"Oh Celestia, Luna, and Cadence, why is my luck such complete shit!?"
"I don't know Ripple, maybe it's because you keep sticking parts of you in places you shouldn't?!"
"Chew me out later Sil, Just keep running!"
"No shit kid! Do I look like I want to die any time soon!"
The ancient temple was falling around my mentor and partner, Silver Rush, and I. The ceiling was seconds from falling on top of us and the floor we where racing on was threatening to swallow us whole. Every now and then we had to jump across a hole that had opened up suddenly. Silver rush got head of me as I cleared one of those such holes. As I came out of a roll I saw Silver Rush jump over a huge crevasse. I speed up, but as I got closer and closer the hole opened up even more and my mind started racing as I approached the a launch point.
"Oh shit!" I screamed as sailed over the gap. My body slammed onto the rock body holding up that portion of the walk way. I let out a sigh of relief, but it was short lived as the ledge I was holding onto began to crack and crumble under my weight.
"FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!" I yelled with panic in my voice. As I began to fall somepony pulled me back up.
"Thank Celestia almighty. Holy shit that was close,"
"Indeed it was, Mr. Ripple,"
"Oh for Fucksake, why can't I get a brake,"
As my words left my mouth, something slammed into the back of my head and I blacked out.
_____O-_-O-_-O-_-O-_-O_____
8 Months Earlier
I was sat at a beach-side bar on an island on some forgettable island that was a part of an almost all forgotten island chain off the coast of Equestria waiting for the notification of the payment for the last job I did for a local collector. As i sat at the bar I was going over some notes on a long time project that I started when I was still in an orphanage. I rubbed my eyes and took a long swig of my hard apple cider. As I put the glass down somepony sat beside me.
"You're a hard pony to find Gold," said a stallion. His voice had a familiar roughness but I couldn't and didn't want to place.
"Yeah it's a no brain-er when you've pissed off as many ponies as I have,"
"Well don't you think you should have left a clue for you're old partner and," A second voice behind me stopped as though looking for the right words. "Old acquaintance,"
I turned to see my long time partner, an old brown earth pony with graying black mane and a cutie mark of yellowed treasure map. With him was a mare my age, her coat was an eye catching pink with a light blue mane. She had a cutie mark of a rolled up news paper and a camera. She levitated out a small book with yellowed pages and my partner slid over an old brown decoder with a carving of an ancient tribal zebra mask.
"Why and how did you find that?" I questioned shocked they managed to find both of them. One I'd figured they find, but both should have been impossible.
"Kid I worked with you for 10 years. Unless you learned some new tricks in the last 2 years to hide them you should have just put up signs,"
"Plus Gold, we know where the last missing piece is. I'm betting it's safe to say that you also found it,"
"No, I haven't. But I have an idea as to where to start looking. Which if I know either of you, you only have a slight guess as to where to start,"
Both ponies looked at their hooves, which pretty much confirmed my thoughts. I might not have the journalist intuition that News Write did or nearly as much experience as Silver Rush but I did know the most about ancient things like this, which is why I can make a living retrieving artifacts for collectors.
"So I'm gonna guess you want the score of the life time?" The question directed towards Silver Rush.
"I, uh," Silver Rush stammered looking for the right words. "Look kid, work with me on this and we can be done, one final score,"
"Sil, there will always be one final score after this one it's part of the life why do you think that I gave it up,"
"Yeah, but you always get pulled back in," News chimed in.
I almost forgot she was there, which brought the thought of what she gained from this. Then, I figured that Silver Rush promised her for scope of a life time. I milled over the thought of finally finishing a life's goal as I took a long swig of my drink.
"Okay give me two days to compile my notes and well decode the that journal, but if what I'm thinking is right, that book might not be the right first step." I finally said as ran it over.
The unicorn and earth pony finally agreed as I got the notification of the payment and we "parted ways". I made my way into the city to start my research.
Books and Conspiracies
In the custom of the island unless I was sleeping, working or doing other activities I or nopony else wanted to see I left my door open while I ate and did some light reading. It was dull and boring so whom ever decided they wanted to follow me to my hotel from the beach. I took a long winding path to both throw off the tail and browse through the flea market haggling for cheaper prices for knock off name brand items like like a pair of sunglasses and a hat. I thought that I lost him or her, wait it was probably a she, in there but she had ended up just keeping an eye on all the exits and waited for me to leave and follow me to my hotel room and figuring out quickly who it was I had figured I would just bore her till she finally came in.
