Treasure hunters of Equestria

Chapter 5 - Mission from Celestia

(From Dart's point of view)

   "Wake up, lazy." Said Daring, her face only 2 inches away from my own. The difference though, is that she was out of bed and dressed already. I am not a morning person. I was used to sleeping through the morning, getting up in the late afternoon, heading to the library, and starting my adventure late at night.

"I don't do mornings." I groaned, then pulled the pillow over my head in an attempt to tune her out.

"C'mon, we're going to find an adventure today." I looked at her like she was crazy. (Which she was.)

"That's what the afternoon is for!" I proceeded to tell her my usual schedule, but she shook her head.

"When do you eat? When do you get your chores done?" I had to think about this for a second.

"I eat when I get back I guess, and I do the chores on my break days."

"And when are your break days?"

"Sundays."

"Is that it?"

"Yes."

"You need to get organized." This was offensive! I've always considered myself very organized! I pulled the pillow off of my head to argue, but her smile took me by surprise. "C'mon Dart, it's for your own health." I guessed she was right, and I got out of bed.

"All right, Daring, where to first?"

"I thought you'd never ask. Breakfast!"  It had been a very long time since I had bothered to eat breakfast, and I WAS sort of hungry.

"Alright. What do you have in mind?"

"There's a pastry shop called sugar cube corner by the center of town. Sound good?" I nodded vigorously. Pastries always sound good.

(From Daring Do's point of view)

  After we had filled up on cupcakes, Dart and I decided to go by the library and search for some leads on a treasure hunt. Equestria has a lot of ancient temples and the like from many different civilizations and events, so we figured it wouldn't take long. The main thing I noticed about the library is that it was in a tree. I'm no expert but I was pretty sure trees don't work like that. As I was searching through a book titled 'Lost temples and Shrines in the Everfree forest' one of the entries caught my eye.

"Ooh! An ancient sword went missing and is rumored to be in a hidden temple in froggy bottom bog! That sounds like fun." Dart shook his head.

"I found that one last year. The sword was a bit rusty though, so I couldn't sell it. It's in my attic." I was disappointed, but I tried not to show it. I went to a nearby shelf and grabbed a book titled 'Unexplored dangers'. I opened to a random page, and began to read. It was something about a temple that had appeared over-night, then vanished. Supposedly it appears during lunar eclipses, but there wouldn't be any for a while so I kept flipping. When I looked over, Dart had already gone through 2 books. I kept searching. After about 10 minutes, It was Dart who finally found something of interest.

"A mysterious golden shrine to Celestia in the middle of the desert! Sound like fun?" His face was lit up, there's no way I could say no.

"Sounds great! Let's do it!" Dart checked out the book from the librarian, then we stepped outside. "All right." Said Dart. "We're going to have to get a map from the Canterlot archives, and see what information we can gather about the desert." This seemed like a lot of work to me.

"Can't we just fly there and ask the locals? That's how I usually find things." Dart gave me a strange look.

"There are no locals. It's in the middle of a desert." Oops.

"Oh. Right."

"Here, I have an idea. I'll go do the research really quick, and you go to my house and retrieve the sun talisman from my attic, I think it has something to do with this temple." It must have been written all over my face how relieved I was to be done with the books, because Dart smiled.

"Sun talisman?" I asked. Dart retrieved a pen and a piece of paper from his saddlebag.  He drew a quick sketch of a necklace with a sun-shaped pendant attached to it. It was probably the crappiest art work I had ever seen. He hoofed me the sketch and his house key, and I took to the sky.

"Meet me by the office in two hours, okay?" I gave a quick salute to acknowledge him, then flew off at full speed.

     His house was a rat's nest. There were only two rooms and an attic. The first room, which I assume was his planning room, was completely covered in old tomes and maps. There was a picture on the wall of him with 3 younger colts and 2 younger fillies, all of which looked much like him. I assumed they were his siblings. It must have been taken a while ago because his hooves weren't black. There was another photo of him at a much younger age wearing a tuxedo, he was standing with a cute filly about his age that I could only guess was his filly-friend. She was looking at him with a slightly ticked off face. He was grinning but looking in almost the opposite direction of the camera, as if something caught his eye in the distance. How like him. I took this picture and stuffed it in my coat, I'd ask him about it later.

