“So let me get this straight, Old Equis?” the middle aged adventurer said in a shaken cadence

“Yes, I know it maybe a lot to take in but I can assure you we've found it, and its just as the stories say by this telegraphs account, cold and miserable.”

Daring Do sat uncomfortably in the chilly oak paneled headmasters room in gloomy Dertrot university. Her eyes reading over the transcribed telegraph the headmaster had recently gave her. Only herself and two others in the whole country had seen it. Steady Pace, the headmaster who was practicing his namesake along the rooms length and Vibrant Ink the EUPG page who had brought it here from a transmission station just outside Baltimare who was currently boarding a train to the capital to inform the princesses as well.

“It just seems too far fetched, a single unlisted transmission to the mainland from the frost gates in the deep south doesn't seem likely, this has to be a trick. There should be more to it.”

“Trick or not the university, let alone the country must explore the possibility, can you imagine if the message is authentic Yearling? The significance would be the biggest find since...well Equestria! And more importantly the funding could keep the college swimming in bits for decades!”

“What about the crew though!? The message says they're trapped!?” Daring interjected perturbed that Pace had glossed over that talking point.

“Of coarse! The sailors too. We will help them, but Yearling understand the magnitude, I say its...”

Pace began to trail off about the school of friendship and the school for gifted unicorns among others that he detested. Daring frowned as the headmaster reminded her of money, it was the one thing about visiting the college that she always loathed, the constant squawking from Steady Pace and the other board members about finances. There was something about being the only earth pony founded and ran university in the country had a way of making them always fuss about being passed over with grants and glory when the other schools had no problem with bits from the unicorn nobles and the sisters with their pet projects, to that extent the class divide that lead to the near extinction of there kin from the face of the planet had waned little from that original council in Ol' Equis.

Old Equis, it still seemed impossible that here in her wing she held an actual sighting of it. All her life from the first time she could recall her dream was to find that fabled subcontinent. To see the foible of the three tribes that all equestrians were descended from, understand why it feel into infighting and see if anyone still called it home. Of course the legends said it was twice as bitter as the frost winds of the crystal empire, and four times as barren as the dunes of Abyssinia. It had been written that by the time Clover the Clever and the other explorers had lead the last of the old kin with them into the north-west, landing in horse-shoe-bay, that Ol' Equis was nothing but a sizable glacier around the planets curve. Yes he lead the settlers towards that historic cave in which a hundred pony generations would descend from, the one that looked out over that grassy plain marble peaked valley, with shimmering falls that would someday become the site of the throne, Canterlot.

It was only after longingly staring into the page for a good few seconds did Daring realize Steady Pace was eyeing her from beside the frosted deans window.

“Sorry headmaster Pace, I was just thinking about the message, what were you saying?”

The Green earth pony sighed and started again,
“Do you want to check it out, you know, the claims for the college? ...and of course help those poor shipwrecked ponies.” he added after as a second thought

Before she could think what she was agreeing to Daring shouted as if she was a school yard foal,
“Yes! Yes I'll do it. What ever needs to be done I'll do it.”

“I guess thats why you go by “Do” now? Ha ha ha!” Pace chuckled as he trotted back to his desk.
“I knew your drive for discovery would be ignited” He then plopped himself down into his wooden desk chair.

Daring felt a little self serving in her out burst, of course the university board wanted her out there, hunting for artifacts and making history. Not to mention the generous amount of capital they always received when ever one of her books sold well, but she still felt as if this undertaking may be the kind of expedition that one pegasus needed support for. She needed more to go off of then 4 lines of telegraphical musings and her pith helmet for this.

“But Pace we both know this isn't the kind of mission for a single pony, I'll need some...”
Daring swallowed her pride,
“help if were to go do this. We need the navy or an ice runner, and food for a dozen weeks, not to mention medical for the injured.”

“All of that can be arranged my dear, we are not too poor to pay for some others to accompany you. Here I have some references I have been perusing for this, now how do I get this open again?”
Pace said while fiddling to unlock his desks stationary drawer.

Daring sighed, eyeing the ridiculousness of an earth pony trying to work a combo-compression lock with his teeth. The desk was polished pink Imperial crystal imported from the empire, not exactly the most appropriate for a stallion of his race. Pace had ordered it because he heard that the style was all the rage with the other headmasters around the country. He did not know how ever that the “crystal” desks the other headmasters used were Canterlot blue quartz not Imperial pink, being that the Canterlot desks were light and opaque made from the crystal caverns of the canterhorn peaks, not to mention finely made, while Paces desk was clear, bulky and of shoddy construction. And of course as always, he over paid for it.

“hmm *Coughs*, Yearling would you mind?”

Daring unsettled herself from her chair and walked about the desk to the headmasters side.
“Whats the combination?”

“I believe it was 2468, I haven't gotten around to change it from the default. I'm having one of the apprentice lock smiths from building D come in this afternoon.”

Again the question of why Pace insisted on a earth pony locksmith when the profession favored the magically endowed wattled into Darings skull. He definitely wasn't a common back wood idiot, she knew him long enough for that to be evident but his constant devotion to the pride of his “tribe” was often a bit much, some would say even bigoted. So far in fact that Daring practically saw miniature windegos flying a circuit around his head when he addressed a specialist that the college needed that couldn't be preformed by a earth or pegasus pony.

