To the average pony it was just another cave – but the legendary archaeologist Daring Do was not an average pony. She had traveled nearly a thousand miles to reach that particular grotto, and it had been the most difficult journey of her life. First she had spent two weeks crossing the sea in a battered freighter (which meant spending two weeks being terribly seasick). She then spent a week flying across a nearly-impassable mountain range, and then two more weeks trekking through steaming jungles. Then – as if that had not been enough fun – she spent three days hiking across a sweltering desert of danger and death.
The worst part of it all had been the snakes. The jungle had been infested with snakes, and the desert that followed had even more snakes. Even the freighter had been carrying snakes. Despite her protests, it apparently was legal to have a cargo that consisted of great big piles of snakes, and her ticket did not give her the right to throw them overboard. (She was definitely going to mention that in her scathing review. They would feel the wrath of her mighty pen!)
Things had been so bad that she almost wished she had farmed this quest out to Rainbow Dash and just stayed home. Almost. But she knew it would be worth it in the end, when she finally got her hooves on the fabled Chest of Zubiaga and put one over on the insufferable Ahuizotl. For too long her nemesis had haunted her steps and beaten her to the punch. For too long he had been a thorn in her side. For too long he had stolen treasures moments after she recovered them, forcing her to go on difficult (and best-selling!) adventures to recover them.
Well, not this time! This time she was confident that she was going to win. After all, she was the one who had discovered that old zebra legend while having a quiet cup of tea at Zecora’s. She was the one who had spent six terrible days living with zebras, until she finally found the truth behind the myth. (Daring would never admit it to anyone, but her brief time with zebras had been deeply traumatizing. She fervently hoped that she would never hear another rhyme for the rest of her life.) However, all of that pain was put behind her when discovered the location of the long-lost chest.
In the past, Daring had made the terrible mistake of writing her information down – which gave Ahuizotl’s seemingly endless supply of henchmen a chance to steal it. But not this time! This time Daring had taken the extraordinary precaution of memorizing everything. Nothing was written down – which meant there was nothing for anyone to steal. There was simply no way Ahuizotl could have followed her to this incredibly remote location.
But Daring had taken one additional precaution – one she wished she had taken much, much earlier in her career. She had arranged for Ahuizotl to be arrested for crimes against ponykind. It had proven surprisingly easy to convince Celestia to lock up an insane villain who was intent on stealing treasures and spreading doom across the land. After the Princess of the Sun learned about his latest scheme to take over the kingdom with an army of giant ants, Celestia promptly seized Ahuizotl and locked him up in a Canterlot prison. Now that’s going to put a bit of a crimp in your travel plans, Daring Do thought with great satisfaction.
Ahuizotl wasn’t going anywhere, which meant that this time it was just her and the chest. The best part – the very best part – was that the chest was right there, just a few feet away. All she had to do was reach out and take it.
Daring Do circled the chest carefully. The relic had been hidden in a shallow cave, which was located about five hundred feet above the ground on the side of a jagged cliff. If she hadn’t been a pegasus she would have had no chance of ever reaching it; the cliff was far too steep to climb, and rappelling down from the top would have been suicide (especially for ponies, who were extremely bad at that sort of thing). It was no wonder the zebras had never recovered the chest. Only a flyer could have reached it.
Of course, Ahuizotl could have reached it. After all, he seemed to have the ability to do anything. But this time he was hundreds of miles away, locked up behind bars. This was one treasure he was not going to steal.
The Chest of Zubiaga was resting on a short, stocky stone pedestal in the center of the cave. Oddly enough, the chest was a perfect cube that measured about 5 inches on each side. From this distance it looked like the chest was made of some kind of shiny black stone. It was so polished that Daring could even see her reflection in it.
