Author and Adventurer

Pain. That’s about all Daring Do could feel at the moment as she laid on the ground. She tried to shift onto her side, but that only brought with it another flare of agony. Her hoof blindly groped at her side, searching for something until she found the sharp protrusion that stuck out of her now. Luckily, it didn’t seem to have pierced too deeply. Not that that stopped it from hurting like a bitch.

Her mind swam with what had happened. Whatever it was probably had left her concussed, as explosions often did, and the slight tilt of her head made sure she knew that her assumption was spot on. Her teeth gnawed into her cheek as her eyes opened, staring at the brown stones in front of her. She needed to focus, to recover.

She tried to recall how often she had ended up just like this. Not just concussed and on the ground, but exactly like this. Some stupid thing the villain had been doing was thwarted or screwed up, led to an explosion, and now she was sprawled on the ground, staring at the same brown tiles that every ruin seemed to be made of.

Just a quick recollection proved to say more than she would ever care to admit to. Not that she had to admit it. In her next book, she could just leave this bit of embarrassment out. Yeah, she could see it now. Villain thwarted, ritual stopped…

Daring bit into her lip as an extra powerful throb went through it. She luckily could blame it for breaking her concentration, and why she couldn’t come up with an alternate ending now. She was normally so good at them. Then again, this mission had been a bit rougher than most of her normal ones, even if she didn’t want to admit it.

It first began with Ahuizotl, though that was no surprise. In fact, it was so common for him to just randomly appear on her trips that she’d cut him out of some of her books in the past, just to avoid the redundancy of it. Of course, she would need to include him on this one. He might not have been her major threat, but he definitely was working with them.

Her hooves pushed against the ground, and she grit her teeth, ready for her head and body to scream at her again. She was only doing this as a way to check how much longer she should stay down anyways.

However, she felt… okay. Not great, as the pain wasn’t gone, but she could move, which was definitely different. It usually took a lot longer for her to recover, especially after she passed her thirtieth birthday.

A groan escaped her lips as she remembered Ahuizotl deciding to be just as much of a dick and taunt her with her age. He even had the gall to say she should retire. Compared to him, she was a practical baby. Then again, she wasn’t exactly immortal like him. “Stupid demi-god status.”

She rubbed her hoof against her temple, trying desperately to recall the finer details. She would need them when she got home, and it was good mental exercise after a concussion, even if it brought its own sort of pain. It would help her in the long run though, she knew that much.

So, first Ahuizotl jumped her, snatching her from the air and slamming her onto the ground. The rock that came when she tried getting away had to be the much meaner part of it though. She hadn’t let small fry like him stop her this time, or slow her, even as her body hurt. He hadn’t stopped her like he wanted to though, so a world where he might rule wasn’t going to be made due to h-

She blinked for a moment. While she did avoid open combat with Ahuizotl, the idea of him being ‘small fry’ was never the term she used. He had too much power for that sort of dismissal. Then again, after what she had fought when she got in here, Daring supposed that the dismissal was more warranted.

Her body shivered as she got to her hooves, and looked to the giant hole in the side of the temple. She hoped only an hour at most ago, there had been about three layers of rock between this inner sanctum and the outside, but she had no way of knowing how long she’d been out. The explosion was pretty bad after all, and she was thirsty as Tartarus.

But, to her knowledge, she had stopped the ancient creature’s summoning. See, unlike most of the half baked schemes she stopped, this one was down to her getting here in time, or… Daring shuddered at the thought. If the cult had succeeded, their ‘god’ would have split every being on the planet into two halves. A dark side, bolstered by its power, and a light side, made weaker by its influence. If it had succeeded, light could easily have been crushed, replaced by evil, and destroying harmony.

In hindsight, it would make a great story, and was rather exhilarating. Before she won though, it had been terrifying to even think about. But, there was no reason to think about it now. She could revel in the fact that she had survived, and, minus some cuts and bruises, she was fine.

“Uuugh.”

Daring’s ears twitched at the sound, before she let out an oddly similar moan to the whatever was moving now. She had kind of hoped that the cultists had gotten their comeuppance, and she could recover in peace. Still, one more wasn’t that hard to take care of, especially when she had some time up on it for recovery.

She turned around to face her newest enemy, her eyes scanning for any sign of them. A little bit of rubble in the corner moved, and she began to trot towards it, her hooves silent, even against the stone. It was a trick Daring had never done before now, but in her complete focus, she didn’t even notice. She was only focused on one thing.

She pushed the large rock out of the way of her quarry, and then stopped. What she saw didn’t make any sense to her. Not a lick of it.

Because she, or, more so, A.K. Yearling was in the hole.