Hardy Heroes Hinder Hazards
“…and then,” Smolder said, “Daring Do swooped down, snatched the idol from right out of Ahuizotl’s grasp, and whammo! She was off!” She thrust out a hand in emulation of swooping. “Zigging and zagging between the trees, so fast that no one could follow her! Especially not Ahuizotl, who, y’know, couldn’t fly.” She flared her wings and grinned.
Garble was remarkably interested for something that involved ponies so heavily. He’d been interested ever since Smolder had relayed the first Daring Do story to him. He’d actually asked questions about the plot, some of which Smolder hadn’t been able to answer because of spoilers. Garble cared about spoilers! Truly, Daring Do brought everyone together. “Even with how heavy it was?” he asked.
“She would’ve gone straight up if she could,” said Smolder. “But, y’know. Near-solid gold.”
For a moment, Smolder thought Garble would boast about how he totally could’ve carried it straight up (and to be fair, he probably could’ve), but he just nodded.
“But!” Smolder continued. “She still had to get back out of the circle! And as the jungle thinned, Ahuitzotl’s henchponies burst from the thicket! Dodging and weaving, weaving and dodging, it was only by the barbs of her feathers that she was able to stay free!”
Smolder went on for a little more, describing the cool fight scenes, before finally finishing with, “…letting her swoop onto Athlete’s boat just as it sped away! And, once again, Daring Do had saved the day.” Technically, there was still the last chapter to go through, but the falling action always bored Garble.
“Dang. That was the best one yet.”
“I know, right?”
“I guess Yearling is trying really hard to make up for how lame ponies are.”
“You’ve been hearing from me what ponies do for how many moons and you still think ponies are lame?” Smolder said, rolling her eyes. “Everything Daring did is totally-”
Garble’s smile vanished. “Come on. Daring Do’s fake! I know what fiction is, dummy.”
Smolder chuckled. “Ho no. She’s one hundred percent real! Professor Dash said so!” Technically speaking, Professor Dash had also said to keep that a secret. But Smolder was pretty sure that no dragon would be interested enough to go looking for Daring/Yearling.
Particularly since Garble was unimpressed. “Uh-huh. Sure. And there are all these- temple things just sitting around the world, waiting for ponies to find them?”
“And not just Daring Do! Headmare Twilight and her friends find all sorts of ruins when they go poking around! Didn’t you hear how they got Starswirl back?”
“Who?”
“…Never mind. But it’s just like those ruins out near Spine Ridge!”
Garble sat up a little bit straighter. “That door with the columns?”
“Exactly!” Smolder flared her wings in excitement. “Doesn’t that sound exactly like something Daring Do would find?”
“And you think there’s treasure in there?”
“Maybe! C’mon, it’s worth a shot! I’ve never been in there before!”
“Hah.” Garble grabbed Smolder’s head and shoved her away. “They’re just stories, dweeb.”
“But what if they’re not?” Smolder jammed her snout against Garble’s and grinned. “We’ve got nothing else to do this afternoon. Why not? If I’m right, it’ll be a fun adventure! And if I’m wrong, you get to gloat at me about this stupid decision for the rest of forever.”
Garble nearly grinned back at her at that last sentence. Nearly. “Fine. Let’s do it.” He shoved Smolder back again and flared his wings, ready for flight. “But I bet there’s nothing in there anyway.”
The temple had been built nearly five hundred years ago, to keep the crystal safe, along with the being that dwelt within it. It needed to be kept secure until the time was right for it to be released and spread its power across the world, enthralling all in its way. It was a god, and that was its dominion.
It had had a cult, once. Masses congregated to it. Outsiders and the narrow-minded had shunned them and their dark, bloodstained ways, in spite of their inevitability. They’d been pushed to the fringes, hunted by the particularly zealous. As their number dwindled, they knew they needed to preserve their god. They built the temple, crafting all sorts of defenses within so that the unworthy would be destroyed while the chosen and the knowing were safe and still able to commune.
The cult was gone now. Yet the Thorn Within remained.
The first of the temple’s defenses was simple: its location. What sort of brave, foolhardy, lucky person would simply walk into the Dragonlands and not only ignore its inhabitants, but be ignored in turn?
Smolder and Garble paid Clump and Flagratia no mind as they flew past them and received no mind in return. “I’m telling you,” Smolder said, “this is gonna be great! It’s just the kind of thing Daring Do would do!”
“But that stupid thing’s been sitting there for- I don’t know how long!” said Garble. “Anydragon could’ve poked their nose in to look for something!”
