The wedding of Twilight's brother, Shining Armor – and all the havoc that had gone down during the wedding-ceremony. What if the “Daring Do” she had met was actually a disguised changeling? Dash snorted, and then burst out laughing. Just a few hours ago, this would have made sense. Heavens, it would have made so much sense. Much more sense than any other explanation she had come up with so far could have made. The Mare in the Moon? An elaborate trick. The Mareican jungle? Another elaborate scheme, being dragged away from pony-civilization after having fallen unconscious, whatever the reasons for doing so may have been. Granted, Daring Do would have been the nicest, and most awesome-est changeling she had ever met, but still, even that would have made sense. It would have, in fact, definitely been the most reasonable and simple explanation, the perfectly logical conclusion, for everything. But now? By this point, the idea was so far removed from reality that Dash just couldn't help but roll on the ground in a barely controlled fit of laughter. After Dash had more or less composed herself, she stood back up. She really had needed a good laugh after all of this. “Okay, Dash... let's figure out where you are first, and solve all the mysteries of the universe later.” She wiped away a few tears of mirth. Holding her torch high in her left fore-hoof, Dash took a closer look at her surroundings. In contrast to previous narrow corridors and tunnels, she found herself standing in the center of a wide and open space. Her torch's light reflected off from irregular, yet smooth stone-walls in the distance, sprinkled with the occasional gemstone here and there. The rough terrain gave a clear indication that this part of the cave had grown naturally, and didn't seem to be part of the temple's structure. Small pools of water were scattered all about, and now that she was paying attention to it, she could hear water flowing somewhere in the area, and the faint “pling”-noises of waterdrops falling. Looking up to see where she had fallen from, Dash was surprised that she couldn't see the ceiling. The cave went up so high that the light of the torch didn't reach far enough to illuminate it. Her body's instinctive reaction to move its wings only served as a painful reminder that she didn't have the option of flying back up the way she had come from. Without any prominent direction to take, Dash followed the sounds of water splashing. She soon came across a small underground river, stretching into the darkness in both directions. With a shrug, Dash wandered off in the direction of the water-current. . . . . . . . . Author's Note Thanks to BethanyBubbles for last-minute help with editing.
Chapter 5 - Separation This chapter is available as a "synthesized" audio book. For this chapter, I went the extra-mile and added situation-appropriate background-music for the audio-book. I even took care to ensure correlation between musical climax and the specific moments in the story when something actually happens. Headphones are strongly suggested. [click here] - RECOMMENDED, with situation-appropriate background-music [click here] - no background music [click here] - with ambient music loop [overview of all chapters] Daring Do was not a very happy pony. The fact that one of the pegasus' wings was currently wrapped in bandages was not even on the forefront of her mind. After nearly getting beheaded by a trap gone rogue, she had just barely escaped a collapsing tunnel, the exit sealed shut right behind her – only to realize that Rainbow Dash was still on the other side. After making her way through the labyrinth and escaping several relatively harmless or ineffective – and decidedly less self-destructive – traps, Daring was getting exhausted. Oh, getting out of the labyrinth had been easy. What had taken her so long had been her attempt trying to find another way back in. She had spend hours trying to find another way that led back to the main corridor and a possibly injured rainbow-maned pegasus, exploring just about every possible path until it hit a dead end. As it turned out, the darn labyrinth didn't even connect to that particular corridor! Realizing this, she had painstakingly backtracked her steps all the way back to the side-path that had led her into the labyrinth initially, trying once again to lift the debris out of the way. As before, entry was denied. She had shoved. She had pulled. She had shouted. She had punched the rock. ...Not that the last one had helped, nor did it have any chance to do so. In fact, her right forelimb still hurt a bit. But it had relieved at least some of the stress. Disgruntled, in the end she was left with no other choice but to move on, left with nothing but to hope that the other mare had managed her own escape. She seemed capable enough, judging by how she had fared so far. “Oh, who am I kidding?” Daring thought to herself. Surprisingly enough, the cerulean pegasus had possibly saved her flank twice already! Twice! Once from drowning in quicksand, and the other time from a pair of spikes she had not noticed herself. Three times, even, if one counted Dash's warning that ended up saving her from a fatal razor blade to the head. It went against her ego to openly admit it, but credit where credit was due. And she had failed to return the favor. It was her fault. She should have kept an eye out for Rainbow Dash – and now her companion might be... No. Daring couldn't suppress a cold shiver running down the length of her body. She shouldnotthink of it like this. “Never give up hope,” and all that. She had not seen what had happened. Rainbow Dash's lack of response to her initial shouts might just mean that the cerulean pegasus had been unconscious at the time, and maybe then wandered out of ear-shot while Daring was trying to find another way in. Or maybe the wall of rock and debris that had cut off the tunnel simply had been to thick for sound to carry, or... or... any number of things, really. Maybe – maybe she was just fine. Daring Do certainly hoped so. On the back of her mind, Daring took note that thanks to the cave-in she'd have to figure out another route back to the surface later on. Not that this currently was all-too high on her list of priorities. In any case, Daring did not feel particularly chipper about the whole thing, seeking to distract herself with whatever secrets of the Mareicans would present itself to her. Problem was, there was barely anything there. It had been almost a day since she and Rainbow Dash... It had been almost a day since they had descended into the depths of what the Mareicans had decided would be the ideal place to worship their gods (or whatever they had done down here). Daring had been certain she had correctly solved every last riddle carved into the walls at each of the labyrinth's junctions, and by that reasoning, she should be on the right way – but doubt was ever-so slowly chipping away at her confidence. For the last two hours, she had just been following a single corridor, barren of carvings or traps. The only thing reassuring her that she wasn't entirely lost were the wooden torches attached to both sides of the tunnel in more or less regular intervals. The Mareicans wouldn't have wasted their time putting up torches everywhere if the tunnel didn't lead someplace important, now would they? Right? This certainly was one of the temples – or underground-cave-systems, for that matter – she had spend the most time in, and there was no telling how far it still was to the central chamber. Most temples just had a bunch of traps in them, and then they got to the point... instead of stretching on for miles with empty corridors that didn't contain anything. And why in all that was holy did the Mareicans have to build their holy place so deep underground? Daring gave a frustrated sigh. The path ahead of her seemed to go on forever, reaching far beyond what her measly oil-lamp could hope to illuminate. When, after all this time, Daring finally saw a dim shine in the distance, she at first believed it to be a trick of her eyes. However, turning off the oil-lamp for a brief moment confirmed that there was, indeed, a light at the end of the tunnel. Squinting ahead, Daring could make out a steady purple glow and the faint shimmer of a reflective surface, likely metal. A... lightsource, down here? That could only mean one thing. For just a brief moment, the sides of Daring's mouth twitched, displaying her trademark confident smirk. Finally, she would uncover the ancient secrets of the Mareicans. Exhaustion forgotten, the adventurer began trotting faster, and soon found herself galloping towards the light. She was so focused on making out the details on the distant glow that she almost didn't notice the stark irregularity in the stone-wall to her right. Screeching to a halt, the promising glow still a good distance ahead, she turned and inspected the gaping hole in the wall, leading straight into what unmistakably was a small chamber carved from stone. The hole itself was on chest-level and zig-zag shaped, making it obvious not to be the intended entrance. With a last glance over to the light ahead indicating the most obvious path to take, Daring decided to take a small detour, and jumped through the hole. As she had learned from experience, sometimes you could make the most interesting discoveries if you chose the path nopony expected you to take. The first thing she noticed about the room was the air. Naturally, everything was coated with thick layers of dust. But upon hitting the ground, she had involuntarily set off what seemed like a literal dust-avalanche. It took a lot of coughing and waving her hooves in front of her muzzle before Daring Do could see anything again. As her sight cleared, she saw several rows of wooden benches, accompanied by wooden pedestals in front of each bench. At the other end of the room, a stone altar shined bright in the light of her oil-lamp, towering over the other pedestals. To her right, Daring was surprised to actually find something that resembled a bookshelf – albeit without any actual books or parchments. Or, nothing that could be recognized as such, anyway. What remained of what might have given an invaluable insight into Mareican culture had been reduced to piles of dust and scraps of paper that crumbled as soon as Daring so much as laid hoof on them. Her inner archeologist had to wince at the thought that she probably had inhaled several irreplaceable scrolls upon entering the room. Glancing around, Daring pondered the room's purpose. Considering the immense distances one had to overcome just to get here, Daring had already deemed the idea of monks frequently attending services in the temple as rather unlikely – perhaps coming down here only for special occasions? This chamber seemed like the place to hold a ceremony for a small group of ponies... Literally. On closer inspection, Daring noticed that the benches' proportions were off – they'd be rather uncomfortable for grown mares and stallions to fit in. As the light of her oil-lamp illuminated different parts of the room, Daring noticed the symbol of a waving flag on the shrine up front. Immediately, Daring was reminded of the carvings she had seen earlier, showing this symbol in the context of a devastated battlefield. Daring Do shook her head in dejection. She had seen her fair share of early ponykind's darker sides that history classes seemed to be all-too happy to just gloss over. Reminiscing over some of the less-than-pleasant aspects of some of her earlier adventures, in combination with her already sour mood, Daring's expression grew grim, as dark thoughts entered her mind. The shrine up front had just about the right dimensions. It could easily have been used for magical rituals of a... highly questionable ethical nature. As Daring stepped closer to the altar, her hooves struck something lying on the ground and sent it skidding through the dirt. Picking it up, the light of her oil-lamp revealed it to be a oddly-shaped wooden contraption, just about the size of her hoof. It was longer than it was wide, and it's lower half was flat, while the upper half was smooth, with a large bulk at one end. Two tiny pairs of wooden knobs were attached to either side, and through a hole at what Daring assumed was its back, she could just barely make out the metal reflection of a number of tiny cogwheels. All in all, Daring didn't know what to make of the device. But suddenly, something at the back of her mind screamed “familiarity” at full-force. She couldn't tell where this strong sense of familiarity came from. She had been in dozens of temples, naturally, some of those would remind her of others. Still, this was different. Scratching her head, Daring absentmindedly placed the contraption on the stone-altar in front of her. A quiet sound caught her attention immediately afterwards. Daring tensed. Had she triggered a trap? But no. The wooden contraption merely had rolled over the altar's flat surface and fallen down on the other side, likely due to a slight incline. Chuckling to herself, she trotted behind the altar and picked up the object of her momentary lapse. As Daring stood back up, taking in the room from a different perspective, Daring Do just... stopped. Her mind came to a complete and total halt, and then did a 180° backflip. Her mouth worked silently, yet barely so much as a breath escaped. Eyes glancing over the rows of seats and tables in front of her, Daring had a hard time putting the new tidbits of information that were coming in into a coherent picture. The adventurer had seen many things. Breath-taking feats of architecture, powerful magic and treasures of legend, which many-a-pony would consider naught but old-mares-tales. Rarely Daring Do could be found at a loss for words. This was one of those rare times. “B-But... But... Wha...? This – this doesn't make any sense!! What would this be doing here?” Glancing back and forth between the wooden object firmly grasped in her hooves and the small wooden desks and chairs filling the room, each of them showcasing previously unseen symbols like tiny hearts, horseshoes or flowers, she just couldn't reconcile the image with her expectations of what a temple was supposed to contain. The feeling of familiarity had been right. She had been here before. Not exactlyhere, of course, but in a place just likethis. And it had not been a temple. It had been an elementary school. This was a class-room... a class-room for foals – miles below the surface, protected by countless death-traps, and built sometime about eight thousand years ago. The supposedly ritual altar she was now clinging to was the teacher's desk. The object she was unconsciously crushing inside her left fore-hoof was a toy. This definitely defied her expectations, and had been pretty much the last thing she had ever imagined to find in a temple. Daring found her mind reeling, buzzing with questions upon questions as to how this particular scenario could possibly be made sense of. Why would they have built a... a class-room inside of their heavily guarded temple? They couldn't possibly have sent colts and fillies down here every day just for study. Then where would they have lived? Down here!? Where would they have gotten their food from? Then, Daring realized that it wasn't just her mind reeling – in addition, her surroundings had started to spin. Slowly, she was getting light-headed. “Must be something about the dust in the air... I gotta get out of here!” Stumbling towards the entrance she had come through, Daring noticed an indentation in the shape of a door to her right. Her mind was getting hazy at this point. Later, she couldn't have explained what possessed her to try opening the door instead of heading straight for the hole in the wall. With her last reserves, she managed to slide the stone-door aside – and was rewarded with not-exactly fresh, but definitely less hazardous air instantly flooding her lungs, while an all-encompassing violet light momentarily added to her disorientation. Exhaustion from her trek in combination with an assault on her health – embarrassingly enough by dust-bunnies, a detail Daring would gladly omit in future retellings of her adventures – finally claimed her. Before she blacked out, she still had time for a moment of introspection as she took in a sight which in itself would also have been breath-taking, hadn't she already been robbed of her breath seconds prior. She had to correct her previous assumption that a class-room for foals would be the last thing she'd have expected to find down here. On a side-note, this answered the question as to where the little colts and fillies had spent their time outside from school. The cavern ahead was enormous. The ceiling alone must have been hundreds of meters high, scattered with some kind of magic crystal providing a steady illumination for what lay below – an entire city. After several uneventful hours of trotting through the seemingly endless expanse, Dash was beginning to feel the first signs of exhaustion slowing her down. While the athletic pegasus was built for speed, and her physical endurance was not to be taken lightly – given that she had a good night (and several mid-day breaks) of sleep – the lack of food and the sense of isolation in a deep, dark, and overall creepy cave were getting to her. The passionate flyer's wings already itching from disuse, the pegasus carried herself through the ever-repetitive landscape of rocks, rocks, scattered gemstones every now and then, and more rocks, growing more and more frustrated – and, oddly enough, bored. In stark contrast to the day's previous excitement, there was simply nothing interesting going on now. Like, at all. Asides from the river's quiet gurgling and the echo of her own hoof-steps, Dash couldn't hear a thing, and the scenery itself had lost its charm after the first twenty minutes. She didn't have anything to bandage her right wing that had taken the brunt of her fall, and every now and again, she'd have to consciously restrain herself from flexing the appendage to avoid further injury. To top it all off, she was getting mixed signals from her body's internal clock, insisting on it being both deep in the night as well as the middle of the day, judging by the time she had last seen the sun outside. With nothing else to do, the cerulean pegasus let her thoughts wander. She didn't feel too comfortable thinking about what had happened back in the collapsing tunnel. Contemplating her new-found super-powers and the steady increase of bizarre events just made her feel uneasy and seemed to be a quick way to get a headache. She had read her fair share of science fiction