      The next room was his bedroom. It was pretty small and mostly empty besides a poster of the wonderbolts and a closet that he probably didn't use very often. There was a pretty nice mattress but I decided to leave it there. He could get it himself if he wanted one so badly. Finally, I discovered a ladder to his attic, and was utterly amazed. It wasn't nearly as unorganized as I had expected. Every artifact had it's own little case and an index card where he had quickly scribbled the place and date he had found each one, with a brief description of it's legend. Among the artifacts was:

The sword he had mentioned,

an amulet that was supposed to make whoever wore it fall in love with the first pony of opposite gender they saw, (It was hard to just leave there.)

a round stone that was labeled as one of the elements of harmony, (Is it even LEGAL for him to have that!?)

a REALLY creepy looking statue of a monkey's head he had found in the jungle. (There was a warning that it contained the power of a cockatrice, and he had put duct tape over it's eyes.)

and finally, at the end of the attic, after various other assorted trinkets and statues, was the shiny rock he had stolen from the lion. He hadn't quite described it to me though, and upon closer inspection, this thing had to be worth thousands of bits! Each section of the stone was a different color, in such a way that it resembled a perfect rainbow. It was almost too cute that he had kept it all these years.

   Eventually I came upon the necklace he had mentioned. The label read:

Sun talisman

Found by me, Dart Dash, in the ruins of the ancient solar empire, the oldest known civilization.

Said to have the powers to move the sun without the magic of an alicorn. I want to test this about as much as I want to get banished to the moon.

   The ancient solar empire? I don't think I've ever heard of it, much less any ruins of it. It sounded interesting though, and I guessed he'd tell me about it as we searched this next temple, I just love the way his eyes light up when he talks about ancient treasure. I left his house and locked the door, but I still had a good half hour before I had to leave for the office. I toyed with the idea of just flying to the Canterlot archives and helping him, but I wasn't entirely sure where that is.

   My stomach growled, and I realized it was about lunch time. I wondered if Dart would remember to eat something, but I knew the idea was hopeless and decided to pick him up something for him to eat on the way to the desert.

(From Dart's point of view)

    As I finally arrived at the Canterlot archives, the guard gave me clearance to every wing of the library without even an inspection. I guessed that they're just used to seeing me around. I immediately headed for the maps, and eventually discovered a map of the solar desert. Sadly, it was many miles away, and we'd have to take a train to get within flying distance. I guess that would give us today to prepare though, we'd need to get the proper clothing and supplies to survive a trip through that intense heat. We'd also need some hay, or some other food that won't dry out too much in the sun.

   I grabbed another book about surviving the desert. It didn't really state anything I didn't already know, and it was clearly written for earth ponies, but I gave it a quick read regardless. I began to wonder if my hunch about the sun talisman was correct. It was possible that some of the symbols found on both the talisman and the pictures of the temple in that book were religious markings of the ancient solar empire. I had to be sure though, so I would compare them in person.

    Enough reading though, I needed to start flying if I was going to be back in ponyville within the next half hour.

    Finally, we met back at the office. She seemed disappointed when I told her that we'd have to wait until tomorrow to go to the temple, but she usually adventures abroad so this shouldn't be any different from usual for her. I don't usually treasure hunt far from home, since the Everfree forest is so close by, but lately I've noticed that I can pretty much find my way around every tree, and the feeling of mystery is practically gone. She brought me some lunch, which was really nice of her. Two apples, one for each of us, and a salad, made of whatever vegetables she could find in the market, that we shared. (Which was sort of embarrassing for me, but I was getting used to it.)

     After lunch, we had to fly all the way to Canterlot to get some heavy clothing for the desert. Daring complained that I should have gotten it while I was up there already, but I pointed out that I don't know her size so she'd have had to come anyways. She reluctantly agreed, but once we were there she was all over the place looking for something fashionable. I guess she can be a normal mare sometimes. I picked out a simple blue robe, but she made me put it back so she could find me something I look better in. After an eternity of trying on various robes she shoved in my hooves, (which later turned out to only be about 10 minutes,) she finally decided I looked best in white and red. I purchased the robe, and told her I was going to stock up on hay and water, and that she needed to stay here. She didn't seem to acknowledge me but I knew she probably wouldn't wander far anyways.

   I returned in 15 minutes with a cart full of hay and water, and she seemed to have decided on her robe and was waiting for me outside. We lifted the cart back home to Ponyville, (flying with carts isn't too hard if you have two ponies), and set it outside our cottage. It was only starting to get dark just now though, and neither of us really had plans for the evening.

"Well what do you normally do when on your free days when you finish up early?" She asked.

"Usually I just read for the rest of the day." She rolled her eyes at me.

"You are SUCH an egghead."

"Alright then, what do you want to do? There's not much to do in ponyville at night." She thought for a while, then stepped outside, quickly returning with her carpentry supplies and part of the larger log, which barely fit into the house.

"You read. I'll make a bed for our mattress."

"You mean mattresses, right?" I said hopefully. She smirked, but didn't answer me. That was a no.