“But maybe they didn’t. Look, have you gone inside?”
“…No, but-”
“Then how do you know what’s in there?”
“I’m just saying-”
“Bro, listen, we can just take a quick look. If it looks like somedrake destroyed the place, oh well. But what if we’re the first?”
“Fine. Whatever, Smol.”
“Stop calling me Smol!”
They reached the temple quickly. It was set in the side of a nondescript mountain, a small façade of pillars and a carved doorway the only thing that set it apart from the rest of the fireblasted rock. It was worn after standing there through the ages, but far more intact than one would expect if it’d be scoured over by dragons.
The doorway was large for ponies, but Garble had to duck to peer into the inky blackness on the other side. “Well, Daring wasn’t kidding about how dark these places can get.”
As he hadn’t immediately said “nothin’” and started winging away, Smolder considered that promising. “It’s like a cave, you know? But with less lava pools.” She inched into the room beyond slowly, letting her eyes adjust to the dark.
“And of course namby-pamby ponies wouldn’t like a good lava pool.”
One of the things Smolder missed most while in the School of Friendship. They were good for swimming and illumination. Speaking of illumination, her eyes had adjusted to the dark, so she could see- “Hey! Torches!”
They were sitting in a stone sconce to one side of the door. How had they not rotted away? Magic, probably. Smolder grabbed one and blew a plume of flame on it; it burned brightly, revealing a small, plain vestibule (Smolder remained quite pleased with herself for knowing that word). It was unadorned except for some geometric designs at what would be eye level for a pony. A single hallway exited the room, opposite the entryway.
Smolder tossed a torch to Garble. “See? It’s intact! So, onward?” She pointed towards the corridor.
Garble rolled his eyes and lit his torch. “Sure. Whatever.” He began stomping down the hallway, only to stop and look over his shoulder. “If there’re traps in here, you’ll save me, right?”
“Eh…” Smolder wiggled a hand.
“Yeah, same to you.”
If someone managed to brave the perils of the Dragonlands to find the temple, there were more obstacles within. Fiendish hidden traps to butcher the unwary, the safe routes through them known only to the initiated. A single wrong step could trigger them, render a pony lifeless in moments. It was surprising how fragile equines were.
The torches didn’t illuminate much, but they were still better than having to constantly blow fire out. Garble led the way, mainly because Smolder kept stopping to examine this or that. It was… a lot less ornamental than she’d expected. It looked almost… utilitarian? Was that the word? There were barely any neat carvings or ominous warnings or anything like that. A few statues here and there at regular intervals, but not that many.
“Hey, dweeb!” Garble yelled out. “You coming?”
“There’s more to an adventure than just getting to the end, Garble!” Smolder yelled back. “You gotta take in the scenery!”
“Scenery. Uh-huh.” Garble waved his torch around. “Oh, look. A square cave. Some scenery.”
Unfortunately, he had a point. What sort of stupid ruin was this? Where was… anything?
“This is boring and you know it,” Garble said. “There’s nothing dangerous in-”
The tile beneath his foot sank like a pressure plate.
Something ground all around them.
And the walls of the hallway instantly slammed together.
The ground jumped beneath Smolder with the force of the impact and dust fell from the ceiling. The sound reverberated up and down the corridor. The two walls had hit each other tightly, with less than an inch of a gap between them. “Garble?” Smolder asked. “You okay, bro?”
“Ow!” yelled Garble, his voice muffled by the stone. “My face!”
Something creaked, then the mechanisms groaned as the walls involuntarily ground apart. Garble was standing between them, pushing them apart, his chest heaving. “Not. Cool,” he growled at no one in particular. Rubble fell from his body. His torch was broken and extinguished.
“You okay?”
“Eh.” Garble shrugged as best he could. “Been better. Nose hurts. Get your tail through. Holding this apart’s annoying.”
Smolder scurried through the hallway. She almost gave Garble a poke in the ribcage, but from the look in his eyes, he was too irritated to pay it much attention. Soon, she was on the other side. Garble wiggled his way along to keep the walls apart, then let them crash back together. Or they would’ve, if the machinery hadn’t broken halfway through closing, leaving a narrow passage between the walls.
“Huh.” Smolder gave one of the walls a good shove. It slid a tiny bit. “That’s not supposed to happen.”
Garble rolled his shoulders and flexed his wings. “What isn’t?” he grunted.
“The traps are supposed to work, not crap out like this.”
“Why not? They’re super old. They should crap out.”