comics, and wasn't a stranger to the concept of parallel dimensions. It wasn't like she could openly talk about this kind of stuff anywhere near Twilight, least she'd dive right into lecture-mode – but even despite a lack of knowledge in the field of “quantum metal-psychics” or whatever, she knew that something didn't add up. She could easily have convinced herself that she had been propelled into another dimension that – no matter how slim the chances for that were – matched up exactly with the world described in the Daring Do book-series... if it weren't for the inconsistencies. All those small things that simply refused to obey common sense... Worse, it seemed to be centered around her. No, nothing was wrong with her – something was wrong with the world around her. It just didn't make sense. Wait... “not making sense” – where had she...? “...Oh feathers, no.” Could this be Discord's doing? Could the spirit of chaos and disharmony possibly have escaped from his stone prison? But dropping her off in her favorite book-series and giving her super-powers? Causing torches to randomly disappear and re-appear on demand? Unconsciously, Dash once more tightened the grip on the torch wrapped in her left foreleg, reassuring herself of its continued existence. No, Discord had been far from subtle about plunging the whole of Equestria into chaos. This wasn't his style. Dash breathed a sigh, but the tension didn't fade. The cerulean pegasus turned around and stared back into the empty darkness, the way she had come from. Holding her torch high, she glanced over the nearby walls, and then the cold stone-surface. Gemstones were glistening in the light of her torch, stalactites were growing on the ceiling. Still, the river she had been following remained the only true landmark. As Dash resumed her trek, her thoughts once more drifted back to her friends back home. She had been gone for more than a day now, maybe even two, and they would definitely have noticed her absence by this point. They might have gone so far as to organize a search party, but even so, they certainly wouldn't find her here. There was no way to inform them where she was, or even that she was okay. Hay, she still didn't have the foggiest clue how she had gotten here, or how to get back. Maybe Twilight's magic could do the trick, if only there was a way to contact her... Horsefeathers, she was stuck in the story of a book for crying out loud! She was literally cut off from her own world...! Hold on a minute there. Her own... world? Hmm... She may not have been able to contact Twilight, but maybe she could talk to somepony else. Twilight Sparkle was, without a doubt, the most powerful unicorn Dash knew – but there were others. Others that might be able to help her. Well, oneother, anyway. Princess Celestia. From what Dash knew of the series, Daring Do's world had its own Equestria – and if Dash wasn't gravely mistaken, this “other” Equestria was also ruled by the immortal goddess of the sun... or, rather, an alternate version of her. If anypony could help, it had to be her. Getting a private audience with the princess might be a tad more difficult, considering that Daring's Celestia didn't know her, but she'd deal with one problem at a time. Of course, getting to this “other” Equestria in the first place was going to be a task in and of itself, especially considering her current location in an empty tunnel miles below the surface of a jungle on the other side of the world. But knowing that there at least was a potential way home put her mind at ease. The pegasus paused for a moment, ears swiveling. She listened intently to the quiet sounds of the river making its way through its bed, smoothed over untold amounts of time. Dash shook her head, uncertain what had prompted her stop. Although, now that she thought about it, she could go for a drink. Actually, come to think of it, she could also use some food... The last thing she had eaten had been a bowl of hayflakes for breakfast – back in Ponyville, before this whole thing had started. Afterwards, there never really had been the time or an opportunity for a meal. As if on cue, Dash's stomach made a rumbling noise that could easily have rivaled that of a dragon. (Granted, Spike was still a baby-dragon, but he was a dragon never the less, so that still counted.) Wistfully, Dash remembered that half-eaten pizza from the day before, her mouth watering up... Oh, what she'd give for a slice of that now! The water was cold, but that only made it all the more refreshing. Still, she couldn't help but feel her stomach demand food, of which the barren tunnel sadly was devoid of. Oh crud, had she fed Tank before she had left? The poor little guy must've been half-starved by now! Hopefully somepony had remembered him and was taking care in her absence. Dash scratched the back of her twitching ear, shooting a glance off to the side at nothing in particular. Hmm... What was Daring doing right now? Dash couldn't help but think she was missing out on some serious adventuring business! Instead, she was stuck in this drastically dull, brutally boring, excessively empty and endlessly... uh, endless tunnel of... terrible... uhm, terribleness. Urg. Now she was resorting to alliteration, and she was too tired to even do it right. Hitting a lull in her thought-process, Dash found herself staring at the ceiling, the pegasus' keen eyes taking in the numerous gemstones that could be found strewn all over the place. Her gaze shifted down to the nearby wall, which also was littered with gems of the same type. All of them were unusually small, just barely the size of a walnut. They were a dull shade of red, almost brown. She was certainly no expert on gemstones, but these didn't exactly look like anything her fashionista-friend Rarity would use for her designs. Maybe Spike might enjoy their taste, not like she knew much about what kind of gems dragons preferred over others. She only vaguely recalled something Spike had said about rubies and sapphires, but she had no clue what type of gem this one was. Her sharp, scrutinizing eyes kept wandering over the wall of gems shining in the light of her torch, as if searching for something. Dash tilted her head, examining a gemstone up close. She could see small tears and imperfections, the uneven sides smoothed over time. Dash stared at the gemstone. The reflective surface of the gemstone stared back. It was only when Dash could no longer suppress a yawn that the cerulean mare broke eye-contact. Blinking her eyes a couple of times, she realized that she had been standing in place for at least five minutes, and how tired she actually was. Exhausted, Dash plopped herself on the ground. She threw a glance over her shoulder into the empty void... Yeah, a quick nap would do wonders for her now. Suddenly, despite the rough terrain, the dark and relatively silent tunnel proved to be a peaceful and quiet resting place. Perfect tranquility. She had her mind all to herself. No distractions, just a calm river quietly splashing along-side her, and even that was barely audible at the moment. Everything went blurry as her eyes grew heavy, a content yawn escaping the cerulean mare. Dash smiled, already feeling the gentle embrace of sleep coming that would wash away her drowsiness, all her worries... ... . . . ... With a start, Dash jumped to all four hooves and spun around in a circle. “Who's there?! Show yourself!” she shouted, eyes searching hectically for whatever was following her. Jumping onto her hindlegs and performing boxing motions, Dash growled threateningly. “Come out! I know you're there! Come out right now and face me like a real mare, or I'll buck you straight to next week!” Turning about on her hind-legs to face her pursuer head-on, the pegasus' wings flared instinctively, causing Dash to lose balance as a stab of pain reminded her of the injury. After unceremoniously falling on her rump, Dash just sat there, her rapid breathing slowing down to a regular pace. What had just happened? She had been sosure somepony... orsomethinghad been there, watching her. It hadn't been a dream. No, she hadn't even gotten to dose off. But there was nopony there. There couldn't be. After all, she was in the middle of an underground cave-system, nopony had laid hoof here in what must have been hundreds of years, if even ever at all... Who could possibly be watching her...? Rainbow Dash slumped down on the cold stone-ground. “I'm... I'm getting paranoid. I... really need to get some sleep.” But as tired as she felt, sleep wouldn't come. She couldn't help it. No matter how irrational the thought, she felt like... something was out there, just...staringat her. It was extremely disconcerting. After twisting and turning for what felt like hours, Dash raised herself back to her hooves and slowly proceeded down the seemingly never-ending tunnel. The gemstones embedded in the walls reflecting the flickering light of her torch gave her the impression of hundreds of eyes lurking in the dark, following her every step... It was unsettling, to say the least. In an attempt to calm herself, she halted her trek once more, standing perfectly still. Her eyes wandered methodically from one side of the cave to the other, ever so slowly. In the near-perfect silence, Dash held her breath, her ears swiveling to catch any unfamiliar sounds. There wasn't anything there. Nothing gave cause to assume she was being followed. There was nopony watching her – it was impossible. She was completely alone. But then, why couldn't she shake the feeling that she was not? Rainbow Dash could feel the hairs stand up on the back of her neck, a prickling sensation that ran down the length of her spine. There was nothing to be seen, nothing to be heard. And yet she knew it was there. It was as if whoever or whatever it was... was everywhere and nowhere at once. She wasn't even sure if it was just one entity, either. The cerulean pegasus' shoulders slumped, as she raised a front-hoof to massage her temples. She had walked for hours with no end of the tunnel in sight. Her wing hurt and she hadn't eaten in over a day. The repetitive landscape was driving her nuts, and she was disoriented from sheer exhaustion, her energy drained by fatigue. All she wanted to do was to take a nap. And now there was... something there creeping her out, apparently stalking her, even though that made absolutely no sense at all, like so many things in this strange “book-world” she had ended up in. In sheer frustration, Dash turned back and yelled into the empty darkness. “LEAVE ME ALONE!” . . End of chapter 5. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Author's Note Thanks to VunderGuy for suggesting specific soundtracks from “The Elder Scrolls” as part of the music used in the audio-book version of this chapter, and special thanks to Axquirix and lupin the vapour for pre-reading. Music credit (in chronological order): The Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion - Dungeon 3 (0:00 to 9:15) [75% speed] The Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion - Dungeon 1 (8:30 to 10:30) Inception - The dream is collapsing (long version) excerpt from track starting at 3:55 Portal 2 - Overgrowth (~13:45 to 23:40), (occasional addition of "Inception - We Built Our Own World") Doctor Who - Time of Angels (23:30 to 25:15) Inception - 528491 (25:15 to 26:20) Portal 2 - 999999 (reverse) (during author's notes) Fun-fact: Dash's scene here took four complete revisions from scratch and then a re-write of the ending after getting confused responses back from test-readers. I wanted this to work. I wanted it to be just right. There are so many stories that hint at the core-subject of this scene, yet there never is a build-up. I wanted to make a proper build-up for that instead of just stating it out of nowhere. I sincerely hope I managed to pull off the build-up to the climax without being either too subtle or too obvious about it. ...And if you're still scratching your head why this scene is so important or what its “core-subject” is – I'll leave you to ponder this: Who was Rainbow Dash yelling at?
Chapter 7 - Daring Do and the Balanced Breakfast This chapter is available as a "synthesized" audio book: [click here] - no background music [click here] - with ambient music loop [overview of all chapters] Rainbow Dash woke up with a content yawn, stretching on the warm, comfortable surface of the bed. She blinked sleepily, as her mind re-constructed the last events in conscious memory. She vaguely recalled entering the building in search for a resting place, eventually stumbling into two bare wooden beds on the upper floor. Having placed Daring Do in one of the beds, Dash still remembered hesitating if she should dare to unbutton Daring's trademark jacket to use it as either a blanket or a pillow for the unconscious mare to sleep on, as any blankets or other such cloth had long since dissolved into nothing. In the end, she had decided against it. From what she had read, Daring Do could get quite upset if somepony messed with her helmet or jacket. While not particularly inviting, the smooth wooden surface of the bed was still better than sleeping in the dirt or on the cold stone-ground. Dash furrowed her brow. Something about the bed she was lying in seemed a tad off, although she couldn't quite put her hoof on it just yet. Dash glanced over to the other bed, only to find it empty. Another yawn escaped the cerulean pegasus, as she straightened her posture once more. In doing so, she noticed that her injured wing had been bandaged, wrapped tight to her body in a white piece of cloth. As she looked down at her back to examine her wing, she noticed a thin layer of cloud-vapor on the bed. So this was what had felt strange – the bed had been far more comfortable than it could've been otherwise. Hm. Where had this come from? Did Daring make this? It wasn't much of a challenge for a single pegasus to conjure cloud-vapor from water in minor quantities, although it didn't have many practical applications in modern Equestria due to industrialized cloud-manufacturing. Then again – this wasn't modern Equestria, this was Daring Do's world, lagging about 50 to 60 years behind. Did pegasi in Daring's... “time” still rely on manual labor to create clouds? A growl from her stomach derailed any further thoughts Dash might've had. Jumping off the bed, Dash decided to go exploring for potential sources of food, and possibly for Daring Do's location as well. Downstairs, the pegasus instantly found her senses assaulted by the smell of cooked carrots and several flower-salads. Not giving the sensation a second thought, Dash rushed to what she assumed to be a kitchen table, her mouth watering up to the point that she had to swallow down in order to prevent herself from drooling as she laid eyes on the various plates and culinary concoctions thereon. Without further hesitation, Dash bluntly stuck her muzzle in a bowl filled with flowers of various types swimming in a thick brown sauce that, under different circumstances, might not have appeared to be very appetizing. To the moon with it – for all she cared the sauce could've been glowing bright green with purple dots in it, she was hungry. “So... tastes good?” came a sudden voice from behind her. Swirling around, muzzle still dripping with sauce, Dash's eyes came to rest on the other pegasus in the room. And what she saw made her mouth drop open. There stood Daring Do, the most amazing, most awesome-est adventurer ever, who laughed in the face of death, who bucked danger in the flank and who's profession was, well, adventure itself – doing something Dash never would have even expected to read in the books, let alone see it with her own eyes. “You're ...cooking?” Dash stated in a flat tone, still stunned by the fact. Daring Do clearly didn't seem the type to be caught dead tending to a stove or an oven. The rainbow-maned pegasus herself didn't cook. She remembered Pinkie getting her into trying to bake a cake at Sugar Cube Corner once, and... well, meh. It hadn't been good, it hadn't been bad... It had just been sorta bland. Why bake a cake yourself that didn't taste any good when you could just go grab a bite at Sugar Cube Corner or Applejack's place? She mostly conformed to a diet of salads anyway, to keep herself fit and in top flying-condition. For the most part, those didn't need to be cooked. Other than that, whenever she had a craving for something warm that wasn't made of sugar or apples, she usually just dashed out for one of the many restaurants in town. ...Yeah, okay, she also found herself indulging in the occasional visit to the local fast food chain, lazing off on a cloud munching on a bag of hay-fries or daffodil burgers from time to time. (Admittedly, she didn't always eat healthy, especially when she didn't feel like waiting for restaurant service.) But in either case, there was no actual cooking involved on Rainbow Dash's part. Not that cooking was uncool or un-radical or anything, of course not. But... This was Daring Do. Standing at a stove. Cooking. The mental image just... didn't fit. The gold-yellow pegasus merely reacted to Dash's comment by raising an eyebrow. “Uhm... yeah, so?” There was an awkward moment of silence, Dash uncertain what to say and Daring seemingly confused. “You're... cooking” Dash finally repeated her previous statement. “I'm just... uh... surprised, is all.” Daring tilted her head quizzically, her mouth open as if to ask a question, but closing it a few seconds later. “Eh. When you can show me a restaurant in this place or any other temple or jungle, I'll be glad to pay the expenses.” The adventurer shrugged. “Gets kinda dull if you just eat the same rations over and over again for weeks. I mean, I've been stuck looking all over the Mareican mainlands for this... err, 'temple' for the last five weeks, ya know?” Dash blinked rapidly. That... actually made a lot of sense. Wait, hang on a second – Daring Do had been in the jungle for five weeks? She had never even considered how much time Daring might've spent trekking through the jungle on her own before they had met. After all, they had practically stumbled into the cave-entrance by sheer chance while on the run from predators the very next morning. Now that she thought about it, the books didn't elaborate on Daring wandering through the jungle for weeks, either. That was usually just mentioned in the opening paragraph or later skipped in a single sentence. It probably would've been boring to read about, but... “Uh, you better eat up, this stuff doesn't taste half as good if it's cold,” Daring commented, redirecting Dash's attention back to the steaming bowl of delicious brown