Author's Note

Fetishes Below: Use of Poison, Gore, Death, Snuff, Etc.

Spikes Do Not A Bed Make!

"So it's one of those old follow the path of repeating pattern floor tiles traps, huh? This will be a piece of cake!"

It had been a rather long and uneventful exploration of another temple of ancient pony tribes that inhabited the dense jungles of Manegascar. Least up to this point where she finally came upon what had been so far the only real booby trap to speak of. She adjusted her hat then proceeded a quick survey of all the patterns. From what she could see, there was six all together. "Okay, now to just find the pattern." her eyes swept across the first set of large stony tiles, then the second... and finally the third. "What.. wait, that can't be," Daring Do exclaimed as she examined the first three rows another time. There was two tiles alike that were connected.

"Okay, think Do, think.... there has to be something. Lets see if we can't figure out what sort of mechanisms will trigger if I hit the wrong pad." Her eyes scouted the walls and it was obviously there was hundreds of holes that looked pretty deep, "Okay.... so either I'll get spit roasted by a spear... or turn into a pincushion by blow darts, lets just assume they're poison tipped," Daring Do surmised. She studied the ceiling, there was nothing of particular noteworthy there. Her eyes then turned down to the large stone tiles that spanned out in front of her, "I'suspect maybe collapsible floor, but those look far too large and heavy for that such of rigging."

Daring Do, being the ever forward thinking adventurer she was, took a rock she had earlier scooped up from outside. "Hah, this is the third time that carrying a dumb ole' rock has paid off." She gave the rock a toss onto the tile in front of her. Nothing, nothing at all happened. Daring Do sighed, "I should've got a heavier rock," she then sank as low to the ground as she could. Her foreleg reached out and her hoof pushed against the tile as hard as she could from such an awkward position. Her efforts were rewarded with several old blow darts shooting out, their sharp wooden tips clinking as they hit the stone wall on the other side.

"Okay, I could run and hope for the best. Not all traps have a solution after all, specially if it was set in place afterwards. Doubly so if it's a tomb," Daring Do took a deep breath and took a good look at how far she'd have to gallop. It'd at least take her five seconds to get across... assuming she didn't have to adjust for any other potential threats along the way. Daring Do gathered her wits up and took a rather long and deep breath. "Okay, this won't be hard at all. Five seconds, that's all it'll take," she recited to herself as she trotted back few good yards. She definitely wanted to be at max speed when she hit those tiles to maximize her chances of not being turned into a pony pincushion. "Wait... what I'm I doing," she shook her head as she put a hoof to her face. Something obvious had just dawned on her, "I can just bucking fly across, wings Do, you have wings! Forget you're a pegasus sometimes."

She stretched her wings out and went into a brief gallop. She then pushed herself off the ground and got enough air that a few flaps of her feathered wings sent her soaring across the tiles. All was good, least until she suddenly felt her entire body slam into something in front of her. Some unicorn had long ago erected a magical barrier that covered the top of the hallway and halfway across the floor tiles. She instantly plummeted to the ground, landing with a loud whimper on her rump which was more than enough to trigger the blow darts!

The sounds of dozens of blow darts being launched filled the air as Daring Do scrambled across the rest of the way. It was an extremely short distance, so the tragedy was over quickly enough as she tumbled to the ground once across. "Ah... made it," she smiled and pulled herself back up to her four hooves. It was only then she noticed something stick out of her rump, right where her cutie mark was. Two blow darts with their wooden tips buried deeply into her derriere. She gasped, "Oh damn it.. please don't be poisonous," she whimpered as she carefully dislodged them from her rump. She managed one, but the tip of the other broke off. She'd have to get that removed, if it lingered she knew it'd result in an infection.

Dizziness and wobbly legs now plagued Daring Do as she continued down the hallway. Those blow darts were indeed poisonous, but it wasn't like this was the first time she'd been poisoned. It didn't exactly make it easier though. She used the wall as a brace to keep herself steady as she pushed one hoof in front of the other. "Gotta' keep moving, even if it is making the poison take effect quicker," she was finding it increasingly hard to draw breath. "C'mon Do, you've been through a lot worse." At last she found herself in a passage that was even more narrow... and at the end, she could see the light of day. "Finally, time to get out of here."

As Daring Do was taking the last ten yards of her journey through the temple, she could practically smell the thick jungle as a wind found it's way inside the tunnel and washed away the stale air. "A few more, c'mon, almost," Daring Do pushed herself off the wall, wanting to take the last bit of this on all four hooves. She didn't even notice it till it was too late, but as she went to step upon what she was assumed was floor, it quickly gave way. It was some sort of poorly made carpet camouflaged to seamlessly blend in with the rest of the floor.

"Nooooo!," the pegasus cried out as the rest of her body fell forward toward the pit. The poison of the blow darts was in full effect and there was certainly no way she'd manage to fly or brace herself. Her scream echoed through through the hallway before coming to strange silence. Below, the pegasus' lifeless corpse rested, impaled by several ivory spikes jutting out of the ground. One had pierced through her skull and snuffed out her life. A few found her torso and tore through her innards, partially disemboweling her intestines which were pushed out. Her heart took it's last few beats before finally stopping all together.