“Magic to keep it working?”
“Magic. Pfah.” Garble snorted a plume of fire.
“But see? We’re already on the right track!”
“I mean… I guess that counts as a trap.”
“So we’re getting close.” Smolder slapped her hands together to get off the dust and picked up her torch. “C’mon.”
Hypothetically, now that she had the only torch, Smolder could’ve slowed down as much as she liked, but a quick glance at the wall yielded nothing new. Stupid walls with no neato carvings. The good Daring Do books always described the ruins in exquisite detail; there wasn’t enough detail here to fill a paragraph. She stopped glancing at the walls as they continued on.
Yet Garble didn’t. He started lagging behind, only picking up as the light fell away and it got too dark to look. Eventually, he stopped walking altogether. “Hey, Smolder?” he said. “Those’re holes in the wall, right?”
Smolder swung her torch towards the wall, not expecting much, then did a double-take. There were regular black spots all over the wall where there hadn’t been before, and they did look an awful lot like… She stepped forward to take a closer look.
Click.
Metal spikes lanced from the walls, razor-sharp and able to stab through plate armor.
They bent against her scales and pinned her in place.
“Yes,” she grunted.
Garble burst out laughing. “You should see yourself!” he darn near squeaked. “You’re all twisted and your face is all-” He contorted into a bizarre position and made the stupidest face Smolder had ever seen him make, which was saying something. He was only able to hold it for a second before he risked overbalancing. “It was worth it for this alone!”
After a moment, the spikes retracted-ish; some of them were too badly bent to go all the way back in and kept the others from retracting as well. Still, it was enough to free Smolder, and she rubbed her arms; they were a bit sore from where the spikes had been deflected.
Garble was still laughing as they continued on. “Imagine- ha- Imagine if you’d gotten stuck! I could’ve left you there forever!”
“I could’ve gotten out!” Smolder protested. “Those spikes were weak and-”
“When stuck like that? Ha! Not a chance! You didn’t have the leverage!”
“Sure I did! It just would’ve taken-”
They didn’t notice the pressure plates.
Statues set into the wall began belching magical fire, filling the hall, hot enough to vaporize ice.
They didn’t notice that, either.
“-a little extra work!” Smolder continued. She had to raise her voice a little to be heard over the roaring flames.
“But what would you push against?”
“The floor. I could’ve dug my claws in, and…”
Suppose a pony managed to pass the traps, escape unscathed. The only way that was possible was if they had been initiated and knew the secret ways (both arcane and physical). But those who followed the Thorn Within were crafty and prepared, so they’d arranged a second test.
Before the sanctum was another room. Safe, but the door through was locked. The only way to open it was to solve the puzzle hidden all around the room, a puzzle whose pieces would only be recognizable by those with the proper knowledge. The unworthy who somehow managed to make it that far would be stymied by the lock’s obfuscation and decoys of all sorts.
Smolder turned the dart over in her claws again. She licked the tip again. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s poisoned,” she said. Lick. “Mmm… nightshade.” She passed it over to Garble. “What do you think?”
“I think I’ve never tasted nightshade before,” said Garble. “Gimme.” He snatched the dart away, licked it, and gagged. “That’s bitter!” he yelled.
“That’s solanine for you,” Smolder said with a shrug. Professor Zecora had weird teaching methods.
They’d had to make a few back-and-forth trips to make sure they could escort torches through the traps, but they kept making good time and Garble wasn’t even complaining. They never fully dodged all the traps, but Smolder was having fun.
“Ten gems says that’s the last one,” said Garble.
“Why?”
“Because come on. Darts?” Garble made a face. “What kind of stupid trap is that? They were running low on ideas. We’re getting close.”
Smolder opened her mouth to protest only to find that she didn’t have any protests to make. They’d passed through a lot of archetypal traps; Garble had a point. …Garble had a point. On the one claw, it was great that he was invested, but on the other, what was the world coming to?
The hallway, at least, was coming to a large room; even without seeing it, Smolder could tell by the way the echoes changed. In just a few moments, they entered a small gallery; murals, good murals, lined the walls from floor to ceiling. She couldn’t turn around without running into a statue of some kind. And even the floor had been intricately carved.
Garble held his torch high to illuminate as much of the room as possible. “Told ya,” he said, smirking.
“Good thing I didn’t take that bet,” Smolder said.