sauce with flowery bits in it. Wordlessly, Dash returned to eating her meal. After turning to check on the metal stove she had been tending to, Daring Do dragged a stool over to the table and seated herself as well. Rainbow Dash could barely believe her taste-buds, as an explosion of aroma send her to the proverbial cloud nine – especially after what had felt like days with no food. The only thing souring the experience was the deafening silence hanging about the kitchen table. The pegasus on the opposite end of the table began fidgeting with her hooves, looking anywhere but at Dash. After a while, Daring was the one to break the silence with a single word. “Thanks.” “Mwha? Thanksh for what?” Dash queried, still chewing. For a brief moment, Daring's face went utterly blank, her expression unreadable. The corners of her mouth twitched, lifting upwards into a smile. Had Dash been paying less attention to refilling her stomach, she might have noticed the slight strain on Daring's facial muscles. “Heh... For saving my flank two... no, three times, I suppose? You're pretty cool, Dash.” Rainbow Dash almost choked on her flower-soup right there and then. It took several strong pats on the back – in the most literal sense – from Daring Do before Dash managed to recover from the ensuing coughing fit. “You're pretty cool, Dash” – the thought kept bouncing back and forth at the corners of her mind like Pinkie Pie on a sugar-high, as Dash had a momentary relapse into fan-filly mode. Oh my gosh! Daring Do just said she was 'pretty cool'! Oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh!! It took all of her self-restraint to refrain from giggling like a school-filly and to keep herself from grinning like a mad-mare. It took Dash a moment to notice that Daring had gone silent, and seemed to wait for a her to say something. Trying to come up with a witty comeback on the spot, Dash racked her brain but found herself unable to find anything appropriate, still in girlish glee about one of her heroes – albeit a fictional one – calling her “cool”. Realizing that the silence was dragging on and was about to get straight into awkward territory, Dash composed herself, before answering in a laid-back tone. “Eh, it was nothing. You would've done the same for me. And besides, you're more than repaying me with this awesome breakfast.” ...Wait, arg, that was stupid! Why did she have to talk about food now? Despite another growl from her stomach answering her own question, Dash forced herself to smile confidently, while Daring Do just blinked a few times before her posture relaxed and the mare returned a smile of her own. “Well, thanks for the compliment! Though I guess it's more kinda lunch.” Daring looked off to the side, where Dash noticed a metal clock hanging on the wall. Both it's hour- and minute-hooves were missing, apparently broken off ages ago by some form of corrosion which for some reason had left the clock itself intact. “Though I kinda lost track of time.” Daring chuckled to herself. “So let's just call it a brunch.” Relieved to have mastered the situation, the cerulean pegasus continued her meal. However, Daring's brief show of attention to the room's interior had gotten Dash's own curiosity peaked. Last night (or mid-day or whatever time it had been), she had not found the time to go looking into any details other than where to find a good resting spot for the both of them. Glancing over the area as she chewed on some carrots, she took stock of what apparently was a living room. It looked almost ...normal, albeit not particularly modern in its design. There was the stove, a bulky black thing with a couple of valves at it's front, four separate heating plates separated by a layer of stone, and a steady fire crackling on inside as sheets of wood were being burned. A rather typical stove – not too dissimilar from the ones she had seen back home. There were a number of wooden cupboards of varying sizes, one of which slightly askew as it had been opened forcefully, revealing it's contents to be... several plates and dishes made from clay, as well as what looked like broken drinking-glasses. From her current surroundings, she could never have guessed that they were miles underground in what was supposed to be an ancient temple or “lost city”. For all she could tell, they had entered somepony's home. Several minor additions to the room, such as an ornament-decorated vase that at some point might have contained flowers that had long since withered and turned to dust, a large wooden desk that bore a striking resemblance to the one Twilight used for a writing desk as well as an empty picture frame – it's canvas broken and the image faded beyond recognition – only added to the effect. “What is this place anyway?” Dash vaguely gestured with a foreleg all around her. “Well, this clearly isn't the holy chamber of a priest or a monk, that much I know. Looks to be the home of a sculptor.” Daring shrugged. “There's a whole bunch of vases and some half-finished statuettes over in the other room.” And that was that. Silence fell over the room once more, hers and Daring's chewing the only sounds to be heard. Finishing her current bowl, Dash grabbed it between her teeth and put it on the kitchen desk... Yep, that was an ancient kitchen desk. Looking down at her bowl, she realized that it was actually one of the clay-dishes from the opened cupboard. Dash suddenly became very self-aware that they were, essentially, sitting at a kitchen table underground in what was supposed to be an ancient civilization's lost city, dining from plates that were older than Equestria itself. That, and she was eating breakfast/lunch cooked by, and in the company of Daring Do. But at least, just for once, she wasn't the only one weirded out by the situation. Daring herself was staring down at her own emptied plate with an expression caught somewhere between confusion and amusement. “You know, my associates in the archeologist community would be horrified if they knew I'm using eight thousand years old dinner-ware as... well, dinner-ware.” The adventurer chuckled. “I can already hear professor Vintage Ceramic nagging” – Daring Do changed her voice to sound like an elderly stallion whining – “Miss Do, as archeologists it is our Celestia-given duty to label, date, categorize and archive each and every single piece of rubble, every tiny wooden splinter and each miniscule shard of broken glass we come across! Now, go and pick up those cans, I must determine if they predate the era of today's lunch break.” Daring rolled her eyes and snickered to herself. “There was that artifact, an apparently cursed diamond, said to have brought down the old diamond dog clans of the South. So I escape from the cave, just before it all comes falling apart. I bring him the diamond – and he tries to fill a formal complaint against me because the thing collapsed while I was in it! Geez! If I had told him about the traps, he would've asked me to pick up every single dart and arrow that's been flung at me while I was getting to the artifact, and have me 'label, date, categorize and archive' every single one of them!” Rainbow Dash blinked. She knew of “Daring Do and the Diamond Curse”, but not of the aftermath that had come after the story had ended. “This 'Vintage Ceramic' guy sounds like a total dork,” she commented, unable to keep a hint of amusement from her voice at Daring Do's imitation, which earned her a snicker from Daring Do in return. “You don't know half of it! I swear that stallion is obsessed with filling out forms for everything he does! He practically sits in his office all day, scribbling down random numbers and area-codes and what-have-you. And if he does show up to a dig site, he just stands off to the side taking notes about every little detail the entire time. Brrr. That guy isn't an archeologist, he's a bureaucrat.” Daring took another sip from her bowl, before once again addressing the cerulean pegasus. “So... you said you live in the general Everfree area? Pony-something... what's it called again?” Daring asked in a conversational tone. “Ponyville.” “Ah.” Daring smirked. “Is it safe to assume that 'Ponyville' is a village?” “Town, actually,” Dash corrected her. “Huh.” Daring Do scratched her head with her left foreleg. “I thought I knew all the towns around Canterlot. Meh.” Daring shrugged, grabbing another spoonful of sauce. Dash grimaced inwardly, reminded once more of the differences between Daring's Equestria and her own. The adventurer absentmindedly drew circles in her soup with a celery-stick, while munching on a carrot, before speaking up once more. “Doesn't it ever get boring in a place like that?” “Ponyville? Boring?” Dash couldn't suppress a snort of laughter. “Lemme see. There was that parasprite infestation, the incident when the ursa minor attacked the town, the time when we had to deal with some diamond dogs who kidnapped a friend of mine – big mistake on their part. Then there was that time when Spike had his growth-spurt – Spike's a baby-dragon, by the way – so that meant a dragon like four times the size of a building on a rampage through town. Not to forget when we had to deal with that other dragon to get him to settle someplace else... Which reminds me of the time Spike joined the dragon migration, and we kinda-sort-of followed him in disguise to keep an eye out for the little guy. Not to mention Nightmare Moo-...” Dash just barely had caught herself in time before mentioning the return of princess Luna as Nightmare Moon. This was, after all, an event of historic proportions – which, in Daring's world, had not (yet) taken place. Daring Do would be able to spot the discrepancy immediately. “Err, I mean... Nightmare Night... uh... which is... always especially... nightmare...ish in Ponyville, uh, yeah,” she finished lamely. Daring Do just sat there, blinking a number of times as she processed the information Rainbow Dash had provided. She evidently had not expected an answer like that. “That's... quite the town-history, I suppose.” she briefly tipped her pith-helmet as a show of respect. “History?” Dash barely stifled a laugh. “That's stuff that happened in, like, the last two years!” Daring gave her a flat stare. “Okay, now I know you're just pulling my tail.” “Wait, what? Of course not!” The cerulean pegasus gawked, her wings flaring instinctively, before hissing at a mild stab of pain from her injured wing, which had strained against its bandages. Daring just gave her a strange look, her eyes narrowing against Dash's own unwavering gaze. After a couple of seconds, Daring sat back in her chair, stunned. “You're... serious?” she stated, disbelief clear in her voice. “Of course I'm serious!” Dash huffed indignantly. “Wow. You really are serious. Heh. Ursas and dragons, eh? That's definitely not boring.” Daring Do shook her head, chuckling. “Guess small-town-life isn't necessarily as boring as I thought.” Dash's frown turned into a grin. “You don't even know half of it!” “Although,” Daring mused, raising a hoof to her chin, “I guess building a town in the middle of a wild, untamed forest full of deadly monsters sort-of is an invitation for all sorts of crazy horse-apples.” “Uh...” Dash tilted her head, her face scrunched up in confusion. “It's not in the middle of the forest. It's at the edge.” “Same thing.” The adventurer shrugged, then shook her head in bewilderment. “Hardly seems the best spot to settle down. But I gotta admit, your townsfolk must have guts to pull that sort of thing.” “I... uh... thanks... I think?” Dash scratched her head at the odd statement. “What about you? Where do you live?” “Ah...” Daring's eyes grew unfocused for a second, staring off into nowhere. “You know... here and there.” The adventurer shrugged. “Got an apartment in Cloudsdale... Sometimes stay at the archeologist academy in Canterlot... Eh, I'm on the move most of the time anyway.” Swallowing a piece of celery whole, Daring's eyes wandered down over the various foods set up on the kitchen table. “Ah, Dash, could you pass me some of those flower-petals?” The yellow mare leaned over the table, forelegs stretched out, but not quite able to reach the desired treat. “...No, not those, I meant the red ones.” “Oh, okay.” Dash pushed a larger bowl from her side of the table over to Daring's – though not until after helping herself to a healthy portion of the red flowers as well. “Mmmmm,” Dash gave a content sigh. “These petals taste amazing! What kind of flower is that?” “You like it? Heh, can't argue with your taste! It's a local specialty, I think.” Daring scratched the back of her head. “Can't remember what it's called, though. Some impossible-to-pronounce name, I guess. Was actually quite surprised to find this down here, haven't seen these grow in the jungle.” Dash nodded along, but then gave the adventurer a questioning look. “Wait, what do you mean, 'down here'? Do these flowers grow in caves, or...?” “Well... There's actually gardens outside some of the buildings.” Daring's expression turned into something of a thoughtful grimace. “Don't ask me how that works. Haven't got a clue.” “Huh.” Dash raised a quizzical eyebrow at the new information. Plants growing all by themselves? It was a concept not entirely alien to Dash, although the only place she knew of where no earth ponies were needed to tend to the local plant-life was the Everfree Forest. But in the abundance of sunlight, not to mention inside a cave? How did that work? Then again, she shouldn't really be surprised by something as trivial as underground cave-gardens by now. . Dash felt something stuck in her throat, shaking her from her thoughts. After a short coughing fit, she managed to get it loose, but was momentary left staring at the seven plates and bowls she had already emptied standing in front of her. “Woahh... The food's awesome, but I think I need a minute...” The cerulean pegasus leaned back on her chair, stretching her hooves and wings. Though at this, Dash had to involuntarily cringe as a subdued sensation of pain shot through her injured wing. This earned her a sympathetic glance from her fellow pegasus, who absentmindedly soothed her own bandaged appendage. Dash looked down at her right wing with a frown on her face. Memories of the last time she had injured her wing this badly bubbled back up to the forefront of her mind. Well, at least she wasn't stuck to a hospital bed this time. Then again – if it hadn't been for her hospital stay, she'd never have read “Daring Do and the Quest for the Sapphire Stone”, which got her hooked on the series pretty much right away from the first paragraph. ...Daring Do had had injured her wing, grounding her for several days. Rainbow Dash – rather ticked off with her own wing-injury at the time – had instantly been able to make a connection with Daring. Dash glanced over at the other pegasus, who was staring down at her own bandaged wing with a distant expression, seemingly lost in her own thoughts. Hmm. It gave Dash an odd sense of déjà-vu, seeing how the both of them had an injured wing, just like back then. ...Weird, now she was thinking of that part in “Daring Do and the Quest for the Sapphire Stone” like an event that had taken place at the same time as her hospital stay. Probably hard to keep things separate when the protagonist of said story sat on the other side of the kitchen table. “Hey, Dash,” Daring spoke up, bringing the cerulean mare's trip down memory lane to a halt. “I just remembered something you said earlier, and I was wondering... how did you know about the Sapphire Stone and the Griffonian Goblet?” “Oh, I read... oh.” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Author's Note In case you don't remember when Dash mentioned the Sapphire Stone and the Griffon's Goblet to Daring Do... That happened all the way back in chapter 1. A special thanks to MeglifKaddy and Frobman for last-minute help with editing!