"Are you just going to wait outside the door waiting for me to invite you in?" I asked as I turned a page. "We should really get started on decoding the book News"
The light pink unicorn mare walked in with the most bored expression on her face. This being the mare who sat for hours at a time for who knows how many stake outs. I had half expected her to have already waltzed in and start chewing me out for leaving her with out cause or explanation.
"You are so fucking boring," she said as she strutted into the room with each word.
"That's kind of the point when trying to lose a tail," I stated dryly as I got up, closed the door and walked to my bag in the closet. It took a few minutes of digging around the archaeologist tools I kept part for show and part for practice. Through each train station, port, checkpoint and airport customs it's a lot easier to keep the appearance of research and work with the tools of the trade with a little nine millimeter for protection than just the gun alone.
"Well you could have gone to like a brothel, or a bar, or just anything other than walking through a market and about the town,"
"What can I say? I enjoyed the architecture and the food,"
She could easily make out the sarcasm in my voice. I could feel the look she was giving me bearing down on the back of my head. I took another minute or so of digging around before I managed to find what i was looking for with out breaking or damaging the equipment I owned.
"Did anypony follow you?" I asked, it was one of my ticks I was hoping it was one of my habits she picked up.
She shook her head, pretty much confirming my hope. "Well at least she's gotten more cautious" I thought to myself. I made my way back the the room's desk and pulled out my own personal notebook and opened it up. I flipped through a couple pages rereading some of my notes pertaining to somepony that, when I was younger, boasted was related to me. I found the section where I cataloged his journal and speculated what was in it. In addition I toyed with the idea that he might have more journals. I pulled out the yellowed journal and began cross-referencing contents of it with my personal theories of his expeditions for either Celestisa herself or some other pony who happened to be ruling equestria.
"Okay, so what are you looking for in all of these," News Write said looking over my shoulder at my notes.
"Well if what I'm thinking is correct. Then this is the second journal of Sir Pyrite Ripple, my anciently great grandstallion ," I replied as
"And just how do you suppose that?" News Write asked.
"Well here," I said pointing a hoof at some bullet points of an extremely rough time line of his expeditions, or at least any that where recorded. "I found in a few books that pointed out a majority of his expeditions, but each of those books pointed to a quite a few instances of no news on his explorations. So for all anypony knows he just disappeared or he wasn't on any recorded expeditions,"
"Okay? So what does this have to do with anything specifically, that journal?"
"Like I said this might be his second journal,"
"Because, his first journal is in some exhibit back on Equestria?"
"No, that one is in his coffin on the bottom of an ocean floor. I've gone on a few personal, and commercial, trips to look for it,"
"Obviously turning up nothing I assume,"
"Nailed it,"
"So back to this being his second journal,"
"Yeah," I turned back to the journals. "After his first expedition which was charting the water routes, exploring some new discovered islands, and finding enough artifacts to completely alter the current beliefs of where ponies came from and how we came to be we are today. He seemingly dropped off the face of Equestria, but not before being spotted leaving the castle of Queen Earnheart the First,"
"So the theory is that she sent him on some under the table exploration?" New write said with heavy skepticism in her voice.
"Well, yeah. There were supposedly tons of them. Through a majority of the Pony Era of Exploration most, if not all of, the biggest explorers had at least one,"
News Write just looked baffled. For whatever reason it didn't make sense to her. She was however intrigued, despite not knowing a whole lot, if anything, about the near gibberish I was spouting. She pulled up a chair and sat down next to me as I continued to read and flip through my notes, adding new ones along the way. Every now and then News Write would stop me and ask a question about a piece of text or diagram.
"Well it's official," I stated leaning back. "This is his second journal,"
"Wa-Huh?" News Write asked groggy and confused.
"Pyrite Continually references 'the other book' and some island of the coast of a zebra homeland. He says that it can or could control life and death, IF the specific conditions are met,"
"I'm going to guess that he never says what those conditions are," News said still extremely tired
"Ding, winner," I said rubbing my eyes, I looked at the clock. When did it get this late? I thought to myself. I slowly trotted to my bed taking off my scarf and holster for my pistol and flopped on my bed. I felt a body flop next me, no doubt that news write was as tired as myself. I drifted off thinking about what could be the conditions of whatever Pyrite found was and how to find it.