The murals were extraordinarily detailed, especially after the drabness of the hallways before. Smolder inched along, examining the closest mural bit by bit, hungry for any bit of proper adventuring. The paint was still pristine, undisturbed for Torch knew how long. Small carvings and long, smooth lines in the actual stone accentuated the shapes all the more in a way pure color couldn’t. Speaking of the colors… magnificent reds, vivid oranges, swirling and twisting around each other like liquids, blues and purples mixed together like smoke in the sky, a bright yellow circle that dripped molten… The mural was beautiful. She had no idea what it showed, but it was neat.
“Hey, Smol! Check this out!”
Smolder whipped around, ready to tell Garble off, but then she saw what “this” was. Garble was standing at the far end of the room. A large doorway was set into the wall, currently sealed by a large slab stuck inside. But above and around the doorway was a mass of writing, thick and black and imposing. As Smolder approached, the shapes resolved themselves into spikes and swirls, zigs and zags. There was a rhythm to the writing, an ebb and flow that Smolder couldn’t quite properly identify but knew was there.
“Whoa,” she said. “Neat.” She flapped, started hovering in front of it, held her torch up, and couldn’t see the whole thing. There must’ve been a chapter’s worth of writing there. She stroked her chin as she examined it intently. She pored over every square inch of it, taking in each and every stroke and carving. Her wings flexed and her tail twitched as she zoned out, deep in thought.
“Well?” Garble asked eventually. “What’s it say?”
Smolder shrugged and dropped back to the ground. “Dunno. I can’t read it.”
“You think it’s important?”
“Eh, probably not. They’d’ve written it in something everyone could read if it was.”
“So if they’re instructions on opening the door-”
“Instructions? Wow, Gar-Gar, you have changed!” Smolder delivered the door a vicious headbutt. Cracks began spreading from the crater.
“I just thought you’d wanna do it the right way. Especially if you call that a headbutt, you butthead.” Garble took a few deep breaths, then delivered a brutal blow of his own. The cracks spread more and the stone groaned. “See? That’s how you do it!”
“Come on, I was warming up! Stand back…”
And if the initiated navigated the traps and unlocked the door to the inner sanctum, they would find it. The gem that held the essence of the Thorn Within. Without a soul, willing or not, to power it, the Thorn Within was a fraction of its true self. The crystal that was its haven had been fortified against physical damage and the ravages of time and could last for eons. Within, the Thorn Within bided its time.
There it sat, on an altar within the sanctum.
Waiting.
Until it was found.
Several impacts that would’ve caused traumatic brain injuries in another species later, the door was lying in pieces on the ground and Smolder and Garble were through. The room beyond glowed with a sourceless light, casting eerie shadows. It was circular, with weird carvings lining the walls. But that wasn’t what she noticed.
“Dibs!” yelled Garble, and bolted forward.
“No fair, I saw it first!” said Smolder. She wasn’t quite sure what “it” was yet, though, but that didn’t matter.
Until it did. “It” was a massive purple jewel, almost half the size of a bowling ball and just as smooth. It sat on a plinth in the middle of the room on a raised dias. It must’ve been what the entire temple was built around!
Garble had snatched the gem up before Smolder was halfway there. “Ha ha!” he crowed. “Niiiiiiiice.”
“See?” Smolder said. “I told you we’d find something neat! Just like Daring Do would!”
“Yeah, this is pretty cool,” admitted Garble. “Almost makes the day worth it.”
Smolder stared at the crystal in awe. It was like nothing she’d ever seen before. And why shouldn’t it be? It was the centerpiece of this temple, clearly important. Daring Do would’ve loved it. And it was hers. All hers, and nodragon else-
“I wonder what it tastes like,” Garble said.
“I get half,” Smolder said immediately.
“Nuh-uh, no way. I called dibs.” Garble raised the gem above his head and dashed it against the floor.
It bounced unharmed and hit him in the face.
Smolder immediately burst out laughing as Garble rubbed his snout. He straightened himself in an attempt to regain some dignity, only to immediately lose it again after repeated nose-bonkings. As Smolder doubled over, holding her chest, Garble snarled, “Come on!” He managed to dodge the ricochet this time. The crystal was unharmed.
“Having trouble, Gar-Gar?” Smolder chuckled.
“This should work,” Garble muttered. “Why doesn’t it…? Stupid ponies.”
“Tell you what. I’ll break it for half.”
“I had dibs,” pouted Garble.
“I’ll break it. For half.”
“Ugh. Fine.” Garble tossed the gem over to her.