Chapter 8 - Under suspicion This chapter is available as a "synthesized" audio book: [click here] - no background music [click here] - with ambient music loop [overview of all chapters] “Hey, Dash – How did you know about the Sapphire Stone and the Griffonian Goblet?” It was as if the room's temperature had suddenly dropped by several degrees within the mere ten seconds it had taken Daring to speak that single sentence. Dash could almost feel her blood turn to ice, her expression frozen onto her face like a mask. Daring herself was blissfully unaware of Dash's reaction, sipping down the last of her soup. When had she ever mentioned the Sapphire Stone and the Griffon's Goblet to Daring?! ...Oh. Oh, right. Right in the first five minutes of her arrival. Pony-feathers. 'I've read about every single one of your adventures in a popular book series, where you are the protagonist.' Despite knowing it to be the truth, it still sounded crazy, even in her head – she could not say that. She'd sound like she was insane – pretty much the last thing she wanted Daring to think of her. Hay, it had been hard enough to swallow that pill herself! Rainbow Dash shot a glance over at Daring, who was happily chewing on another batch of red flowers. Taking a deep breath, she regained her sense of calm. In the past two days, she had come a long way since the awe-inspiring adventurer had decided to 'let her tag along' because she 'didn't have time to bring her back to wherever she had come from'. Certainly, Daring wouldn't just write her off as a mad-pony – she was sure she could trust her to give her at least the benefit of doubt. Yeah, it may have sounded insane – but she had proof. She could give Daring the run-down of what she knew of the series, details about her adventures and bits of trivia of her life. Things that she, as an avid reader was strongly familiar with. Having made up her mind, Rainbow Dash turned to face Daring, who was still eating. She opened her mouth to address the other mare – and hesitated, realizing that she didn't know what to say, exactly. How should she go about telling her? Looking at the golden-yellow pegasus sitting at the other side of the kitchen table, who thought she was “pretty cool”, who had just shared her meal with her and told anecdotes about her colleagues – she simply couldn't bring herself to tell Daring Do straight to the face that she was a fictional character. When she had gotten here, she had had a hard time wrapping her head around the concept of her favorite fictional character having become flesh. It was still a mind-boggling thought – but now, it was for the opposite reason. When she looked at Daring, she didn't see a character from a story, she saw a pony. A real pony. An overall amazing individual she was glad to have made an acquaintance with. Perhaps... even a friend. Just from talking to her in the last ten minutes she knew there was more to Daring than just a few pages in a bunch of books. Thinking of her as “fictional” didn't do her justice. And yet, Dash found it hard to deny the facts. She had more than enough evidence to think that this wasn't some kind of wacky science-fictiony “parallel universe” that just happened to coincide perfectly with the novels in the “Daring Do” series. The brief glimpses she'd had at the story itself seemed as good a proof as anything, and that wasn't even considering any of the other oddities. This was a story. And Daring Do was a character in this story. A story written by some anonymous author, who... who had essentially created both Daring Do and her entire world, who had written her into existence. Rainbow Dash had to take the mental equivalent of several steps back. The thought didn't seem to register properly. She understood what it meant on some level, but she couldn't wrap her brain around the concept. The mere idea just sounded so... alien to her. In a rare moment of insight, Dash attempted to grasp the repercussions of telling Daring Do the truth about the nature of her reality – and utterly failed. She really wasn't much into philosophical topics. Twilight would probably have been more suitable to handle those kind of things. Then again, if she were here in Dash's stead, she'd probably have had a mental breakdown about every tiny little thing that escaped common sense and logic, of which there had been plenty right up till now. Not that her own reaction had been all that smooth either – but that was besides the point. The entire notion simply seemed too outlandish to comprehend. Rainbow Dash stared down into her unfinished bowl. The viscous, brown soup sloshed around in it as it slowly absorbed the spoon sinking into it. Bits of lettuce swam on top, each a sickly pale yellow color sprinkled with splotches of brown – suddenly, the food seemed anything other than appetizing. Dash felt a brief surge of bile rising from her stomach. She hastily averted her eyes. What – what was she to do? All she knew was that telling Daring Do that she didn't exist, that her entire world wasn't real and her whole life had been the product of a... a... a story... That... that was just wrong. There were no words to describe it. It– It was just– Just– No. Just... no. She wasn't going to tell her. She couldn't. She couldn't possibly tell her. Rainbow Dash wasn't the Element of Honesty – telling a more or less convincing lie wasn't beyond her abilities. Maybe she could come up with something using her extensive knowledge of the series? Having read every “Daring Do”-book several times over might prove useful for the task. Let's see... The Sapphire Stone, Daring Do had gotten that from a temple in a jungle. What was that jungle called again? Hmm... Wait! It was later mentioned the Sapphire Stone had been a part of some Zebrican legend when it was stolen from the Canterlot Archives in “Daring Do and the Sapphire Statue”. (Not to be mistaken for “Daring Do and the Quest for the Sapphire Stone”, a lot of ponies often got the two confused.) She could say that she heard the legend from Zecora, the resident zebra of the Everfree Forest. And – superficially at least – she knew enough about Zebrican culture to back up her statement. (They spoke in rhymes and had a peculiar taste in interior decorating.) And... she could just say she had been in Canterlot when the theft took place, overheard some of the guards talking, and put two and two together. Yeah. That might work! But... the Griffon's Goblet? Oh. Oh horse-apples. The Goblet had been a sacred artifact, able to temporarily grant anypony who drank from it great magical strength, unicorn or not. The Goblet was fiercely protected by a tribe of griffons that had settled in the Thunderbeak Mountains – and kept a secret for generations. Until Ahuizotl came along trying to steal it. However, after Daring Do had befriended the griffon elder's daughter, she had managed to convince him to play a part in a massive gamble – totally awesome chapter! – which had ended with Ahuizotl grabbing the wrong goblet in sheer ignorance, but Daring and her new griffon allies giving pursuit anyway and destroying the false artifact in the process. With Ahuizotl misled to believe the Goblet to be lost forever, the griffin tribe was back to guarding the powerful artifact. The point was that nopony – nor griffon – was supposed to know of the Goblet. And Dash had let slip that she, in fact, did know of it. Well, buck. There was no explanation for how she knew things nopony besides Daring and the members of a secret griffin-society should know... except for the truth, and the truth was not an option. She couldn't even say that she'd met those griffons too. The twenty-something members of the reclusive tribe were hiding away in a deep cave near the top of a blizzard-ridden mountain-range that was supposedly impossible to climb and deadly just by its temperature. Even Daring and Ahuizotl had just barely made it there alive, and only, because they'd been taken in by the tribe. Were she a unicorn, maybe she could've come up with some shaky excuse, like... having special psychic powers or– “Ahem.” A decidedly faked cough from Daring brought Dash's train of thought to an unscheduled stop. It was only now that she realized that her mental excursion had likely taken longer than anticipated. The other mare had stopped eating. Her bowl lay off to the side, still a third full. “You... kinda spaced out on me there, Dash.” The corners of her mouth twitched up into a smirk at her own remark – but it didn't last. Her expression became utterly neutral, as she addressed Rainbow Dash. “Now... I'm rather intrigued to know where you heard of the Sapphire Stone and the Griffonian Goblet.” Dash had to swallow a lump in her throat. She couldn't tell her... but she didn't have a convincing story to tell either. And if she just made something up on the spot, Daring would tear it apart in less than a second. She was trapped. Rainbow Dash's shoulders slumped in resignation. This was going to get awkward. “I... I can't tell you.” For just a fraction of a second, she saw a crack in the mask. It was too short of a time-frame to associate the face with an emotion, though what came afterward was easily identifiable enough. The other mare's eyes narrowed into thin slits, suspicion evident in her expression. “I see... And why would that be?” she spoke with an icy tone. “I'm sorry... I really am!” Rainbow Dash shook her head. “But I just can't tell you.” Daring did not say anything, her expression unmoving – yet the accusation hung in the room, as subtle as a neon-sign in Los Pegasus. Daring Do uttered a single word. “...Why?” “I... I can't...” Dash gulped. Somehow, Daring's stern glare gave her the feeling of being in flight school again, trying to wiggle her way out of a confrontation with the principal after a prank had gone wrong. She visibly had to cringe at the memory. He'd been one of the few ponies able to really get under her skin when she was a filly. That stallion had had this air about him that told you “Young lady, I hold your future in my very hooves. And I do not like what I am seeing here.” This was just like that. “Where did you learn about it? Who else knows??” Dash remained silent, biting her lower lip. She couldn't really do much else. “And just why can't you tell me? Look, it's one thing if you don't want to talk about it – but why won't you talk about it? What's keeping you?” Daring Do slammed a hoof on the table that rattled the plates, her good wing flaring out to its full extent. Rainbow Dash cringed back at her outburst. 'If I tell you what I know, it will shatter your understanding of reality', Dash thought to herself. Yeah, right, if she told her that she'd be pressing even more. “The... knowledge of how I... err, know, is... uhm, really... bad?” Dash grinned awkwardly at the clumsily bludgeoned attempt at an answer to Daring's query. Daring Do's expression didn't waver in the slightest. She didn't even blink. Dash could tell that Daring wasn't buying it. Engaged in a fierce staring competition, beads of sweat were beginning to form on her forehead. Under the scrutiny of Daring's eyes, time seemed to have slowed down to a crawl. It was one of her intimidation techniques, Dash realized. She'd used it against the guards in “Daring Do and the Diamond Curse”, and then again in “Daring Do and the Seapony's Trident” to get the Sea Stone Key. Daring expected Dash to fold, and wasn't going to back down if she saw a way to get the truth out of her. Why did Daring's staring make her so nervous, anyway? ...Yes, she had something to hide. But she wasn't doing so for selfish reasons – she was doing this for Daring Do! Rainbow Dash steeled her resolve and raised her shoulders. Holding her head high, Dash's eyes narrowed as she matched Daring Do's stern gaze. Her sudden change of posture and demeanor did not go unnoticed, but Daring's only reaction was a momentary widening of her irises. After another immeasurable length of time had passed in silence, Daring Do spoke up. “Listen, and listen carefully. I don't know who or what your sources are or how much you know. But I can tell you one thing – if word gets out of the Goblet, then ponies' lives are going to be at risk. And I cannot allow that to happen. Do you understand that?” Dash reeled back in surprise. Ponies' lives? What?! Daring looked her straight in the eyes. There was the expected fierce, determined glare... but there was also something else in those eyes, a sense of urgency, that really got to Dash. This is real. Rainbow Dash gulped. The Griffin's Goblet... It wasn't just words on a page anymore. That deadly mountain really was out there, somewhere, she realized. And if word of the Griffin's Goblet got out – or the fact that it still existed... Yes, that would be bad. Very, very bad. Least of all, Ahuizotl would hear of it, sooner or later. It was no wonder, why Daring would be alarmed to hear a pony she had never met before randomly blurt it out straight in her face. She... she hadn't even thought of it like that. “I'm sorry, Daring, I...” Rainbow Dash faltered. “Look, I... get that this knowledge is dangerous, I promise I won't tell anypony–” Dash had to wince the moment she said it. Of course she'd already told somepony. She'd told pretty much all of her friends. Not that Twilight hadn't read the book too. Heck, everypony who read “Daring Do” knew of the “Griffin's Goblet”. It was the second book in the series, after all. “I won't tell anypony in this reality,” she mentally added. Daring's glare intensified at her slip-up, causing the rainbow-maned pegasus to flinch. She looked at the other mare with a pang of guilt. Daring Do was concerned for the well-being of others. That was what this was about – not simply to satisfy her curiosity. And ironically, Daring had given her the perfect opening. Dash took a minute to sort out her thoughts. When the cerulean mare spoke next, her voice was firm and determined. “I'm sorry I cannot tell you how I know of the Goblet, but you have my word nopony, griffin, or anything in this world is going to find out about it from me.” Daring Do was about to speak up, but Dash raised a hoof to forestall any objections. “And I can't tell you how I know of the Goblet, because that knowledge is dangerous too.” Mainly to Daring herself, but she didn't need to know that. Daring Do cocked an eyebrow. Her mouth opened, no doubt ready to deliver a sharp-witted rebuttal to the mention of “danger”. But then she paused, seeming to reconsider her words. It was only for a single moment, but for the first time in the interrogation, Dash seemed to have gotten through to her. “Dangerous... how, exactly?” Drat. Burying her face in her hooves wasn't even a conscious act. Daring just kept on asking the hard questions. “There... there are just some things that a pony isn't supposed to know,” she sighed tiredly. Only belatedly, she realized that it had been a “Daring Do”-quote. “Daring Do and the Blood Diamond”? Or was it from “Temple of Discord”? Somehow, the details eluded her at the moment. “Oh.” Dash perked up at the utterance. Daring was still looking in her direction, but her eyes betrayed a faraway glance and an expression Dash couldn't decipher. It took a while, before Daring spoke again. “What about your sources? If you could find out about it, then...” The adventurer trailed off deliberately, letting the question hang in the air unspoken. Dash actually had to snort at that one. Her mind had somehow conjured up the mental image of Derpy, delivering the latest “Daring Do”-novel to Ahuizotl by accident. “Heh. Don't you worry about that,” she snickered, glad for the breather. Daring Do did still seem plenty worried, however. “Hehe... Sorry. But seriously, you don't have to worry about that. Trust me on that one.” Rainbow Dash smiled reassuringly at Daring Do. Daring didn't say anything. “...No, seriously. I can promise you that the secret is safe with me.” She reassured the other pegasus with a confident grin and a disarming hoof-gesture. “Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake... err.” Dash interrupted her routine with a sheepish expression when Daring gave her a blank stare. “Err... Never mind. It's a, eh, Ponyville-thing. Ehehe.” Daring Do hesitated. “And the Sapphire Stone?” she asked, still skeptical. “Huh? Oh. Yeah, same thing.” Huh. Completely forgot about that one. There was a long silence after that. Rainbow Dash didn't know if it had been minutes, or merely seconds – but eventually, Daring broke eye-contact. Closing her eyes, she took one long, deep breath. Another tedious moment passed, before Daring Do spoke. “Ooooo-kaaaay.” She stretched out the word, slowly and deliberately pronouncing each syllable with emphasis. Daring stomped a hoof on the ground in irritation as they exited the building. Her hoof hit dirt, and did therefore not produce any audible noise, robbing Daring of the desired effect of venting her frustration. Even despite this, the adventurer couldn't suppress a slight shudder, remembering the all-too familiar words Dash had spoken in another context entirely. 'There are certain... things in the world, things forgotten by history, even by legends. None but the timeless ones may even remember, and even among them, it is but myth. Even then, they are kept secret, and for good cause. No power is to be gained, no wisdom to be obtained therefrom. The mere notion alone... That way lies only madness. There... there are just certain things a pony was never meant to know.' Briefly, Daring felt a cold chill running down the length of her neck. That... had been eery. She did not for a second believe that Dash was privy to anything alike – but it had been a sobering reminder. Daring Do chanced a look over at Rainbow Dash, who didn't even try to hide her relief. Well, she didn't outright lie. Instead, Dash had openly admitted she didn't want to tell her how she knew of the artifacts. Despite the lack of answer being suspicious to no end, Daring begrudgingly had to admit that this held a point in her favor. She didn't have a reason to doubt Dash's story about ending up in the jungle through a magical accident – even the bit about being teleported straight from Equestria was not entirely implausible. But getting stranded right next to the only pony in the entire jungle? That was more than a little hard to believe – unless the spell that had brought her here had been directly aimed at Daring Do specifically. Though as far as she could tell, that would only have been possible if she had been carrying an item that had previously been enchanted by the same unicorn who had performed the teleportation-spell... Not that Daring herself was an expert on unicorn-magic, but she had to know a thing or two regarding magic-based trap-mechanisms and all. But... As much as she tried, Daring honestly couldn't picture Rainbow Dash having some ulterior motive for sticking along. She just didn't seem the type. In a way, the other mare even reminded her of herself. And not just for the obvious reasons. But, on the other hoof, there was just... something that bothered her about Rainbow Dash, something that seemed more than just a little off. Several things, in fact. But despite that, she seemed genuine. The troubled expression on her face when Daring had told her ponies' lives were at stake... That was what had sold it. You just couldn't fake that convincingly. And on top of all of that, she really owed Dash one for saving her sorry flank. Well, more like that she owed her three, really. (That part with her falling unconscious totally didn't count.) After spending the last couple months in the less-than-thrilling environment of Canterlot University, had she really been letting herself get this sloppy? “Thanksh for what?” Daring Do grumbled to herself, irritated. That had been all Rainbow Dash had responded with when Daring had shown her gratitude – and with a full mouth, at that. Yeah, 'thanks for what' indeed. It made some sense though, now that she thought about it. It seemed Rainbow Dash had gotten a lot of practice, having the creatures of the Everfree right at her doorstep. Perhaps she'd visit sometime. It might make for an... interesting stay. All things considered, as much, as her curiosity as both an adventurer and an archeologist demanded an answer to the riddle... She had to accept that Rainbow Dash had a secret, and it seemed she had her good reasons for keeping that secret. Not that she liked it – but she could understand it. Daring threw another glance over at Rainbow Dash. She was stretching her free wing, probably in some unconscious attempt to compensate for the discomfort in her bandaged wing. Daring Do instinctively brushed a hoof across her own injured appendage. Yeah. She'd... trust Rainbow Dash. . . . . . . Author's Note A very special thanks goes to my new editor, lightfox lowell! Consulting him has certainly helped me plenty! Turns out that talking openly to somepony who's invested in the story but at the same time doesn't care about massive spoilers can be quite productive indeed! Always could use more people like him. UPDATE November 2016: Still true... Actually, I could really use that for a later chapter in the story. For extensive author's notes on chapter 8, see this blog-post. Subjects include but aren't limited to some thoughts on the episodes "Daring Don't" and "Power Ponies", as well as a silly one-shot story I never posted on fimfiction (because of reasons), intelligently titled "Spike and the Curse of the Mouse Cursor".