As she studied her reflection she realized that she looked terrible. She hadn’t bathed in days and her mane was a mess. She was cached in mud and sweat, and she had a feeling that the flies which were buzzing around her head weren’t there to admire her beauty. (She made a mental note not to mention her appearance when she wrote the novelization of this particular adventure. After all, if her readers were convinced that she never had a single hair out of place, even when in hoof-to-hoof combat with the undead, who was she to tell them otherwise?)
But back to the matter at hand. The Chest of Zubiaga was within reach, but she knew better than to just grab it. The great treasures she had found in the past – such as the Sapphire Stone, the Eternal Flower, and the Half-Gilded Horseshoe – had all been guarded by crazy ponies, or crazy traps, or crazy ponies and crazy traps. During her long career she had encountered floors made of lava, hallways that fired poison arrows, giant boulders that tried to crush her, and even pits of quicksand. (There were also pits of snakes, and sometimes pits of quicksand that had snakes mixed in, but those were too horrifying to talk about.)
Daring Do always wondered how those traps managed to stay in such good condition for thousands of years. Did somepony come by and maintain them at regular intervals? Did some poor mare have the job of refilling the lava pool and resetting the arrow traps when they were triggered? What a pain that must be! Who paid for the upkeep of those places, anyway? Did someone have to test the traps to make sure that they still worked?
But she was drifting again. All those days without sleep were starting to catch up with her – to say nothing of being bitten by snakes. Or had she been bitten by monkeys? It was all kind of running together. Anyway, she couldn’t see any traps, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there. After all, precious relics were always guarded by traps. The best traps were the ones that couldn’t be seen until it was too late. Barging in wildly was a good way to get killed – and if she was dead she wouldn’t be able to write the other three books in her publishing contract. She’d better be careful.
Daring Do crouched down and eyed the floor carefully. She noticed that it was covered in a thin layer of undisturbed dust. No signs of any tripwires or trigger stones, she thought to herself. The cave walls have no holes for shooting arrows, and the ground appears pretty solid. So what am I missing?
Acting on a hunch, she grabbed a stone off the ground and tossed it into the area between her and the chest. Nothing happened. She waited, then tossed another stone. Still nothing.
She stopped to think. Since she had wings, she could just fly over to the pedestal – but the last time she tried that things hadn’t gone so well, and she ended up spending six weeks in the hospital recovering. Let’s not repeat the pineapple incident. Just play it safe – take one step at a time.
Cautiously, and very slowly, Daring Do stepped toward the pedestal. She placed one hoof on the ground – and was startled by a loud shriek!
Daring Do instantly jumped back and whirled around, ready for action. That’s when she saw it: she had been startled by a crow. A large, black bird was sitting at the mouth of the cave, looking at her. As Daring stared at it the bird turned its head away and began preening itself.
Stupid bird! No, hold on – better play it safe. Could this be the trap I’ve been looking for? Is that bird about to attack? Is it some sort of fiendish poisoned crow? Wait – do they even make poisoned crows? Is that some new thing I haven’t heard about yet?
The bird finished preening itself. It glanced back at Daring Do, then hopped to one side, then began turning around in circles.
Nope. It’s just a stupid bird. Daring turned her attention back to the chest and carefully stepped toward it. She tensed, ready for action, but nothing happened. The bird cawed again, but this time she ignored it.
After a few minutes of very careful steps, Daring finally reached the chest. She was now satisfied that the chest was actually, genuinely, definitely unguarded. As she stared at it she suddenly realized that the story of how she recovered this relic wasn’t going to make a very exciting novel. How in Equestria am I going to sell this adventure to my publisher? ‘Daring Do and the Box That Wasn’t Guarded.’ Even Princess Sparkle wouldn’t read that, and she reads the dictionary. Maybe it was actually a mistake to have Ahuizotl arrested. At least he would have provided some exciting plot potential.
With a deep sigh and a little bit of disappointment, Daring Do reached over and grabbed the chest. It refused to budge.
She looked at it in surprise. Interesting. So the chest isn’t just sitting on that pedestal – it’s actually attached to it. Is this some kind of a test, maybe? Do I need to unlock it somehow?