Smolder’s claws tingled as she grabbed it. Magic? Maybe. She turned the gem over in her hands, running her claws over its surface, searching for any sort of- Aha. Flaw. She’d found a small chink in the surface, a little divot she could work her claw into. And that meant- She pushed the claw as deep in as it would go, held her finger rigid and tight, then brought her fist down upon it. Between the strength of the blow and well-placed pressure, the crystal shattered into pieces along clean fault lines.
Garble immediately snatched up the biggest piece. A little more than half, but Smolder wasn’t going to waste time quibbling. He turned the piece over in his hands. “How’d you know how to do that?” he said, failing to not sound impressed.
“Crystals are brittle,” said Smolder. She picked up one of the smaller pieces; it was sharp and angular, almost like a knife. “Even if it’s like diamond and you can’t cut it, you can still shatter it by hitting it in the right place. Like this!” She held up the piece for Garble.
“How’d you learn that at friendship school?” Garble wasn’t looking at her; he was too busy examining his own shard.
“Professor Maud was comparing friendships to rocks. Something about, uh, a friendship that falls apart real easy isn’t really a friendship. Or something. Mostly, I just remember her neat facts about gems.”
Speaking of gems, she licked this particular one. It was… Hmm. She’d never tasted anything quite like it. Warm, like emerald, but also tangy like jade… Poky, like that one piece of hibonite Spike had given her… Hmm. Very interesting. She took a bite.
Oh. Very nice. Flavor swirled across her tongue in intoxicating ways. She’d never tasted its like before and she knew she’d never taste its like again. She wanted more. She nipped off a chip. More. A chunk. More. She crunched off a good-sized chunk. More! She carved off a larger chunk, crushing it to dust between her strong jaw. More! She forced the gem into her mouth, enraptured by its indescribable taste, like venom in her veins. MORE! She grabbed the other pieces, forgotten, gorging herself on its lustrous beauty. MORE! She bit- Oh. It was already gone. Shame, that.
Garble, naturally, had eaten his in two bites. “Not bad,” he said in a voice that indicated he really didn’t want to admit it was a lot better than that. “Could’ve used salt.” He clapped himself on the chest and belched up a small plume of purple smoke.
Smolder licked her fingers, the urge for MORE already dwindling before she’d even grown a centimeter. She had a tiny bit of a stomach ache, though. Not to mention- “Is this it?” She looked around the room. Carvings of… something she didn’t recognize (lots of tentacles, though) lined the walls, and… nothing else notable. Not even any gold. Would there be a secret door? Where?
“I guess so,” Garble said, flaring his wings. “Why?”
“This can’t be it!” Smolder ran over the wall and started rapping it, listening for echoes. Nothing. “All those traps, for what?” Nothing. “Just one stupid gem?” Nothing. “Gems are a bit a bundle in Equestria!” Nothing.
“What’s a bit?”
“They’re real common.” Nothing.
“Maybe that one wasn’t? It sure didn’t taste common.”
“But it was just one!” Nothing. “There’s gotta be-”
“Why, though? Can you imagine what a lame story that would be?” Garble cleared his throat and put on his best storytelling voice (which wasn’t very good). “And then Daring Do broke into the treasure vault to find… frigging nothing! They’d never put any gold inside! If these’re true stories, then she had to screw up sometime, right? And would you want thousands of people to read about that time you miscounted for your gem tower?”
…That made way too much sense coming from Garble. Smolder turned around and squinted at him. “Are you actually thinking about art? What’s gotten into you?”
“That gem?” Garble belched again. “And I think about art plenty. You think I let you hear my bad poems?”
“You write good poems?”
Garble flapped over and bonked Smolder on the head (lightly). “So today’s ending was kinda lame. I bet Daring had some lame endings, too. And… it was more fun than I thought it’d be.”
“Really?”
“Laughing at stupid pony traps, punching through a puzzle, and eating a gem nodragon’s ever seen before?” Garble grabbed Smolder in a headlock. “Not the worst way to spend an afternoon with my little sis,” he said, giving her a firm noogie.
Smolder kicked her way out and managed to not smile until Garble couldn’t see her face. “Heh. Yeah. I wish we could’ve foiled an evil plot, though…”
Perhaps the Thorn Within could’ve spread its will were it intact. But cleaved in twain, it had the strength of neither mind nor magic. It could do nothing except wait as pieces of what had become its prison were broken down within Smolder’s and Garble’s bodies and its magical essence was remolded and integrated into the dragons’ own. Soon, nothing of it would remain.
And that was how a god was destroyed by dragon digestion.