Chapter 9 - Exploration This chapter is available as a "synthesized" audio book: [click here] - no background music [click here] - with ambient music loop [overview of all chapters] The two pegasi silently trotted through the empty streets, their hoof-steps muffled by a thick layer of earth on the ground. As such, hearing the sound of hooves clopping against a wooden surface loud and clear gave Daring Do cause to turn. Dash had stepped on a slate of wood lying on the ground, evidently a door that had fallen off its hinges. A pair of symbols – a pick axe and a hammer – carved into the door's wooden surface caught Daring's eye. The symbols were each encased in a circle, clearly separating them. The building itself, unlike the sturdy home where they had spent the night, had collapsed into a heap of rocks and wooden splinters. The next couple of buildings had not fared much better, though this was not the case for the homes on the other side of the road. An a whim, she trotted over to a small wooden cottage, taking note of the markings etched into its door. A formation of crystals and... a carrot? Huh. Examining further, Daring took stock of a variety of symbols set in various arrangements. They mostly shared themes of metal working tools or farming equipment, but also different types of edible plants, stylized mechanics, several variations of the “waving flag”-symbol – often super-imposed on some kind of gemstone – as well as a large variety of images depicting crystalline structures. Many doors shared more than two symbols, although on some, the respective circles were left empty. It didn't take much brains to figure it out. These were cutie-marks. Each of the carvings on the door represented the marks of its inhabitants. The houses showcasing multiple marks had been home to families, the empty circles likely meant that a colt or a filly who hadn't earned their mark yet had lived here. Daring Do looked at the buildings all around her. Even besides the differences in construction-materials, barely two buildings were entirely alike. In most cases, the nuances in design were subtle enough not to spot them immediately, but closer inspection would reveal a curling vine-pattern carved into wooden planks, a small window crammed right under the edge of the roof allowing for a good view on the surrounding area or an additional window sill holding an assortment of empty vases. Each home came with its own, individual quirks. One of the buildings she could see further down the road was, bizarrely enough, even sculpted to resemble a giant loaf of bread. Daring Do simply couldn't think of it as anything other than a bakery. As an archeologist, she studied ancient cultures and history – but she usually wasn't among those to investigate a dig site, or to painstakingly reconstruct broken ceramics to take a wild guess at the general living conditions in the First Griffin Kingdom. She was an adventurer, and her unique talents were best put to use in the more demanding aspects of the job. Without a doubt, this “job” met the typical requirements for her intervention: Death traps, widespread underground tunnel-labyrinth, collapsing caves, and legends of a powerful artifact. But this was a place where regular ponies had lived their everyday lives. Why then had it been sealed off from the outside world, to the point that anypony trying to get in – or out, for that matter – would have to pass through multiple layers of death traps? “Scrunch!” Surprised, Daring craned her neck to look down at her right hind-leg. She'd stepped into a type of purple cabbage, growing in the middle of the road. Preoccupied with examining the architecture, she had not payed any mind to the street itself. Every few buildings, she would come across patches of wildly growing flowers, vegetables or other vegetation, some of which did not stay strictly confined to its designated garden-area, covering buildings or spreading out into the side-alleys. Brightly lit by one of the many luminescent crystals, a patch of particularly rebellious carrot-growth had ventured forth all the way up to the middle of the main road, where it was vehemently fighting for what little resources there were with the local patch of those delicious red flowers she and Dash had had at breakfast. At what came into sight when the two pegasi turned the corner, Daring Do had to do a double-take. In the center of the square, there was a tree, of all things. Not a particularly large or thick tree, nor even a still living one – but a tree non the less. What was it doing here? On second glance, it wasn't even the only tree. Further down the road, the pegasus' keen eyes could make out another – no, two more trees. Okay, this was odd. Sure, carrots and cabbages and all that growing by themselves unattended for centuries probably had some sciency mumbo-jumbo explanation, but trees? Daring was perplexed. Earth pony magic was subtle – putting the lack of sunlight aside, not even the strongest of earth pony magic, even if a hundred earth ponies gave their all, could cause trees to grow on solid rock. It needed soil, at least a few pony-lengths deep. There was no way a tree could actually grow here, unless – Daring's hoof scraped at the ground, digging a small hole in the dirt. It didn't reveal any stone beneath, just more earth. Thinking back to the tunnels, in the vast majority of the tunnel-system the ground had been covered with a thick layer of earth – despite the fact that they were miles below the actual surface. It hadn't occurred to her at the time, but like the walls and ceiling of the cave, the ground should have been solid rock. Daring Do shook her head in puzzled disbelief. The implications of this were absurd! The only possible explanation was that the Mareicans had actually taken the time and effort to transport ridiculous amounts of fertile soil to a location as far removed from ideal farming conditions as you could get short of trying to set up an orchard inside an active volcano. And then they had filled up this central cave until the soil was deep enough to even support tree-growth. The amount of effort that had gone into building this settlement was insane! What could possibly have justified all of this? Even if the carvings she had seen were any indication of hostile tribes in the area, the Mareicans could've just moved someplace else – the Mareican mainlands were huge! Going underground just didn't make sense! . Caught up in her thoughts, Daring hadn't even noticed when Rainbow Dash had stopped following her. Turning around, she saw the cerulean mare linger far behind, still at the bread-shaped building she had spotted earlier. “You coming, Dash?” she shouted. “We just ate, and I doubt they have anything that's still good anyway. Heh.” Her chuckle awkwardly petered out with no witty retort forthcoming from the other mare. Dash caught up to her quickly, but still remained silent. Odd. Talk about a mood-swing! The adventurer raised an inquisitive eyebrow. “A bit for your thoughts?” “Huh? Wha? ...Uhm,” Dash floundered. She opened her mouth – then bit down on her lower lip. “It's nothing.” Daring frowned. After a second, she turned to face Dash again, but the other pegasus had already trotted on without so much as a glance back. She watched the other mare walk down the road. Dash kept looking all about, examining each building she passed – as if she was looking for something specific. Daring Do shook her head. The adventurer couldn't help it – she couldn't, for the life of her, just not think about it. Even though she had her hooves full investigating the ancient ruins of a long-lost underground city, the mystery-mare presented enough of a conundrum all by herself. How did Rainbow Dash know of the Goblet? If it hadn't been for her initial slip-up, Daring Do would never have suspected a thing. It presented their first encounter in a worrying new light. What was she hiding? What was the big, scary secret Dash was refusing to tell her? Twice now, Dash had alluded to her source of information as – What was it? – ah yes, a book. When pressed, however, she remained tight-lipped about the details. On the other hoof, she'd been very firm in reassuring Daring to keep word of the Goblet to herself. However, if Dash had gained her information on the adventurer's involvement with the Griffonian Goblet from a book, that presented a rather worrying issue. It meant, that whoever had written the book also knew of the Goblet. This in turn posed an urgent question – who was the book's author? What was to stop that author from spreading word of the Goblet? Rainbow Dash certainly seemed dismissive of the risk, despite the severity of the stakes. Now that she'd entertained the thought, there was another tid-bit about Dash's story that didn't fit. Even baring that Rainbow Dash had been teleported across half the world just to be dropped off practically at the hooves of the only other pony in a 500-mile radius – what completely had her baffled was the fact that the multi-hued pegasus was a fan. The sheer improbability of running into a fan, in the middle of a jungle – it should've occurred to her earlier. Dash had mentioned being friends with a powerful mage. What was her name again? Twinkle? Sparkle? Granted, she didn't at all know that “Twinkle Sparkle” character, although she had pretty good reason to believe Rainbow Dash's teleportation accident had been anything but. Dash herself was completely oblivious, it seemed. Otherwise, their initial encounter would've gone quite differently. For one, it would've been less riddled with slip-ups on the hapless mare's behalf. The corners of her mouth curled into a grimace. What had Rainbow Dash gotten herself involved in? Daring sighed. Chancing a glance over at the mare in question, she took note that Dash had once again come to a halt. This time, her wrapped attention was held by a two-story building. Rainbow Dash didn't even notice, when Daring Do walked right up to her side. Curiosity overtook courtesy, and Daring took a peek through one of the broken glass-windows. What she saw was the interior of a store – a wide desk that spanned the width of the room, a large open space for customers, and a bunch of shelves at the walls, notably one larger shelf behind the counter. She couldn't quite recognize the items from where she was standing, though the gleam of metal reflecting the light pouring in from outside gave her a hunch. But Dash wasn't looking at the store's interior. She was looking up at the wooden store-front and the large, ornate oaken sign that hung at its side. Daring Do didn't need to understand Mareican script to grasp its meaning. Judging by the pictogram, this store specialized in... clocks and horseshoes? Huh, what an arbitrary combination. Who'd ever heard of a shop like that? Rainbow Dash's expression was unreadable. The question was on the tip of her tongue. Daring decided against it. Bringing up the “big scary secret” in casual conversation didn't seem the right way to approach this. The way Rainbow Dash had acted, she needed more than just one argument or just one question to get information out of her. She needed more time to think about this. Besides, it wasn't like Dash was going anywhere. Glancing around, the adventurer took stock of the area. The general layout of the buildings was different. While before, their size would vary from small cottages to five-story apartments, here, they conformed to a two-level structure with few exceptions. Most of the buildings spotted signs similar to the one on the “Clocks and Horseshoes”-store. A market district, perhaps? One structure in particular caught Daring's interest. The wooden facade stood out amongst a row of brick buildings, as it was. Daring ran a hoof across one of the many deep grooves in the wood. They had been crafted with great care, but the meaning of the pattern eluded her. Straight lines ran outwards from the entrance door, across the entire facade, turning left and right, up or down in sharp angles. At odd intervals, short wooden planks were attached to the outside walls, angled either horizontal or vertical to the ground in such a way that the grooves in the wooden surface would only intersect underneath them. On examining the interior – asides from the standard furnishings and pottery – she found several small-to-medium sized wooden and stone tablets with carvings of a design similar to the building-front. But also, she found carvings depicting various symbols – a crystal and a scroll, a book with a flower on it, a gear wheel encased in a gem, a crystal tiara, a spoon and a fork... The geometric designs made no sense to her, though from the myriad displays of cutie-marks she would judge this to be the work-place of an artist. She even found a large oaken door propped up against the wall – not fallen off its hinges, not inside a door-frame, but actually leaning against the wall – with two empty circles on it. At a glance, she'd even wager the artist as responsible for the marks she'd seen all throughout the city. The upstairs was a living area, though it was a bit smaller than the home they had stayed in. The artist had lived by themself, it seemed. Upon exiting the building, she realized Dash had wandered off yet again. She didn't see her down the road in either direction. Where had that pony gotten to now? “Hey, Daring! Come check out what I found!” . The room clearly had been used as an armory. Swords and spears were lined up on the walls on one end, metal shields and some kind of crossbow on the other. Daring Do picked up the wooden crossbow and looked it over. The string was broken, but it was otherwise in a remarkable condition for its age. Even the hoof-band, used to achieve a steady aim for non-magic users was still intact – the Mareicans had all been earth ponies, she reminded herself. What caught her interest was the odd design, though. There was a small metal tube on its top, right above the arrow-slot. It was coupled with a second, smaller tube with a piece of cloth in the shape of a fin attached. After rubbing off some dust, she could identify a glass lens on each end of the lower tube. Daring whistled, recognizing its use. The lenses had a magnifying effect, allowing the archer a better aim at its target. Far, far ahead of its time, as it seemed to be typical for the Mareicans. Experimentally, she pulled her hoof through the elastic band at the bottom, intending to take aim in order to gauge the strength of the lenses' magnifying effect. While fumbling around with the hoof-band, however, there was a quiet clicking sound, and a thin ray of light emitted from the upper tube on the crossbow. At first, Daring Do was a bit confused as to the mechanics of this, but she quickly caught on. There was a miniature version of the luminescent crystals enclosed in the upper tube. A small metal circle shape on the front end had slid to the side, allowing the light to shine free, albeit concentrated into a thin line through yet another glass lens. The adventurer scratched her head. What would be the use in putting a tiny light on top of the crossbow? It wasn't good for seeing anything in the dark, that much was sure. Curious, Daring steadied the weapon and took aim through a nearby window. The magnifying effect certainly was impressive, but what surprised her was the tiny white dot she could see in the distance, evidently projected from the crossbow's light-source, marking her target. Pretty clever. Sure, it wasn't perfect, the light dot kept moving away from the center, but – Wait, that was actually because the fin on top moved whenever there was an air current. Daring Do blinked. This was not a flaw, it was a feature. The fin measured the wind-direction, and this would indicate adjustments the archer would have to make before shooting. “Woah. Now I am impressed!” Daring looked at the 8000-year old crossbow in astonishment. “GAH! Look out!” Daring barely had turned around to the source of the cry, when a streak of blinding white light suddenly filled her vision. The adventurer cried out in alarm, as she stumbled away backwards. It was over as quick as it had begun, leaving her momentarily dazed. For several seconds, she had trouble seeing anything other than the after-image of whatever it was that had just passed her by. Her face suddenly felt warm – just a tad above what would be comfortable, like she was sitting too close to a fire. When she could see again, Daring startled at the flames in front of her nose. With a start, she once again took several steps backwards, but the flames kept following. It took her panicking mind a couple of seconds to realize that she wasn't on fire. It was the wooden crossbow that was still strapped to her hoof that was burning, it's front-half having turned into char-coal. “What... what was that?” Daring turned to the other pegasus, who was gaping back at her, clearly shocked. Dash was holding something in her hooves, but began struggling with its hoof-strap immediately after Daring had looked her way. Eyes widening by the implications, Daring's healthy wing flared out in an instinctive reaction. “HEY! What the buck!? You shot at me!” She pointed an accusing hoof at the mare, only to take note of the burning crossbow that was still attached to it, its aim now directed towards the cerulean pegasus as indicated by the white dot dancing over Dash's face. Daring quickly pulled her hoof down. “I didn't mean to shoot at you!” the cerulean-blue pegasus shrieked, her voice shaky and slightly higher pitched than normal. “How the hay was I supposed to know these ancient ponies had friggin' laser-weapons!?” “Layzer-what?” Daring questioned, as she wiggled her way out of the hoof-strap to discard the charcoal weapon. “Laser weapons! You know, like, weapons that shoot lasers, and stuff! Like in 'Ponytales from Space'... Uh... you know, comics? Like, what aliens or future-ponies have?” “I... don't think I'm familiar with those. I was always more a fan of...” Daring trailed off, noticing a hoof-sized, faintly glowing red spot on one of the metal shields hanging on the wall behind her. Grimacing, she pushed the thoughts of 2nd to 1st degree burns from her mind. She only half-listened to the other pegasus' stammered apologies, as her eyes were irresistibly drawn to the weapon itself. Wordlessly, Dash hoofed the apparition over to Daring. It mainly consisted of a thick metal tube about twice the length of a fore-leg. The mechanism itself was not immediately apparent, and Daring didn't care much for looking straight through the weapon's barrel to find out. At a sideways glance, she just caught the last of a fading glow emanating through a densely packed array of yet more crystalline lenses. Hefting the heavy apparition over her shoulder, her hoof easily slid around an elegantly carved wooden handle next to the hoof-strap. A small tube at the side of the weapon provided an analog to the crossbow's aiming aid, albeit with darkened lenses to protect the wielder's eye-sight. It was, quite simply, a typical example of Mareican hoof-work. And it just kept raising more questions. “What is going on here?” Rainbow Dash spoke out loud, swiping a hoof in a wide arc that encompassed more than just the room they were standing in. Bit of an odd way to phrase it, but Daring couldn't agree more. Regular homes, schools for foals – and spike-traps, lava- and crocodile-pits. Carrot- and cabbage-gardens, trees – and a hundred-mile tunnel system twisting into the depths of the earth. Bakeries, shops, lawn ornaments – and legends of an ancient, all-powerful artifact. Swords and arrows – and weapons shooting searing hot rays of light. These types of things generally just didn't mix. How they had gotten intertwined with each other in Mareican culture was a complete and utter mystery. “I don't know,” Daring spoke out loud. She looked at the apparition Rainbow Dash had identified as a “laser-weapon”, then ventured a side-ways glance at the mare herself. Dash's attention had already shifted. Now, She was intently fixated on an ornamental vase. Some half-broken thing – a large crack ran straight through the trio of smiling flowers painted on its side. There was that far-off expression on Dash's face again. Eyes unfocused, she muttered something under her breath, too quiet for Daring Do to understand. The corners of Daring's mouth settled into a grim line. “But I'm going to find out.” . . . . . . Author's Note Special thanks go, once again, to my editor, lightfox lowell.