Daring carefully studied the pedestal. It was a simple granite column, devoid of any writing or carvings. She expertly ran her hooves over it, but felt nothing. There were no hidden buttons.
She tried pushing on the column, but nothing happened. She pulled on the column. She threw a rock at it. She used a carefully placed mirror to shine a beam of sunlight directly onto it. None of her efforts made any difference; the pillar refused to move, and the chest refuse to become unstuck.
During all of her efforts the crow kept cawing at her over and over. Daring had the distinct feeling that the bird was laughing at her – that it thought she was some kind of moron for even being in that cave. She resisted the urge to buck it into next week.
After an hour’s fruitless effort she decided that it was time to change tactics. After all, the chest itself wasn’t really that important. It would have been nice to bring the chest home – especially since it was small enough to carry – but what really mattered was the treasure hidden inside the chest. She didn’t know what that treasure was, exactly, but the zebras had passed along a lot of baseless rumors that were pretty encouraging. Some said that the chest contained an artifact of great power (a battery, perhaps?). Others said it had a pair of old loafers once worn by Starswirl the Bearded. The most exciting possibility was an ancient book of Zebra wisdom, written before they lost their minds and decided to only speak in rhyme. In any case, it was almost certainly one of the 22 Enchanted Artifacts of the Ancients that she needed to locate in order to join the Magical Counsel of the Ancients.
Whatever it was, someone had gone through a lot of trouble to put it here, and Daring Do was determined to have it.
She reached over and tried to open the chest’s lid, but nothing happened. She applied more force, but it didn’t make any difference; the lid refused to budge. She carefully scrutinized the box and looked for a keyhole, but she didn’t find one. The box had no carvings or written messages. It was simply there.
Now this is ridiculous. Here I am, inches away from what may be the greatest treasure I’ve ever found, and I’m confounded by a stupid box. How am I ever going to explain this to my fans? ‘Yeah, I had the chest right in my hooves, but I couldn’t figure out how to open it. So I left it there and returned home.’ I’d be the laughingstock of Equestria!
Daring Do stared at the chest thoughtfully. Some treasures required special keys – but not this one. Others were protected by riddles, or mazes, or intricate puzzles, or snakes. But this one was guarded by none of those things. It was a box with no locks. How in Equestria did one open a box that had no locks?
The legendary archaeologist turned around and looked at the black bird that was cawing at her. “You know the secret, don’t you?” she said aloud. “In fact, I bet you’ve come here to guide me to the answer! You must be some sort of magical guide-bird. So, what’s the answer? What am I missing?”
The bird cawed at her and flew away.
Nuts, she thought bitterly. So much for that idea.
(Later – much later – she would realize that the bird had the right idea all along. If only she had followed that bird’s sage example! But she had overlooked the obvious.)
Daring stared at the chest once again. Since it was firmly fastened to the pillar (which wasn’t going anywhere), she couldn’t just take the chest back to her house and investigate it there. She also hadn’t brought any magical potions that might make it come unstuck – and the nearest supply outpost was several hundred miles away. Since she wasn’t a unicorn, she couldn’t perform any magical spells. There wasn’t even a way for her to send a letter to Celestia to ask for help – and besides, Daring Do worked alone. She had battled sharks with her bare hooves! She could handle a locked chest.
Come on, she said to herself, as she stared at the stubborn box. There has to be an answer, and I’m not leaving until I find it. This is my one chance to beat Ahuizotl! If I leave that blasted box behind it’s not going to be there when I return. I can count on that.
As she stared at it, an idea formed in her head. It was true that she couldn’t unlock the chest. But if she were to take the hammer out of her saddlebag and smash it open–
No, that was unthinkable. This was the legendary chest of Zubiaga! This was the only surviving artifact from a long-lost zebra civilization that had disappeared thousands of years ago. Smashing the chest would be a horrifying act of savagery. It would be a crime against archaeology! Even Ahuizotl himself wasn’t crazy enough to destroy historical artifacts. No, smashing it was not an option. There had to be a way to open it.