(Then again it could've been just because he was cheap.)

Daring messed around with the 4 digit cogs, even though she also had trouble trying to open a unicorn designed lock, her wings definitely made it more bearable then using her teeth like Pace had.

*Click

“No that's not it headmaster.” Miss Do said to Pace.

“Ugh, try 8642, maybe it was one of those new weird reverse mechanisms”

*Click

Nothing.

Daring sighed
“You know what? I can read it through the desk why don't we just wright it down on another paper?”

“Ah yes capital idea. Now wheres my quill?”

The two looked about the desktop and the many cases and shelves of the office in vain for a quill.

“Oh yes that's wright.” Pace knocked on the left of the still locked desk.

Daring was unamused to find the inkwell, parchment and any other writing devices were also inside the desk.

“Damn, one second.”
Daring getting quite impatient leaped over the desk instead of around it and plucked her photo camera from her saddlebag on the coat rack.

After a short click and a mechanical hiss a black polarized photo paper came out of the bottom. A few moments later she had a ajar list of a bunch of different cargo conglomerates about the Baltimare docks.

Shouting “Shipping companies? Why the hay would these be any help?!” Darring was near her limit for Pace for one day.

“Is it not obvious? The transmission came from a unlisted cargo sloop, one of these companies must have authorized a trade lane for them if they originated here right?”

That was the smartest thing Pace had said since she had walked in here. Up until now she didn't heed the finer details of what this trip would entail for her. After all, now Daring realized there was not a single indication on the message of what ship or crew had sent it. Only that there had been a storm of some kind and the captain was injured. Beyond the coordinates of 140east, 84south, and the terribly descriptive message of,

Equis Found, STOP,
Send Help Soon STOP,
Captain Trade Wind Injured STOP,
Magic Storm Marooned STOP.

She would have nothing to go off of except for the shipping papers that the docks would have.

“Yes that does makes sense, I'm sorry for getting short with you headmaster.”

“Well, naturally...” Pace's ears had slumped down as he stepped back towards the shelves, still expecting for Daring to pounce in anger. “You better get a move on then. The train will only be a tiny while off, the docks close in a few hours and you've still have a lot of paperwork to go through if were gonna get to nip this thing.”

Daring walked back over to the coat rack by the door,
“I assure you it will be sir. And say hello to Steady Aim for me.”

Pace realigned himself, smiled and nodded in his usual way before trying the desk again.

With that Daring left the office with her fall weather coat and bags with the list of Baltimare shipping companies, the sent of adventure already fueling her wings towards the train station.

.-=O=-.

“I think I found something capi'tan” a male zebrian accent cut out through the haze of the river creek.

“I'll be right there Zheshan, there's a lot more then just one pile here you know...” a senior zebrian voice bellowed from up river.

Captain was not a title Sebudo favored but it was enduring in a bittersweet way. Deliberately he hoofed from one mossy boulder to another, making his way to his young companion who was shaking by a brazening pot half buried into the rich silt of the bend.

Bowing as he stopped beside his partner,
“Well you can color me surprised sire this indeed is a goodly find!”
Sebudo says in a mocking old equestrian tone,
“What will we do with this then? Mix a hexing curse on the gaiting horde? Perhaps cure the plague! Hahaha!”

Zheshan didn't respond even as Sebudo came within biting distance, he simply mouthed in a silent terror at the pot as he backed up away from the cauldron.

“What in the heavens got your goat? You look as if your stripes are gonna make off without ye?”

Usually Zheshans eyes were as small as they come, something he very much was self critical of, and now they were pulling a double shift as his pupils were the size of a grain of sand. He mouthed 'look' pointing a trembling hoof at the artifact.

Sebudo turned again to the brass pot still upside down but now saw the pink furred foot under it. It must have been only a few inches long and was wet and matted. Not moving...

“Oh no.”

Captain Seb keeled down to the silt, his chin indenting the dark moist ground, sniffing the leg.

“Must have only been a foal, not a year or two big.” the hushed voice came from his muzzle.

“Should we bury it or bring it to the pony folk? Cause I don't think they'd be very welcomin to a couple muck rackers like us Capt'” Zheshan said as he continued to walk back, glancing if anycreature was around to judge them.

The only thing autable was the chirps of a bird nesting nearby and the subtle sloshing of the water on the bend. In a afternoon sun.

Standing up and using his normal voice “Yeah we better jus-”

Then a noise,
from the pot.

The whinny of a foal
and then a recoil of the foot into the brass pot.

“Huh, I guess that answers what we should do with it”

Author's Note

As a forward for anyone reading this, the story below is written as a shifting perspective, not unlike the Game of Thrones or a Stephen King Horror, as such sometimes the contents of these chapters may jump from person to person in a scene to establish personality or from one time period to another, usually for context or to lead to suspense for knowing something a character doesn't, hopefully as the story is read you shall be able to determine when this happens and I do apologize if it isn't always clear to the reader, this is my first work of creative writing. Thank you.