Chapter 10 - Familiarity [Click here for a SUMMARY / HIGHLIGHT REEL for chapters 1 – 9] (A quick refresher for returning readers. Also available as an audio book. ) This chapter is available as a "synthesized" audio book: [click here] - no background music [click here] - with ambient music loop [overview of all chapters] Dash made her way through vacant streets, barren alleys and deserted boulevards. What made it all worse was the silence. Sure, there was the creaking of wood, the whistle of wind, the rushing of a waterfall somewhere in the distance, and if she strained her ears, she could hear all the little sounds of an old house; wooden planks creaking in the wind, amplified by a hundred-fold, audible just at the edge of her hearing. And yet, at the same time, the silence was deafening. At every turn, Dash almost expected somepony to come trotting down the road giving a friendly greeting, to hear sales-ponies enthusiastically advertising their wares, or the sounds of colts and fillies playing. Even her own hoof-steps were barely audible on the dirt-road. The subtly flickering, off-color light gave everything the quality of a fever dream. It truly was a ghost town, as close to the literal sense of the word as you could get without having any actual ghosts in it. But that wasn't what was disturbing her. No, Rainbow “Danger” Dash could take any regular old ghost town any day of the week. This wasn't just a regular ghost town. The road had opened up to a wide, empty plaza, bits of debris scattered all about. Off to the side, Dash saw a pile of wooden boards – the broken remains of a wooden cart, and what once had been a market-stall. With some imagination, she could still recognize the faded image of five coins and a fruit on one of the wooden boards. She had to look twice to reassure herself that the fruit wasn't an apple. A shiver ran down her spine. Quickly, she left the abandoned marketplace behind. She almost stepped on a sharp piece of debris, noticing it only just in time. It was part of a metal frame, smashed and twisted beyond recognition. Yet something about it seemed vaguely familiar. Dash looked up to her right. The cottage was in pretty bad shape. The roof had collapsed, and a good chunk of the wall was missing. Through the hole, Dash could see splintered furniture, and the bent and broken metal frames of several bird-cages. Or animal-cages. Her breath caught in her throat when she saw the mark of three pink butterflies on the cottage's door. ...No, they weren't butterflies. It was a mark of three pink birds. Her eyes were just playing tricks on her. This time, at least. She'd already discarded the notion of “unlikely coincidence” when she'd seen the “Quills and Sofas” knock-off. That by itself already had been downright uncanny. It had only gone straight down into “creepy town” territory from there. For the umpteenth time, Rainbow Dash asked herself the same question: “Just what is going on here?” “Alright, that's enough. What's wrong?” Dash startled at the mare's voice. She'd completely forgotten Daring Do was even there. “Huh? What?” “That look on your face. And this is about the tenth time you've stopped in the last five minutes.” “I, uhm, err...” Dash floundered. Daring's question had completely taken her off guard. “N-nothing”, she responded automatically. Daring gave her a level stare. Dash winced. She clearly wasn't buying it at all. ‘Yeah, this place looks like... like... uh... with Ponyville... err...’ She didn't even know how to phrase it in her own head! What would she even tell Daring Do? How could she possibly phrase that to not make it sound crazy? Dash glanced around nervously, racking her brain, trying to somehow find an answer in the scenery. “What are you looking at?” Daring asked inquisitively, just as Dash's eyes fell on another familiar sight. “That's the Ponyville clock-tower!” She blurted out loud without thinking. Within the next five seconds, Rainbow Dash realized two things. For one, the bell-tower with its well-recognizable clock-face also doubled as a water-mill. Thin streams ran down its sides, onto a large, deteriorated water-wheel, glaringly contrasting against the tower's otherwise familiar features. That, and Dash could practically hear Daring Do's eyebrows shoot up, as high as they could go. “Oh... nevermind!” Rainbow Dash's voice came out with a tiny, squeaky quality to it. There was a fatal silence that said more than words. Slowly, Dash turned to face the adventurer. Daring Do was looking at her with a strange expression, as if she was a complicated mechanism that needed to be solved to get at a treasure. Dash recoiled. Daring frowned. “Have you... been here before?” “What? No!” “But you do recognize that tower over there?” “Well... kinda.” Dash fidgeted nervously. Daring Do scratched her head, seeming uncertain. “...Are you homesick?” “Yes! Wait, I mean – no!” Dash shook her head vehemently. “That's not the point!” “So... What's the big deal, then?” “Everything here looks like Ponyville!” Dash blurted. There. She'd said it. It all came spilling out after that. Sugar Cube Corner, Fluttershy's cottage, the “Quills and Sofas”-store, the familiar cutie marks. All throughout her explanation, Daring's expression remained blank. "So, you're trying to say... your hometown looks just like this place?" Daring ventured, sounding more bewildered than incredulous. “Yes, I–” Rainbow Dash stopped, and looked at the buildings all around her as if seeing them again for the first time. It took her a moment to spot, but Dash recognized the crumbled remains of what looked like one of Ponyville's restaurants, the “Clover Café”. Except that this one was made from solid rock instead of wood and bricks. And further down the road, one of the buildings had an extravagantly curved roof she'd seen before, on a house – or was it a store? – next to... Ponyville's bowling alley. She'd never bothered to check what it was, but here, it seemed to be an inn, or maybe a tavern. But those were only two buildings out of maybe two dozen. She'd been so focused on what had reminded her of home, she'd barely payed attention to anything else. Here stood a home with planks made of metal, there stood a shop with a gemstone-motif. She saw a tower covered in strange geometric markings, and a wooden cottage twice as wide as any of the other houses. Many more buildings that had collapsed – partially or completely – of which she could only guess their appearance. And of those, none of them reminded her of anything in particular. Dash stumbled on her words. “Uh, no – I mean… uhm, it kinda does... well, only some of the buildings do, but not exactly the same. Some of them look totally different than the ones in Ponyville! But you can still tell totally what building it is, and... the cutie marks! There's... there's a whole bunch that are the same as... as some of the ponies back home! Well, okay, not exactly the same, but some of them were, and... and..." Dash groaned, realizing she was talking gibberish. “Look, I can't explain it. I don't understand it. I don't even know how any of this could be possible!” There was silence. Dash slumped. "Urgh. And now you think I'm crazy again." Daring closed and opened her mouth a couple more times. “That's...” She blinked, then shook her head. “That's... strange, I'll give you that.” Dash jerked her head up so fast she almost sprained a muscle. “You... believe me? You don't think I'm crazy?” “Crazy?” Daring Do seemed surprised. “That... wasn't what I was thinking, no.” She narrowed her eyes for a moment, then sighed. Dash looked at her with a mixture of hope and apprehension. If not her, then perhaps Daring Do could solve this mystery? The adventurer's expression was unreadable. “Nopony's been here in... a very long time.” Daring absently kicked aside a discarded floorboard. “So it's not like they could've gotten their inspiration from this place. There's obviously something very strange going on in your hometown.” “Huh?” Dash was taken aback. What was Daring talking about? Upon voicing her confusion, Daring gave her a strange look. She blinked, seemingly confused. “The... similar architecture? The cutie marks? That's what we were just talking about.” “What? No, nothing's wrong with Ponyville, it's this place that's all weird!” Daring Do's reaction was an exasperated hoof to the face. “Dash, you just told me your hometown bears a striking resemblance to an 8000-year old city from a long-dead civilization.” Daring Do crossed her forelegs smugly. “Now, how old is Ponyville?” Dash opened her mouth to respond. Then she closed it. “Thought so.” Daring smirked. “So... Has anything... strange been going on in Ponyville lately?” “Eh.” Dash shrugged. “Not more than usual.” This was a pointless line of inquiry anyway, Daring Do was wrong. Clearly, Ponyville wasn't what was strange here. “You told me the town got attacked by... ursas and dragons.” Daring Do raised an eyebrow questioningly. “What about that?” “Oh, you mean that sort of thing. Ursas, dragons, parasprites, diamond dogs, three headed dogs, giant timberwolves... Yeah, we get those.” Rainbow Dash interpreted the expression on Daring Do's face as a prompt to elaborate. She skimmed over a few memorable events that stuck out, mindful to leave out anything big, like the changeling invasion or the return of the Crystal Empire. She was just in the middle of recounting one of the more recent events, the magical duel between Twilight Sparkle and a particularly boastful unicorn, when Daring Do cut her off. “Woah, woah, woah”, Daring Do interrupted her. “Alicorn Amulet? The Alicorn Amulet?” Daring Do looked at her in shock. Rainbow Dash froze up. Daring Do knew of the Alicorn Amulet. Of course she did. Dash quietly cursed to herself for forgetting. After all, it was only because of the “Daring Do”-books that she had even remembered what the amulet was called. The same amulet Trixie had used was the one that had been mentioned in the last two “Daring Do”-books. Had she just screwed up? Maybe not. The Amulet had been mentioned – but it had never actually shown up in any of the books. Not yet. She vaguely recalled fan-speculations on what would happen with the Amulet in a future book. Many had been expecting the Amulet to appear in – well, this book. It was the 15th anniversary of the series, after all. Didn’t seem likely though, now that she was here. “What do you know about the Alicorn Amulet?” Daring asked with a frown. Hastily, Dash regained her composure. “Well, it makes a unicorn super-powerful, able to cast all sorts of crazy spells – and it makes whoever wears it go completely nuts. Like, the 'mwhahaha, I shall now take over the world' kind of nuts.” “What happened to it? Where is it now?” Daring Do pressed on. “Uh, I think Zecora has it.” Rainbow Dash scratched her head. Only a split-second later did it occur to Dash that giving Daring any info about the whereabouts of the Alicorn Amulet wasn't gonna be of use to her, since it wasn't the same Alicorn Amulet. She didn't get much time to ponder this, as Daring urged her to go on. “Zecora? Who's that?” “She's a zebra who lives in the Everfree Forest”, Dash explained. “...So it never occurred to you to bring the Alicorn Amulet to, oh, I don't know, the authorities?” Daring burst out. “So they could lock it up? In a guarded magic-proof vault?” Dash opened her mouth to respond, but Daring Do cut her off. “Do you have any idea what the Alicorn Amulet could do in the wrong hooves?” Dash returned Daring's accusing gaze with a level stare. “Yeah, I got a pretty good idea actually.” Dash monotoned. “As I was saying – the 'Great and Powerful' Trixie used it to take over Ponyville.” Daring Do blinked. “Hold on, back up a bit, I think I'm missing a story here.” So Rainbow Dash told her. “So, Twinkle – uh, Twilight Sparkle tricked that, ah, Trixie-character into giving her the amulet?” “Twinkle?! Hahaha!” Dash laughed out loud. “Oh, I gotta remember this, that's a good one.” But Daring didn’t even smile. “I... see.” She said, simply. Then she went quiet. And then she stayed quiet. Rainbow Dash shot her a quizzical glance, but Daring Do seemed to be lost deep in her own thoughts. After a minute or so, Dash's eyes inadvertently began scanning her surroundings again. Sure enough, it didn't take long for her to spot a familiar sight. The facade was painted in what once must have been bright, frilly patterns and plastered with decorative ornaments. Even if the building's shape was completely wrong, there were enough similarities for it to be easily recognizable as Carousel Boutique, mainly due to a near-replica of its decorative style. The pony-shape on the sign might've also been a hint, even if Dash was hard-pressed to tell if the displayed equine wore a dress, or a piece of armor. One of the windows was broken, and, thanks to a growth of brightly glowing crystals right outside, Dash caught a good look of its interior. The inside looked... extremely cramped, cluttered with various odds and ends, and indeed a few pieces of ruined cloth hung up on the walls. It bore absolutely no resemblance to Rarity's workplace at all. Not even in the slightest. “Huh.” Somehow, she'd not expected that. “Wait,” Daring's voice startled Dash out of her thoughts. “What was that about a three-headed dog earlier?” “Huh? What?” Daring's outburst had caught her completely off guard. “I only just realized what you said. You mentioned a three-headed dog attacking the town?” “Uh...” Dash scratched her head. “Oh yeah, that. Cerberus escaped and Twilight had to take him back to Tartarus that one time.” “You're pulling my tail.” Daring Do stated flatly. “What? No I'm not!” Dash bristled. Daring Do stared at her as if she'd grown a second head. And perhaps a third. “What in the hay was the guard dog of Tartarus doing in your hometown?” Dash wrinkled her nose and blinked. “It... escaped from Tartarus.” “Yeah, yeah, I got that.” Daring scoffed in annoyance. “But what was it doing in your hometown?” “Uh...” Dash blinked, confused. What was Daring Do trying to get at here? Daring rubbed the bridge of her muzzle with a hoof. “Please don't tell me they build Ponyville wedged in-between the Everfree and the gates of Tartarus.” “What? No, of course they didn't.” Dash scoffed. “Really, now?” Daring gave her a bit of a funny look, but didn't say anything. “Huh? Hey, what's that supposed to mean?” Dash huffed indignantly. Another odd glance. “How close is Ponyville to the Everfree, exactly?” “Huh?” The seeming non-sequitur took Dash by surprise. “About two minutes of flight?” Daring seemed taken aback by this. “That close?! Why in the hay would... Wait, is that speed-flying or casual flying?“ Dash shrugged. “I dunno, casual? It's not much in terms of a race-course.” A sly grin crept over her face. “Well, heh, I guess it's casual for me.” “Okay... that's slightly less insane.” “Insane? What?” Dash reeled, utterly bewildered. “Are you kidding me?” Daring snorted, shaking her head. “Who in their right mind settles right next to the most dangerous forest in Central Equestria?” “What? Wha...?” Dash’s entire face scrunched up in confusion. She blinked a couple of times, then shook her head. “...I thought we were trying to figure out why this place looks so much like Ponyville?” “We've been over this already.” Daring Do rolled her eyes exasperatedly. “Obviously, Ponyville design was inspired by Mareican architecture. Since nopony's been here in at least a few thousand years, the only way this is possible I can think of so far is that either Ponyville was founded by descendants of the Mareicans, or somepony in your town council has access to Mareican architecture designs and used them in city-planning. Whatever their reasons are, I don't think they did it just because 'it looked nice'.” Daring bristled, then seemed to deflate. “Urgh... Sorry.” She sighed. “I think we need to take another approach to this.” Daring Do started saying something, then thought better of it. Instead, she took a few seconds to compose herself. “Listen... About that teleportation-accident...” “Hmm?” It took Dash a second to catch on to what Daring meant. “I don't want you get worked up about this, but...” Daring hesitated, looking Dash straight in the eyes. “Could it be that it wasn't an accident?” Before Dash could even respond, Daring Do pressed on. "Think about it.” Daring urged. “The way we met. The only two ponies in the entire jungle.” She shook her head emphatically. “And you're not even just a random mare. You're a fan.” For some reason, Daring Do glanced up at Rainbow Dash's mane. “What are the chances for that?” “Preaching to the choir, sister.” Rainbow Dash sighed. Her shoulders slumped. There was an awkward silence. Eventually, Daring Do was the one who broke it. “What about Twinkle Sparkle… err, Twilight Sparkle?” “Hehe, Twinkle Sparkle…” Dash snickered at the unintentional nickname. Her chuckle ended in a surprised choke. “Wait, what's Twilight got to do with this?” Daring Do cocked an eyebrow. “You said she was an extremely powerful mage.” Dash stared at her for several seconds, uncomprehending. “Sending somepony across continents...” The adventurer spoke, in a carefully measured neutral tone. "That sort of thing requires a very powerful spell-caster..." Daring Do paused meaningfully. Rainbow Dash bristled. “Hey, wait a second, what are you trying to say here?” Daring Do had her hooves raised in a defensive gesture even before Dash had finished her sentence. “Easy there! I'm not trying to say anything.” “Good.” Dash narrowed her eyes. “Because Twilight Sparkle is one of my closest friends.” “Well, who else could have sent you here, and had the magical resources to pull it off?” “It was not Twilight Sparkle!” Dash growled. From one moment to the next, her mood lightened considerably. “And besides,” she smirked, “it couldn't have been her. Twi was still back in the library when it happened.” “Oh?” Daring perked up, suddenly interested. “Say... What's the last thing you remember before the teleport?” “I was flying to Sugar Cube Corner. I think I... crashed, and then I woke up with a splitting headache and you were there.” “And... what's a 'Sugar Cube Corner' again?” “It's Ponyville's bakery. Looks like a giant gingerbread house. Kinda like that bakery back there,” Dash gestured in the direction they had come from. “Only... well, ginger-bread, not regular bread.” “So. You were flying to the... bakery.” Daring's eye twitched, ever so slightly. “And on your way there, you magically got teleported to the jungle, thousands of miles away.” Daring's sarcasm wasn't lost to Dash, but she couldn't help but add her two bits. “Uh... Actually, I think I made it into the bakery before everything went dark.” There was that eye-twitch again. Hmm. Now that Dash thought about it, hadn't there been somepony shouting? Something about a cake? “Oh no, not the... cake?” “Was the bakery at least closed to the public?” Daring Do asked, a sliver of hope audible in her voice. “Uh... No...?” Dash shrugged. “The Cakes always open shop early in the morning during weekdays.” Daring's face fell, shoulders slumping. Dash, on the other hoof, was lost in thought. The last thing she'd heard had been somepony – probably Pinkie Pie – shouting “Oh no, not the... cake!” It seemed trivial, yet she couldn't shake the feeling there was some important detail she was forgetting. Something in those last few moments before everything went dark that might be relevant. There was some large pile of junk in the middle of the road. Without paying it any mind, Rainbow Dash swerved off to the right by reflex to get around the obstacle. “Oh no, not the... something-something cake.” A birthday cake? If so, then for whose birthday? Not hers, for sure. Though that would've been one heck of a birthday present, under other circumstances. No, not a birthday cake... But she knew it had to have been something like that. She just couldn't quite put her hoof on it. Rainbow Dash grimaced, brows furled in concentration. Why did the occasion for the cake seem so important? It felt like the answer to it all was just out of reach. If only she could remember... With a sigh of frustration, Rainbow Dash shook her head. Idly, she threw a quick glance over at Daring Do – only to see a wall of rubble immediately to her left. Disoriented and shaken from her thoughts, Rainbow Dash looked around in bewilderment. The road now seemed much narrower, and curved off to the right. To her left was an entire row of collapsed buildings, right up until a natural rock-formation rose from the ground – and up, and up, and up, until it formed an insurmountable wall that went on to merge with the ceiling somewhere in the distance. She squinted. There was something else, far down the road. Too regular to be natural, the dark silhouette of a massive structure towered over the city. Shrouded in shadow against a darkened backdrop, it was too far away to make out any details. “Rainbow Dash?” Daring's voice sounded off from behind her, prompting Dash to turn, just as Daring walked around the bend. The road had split straight in the middle, she realized. “Ah, I figured you'd walked down the wrong path.” Daring noted. “Come on, there’s something I want to– woah.” She broke off abruptly, as her eyes wandered past Dash into the distance. “Well. Seems I'm not the only one who found something.” . Daring Do's own discovery wasn't quite as big and looming, but its sheer size and shine made it stand out amongst the houses and shops. Dash couldn't make out much detail, the building was, again, too far away. There was, however, one thing she could tell with certainty, even at a distance. The entire multi-story building sparkled and glittered, as if the whole thing had been positively smothered in precious metals, and... it easily dwarfed a nearby clock-tower – which, again, looked suspiciously similar to Ponyville's own. Rainbow Dash looked back at the cross-road. Daring Do stood there, eyes flicking back and forth, silently weighing their options. She frowned. “What's wrong?” Dash asked, thinking to return the favor Daring had provided earlier. The other mare looked up at her sharply, startled by the question. For a few seconds more, she just stared blankly at her. Then Daring Do shook her head. “It's nothing, Rainbow Dash.” She fell silent again. It very clearly wasn't “nothing”, and Dash was about to object – when her attention was diverted by a familiar sight. There, next to what appeared to be a union between a toy- and a candy-store that vaguely looked like somepony had put a giant jester's cap on Sugar Cube Corner's roof, stood... a second “Carousel Boutique”-like building. Unlike the first, this one definitely had the right shape down to a T – but all its decorations indicated that it was a flower-shop. It even had – Wait, wasn't that Cheerilee's cutie mark? ...Weird. Dash turned back to face Daring just in time to catch an exasperated sigh. The adventurer took a few moments longer, then came to a final decision. “We need to split up.” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Author's Note There. Chapter 10. Finally. Chapter 11 coming "soon". After that, back to the waiting game, though hopefully not quite as long as this time. ....Longer author's note maybe sometime later in the week, exhausted now. SPECIAL THANKS TO MY PROOF-READERS, TEST-AUDIENCE, AND EDITORS: EDITORS – Smiling Armor and Mitsubishi Colt TEST AUDIENCE – tsaukpaetra PROOF-READING for chapter 1 and 2 revision – Litho and DCLeadboot PROOF-READING & EDITING ADVICE for chapter 2 and 3 revision – Meta Four and Litho And a very special thanks goes out to Smiling Armor, who stayed with me as an editor for like 1.5 years or so on chapter 10 and 11 alone. Yikes! That's some dedication! ...And resilience to tedious mind-numbing tasks. And I know already you're gonna say "nah, it was nothing ; I didn't do enough ; ", but you did and you helped a lot. Thanks, if it wasn't for you (and also all those other people of course, eheheh), I'd still be stuck here. Speaking of which, Smiling Armor is seeking help with translating two comics from Russian and Ukrainian, respectively, into English. Not a native English speaker himself, he wants to make sure to get the phrasing right. Anypony up for that, contact him at his userpage.