But how?
Author's Note
[Now that I've actually read the three available official Daring Do books, I edited the story slightly to refer to refer to the treasures from those stories - and the reward Daring will get when she finds all 22.]
If Only She Had Listened To The Bird
For two days an increasingly desperate Daring Do stayed in that cave and struggled to open the chest. She talked to it. She sang to it. She cursed it. She danced around it. She performed every ancient ritual she could remember. She even recited poetry at it (after all, it was a zebra box, right?). She hit it with her hooves until she was too tired to move. She pushed it and pulled it and shrieked at it. She would even have thrown that blasted bird at it, but it was long gone.
Something about that bird nagged at her. She had an uneasy feeling that its disappearance was a clue of some kind. When she asked the bird what to do, it got up and left. But – what did it mean? Was the bird telling her to quit? Was that the answer? But that made no sense! Daring Do was not a quitter. She never, ever gave up, no matter what.
Yet – she hated to admit it, but she was stumped. She was tired and thirsty and just plain mad. How was it possible that a stupid box had beaten her? After all the adventures she had been through in her career – after all the dangers she had faced – this was what defeated her? She had once crushed an entire army of flying monkeys, for crying out loud! Had she lost her touch? Was it time for her to retire? Was this the end of Daring Do?
No, she decided firmly. I am not going to be beaten! I have braved the Valley of the Sun and have walked through the Pits of Death. I will not be foiled by a stupid zebra box!
Daring Do picked up her hammer. True, it would be a crime to destroy the chest. But the pedestal it was stuck to was a different matter. All she had to do was smash that pedestal to bits, and the chest would be free. Once it was beaten into dust she could pick up the chest and bring it home with her. It might take a little research to figure out how to open it, but at home – armed with a good set of tools – she was sure she could pry that cursed thing open.
Tired, weary, and unbowed, she removed the hammer from her bag. With a slightly-crazy glint in her eye she aimed the hammer at the pedestal and swung with all her might. The hammer struck the granite and shattered the pillar into pieces. Shards of rock went everywhere – and the chest fell onto the floor and opened.
Daring stared at it in amazement. The chest was open. After days of effort, the chest was open! True, it wasn’t a perfect victory. The only reason it had opened was because when it fell on the floor it had broken into two pieces. Still, the damage wasn’t that bad, and she was confident it could be repaired. The main thing was that the chest was finally open. The lost treasure of Zubiaga was hers at last!
She carefully picked up the broken chest with her hooves. Inside was a piece of folded parchment paper – and nothing else. Puzzled, Daring gingerly unfolded it and read it.
To my favorite nemesis,
It gives me great pleasure to imagine you reading this. I have no doubt that you went through a great deal of trouble to find this worthless chest, because it took me a great deal of trouble to put it there. It required weeks of work to bring it all together, of course – I had to find a cave in a ridiculously remote location, build the pillar, design the box, and glue it shut (after adding this note). But what can I say? The thrill of the chase makes it all worthwhile. I really don’t know what I would do without you, Daring Do. Thwarting you brings so much joy to my life.
This plan came to me when I heard an old zebra legend about a lost treasure. The legend was absolute garbage, of course, but I knew that you would take it seriously. You simply never quit, no matter how ridiculous the quest. So I hatched this plot to gain my revenge.
I know that I am about to be arrested, and that is a great pity. However, I promise you that the jails of Canterlot are Heaven compared to what you must have been through these past few weeks. I will be in relative comfort and have three square meals a day. As for you – well, by now you’ve probably forgotten what food even tastes like. I bet you look hideous and smell even worse.
Congratulations on winning a no-prize! I hope to find this letter framed and hanging over your mantelpiece the next time I break into your lovely home.
Sincerely yours,
Ahuizotl