Chapter 11 - The Hole This chapter is available as a "synthesized" audio book: [click here] - no background music [click here] - with ambient music loop [overview of all chapters] The indistinct structure had resolved into three towers, one of them shorter than the other two, and connected by... something. At least that was what she thought it might be. Rainbow Dash had been traveling for nearly two hours, yet the towers still seemed distant, casting a long shadow over the city. At this point, she was seriously wondering if she was gonna make it back to their meeting point in time, or if she'd have to turn around before even reaching her goal. Noticing an obstacle coming up ahead, she squinted her eyes trying to make out details. The dim light provided by the glowing crystal structures all around made it hard for even the pegasus' keen eyes to see, but coming closer, she recognized the obstacle as an... enormous tree that had fallen over on its side, blocking off the path. The toppled tree's trunk was positively massive – nearly as thick as a one-story building was high! Her first instinct was to take flight, eliciting the familiar unpleasant sensation of pain as her bandaged wing failed to stretch out. The grounded pegasus once again sighed frustratedly, as she realized that, no, she could not fly over the obstacle. “Aww, come on! This has got to be some kind of sick joke!” Rainbow Dash groaned unhappily. Just yesterday, she hadn't been able to fly back up after she'd fallen through a hole in the ground, then she'd nearly fallen off a waterfall-staircase, now this. Geez, was this an obstacle course? Trying to scale the tree trunk quickly proved an equally invalid option, as the bark of the dead tree gave way, depositing a flailing rainbow-maned mare on her flank. Rubbing her back, Dash stood up and examined her surroundings for anything that might help in overcoming the obstacle. There didn't seem to be anything that came into question for constructing a makeshift ladder. However, she noticed something else. The house to her left had a balcony on the second floor going out to the side where the tree had crashed, hanging just high enough that it would allow her to jump down onto the tree-trunk, and possibly find her way down to the other side from there. It took her a few seconds to spot the building's entrance, as the otherwise omnipresent light-sources were mostly obstructed by the tree, casting the entire street in deep shadow. There was barely just enough light that she could see a symbol on the door. A waving sheet of paper, or perhaps a flag. Dash could vaguely recall having seen it before somewhere in the city, but didn't pay it any mind otherwise. The athletic pegasus tried to pull, then to push open the door, but to no avail. It appeared to be either locked, or simply stuck. A brief glance to her sides confirmed the lack of windows or other potential points of entry. Dash put her weight against the unyielding door with full force, her free wing flapping instinctively in an attempt to increase her thrust. “Open up, you stupid door...” Dash grunted in frustration. Rearing up on her hind legs, she slammed the full brunt of her body into the obstacle. It was at this exact moment the door gave way. Rainbow Dash stumbled forwards into a pitch-dark room at high speed, and subsequently crashed into some unseen part of the furniture, which then proceeded to fall over with an ear-piercing creak. It was followed by a cacophony of noise as the rest of the room's interior decided to follow its example, and everything fell into chaos. It took Dash a few seconds to recover. Coughing, she sat up, waving away the almost tangible clouds of dust, certain that at least half of which had settled into her lungs. The door had fallen shut right behind her, cutting off what little light the outside had to offer. She couldn't even see her own hooves in front of her. To top it off, her right hind leg had gotten stuck on something. For nearly a minute, the hapless pegasus flailed around in complete and total darkness before getting herself unstuck. Once free, Dash used the opportunity to rub a hoof across her face with a groan. Standing up on all fours, she winced, shaking an uncomfortable cramp from her legs, briefly turning to massage a particularly sore spot. Around her, the smell of paper filled the air. Several dozen wooden shelves lay toppled on the floor, and strewn about all over the ground lay a number of tattered objects that, at one point, had been books. All that remained now were the shredded husks of empty front- and back-hardcovers. The question as to what may have happened to the rest of their contents was answered, when she took a step forward, instantly rewarded with the “crunch” of dry scraps of paper being crushed to dust under-hoof. Trying to pick up the remains, they, too, crumbled right in her hooves. Rainbow Dash winced reflexively, reminded of her repeated crash-landings in “Golden Oak Library”. “Good thing Twilight isn't here,” she thought. She almost expected the unicorn-librarian to burst into the room horn blazing in fury to avenge the destruction of the library – Library. This was a library. Well, it had been one, anyway – now it was just one huge mess of wooden splinters and small papery bits lying all over the floor. Great. Daring Do had told her to be on the lookout for important stuff, and here she up and went wrecking an entire library that would no doubt have proven useful in their quest. Just great. Grumbling, the grounded pegasus tip-hoofed through the mess, careful to avoid sharp pieces of wood and shards of broken glass. She was about halfway through to the other side of the room, when, sticking out amidst the debris, a single, seemingly intact book caught her attention. Dash picked up the thick tome, intent on examining the faded cover-art for any indication of the book's contents. Said contents promptly fell to the floor as a papery cloud of scraps. Groaning, Dash dropped the remains and threw her hooves up in the air in defeat. Great. Those books were so fragile, everything had been utterly destroyed. Fantastic. What Dash wanted to do now would have been to vent, and swiftly stomp towards the stairs, further pulverization of already destroyed books be darned. And she certainly would have done so – had she not also been trying to avoid stepping on scattered shards of glass mostly hidden amongst the rubble. As it were, Rainbow Dash was instead forced to agitatedly tip-hoof toward the stairs instead. The stairs themselves were mercifully free of debris, and the door to the upstairs opened easily enough. Once unlocked, the library's upper floor was revealed as... only marginally less worse off than the lower one. Wooden shelves rose high on the walls, most either empty or filled with piles of dust that once had been scrolls. An oaken desk lay toppled on the floor with a broken leg. Light poured in through a massive hole in the wall, books and various detritus littered the floor. Much like the single tome amongst the rubble downstairs, the ancient texts literally fell apart at the seams in her hooves. “I guess the books downstairs would've been useless either way.” Oddly enough, the thought filled her with a sense of relief. Slowly, Dash made her way around sharp pieces of shattered wall, ruined books, a few artistic examples of post-shatter pottery, and various other odds and ends. At least, with light coming in through the hole in the side-wall, she didn't need to rely on her torch anymore. Rainbow Dash turned her head very, very slowly to look at the flickering orange light. Her eyes came to rest on a brightly burning torch, firmly grasped in her right foreleg. . . “GAAAAAH!” She didn't strictly speaking drop the torch – rather, she threw it on the ground, startled. Immediately afterwards, Dash was in a mad scramble to pick up the burning object, somehow still managing to avert the bone-dry parchments from catching fire and burning the entire library to the ground. Rainbow Dash glared venomously at the offending object that had so violently disrupted her sense of relative normalcy. Sadly, this proved to have little effect on the piece of charcoal wood, burning brightly in defiance of logic. Just where in the hay had this thing come from? She distinctly didn't remember bringing it with her. Rainbow Dash turned to look back towards the stairs to the lower level. Complete and utter darkness. No windows, and the front-door was still shut closed. How could she have seen anything downstairs, if not for the torch? Dash's muzzle scrunched in confusion. The last time she remembered even having the torch was way back when she'd just entered the central cave. She'd stood on the cliff overlooking the city, spotted Daring Do passed out, and jumped into a... lake. Filled with water. Water that should've extinguished the fire. Come to think of it – she had lit up the torch after she'd twisted her wing, back in the tunnels – and that had been yesterday. How was the torch even burning still!? The torch's very existence seemed to laugh in the face of common sense! It was just a burning lump of wood! It shouldn't be able to teleport right into her hoof, somehow at the exact moment that she both needed and wasn't thinking about it. It was just a piece of wood! Daring Do had just grabbed it off a wall somewhere, there was nothing special about it! “Just pretend it's 'Pinkie being Pinkie' and ignore it.” Dash told herself, taking several steadying breaths. But a simple wooden torch wasn't “being Pinkie Pie”. It couldn't, it was just a piece of wood, it could not do those things! It simply could not – Just accept it. Just accept it and move on. If you don't let go, it'll drive you insane. Dash continued her breathing exercises – had she picked those up from Twilight? – until she'd regained her cool. Once calm, Rainbow Dash's focus returned to the matter at hoof. Slowly, through piles of rubble, she made her way towards her goal – the balcony-door at the other end of the room. It really looked like none of the library's books had stood the test of time. Some of the covers themselves were still legible though, and Dash found herself trying to make sense of what she saw, picking up a few to get a closer look. Most of them seemed to be either technical, showing depictions of cogwheels and abstract diagrams, or about gemstones and crystals. As such, one of the books stood out, and Dash examined it closer. The cover showed a galloping pony-silhouette carrying a spear, with a few trees in the background. The sky was dominated by a comparatively simplistic sun, and some weird, misshapen blobs. It suddenly hit Dash that those blobs were supposed to be clouds. Clouds, as drawn by somepony who had never seen them. It sent a chill down her spine, and the pegasus' wings twitched involuntarily. She'd been stuck below ground for two days, she couldn't conceive of the idea that somepony would willingly spend their entire life underground. She opened the book. Of course, there was nothing inside. Nothing, but scraps. Dash stared at the book. This could've been anything. It could've been somepony's life-story. It could've been their history. Or... it could've been a work of fiction. Dash felt the sensation of the book's withered, wrinkled hardback-cover against her hooves, and her nostrils took in the smell of dry parchment. It was a small, fragile thing. Even as she held it, tiny bits flaked off of its back. To think that a book, not too much unlike the one she was holding in her very hooves right now contained the entire world around her… The mere thought was... was... Dash didn't know what it was – she had already exhausted her vocabulary for the absurd. A book containing an entire world, a world created from the written word. While most definitely completely bonkers, in a way, Rainbow Dash had to admit that the idea also sounded... somewhat poetic. It probably was symbolic, although Dash wasn't sure what for. But then again – what about all the other copies of the book that had been published alongside it? That kinda threw a wrench into the symbolism of a single book containing an entire world. Not to mention all the other books in the series. In the now 15 years of its run, the “Daring Do”-series had grown immensely popular. With thousands of copies sold for each book in the series, it had spawned several dozen localized and Equestria-wide fan-clubs. A few of those organized their own meetups – there were even rumors of an upcoming “Daring Do”- convention – and one of them also made their own quarter-yearly club-magazine with news, speculations on upcoming books and short fan-written stories. Naturally, Dash had subscribed as soon as Twilight had told her about the magazine. When Dash made it out of this story, she was gonna have one heck of a fan-story of her own to write. And this time, they'd totally print it, too! “Hah!” The rainbow-maned mare had to chuckle bemusedly at the stray thought. They just couldn't handle her awesomeness, that's why her stuff never showed up. And Twilight always kept insisting she should ditch the “self-insert”-character. Well, what do ya know – she really was part of the story, after all! It wasn't a “self-insert” if it was “official”, right? Though at this, Dash's brow furled in confusion. Hang on. When she had... “read” the story, at least at one point her own name had come up. What did that mean? From what she had gathered, what was happening now was actually the story from the most recent book in the series. The one Twilight had gotten an early copy of. The one Pinkie had then gone and snatched up before any of them could read it. The one she had dashed over to Sugar Cube Corner for to get it back... The one she was in right now. But if this was that same story – how could she be in the story? Okay, duh, she was here, and that was still a complete mystery. But the book had obviously been written before she had been transported here. An interesting question presented itself – what would she find when she got back to Ponyville, and actually read the book for real? How could the anonymous author of the Daring Do series have written a story that included her – before she even got here? Argh, none of this was making any sense! Wait – if there really was an... an author, writing about these very same events that were going on right now – including herself being here – then... did that mean that she... played a role in the story? Dash shook her head, deciding to abandon this train of thought before it reached its destination of giving her a headache. Suddenly, Dash felt herself violently jerked from her reveries, as nothing happened. Wait, what. That can't be right. Dash looked about in confusion, as several internal mental checks, inherent to every living creature and honed over the course of a lifetime, failed to provide the source for the sensory input that had reported the disturbance, or the nature thereof. What was that just now? Had she... heard something? Seen something? Her ears flicking about wildly, Dash turned her head this way and that, looking about the immediate area. Rainbow Dash's eyes wandered over the empty streets below, scanning for anything out of the ordinary, her ears swiveling from side to side trying to catch the unheard sound. Slowly, very slowly, a sensation trickled its way into her conscious thoughts – first a concept, then an inclination, then certainty. There was that feeling again – the feeling that she wasn't alone anymore. The last time she’d felt this way, back in the tunnels, she'd simply chalked it up to fatigue. She wasn’t fatigued now. There literally couldn't have been anypony back in that seemingly unending tunnel. And surely, there wasn't anypony other than herself and Daring down here now… Right? A minor itch caused Dash to raise her left foreleg to scratch – but she stopped halfway, as she noticed some of the papery bits still clinging to it. She easily scraped them off on the floor, but paused, glancing between the scraps of paper lying on the ground and one of the empty hardback-covers she had just checked. Unbidden, a thought came to mind, causing the cerulean pegasus to snort and roll her eyes. “No... that's crazy,” she muttered out loud. The cerulean pegasus threw a glance between the deteriorated books lying on the floor and the desolate streets below. Nopony was here. And yet... Her brow wrinkled, as she gazed back up to the empty streets outside. She had an idea. It was a crazy thought. The mere notion was laughably insane. But... it kinda made a weird sort of sense, all things considered. She was inside a book. Somepony was watching her. Somepony was reading the story. For a few seconds more, Dash simply stood at the edge of the building, at the large hole in the wall, and stared dead-ahead with eyes glazed over. This... this was so... crazy! And yet... it simply made too much sense. “Hello?” Dash asked hesitantly, addressing the empty streets. “Hey, you! Whoever you are!” she shouted. “Help me! It's me, Rainbow Dash! I'm trapped in this story!” The cave remained silent. No response. “Go get Twilight Sparkle, she'll know how to fix this!” Silence. “Argh! This isn't a joke!” Dash urged. “It's really me, I got sucked into this book, somehow!” More silence. ...Was she just making a foal of herself?! “Come on!” Dash threw her forelegs up in frustration. “Say something!” Nothing. Just the rustle of papers strewn about on the floor behind her. Rainbow Dash blinked. Then she face-hoofed. “Yeah...” She snorted in irritation. “How should somepony even respond to a character in a book anyway.” Of course, as per usual for comical timing, it was right then that the pegasus displaced from reality was knocked out cold by her supposed “audience”. The diamond dog hefted the unconscious pegasus over his back, chuckling to himself. “Ahuitzotl-boss will be pleased...“ . End of chapter 11. . . . . . . . . . . . Author's Note ...I planned this scene, while I was writing chapter 5 in 2013. Early 2013. Heh. Hehe. Hahaha. MUHUHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAH, lol. By the way, I finally consider the story cleaned up enough that it holds up to even my own perfectionistic standards, and finally got around to submitting this story to Equestria Daily. SPECIAL THANKS TO MY PROOF-READERS, TEST-AUDIENCE, AND EDITORS: EDITORS – Smiling Armor and Mitsubishi Colt TEST AUDIENCE – tsaukpaetra PROOF-READING for chapter 1 and 2 revision – Litho and DCLeadboot PROOF-READING & EDITING ADVICE for chapter 2 and 3 revision – Meta Four and Litho And a very special thanks goes out to Smiling Armor, who stayed with me as an editor for like 1.5 years or so on chapter 10 and 11 alone. Yikes! That's some dedication! ...And resilience to tedious mind-numbing tasks. And I know already you're gonna say "nah, it was nothing ; I didn't do enough ; ", but you did and you helped a lot. Thanks, if it wasn't for you (and also all those other people of course, eheheh), I'd still be stuck here. Speaking of which, Smiling Armor is seeking help with translating two comics from Russian and Ukrainian, respectively, into English. Not a native English speaker himself, he wants to make sure to get the phrasing right. Anypony up for that, contact him at his userpage.
Chapter 1 - Welcome to the jungle DARING DO AND THE SECRET OF THE FOURTH WALL This story is also available as a "synthesized" audio book. MP3-downloads are available on chapter-release. [click here] - Chapter 1, no background music [click here] - Chapter 1, with ambient music loop [overview of all chapters] DISCLAIMER: This story was conceived long before the episodes "Daring Don't" and "Power Ponies". For the sake of this story, Daring Do remains a fictional character. Also, there is no such thing as a store selling "enchanted" comic-books. Chronologically, this story takes place in the middle of season 3. Rainbow Dash groaned, rubbing the back of her head. What exactly had just happened? Her whole skull was throbbing something fierce, as if she'd crashed headfirst into a brick-wall at rainboom-speeds. The last thing she could remember was flying into Sugar Cube Corner to get the new book back from Pinkie Pie. Then there had been a shout – something about a cake, maybe – but anything after that was a blank. Since when was Pinkie into Daring Do's adventures, anyway? With a grunt, Dash brought a hoof to her left ear. The headache was bad enough, and the ringing in her ears made it hard to understand what the other pony was saying. She opened her eyes, only to shut them again immediately. Why were there paper and squiggly lines everywhere? “Hello? Are you alright?” The voice sounded familiar, though she couldn't quite place it. “Yeah, uh, I think I hit my head on something,” Dash replied intelligently. She sat up, steadying herself on muddy ground. “Wait, what's this dirt doing on the floor of Sugar Cube Corner?” Dash blearily opened her eyes. Her sight still blurry, she could just barely make out the colorful shape of a pony in front of her, but the dancing squiggly lines were gone. “Sugar cube – what?” the pony in front of her asked. All she could recognize for the time being was an outstretched gold-yellow hoof. “Pinkie Pie's hooves aren't yellow,” was the first thought her thoroughly rattled brain cobbled together, swiftly succeeded by the realization of “that's not Mister Cake”. Only then, the actual words the pony had said registered. “What do you mean, 'Sugar Cube what'?” Finally, her sight cleared. The other mare was indeed of a golden hue, and a pair of wings sticking out the sides of a leaf-green jacket identified her as a pegasus. Seemingly out of place in the moderate climate of Central Equestria, she wore a tropical helmet. The other pony's most distinct feature however, were her mane and tail – five different shades of gray, and a streak of dark black. Dash recognized her immediately. “DARING DO!?” she blurted out. Dash just gaped. What she saw was impossible. She had read every book from start to finish dozens of times, including the editorials and back-covers to get a glimpse on future installments of the series. Not only that, but she was also a proud subscriber of the “Daring Daily”, going so far as to borrow Twilight's old copies for reading material in-between book-releases. She had practically devoured the fifteen-page article “Daring to Do the impossible”, describing how the anonymous author had come to write “Daring Do” in the first place. Anything there was to know about the series, she knew it. First and foremost, the most important fact: Daring Do wasn't real! And yet here she was – her favorite fictional character, the protagonist of sixteen adventures and counting, in the flesh and very real indeed. . . . . . . . . The cerulean pegasus was now just staring at her as if she had seen a ghost. Granted, Daring Do was a bit spooked herself. The similarities in appearance were eery! The twisted rainbow-reflection of her own mane taken aside, they shared the same athletic body-type, even the same facial structure. Stars above, for all she knew, this could be her long-lost twin-sister! The pony seemingly had appeared out of thin air – a few meters to the left, and the mare would've dropped straight on her head. She'd not even seen her coming! This couldn't have been a coincidence. Her first suspicions were confirmed when the pony stopped talking nonsense about “sugar cubes” and revealed that she knew the adventurer's name. Eyes narrowed, she pointed an accusing hoof at the mare. “Okay, now I'd really like to know. Who in Celestia's name are you?” For a few moments longer, the other pegasus gaped at her, jaw hanging open in a comical expression. When she snapped out of it, her next words made even less sense. “This isn't possible! How can you be Daring Do!? You don't exist! And I should know! I'm your biggest fan!” Daring was taken aback by the distraught mare's nonsensical ramblings. Her eyes seemed to flash through a spectrum of emotions even more colorful than her rainbow-mane, all in the blink of an eye. There was disbelief, excitement, confusion, adoration, amazement, disorientation, fear. Sure, she knew her reputation had become somewhat of a “legend” among certain circles, but statements like “you don't exist” and “I'm your biggest fan” generally excluded each other. Well, didn't seem likely she worked for Ahuizotl, at any rate. Seeing the pony smack a hoof across her own face, Daring Do shook her head. Walking over to the mare, Daring placed a hoof on her right shoulder. The pegasus looked up, while still mumbling something that vaguely sounded like ”I don't feel asleep” and “this can't be real”. “Look, I don't know what you've heard about me, but let me assure you, reports of me being a 'legend' have been greatly exaggerated.” She put a hoof to her chin, pondering for a bit. “Or just not been recorded very accurately.” “I've read all your books!” The mare shot back her response. “My... books?” Daring Do raised an eyebrow. Sure, she had published quite a number of articles for archaeologist magazines – but a whole book? Not so much. Adventuring was a full-time job, writing a book would only get in the way of that. Was the mare referring to her articles? But if so, how could she have doubts about her existence? “Yeah, totally! 'Daring Do and the Quest for the Sapphire Stone' and 'Daring Do and the Griffon's Goblet' were my first ones.” The pegasus' mood suddenly shifted completely, as she practically squealed: “That was sooo awesome!” Now it was Daring's turn to gape in shocked disbelief. Within a split-second, Daring Do was up in the other pony's face, glaring her right in the eye. “How do you know of the Goblet? Who told you? Who else knows?” The pegasus sunk back on her hindquarters, blinking a couple of times. It was only now she seemed to realize she had said something wrong. “Uh... I read your books?” she hesitantly repeated her previous statement, giving an awkward smile and shuffling her hooves on the ground uncomfortably. “Fine, whatever.” Daring gave an audible sigh. She wasn't gonna get any reasonable response from this oddball, at least not right away. She resigned not to press the issue further and to keep an eye on her for the time being. “So, just who are you anyway?” At this, the rainbow-maned pegasus visibly brightened as she leapt a few feet in the air, flying a quick loop before striking a pose. “I'm Rainbow Dash.” She grinned, then leaned back casually against empty air. “Only, you know, the fastest young flyer in Equestria.” Daring Do cocked an eyebrow. “Okay, Rainbow Dash – and what are you doing here, so far from home?” Dash dropped her confident pose. “What.” Then she looked around, taking in her surroundings, as if only just noticing them for the first time, before stating the obvious with not a single trace of sarcasm. “We're in a jungle.” This time, both of Daring's eyebrows shot up. She had been following a trail deep into the heart of the Mareican jungle for weeks now. There was no civilization to be found for miles. There was no way this pony could just have crash-landed in the middle of the jungle without ever glancing down at it during flight. Turning back was definitely not an option. She was just about to make a breakthrough, she could feel it! Even by flight, getting this “Rainbow Dash” someplace safe wasn't gonna happen until she got her hooves on the artifact. Daring Do gave a reluctant sigh. If anything, the company of this pony was going to be... interesting. . . . . . . . . Dash silently cursed to herself. The entire absurdity of the situation totally had made her lose her cool. And in front of Daring Do, of all ponies! Okay, it still made no sense she was even having a conversation with her in the first place, but if she got to introduce herself to her favorite fictional character, she darn-well wanted to make a good first impression! Obviously, she had failed spectacularly. Regardless, the adventurer had let her come along, on grounds of “I don't have time to get you back to wherever you came from”. It was absolutely embarrassing, and Dash had to grit her teeth just thinking about it. Following Daring Do's lead through the thick underbrush, she took a closer look at her surroundings. In the past, she and her friends had ventured into the dangerous grounds of the Everfree Forest near Ponyville a number of times. As such, she had at least some experience with the wild. Still, this was different. Huge leaves brushing against her sides, she was trotting on uneven ground, roots stretching all over the soil like veins. Unfamiliar animal noises could be heard in the distance, exotic birds calling out nearby. She found herself surrounded by massive trees that easily dwarfed Ponyville's Golden Oak Library, and some enormous plants which surprisingly enough resembled giant mushrooms. The treetops blocked out the sky almost completely. Slivers of sunlight shined through the thicket of leaves, bathing everything in an eery green-brown-ish aura. This made the whole scene even more surreal than it already was. It certainly didn't help her settle in with her new surroundings that the air was dripping with heat, staining her coat with sweat. Or perhaps that was due to the increased humidity. Probably both. Once again, her thoughts ran wild. How did she get here? How could this be possible? Where had Daring Do come from? How could she be real? Was this really happening? A nasty thought struck Rainbow Dash. She faltered, nearly stumbling over another tree-root, barely catching herself in time. Perhaps she really had hit her head on something. Hit it hard. Really hard. Perhaps she was imagining the whole thing, and back in reality, her body lay unconscious in Ponyville Hospital with her friends worrying their own little heads off for her well-being. Dash shuddered – it was a frightening thought. If she was actually in a really really deep sleep and couldn't tell fantasy from reality, then how could she be sure she would ever – “Ouch!” Her left front-hoof instantly snapped to the back of her neck, where the stinging sensation had come from. As she pulled it back, she saw a red-brown mush and the sorry remains of a squashed insect. “Okay, now I'm imagining myself getting shaken out of my thoughts about imagining the whole thing by an imaginary mosquito,” Dash mumbled to herself. Admittedly, that seemed off. If this was a dream, it was certainly the darn-most realistic one she'd ever had in her life. Her train of thought was interrupted yet again when Daring Do turned to address her. “Alright, this is where we'll stay for the night.” Nightfall came quick in the jungle. Dash couldn't tell for certain how long she had been out cold, but she was pretty sure that it hadn't been an entire day. Her internal clock thrown off and her mind still ablaze with questions, sleep would not come easy. Alright. She had accepted that this was for real. Daring Do was fast asleep right next to her in the cave. So, Daring Do was real. Wow... That was quite something to wrap your head around! Next issue – she was in a jungle. According to Daring Do, she wasn't even in Equestria anymore. Mareican jungle – never heard of that. Couldn't recall seeing it on any maps either. The name sounded familiar, though. How she had gotten here? No clue. How to get back? Equally clueless. Lots and lots of flying until she got back to Ponyville. Or at least some of the outer settlements in Equestria, then hitch a train-ride back home. She'd have to ask Daring Do for a map or something tomorrow. Idly, she rubbed her neck with a hoof. Hold on – why was she thinking about going home? This was an opportunity! Daring Do had offered her to come along – admittedly not on the best terms imaginable – but it wasn't like she'd ditch the once-in-a-lifetime-chance to team-up with the mare of adventure herself! But her grin slid right off her face once more as her thoughts drifted back to her friends. They must have been worried sick, with no clue of where she had suddenly disappeared to. Dash sighed. She'd at the very least have to send them a message, somehow. Then, in good conscience, she could go on her adventure with Daring Do and find her way back to Ponyville afterwards. As soothing moonshine pierced its way into the cave, Dash realized how late it had gotten. Involuntarily, she yawned, as she looked up at the lunar orb above. And then her entire world came crashing down. The Mare in the Moon was back. . . . . . . Author's Note Thanks to Litho and DCLeadboot for help with editing. Chapter 1 revision performed: December 2015. Only major difference narrative-wise being the reveal in the last line happening early.
Chapter 6 - The end of the tunnel This chapter is available as a "synthesized" audio book: [click here] - with human narrator! [click here] - no background music [click here] - with ambient music loop [overview of all chapters] Dash gaped down at the sight below. Whatever she had expected to find at the end of the tunnel, if even anything at all, this had not been it. Before her lay an enormous cavern, with rows upon rows of buildings of various sizes and shapes scattered everywhere on ground-level, framed by a network of dirt-roads and alley-ways. She had emerged at the peak of a high formation of rocks, reaching up halfway to the enormous cavern's ceiling, where the river she had been following rushed down across the smoothed stone like a waterfall. Even from this vintage-point, it was hard to tell how large the place actually was, and Dash was unsure whether to classify it as a “town” or a “city”. Though for the most part, this was due to the settlement's unorthodox layout. Having been built into the cave's expanse, the settlement had to adhere to its natural shape. While it seemed that a lazy fifteen-minute trot would be more than enough time to cross the gap between the cavern's left and right walls respectively, from Dash's viewpoint the “town” / “city” stretched far on into the distance, the city-limit obscured by the cave's curvature. Light poured down from a number of magic crystals in the ceiling above, bathing the mixture of wooden and stone architecture in a ghostly pale, violet light. There was no discernible pattern, crystalline clusters of different sizes and density were strewn all about overhead, as well as on some parts of the encompassing cave-walls. There were also a few dim light sources on ground-level, though one of them in particular caught Rainbow Dash's attention. Positioned at the edge of the cavern, it was significantly brighter than the rest, illuminating a splotch of yellow that stood out in the otherwise dull gray-ish white and brown environment. Could it be a pony? ...Could it be Daring Do? “Hey, Daring Do!” Dash shouted, waving her torch over her head with her left foreleg. The yellow blob that may or may not have been Daring Do did not react to this. “Hey! Daring! Up here!” she yelled with increased volume, yet with the same result – none. Taking a deep, deep breath, Dash hollered an exclamation of “Over here!” at the top of her lungs. No reaction. Dash frowned. Wasn't she loud enough? She would've figured she'd been loud enough to hear, but alas, it seemed she would have to get closer to get Daring's attention. Well, it wasn't too far, and she'd be there in less than a minute... Okay, no need to rush while exhausted – a couple minutes on hoof, then. Except... she was a few hundred meters up, and she couldn't fly down. For the umpteenth time, the disgruntled pegasus cursed her right wing's injury, and the forces of fate that undoubtably had been conspiring against her. Peaking over the edge, Dash's gaze was drawn to the river splashing down over the smoothed rock-formation that very roughly – if interpreted generously – resembled a water-staircase. It only led down two thirds of the way, from there on, she'd have to jump into the basin of water below. With an annoyed grunt, Dash began making her way down. One awkward, slippery and on several occasion nearly fatal climb down the cliffside later, as well as a soaking wet coat and mane, Rainbow Dash had reached ground-level. At least she wasn't cold, the lake she had landed in had been surprisingly warm – especially compared to the low temperature of the river flowing into it. Weird. There must have been something at the bottom of the lake heating it up. Making her way through the streets in the direction of the bright light source, Dash passed by buildings in varying states of decay. Some of them had collapsed entirely, while others in turn seemingly had remained perfectly intact. The materials used in their construction were just as varied. Some of them were built from wood, others from brick, others again appeared to have been built from solid walls of rock leaning against each other – or a blend of each of the designs. After a ten-minute trot, Dash had reached the outer wall. Off to her right, she saw a large set of double-doors, probably the main city-entrance. And to her left, illuminated by the light of an oil-lamp, she saw a number of rooms that appeared to have been carved directly into the cave's stone itself. And on the ground in front of them lay ...Oh no. Dash tensed at seeing Daring Do's limp form lying on the ground, legs sprawled into every direction. Rushing to her side immediately, she was relieved to realize the other mare was merely unconscious, albeit badly bruised, small cuts showing all over her body and one of her wings bandaged. But she was breathing strong, steady breaths. That meant she was okay, right? “I could use some advice from Fluttershy right now,” Dash murmured worriedly, examining Daring's wounds more closely. She couldn't see anything serious other than the injured wing, and Dash didn't want to disturb the bandages. After all, those seemed to have been done somewhat professionally, and she didn't want to risk making things worse. Well, at the very least, she couldn't let Daring Do keep lying on the cold stone-floor. But where else to go? Looking around for a more suitable location, Dash quickly realized that she, in fact, had a fairly large selection to choose from. There were houses everywhere. Carrying Daring Do on her back, it didn't take her long to reach a nearby stone-building. It was two stories high, and looked stable enough. In there, with any luck – her own fatigue once again reasserting itself after the momentary rush of adrenaline had faded – they'd find a resting place. . . . . . . . . Author's Note A special thanks to MeglifKaddy and Frobman for last-minute help with editing! :-) Please tell me what you think of this chapter's human-narrated version of the audio-book. It was kind of an experiment.
